Will Durant was an American writer, historian and philosopher. Over the course of his life, people asked for his personal take on things, and this book is the culmination of those thoughts. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this; a nice mix of timeless thoughts and ideas best understood in the context of the times.

I don’t usually quote from books I read for pleasure, but I found myself highlighting different parts — some for the lyrical writing or truisms, and others for the (thankfully) dated concepts.

Durant writes that youth, “is learning to read (which is all that one learns in school), and is learning where and how to find what he may later need to know (which is the best of the arts that he acquires in college). Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire. It is Life that educates, and perhaps love more than anything else in life”.

After that, I was a little taken aback by his thoughts on education. “As for the girl, it will avail her nothing to know a foreign language, archeology, and trigonometry, if she cannot manage a home, a husband, and a child; fidelity is nourished through the stomach, and good pies do more for monogamy than all the languages that have ever died. One tongue is enough for any woman, and a good mother is worth a thousand PhDs.” So of course after reading that I have to find out about his wife, and writing partner, Ariel. Here’s the shortform Wiki on her: came to the US from the Ukraine, attended the Ferrer Modern School, where Will taught. No note on whether she graduated, but Will resigned his post to marry her — she was fifteen at the time. They married on Halloween, 1913, and died within two weeks of each other in 1981. So, I’m not sure how someone who shared a Pulitzer with his wife reconciles that kind of thinking, but, to be fair, the part about the pies is totally spot on.

I can’t end on that quote, because then you won’t think I liked this book, and I truly did, despite what that says about my feminist tendencies. Here is a sentence of beauty to mull over, “Civilization is a fragile bungalow precariously poised on a live volcano of barbarism.” Too depressing? How about a suggestion he offers? “No one has a right to bring a child into the community without having passed tests of physical and mental fitness to breed.” Ok, maybe that would be bad; not sure I would have passed, especially given what my doctor liked to call my “advanced maternal age”.

What I really loved about this book is that while it felt at times like poetic musings, it was, for the most part, simple, concise and focused. There are short little essays on each topic, so the book will probably not keep you up late at night on the edge of your seat. But each time you open it, you will be glad to be back in his company again.

Another one bites the dust.

First story is Aloeswood Incense. Lovely but bittersweet. Love is a dangerous drug. 3.5/5.

Second story: Jasmine Tea. OMFG. What an unlikeable, heinous character, rendering this short story practically unreadable. 0.5/5 stars.

That last story soured the entire reading experience for me. I knew this book wasn't for me after I realized that I refused to bring it in my commute to and from the uni. I downright preferred to stare into nothingness than continue reading this book. The two stories I managed to finish are bitter and there is no semblance of hope in any of them.

I'm sorry, but I am in no mood to keep misery company. I prefer to read anything other than this.

Time to Paperbackswap this title.

This review can also be found at My Blog & Goodreads.

This without a shadow of doubt has to be one of the hardest book series I’ve ever had to sit through, other than Twilight, so it came as a real shock when I discovered that this book was actually okay!! I had some time off at the start of May and wanted to sit and read a book for a whole day as I don’t get to do that anymore, I picked this as it was fairly short and I just wanted to get it over with.

The first blurb I ever read about this novella gave a completely different impression of the story to the one I read, I was under the impression it was going to be four different love stories and one of them was going to be about Luce and Daniel, to my surprise and enjoyment they were four stories happening at the same time and place, about characters we already know and came together quite nicely.

This book takes place after the third, our first story sets us up with Shelby and Miles arriving in medieval England by mistake at the start of the St Valentine festival after departing from their encounter with Daniel in Jerusalem during Passion. There they meet Lucinda of the time and decide to give her a day to remember. Our second story is about Roland of our present time, still on his search for Daniel reminiscing about his own life in that era and the love and the mistakes he made.

The third story, and possibly my favourite, and is the only story that takes place historically at that time. This chapter follows Medieval Arriane and her forbidden love with another angel who sided with Lucifer. The finale story is about Lucinda and Daniel as the other three intertwine. As much as I really enjoyed this book the choice of having present day Luce part of this really ruined it, for me it would have been far better if the story had stuck with the Daniel and Lucinda of that era.