A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Every time I post a review for a non-fiction book, I always remind ya'll how I don't read non-fiction because non-fiction books rarely keep my attention long enough for me to finish them.  Every once in a while I find a non-fiction book that keeps my attention and Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan is one of those books.  It is also a book that I learned a lot from--so it has at least those two things going for it: it kept my attention both writing and content wise AND I learned a lot.  That's always a good thing. Zealot is an examination and analysis of the historical Jesus through the lens of his Jewish identity and within the context of the culture, politics and geography of his time period.  This is an insightful, interesting, spellbinding, fascinating read.  A scholar of religions, Aslan relies on his own translations of the original Greek and Hebrew of Biblical passages to illuminate the texts in his examination of the cont...

I must confess there was a period of time a couple years ago where I was watching a lot of British period dramas that included film and/or mini series adaptations of every one of Jane Austen's novels (for some novels, I've seen two different adaptations; it was an obsession at the time, what can I say) and adaptations of some of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels (hello, North & South ), and I still like a good British drama, period or otherwise.  I've never read any of the novels for which I've seen adaptations.  I know, I'm bad.  Don't judge.  In the introduction to this anthology the editor, Marsha Altman, calls the collection Pride & Prejudice fanfiction.  I must confess (again) that I literally couldn't put this book down.  I said, DON'T JUDGE, didn't I? At some point there was mention of a theme for the collection that was since abandoned, and I don't think there was a particular theme for the stories, although a few took the idea ...