Blogging Toward Infinity: Last Notes from the Ringdom

This is Ken Rings last book and though he claims to spend most of his days whimpering his farewell to writing as his final essays will demonstrate certainly goes out with a bang. As he veers unsteadily toward eighty-seven Ring has lost none of his verve or literary panache. As always his essays sparkle with his usual wit but mainly reflect Rings more serious concern to address some of the topics that have engaged him during this last phase of his life.Still the book begins in a more lighthearted way with his reminiscing about his early life with his absent father (my father once removed he calls him) and about some of the other things that shaped his character such as the greatest movie ever made that few people have heard of. He also devotes several essays to largely unknown facets of Helen Kellers extraordinary career including The Sex Life of a Saint. But most of the rest of the book is devoted to Rings careful study of the lives of animals and considerations of animal welfare and the movement for animal rights. And it concludes fittingly enough with a number of essays that distill what Ring believes are the most important lessons that people should take from his many years of researching near-death experiences -- all of which was foreshadowed by that film he saw as a youth that changed his life and foretold his destiny.