RNA
RNA Book ReviewsAbout RNA Book Reviews
Book reviews posted here look at the books from a religious naturalist orientation. The books themselves may not be about religious naturalism per se but the reviewers have made an attempt to point out instances where the book either supports or contradicts religious naturalist perspectives.
Submissions:
We invite members to submit book reviews for posting here. Submissions will be reviewed before being posted.
Guidlines:
- Submissions can be Word, Pages, plain text, or PDF format. You can also just paste them into an email.
- Reviews should be from your point of view as a religious naturalist
Submit reviews to: tfindlay@mac.com
New Recording by Chanticleer – A Religious Naturalist Masterpiece
If anything, the practice of a religious naturalist is experiential. The initial impulse of a religious naturalist inclination in a spiritually open person often hangs squarely on experience – the incredible majesty of this bodymind, this moment, this nature, this...
The Hedonicon: a Scripture Whose Time Has Come
In recent weeks, our friend Nate published The Hedonicon: The Holy Book of Epicurus as an e-book and in paperback edition. Nate is an artist/musician who wrote the Dude’s Letter to Menoeceus, and he has also written for the Society of Epicurus and has contributed to...
Amythia: Crisis in the Natural History of Western Culture
Amythia: Crisis in the Natural History of Western Culture Loyal D. Rue, University of Alabama Press, 1989 A review and commentary by Ursula Goodenough Circa 1991 I wrote the review of this book that appears below. It was apparently never published; I’ve only come...
The Brush Dances and the Light Sings
John and Yvonne Palka were biology professors in Seattle until their retirement in the early 2000’s, and they devoted their non-academic lives to artistic encounters with the natural world, John using a camera and Yvonne the inks of Asian brush painting (sumi-e). When...
At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth
Madeline Ostrander is an environmental journalist. It took her almost a decade to complete her new book At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth. Eight of the chapters of this book are her reporting about environmental threats to our sense of...
The Patterning Instinct
I first came across Jeremy Lent's work about a year before The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search For Meaning was published. I’m not sure how I stumbled onto his website but I soon realized that this man was exploring and writing about a lot...
Everybody’s Story
EVERYBODY’S STORY: WISING UP TO THE EPIC OF EVOLUTION Loyal D. Rue. State University of New York Press, 1999 (SUNY series in Philosophy and Biology, D.E. Shaner, Editor) TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreward by Edward O. Wilson Preface Introduction Part I: How...
On Freedom
Book review of Maggie Nelson’s On Freedom Jason Keune In Maggie Nelson’s new book, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, she invokes, or rather curates, a vast landscape of contemporary thought and thinkers in an expansive exploration of a rich, yet elusive...
Finding the Mother Tree
I’m writing to recommend a book. Finding the Mother Tree – Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, Dr. Suzanne Simard. Simard has put together summations and descriptions of her experiments and findings from her career as a forest ecologist that started as a child in a...
Diary of a Young Naturalist
I shared a poem recently and it came from this remarkable book by Dara McAnulty - Diary of A Young Naturalist. It is probably more about autism than nature. But I am stunned by the brilliance of this young autistic man whatever the intent of his writing. I'm left...