A Cat that Reads

I'm a Zen Buddhist, more or less American style. My favorite Buddhist authors are Ezra Bayda and Cheri Huber.  So running into this other style of Japanese Buddhism, Nichiren, was quite a novel thing. 

It does get a little infomercially, with large font. Yeah, I get it, you chant, and chanting is great. I am all for spiritual disciplines, but it seemed to push the chanting in front of other aspects of Buddhist practice I find just as important--meditation, philosophy, etc. 

It was a gift from a friend, who is a Nichiren Buddhist, and so I did enjoy reading it for that sense of getting closer to her understanding of the Buddhist beliefs.

I have a...strained relationship with my mother (that's being kind) and so, Holocaust history aside, this book hit me viscerally. I could see my own mother in Helga's--selfish, covert-aggressive, impossible to tell if she's being sincere or not, to the point where you don't even think she knows herself.  

And then, of course, there is the fascinating story of a mother who abandoned her family in search of what can only be called 'evil'.  How do you go through life growing up as a daughter of the SS?  I can't imagine, but my heart breaks for Schneider. 

A short, but absolutely gripping read.

This was recced to me as really entertaining.  It was...all right. I think Roach let herself be a little TOO much the star of the show, and while it worked for some chapters, such as the initial one, in the cannibalism one it was really disappointing. Any book that purports to cover cannibalism that doesn't deal with, say, Kuru, kind of loses some ethos in my book.

Still, I learned some pretty interesting things that happen to dead bodies (crash test dummies?!) and it was not exactly a challenging read.  I won't RUN out to buy another of her books, but I wouldn't turn my nose up, either.