User Profile

Sergeant Cat

sergeant_cat@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 1 month ago

Favorite Books:

Mostly post-apocalyptic, dystopian, horror, sci-fi, history, books that explore religion and spirituality, manga, comics, and graphic novels.

About Me

US Army Veteran. MA in History, BA in History & Jewish Studies from the City College of the City University of New York.

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Sergeant Cat's books

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The Exiled Fleet (Paperback, 2021, Tor Books) 4 stars

J. S. Dewes continues her fast paced, science fiction action adventure with The Exiled Fleet, …

Great sci-fi action entertainment

4 stars

This was a really fun book. There's a lot of action, a lot of adventure, and the story's world opens up quite a bit more so we get a better idea of the history leading up to the events in the first book. I'm kind of sad that I read this right when it came out, because I know it's going to be a long wait for the next book in the series to arrive, and I'm excited for it.

The Power of Ritual (2020, HarperCollins Publishers) 2 stars

Ter Kuile, cohost of the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, demonstrates in his …

A shallow rehash of popular self-improvement trends

2 stars

This book can be boiled down to the idea that people should find things that are already meaningful in their lives and recognize that meaningfulness, then ritualize that meaningfulness to add to its existing meaningfulness. I think the author's intention behind writing this book was to express the idea that people should be comfortable turning experiences that are traditionally non-religious into a spiritual and meaningful encounter as a replacement for traditional religious practices. However, I felt that his message was too open-ended. He doesn't provide any sort of framework for what would be defined as positive and meaningful beyond what feels good and feels right. What if someone feels spiritually connected to the world when they commit violence? Is that valid? It just seems as though there's a lack of structure, or there's a presumption that people will somehow fall back on the morals and basic ideas provided by the …

The Novice (2012, HarperOne) 4 stars

Fans of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace is Every Step and Anger, and Deepak Chopra’s Buddha, …

Very engaging and inspirational

4 stars

This was a very good story. I saw it was available at the NYPL and borrowed it without really looking at what it was about. Thich Nhat Hanh's books are usually short, easy to digest, and leave me feeling a bit more optimistic about life. I was looking for something like that, but this is a much more powerful story and wound up being very inspirational.

Once I was a few chapters in, I thought this was a fictional story that Thich Nhat Hanh had come up with, and I was surprised because that's not his usual style or method for teaching. Instead, "The Novice" is apparently his retelling of a traditional Vietnamese story about a Buddhist novice and the acknowledgment of her status as a bodhisattva after she passed away. The story is very engaging and well worth the time invested in reading it.

Tao Te Ching (2009, Harper Perennial) 4 stars

In eighty-one brief chapters, Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, provides advice …

Something I'll come back to more than once

4 stars

I enjoyed this the first time through and expect to read it again. I'm also going to look at a few books that discuss the Tao Te Ching, so I can get a better idea of what's really going on here.

Regarding this translation, it's clear and easy to understand, but Mitchell doesn't hesitate to mention tractors, trucks, and nuclear warheads in the text of the Tao Te Ching, which really threw me off. I understand the motivation behind updating the text to make it relatable to a modern audience, but I think he took a little too much artistic license.