Timothy RiceAboutNowEssaysBook ReviewsBook ReviewsHow I rate booksFavorites are marked with a ⭐In the Shadow of the Sword - History, unlike faith, cannot be built upon foundations of sand.Devolution - It’s great to live free of the other sheep until you hear the wolves howl.⭐Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - The last enemy that shall be destoyed is death.My Brilliant Friend - She threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other way.The Hobbit - In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.The Martian - I guess you could call it a ‘failure’, but I prefer the term ‘learning experience’.Sharpen This - When sharpening skills started vanishing from the population we began to think it was difficult.A Fire Upon the Deep - Sometimes the biggest disasters aren’t noticed at all–no one’s around to write horror stories.Lent - Prophecy is only sometimes helpful.Less - Just for the record: happiness is not bullshit.The Pride of Chanur - Friend. All Friend.Lying for Money - It is highly unlikely that the optimal level of fraud is zero.Seeing Like a State - Legibility describes the very human tendency to simplify complex systems in order to exert control over themThe Name of the Rose - The good of a book lies in its being read.The Elegance of the Hedgehog - I have set as my goal to have the greatest number possible of profound thoughts.The Everlasting Man - A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.Surprised by Joy - The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.Meditations - It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - If every other parent jumped off a bridge, would you?Parfit - Don’t you see, if morality isn’t objective, our lives are meaningless!Roadside Picnic - A flawed assumption – that an alien race would be psychologically human.The Lathe of Heaven - The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.Man's Search for Meaning - Those who have a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how”.No Two Alike - Why are we the way we are?Empire of the Damned - Sometimes love does conquer all.Letters from a Stoic - Non est beatus, esse se qui non putat.⭐Terra Ignota Tetralogy - Would you destroy this world to save a better one?How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids - It’s not children who extinguish the flame of desire—it’s the adults who fail to keep the spark alive.The Stars My Destination - There’s got to be more to life than just living.Among Others - If you love books enough, books will love you back.A Wizard of Earthsea - Danger must surround power, as a shadow does light.Yendi - Life is like an onion.Jhereg - No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.The Rosie Project - Humans often fail to see what is close to them and obvious to others.2023 Reading Roundup - Lessons LearnedThe Midnight Library - Prison isn’t a place, but a perspective.The Steerswoman Series - People need truth! They need it to be happy, to know what to do, to live!Splitting the Second - How long is a day?⭐Ender's Game - The enemy’s gate is down.House of Suns - No act of knowledge acquisition is entirely without risk.You're Not Listening - If someone is dull or uninteresting, it’s on you. You’re not listening.⭐Four Thousand Weeks - The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under controlLongitude - He wrested the world’s whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a pocket watch.Penric's Progress - If you don’t understand something, you should just try to learn more, that’s all.Tigana - There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry - What you give your attention to is the person you become.⭐The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up - The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.The Player of Games - All reality is a game.The Perfectionists - The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.⭐The Screwtape Letters - Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.The Grief of Stones - I could not lay down the grief I carried, but I could name it for what it was, and by naming it ease the burden.The Witness for the Dead - I admit to a fondness for boring stories.⭐The Queen's Thief Series - If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.The Scout Mindset - The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen - O loves, take delight in one another. While you can, take delight.⭐How to Win Friends and Influence People - The deepest urge in human nature is ‘the desire to be important.'Cryoburn - The world is made by the people who show up for the job.The Goblin Emperor - Better to build new bridges than to pine after what’s been washed away.Shadow and Claw - There is no magic. There is only knowledge, more or less hidden.⭐Nona the Ninth - Can one person even be two people?Echopraxia - Faith based hard science fiction (?!)Blindsight - Does consciousness restrict intelligence?