The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Eli Schuster’s View:

Synoposis: The sun rises, the day begins, and old Khayyam brings everyone down with depressing poetry that reminds us we’re all gonna die some day.

What Did I Learn?: It took Omar 75 four-lined verses to basically say: Carpe Diem.

Memorable Line: “For in and out, above, about, below...’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show. Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun, Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.”

You Might Like This Book If: you need some inspiration to really enjoy your life and go for the gusto, and Tony Robbins just doesn't cut it, anymore.

Somebody’s Justifying Their Alcoholism: “And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, Came stealing through the Dusk and Angel Shape. Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and he bid me taste of it; and ‘twas – the Grape!”

Krishna's Dialogue On the Soul

Eli Schuster’s View:

Synopsis: (chapters 10 to 18 of the Bhagvad Gita, part of the Mahabharata). Hindu god Krishna (self-described as “Lord of all the worlds...prince victorious...the cleverness of the gambler’s dice”, etc...) informs humble servant Arjuna about the secrets of life, the universe and everything...and praises himself a lot while doing so.

What Did I Learn?: Krishna is also Vishnu, Indra, and pretty much all of the other gods, heroes and mythical beings, too.

Memorable Line: “Listen and I shall reveal to thee some manifestations of my divine glory. Only the greatest, Arjuna, for there is no end to my infinite greatness.”

You Might Like This Book If: You need to learn something about Hinduism and you don’t have a lot of time.

Interesting Parallel to James Durrill’s country music classic, The Good Guys and the Bad Guys: “[Evil men] say: ‘this world has no truth, no moral foundation, no God. There is no law of creation – what is the cause of birth but lust?’”

Hannibal's Crossing of the Alps

Eli Schuster's View:

Synopsis: (selections from Livy's The War with Hannibal). In 218 BC, Carthaginian commander Hannibal led an army of nearly 90,000 foot soldiers, 12,000 mounted cavalry and a whole bunch of elephants through the Alps because he wanted to conquer Rome in the toughest possible way he could imagine.

What I Learned: Hannibal's crossing of the Alps - elephants and all - took only 15 days.

Memorable Line: "The elephants proved both a blessing and a curse: for though getting them along the narrow and precipitous tracks caused serious delay, they were none the less a protection to the troops, as the natives, never having seen such creatures before, were afraid to come near them."

You Might Like This Book If: You need to take your grumpy great dane to the vet's office and you need some inspiration.

Life Lesson: When the local barbarians keep attacking your army's supply train, and your elephants keep falling off steep mountain cliffs to horrible deaths below, you keep going.

Reflections on the Fall of Rome

Eli Schuster's View:

Synopsis: (edits from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, three installments between 1776 and 1788) British historian Edward Gibbon tells a strange tale of an agricultural republic that became an empire ("an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth"), and a once-proud people who lost their freedoms and didn't care so long as they were given bread and entertainment.

What I Learned: Roman soldiers carried short, well-tempered Spanish blades, and were encouraged to stab, rather than slash at an enemy.

Memorable Line: "If a savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the intrepid freemen of Britain; who, perhaps, might confederate for their common defence. Should the victorious Barbarians carry slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic Ocean, ten thousand vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remains of civilized society; and Europe would revive and flourish in the American world, which is already filled with her colonies, and institutions."

You Might Like This Book If: Russell Crowe's performance in Gladiator inspired you to learn everything you could about those wacky Romans.

Not Sure I Agree With This... "(E)very age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race."

Civil Disobedience

Eli Schuster's View:

Synopsis: (Combination of Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay "Resistance to Civil Government", and an excerpt from Walden on the importance of reading and books.) Basically, Thoreau exhorts his fellow citizens to grow some balls and refuse to accept bullshit from their government, even it if was popularly elected.

What I Learned: Thoreau spent a night in the slammer with a barn-burner for refusing to pay the local poll tax.

Memorable Line: "I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pittied it."

You Might Like This Book If: You're seriously pissed off about something the government is doing, and you really want to protest, but... it's your day off and you need a reason or two to get off the couch and leave your game of Grand Theft Auto.

Good Question: "Why does [the state] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?"

Truckstop and Other Lake Wobegon Stories

Eli Schuster's View:

Synopsis: (5 short stories featuring the Krebsbach family in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota - one from Garrision Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days and four from Leaving Home). Florian accidentally leaves his wife at a truckstop, Lyle's roof is in bad shape, Carl ruins the Homecoming parade with a 1937 Chevy filled with feces, and the Krebsbach family carries on.

Memorable Line: "What's hard to live with is not the trash floating in your head but the ordinary facts of life: mortality, knowing that you'll die, and frailty, knowing that when we've got it figured out we don't, and indignity, knowing that if we manage to put up a good front we still have the backstage view."

What I Learned: If you accidentally leave your hypochondriac wife at a truckstop it's a much better idea to pretend you're angry with her than to admit the truth.

You Might Like This Book If: You grew up in a small town like Lake Wobegon and you're in the mood for a stroll down Memory Lane.

Random Observation: Garrison Keillor quite enjoys starting his stories with the words: "it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon."

Souls Belated

Eli Schuster's View:

Synopsis: (1899 short story by Edith Wharton) American lovers Gannett and Lydia settle into a swanky Italian hotel. She doesn't want to get married after her divorce, so the two of them deal with society's disapproval by arguing with each other...over and over again.

What I learned: "Nothing is more perplexing to a man than the mental process of a woman who reasons her emotions."

Memorable Line: "It was the kind of society in which, after dinner, the ladies compared the exobitant charges of their children's teachers, and agreed that, even with the new duties on French clothes, it was cheaper in the end to get everything from Worth; while the husbands, over their cigars, lamented municipal corruption, and decided that the men to start a reform were those who had no private interests at stake."

You Might Like This Book If: you're fascinated by the inner turmoil of the Victorian era fashionable set, and you don't own the Upstairs Downstairs DVD box set.

Worth Considering: "I begin to see what marriage is for. It's to keep people away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them - children, duties, visits, bores, relations - the things that protect married people from each other."