Month: May 2017

Book Review | “Can’t Buy Me Love” by Jane Lovering #ChocLitSaturdays

Posted Saturday, 27 May, 2017 by jorielov , , , 2 Comments

ChocLitSaturdays Banner Created by Jorie in Canva.

Why I feature #ChocLitSaturdays (book reviews & guest author features)
and created #ChocLitSaturday (the chat via @ChocLitSaturday):

I wanted to create a bit of a niche on Jorie Loves A Story to showcase romance fiction steeped in relationships, courtships, and the breadth of marriage enveloped by characters written honestly whose lives not only endear you to them but they nestle into your heart as their story is being read!

I am always seeking relationship-based romance which strikes a chord within my mind’s eye as well as my heart! I’m a romantic optimist, and I love curling into a romance where I can be swept inside the past, as history becomes lit alive in the fullness of the narrative and I can wander amongst the supporting cast observing the principal characters fall in love and sort out if they are a proper match for each other!

I love how an Indie Publisher like ChocLitUK is such a positive alternative for those of us who do not identify ourselves as girls and women who read ‘chick-lit’. I appreciate the stories which alight in my hands from ChocLit as much as I appreciate the inspirational romances I gravitate towards because there is a certain level of depth to both outlets in romance which encourage my spirits and gives me a beautiful story to absorb! Whilst sorting out how promote my book reviews on behalf of ChocLit, I coined the phrase “ChocLitSaturdays”, which is a nod to the fact my ChocLit reviews & features debut on ‘a Saturday’ but further to the point that on the ‘weekend’ we want to dip into a world wholly ideal and romantic during our hours off from the work week!

Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo.

Acquired Book By: I am a regular reviewer for ChocLitUK, where I hand select which books in either their backlist and/or current releases I would like to read next for my #ChocLitSaturdays blog feature. As of June 2016, I became a member of the ChocLit Stars Team in tandem with being on the Cover Reveal Team which I joined in May 2016. I reference the Stars as this is a lovely new reader contribution team of sending feedback to the publisher ahead of new book releases. As always, even if I’m involved with a publisher in this sort of fashion, each review is never influenced by that participation and will always be my honest impression as I read the story. Whether the author is one I have previously read or never had the pleasure to read until the book greets my shelf.

I received a complimentary copy of “Can’t Buy Me Love” from ChocLit in exchange for an honest review! I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

a bit of back-history on this sequence of roms:

The Yorkshire Romances received a sixth entry into the series with Can’t Buy Me Love, which I thankfully spotlighted last May! What is interesting about being able to read this book over Memorial Day weekend, is the timing of the book in my hand vs. the weekend last year, when it was a book I was itching to read but could only speculate about what I would find inside it! Isn’t that a wicked sweet coincidence!?

The Yorkshire Romances in sequence:

{please note: all of these are stand-alone; only the setting unites them}

To properly recap my ruminative pre-reading thoughts about the series, kindly visit my Spotlight w/ Notes!

Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo.

My initial thoughts about why I wanted to read this particular release:

What I appreciate about the Yorkshire Romances series as a whole is each installment reads to be individually unique to it’s own setting and cast of characters; I am unsure what threads the series together as a whole, as I haven’t yet read one of the novels, but to find a series where you can meet such a varied and diverse set of stories is quite champion, if you ask me! I think it speaks to the different themes of interest on behalf of the author, how she likes to pull together different threads of interest per each character she’s focusing on in turn and thereby, deepening where each installment can take the reader. For instance, I Don’t Want to Talk About It had a very emotional context to it’s central heart.

I must confess, I oft was drawn into stories of inheritances (especially the unexpected kind!) since I was a young girl – those were the Classical novels I would delight in reading because they had such a capture of ‘real life caught between a change of circumstance and the reality of who you really are’ merging into a story where you have to choose how your going to proceed. I even followed this up by watching tv movies of the same theme; each story in turn featured a character who had to go through a period of growth and self-reflection where they truly developed into a better version of themselves. Even in my beloved Cosy Mystery series Aunt Dimity the title character has to come to terms with an inheritance that truly was quite magically wicked in the end!

I do love a good matching between two opposite personalities or two people who live different lifestyles; it works either way for me; to see how differences either make or break a relationship. Equal to that, there is something about the quirkiness of geeks vs nerds (in case you hadn’t known, I’m a geek!) and how each of them can be a good match for someone who doesn’t self-identify as either/or too!

When it comes to money and people’s true colours shining through their intentions – that happens to be one of my favourite twists in a plot to read! I like noodling out which person wormed into someone’s life looking for a quick take from a person who came into an inheritance vs the sincerity of friendship for the sake of genuine concern for another person’s welfare. It’s a slippery slope as they say – whom to trust and when to know to question the trust you put into others when circumstances change overnight.

I could tell immediately I liked the potboiler brewing into the backbone of this installment, as it’s quite a truthful statement to make – does money have the reverse effect of muddling your life further than it might have been already or does it present certain assurances but give you a bit of a new set of curious hiccups to circumvent as well? I think the title brings the scope of the story into play quite nicely and if you trust a title, I think it forebears well the outcome we’ll all have to wait to read!

Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo.

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Posted Saturday, 27 May, 2017 by jorielov in 21st Century, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Britian, Brothers and Sisters, ChocLitUK, Contemporary Romance, Equality In Literature, Family Life, Fly in the Ointment, Indie Author, Inheritance & Identity, LGBTTQPlus Fiction | Non-Fiction, Life Shift, Modern Day, Romance Fiction, Romantic Comedy, Siblings, Vulgarity in Literature

Blog Book Tour | The *debut!* #shortstory release of “I Still Remember” by Priya Prithviraj! A dear friend of mine I met through a book blogger panel!

Posted Thursday, 25 May, 2017 by jorielov , , 0 Comments

Book Review badge created by Jorie in Canva using Unsplash.com photography (Creative Commons Zero).

Acquired Book By: I am a hostess with Writerly Yours PR – which is run by my dear friend Priya of whom I met during a blogger panel. We have become friends through our collaborations and it has been an honour to work with her on her publicity projects for Indie authors – most of whom I have been featuring a guest author feature as I cannot read digital copies of books. In this particular instance, I was allowed to print the PDF in order to read in full for which I was thankful to Priya for allowing me to do so in lieu of a paperback copy to read.

I received a complimentary copy of “I Still Remember” direct from the author Priya Prithviraj in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Why I was keen on reading this story:

When you have a friend like Priya, you are wicked happy for them to enter into the season of their publishing endeavours – as they share something in common with you! You’re both writers who started blogging about your reading lives whilst awaiting a moment where your own stories would start to arrive in print (or in Priya’s case, digitally in e-readers!). I have a profound respect for Priya, as our friendship was carved out a mutual love of literature, of diverse stories and of the joy story-telling gives us both. We’re also poets inasmuch as we’re storytellers of fiction – something I found quite wicked interesting as not every writer is a poet nor every poet is a novelist.

As soon as I learnt her short story was going to be a part of a blog tour for May, I was wicked excited to participate – not only to have a potential chance to ‘read’ a story of hers going into publication for the first time (always a thrilling day for a writer!) but I was so very happy to see this day arrive for a friend of mine! I love cheering and celebrating the writing careers of the authors of whom paths I have regularly crossed these past four years, but when you make a connection with someone you consider a dear friend in the book blogosphere – it’s a bit sweeter, isn’t it?

I hadn’t known she was writing this story ahead of time either – therefore, I did not know anything about the plot, the characters or where the story would be set. I was happily surprised to find it was a coming-of age Romance from the point of view of Korean protagonists. I regularly read #diverselit and advocate for #diversebooks by my own tag (both on Twitter and on my blog): #EqualityInLit as I’ve been a passionate reader of diverse stories as long as I’ve been a reader (see also Post). This is a refreshing change of pace for the stories I find set in Asia or from Asian POVs in both Historical and Contemporary stories. I was excited to see how Priya set the foundation of her short and how she conveyed the arc of her characters’ journey through the duration of the story itself.

Short Fiction is featured quite regularly here on Jorie Loves A Story, as inspired initially through short story anthologies published by Speculative Fiction publishers: Seventh Star Press and World Weaver Press, however, I have extended my readings outside of these Indie publishers in recent years as well. I have more short fiction arriving this Summer as I am finishing my readings of Indy Writes Books, Far Orbit: Apogee, Frozen Fairy Tales, Murder in the Generative Kitchen (see also Post), Shifty (see also Post), Trans-Continental: Girl in the Gears and Trans-Continental: Mississippi Queen (see also Interview). You will find more showcases of Short Stories & Anthologies across genres in my Story Vault.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

On my Connection to Priya:

A few years ago (in 2015), I had the lovely pleasure of meeting Priya for the first time when our paths initially crossed during a book blogger panel – wherein we had the opportunity to sign-up for a blind match wherein each pair of bloggers were being interviewed by one match and interviewing a second match in an effort to connect book bloggers who might not have found each other otherwise. It was during this incredible event, Priya and I first met – sharing a conversation on Jorie Loves A Story and launching a friendship which has endured ever since. I started to host for her authors via Writerly Yours PR whilst maintaining contact with her about possible blog features we could host on each others’ blogs. An instance of this is my essay about ‘Reclaiming my Writing Life’ which ran originally in [2015] but re-published in [2016] as an extension of how Wrimos love participating in Nanowrimo! (see also Post) We’re both writers who started a blog to focus on our reading lives whilst awaiting our season to publish our stories. Priya’s publishing season has arrived ahead of my own and I was thrilled to bits to be able to celebrate this milestone of her writerly career.

I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with Priya through our respective love & passion of reading inside the twitterverse, kept in touch privately and having had previously been a book blogger / chat hostess for authors she helps publicize through Writerly Yours PR.  I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time or continuing to read their releases as they are available.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

 Blog Book Tour | The *debut!* #shortstory release of “I Still Remember” by Priya Prithviraj! A dear friend of mine I met through a book blogger panel!I Still Remember
by Priya Prithviraj
Source: Author via Writerly Yours PR

How do you forget someone you’ve loved once?

Ji-woo dreams of becoming a writer and is back in college giving it a second shot. But then Weon-gyu, her first love, comes back into her new life. Will she give up on her dreams or will she write them a happy ending?

Genres: Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945), Contemporary Romance, Short Story or Novella



Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ASIN: B071NSPMTV

Published by Self Published

on 14th May, 2017

Format: epub | PDF editon

Pages: 29

Self-Published Author

Formats Available: Ebook

Converse via: #YALit & #NewAdult + book tag: #IStillRemember

or #IndieAuthor + #Contemporary

About Priya Prithviraj

Priya Prithviraj

Priya Prithviraj writes poems which appear in journals such as Eastlit and the New Plains Review. She also writes about books, writing and publishing on her blog. She tweets at @priyaprithviraj.

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Posted Thursday, 25 May, 2017 by jorielov in #JorieLovesIndies, Blog Tour Host, Compassion & Acceptance of Differences, Contemporary Romance, Content Note, Debut Author, Equality In Literature, Indie Author, Modern Day, Multi-cultural Characters and/or Honest Representations of Ethnicity, Nanowrimo 2008, Romance Fiction, Self-Published Author, Short Stories or Essays, Singletons & Commitment, Women's Fiction, Writerly Yours PR

Cover Reveal | NEW #ChocLit #HistFic by AnneMarie Brear “Where Rainbows End”!

Posted Wednesday, 24 May, 2017 by jorielov , , , 0 Comments

Stories Sailing into View Banner created by Jorie in Canva.

If your a regular reader or frequent visitor of Jorie Loves A Story, you know I’ve been smitten with the novelists who publish their relationship-based Romances with ChocLitUK for a good two years now! I love being on the cusp of learning about a ‘new release’ whilst I remain patient to see if the Digital First new ChocLit novel will make it to a print release further down the road of it’s lifetime. I don’t mind the gaps between the ebooks and the print editions – as it’s always given me the pleasure of balancing my ‘next ChocLit reads’ to include both Front List and Back List offerings. Thus, I am enjoying being a member of the Reveal Team at ChocLit whilst it gives me a chance to introduce my readers to a variety of sub-genres within Romance I appreciate picking up to read!

I remember when Ms Brear’s debut novel was released Digital First and hoping to find it was going to make into a print run as it felt like the kind of Historical novel I would enjoy to read. Where Dragonflies Hover is happily being released in print for the first time this JUNE whilst Ms Brear’s sophomore release with ChocLit is being released right now in MAY! Isn’t that lovely!? I am thankful I am able to help celebrate her second release today (she has multiple stories published outside the scope of ChocLit by the way) by revealling the cover art and the joy I had in helping to choose the artwork which graced the cover itself.

However, shortly ahead of getting onto my blog to set this post to go live (originally I worked on this late in the night on the 22nd) – I came across the newsfeeds and tweets surrounding the tragedy in Manchester and it was with a heavier heart, I wrote these words. I also worked on the final edits for a Guest Post about Bonnie and Clyde which was just as difficult to work through as my heart was reaching across the ocean to offer the comfort of prayer to those families who are affected. I think the hardest part truly was learning the families were separated; where children and parents had trouble reuniting afterwards but how kind it was for everyone in Manchester offering their support. Truly a somber day, indeed for bookish news when such tragedy affects so many.

I was betwixt knowing if I should run my posts – although I was up at an hour which would lend itself to contact the publisher (ChocLit) if they were considering to pull the announcement for this release or not, part of me just felt the full breadth of the tragedy; as I could personally self-relate to close-knit connections between Mums and their daughters; as much as the heartache of being in a place where there is sheer panic and you just want to do ‘something’ to help ease other people’s anxieties. There are so many things going on right now which affect Women’s Rights and this just felt multilayered when you realise it’s a concert where young girls and their Mums predominately attended moreso than any other concert goer. I cannot even imagine being there – either solo or with my Mum, nor of how to handle the aftermath. We are each given different circumstances to survive and different adversities to live through; but last night, I just felt as if I were there with them in Manchester due to reading the live tweets across all the trending tags and watching the live video uploads by the survivors. When I stumbled across the homeless man who helped the girls’ ahead of the EMS arriving, it felt like the quote circling from a beloved children’s programme host from my own childhood now had living proof of the words behind the sentiment (referencing ‘look for the helpers’ by Fred Rogers; see also Tweet).

I must say, even when adversity affects my own life – there is some comfort in stories and the hours we give to reading. It make take us a bit to get a rhythm going to resume the joy of reading but overall, I have found my own spirit renewed countless times this past Spring by digging back into reading after my father’s stroke last Thanksgiving. In many ways, the books which cheered my spirit the most were ChocLit titles – as they have such a heap of hope and light running through them, to where you cannot help but feel the joy of the romances filling your imagination each time you pick up one of their novels to read.

I am looking forward to starting to read Ms Brear’s novels, as I do have a hearty penchant for Historical Fiction – something I never truly gave much consideration about until I became a book blogger! lol I seem to adore residing in the historical past more times than the contemporary alternatives; the pages which brim to life yesteryear and of the traditions of eras which sometimes can become lost to time if we do not reacquaint ourselves inside their worlds.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

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Posted Wednesday, 24 May, 2017 by jorielov in 19th Century, Blog Tour Host, Book Cover Reveal, Book Spotlight, ChocLitUK, Family Drama, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Indie Author, Romance Fiction, Western Romance

#WaitingOnWednesday | #NonFiction Book Review | “The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning” by Jeremy Lent

Posted Wednesday, 17 May, 2017 by jorielov , , 0 Comments

Book Review badge created by Jorie in Canva using Unsplash.com photography (Creative Commons Zero).

Acquired Book By: I am a reviewer for Prometheus Books and their imprints starting in [2016] as I contacted them through their Edelweiss catalogues and Twitter. I appreciated the diversity of titles across genre and literary explorations – especially focusing on Historical Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction and Scientific Topics in Non-Fiction. I received a complimentary ARC copy of “The Patterning Instinct” direct from the publisher Prometheus Books in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

a word about ‘waiting on wednesday’:

I have decided to start participating in this book blogsphere meme with a few small changes of how it’s regularly blogged about by my fellow book bloggers. I will either be introducing my current reads of upcoming releases as I am in the process of reading them and/or I might be releasing a book review about a forthcoming title by which I had been blessed to read ahead of publication. The main purpose behind the meme is to encourage readers and your fellow book bloggers to become aware of new books being released which caught your eye and which held your interest to read. Sometimes if your still in the process of reading the books, its the titles which encouraged your bookish heart. I look forward to spending the next seasons of the year, talking about the books I have on hand to read, the books I’ve been reading and the books I might not even have a copy to read but which are of wicked sweet interest to become a #nextread of mine.

Thus, this book review is showcasing a title which is set to release in a few short days – it is an incredibly evocative book about a subject everyone can relate too, as it speaks to the human condition and to the approach we all take towards understanding a new layer of our own humanity.  This is my entrance into the meme and a lovely introduction to one of the new books publishing this year by Prometheus Books – of whom, are consistently publishing topics in Non-Fiction which I love to seek out. I encourage you to dig through my tag thread for this publisher and see what else has caught my fancy!

#WaitingOnWednesday badge created in Canva by Jorie using Unsplash.com photography (Creative Commons Zero).

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

musings about the foreword & preface:

Similar to Fritjof Capra who wrote the Foreword, I have had an inquisitive mind attached to social history and the innovation invention of ‘ideas’ which may or may not parlay into a realistic impression on the history of humanity as its distinctions come from a myriad array of perspectives and impressions of interpretation. I garnished a keen interest in the Quantum realms when I turnt twenty, wherein I started to gather books about Quantum Physics and the inter-related fields attached to it – books by such men as Dr Brian Greene, Clifford A. Pickover and others who were writing about topics which fascinated me. My personal studies into the Quantum realms are constantly evolving and tuck into different corridors of theoretical thought as what is known right now in our expanding research focuses by today’s scientists and theorists.

In effect, what interested me about reading this particular release by Mr Lent is the curiosity of how our cultural historical imprint has a startling realisation about how we seek out meaning and our cultural awareness towards understanding our purpose whilst we’re alive. I love finding thought-provoking works in Non-Fiction but especially when they are not written in the traditional voice – granting further enjoyment by how the tome of insight your reading is happily set in a conversational tone of entreaty. I also like cultivating a wide net of co-relating interests and of researching topics and subjects which interest me on a multi-diverse layer of insight by different sources, voices and historical perspectives. Hence why I felt Lent’s point of view on this subject would be a wicked interesting read – he takes a multi-layered approach to augmenting his viewpoint.

Cognitive Science and cognitive awareness (as well as the science behind Consciousness) are fascinating topics to explore – as there is a heap of variables and unknowns when it comes to our understanding of how cognition and consciousness are interlinked and dynamically key to how humanity has evolved in it’s capacity to understand the wider world of our dimensional space.

As I recently explored the complexities of the natural world, I am now embarking on extending my focus to the complexities of the culture wherein mankind understands his/her interpretation of the world itself. This is a fundamental breakdown studying how our cognitive perceptional analysis in effect has a stark effect on how we (together) as a world society help to move ourselves forward as a (global) community but also, how we endeavour to remember our socio-pyschological heritage. Imagine excavating the landscape of our mind in order to seek out how we process information as a stepping stone towards properly understanding not only how we interpret what we understand but how what we understand acts as a linchpin towards affecting how events are shaped within the world itself.

Cultural History is critical towards understanding how each generation dealt with the circumstances they faced but moreso, how humanity was thus changed and consistently altering it’s course towards a tomorrow which went through a series of uncertainties and different trajectories before arriving where we are right now. I am also fascinated by the field of ‘Human Ecology’ as this can also be pursued in higher level education where you spend four years ‘discovering oneself and one’s own passions’ seeking to not only understand the ‘self’ but also, to see the world through a different pair of lens.

One thing that is mentioned is how the ‘gender’ of words describing History have altered from the traditional short-hand of ‘man’ or ‘mankind’ to a more inclusive humankind or other such variants. I have the tendency to refer back to the old gender-narrative as unlike some, I never took offence to how the words were used, as technically we are ‘mankind’ inasmuch as we’re ‘humankind’; it’s semantics, truly. Similarly to how I was never entirely sure why women were worried about being called ‘actors’ as I never took that as anything more than describing one’s field of interest: they ‘act and take on different characters’ whilst on stage or screen; in essence their roles are to ‘act’ and give an honest representation of the characters they’re assuming. I never saw how these instances provided bias against gender lines nor how it personally affected us to where Feminism had to take a forward step towards disintegrating the terms. Honestly, there are far more relevant ways we must circumvent gender bias, but to me these two infractions (at best) were benign compared to the wider problems which affect our lives most directly. Ergo, I had to smile how there was care to mention ‘this term was used’ verse having the freedom to use the term itself now.

I, myself, have not entirely understood why most of History is bent towards the Western world rather than a fuller embrace of the cultural history of the world – including by bridging the gap of differences igniting out of East vs West cultural divides. New generations offer different perspectives on all of this (which we can agree on) but why there is a certainty of non-inclusiveness is unknown. I also have observed how indigenous cultures world-wide (as they are not limited to North America) have also taken a backseat in History’s scope of narrative. There is an enriched well of stories yet to be told as the annals of human history are still missing key chapters which would provide new insights into how progress was not always kind to those who came before our current generation. Each generation has their struggles, yes, but why is there a continued erasure of certain truths behind cultural divides is one of our worst legacies.

I do agree with the postmodernist behaviour mentioned – of how we try to attach ourselves to different viewpoints, intellectual insightfulness and a merging of religious thought with those cultures we come across who provide us with a unique and fresh perspective. I am not entirely sure this was short-sided of us (on a whole) to remain on the superficial layer of what this insight would provide nor of being unable to dig further into how these opinions and views were rooted in a specific historical context. I tend to yield to giving the benefit of the doubt, on how as we were granted a heightened curiosity to understand things which are not readily understood – perhaps our approach to draw our differences together, we took a few missteps to fully appreciate the magnitude of how those other beliefs fit within the context of their cultural heritage. Most of us, I think do err on caution and do try to bridge together resources of knowledge which keep us in-tune with the complexities of global history. Knowledge (like life) has a steep learning curve and we never quite expire from learning something we previously hadn’t fully had the data to conceptionalise in a manner in which it deserved.

Part of my own theory on why we have such a divided world is because the truth of the matter is each country and continent had it’s own form of growth but part of human nature is to judge, measure, weigh and assert superiority. In this context, it’s hard to rationalise why there was such a race to ‘outwit and outsolve’ history’s key problems in industrial and technological advances as I previously have already read; some countries arose to the challenge ahead of others but there was a blackout in communication and of informational exchange. If we would stop ‘vying for being the first’ at everything, and recognise we’re globally interconnected to each other, we’d make better progress towards accepting our global heritage as we would stop compartmentalising ourselves.

When pondering one of the key conduits of thought within The Patterning Instinct – a term reappears quite frequently: historical reductionism which leapt out at me because it’s another way of stipulating: superficist historical perspectives which was my main bone of contention whilst in school and why I was perpetually bored with pre-determinded syllabuses. There is another interesting tidbit hidden within the context which is niche construction which by definition could be cross-applied to my own life, as I was in search of my ‘personal niche’ in life by which I could contribute something artistically created back to society (herein I refer to my quest to unearth my talent was to be a story-telller). I love how this term encapsulates how even in nature, there is evidential support to merit this inclusion towards understanding the nature of self-learning and self-adaptive qualities.

On the cognitive development of humans being influenced and patterned by linguistic heritage did not surprise me – as so much of how we internalise our world is fuelled by how we were understanding the world by those around us whilst we were too young to self-articulate what we were experiencing. It is also true to say, if we have a particular pattern of speech or a learning impediment (such as dyslexia; in my case) you can back-trace how you developed your own style of speech patterns to the people who were interacting with you the most whilst you were still developing your awareness of the information you were processing as a young child. Cognitive awareness starts quite young indeed but how to properly process what we are seeing, hearing and sensing takes a bit longer. If we rely on those around us to help guide us towards understanding how to break-down what we’re internalising and thereby, chart a course towards our own process of cognition, it stands to reason even on a fundamental level, through auditory means (of understanding), we are first mimicking how we hear words and the comprehension of what is around us. We follow this process by developing our own mind and our own interpretation of the world based on what we learn and how we gravitate towards renewing our sense of wonder through collecting knowledge and experiences.

There is an incredible insightful interpretation of what led to the demise of the rain forest which has always held such a tight ache in my own spirit for how destructively callous mankind can be when it comes to destroying what it does not readily understand. On a personal note, I once saw the brutal butchery of a weeping willow tree when living in a place where the outside caretakers were not determined by my family but by the community as a whole. They cut back the tree to such a state of destruction, the tree wept for the last time. It was reduced to such a horrid state of indifference, not even the birds returned; as many of them had nested there in the Spring. I remember vividly lashing out at the man with the chainsaw for his absolute stupidity for not recognising the consequences of his actions. I was physically sick and anguished by how indifferent he was to the fate of a ‘tree’. This new passage about how forests are living ecosystems where trees act as the guardians who protect the futures of the forest itself was not lost on me; if anything it re-instilled how limited mankind has progressed to understand the fuller picture of how nature and man are connected in ways which once severed cannot become re-aligned. Mind you, getting neighbours to respect how trees are our source of oxygen was another wrinkle of angst as they merely saw trees as the bearers of ‘leaves’ which they simply could not handle walking over in the Autumn.

Somewhere along the way, mankind has become blinded by his zest for colonisation and globalisation to where the natural world is no longer a reverent component of our lives but something which needs to be controlled and/or destroyed. How we turnt away from our heritage of connection with nature is not understood (at least not by me) but it is a pattern of change on it’s own merit. And, what cognitive pattern shifted our perspective from being caretakers to destroyers is even more interesting to contemplate.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com#WaitingOnWednesday | #NonFiction Book Review | “The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning” by Jeremy LentThe Patterning Instinct
Subtitle: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

This fresh perspective on crucial questions of history identifies the root metaphors that cultures have used to construct meaning in their world. It offers a glimpse into the minds of a vast range of different peoples: early hunter-gatherers and farmers, ancient Egyptians, traditional Chinese sages, the founders of Christianity, trail-blazers of the Scientific Revolution, and those who constructed our modern consumer society.

Taking the reader on an archaeological exploration of the mind, the author, an entrepreneur and sustainability leader, uses recent findings in cognitive science and systems theory to reveal the hidden layers of values that form today’s cultural norms.

Uprooting the tired clichés of the science-religion debate, he shows how medieval Christian rationalism acted as an incubator for scientific thought, which in turn shaped our modern vision of the conquest of nature. The author probes our current crisis of unsustainability and argues that it is not an inevitable result of human nature, but is culturally driven: a product of particular mental patterns that could conceivably be reshaped.

By shining a light on our possible futures, the book foresees a coming struggle between two contrasting views of humanity: one driving to a technological endgame of artificially enhanced humans, the other enabling a sustainable future arising from our intrinsic connectedness with each other and the natural world. This struggle, it concludes, is one in which each of us will play a role through the meaning we choose to forge from the lives we lead.


Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

Find on Book Browse

ISBN: 9781633882935

on 23rd May, 2017

Pages: 569

Published By: Prometheus Books (@prometheusbks)

Available Formats: Trade Paperback & Ebook

Converse via: #NonFiction, #CulturalHistory, #History + #ScienceBooks and #ThePatterningInstinct

About Jeremy Lent

Jeremy Lent

Jeremy R. Lent is a writer and the founder and president of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering a worldview that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the earth. The Liology Institute (www.liology.org), which integrates systems science with ancient wisdom traditions, holds regular workshops and other events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lent is the author of the novel Requiem of the Human Soul. Formerly, he was the founder, CEO, and chairman of a publicly traded Internet company. Lent holds a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

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Posted Wednesday, 17 May, 2017 by jorielov in #JorieLovesIndies, Archaeology, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book for University Study, Bookish Discussions, Bookish Memes, History, Indie Author, Nature & Wildlife, Non-Fiction, Prometheus Books, Science, Social Change, Social Services, Sociological Behavior, Sociology, The Natural World, Waiting on Wednesday