Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Spring Reading Challenge
The Reading Challenge for Spring ('08!) was to read one of the 100 Most Influential Books of the 20th Century (or one of the runners-up). You can find a list here: http://www.bpl.org/research/AdultBooklists/influential.htm Let us know what you read, what you thought of it, and whether you'd be inclined to read another book from this list in the future. I chose:
**** The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir. Non-fiction.
This is a classic of feminist thought. And rightly so. If nothing else, The Second Sex is extremely thought-provoking. Of course, you have to realize that it was written over 50 years ago, so some things are dated, but it's heartbreaking to see how much hasn't changed in the intervening years.
The most intriguing idea I brought away from the book is how we're conditioned and/or trained to be female. I'm not sure I agree completely, but there are still quite a few ways in which it holds true. For example, we made a conscious effort when Dagny was very small to be gender-neutral, yet she resisted our efforts toward things like balls and trucks and vastly preferred more imaginary play. The same effort worked in reverse on Curran. Were there other influences that were stronger than ours even though they were rarer (neither was in day care until well after these preferences were established)?
I also bristled at the notion that marriage always equals slavery for a woman, though that probably had more validity half a century ago in France, when women didn't have a lot of choices.
Then there was the fact that she believed the male myth that gynecological problems were always psychosomatic, which is really sad for women who read The Second Sex fifty years ago looking for validation and being told they're hypochondriacs.
In fact, I got the distinct impression that De Beauvior herself had a very low opinion of women in general, and like the men she complained about, that she also considered herself apart from them.
One other thing that annoyed me was the existentialist jargon. It felt to me like a logical fallacy--proof by intimidation, perhaps. That by using a lot of jargon and complex arguments, she wasn't actually proving anything, just throwing a lot of words around. Of course, that could have been due to what's apparently a poor translation from French, so maybe that's the fault of the translator rather than the author, but it's still a complaint about the book I read.
However, I think it's an important book to read, and despite my reservations, I still got a lot out of it and I'm glad I read it.
Categories: ReadingChallenge, Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
**** The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir. Non-fiction.
This is a classic of feminist thought. And rightly so. If nothing else, The Second Sex is extremely thought-provoking. Of course, you have to realize that it was written over 50 years ago, so some things are dated, but it's heartbreaking to see how much hasn't changed in the intervening years.
The most intriguing idea I brought away from the book is how we're conditioned and/or trained to be female. I'm not sure I agree completely, but there are still quite a few ways in which it holds true. For example, we made a conscious effort when Dagny was very small to be gender-neutral, yet she resisted our efforts toward things like balls and trucks and vastly preferred more imaginary play. The same effort worked in reverse on Curran. Were there other influences that were stronger than ours even though they were rarer (neither was in day care until well after these preferences were established)?
I also bristled at the notion that marriage always equals slavery for a woman, though that probably had more validity half a century ago in France, when women didn't have a lot of choices.
Then there was the fact that she believed the male myth that gynecological problems were always psychosomatic, which is really sad for women who read The Second Sex fifty years ago looking for validation and being told they're hypochondriacs.
In fact, I got the distinct impression that De Beauvior herself had a very low opinion of women in general, and like the men she complained about, that she also considered herself apart from them.
One other thing that annoyed me was the existentialist jargon. It felt to me like a logical fallacy--proof by intimidation, perhaps. That by using a lot of jargon and complex arguments, she wasn't actually proving anything, just throwing a lot of words around. Of course, that could have been due to what's apparently a poor translation from French, so maybe that's the fault of the translator rather than the author, but it's still a complaint about the book I read.
However, I think it's an important book to read, and despite my reservations, I still got a lot out of it and I'm glad I read it.
Categories: ReadingChallenge, Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction, reading challenge
Monday, September 14, 2009
Witnessed
****½ Witnessed by Budd Hopkins. Nonfiction.
If I have a guilty pleasure in reading, this is it: alien abduction stories. I don't really believe them, but I'd like to. Maybe. Belief doesn't seem to be all that comfortable for the people these things have happened to.
Witnessed is the account of a UFO experience that was witnessed by a large number of people, and not just the stereotypical "hicks in a farmyard." As the subtitle says, it's "the true story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO abductions."
What I liked so much about this book is that it scrupulously doesn't draw conclusions. It tells each person's story, but it very carefully stays away from saying where the "aliens" were from or what they wanted. For me, that makes it a stronger, more believable story.
I also appreciated the way the experience affected everyone involved differently, and how the book showed the human side, not just what happened and how they felt during the experience, but what the aftereffects were and how it changed their lives--usually not for the better.
There were also some compelling arguments, chief among them being that the most credible witnesses did not want to come forward and did not want their names published. They weren't making things up to get attention--on the contrary, they avoided attention.
Actually, I should say that I believe while I'm reading. Afterward, I'm not sure again. Still, I love reading UFO stories, even if I do feel a little silly about it.
Categories: Books, 4.5stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, nonfiction
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Temples, Tombs, & Hieroglyphs
***** Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs by Barbara Mertz. Nonfiction.
I've been a fan of MPM: Barbara Mertz/Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels for a very long time. She was the first author whose books I owned all of... well, all of her fiction, anyway. This is the first of her nonfiction books written as Barbara Mertz that I've read. I really must look for the other: Red Land, Black Land.
First, a caveat: look at the subtitle: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt. In other words, it's not a textbook. And it's not intended for people who already have degrees in Egyptology. So there's no use complaining that X isn't the latest theory, or that she didn't explain Y in enough depth. It's intended for those of us who'd just like to learn a little about ancient Egypt, and it's perfect for those of us who've already been introduced to the subject through the Amelia Peabody series.
What put this book over the top for me was that it was like having a very good teacher--one who's knowledgeable and enthusiastic about her subject, and who's also very good at passing on that knowledge and enthusiasm to students. Not only do we get the facts of which Pharoah did what and where and (maybe) why, but we also get the story behind the facts. When there are items of dispute among the experts, she explains, briefly but clearly, what the dispute is and why. And she explains (again, briefly but clearly) how the experts know the things they do know--why carbon dating isn't like having a date/time stamp on artifacts, for example.
Most times when I'm reading a nonfiction book, I read it in chunks: a chapter or two, then I put it down and read some light fiction before picking it up again. I didn't do that with this one. Not only that, but I couldn't stop talking about it--just ask my family.
In a nice bit of serendipity, there's an Egyptian exhibit going on through August at the Elfenbein Museum (ivory museum) in Michelstadt--near where Carl's mom lives--about Akhenaton and Nefertiti. We'll be visiting it once Dagny arrives in a couple of weeks. I'll have to read everyone the pertinent chapters so we'll all know what we're looking at.
Categories: Books, 5stars, NonFiction
Labels: 5 stars, books, nonfiction
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Summer Reading Challenge
Yes, I know we're halfway through fall already, but I did read this during the summer--I'm just insanely behind on reviews.
The Reading Challenge is a challenge to expand your reading horizons by making you pick something you ordinarily wouldn't read. Which is opposed to the TBR Challenge, which is a challenge to get those overlooked books out of your TBR pile--that is, books you already own but just haven't read yet. Clear as mud?
Without further ado, the TBR Challenge for Summer '08 is to read a book that won, or was nominated for, a Quill Award. It's a fairly short list, as the award was suspended early this year. You can find a list of winners and nominees here.
I chose:
****½ The Assault On Reason by Al Gore. Nonfiction.
I absolutely loved the first half of this book. The second half made me angry and frustrated. Which is not to say I didn't agree with it, but it was very hard to read. Plus, I was looking forward to more of the intellectual exercise from the first half.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The assault on reason that Gore talks about is something I've discussed a lot with friends and family: how sound bites and sensationalism obscure and warp the truth. In fact, it's one of the reasons I'd posited for Gore himself not winning by a wide margin in 2000--his detailed and earnest statistics couldn't compete with the simplicity of "fuzzy numbers".
But he goes further than that, and provides a lot of food for thought. How because of the 24-hour news channels, things are considered "news" that wouldn't have been before, and how our view of what's important and true is skewed because of that. How a celebrity's minor misbehavior is considered more important than a scientific discovery, how a sports team's performance is considered more important that a natural disaster or a war somewhere else in the world. Etc., etc. You can come up with countless examples.
And there's quite a bit on the use of fear--including a psychological analysis of how and why fear-mongering works--that's downright chilling.
In fact, there's an indictment of the television as an information medium in general, because of its one-way communication, and because that communication is limited to those wealthy enough to use it. If you disagree with those TV "news reporters" who give their opinion along with the story (when did they start doing that?? I only noticed it last year when I'd turn the news on while making breakfast for the kids. I was shocked and completely disgusted.), you can't argue your point, and there's a natural tendency to believe you're the only one who thinks differently, since there's no give-and-take.
He does point to the internet as a positive communication tool, and that's something that gives me hope, as well.
Then the book descends into actual examples from current politics, and there it got really painful. Even allowing for partisanship, there's so much that's disturbing and hasn't been publicized or investigated--which makes his point. Because it's not on the news, people disbelieve it, or just don't know about it.
Much as I respect and admire Al Gore, The Assault on Reason did suffer from his trademark over-explaining. He did it in the 2000 presidential race; he did it in An Inconvenient Truth; he does it here. Which is only a complaint about the readability of the book, rather than the subject matter. And it's probably only frustrating to someone who's heard most of the real-world examples already.
Categories: ReadingChallenge, Books, 4.5stars, Nonfiction
The Reading Challenge is a challenge to expand your reading horizons by making you pick something you ordinarily wouldn't read. Which is opposed to the TBR Challenge, which is a challenge to get those overlooked books out of your TBR pile--that is, books you already own but just haven't read yet. Clear as mud?
Without further ado, the TBR Challenge for Summer '08 is to read a book that won, or was nominated for, a Quill Award. It's a fairly short list, as the award was suspended early this year. You can find a list of winners and nominees here.
I chose:
****½ The Assault On Reason by Al Gore. Nonfiction.
I absolutely loved the first half of this book. The second half made me angry and frustrated. Which is not to say I didn't agree with it, but it was very hard to read. Plus, I was looking forward to more of the intellectual exercise from the first half.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The assault on reason that Gore talks about is something I've discussed a lot with friends and family: how sound bites and sensationalism obscure and warp the truth. In fact, it's one of the reasons I'd posited for Gore himself not winning by a wide margin in 2000--his detailed and earnest statistics couldn't compete with the simplicity of "fuzzy numbers".
But he goes further than that, and provides a lot of food for thought. How because of the 24-hour news channels, things are considered "news" that wouldn't have been before, and how our view of what's important and true is skewed because of that. How a celebrity's minor misbehavior is considered more important than a scientific discovery, how a sports team's performance is considered more important that a natural disaster or a war somewhere else in the world. Etc., etc. You can come up with countless examples.
And there's quite a bit on the use of fear--including a psychological analysis of how and why fear-mongering works--that's downright chilling.
In fact, there's an indictment of the television as an information medium in general, because of its one-way communication, and because that communication is limited to those wealthy enough to use it. If you disagree with those TV "news reporters" who give their opinion along with the story (when did they start doing that?? I only noticed it last year when I'd turn the news on while making breakfast for the kids. I was shocked and completely disgusted.), you can't argue your point, and there's a natural tendency to believe you're the only one who thinks differently, since there's no give-and-take.
He does point to the internet as a positive communication tool, and that's something that gives me hope, as well.
Then the book descends into actual examples from current politics, and there it got really painful. Even allowing for partisanship, there's so much that's disturbing and hasn't been publicized or investigated--which makes his point. Because it's not on the news, people disbelieve it, or just don't know about it.
Much as I respect and admire Al Gore, The Assault on Reason did suffer from his trademark over-explaining. He did it in the 2000 presidential race; he did it in An Inconvenient Truth; he does it here. Which is only a complaint about the readability of the book, rather than the subject matter. And it's probably only frustrating to someone who's heard most of the real-world examples already.
Categories: ReadingChallenge, Books, 4.5stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, nonfiction, reading challenge
Monday, October 20, 2008
It's Always Something
***** It's Always Something by Gilda Radner. Autobiography.
I almost never read biographies, and I stay far away from books that I know will make me cry, but when I saw this on Half.com from the seller I was buying other books from (I always look at the sellers' other offerings to take advantage of the reduced shipping costs), I just had to buy it. I've loved Gilda Radner from the beginning of Saturday Night Live. (yes, I'm that old)
The book mostly chronicles her battle with ovarian cancer (a losing one, as it turns out--she finished the book shortly before her death), and her romance with Gene Wilder. It's actually nicely organized, with stories about her childhood, early performing days, SNL, and movies tucked in among a chronological story of the last 5 or 6 years of her life.
I was worried about reading it, and it is painful to read in parts, particularly the hopeful parts, where you know she doesn't make it. But at the same time, it's got her voice through the whole thing, and it's irresistible.
She doesn't sugarcoat or hold back--from her clinginess nearly keeping Gene from marrying her, to the devastation of chemotherapy, to her obsessions with various treatments. But it's not all gloom and doom. She decided to use her comedy to cope, and there are also stories in there about the goofy ways she'd try to entertain the staff and other patients when she was in the hospital, and how she'd go around telling people "I used to be Gilda Radner."
In other words, you see her as a complete person, warts and all.
It made me think, obviously, about how devastating a disease this is, and how heartbreaking to go from a newlywed trying to conceive to cancer patient in the blink of an eye. It also made me think about the indomitability of the human spirit, and reminded me that even when your life is sucking horribly, you can get some comfort when you give it by reaching out to other people.
It wasn't a comfortable book to read, but I'm very glad I read it.
Categories: Books, 5stars, NonFiction
Labels: 5 stars, books, nonfiction
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
With His Pistol in His Hand
**** With His Pistol in His Hand: a Border Ballad and its Hero by Américo Paredes. Nonfiction.
The ballad the book is written about |
I borrowed this book from Dagny, who'd read it for a class. I didn't actually expect to like it, and the reason I borrowed it was Dagny's over-dramatic reading, complete with accent, of certain parts on the phone.
There are two major facets to the book: the story of Gregorio Cortez and the resulting ballad and legend, and the development of a border ballad (corrido).
Both parts were fascinating. Despite having lived in San Antonio for 7 years, I really didn't know much about the history, and With His Pistol in His Hand does a wonderful job of conflating the true story, the legend and the ballad that arose from it, and the historical and cultural environment that are both backdrop and cause of the story.
Briefly, Gregorio Cortez became a fugitive when he killed a sheriff who'd shot his brother. It's a story of prejudice and cultural clashes not unlike those faced by native- or African-Americans.
I feel a wee bit shallow admitting that I appreciated that the injustice wasn't the main focus of the book. It's not ignored, but it's included to illuminate the story, not as an end in itself.
Then there's the development of the legend and the ballad, which is culturally significant--that is, the culture affected how and in what directions they developed. It's also the sort of thing I very much enjoy: watching how something evolves over time. How and why the ballad changed over the years and between singers was fascinating to me, as was (surprisingly) the explanation of the minutiae of border ballads--from the meter to the specific choice of individual words.
I blame Dr. Paredes's writing for that last, since I had no previous interest in the structure of ballads, nor do I speak Spanish. Despite that, he made me want to learn more. I intend to look up more of his books.
Categories: Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Five Seasons of Angel
**** Five Seasons of Angel, ed. by Glenn Yeffeth. Nonfiction essays.
This anthology is from the same publisher, the same editor, and many of the same authors as Seven Seasons of Buffy, and is the same sort of book: essays by various authors on either the series as a whole or some aspect of the series.
And just like in the previous book, there were good and bad essays; ones I agreed with and ones I didn't; and ones that made me see a favorite series in a new light: which is for me the best thing about it.
- "Angelus Populi" by Don DeBrandt is about... duh... Angelus, and equates him to a high school bully. Interesting concept, but I was a little bored by the author's personal high school reminiscences.
- "That Angel Doesn't Live Here Anymore" by Laura Resnick describes the differences between the Angel of Buffy and the Angel of Angel. I found some of it over-explained, but that's likely me--I always err on the side of brevity and assuming that some details are just understood.
- "Angel by the Numbers" by Dan Kerns is a cute, clever essay with a lot of fun behind-the-scenes tidbits by someone who worked on the set.
- "Welcome to Wolfram & Hart: The Semi-Complete Guide to Evil" by Roxanne Longstreet Conrad is a bit of a departure, in that it's a fictional file belonging to a hypothetical employee of Wolfram & Hart. It's clever and amusing, and believable.
- "Jasmine: Scariest Villain Ever" by Steven Harper explains why Jasmine is the scariest villain ever, and I have to agree.
- "A World Without Love: The Failure of Family in Angel" by Jean Lorrah is about something fans have realized about Joss Whedon's shows for a while: nobody has a nice happy family. The detailed references do get a bit in the way of the point.
- "It's Not Easy Being Green and Nonjudgmental" by Abbie Bernstein is about Lorne--and not just about his character, but about the character's purpose on the show. He was one of my favorite characters, and this is one of the essays that made me think.
- "Angel: An Identity Crisis" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is one of the essays I disagreed with. The premise seems to be that Angel isn't a "real" vampire, to which I shrug and say "who the heck cares?" There are a couple of points about inconsistencies in the worldbuilding, but they got overshadowed by the insistence that the only valid vampires are ones that have already been written about.
- "Parting Gifts" by Sherrilyn Kenyonis about Doyle. Since I didn't start watching Angel until season 2, when Doyle was long gone, and only saw him in reruns and on the DVDs, I never became as attached to Doyle as fans who'd watched from the beginning, and so I appreciated this essay because it filled that lack.
- "Why We Love Lindsey" by Michelle Sagara West explains why we love Lindsey. This was another thought-provoking essay, because while I really loved Lindsey, my reasons seemed to be a bit different, so it gave me a somewhat different perspective on a favorite character.
- "It's a Stupid Curse" by Marguerite Krause explains why the very premise of Angel is flawed. It's one of those essays that could just as well have been written in a sentence or two, but it does make a very good point.
- "The Good Vampire: Angel and Spike" by Peter S. Beagle compares the two vampires with souls. The essay loses track of itself in chronicling the characters' histories in the middle, but does have some interesting insights about both characters.
- "To All the Girls He Loved, Maimed and Banged Before" by Candace Havens is a report to Angel from a fictional love goddess consultant about the possibility of his finding true love. I didn't agree with a lot of the conclusions--several of which were just too facile. It was a cute concept, though.
- "Victim Triumphant" by Jacqueline Lichtenberg boils down the difference between Buffy and Angel to hero (Buffy) and victim (Angel). It's an interesting perspective, and possibly partially explains why I have a slight preference for Angel over Buffy.
- "Where Have All the Good Guys Gone?" by K. Stoddard Hayes is about the moral ambiguity in Angel. Another thought-provoking essay.
- "The Path of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce" by Amy Berner does a lot of describing (with episode citations) of Wesley, but doesn't draw any conclusions or offer explanations. And she really doesn't seem to get the appeal of Scruffy Wesley, which is just sad.
- "Death Becomes Him: Blondie Bear 5.0" by Nancy Holder is not unlike "The Path of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce" in that it's heavy on the description and references, but light on the conclusions and explanations. She does like Spike, though.
- "Angel or Devil" by Josepha Sherman describes, in fairly excruciating detail, some of the mythological underpinnings of the series. At least, unlike "Angel: An Identity Crisis", it allows that there can be variations in those myths.
- "True Shanshu" by Laura Anne Gilman posits that in a show about redemption, Cordelia Chase is one of the largest examples.
- "The Assassination of Cordelia Chase" by Jennifer Crusie takes the discussion of Cordy further by explaining how the later seasons of Angel violated the character as developed through Buffy and the first season of Angel. It goes a long way toward explaining why the character bothered me so much in the later seasons.
- "There's My Boy..." by Joy Davidson psychoanalyzes Angel. There's a lot of description, but there are also explanations and conclusions drawn--not only saying what Angel has done or felt, but why, and what effect this has on him later.
Something else that struck me with this anthology in particular is that a few of the authors didn't seem aware that the 5th season was the last, and that a few others didn't seem to like the series at all, and that seemed odd for this sort of anthology.
Categories: Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction
Friday, October 19, 2007
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
****½ Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. Nonfiction.
This collection of essays was recommended a long time ago by a former member of one of my email lists. It had been on my TBR pile for a very long time. *sniff* I miss you, Kim.
What this is is a collection of essays about books: reading them, shelving them, collecting them, etc. etc. It's a chronicle of a love affair with books.
Almost every essay struck a chord with me: reading a car manual because there was nothing else to read (done that), playing word games as a child (yes), compulsive proof-reading of menus and signs (definitely), etc.
I laughed aloud at the essay on plagiarism (no, not a funny topic, normally) with its overabundance of footnotes. And a light bulb went on when I read the essay on the difference between courtly and carnal love of books: I've always felt vaguely guilty for not keeping my books in pristine condition--I eat while reading, read in the bath, leave them lying around, and my best-loved books are all mostly falling apart from being read and re-read. Turns out I'm in good company.
The only thing I had to overlook was what felt like a prejudice toward reading only classic literature. But honestly, I'd expected that. A book of essays about books is not likely to be written (or perhaps it's just not likely to be published) by an avid reader of contemporary genre fiction.
In a lot of respects, it's quite similar to Eats, Shoots and Leaves. They're both written solely for people who share the author's point of view, and quite probably feel pretentious and elitist to anyone who doesn't.
...more
Categories: Books, 4.5stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, nonfiction
Friday, October 12, 2007
Conspiracy of Fools
**** Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald. Nonfiction.
I got this from Zooba, which I use primarily for nonfiction and cookbooks, two kinds of books that I like, but would never buy if I had to pay regular hardcover prices for.
Conspiracy of Fools is the story of Enron, from beginning to collapse, researched and presented in excruciating detail. It's a horror story of greed, incompetence, arrogance, and willful ignorance. And it's a cautionary tale depicting the importance of accounting. (dusting off my accounting degree here) It's also thought-provoking, particularly with regard to the contradictory nature of American business--what's good for the actual business isn't necessarily what's good for the stockholders, and vice versa.
The first quarter or so of the book, I spent a lot of time flipping back to the the cast of characters in the front of the book, and being frustrated by the way it jumped between characters and POVs. After I became familiar with the major players, it read much more smoothly.
The other thing that drove me nuts for quite a while was that so many scenes were described with precise dates, sometimes even down to the minute. I kept expecting those times to be significant in some way, but they never were. I eventually realized that it was supposed to be proof of how accurate the research was, but I just found it distracting.
There's more detail than I expected, but in this kind of book, I appreciated that--it felt like I got a clearer picture of not only what happened, but why, and how it was allowed to happen.
Other than that, it was fascinating, and horrifying. Reading it was like watching a series of train wrecks, or a horror movie where you're screaming at the bimbo not to go up the stairs, but she does anyway. I'm glad I read it.
...more
Categories: Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction
Monday, October 08, 2007
The Sea Hunters II
**** The Sea Hunters II by Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo. Nonfiction.
Or if you want to get picky, it's a mix of historical fiction and nonfiction.
Like the first Sea Hunters (#13), it's the story of several shipwrecks. In each chapter, there's first a fictionalized historical account of the ship (or boat or plane or cannon) that demonstrates why it's important and describes how it was lost. Then there's the story of NUMA's search for the wreck. Some of the wrecks are famous: the Mary Celeste, JFK's PT109, and some I'd never heard of before.
The historical sections were just detailed enough to give a layperson (me, in other words) a good background in the wreck's history and significance, and because they were fictional accounts, with the emotional content necessarily absent from straight historical records, it gave me a reason to care about the wreck and about whether they would find it.
Because there are 14 sections, it should be obvious at a glance that there's not going to be enough detail on any one of the wrecks to satisfy a historian or salvage expert, or a serious student of either. Instead, it's meant for people like me, who find the whole thing absolutely fascinating, but who haven't read that extensively or actually done any searching for shipwrecks.
One thing I appreciated about the present-day sections is the lack of pretense. Cussler & co. can apparently be rude or juvenile, and there's no sugar-coating (or maybe there is, and they're actually worse than they sound), no attempt to make them appear all-wise, patient, kind, and infallible. Their failures are included, as is the frustration and discomfort of the time-consuming, often boring searches.
...more
Categories: Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Summer Reading Challenge
The Reading Challenge for summer is to read a book that won a Pulitzer Prize. I chose:
****½ Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Non-fiction.
It took me quite a while to settle on a book for this challenge--there's obviously a huge variety. But I don't read a lot of nonfiction, and lately I've been very interested in sociology, social history, that sort of thing, so this one was right up my alley.
Pulling together research from a wide variety of fields, Diamond sets out to answer the question of why civilization as we know it developed and flourished in some parts of the world, while other areas were left behind.
The gist: it's all about the geography. In order for civilization to develop, people have to be living in large groups, with food plentiful enough so that some people can be spared from the business of survival to specialize in organization and crafts. In order for that to happen, they must have agriculture and livestock. In order to have agriculture and livestock, they must have either native animals that are domesticable or trading opportunities to obtain them. In other words, it all comes down to where they started from.
I admit to a little hesitation before I chose this book. I read through several reviews, and quite a few reviewers claimed it promoted the concept of racial superiority, and I really didn't want to end up reading several hundred pages of racist propaganda. Still, the majority of the reviews were positive, and there were also quite a few negative reviews complaining that it overlooked the racial factors, so I was intrigued enough by the question to give it a try.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is decidedly not racist propaganda. Diamond bends over backward to ensure that it's not, and even raises the very intriguing question of who's actually smarter--the westerner with the comfortable lifestyle or the jungle native who has to depend on his own knowledge and judgment for survival.
What I enjoyed most about the book was how thorough it was, putting together... well, I was going to say all the pieces of the puzzle, but when it comes to human history, that's just not possible--but enough of the puzzle to see the big picture, rather than just the small segments you get by focusing on a single discipline. It's not enough to describe, for example, how the development of language affected civilization--it's put into perspective along with all the other developments happening at the same time.
...more
Categories: ReadingChallenge, Books, 4.5stars, Nonfiction
****½ Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Non-fiction.
It took me quite a while to settle on a book for this challenge--there's obviously a huge variety. But I don't read a lot of nonfiction, and lately I've been very interested in sociology, social history, that sort of thing, so this one was right up my alley.
Pulling together research from a wide variety of fields, Diamond sets out to answer the question of why civilization as we know it developed and flourished in some parts of the world, while other areas were left behind.
The gist: it's all about the geography. In order for civilization to develop, people have to be living in large groups, with food plentiful enough so that some people can be spared from the business of survival to specialize in organization and crafts. In order for that to happen, they must have agriculture and livestock. In order to have agriculture and livestock, they must have either native animals that are domesticable or trading opportunities to obtain them. In other words, it all comes down to where they started from.
I admit to a little hesitation before I chose this book. I read through several reviews, and quite a few reviewers claimed it promoted the concept of racial superiority, and I really didn't want to end up reading several hundred pages of racist propaganda. Still, the majority of the reviews were positive, and there were also quite a few negative reviews complaining that it overlooked the racial factors, so I was intrigued enough by the question to give it a try.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is decidedly not racist propaganda. Diamond bends over backward to ensure that it's not, and even raises the very intriguing question of who's actually smarter--the westerner with the comfortable lifestyle or the jungle native who has to depend on his own knowledge and judgment for survival.
What I enjoyed most about the book was how thorough it was, putting together... well, I was going to say all the pieces of the puzzle, but when it comes to human history, that's just not possible--but enough of the puzzle to see the big picture, rather than just the small segments you get by focusing on a single discipline. It's not enough to describe, for example, how the development of language affected civilization--it's put into perspective along with all the other developments happening at the same time.
...more
Categories: ReadingChallenge, Books, 4.5stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, nonfiction, reading challenge
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
***** Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. Nonfiction.
This had been in my TBR pile for quite a while. I was pretty sure I'd like it, but wasn't in a huge hurry to read it.
If you've been living in a cave, the subtitle explains what Eats, Shoots and Leaves is about: "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation." Since I'm a bit of a grammar geek (albeit an imperfect and occasionally lazy one), I absolutely loved it.
There wasn't much that was news to me. Ones vs. one's was helpful, though I understand that's controversial. I spent far too much time one day googling to chase down which was correct. For the most part, I vastly prefer the practicality of the British usage of such things as putting punctuation inside or outside quotation marks depending on where it makes sense and whether to add an extra S when forming the possessive of words ending in S:
| British | U.S. |
|---|---|
| When did John say "stop"? | When did John say "stop?" |
| Thomas's | Thomas' |
I do, however, much prefer the logic of the terminal comma in a list, since it makes it clear whether or not the last two items are separate or a pair.
More entertaining than the facts, however, was the humor. I laughed every couple of pages, and read so many excerpts aloud that my 12-year-old picked it up to read as soon as I'd finished it.
The bottom line here, though, is that this is a very subjective book. If you're the kind of person who knows the difference between there, they're, and their, cringes at new car's and truck's, and daydreams about taking a Sharpie to the 10 items or less sign, you'll probably love this. If that sounds obsessive to you, and like I should get a life, you'll probably hate it.
...more
Categories: Books, 5stars, NonFiction
Labels: 5 stars, books, nonfiction
Saturday, May 26, 2007
TBR Challenge for May
The challenge for May is to read a book with a name in its title.
To participate, leave a comment here or on your blog.
I chose:
**** George Washington's War by Robert Leckie. Non-fiction.
I've had this for a very long time, but never read it. Several years ago, I bought a random handful of history books, because it's a subject I don't know much about, but I'd started to become curious. Oddly, though, instead of putting them in my TBR pile, I put them in the bookcase with all the reference books, and there they sat. So about a year ago, I started putting unread nonfiction in the TBR pile. This was the first book in the pile with a name in the title.
This is the second book I've read this month that took over a week to read. May's total is going to be shockingly low.
Despite the length of time it took me to read, I thoroughly enjoyed this history of the American Revolution. I'm not sure how it would stand up for someone with a strong background in American history, but for me, the blend of a fresh look at things I already knew and a lot of things I didn't know at all was the Baby Bear's porridge of history books.
Interestingly, one thing that irritated me so much about my last long read worked very well in a nonfiction setting: every major character that's introduced gets his life story told. The narrative is interrupted for a brief but fairly thorough biography, then resumes. If it were fiction, or if I'd been reading for the story, it would have driven me up a wall. But when it comes to understanding history, and why things happened the way they did, it helped immensely to have a portrait of the major actors.
Where the book really shines, I think (again, coming from a terribly limited background in history), is in showing the motivations and backgrounds for both sides. For example, in high school American History, I'd learned that the Americans won because the British were too short-sighted (stupid was implied, but not said) to learn to fight guerilla-style. In a nutshell, this isn't idealized as my education had been. (Unsurprisingly--my American history teacher was really the high school football coach, who was the history teacher because in my small school, coaches all had to be teachers as well. Guess which was his priority?)
Even to my untutored eye, some of the book, particularly toward the end, gets a bit opinionated, but I'm cynical anyway, so I read it as fact colored by opinion, which is more interesting than dry facts, anyway.
...more
Categories: TBRChallenge, Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
To participate, leave a comment here or on your blog.
I chose:
**** George Washington's War by Robert Leckie. Non-fiction.
I've had this for a very long time, but never read it. Several years ago, I bought a random handful of history books, because it's a subject I don't know much about, but I'd started to become curious. Oddly, though, instead of putting them in my TBR pile, I put them in the bookcase with all the reference books, and there they sat. So about a year ago, I started putting unread nonfiction in the TBR pile. This was the first book in the pile with a name in the title.
This is the second book I've read this month that took over a week to read. May's total is going to be shockingly low.
Despite the length of time it took me to read, I thoroughly enjoyed this history of the American Revolution. I'm not sure how it would stand up for someone with a strong background in American history, but for me, the blend of a fresh look at things I already knew and a lot of things I didn't know at all was the Baby Bear's porridge of history books.
Interestingly, one thing that irritated me so much about my last long read worked very well in a nonfiction setting: every major character that's introduced gets his life story told. The narrative is interrupted for a brief but fairly thorough biography, then resumes. If it were fiction, or if I'd been reading for the story, it would have driven me up a wall. But when it comes to understanding history, and why things happened the way they did, it helped immensely to have a portrait of the major actors.
Where the book really shines, I think (again, coming from a terribly limited background in history), is in showing the motivations and backgrounds for both sides. For example, in high school American History, I'd learned that the Americans won because the British were too short-sighted (stupid was implied, but not said) to learn to fight guerilla-style. In a nutshell, this isn't idealized as my education had been. (Unsurprisingly--my American history teacher was really the high school football coach, who was the history teacher because in my small school, coaches all had to be teachers as well. Guess which was his priority?)
Even to my untutored eye, some of the book, particularly toward the end, gets a bit opinionated, but I'm cynical anyway, so I read it as fact colored by opinion, which is more interesting than dry facts, anyway.
...more
Categories: TBRChallenge, Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction, tbr challenge
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Disease and History
*** Disease and History by Frederick F. Cartwright & Michael D. Biddiss. Non-fiction.
Ah, the power of PM. Somewhere in this book, and I wish I'd put a sticky note in so I could post the exact quote, it states that in wartime, disease is more deadly to soldiers than battle. Which was the entire reason for my specialty when I was in the army (preventive medicine specialist), and for Carl's job now. Which, in turn, is why I bought this book years and years ago. I'd just never actually sat down and read the whole thing until now.
Disease and History is a little more wide-ranging than just the history of disease in a military setting--it shows how disease has changed the course of history, from epidemics that killed thousands to how disease affecting an individual ruler or ruling family caused changes in how, or sometimes whether, they ruled.
However, it's a real chore to slog through reading.
The first couple of chapters are the most interesting, the ones about the Black Death and other epidemics, and I found the chapter on Napoleon just fascinating.
But the writing itself is painful to read--it's written like a freshman research paper. Lots of telling the reader what you're going to tell them. Then there are the tangents. A section will be about a particular disease, but it'll meander off into a long-winded discussion of something else and never end up tying the two together, or making a conclusion about it.
That's particularly evident in the later chapters--a discussion of hemophilia and the fall of the Russian monarchy gets completely derailed, and the chapter on mass suggestion is just a mess of unrelated stuff that if I were cynical, I'd suspect was added to cash in on the Princess Di fever.
The final chapter, about modern life, is a bit dated--understandably so, since the book was first written in 1972, so it's a historical look at the subject in itself. It's a combination of interesting facts and the author's political and generational biases.
Even though Disease and History has a lot of flaws, I very much enjoyed parts of it, and found the subject matter intriguing enough to plan on seeking out other books on the subject. I think I've mentioned here before that my history education was pathetic. All about which wars happened when, with a great deal of emphasis on the memorization of names and dates. It's been a great revelation to me as an adult that it's possible to study history as something other than a fill-in-the-blanks spreadsheet.
Heh. And now I've gone off on a tangent of my own.
...more
Categories: Books, 3stars, NonFiction
Labels: 3 stars, books, nonfiction
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Against All Enemies
**** Against All Enemies by Richard A. Clarke. Non-fiction.
I can't give this book 5 stars--horror really isn't my genre, and I'm not a fan of depressing endings.
Richard A. Clarke was a counterterrorism expert who served under 4 administrations--from Reagan through G. W. Bush. Against All Enemies tells about the war on terror, focusing primarily on what led up to 9/11 and the response to it.
Otto von Bismarck said "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." (or something like that--I've seen it quoted several ways) and that's certainly true in this case. An even better quote might be the daffynition of Politics, n: Poly "many" + tics "blood-sucking parasites".
It's ugly. Very ugly. Politicians pursuing their own agendas, refusing to listen to advice that doesn't fit, being distracted from or prevented from taking action because of politics, etc., etc.
One last quote:
"It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen." ~George E. MacDonald.True, but does it have to be so far in the other direction?
If I had it to do over again, I'd read this in small doses instead of straight through. It was way too infuriating and depressing to read all at once.
...more
Categories: Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction
Sunday, December 24, 2006
**** Seven Seasons of Buffy, ed. by Glenn Yeffeth. Non-fiction/essays
Seven Seasons of Buffy is an anthology of essays about... duh... Buffy the Vampire Slayer, written by, it says, "science fiction and fantasy writers." Except that the reason I even knew about this book is that one contributor is Jennifer Crusie, and she's not by any stretch of the imagination a science fiction or fantasy writer. Unless you're one of those terminal cynics who classifies romance as fantasy.
I started reading this back in November, one essay at a time between other books, and I'd initially intended to write something about each of the essays, but there are 22 of them, so it didn't take me long to change my mind about that.
Like any anthology, there are good essays and bad ones. The good ones took some aspect of the show and drew conclusions, and made me think, whether I agreed with them or not. The bad ones rambled on, more or less summarizing the series without actually making a point. Fortunately, there were more good ones than bad.
Of course, the essays that left the biggest impression were the ones that were well-written, but that I disagreed with. Like the one praising Tara. In principle, I agreed, but in the show, she got on my last nerve--I really dislike sad-sack, pitiful, depressed, martyr characters. Worse was the one praising Riley. I could follow the author's reasoning, but she lost me when she claimed that anyone who didn't agree with her was stuck in high school, and that real, adult, mature love was by definition, dull.
The best thing about this anthology is that it provides a lot of food for thought, and springboards for conversation with other Buffy fan(atic)s.
...more
Categories: Books, 4stars, nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction
