An ambitious but overlong history.
With his wife, dye expert Sterman delivers a history of a blue dye mentioned in ancient texts but only recently recreated in the modern era.
The Stermans trace the history of tekhelet, a blue dye derived from the glands of certain types of snails that they describe as the “sacred, rarest blue.” The Talmud and other texts of Judaism mention tekhelet; the Book of Numbers in the Bible, for example, requires Jewish people to tie a tekhelet-dyed thread to the corners of their clothing. Tradition specifically dictated that the tekhelet had to be “sky blue,” write the authors, and the use of other blue dyes, such as indigo, was prohibited. But tekhelet was expensive, difficult to make and even illegal during the era of the Roman Empire. As a result, the tradition waned, and many details of the tekhelet-making process were lost for hundreds of years. The Stermans delve into Jewish history, showing how doctrinal skirmishes erupted over the use of the dye and how figures such as the first chief rabbi of Israel and other researchers explored tekhelet’s mysteries. The authors also recount their efforts to mass-produce authentic tekhelet-dyed strings, with the authors traveling to far-off places to collect the snails required. While their dedication is admirable and their research comprehensive, the prose simply isn’t engaging enough to bring an entire book about an obscure blue dye to life. The latter sections, especially, which include technical descriptions of snails’ physical processes and multiple molecular diagrams, may be tough going for casual readers. That said, the book may hold some appeal for aficionados of either religious history or the study of mollusks—surely one of the few books for which that may be said.
An ambitious but overlong history.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7627-8222-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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