rain and books

so for starters....this is the current weather situation where i am. do you see the big splotch toward the top right? and then do you see the slightly smaller splotch touching it to the left? that's me. that smaller splotch. but i think that we're in for an exciting night. it's been raining for a few hours now, and the street behind our apartment is starting to flood. we have our windows wide open because, though it was 90 during the day, it is now in the 60s and feels really nice. the rain has cut through some of the beastly humidity, and there's a good breeze. not to mention the fact that i love listening to the rain.

i finished the source of life a couple days ago. i read the book start to finish in about three days. i didn't read it so quickly because it was a page-turner that i simply couldn't put down. i finished it quickly to be done with it: my brain lapsed into school mode and resolved to finish the book as if i had to finish it for a class. basically, the book bored me. moltmann is praised for some of his novel thinking, and in talking about the holy spirit, he repeatedly stressed the presence of the holy spirit - as the source of life - in all beings and things. i appreciated his thoughts on God's spirit being present not only in humans or in living beings, but in all creation. i suppose he borders on pantheism or panenthism, but i liked his viewpoint. at the same time, the book really did bore me. it felt more like a long sermon than a theological discourse.

but THEN....i bought freakonomics on saturday, between my two five-hour shifts at the mall (yes. ugly day.). i started reading it when i got back from work that night, read it on my way to church on sunday, read it on my way home from church on sunday, read it in the afternoon, and finished it less than 24 hours after i purchased it. it was amazing. i'm not quite sure how to explain it. steven levitt is a brilliant economist who has written a book that has nothing to do with economics. that is to say, he looks at everyday life using economic sorts of thinking: reasoning why we make certain decisions, how those decisions affect us later in life. he answers fun questions like "what do teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?" or "does your name affect how successful you will be later in life?" or "what makes good parents?"...i've recommended this book to a few people, and i've had a hard time explaining the book without making it sound stodgy. but in truth, this book is entertaining and i appreciate its attempt to debunk "conventional wisdom." levitt enjoys taking an economic view over a moral view; that is to say, he states things as they are, without making judgments, and in doing so he speaks frankly and refreshingly about topics that we tend to avoid. it's an amazing book, amusing and fulfilling. you might come out feelings slightly smarter on the other side, and you will certainly come out feeling like you've just finished reading something totally worthwhile. it's awesome.

last night, i added more titles to my ever-growing summer reading list, and then matt and i trekked over to the jhu library so i could check a few of them out. i'd decided that it wouldn't be the best thing to blow all of my summer earnings on books right away. so library it was. i knew in advance that most of the books on my list are pretty popular, but i had no idea that out of 16 books that i looked up, only three would be available according to the card catalogue. and then only one was actually in the stacks. and THEN matt's id barcode wasn't working, so we couldn't even check out that one book that i had actually gotten my hands on. it was very disappointing. so instead, i have now grabbed tim o'brien's the things they carried off of my bookshelf. i read a chapter of it for a class in college and haven't yet gotten around to reading all of it. so now is the time. books are wonderful. i haven't played video games in a while, not even skies of arcadia, my obsession game of the moment. i've become a bookworm once again. hooray for summer, free time, and a happy long list of books to work through.