This is one of those books that was overall enjoyable to read, but I'm not going to really remember it after a bit. It was good, but nothing really grabbed my attention in any of the stories.

 

The first half of the book is a few one shot issues, while the second half tells a longer story. First is a team-up between the Flash and Green Lantern that shows how they first met. The two friends' dynamic is always fun, and the story did a good job of showing their strengths, but the plot itself didn't particularly interest me. Children are being kidnapped, and the two meet while trying to find them. Aliens end up being behind the kidnapping, but they didn't make for engaging villains. But Barry and Hal are fun to watch banter at least.

 

The next story was a short one about how even the smallest of actions can change someone's life. The main plot was about a fire from the Flash's past where he was unable to save a woman due to her already having died before the fire even started. However, her husband blames the Flash and wants revenge. It was an ultimately bittersweet story. I liked the start and end of the story where the small actions changing lives come in. At the start of the story, the Flash is performing random acts of kindness as he rushes to a party he's late for. At the very end, you see how his random acts changed each person's life in the short and long term. It's usually the smaller acts of kindness that move me more than the grand heroic deeds when it comes to superheroes.

 

The next story was basically an extended chase as the Flash tried to catch the woman responsible for the death of his former teacher. I don't really have feelings about it one way or another. It wasn't bad. But it didn't really draw me in either.

 

And the longer story had the Flash obsessing over catching a serial killer that he suspects might be responsible for his mothers murder. This story actually related to Barry's life and involved the people around him, which made it more engaging than the other stories. We even got a team up with Deadman. But the story didn't quite work for me. The villain had a nice and tragic background, but wasn't very compelling. While I like Deadman, he didn't really make much of an impression here. And the solution to the problem felt rather simple ultimately.

 

This wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't the best I've read of the Flash.

My BFF and I went out to a couple estate sales on Saturday afternoon. The second one took us to Milan and it was a lovely day for a drive in the country. We found a few small things and among mine were these books, arranged in order of publication.

 

Ups and Downs and Back to Vertical are signed by the author, H C L Jackson. I scooped up the six without looking at what they were about. Today I started to search for Jackson and discovered that these books are about Detroit. They are small stories from The Detroit News column, Listening In on Detroit. Published by a local publisher, Arnold-Powers, Inc, the stories included go as far back as 1931 and go to 1945.

 

I can't really find any information on the author but I think I'll contact the paper and see if they can help me. I was going to post them up immediately on Ebay but now I think I'll read them first, then we'll see.

 

This will be an interesting look into Detroit's past.

 

I took the pictures with my laptop so don't expect greatness, the first book is The Paper Bag.

 

كتاب جميل وبسيط .. وصغير!

وربما أن صِغَر حجمه هو ما أضفى عليه جمالاً زائداً :)

ويل ديورانت وزوجته آرييل هما، بلا شك، من العقول الضخمة التي لا يملك الواحد منا إلا أن يحترمها ويجلّها – وإن اختلف معها في مواضع يسيرة.



لست هنا في معرض تقييم للكتاب .. فهو باختصار كتاب ممتع إلى حد ما (لا يخلو من الملل والرتابة ..!!) وهو استخلاص للدروس والعِبر من رائعة ديورانت الشهيرة "قصّة الحضارة" – التي أتمنى أن أقرأها خلال السنة القادمة 2015 :)



هنا سأورد بعض ما أعجبني من اقتباسات تستحق الذكر:

١] إن العلم محايد. فهو مستعد للقتل كما هو مستعد للشفاء. وهو مستعد للهدم أكثر من استعداده للبناء. وفي بعض الأحيان أُحِسّ أن أسلافنا في العصور الوسطى وعصر النهضة، عندما اهتمّوا بالأدب والفن والأسطورة أكثر من العلم والقوة، كانوا أحكم منّا. نحن الذين اهتممنا بالآليات على حساب الأهداف والغايات.

٢] وليست الثورة الحقيقية الوحيدة الا تنوير العقل وتحسين الشخصية، وليس التحرير الحقيقي الوحيد الا تحرير الفرد، وليس الثوريون الحقيقيون إلا الفلاسفة والقديسيين.

٣] ومعظم التاريخ ظن وتخمين والبقية الباقية تحامل وهوى

٤] ولا يمكن لإنسان واحد مهما كان عبقرياً او عالماً ان يصل في حياته الى درجة اكتمال الفهم التي تتيح له الحكم المضمون على عادات المجتمع ومؤسساته ورفضها لان هذه العادات والمؤسسات تمثل حكمة الاجيال بعد قرون من التجريب في معمل التاريخ.

٥] وقد تداوي الاباحية الجنسية نفسها من خلال افراطها ذاته ، وقد يعيش اطفالنا الذين تحرروا من المراسي حتى يروا سيادة النظام والتواضع ، فارتداء الملابس سيكون اكثر اغراءاً من العري.

٦] وان اول شرط من شروط الحرية هو تقييدها ، ولو جعلناها مطلقة لماتت من الفوضى

٧] ولا شك ان الدكتاتورية تنشأ من الديموقراطية ، كما ان اخطر انواع الطغيان والعبودية ينشأ من اشد اشكال الحرية تطرفاً

Somewhat dated by now, and — rather obviously — hugely oversimplified (it's the 11 volume, 10,000 page, “Story of Civilisation” set condensed into barely 100 pages), but it does a masterful job of presenting a broad sweep of not just the "facts" of history, but a lifetime's worth of insight, wrapped in many delightful turns of phrase.

Some favourites:

• In philosophy we try to see the part in the light of the whole; in the "philosophy of history" we try to see this moment in the light of the past. We know that in both cases this is a counsel of perfection; total perspective is an optical illusion.

• War is a nation's way of eating. It promotes co-operation because it is the ultimate form of competition.

• Since Nature has not read very carefully the American Declaration of Independence or the French Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man, we are all born unfree and unequal.

• Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our Utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.

• Even the children of Ph.D.s must be educated and go through their adolescent measles of errors, dogmas, and isms.

• A Pasteur, a Morse, an Edison, a Ford, a Wright, a Marx, a Lenin, a Mao Tse-tung are effects of numberless causes, and causes of endless effects.

• It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race

• Other factors equal, internal liberty varies inversely as external danger.

• Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign.

• It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that "you can't fool all the people all the time," but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

• We must not demand of progress that it should be continuous or universal.

• Consider education not as the painful accumulation of facts and dates and reigns, nor merely the necessary preparation of the individual to earn his keep in the world, but as the transmission of our mental, moral, technical, and aesthetic heritage as fully as possible to as many as possible, for the enlargement of man's understanding, control, embellishment, and enjoyment of life.

Didn't end up reading this. It gets really deep in the historical weeds on early Christianity and just wasn't my thing. At the very end there's a list of 25 important lessons about nonviolence and I liked that list.