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This book, the sixth in a series, consists largely of selections from Hoge's reading—blog posts, news articles, Wikipedia entries, AI-generated responses to queries—occasionally interspersed with Hoge's own commentary. As such, the book has the air of a Talmudic discourse or a book by a seventeenth-century English antiquary, in which one folklorist shares the findings of a previous folklorist before offering his own gloss.
The experience of reading the book feels at times like browsing the Internet. To his credit, Hoge's curiosity is omnivorous and wide-ranging. For example, he includes the entirety of an essay originally written in National Geographic about the devastating effects on terrestrial life when plate tectonics eventually ceases moving (as some scientists propose that it will). There's also an essay from Psychology Today about the benefits to one's mental health of maintaining a bustling social life as one ages ("Community organizations, religious groups and volunteer work may make all the difference," the essay informs us).
Later in the book, Hoge features a post from author Mike Mason about the nocturnal habits of famed literary insomniacs Lewis Carroll and John Milton. Carroll, we learn, invented a "notation system" known as nyctography for jotting down ideas without having to get out of bed on cold nights. This is followed by a piece on seeking God in the night hours written by Lori Hatcher, who cites several verses from the Psalms about "meditating in the night watches." Reading this, one is reminded of the story in the Talmud about the harp hanging above King David's bed that would wake him at around midnight so that he could pray and study.
Occasionally, Hoge will share his own reflections, offering an interesting contrast to the sharing of facts and oddities. Some of these can be quite poignant. For instance, in an early chapter, he shares how his wife died after a grueling battle with cancer. "During these times," he writes movingly, "I would look at the picture of Christ and imagine throwing my shoe at it or crushing it into pieces on the floor." In the next paragraph, though, he launches into a discussion on the prehistoric supercontinent of Pangaea, a curious choice that raises some intriguing questions. In this context, is Pangaea perhaps a metaphor for the dislocation he feels after his wife's death?
The mosaic-like nature of the work and the sometimes puzzling juxtapositions keep the reader guessing. In that sense, the book is like life itself. Reading the book, one becomes grateful for Hoge's personal contributions to the collection. Many of the essays he shares are delightful (though the AI-generated text is much less so). In an era when millions have lost the desire to read or learn, it's encouraging to encounter someone whose curiosity encompasses both science and the liberal arts, who seems amazed by everything he's read. Given this, the reader will long to hear more from Hoge himself in future volumes—to glimpse his own wisdom, his own struggles, his own doubts, his own perspective on this world that so evidently fascinates him.