Sunday, August 7, 2011

Another Long Week

7 Maghrib 1432

Completed Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers yesterday. Ironically I'd been labouring over it for a month. There's some good writing - a wondeful description of the various fish to be found in the river early on the journey promised wonders to come - but quite a bit of tedious stuff - a section on friendship lost me completely and I wasn't overly keen to concentrate enough to find out what Henry David was chundering on about. Originally I thought I'd get the book finished before fasting month, but that was not to be. Then I thought of abandoning it for a while, but realised I'd not have the momentum to ever pick it up again if I did so. And, curiously, I'm still keen to move on to Walden next month - I'm guessing it'll be more fish than philosophy.

Also about to finish Dawkins's The God Delusion this evening. I cheated a bit here, having started it before fasting month. Much better than the Hitchens's offering on the same lines, but can't say it had a dramatic impact on me intellectually since I reckon I'd thought through most of the issues raised when I was in my teens. In fact, it struck me as an excellent book for inquiring teenagers, assuming they realise, as I'm pretty sure most would, that the strength of argument varies wildly in quality.

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