Serendipitous Reader

March by Geraldine Brooks

2009-10-10T12:42:00.033-05:00

I really enjoyed another of Geraldine Brooks' books (People of the Book), and I liked the premise of March, so I had high expectations for this book and wasn't disappointed. This book is about Mr. March, the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, who enlisted in the Union army, where his idealism runs into the reality of war. The book was engaging and well-written.

The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll

2009-06-10T21:55:00.000-05:00

This book was originally written in 1989, and since it’s about hackers and networks (pre-internet, as we know it today), it’s definitely dated – but a fun read. Stoll is an astrophysicist working as a system manager, and notices a 75c accounting discrepancy. He spends 2 years obsessively tracking what turns out to be a German hacker involved in industrial espionage.

Born on a Blue Day - By Daniel Tammett

2009-06-10T21:53:00.002-05:00

Tammett is a 27-year-old autistic savant with Ausperger’s syndrome (Think “Rain Man” - but he functions better in every-day life.) He can do amazing mathematical calculations in seconds, has an unbelievable memory (pi to the 22,514th digit), and can learn languages (like Icelandic) in a week. He also has synesthesia, which means he experiences numbers as shapes, colors, textures and motions. This is a very engaging book about a remarkable young guy.

The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham

2009-06-10T21:48:00.001-05:00

About a young American WWI veteran, who leaves his fiance and a comfortable life / opportunities, etc. and goes to Europe in search of meaning / personal fulfillment. Over the years, he comes in and out of contact with the other characters, whose conventional lives look caricatured. I’ve heard people rave about this book – but I just thought it was ok.

Emma by Jane Austin

2009-06-10T21:41:00.001-05:00

I love Pride and Prejudice, but was disappointed by Emma.... so much so that I didn’t even finish it. This book lacks the wit of Pride & Prejudice and I just got tired of reading about the manipulative, self-absorbed, flighty heroine.

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

2009-04-25T13:56:00.000-05:00

Combining neuroscience and entertaining writing, Lehrer describes how the best decisions are a combination of rational and emotional decision-making processes. Fascinating and very easy to read.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

2009-04-25T13:41:00.003-05:00

An entertaining, very well-written fictionalized history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a 14th century illuminated manuscript, which is on permanent display at the National Museum in Sarajevo. A rare manuscript, interesting characters, mystery, intrigue, history, romance, multiple time lines… what’s not to like? (See also New Yorker article about Dervis Korkut, the museum’s chief librarian, who saved the book from the Nazis.)

Another Day in the Frontal Lobe by Katrina Firlik

2009-04-25T12:57:00.000-05:00

I was curious about an “inside look” at being a neurosurgeon, so I opened it and read the first paragraph:

The brain is soft. Some of my colleagues compare it to toothpaste, but that’s not quite right. It doesn’t spread like toothpaste. It doesn’t adhere to your fingers the way toothpaste does. Tofu - the soft variety, if you know tofu - may be a more accurate comparison.

This is an engaging and entertaining perspective from one of only ~200 female neurosurgeons (out of a total of ~4,500) in the US.

Work Hard Be Nice by Jay Matthews

2009-04-25T12:43:00.003-05:00

The KIPP charter schools around the country are doing an outstanding job of engaging and educating low-income kids with phenomenal results. This book is about the founders of KIPP and the creation of the program. This is what education should be. No doubt these schools are changing kids' lives. An easy, inspiring read that provides a glimmer of hope for the US public education system.

The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner

2009-04-18T10:40:00.002-05:00

This is the only novel by Stegner that I’d never read. It’s a somewhat autobiographical account of his brutal childhood. His abusive, itinerant father is constantly chasing his latest get-rich-quick scheme, dragging his family behind him and getting more bitter at each failure. His ever-loyal mother always has an excuse for his father’s behavior. And the two sons who hate their father, love their mother, and are just trying to get through their childhood. The writing is very good (though not Stegner’s best), and it’s a book worth reading – but it’s not one of my favorites of Stegner’s.

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy

2009-04-18T09:51:00.005-05:00

I don’t read many sports books, but this one was written by Pat Conroy, so I couldn’t resist. And I wasn’t disappointed. The book starts:

I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one. There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man I was well built and agile and ready for the rough-and-tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public. Games allowed me to introduce myself to people who had never heard me speak out loud, to earn their praise without uttering a single word. I lost myself in the beauty of sport and made my family proud while passing through the silent eye of the storm that was my childhood.

This book is primarily about Conroy’s senior year playing basketball at The Citadel military school, but also includes flashbacks to earlier in his childhood. He writes about how he felt and what he learned from that season, about the spirit with which he and his teammates played and bonded, and handled their often abusive coach, and about the joy they felt at playing the game. Another great book from Conroy.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

2009-04-18T09:42:00.001-05:00

After a failed attempt at K2 in 1993, Greg Mortenson got sick and lost coming down the mountain and was nursed back to health in the town of Korphe, Pakistan. In return, he promised to build them a school – which he did - and has subsequently built over 50 schools for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Fascinating book about a guy who’s making a real difference.

Good puns

2008-12-28T14:30:00.003-06:00

Some very clever puns:

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The flight attendant looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, 'Dam!'

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it, too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says, 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. But why they asked, as they moved off. 'Because,' he said, 'I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.'

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, 'They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal.'

8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to 'persuade' them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

10. And, finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Action Inquiry by Bill Torbert

2007-10-28T17:13:00.000-05:00

I haven't read much in the last several months, and I struggled through this book; the writing is dry but the content is good - and I'll re-read it when I get a chance. It's about creating an environment in which people and organizations learn and develop.

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

2007-10-28T16:54:00.000-05:00

Our imaginations are what distinguish people from other animals and enable us to create visions/predictions for our futures, and what we think would make us happy. Gilbert describes how our minds work - and how incredibly bad our accuracy is in these predictions. This is a fascinating, very easy read.

The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley

2007-05-29T00:20:00.001-05:00

I picked up this book because I liked the title, and decided to buy it as soon as I saw the intro was written by W.H. Auden. Excellent decision… I was blown away by this book. Eiseley is a naturalist, anthropologist, scientist, environmentalist, historian, poet (and more), and his writing is fantastic! This is a collection of his favorite essays (and a few poems). He describes the natural world with wonder, beauty and spirituality. I read this book slowly, savoring every sentence.

Beyond the Deep by Bill Stone & Barbara am Ende

2007-05-28T21:24:00.000-05:00

This book is about a 1994 expedition to explore the Sistema Huautla, a cave system in Mexico, which – at ~35 miles long and almost 5,000 ft. deep - is the deepest cave in the Americas, and the 5th deepest in the world (as of 2002, when the book was published.) Think of mountaineering expeditions – but underground. There were 44 people on this expedition, who carried massive amounts of equipment into the caves, while doing some pretty hairy rappelling in and around waterfalls. They also spent significant amounts of time route-finding through flooded tunnels using a technology Stone had invented to allow them to recycle their own breath (rather than hauling huge numbers of scuba tanks with them.) The one “camp” sounded like it was hammocks hanging off bolts in the cave walls above an underground river. (Not a good place to be in a flash flood!). Stone and Ende lived underground for 44 days during this expedition. This is not something that’s on my list to do - but the book was interesting and engaging.

The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer

2007-05-28T20:14:00.000-05:00

One of the better airplane books I’ve read in a while. A young aide is injured during an assassination attempt on the President, and a close friend of the President’s is killed. Eight years later, the aide sees the supposedly dead friend of the President – and then (of course), he has to figure out what’s going on. It’s engaging and entertaining.

Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers

2007-04-21T20:43:00.000-05:00

After living in Holland for several years, publishing 4 books, and breaking up with his long-time girlfriend, Powers (the character) returns to the US to be a visiting writer at the midwestern college he’d attended. He gets involved in a project that culminates in an advanced Turing Test. Working with a cognitive neurologist who’s developing a computer neural network, Powers trains this system (named Helen) on the Great Books curriculum that he’d had to study as a grad student. This primary story line is classic Powers – it’s engaging and thought-provoking and very smart.

He simultaneously tells the story of his relationship with the girlfriend he left in Holland, and about a grad student he has a bizarre crush on. These parts of the book were less engaging - though I enjoyed the autobiographical aspects about the writing of his previous books.

As usual, Powers' writing is great. A few of my favorite lines/paragraphs:

What was I supposed to do for the rest of my life? The rest of the afternoon alone seemed unfillable. I went shopping. As always, retail left me with an ice-cream headache. (p32)

Though Taylor, I discovered how a book both mirrored and elicited the mind’s unreal ability to turn inward upon itself. (p141)

It occurred to me: awareness no more permitted its own description than life allowed you a seat at your own funeral. Awareness trapped itself inside itself. The function of consciousness must be in part to dummy up and shape a coherence from all competing, conflicting subsystems that processed experience. By nature, it lied. Any rendition we might make of consciousness would arise from it, and was thus about as reliable as the accused serving as sole witness for the prosecution. (p 218)

I picked up an old microscope at a flea market in Verona…. I showed him where to put his eye. I watched him, thinking, this is how we attach to existence. We look through awareness’s tube and see the swarm at the end of the scope, taking what we come upon there for the full field of sight itself. (p226)

Amazing statistics on reading

2007-04-21T19:24:00.000-05:00

Here are some amazing statistics:

* 58% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
* 42% of college graduates never read another book after college.
* 80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
* 70% of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
* 57% of new books are not read to completion.
* Most readers don't get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
* A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
* A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.
* A New York Times bestseller sells 250,000 copies.
* On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.
* Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.

Source: Parapublishing.com

The Hanged Man's Song by John Sandford

2007-04-15T22:38:00.001-05:00

I’ve read and enjoyed most of Sandford’s ‘Prey” series, so I bought this to read on the beach in Mexico. This is one of his series with a main character named Kidd, who’s a programmer/hacker. Kidd finds a friend brutally murdered, and his laptop (containing a lot of potentially harmful information about a lot of people) is missing, so (of course) Kidd and his wise-cracking hacker friends have to go after the murderer, find the laptop and revenge their friend’s murder. It contains some fun MacGuyver-like creativity related to hacking and breaking and entering. Overall, it’s entertaining and light… Just right for the beach.

Earth Viewed From Books

2007-03-27T22:15:00.000-05:00

This is way cool! A developer at Google has created a map of the Earth viewed from books, which shows how often a location is mentioned in the books in Google Book Search.

We've all seen views of the Earth from space, where the numerous pinpoints of light on the ground combine to yield a speckled map of the world. I wanted to show the Earth viewed from books, where individual mentions of locations in books combine to yield another interpretation of the globe. The intensity of each pixel is proportional to the number of times the location at a given set of coordinates is mentioned across all of the books in Google Books Search.

How cool is that?!

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov

2007-03-13T22:03:00.000-05:00

This book starts: “Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.” The story includes some twists; the characters are great; the writing is very good – though not the amazing writing of later works. You know exactly where the story’s going, but it’s a great read to get there.

Prior Bad Acts by Tami Hoag

2007-03-13T20:45:00.000-05:00

After giving up on PG Wodehouse (see reject pile for that story), I was looking for some “good” trash to read, and this paperback was right at the door when I walked into Barnes & Noble. It’s a decent airplane book – gory murder, liberal judge who’s in danger, wise-cracking cops, and even the (completely expected) twist toward the end. It’s a quick, entertaining and completely undemanding read.

The Inimitable Jeeves by PG Wodehouse

2007-03-12T21:19:00.001-05:00

Ok, I gave up. I rarely quit before finishing a book – but I was ranting to a friend about how bad this one is and he accurately pointed out the opportunity cost to finishing crappy books. How many pages can you read about clueless, rich Englishmen and a somewhat-less-clueless but equally irritating butler? Apparently, my limit was about 150 pages – about 140 pages too many. No more PG Wodehouse for me.

In Over Our Heads by Robert Kegan

2007-03-09T19:35:00.000-06:00

A fascinating view on developmental psychology. Kegan describes the evolution of mental models/capacities of children, adolescents, and adults, and the dynamic relationship between capacities and cultural demands. The writing is pretty esoteric and academic at times. In the preface, he describes telling his father when his first book was translated into German and Korean. His father responded, “Great! Now when will it be translated into English?” Yeah, there’s still some of that going on, but in general, he used good examples to illustrate his points and the model he describes is definitely thought-provoking. I’ve already gone back and re-read several sections of this book – some parts more than once - and I suspect it’s a book I’ll be returning to for a while.

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

2007-03-08T20:33:00.000-06:00

Since he’s by far the current front-runner for my vote in next year’s election, I decided to read Obama’s first book – written long before he was running for President. The book is more personal than I expected. As expected, though, it’s very well-written, thoughtful and insightful – and in the “discovering yourself” category, Obama definitely had a lot more complexity to deal with than most people, and wrote about it in a compelling way. But the last quarter of the book - about his pre-law school trip to Kenya - really dragged. Earlier in the book, the detail he included was interesting and provided texture to his insights; in the last section, it was just too much detail and was…. well, boring. Overall, though, I enjoyed it. And his other book is already on the pile of books next to my bed.

Tech Support for Books

2007-02-15T22:09:00.000-06:00

Pretty funny.

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The Power of TED* by David Emerald

2007-02-11T20:01:00.000-06:00

(*The Empowerment Dynamic) This one almost landed in the reject pile, but – although there were several things I didn’t like about this book – I did like the simple concept. The book provides alternatives to the The Karpman Drama Triangle roles of Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer - negative roles driven by fear. The alternatives offered are Creator, Challenger and Coach - positive roles driven by passion in pursuit of a vision/goal, which create a different approach and energy. The concept is very simple and could’ve been presented in an article. It definitely doesn’t need a whole book. And I don’t like fable-style books, so I didn’t like the way it was written. The concept, though, has broad applicability in our culture where a ridiculous number of people/groups seek out and claim victimhood.

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

2007-01-29T21:56:00.000-06:00

After about two weeks of gray, dreary weather, including the worst ice-storm in Austin history - 3 days of temps below freezing and the city literally shut down under a coat of ice (yes, 3 days of temps in the 20s and an inch or two of ice is considered an “ice-storm” around here…. Gotta love winter in Texas :-) – I wanted to read about somewhere warm and sunny. What better choice than reading about the desert and canyonlands of SE Utah - one of my favorite spots on earth. I read Desert Solitaire years ago, while on a 4-week backpacking trip in that part of the country, and - while there’s something special about reading a book about wherever you are - I enjoyed it (almost) as much this time around. Abbey says that his intent is “not imitation but evocation” and in this he’s very successful. He captures the slickrock desert and canyons beautifully, including a great chapter about rafting down Glen Canyon (which was drowned when Glen Canyon Dam was built.) He writes that “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit…” and while he’s somewhat excessive, he’s not entirely wrong in his railing against the “improvements” that the Park Service has made - but which diminish the wilderness. Definitely a great read.

Strange Conversation by Kris Delmhorst

2007-01-28T21:05:00.000-06:00

This is a CD, not a book - but fits the literary theme because the lyrics for the songs are either poems or inspired by poems by Browning, Eliot, Whitman, and others. I heard about this CD through an interview with the singer/songwriter on NPR a few months ago, and this weekend, I finally got around to buying it. And I really enjoyed it. The music is folksy, but has good variety, and I like most of the poems - especially the Whitman. It's a very fun CD.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

2007-01-19T20:00:00.000-06:00

What a wonderful little book! I've read this book twice before - years ago in French and more recently in Spanish. In both cases, it took me forever to read the book and I was so focused on figuring out what each word/sentence meant that I didn't even remember the story. This time I read an English translation (2000, by Richard Howard,) with "restored original art", and I loved it! I'll definitely be re-reading this one periodically. And I immediately pulled a couple of other Saint-Exupery books off my bookshelf to re-read.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

2007-01-15T22:46:00.000-06:00

I’ve started this book several times over several years, but never actually finished it until now. It’s silly, amusing, funny and sometimes very witty. I enjoyed it. (And now I know where Alta Vista’s Babel Fish got its name. Cool!)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

2007-01-05T18:28:00.000-06:00

I finally got around to reading this book that everyone raved about when it was published - and it turned out to be a great start for 2007. Written from the perspective of an autistic 15-yr old, it’s interesting, clever and funny in a very gentle way. Definitely worth reading.

Full Circle by Luis Sepulveda

2007-01-05T18:11:00.000-06:00

Another book I started before my trip to Chile… An engaging travelog by a Chilean novelist who spent 3 years in a Chilean prison as a political prisoner and was exiled in the mid-70’s. His travel adventures in South America – and especially those in Patagonia – and the stories about the very colorful characters he met are very entertaining. This is a fun, light read.

Washington Post word play

2007-01-04T17:57:00.000-06:00

Another in the "too good not to post" category. Words sorta fit the book theme...
The second section is even funnier and more clever (cleverer??) than the first. (scroll down.)

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. The winners are as follows:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting,or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:

1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.
8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
9. Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.
12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.
16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

The Headmaster by John McPhee

2006-12-30T22:50:00.000-06:00

This is the story of Frank Boyden, the headmaster of Deerfield Academy - a prep school that now competes with Andover and Exeter. Boyden was headmaster of Deerfield from 1902, (when the school had 14 students,) to 1968. Interesting profile of an interesting man and the institution he created.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

2006-12-30T22:42:00.000-06:00

Ella Minnow Pea lives on the island of Nollop, named for Nevin Nollop, who came up with the pangram (a sentence containing all letters of the alphabet), “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” As the letters from this sentence fall off a building in the town, the town council decrees that those letters may no longer be used – and they disappear from the book. To regain the use of the full alphabet, the town has to come up with a pangram that’s no longer than 32 letters. It’s a creative, fun read - particularly toward the end, when you’re deciphering letters written without using most of the alphabet.

Travels in a Thin Country by Sara Wheeler

2006-12-30T10:18:00.000-06:00

About her trip through Chile. I’d intended to read this before I went to Patagonia last month, but it didn’t happen – so when I saw a copy at Half-Price Books right after I got back, I bought it. I didn’t miss anything by not reading this before my trip, since she spends all of 2 pages on Torres Del Paine, which she did in a day trip(!!) - and that pretty much captures the book. It’s very superficial. There’s a lot of “I met these people, or those friends-of-friends-of friends, and we went drinking” - sort of a small, mobile frat party, with a constantly changing cast of characters. She does comment on the political background (Allende and Pinochet), and people’s commentary about it, including the ongoing squabbles between Chile and Argentina; she discusses the Indians who inhabited the continent before the Europeans showed up; and every once in a while, she writes a good description of a beautiful area of the country. But it’s all very superficially done and not particularly cohesive. Mediocre at best.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

2006-12-28T19:19:00.000-06:00

This book has been on every “Best of 2006” list I’ve seen, and it’s worth all the hype it’s getting. It’s fantastic. The book is about 4 meals and the food chains that supply those meals. The 4 meals are from McDonalds, from Whole Foods, from a local, “sustainable organic” farm, and a meal that the author hunted & gathered himself. Parts of this book are astounding – like the extent to which corn and petrochemicals create the foundation for most of the US’s food supply, (Yup – you read that right) incentivized, of course, by inane government policies lobbied for by big agribusiness, the petrochemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the soft drink industry, and others. (You read that right, too.) And in today’s news, the FDA gave preliminary approval for meat and milk from cloned animals – and is ‘unlikely’ to require labelling of these foods (I kid you not. See FDA OK's food from cloned animals.)
The book also offers interesting insights into the complexities of sustainable farming and the interactions between various aspects of the farm (and the natural world in general). There’s a fascinating section about mushrooms – about which we know surprisingly little.
This book is very well-written and engaging. I guarantee you’ll think about food differently after reading it. (And you’ll find me at the local farmer’s market when I do my shopping on saturday morning :-)

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

2006-12-28T18:21:00.000-06:00

I was looking for something quick to read when I saw a copy of Siddhartha on one of my bookshelves. Well, this is one of those books that I quickly realized should be read slowly, so it wasn’t particularly quick - but it was great. Siddhartha goes through several very different phases of seeking in his life, and eventually reaches serenity and enlightenment. Definitely adding Hesse to my list to read more of his.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

2006-12-26T19:57:00.000-06:00

A very light, quick read about Hemingway’s time in Paris in the 20’s – writing in cafes, walking along the Seine, being hungry and broke, skiing in the Alps, etc. He tells stories about his interactions with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Sylvia Beach (who owned the Shakespeare & Co book store.) He ends the book saying, “This is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.” If you’re at all interested in the literary expat community in Paris in the 20s, you’ll probably like this book (even if you’re not a Hemingway fan.)

All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs by Elie Wiesel

2006-12-17T18:21:00.000-06:00

After re-reading Night a few months ago, I became curious about how that experience shaped the adult Elie Weisel. All Rivers Run to the Sea is the first volume of his two-volume autogiography, covering from his childhood to 1969. He describes his happy childhood in Romania, during which he was a devout student. The chapter on the concentration camps is followed by a short chapter on how/what to believe in after experiencing such horrors. Following the war, he lives in a French orphanage, then becomes a journalist and writer so that he can testify to his experience and support Jewish/Israeli causes:

“My people’s quest was mine; its memory my country. Everything that happens to it affects me. I have lived its anguish and been scorched by the fire of its dreams. I belonged to the community of night, the kingdom of the dead, and henceforth I would also belong to the wonderous, exhilirating community of the eternal city of David. It is incumbent upon the Jewish writer to be witness to all that has haunted the people of Israel from its beginnings. That is his role – not to judge but to testify. And in our tradition the responsibilities of the witness are greater than those of the judge; if the testimony is true, the verdict will be just.”

As expected, a very powerful memoir.

Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

2006-12-16T17:11:00.000-06:00

When, much to everyone’s amazement, Eliza Naumann, the under-achiever in her odd family, wins her school’s spelling bee and then the subsequent state spelling bee, the dynamics of her family change, and the family begins to unravel. There were some parts of the book (particularly in the first half ) where the author spends too much time describing Eliza’s study of words - and the book drags. Not one of my favorite books, but I’m glad I stuck with it.

The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

2006-12-11T18:55:00.001-06:00

Powers’ new book (which just won the National Book Award) is about identity and what makes us who we are. A young guy, Mark Schluter, totals his truck on a straight stretch of highway and suffers brain damage resulting in Capgras Syndrome (a real neurological syndrome usually found in schizophrenics), which makes him believe that his sister isn’t really his sister, but is an imposter. His sister contacts an Oliver Sacks-type famous neurologist who gets involved in this unusual case while handling his own identity crisis. And there’s the nurse who seems over-qualified and overly-involved in Mark’s case. And there’s a cryptic note that was mysteriously left at Mark’s bedside while he was in the coma. Many questions, much complexity – but all very well-written and eventually resolved… It’s Powers doing what he does so well. (also see The Gold Bug Variations or on 2004-5 or All Fiction lists.) Check out this interview with Powers in The Believer.

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby

2006-12-11T08:25:00.000-06:00

When I ran aross this book in a bookstore, I bought it because I’d vaguely heard of it (though I had absolutely no idea what I’d heard) and the hugely understated title struck me as very amusing. (Who describes any trip in the Himalayas as a “short walk”?) Newby’s very British understatement and his dry sense of humor made me laugh out loud at times. After 10 yrs in the fashion industry in London, Newby decides he wants to go on an “expedition” and invites a friend, who suggests they go to north-eastern Afghanistan (a region where no Englishmen have been in >50 yrs.) Newby writes:

“I was filled with profound misgiving. In cold print 20,000 feet does not seem very much. Every year more and more expeditions climb peaks of 25,000 feet, and over. In the Himalayas a mountain of this size is regarded as an absolute pimple, unworthy of serious consideration. But I had never climbed anything. It was true that I had done some hill walking and a certain amount of scrambling in the Dolomites with my wife, but nowhere had we failed to encounter ladies twice our age armed with umbrellas.”

To mitigate this lack of experience, they took 4 days of climbing lessons in Wales before heading to Afghanistan. (Yeah, I’m sure that really helped!) Regardless, Newby survived the trip to write this funny classic in the travel genre.

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

2006-12-11T08:03:00.000-06:00

Michael Lewis is back with another book about a sport that's interesting and entertaining even for people who don't follow the sport (see Moneyball on my 2004-5 or all non-fiction lists).) This time, the sport is football. Lewis describes an interesting shift in the value of the left tackle, the player who protects the quarterback's "blind" side (left side for right-handed QBs). In addition to being valuable simply because they protect a highly-paid quarterback from getting crushed, the best players in this role have a "freakish" combination of size, agility and speed that makes them rare even among top atheletes. Much of this book is about Michael Oher, now a college player who has this rare combination of talents. When he was 15, Oher was living on the streets of Memphis, and through a random series of events ends up going to a private school and living with a wealthy white family, who encourage and support him through high school, and help him through the bizarre frenzy of college football recruiting. An interesting and very easy read.

Classy Insults

2006-12-08T07:15:00.001-06:00

Some of these are too good not to post - and since many are by authors, they kinda fit the book blog theme:

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new Play, bring a friend... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second...if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill
"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill (about Clement Attlee)
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde
"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb
Exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." He responded, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson
"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating
"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." - Jack E. Leonard
"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed
"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." - James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder

The Testament by John Grisham

2006-11-21T10:59:00.000-06:00

I have to admit I’m not a John Grisham fan, but I needed something to read on an airplane and had heard this was one of his better books. I liked maybe the first 50 pages, but after that, the story is predictable and the characters seemed caricature-ish.

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

2006-11-05T23:40:00.001-06:00

Flaky, almost 30-yr-old New Yorker with a boring, dead-end job decides to cook every recipe (524 of them) in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. So for a year, she cooks and blogs about it. Very amusing and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

To Conquer the Air by James Tobin

2006-11-05T23:28:00.000-06:00

About the race to fly. Everyone knows the Wright Brothers won, but the story is fantastic. The brothers took a very meticulous approach and were competing against contemporary luminaries like the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (who spent >$70k on his attempts vs. the Wright Brothers’ expenses of <$1k), and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as a bunch of French competitors. Even after the Wright Bros’ successful flights at Kitty Hawk, it was years before they got the recognition they deserved. Really great story.

Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson

2006-11-05T23:03:00.000-06:00

With an approach largely shaped by Zen Buddhism and Native American principles, Phil Jackson brought “mindful” basketball to the NBA. Fascinating look at how an alternative approach had great success, and fun stories about the Chicago Bulls in the early ‘90’s. Very easy to read.

Second Growth by Wallace Stegner

2006-10-31T18:42:00.000-06:00

About a rural town in New England - the people who live there, the urbanites who spend their summers there, and the encroaching outside world. Not one of my favorites of Stegner’s, but I enjoyed it and it’s – as always – well-written.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

2006-10-31T07:03:00.000-06:00

After a horrible divorce, Gilbert spends a year traveling – 4 months of hedonistic existence in Italy, then 4 months at an ashram in India, then 4 months finding “balance” in Bali. The author often tries too hard to be funny/cute/clever, which makes the book seem pretty superficial and glib - but I enjoyed it.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

2006-09-30T21:31:00.000-05:00

I bought this book because of the absurd title and the creative layout – each chapter is a class on a syllabus for a Great Works literature course, with the conclusion as the final exam. It’s about a high school senior and her father, a professor – but it gets more complicated than the standard coming-of-age fare. I was immediately impressed with the writing, described by one reviewer as demonstrating a “talent for verbal acrobatics”. This is the author’s first book – published to mostly rave reviews - so I’ll bet there are more to come from her.

Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux

2006-09-30T20:48:00.000-05:00

With a trip to Patagonia planned in Nov, I tried some of the travel literature related to Patagonia. First, I read In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, a classic of travel literature - but found it boring and disjointed. Then read Old Patagonian Express about Theroux’s trip by train from Boston to Patagonia. It’s not really about Patagonia – but I really enjoyed Theroux’s eye for detail, sense of humor and writing style.

The Camel Club by David Baldacci

2006-09-20T11:03:00.000-05:00

It’s too bad that Baldacci seems to be suffering the fate of many authors who’ve published several books. The early ones were really good, but the later ones are predictable and far less interesting, including this one.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2006-08-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Set in the 1950's, the narrator is a 77-year-old small-town pastor, whose health is failing, so he writes an extended letter to his 6-year-old son - about life, faith, and relationships between fathers and sons. The writing is quiet, insightful and often lyrical. After all the hype about this book, I was skeptical, but I really enjoyed it.

Chasing Daylight by Gene O'Kelly

2006-07-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

Gene O'Kelly, the 53 yr-old CEO of KPMG, was a highly successful, type-A workaholic - until he went for a checkup and was told he had advanced brain cancer and maybe 3 months to live. In the ~100 days between that diagnosis and his death, Kelly wrote this book - about being present, enjoying "perfect moments", about balance and about acceptance. Not particularly well written and pretty disjointed at times, but definitely worth reading.

Raid on the Sun by Rodger Claire

2006-07-07T22:04:00.000-05:00

Fantastic true account of Israel’s 1981 audacious and successful bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. This was the first mission of Israel’s new F-16s, and the required distance to fly and the weights of the planes were way beyond design specs – yet the mission was a total success and the reactor was completely destroyed. We can all be thankful that this mission destroyed Saddam Hussein’s ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium in 1981. Written with the cooperation of the Israeli Air Force, including interviews with the pilots who flew the mission, this reads like fiction. Great story.

109 East Palace by Jennet Connant

2006-07-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

About day-to-day life at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, told from the perspective of Dorothy McKibben, the woman who ran the "front office" for Los Alamos in a storefront in Santa Fe. Despite the seriousness of the work being done, the absurdities of life in this remote and highly secret campus were often funny. Eg, a wedding in which only the first names of the bride and groom could be used in the vows because of the required secrecy surrounding the project (Well-known scientists had aliases to use in Santa Fe or when traveling); or the 12 feet of mattresses that were piled under the first nuclear bomb as it was raised up to the platform for the test at Trinity (in case the hoist broke and the bomb fell, it would have a "soft landing".) Though the author is often somewhat overly-reverential about Oppenheimer, that doesn't diminish the nightmare she describes Oppenheimer going through as a result of McCarthy's witch hunt after the war. An interesting and light perspective on the Manhattan Project. (For a fantastic book on the scientists and science of the Manhattan Project, read Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. See my blurb in 2002.)

The Bookwoman’s Last Fling by John Dunning

2006-07-02T11:01:00.000-05:00

I really enjoyed his first 3 “Cliff Janeway” (main character) books (Booked to Die, Bookman’s Wake, & The Sign of the Book). They had interesting plots revolving around the world of collectible books. The subsequent 2 “Janeway” books were mundane and predictable, this last one being the worst.

Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

2006-07-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

First third is about the Culinary Institute of America’s ‘master chef’ exam (which sounds like one of those cooking reality shows), and the other two-thirds about two top chefs – one running a restaurant called Lola’s in Cleveland and Thomas Keller, the chef at French Laundry in Napa. Interesting and entertaining.

Adventure Divas by Holly Morris

2006-07-01T22:59:00.000-05:00

The author adventure-traveled the world to create what became an award-winning PBS series about women who are literally changing the world – in Cuba, Iran, New Zealand and India. In between trips for the Adventure Diva series, to make some money, she takes jobs with Lonely Planet & other documentaries to hunt headhunters in Borneo, climb the Matterhorn, and cross the Sahara. Fun, funny and fascinating.

Old School by Tobias Wolff

2006-07-01T22:55:00.000-05:00

A wonderful coming-of-age novel about a scholarship kid in a New England prep school with a very strong literary tradition. In the writing contest in which the students compete to win a meeting with visiting authors (eg Frost, Ayn Rand), the protagonist is obsessed with winning the opportunity to meet Hemingway – and finds his voice in a way that has long-term repercussions.

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

2006-07-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

Subtitled “A hilarious and true account of one man’s struggle with the monthly tide of the books he’s bought and the books he’s been meaning to read.” (Know what he means?) This is a collection of 14 of his monthly columns/reviews. Be forewarned that this book will add to your list of books to read.

Night by Elie Wiesel

2006-07-01T22:45:00.000-05:00

With the new translation that was just published, I re-read Night, and was again amazed by the power of this little book.

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

2006-07-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

About the 36 years McCourt spent as a public school teacher in NYC. McCourt’s writing style and gentle humor are wonderful. Though the third in McCourt’s trilogy, this was the first of McCourt’s book I read and I liked it so much, I immediately read Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

2006-07-01T22:35:00.000-05:00

Like anyone not living under a rock for the last few years, I’d heard the rave reviews about Angela’s Ashes (pulitzer prize winner in 1997) – but wasn’t particularly interested in reading about what McCourt calls in the third line of the book a “miserable Irish Catholic childhood.” But despite what was absolutely a miserable childhood (abject poverty, constant hunger, alcoholic father, etc.), McCourt tells the story through his eyes as a child, and his spirit and humor shine through. Everything the rave reviews said about this book are true. This is an amazing book that McCourt didn’t write till he was 66 years old(!)

‘Tis by Frank McCourt

2006-07-01T22:30:00.000-05:00

Angela’s Ashes ends and ‘Tis starts when McCourt is 19, and emmigrates from Ireland to New York. As tough as his childhood was, I felt worse for him after he arrives in NY and he feels so completely out of place – but he eventually goes to college and finds his place (as a teacher). Another great memoir from McCourt.

Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

2006-07-01T22:25:00.000-05:00

Offers a great explanation of cutting-edge cosmology for non-physicists. Greene goes through the history of cosmology and quantum physics as background for his explanation of string-theory/M-theory, 10-dimensional space, etc. Excellent use of analogies and unexpectedly sprinkled with humor and fun pop-culture references. I already have his other book (The Elegant Universe) in my pile of books to read.

A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry

2006-07-01T22:22:00.000-05:00

The second of Wendell Berry’s books I’ve read and, like Jayber Crow (see my 2004-5 or all fiction lists), this is also about the community of Port William and the intertwined lives of the people who live there. This book has several main characters, and by the end, I felt like I knew them all well. Like Jayber Crow, this book meanders along at the pace of life in a small, rural town, and it seems appropriate to read it slowly and to savor the fantastic writing.

Apollo: The Race to the Moon by Charles Murray & Catherine Bly Cox

2006-07-01T22:20:00.000-05:00

This book is the amazing story of the people who actually made Apollo happen. While most books about Apollo focus on the astronauts and high-level figures at NASA, this book (based on interviews and documents,) tells the story of the managers and engineers who achieved fantastic feats of systems engineering and technological development and integration to make Apollo possible. Fantastic book.

Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

2006-07-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

These are transcripts of exerpts from informal lectures on Zen by the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and a key player in the American Zen tradition. Excellent introduction.

Geographer’s Library by Jon Fasman

2006-07-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

Another of these books (like DaVinci Code, Codex, Rule of Four, The Eight, etc.) which weaves history and in this case, alchemy, into a current-day mystery.

A Strong West Wind by Gail Caldwell

2006-07-01T22:10:00.000-05:00

The first line of this book (“How do we become who we are?”) caught my eye, and I really enjoyed this very well-written memoir by a pulitzer prize winning book critic for the Boston Globe. She grew up in Amarillo in the 1950’s and 60’s, and writes about how her family, her love of literature, and the politics of the time shaped her.

Men of Salt by Michael Benanav

2006-07-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

After hearing that trucks are threatening extinction of the 1,000 year-old camel-driven “caravan of white gold” (referring to rock salt) in the Sahara desert, the author goes on a 40-day trip with a camel caravan from Timbuktu to the salt mines at Taoudenni. Interesting, quick reading and very entertaining.

My Lucky Star by Joe Keenan

2006-07-01T22:02:00.000-05:00

This one should be in its own “total trash” category, but it’s hilariously funny (particularly the first half) and extremely well-written. The soap-operatic plot twists and characters get a bit old in the second half, but it’s fun reading regardless. The author was a long-time writer for Frasier and this book is filled with that sharp, smart wit. Great summer reading.

One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick

2006-07-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

Fick graduated from Dartmouth (classics major) and joined the Marines in search of adventure, since “there was no longer a place in the world for a young man who wanted to wear armor and slay dragons.” Fascinating account of his training as a Marine officer, deployment in Afghanistan and then to Iraq, where his reconnaissance battalion helped spearhead the invasion. Well-written and insightful.

Wolf Willow by Wallace Stegner

2006-07-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

Part history, part memoir and part fiction about the plains of southern Saskatchewan, where Stegner grew up. As always, Stegner’s writing is amazing and his descriptions of this harsh frontier are beautiful. And as much as I like almost everything of Stegner's I've read, this is one of my favorites. A couple of paragraphs that particularly struck me – from The Whitemud River Range, a story about cowboys rounding up cattle during the brutal winter of 1906-07:

On those miraculously beautiful and murderously cold nights glittering with the green and blue darts from a sky like polished dark metal, when the moon had gone down, leaving the hollow heaven to the stars and the overflowing cold light of the Aurora, he thought he had moments of the clearest vision and saw himself plain in a universe simple, callous, and magnificent. In every direction from their pallid soapbubble of shelter the snow spread; here and there the implacable plain glinted back a spark – the beam of a cold star reflected in a crystal of ice.” (p.163)

Nothing between them and the stars, nothing between them and the North Pole, nothing between them and the wolves, except a twelve by sixteen house of cloth so thin that every wind moved it and light showed through it and the shadows of men hulked angling along its slope, its roof so peppered with spark holes that lying in their beds they caught squinting glimpses of the stars. The silence gulped their little disturbances, their little tinklings and snorings and sighs and the muffled noises of discomfort and weariness. The earth and the sky gaped for them like opened jaws; they lay there like lozenges on a tongue, ready to be swallowed. (p.165)

What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America by Tony Schwartz

2006-07-01T21:55:00.000-05:00

After co-writing The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump and reaching the top of the best-seller lists, Schwartz was trying to figure out why he wasn’t feeling on top of the world. He started meditating and spent the next 4 years experiencing various aspects of the “consciousness movement” including psychadelics, Esalen, biofeedback, Enneagrams, etc.

Time was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer

2006-07-01T21:50:00.000-05:00

Mercer was a journalist who published the name of a source who subsequently threatened his life, so he went to Paris for a while and ended up living and working at the legendary bookstore, Shakespeare and Co., with some very colorful characters.

Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

2006-07-01T21:45:00.000-05:00

Describes a mescaline trip and Huxley’s musings on the nature of perception. (random trivia: Jim Morrison’s band derived their named from this book.)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

2006-07-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

This is an incredibly disturbing book - but the writing is absolutely fantastic! The writing and the insight into Humbert Humbert are so good that by the end of the book, I didn’t hate him (as I’d fully expected to do); I just felt sorry for him. This writing is even more amazing given that English was Nabokov’s third (!) language. Gotta read more of his.

River of Doubt by Candace Millard

2006-07-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

Interesting account of a trip by Teddy Roosevelt down the River of Doubt, a previously unexplored tributary of the Amazon. Has to be one of the worst-planned trips ever (who leaves their lightweight canoes behind when they’re planning to travel down an unexplored river???) While this trip almost killed Roosevelt, he’d been looking for an adventure – and he found one.

Lawrence Block’s “Burglar” books

2006-07-01T21:35:00.000-05:00

eg, Burglars Can’t be Choosers, The Burglar who Studied Spinoza, The Burglar who Liked to Quote Kipling, The Burglar in the Rye, etc. The main character is a bookseller by day, burglar by night and, of course, something always goes awry involving him in a mystery, which he solves with a whimsical, dry sense of humor.

Plowing the Dark by Richard Powers

2006-07-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

Like The Gold Bug Variations, (which I really enjoyed,) this book has two stories going on, but they don’t tie together well and the writing seemed pretentious.

Team of Rivals by Gail Kearns Goodwin

2005-12-31T12:32:00.000-06:00

Absolutely fantastic book about Lincoln and the 3 men he ran against for the Republican nomination in 1860. He was an extremely unlikely candidate and was disdained and looked down upon by all 3 who were strong, nationally known figures. Yet he won the nomination and convinced all 3 of them to join his cabinet, and over time, earned their respect and admiration. Lincoln’s leadership and political genius were astounding. I had a week of extremely abbreviated sleep as I couldn’t put this book down.

Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson

2005-12-30T12:37:00.000-06:00

A personal account of neurobiology that’s very engaging and extremely easy to read. Johnson tries several of the latest techniques in neurobiological testing, and discusses the geography and chemistry of the brain – and the implications for our behavior and emotions. Fascinating read.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

2005-12-29T13:13:00.000-06:00

I picked up the 50th anniversary edition of this book, which I hadn’t read since high school, and I loved it. Great story, insightful and foresightful (is that a word?) And his coda in this edition – telling the politically correct types to keep their hands off his writing – is passionately written, very funny and absolutely right on target.

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

2005-12-28T12:54:00.000-06:00

This is an amazing book. The first part of the book is about the 3 years Frankl spent in Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps. The second part of the book describes “logotherapy”, his psychological theory based on man’s “will to meaning”.

Brothers K by David James Duncan

2005-12-27T13:14:00.000-06:00

About a family in the 1950’s and 60’s. The youngest son, who narrates, describes it as “the story of an eight-way tangle of human beings.” The very different characters go in very different directions, but at the core, they’re tangled together as a family. It’s well written and Duncan’s phraseology is often very creative (eg, describing a family road trip as “pre posthumous purgatory”.) I also really enjoyed his first book, The River Why, and his more recent collection of short fiction and nonfiction, River Teeth.

April 1865 by Jay Winik

2005-12-26T12:56:00.000-06:00

This month included the fall of Richmond, Lee’s distinguished surrender to Grant, handled (amazingly) graciously by Grant, Lincoln’s assasination and more. Like the founding era, this book illustrates again that the US is astoundingly lucky to have men of such remarkable character in key positions at critical times. Winik’s writing is overly dramatic, but the content is well worth ignoring his irritating writing style.

A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber

2005-12-25T12:57:00.000-06:00

Subtitled “An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality”, Wilber integrates … well, everything. His vision includes “matter, body, mind, soul and spirit as they appear in self, culture and nature… [and] embraces science, art and morals.” Much of the book is a fascinating overview of developmental psychology applied to individuals and cultures/societies, and then he describes some applications of his theory (which are illustrative, though somewhat superficial.) Interesting stuff.

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

2005-12-24T13:16:00.001-06:00

Prompted by the impending release of the movie, I re-read this recently and again enjoyed Austen’s sharp wit and social commentary. (And the recent movie captures that very well, BTW.)

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

2005-12-23T13:30:00.000-06:00

An interesting account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the man who, while institutionalized in an insane asylum, submitted over 10,000 of the quotations used as examples. Very easy reading; it reads like a novel.

Nabokov’s Butterfly by Rick Gekoski

2005-12-23T12:59:00.000-06:00

A rare book dealer, Gekoski tells the stories of 20 major books that he’s handled in his career. Very fun reading.

Honeymoon with my Brother by Franz Wisner

2005-12-22T13:00:00.000-06:00

After being dumped by his fiance right before the wedding and being demoted at work, the author takes his brother on his already paid-for honeymoon to Costa Rica, where the brothers are inspired to go home, sell their assets, and travel around the world for a couple of years. Entertaining read.

The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs

2005-12-21T13:00:00.000-06:00

About the year that the author spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica – and then hilariously trying to figure out how to use his new-found knowledge. Quirky, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and (obviously) packed with information about random (though alphabetically organized) stuff you never knew you knew nothing about.

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

2005-12-20T13:17:00.000-06:00

This is the first book I’ve ready by Berry and it made me a fan of his writing. About a small town and the people who make up the community, described through stories, anecdotes, observations and memoirs of Jayber Crow, the town barber (and grave digger and church janitor on the side). Insightful and beautifully written.