As you read, you will find yourself looking around at the complex systems with which we interact every day, and thinking either a) there's a lot of maintenance going on behind the scenes we don't normally notice, or b) it's astonishing they don't require more maintenance.
Assyria Review
As Frahm points out, the Assyrian Empire is as much a part of our cultural heritage as the Greeks, though they receive far less attention for their contributions.
The Dispossessed Review
Contrary to how most readers seem to interpret the book, The Dispossessed is no straightforward pean to collectivism and condemnation of capitalism.
The Research Magnificent Review
Wells wrote some outstanding works of fiction which remain relevant and compelling today. He also, apparently, wrote books like The Research Magnificent.
Esther Review
Alternatively, we could treat it as it is, without worrying too much about what we cannot know about it, and read Esther as a brief chronicle of a peculiar incident in the history of the relationship between the Jews and the Achaemenids.
Perfume Review
Grenouille’s olfactory abilities fit the trope of the defining superhero trait, as does his tragic backstory, his painful and challenging training arc, and his inability to fit into normal society, but he is no hero, protecting eighteenth century Paris from crimes with his beyond-bloodhound sniffer as some manner of odor-based vigilante.
The Forme of Cury Review
After being forced to scroll past dozens of nearly identical, overly sappy stories on various food blogs in order to reach anything relevant about the recipe, I decided to go old school and instead picked up a cookbook from the fourteenth century.
Babel-17
It’s a small-scope, deeply immersive novel with a great deal of understated intricacy and thought underlying its premises, executed with an attention to rhetoric befitting a book in which language plays such a prominent role.
Elements of Eloquence Review
For breaking down rhetorical figures, showing them in use, and highlighting how they appear and affect the reader, Elements of Eloquence is a valuable primer and reminder.
Ezra Review
The Persian kings are depicted as rescuers of the Jewish people from their Babylonian captivity, and Ezra-Nehemiah include multiple letters and other documents, supposedly based on actual writings, in which the Persian rulers support, encourage, and fund the restoration of the Jewish people and the rebuilding of the temple.
