Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

An amusing use of pedantry mocks the world of academia in this novel about a peripatetic college professor and his daughter. I enjoyed it at first, and just as I was getting sick of it, the plot took over and pulled me along as I tried to understand the adolescents in an exclusive high school and the teacher who befriended them. The story builds in suspense as it reaches the deaths of a couple of characters and the uncovering of a bizarre political conspiracy. A really good novel.

The Letter Kills But the Spirit Gives Life by Kathleen L. Housley

An article in The Hartford Courant led me to this wonderful book about five Smith sisters who lived extraordinary lives on a farm in Glastonbury, CT. They were abolitionists, feminists, and women of unusual faith. Most of the book focuses on the two youngest girls, Julia and Abby. Julia was the first woman ever to translate the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew and to publish it.

The incident that brought notoriety to Julia and Abby Smith was a run-in with the Glastonbury tax collector. They noticed that their taxes had jumped and on investigation found that the increase was levied only against themselves and two widows in town. None of the male taxpayers had had an increase. The sisters appealed through town meetings and eventually through the courts, arguing that this was taxation without representation since women did not have the vote. The newspapers of the day loved the story, and the women were invited to speak at feminist meetings as far away as Washington, D.C.

The Book by Alan Watts

I originally bought this book because I thought its title was clever. Underneath The Book is a subtitle that adds On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Recently I re-read it and found it still very compelling. Watts' theory is that humans suffer from the illusion that we are somehow separate and distinct from our environment and from each other. This idea is deeply imbued in our common sense, hammered into us by our childhood caretakers and by language itself. He argues that humans are not separate persons, but (like everything else) are focal points at which the universe expresses itself. For "universe" you can substitute "God" or whatever term expresses wholeness and unity for you. "For every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree."

Parts of Watts' arguments got a little beyond me, but on the whole The Book is highly readable, and I enjoy the author's tongue-in-cheek humor. Watts (1915-1973) had a master's degree in theology and a doctorate of divinity. He spent about four years as an Episcopal priest and many more years in academia, but he was essentially a free-lance philosopher living on his output of books and lectures. He had a large following but also many critics. When questioned by some, he asserted that he was not an academic philosopher but rather "a philosophical entertainer."

Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck

Our book club doesn't usually do self-help books but this one was selected because it is by the author of Expecting Adam which we had all enjoyed. Martha Beck is a life coach and fills her book with lots of stories of clients. The core advice she gives is somewhat like that in The Secret. Figure out what it is you really want, commit to it, take baby steps in the direction of getting there, and watch events fall out in a way that helps you. Some of us in book club thought we were too old to gain much from this kind of advice and didn't need it; but it is well written.

God Stories by C. Michael Curtis, editor

What makes literature "spiritual?" Some people seem to think the presence of a clergyperson in the story does it, but I think that spirituality has nothing to do with clergy; it relates to addressing philosophic issues, moral and ethical dilemmas, personal priorities, and the success or failure of characters in making choices that help them grow. The stories that Curtis selected as "God Stories" did not strike me as particularly spiritual, but they are still excellent literature by well known authors, e.g. James Baldwin, Andre Dubus, Louise Erdrich, James Joyce, Bernard Malmud, Philip Roth.