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Rating: 
Summary: Deep, insightful, fresh, satisfying
Review: Starts by describing the nuclear bombs of WWII, from an experiential viewpoint. There are quotes from physicists I haven't seen elsewhere. They were changed, and they knew the world had changed. After this dramatic introduction, the author describes, with dreams fragments as examples, several stages of apocalypse, tying together the personal-scale experiences and the archetypical end of the world symbolized by the Bomb. This is no trivial book where the author just threw some related ideas together; Michael Ortiz Hill has skillfully related ideas that, to me, seem to be from different worlds. One very minor gripe is the lack of an index, but there is a topical dream image glossary, very fun to browse, and I'm not sure this book would benefit much from a regular index. Like movies, some of which are entertaining but you forget as soon as you walk out of the theater, and others make you think about life for some time afterward, books can be fleeting or lasting. Dreaming the End of the World was one of the most satisfying, enlightening, food-for-thought books I've ever read, and it's good for a second -- or third -- reading.
Rating:
Summary: Deep, insightful, fresh, satisfying
Review: Starts by describing the nuclear bombs of WWII, from an experiential viewpoint. There are quotes from physicists I haven't seen elsewhere. They were changed, and they knew the world had changed. After this dramatic introduction, the author describes, with dreams fragments as examples, several stages of apocalypse, tying together the personal-scale experiences and the archetypical end of the world symbolized by the Bomb. This is no trivial book where the author just threw some related ideas together; Michael Ortiz Hill has skillfully related ideas that, to me, seem to be from different worlds. One very minor gripe is the lack of an index, but there is a topical dream image glossary, very fun to browse, and I'm not sure this book would benefit much from a regular index. Like movies, some of which are entertaining but you forget as soon as you walk out of the theater, and others make you think about life for some time afterward, books can be fleeting or lasting. Dreaming the End of the World was one of the most satisfying, enlightening, food-for-thought books I've ever read, and it's good for a second -- or third -- reading.
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