I've failed again--I should have updated this thing a few times since the last post, but time constraints wouldn't let it be so. Here's me making it up to you:

I read The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff today, in its entirety. Though it's only about 160 pages long, with much of that space being set aside for illustrations, this says something--because I normally fall asleep after reading 30 or so pages, despite how much I claim to love reading. Anyway, I'll indulge you in the details of the book, which seeks to reconcile A.A. Milne's beloved character with the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Hoff holds up Pooh as the embodiment of Taoism through the virtues of being simple-minded, taking pleasure in small things, being more or less worry-free and so on--in other words, the book (and Taoism in general, I guess) is a philosophy for life that isn't obscure and convoluted to the point of being understood by only a small coterie of scholars and academics. It's also another installment in this series of "self-help/meaning-seeking" books that I've found myself reading lately (and I will discuss this, occasionally, on my other blog).