How to Answer a Mormon by Robert A. Morey. 1983 ISBN 0-87123-260-X. Recently there has been talk in the media about Mormonism vs. Christianity. Mostly because of a republican candidate for president. So I thought it would be interesting to read a book on the subject. I have read about Mormonism before, I even tried to read the Book of Mormon (I found it too silly. Read it here.) This book however doesn't discuss Mormonism vs. Christianity. Morey's attack on Mormonism is based purely on the prophet-hood of Joseph Smith jr. and what he prophesied. Morey's idea is that all of Mormonism rests on Joseph Smith being a Prophet and if he is shown to be a false prophet then the religion is false.

The Divine Comedy: Hell by Dante Alighieri, translated by Dorothy L Sayers. 1949, ISBN 0 14 044 006 2.

The Divine Comedy: Inferno By Dante Alighieri, translated by Charles Eliot Norton. 1891.

The Sayers translation was the actual book. I purchased it probably in 1973. This is the third time I have read it. The Norton translation is an ebook (1ddcn10.mobi, it is a Gutenburg text, google it.) I don't remember where I downloaded it from, but it is in the public domain.
I read these two translations canto by canto. Sayers tried to translate into English the poetic form of the original Italian. She discusses it in the introduction. Norton is a prose translation. Both have notes to explain various references, but Sayers are much better (of these two.)

This is a story that takes place in medieval Italy. It is about a lost soul (Dante) searching for the truth. Hell is populated with many famous people, some real and some fictional. Also, there are many people that Dante knew, but who are unknown today.

Genome by Matt Ridley. 1999, ISBN 0-06093290-2. Subtitle: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. This is a popular science book. It is about the human genome, the genes that produce humans. Those genes are stored in 23 pairs of chromosomes, hence the 23 chapters. The author discusses one gene for each chromosomes and in doing so covers a wide range of topics. Purchased 8-12-2002 at Borders for $14.00. This is the second time I have read this book.

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells. 2002, ISBN 0-691-11532-X. This book is a history of the human race as told by the genetic information sampled from various people around the world. The author describes how he and many other scientists have discovered the migrations of human populations since man started to leave Africa around 50,000 years ago. The book is mostly non-technical in the way it explains the ideas covered. The book explains some basic ideas about how genetics works and how it is involved in the evolution of man. There is a TV series with the same title. Purchased 1-26-2003, from Amazon.com for $20.97.

The Oxford Dictionary of Islam edited by John L. Esposito. 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-512559-7. This is a dictionary, a reference book, and therefore not meant to be read from cover to cover. I have read part of the beginning and will probable continue to read a few pages from time to time. So far I am not enjoying this as much as the Thomas Hughes book. That book is much older and much bigger and not as politically correct, but it was more interesting to read than this book. The entries were usually longer and frequently contain references to the Quran, etc.

Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins. 1996, ISBN 978-0-393-31682-7. This book is about the Theory of Evolution or Darwin's idea of Natural Selection. It discusses how generations of individuals are more or less successful at passing their genes on to succeeding generations thus 'selecting' some genes while others are de-selected. This process is impersonal and not directed by anything, it is just the result of the actions of the environment on a population over a period of time. This author discusses how something which seems to be improbable could over many thousand of generations be slowly perfected (to its current observed state.) Excellent book, worth reading more than once. Purchased at Powell's 9-9-2011 for $7.98.

The Hastur Cycle, edited by Robert M. Price. 1993, ISBN 0-56882-009-7. Subtitle: 13 Tales of Horror Defining Hastur, the King in Yellow, Yuggoth, and the Dread City of Carcosa. This is a collection of short stories that are related because the involve the use of Hastur, Hali, Carcosa, the King in Yellow, etc. The stories are written by Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, Karl Edward Wagner, James Blish, Arthur Machen, H. P. Lovecraft, Richard A. Lupoff, Ramsey Campbell, James Wade, August Derleth, and Lin Carter. These stories were written from the late 1800's into the 1980's. In the introduction the editor describes this as a revised edition of Spawn of Cthulhu.This book was purchased on 9-9-2011 at Powell's books for $15.50.

The Islamic Invasion by Robert Morey. 1992, ISBN 0-89081-983-1. Subtitled Confronting the World's Fastest Growing Religion. This book is critical of Islam. The book makes some good points, but is mostly everything negative the author could find to say about Islam. The author is a Christian who seems to feel the need to defend his religion by attacking others. Besides books on Islam he has written books about Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Roman Catholicism, Masons, etc. I guess these books are meant to enlighten the Evangelical Christians on how to deal with everyone else who believes something that they don't believe.

The Maker of Moons by Robert W. Chambers. 1896. This is a collection of short stories written by the American writer R. W. Chambers. The collection was published in the late nineteenth century. Most of the stories are romantic, but some are "weird". R. W. Chambers is considered to be one of the writers that influenced H. P. Lovecraft. This book was a PDF that I read using my Kindle. The type was a bit small, but the scan was clean. The scan was made by Google and obtained from books.google.com.

The Man of Numbers by Keith Devlin. 2011, ISBN 978-0-8027-7812-3. Subtitled: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution. This book is about Leonardo of Pisa aka Fibonacci. The book is well written. However, not much is known about Fibonacci, so it is a bit thin. The book describes Fibonacci's contribution to the western world as one of making the Hindu-Arabic number system more available to merchants and bankers in medieval Italy. Fibonacci did this through his book Liber Abbaci (the Book of Calculation). The book introduces the Hindu-Arabic numbers and how to do calculations with them. It does this mostly by presenting story problems that would be easy to understand or were relevant to the merchants of that time. The book also introduces algebraic ideas concerning how to solve story problems. Today the name Fibonacci is associated with Fibonacci Numbers. This because this number sequence appears in Liber Abbaci (see page 404, Liber Abaci, translated by L. E. Sigler) in a story about rabbits. The story, like the many other stories in the book, is intended as a way to use the number system to do math problems and not as a treatise on rabbit biology (or Fibonacci numbers either.) Purchased at Powell's books, 9-6-2011 for $25.00.

The Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers by Alfred S. Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann. 2007, ISBN 978-1-59102-475-0.
This book discusses the Fibonacci numbers. It gives some of their history and many of the areas of mathematics and science that are touched by this number series. Also, discusses the Lucas numbers and the Golden Ratio. If you enjoy mathematics and numbers then you'll love this book. My only complaint is that the proofs of some of the statements were placed in an appendix instead of inline with the statements. Purchased 10-30-2007 at Powell's, for $28.

The Golden Section by Scott Olsen. 2006, ISBN 978-0-8027-1539-5. Subtitled Nature's Greatest Secret. Also, on the cover in small hard (for me) to read print it says "the essential guide to the deepest mystery on earth" and "a little book about the secret of life." This is a little book. It is not tiny, but it is smaller than most hard covers. The entire "Wooden Book" series is the same size. This book has many fine drawings illustrating the various subjects described. The book has 26 chapters and seven appendix. The chapters are each two pages long, with one page of text and one page of drawings. The subject is mostly "phi" (the Greek letter "phi" is used as a symbol for the number) an algebraic irrational number that appears frequently in nature. "phi" is approximated by the ratio of succeeding Fibonacci numbers 8/5,13/8, 21/13, etc. It is these Fibonacci numbers that usually are found. "phi" itself is given by the expression (1+sqrt(5))/2. The decimal value is approximately 1.6180339... While this book is mathematical in some of its content it is mostly mystical ideas related to how the numbers occurs in many places. I found this book very interesting to read and if I find the time may read it again. The text however is very terse, each chapter just scratches the surface of an idea before it goes on to another. If you are interested in "phi", but don't have a lot of time, then this book will introduce you the subject. You may find that when you have learned some about "phi" you will want to learn more. Golden Section is sometimes called Golden Ratio.

In The Quarter by Robert W. Chambers. 1894. This is a short novel about a student living in Paris and studying art. It appears to have been Mr. Chambers first novel. I found it easy to read. The version I read was an ebook (pg6893.mobi) file created from a Project Gutenberg text. I don't remember where I found it. I read it on my Kindle. I think you can also find pdf of this file on books.google.com.

The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles with Introduction by Bernard Knox. 2006, ISBN 0-670-03803-2. Last of the three epic poems from the Greeks and Romans. This story, written by Virgil, hundreds of years after Homer tells of events that occur at about the same time as the Odyssey. It is the story of Aeneas and other surviving Trojans who escape Troy and make their way to Italy to found Rome. The story has elements of both Odyssey and Iliad in it, the long wandering journey and the epic battles. Book was purchased at Borders, 11-17-2006 for $32.00.

Facts on File - Calculus Handbook by Eli Maor. 2005, ISBN 0-8160-6229-3. This a reference book intended for students of calculus. There is a six page historical introduction to calculus. This followed by four sections of reference material. The first is a Glossary that defines many terms related to calculus, trigonometry, analytic geometry and strangely economics and finance. The second section contains Biographies of various mathematicians, third is a section of Chronology that lists significant events in the history of mathematics and finally the fourth section has some tables listing various facts about trigonometry and calculus.
The glossary is hard to read from beginning to end because it is an A-Z dictionary of math terms. It isn't intended to be read that way, but instead as a place for the student to look up terms. The other sections can be read from beginning to end or just those parts that the reader is interested in.

Venus In Transit by Eli Maor. 2004, ISBN 0-691-11589-3. This book is about astronomy, in particular the transit of Venus. The planet Venus has been known to man since ancient times, because it is visible to the naked eye. Venus is one of the seven wanderers (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.) However, the transit of Venus wasn't seen by man (as far as anyone knows) or even imagined until mathematical astronomy predicted that it should happen. Once people knew that this should happen they started looking for it and it was first observed in England by Jeremiah Horrocks on 24 November 1639. This book tells the story of how the transit of Venus was predicted and the various attempts at viewing it. (Note: the next transit of Venus will be on June 6, 2012. After that it doesn't occur again until the year 2117.) Like his other books, I found this book enjoyable to read. It even has a little bit of trigonometry when explaining what the scientists were trying to do by viewing the transit (measuring the distance to the sun, etc.) See parallax and parsec. I purchased this book from Shell Creek Books, on 3-20-2011, for 6.99.

Virgins? What Virgins? by Ibn Warraq. 2010, ISBN 978-1-61614-170-7. A book of previously published essays about Islam. Excellent reading, well written. I enjoyed this book very much. If you are interested in learning about Islam this book provides a "middle of the road" rational approach to understanding the many confusing issues. Islam is frequently a highly charged subject, but this book avoids the mania of the true believers, either for or against and just presents well researched facts, etc. Purchased at Borders, 11-02-2010 for $19.00. I hope to read more of his work soon.

Trigonometric Delights by Eli Maor. 1998, ISBN 0-691-05754-0. This book is about Trigonometry. This is not a text book on trigonometry. I would say that to really appreciate this book the reader should have had some prior understanding of trigonometry and maybe some calculus. However, if you are interested in mathematics then you will probably enjoy this book. It is well written. It starts with the early history of mathematics that probably lead to trigonometry and follows the thread of history and how trigonometry as a science was employed at various times to solve problems.
Purchased at Powell's Books, 7-31-2002 for $23.50.

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles with introduction by Bernard Knox. 1996, ISBN 0-14-026886-3. The story of Odysseus return home to Ithaca (see map) after the end of the Trojan war. Odysseus gets put off course because he offended one of the gods and spends ten years trying to get home. At the same time, during the war and his journey home, Odysseus' son Telemachus grows up into a world of increasing chaos because his mother, Penelope, Odysseus' wife, is being courted by a large band of suitors because it is generally believed that Odysseus had died. At over 400 pages, this is a very large poem, still this translation is easy to read.

e, The Story of a Number by Eli Maor. 1994, ISBN 0-691-03390-0. This is a good book. I have read it twice now. The number "e" has the approximate value of 2.7182818284..., but cannot be written down precisely because it is an irrational number. This book covers a wide variety of topics related to "e", from the invention of logarithms, to "e" and complex numbers. The book doesn't assume the reader knows calculus, however calculus level math is discussed and explained.

Saint Mark by D. E. Nineham. 1963, ISBN 0 14 02.0489 X. This is a part of the Pelican New Testament Commentaries series. This is a commentary on the Book of Mark (or Mark, Gospel of Mark.) This book contains the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of Mark. The commentary discusses the Greek text some, but not extensively, mostly just to explain the choices made by the RSV. Otherwise, the commentary is mostly about the writer of Mark (What they knew or didn't know about Palestine of that period, etc.) The commentary is mostly historical and literary and less about theology. Purchased new on 30 Aug 1978, for $4.95. Purchased at: unknown, possibly Powell's Books.

To Infinity and Beyond by Eli Maor. ISBN 0-691-02511-8. Subtitled: A cultural history of the infinite. This book has four main sections. Infinity is discussed in terms of numbers, geometry, art and science. I think I enjoyed the numbers section the most. The art section discussed the art of M.C. Escher and tiling. Purchased at Powell's, 10.95.

The David Sedaris Box Set by David Sedaris. 2002, ISBN 1586214349. Audiobook. This is a set of 14 CDs containing readings from four books, ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY; NAKED; HOLIDAYS ON ICE; and BARREL FEVER AND OTHER STORIES.
The stories are mostly read by David Sedaris and Amy Sedaris. Humorous stories about his personal life, friends and family.

Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver. 1968. This book is a collection of essays and letters written over a period of several years. At the time it was highly provocative. The first two sections were interesting, the final section seemed to me to be a bit silly.

One Two Three ... Infinity by George Gamow. Originally published in 1947, this copy was printed in 1967 and includes some revisions from about that time. I bought this book new in about 1968. I was in grade school at the time. I remember reading it and being fascinated by the big numbers (especially the descriptions of infinity) and the various descriptions of Relativity and Cosmogony. This particular edition of the book is probably a bit out of date, there is a more current Dover re-print, ISBN 0486256642. Still, I enjoyed re-reading it and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning about science. I was reminded about this book while reading The Pythagorean Theorem by Eli Maor. His book was so good that I bought a copy of his To Infinity and Beyond and in that book was a reference to this book. So I looked around in my boxes of books and found this book and decided to re-read it. Glad I did.

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, with Introduction by Bernard Knox. 1990, ISBN 0-14-027536-3. A massive poem (this translation is about 540 pages), considered one of the foundation stones of western culture and literature. Composed 3200 years ago, first written down at about 800 BC. It is an excerpt of the story of the Trojan war, where the Greeks attacked the city of Troy for more than 10 years because Paris had taken Helen from Menelaus. The story told in the poem starts with an argument between Achilles and Agamemnon (brother of Menelaus and primary Greek king.) The poem describes several battles in gruesome detail and ends with the funerals of Patroclus and Hector (son of Trojan king Priam.) Here is a partial list of the characters in the story. The story is mythological, but may be based originally on some similar real events. In this story much of the action is influenced by the Greek gods, for example Zeus, Hera, etc. Two other important characters are Odysseus (main character of Homer's Odyssey) and Ajax. This is the first time I have read this completely. I have collected several translations. This copy was purchased from Borders, probably about ten years ago.

The Pythagorean Theorem by Eli Maor. 2007, ISBN 987-0-691-12526-8. Subtitled: A 4000 Year History. Excellent book. I really enjoyed reading this. The subject is handled correctly and the author doesn't shy away from doing real math, ie, providing theorems and their proofs. However, the book is mostly about the history of this idea and how it has come to be used in various areas of mathematics and science. I will be reading his other books soon. Purchased at Powell's books on 7-27-2007, 24.95.

Book Of Mark. This is from the same copy of the New Testament as the Book Of Matthew. This was shorter than Matthew, I read a couple of chapters a day. Mark contains the ministry and ascension of Jesus, but not the birth story. The print in this tiny copy of Gideons is very tiny. The version of this text is the New King James Version.

Gilgamesh, A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell. 2004 Free Press ISBN 0-7432-6164-X. This book is a re-telling of the Gilgamesh story. There is a 60 page introduction where the author discusses what he did and why. The story itself is around 140 page, but it is in verse form and double spaced, so it really isn't that long. There is also an extensive notes section where the author describe in detail the various choices made in writing this version. I found this version to be easy to read. I think Mitchell has retold the story in a way that makes it easier for the modern reader to understand. Purchased at Looking Glass Bookstore, 11-Oct-04, for 24.00.

Buddha, The Enlightened One by Gabriel Mandel Khan. 2004 Thunder Bay Press, ISBN 1-59223-400-3. This book presents a biography of the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama. The text is short, but well written and I think covers the material enough that the reader will gain a good understanding of the Buddha. The book starts with a brief sketch of the Vedic culture that had established itself in India and gave birth to several religions, Hinduism and Jainism, etc. The book describes the life of the Buddha. The last half of the book is about Buddhism and how it spread across Asia. The book contains many color photos of Buddhist art.

Earth (The Book) by the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. 2010, ISBN 978-0-446-57922-3. Subtitled: A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race. The is supposed to be a guide to be used by future aliens who come to earth sometime after the human race has ceased to be. This book explains to these aliens who humans were and what we did, etc. A silly book, but has some good jokes. Purchased on 10-13-2010 at Fred Meyers for 20.99. You can probably get it cheaper if you shop around.

The Survivor and Others by H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. 1971, Ballantine Books. 02148-7-095. Book of short stories started or outlined by Lovecraft and completed by Derleth after Lovecraft died. I enjoyed these. They had all of the Lovecraft elements and were easy to read. Purchased from Pandora's Books (via Amazon marketplace) for 12.87 (including s&h) on June 26, 2010. Has another of those amazing covers (front and back) by Gervasio Gallardo.

The Epic Of Gilgamesh, tr. N. K. Sandars. 1972 revised edition. ISBN 0 14 044 100 X. I've owned this book for many years. Probably purchased at Powells. This is the oldest surviving written story. Contains a flood story similar to the one in Genesis. Because of the condition of the clay tablets that this story was written on, there are parts of the text that are missing. The translator in this version has filled in or smoothed over these rough spots, making the story easier to read. This is not a version for experts, but rather a version for the more average reader. I found the introduction very interesting because it explained the context in which this story was written.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. 1895. (the edition I read was published in 1902.) This is a collection of short stories. The stories are horror and fantastic in nature. Some take place in an imaginary future (is there any other kind of future?) Some of the stories have the characters reading and under the influence of a play called "The King in Yellow." Portions of this fictional play are quoted in the stories. This author was read by H. P. Lovecraft and some of the elements of the play are mentioned in his stories. The book I read was a PDF scan I downloaded from Google. I read it using the Kindle. This edition had several line drawings illustrating the stories.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Bantam Books 1972, 553-07077-195. Subtitled: An Indian History of the American West. Presents the events of the American West from the Indian point of view from 1865 to 1890. A very sad story and a great injustice. The clash of the Indian culture and the European resulted in the destruction of the Indians, mostly because of the greed and ignorance of the Europeans.

One Hundred and One Famous Poems With A prose Supplement, An Anthology Compiled by Roy J. Cook. 1958. The copyright is 1958, however, I think that there were previous editions. How many I do not know. For example, here is a full view edition in books.google.com. First edition maybe 1916. The book is still in print and probably could be found at Powells or Amazon. I have never been a big fan of poetry and many of these poems I could not begin to understand. Some of the authors are Emerson, Whitman, Wordsworth, Shelley, Longfellow. I got this book at Camerons's Books for one dollar probably five to ten years ago.

The Koran translated and with notes by J. M. Rodwell. 1909. ISBN 978-0-486-44569-4. This Dover Thrift Edition is an unabridged republication of the 1909 edition with the notes and the chronological ordering of the Suras. It is amazing how much different translations can vary. See here for example. A PDF of this book can be obtained at books.google.com. I purchased this copy at Borders sometime last winter (2010) for $5.00.

About Time by Paul Davies, 1995, ISBN 0-671-79964-9. The subject of this book is the temporal realm, the dimension of time. The author is a physicist. In technical literature he is listed as P. C. W. Davies. The subtitle is "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution" and much of the book is about general relativity and time dilation. The book starts with a brief history of how people have (and still do) think about time. Everyone experiences time. In some cultures they claim that all times exists together, others only see the Now. In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the character Billy Pilgrim becomes aware of his disjointed time travels. Most of "About Time" is about time as it relates to modern physics. Good book. The book has 285 pages, a Preface, a Prologue, 14 chapters and an Epilogue. Plus Notes describing sources of quotes, etc., a Biblography and an Index.

The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, edited and with Introduction by S. T. Joshi.
This book contains four stories by H. P. Lovecraft, "The Rats In The Walls", "The Colour Out Of Space", "The Dunwich Horror", and "At The Mountains Of Madness". These were all good stories. The annotated part is mostly footnotes added to explain the more obscure words in the stories. The book also has a number of pictures showing various places where Lovecraft lived. I purchased this book used at Powells, $10.95.

The Spawn of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft and others. 1971. Ballantine Books 02394-3-095 (SBN 345-02394-3-095). Edited by Lin Carter. This is a book of short stories which illustrates the development and growth of the "Cthulhu Mythos" stories. The other authors include Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, Vincent Starrett, August Derleth, Lin Carter, Robert E. Howard, Walter C. DeBill Jr., Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Zealia Bishop and J. Ramsey Campbell. This book was purchased in the early 1970s. I liked these stories for the most part, I might try to read them again sometime. I am also interested in reading more by the other authors (besides Lovecraft.) I have about a quarter of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. The cover art is fantastic, like the previous two books (Dream Quest and Doom) by Gervasio Gallardo.

The Doom That Came To Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft. 1971. Ballentine Books 02146-0-095 (SBN 345-02146-0-095.) Edited by Lin Carter. This collection of short stories is related to the "Dream Quest" collection. Some of these stories are dreams, others are horror and even science fiction. One story was co-authored with Harry Houdini. Like "dream Quest" I purchased and read this first in the early 1970s. The cover art is fantastic, probably the reason I bought the book. The story can be read here or here.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft. Ballantine Books 01923-7-095, 1970 (SBN 345-01923-7-095). Edited by Lin Carter (assumed to be no relation to Randolph Carter!) Dream Quest is both the title of this collection of six stories and the title of the longest story. I think these stories are in the public domain, so you can probably find them for free (for example, here.) This book is a paperback that I purchased new in the early 1970s. It is a part of a series of books published by Ballantine Books, Adult Fantasy Series. This book has several of the stories from Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. These stories are related because they have some of the same characters or locations.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Popular Library 445-00300-125. This is a book of short stories. The most famous is "The Lottery." I think I either saw a film version of this story or read it when I was in High School. It is quite shocking the first time you read it. Many of the other stories feature a character named Jim Harris (or something like that.) This is a reference to a popular English ballad "The Daemon Lover." Most of the stories are quite short, with a few being only two or three pages. Most have tricky, surprise endings. This book was purchased at Powell's a few years ago for 95 cents. It is a cheap paper back probably printed in the 1970s. The book "Night in Funland" also had a story by Shirley Jackson.

Fear Of Flying by Erica Jong. Signet 451 J6139. Novel. This the story of Isadora Wing, a young woman trying to determine who she is and what she wants. She is a feminist or at least is searching for what that means. The novel describes many of her sexual adventures and coins the term zipless f*ck. Well written and easy to read, the novel contains many references to literature and psychology.
This book was purchased on February 7, 1978 at the Varsity Book Exchange for one dollar.

Black Cargoes, History of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Daniel P. Mannix in collaboration with Malcolm Cowley. ISBN 0 1400 4253 9. Covers the four hundred year history of Europeans purchasing people in Africa and transporting them to North and South America. Well written and refers in many places to historical documents. Has several pages of drawings depicting conditions on the ships, etc. The sad thing is that in many places in the world slavery is still allowed, e.g., in Haiti (a former French colony that was freed by slave revolt) people still sell their children into slavery. (See Restavec.)

Genesis: A Living Conversation by Bill Moyers. ISBN 0-385-48345-7. This book is a series of transcripts of conversations recorded for a PBS television series of the same name. The series first appeared in the late 1990s. I found this book interesting to read, however sometimes the comments seemed to be a bit silly. The stories of Genesis were written thousands of years ago for a completely different social-economic context. To expect them to represent some modern value system (in other words, to be politically correct) seems to me to be unrealistic. Most of the participants were professional religionists, i.e. people who have made a career out of studying religion.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction by J. D. Salinger. ISBN 978-0316766944. Two short stories. The stories are about Buddy Glass and his brother Seymour Glass. The first story is about Buddy and some other people on the day that Seymour was to get married, but failed to show up at the altar. The second story appears to be an introduction to a book of poems by Seymour, an introduction written by Buddy.

On Genesis, A New Reading by Bruce Vawter. 1977, ISBN 0-385-06104-8. I really enjoyed reading this book. It uses the New American Bible (NAB) as its English translation. I first purchased this book back when it was new. It has taken me 32 years to get around to reading it. I wish I had read it when I first bought it. The book explains Genesis in terms of the four different sources of text, Priestly (P), Yahwist (J), Elohist (E) and the Redactor (R) and how these contribute to the inconsistencies in the text. It also relates many of the stories and names to information found in other sources and through archeology, etc. In some places it discusses the NAB and how it relates to the Masoretic Text (MT), Septuagint (LXX) and othe sources (Syriac etc.)