November 18, 2007
Catching Up
A few people have started to comment that my blog has been neglected for nearly three months now so I'm going to cave and write a little update on what's been going on.
Basically, my new job is keeping me very, very busy. This, however, is good because the old job in New York City was quickly draining my energy and enthusiasm. Now, I'm experiencing the opposite effect. I'm more motivated and excited now than I have been for years and the new job makes me feel like I just got out of college again and am bursting with enthusiasm and ideas. It's awesome.
At the same time, I'm looking forward to this week's Thanksgiving break and am excited for the holidays. Earlier this week I made plans to go back to New York for a visit the week after Christmas. During the four years I lived in New York I would spent New Year's here in Minnesota so I figure it's time to reverse that trend and spend it in New York. As great as things have been going here, I really miss the bustle of New York, its subways and bridges and, of course, all the friends I made there.
Other developments include my purchase of a slick alumninum and glass 24" iMac which I am throroughly enjoying with the latest iteration of Apple's Mac OS X: Leopard. I've been nothing but happy with it so far and am beginning to learn Aperture, Apple's photo management and editing application. This has had the effect of making me want to buy a true SLR camera so I will hopefully be purchasing one of those before Christmas.
My reading list has been dominated by non-fiction lately, especially of the Civil War variety. Recent reads (along with my review - lifted from my Facebook profile - of each) include:
Grant & Twain by Mark Perry: This is the first time I've read a detailed account of Grant's last days and it's only made me respect the guy even more. Perry writes simply but knows how to tell the story without getting too academic.
Cry Havoc! The Crooked Road to Civil War by Nelson Lankford: This book is unlike any other Civil War history that I've ever read as it deals not with battles, but with the politics of secession and the often-overlooked events that led the North and South to full fledged civil war. With this micro-history approach, Lankford has composed an intricate, wonderfully written, day-by-day and sometimes hour-by-hour account of the crooked road to Civil War.
Hey Ranger! True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from America's National Parks by Jim Burnett: Although I once worked with Jim, the ranger who wrote this book, his writing style is a bit too conversational for my tastes. It feels like every sentence is being delivered with a chuckle and it gets annoying after a while.
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey: This book really sucked. It was written by a park ranger who kills a rabbit within the boundary of a national park for no apparent reason. That would be a federal crime by the way. The incident basically confirmed my opinion of the author as a complete moron and total asshole.
For music, I've seen three great shows since my last entry: Arcade Fire, Smashing Pumpkins and New Pornographers. At home and work I've been digging the latest albums from Band of Horses, Pinback, Radiohead, Palomar, The Ponys, Voxtrot, Rilo Kiley and The New Pornographers.
Well, that pretty much covers what I've been up to. I really ought to write more often, shouldn't I?
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May 13, 2007
"One Good Turn" by Kate Atkinson
The New York Public Library has elected to categorize "One Good Turn" as a mystery/crime novel as shown by the red skull sticker on the spine but I contend that this is false advertising. The story, which takes place in Edinburgh over a few days of the Fringe Festival, is several narrative threads woven together around a road rage incident. But the book isn't actually about the crime. Instead, it's the stories of several characters who happened to be on the scene when the crime occurred.
Author Kate Atkinson takes the reader through each of the witnesses lives: the author who intervened in the incident, the former policeman who stumbles on the scene, the wife of a wealthy businessman, an investigator who shows up to solve the crime and a few other peripheral characters. Each have their flaws and idiosyncrasies and the reader will get to know them intimately as the story draws to its conclusion and we finally find out, on the last page, how they are all related.
Calling "One Good Turn" a crime or a mystery is inaccurate since the book doesn't have all that much action. Calling it a fantastic, engaging read would be a more suitable description. Don't miss this one.
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May 6, 2007
"Travels in the Scriptorium" by Paul Auster
"Travels in the Scriptorium" is a strange book. Everything takes places in a sparsely furnished room and revolves around a man who the narrator refers to as Mr. Blank. Blank has no idea why he is in this room and he has no memory of who he is. The book reads like a report of Mr. Blank's activities for the day. He gets up, walks to the desk and sees a pile of photos and a stack of type written pages which he is told to read. Mr. Blank ends up spending most of his day in this room trying to figure out who the people in the snapshots are and what he is doing in the room.
Is he being punished for something? What crimes has he been accused of? Why is he taking all sorts of pills? Questions like these will occupy the mind of the reader from the book's beginning to it's end. There never is a satisfyingly concrete answer to any of these questions. In the end, the reader is still a bit confused (think Kafka here) but is nonetheless left with the impression that he has read something good and valuable.
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May 3, 2007
"The Third Brother" by Nick McDonell
"The Third Brother" almost reads like two short stories. The chapters alternate between the present and reminiscences of the past. The main character is Mike, an intern working for a magazine in Hong Kong. He is sent to accompany a writer and do research in Bangkok on Western backpackers who come to the city to get high.
Of course he meets all sorts of crazy characters and the reader learns about his family's past in alternating chapters. Mike's parents are sort of crazy, but have clearly had an impact on who Mike is.
In the final part of the book Mike is back in New York, his parents have been killed in a house fire that may not have been an accident, and his brother Lyle is going a bit crazy. At the same time, 9/11 happens and there is an attempt by the author to bring the whole story to some sort of meaningful conclusion. Unfortunately, McDonell isn't really successful which makes the whole book quite disappointing.
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May 2, 2007
"Monster Island" by David Wellington
David Wellington's "Monster Island" began as a serialized blog about zombies which has now been published in book form. I hadn't heard of the blog before I started reading the book, and really only picked up the book because my dad has a weird sort of fascination with zombies (and does a very convincing zombie walk).
Monster Island starts after an epidemic has wiped out most of the human population of Earth and turned them into zombies. Mr. Dekalb is a United Nations weapons inspector who has survived the epidemic and must travel to New York from Africa to procure AIDS medicine for a Somali warlord who is keeping his daughter captive. This somewhat flimsy aspect of the plot is what gives Dekalb his motivation to travel to New York with a cadre of well armed, Somali girl soldiers and begin slaughtering the undead in his quest to obtain the drugs from UN headquarters.
Dekalb's main obstacle is Gary, a former doctor who has managed to turn himself into a zombie yet maintain his intelligence. Gary is eventually able to get the millions of NYC zombies to do whatever he wants and thus the stage is set for the big climactic battle between him and Dekalb's band of survivors.
The book is an amusing read that isn't bad enough to put down but isn't exactly a page turner either. If you're into zombies it's worth checking out. Everyone else should probably skip it.
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April 5, 2007
"The Keep" by Jennifer Egan
"The Keep" is a book I had been hearing a lot of good reviews about and everything I had read about it turned out to be correct. Egan offers a book with multiple layers that, even though it is a relatively simple story about human nature, has the added dimension of mystery and even a bit of horror. It's not horror of the slasher variety but considering that the setting for much of the story is a castle in eastern Europe, it has some pretty dark and mysterious moments.
The main characters are cousins Danny and Howie. Howie is a rich, slightly eccentric guy who invites his cousin Danny to help him work on the castle he's just bought. In the process they both get more than they bargained for as issues from their childhoods come up. The castle, especially its mysterious keep (the well protected central tower) which happens to be inhabited by an old lady who claims to own the castle, brings out the best and the worst in the cousins. Ultimately, the reader finds out that there is a completely different setting in the latter half of the book which ties everything together in a neat and satisfying way.
Saying much more would be giving the rest of the story away but I will say that this book is well worth reading.
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April 1, 2007
"The Gift of Valor" by Michael Phillips
"The Gift of Valor" tells the true story of US Marine Corporal Jason Dunham who was mortally wounded in Iraq after trying to muffle a grenade explosion with his helmet. Author Michael Phillips has chosen to focus almost exclusively on Jason himself. There are no political aspects to this story and Phillips never passes judgement on the validity of the war itself. It's simply a very straightforward retelling of what happened to Dunham.
The writing style is very much like a newspaper article because Phillips is a writer for the Wall Street Journal. In fact, the newspaper published a series of stories about Corporal Dunham that have basically been expanded to fill this book. That may sound like a criticism but I never felt at any point that Phillips was trying to fill space. In fact, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the ongoing war in Iraq. In my opinion, we here at home know precious little about what actually goes on over there on a daily basis.
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March 13, 2007
"Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt
I'm a bit behind in my book reviews lately but rest assured, my goal of reading one book per week is still being met. A few weeks ago I completed "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt. It's the first McCourt book I've ever read and I thorougly enjoyed it. I hadn't realized that he only started writing as a second career within the last decade, and was a teacher in New York City for 30 years.
McCourt undergoes a lot of the same problems that other teachers do, not just in his classroom but with administrators as well. He points out many of the ridiculous things that high school principals and Department of Education officials say and gives dozens of humorous anecdotes about his students. But the book also chronicles McCourt's personal journey - he seems throughout much of the memoir to struggle with who he is and what he wants to do with his life but near the end it seems that he has settled into his role as a writer after a successful teaching career.
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March 3, 2007
"Empire Rising" by Thomas Kelly
I was excited about "Empire Rising" when I saw it on the New York Times' "100 Notable Books of 2005" list but Thomas Kelly's novel proved ultimately disappointing.
It has all the ingredients of great historical fiction: New York City, the Empire State Building, racial tension, the Great Depression and a plethora of Tammany Hall politicians and neighborhood gangsters. Sounds pretty good, right? I wish I could say that this were true. Although I did read to the end, I found myself not really caring what happened to the main character, an Irish construction worker helping build the Empire State Building rivet by rivet. The historical detail seemed like barely adequate window dressing on a thin plot - it made the whole thing palatable, but only just barely.
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February 21, 2007
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" is perhaps the most grim story I have ever ready. A father and son are some of the only humans alive in a post-apocalyptic America. The constantly falling dust leads the reader to assume that there has been some sort of nuclear catastrophe but other details are sparse. This leaves the reader focused on the relationship between the father and son as the former tries to keep the young boy alive. All the animals are dead and the couple try to stay away from the few other people that they encounter as they walk on a road towards the ocean scavenging what little food they can find.
The only thing that keeps them alive is each other and the hope that they'll meet up with "the good guys" at some point. But even this is a simplification because there is much more to the novel than this and it's well worth reading even though it is depressing. In fact, I've never read a book that conveys such desolation and horror in so few words but at the same time is so hard to put down.
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February 17, 2007
"The Fortune of War" by Patrick O'Brian
"The Fortune of War" is the sixth book in Patrick O'Brian's amazing Aubrey/Maturin series of historical novels about the British Navy (for further explanation, and a review of the first book in the series, see my previous post). In this installment, much of the action actually takes place in America. It's the War of 1812 and the British have suffered a number of setbacks in the Atlantic. "Lucky" Jack Aubrey's vessel is defeated and captured which sets up the action on shore in the city of Boston while the officers of the vessel await exchange.
There are some difficulties with the exchange because of Aubrey's conduct towards some American sailors in a previous book. Additionally, Aubrey's friend Stephen Maturin, an Irish secret agent working for Britain, is involved in a bit of spying against a few French officers who are in town. This is the first of O'Brian's novels which really highlight espionage and O'Brian yet again creates an exciting, entirely accurate portrait of the 19th century. Hopefully the next 15 books in the series are just as good.
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February 4, 2007
"Passarola Rising" by Azhar Abidi
I don't read much historical fiction other than Patrick O'Brian's wonderful naval series but the cover of "Passarola Rising," depicting a sailing ship floating in the sky, looked too interesting pass up. The book is the story of the airship Passarola, its travels and its creator Bartolomeu Lourenco (who did actually exist) as told by his brother Alexandre.
The brothers have several adventures aboard Passarola and meet many notable characters from history in their travels including Voltaire and King Stanislaus. Their travels begin in Spain but they are soon forced to flee to France when their airship attracts the attention of a Cardinal who deems the concept of air travel heretical. The king of France sends them on several missions, the final one nearly making both brothers insane as they ascend to the limits of human endurance.
The ship itself could never have actually flown of course, but once the reader moves beyond the far-fetched physics, this book is an enjoyable tale of adventure with authentic period detail.
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January 27, 2007
"An Iliad" by Alessandro Baricco
I found myself wondering, as I read the introduction to this modern retelling of Homer's "Iliad", if anything useful or worthy could be gleaned by reading this book. What on earth is the point of taking one of the world's greatest stories and retelling it in a different style than the one in which it was written? As it turns out, not much.
The attempt at making the "Iliad" more accessible to modern readers is a worthy one, but Baricco is unable to pull it off. He strips the story down, eliminates whole passages, deletes all appearances of the gods, and at times even adds his own words (in italics of course) to the narrative, leaving this book with none of the beauty or cadence and few of the insights and themes found in the original.
At times the writing made me cringe and more than once made me want to compare it to the original (translated) passage. Although I didn't refer to the original while reading, I will now to give an idea of how ridiculous this book really is.
Here's a scene from Book One - a quote from Achilles - as the original was translated by Alexander Pope:
...when bleeding Greece again
Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain.
When, flush'd with slaughter, Hector comes to spread
The purpled shore with mountains of the dead,
Then shall thou mourn the affront thy madness gave,
Forced to deplore when impotent to save:
Then rage in bitterness of soul to know
This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe.
And here's how Baricco tells it:
The day will come when the Achaeans, all of them, will long for me. When they are dropping under Hector's assaults they will long for me. And you will suffer for them, but will be able to do nothing. You will only remember the day that you insulted the best of the Achaeans and go mad with rage and remorse.
Now I'm certainly no scholar, but the first passage seems superior to me. If Pope's translation is believed to be a true one (and I have no idea if that's the case), one could argue that Baricco actually changes the meaning of Achilles' words in this passage!
Do yourself a favor and read a more traditional translation of this epic poem. I certainly want to after reading Baricco's version.
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January 22, 2007
"Everyman" by Philip Roth
"Everyman" is the second Philip Roth book I've read and, unfortunately, it confirmed my dislike of America's most decorated author. The first book of his that I read was 2004's "The Plot Against America," an alternate history of WWII-era America which features an anti-semitic Charles Lindbergh as president of the United States. With my interest in history, it was a book that I should have found interesting but didn't. So I when I saw the short "Everyman" at the library I decided to give Roth another shot.
He swung and missed.
Perhaps it's the subject matter that led to my dislike of this book. After all, it's the story of an unnamed man in his 70's with medical problems. I'm half a century younger than the story's protagonist so why should this book be interesting to me? To be completely honest, there were a few bits which kept my attention but it wasn't because of the descriptions of his medical problems. It was the reminiscences of his life which, luckily, make up most of the book that kept me reading to the last page. Roth details a few key points in the character's life: his three marriages, his mistresses, the two sons who don't like him and the daughter who does, all of which were enough to keep my interest. And yes, I understand that "everyman" refers to all of us (as the 16th century play does) but it just wasn't enough for me to grasp onto and enjoy as much as I would have liked.
Roth gets one more swing and I've been told try "American Pastoral" or "Portnoy's Complaint" which I probably will at some point, just not anytime soon.
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January 17, 2007
"For Cause and Comrades" by James McPherson
Noted historian James McPherson's "For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War" is a fairly academic study of... why men fought in the civil war, obviously. It reads a bit like a college thesis with the main points split up amongst the dozen chapters. This is not meant to be a criticism, however, because McPherson has certainly done his homework. He writes in the preface that he took a one year sabbatical from his teaching position at Princeton and read primary documents from over 1,000 soldiers. He also goes into great detail in the preface about why those documents are a fairly representative sample of the three million soldiers who fought in the war, making the book interesting from a historiographical standpoint as well.
Of course the meat of the book lies in the quotes from the soldiers themselves. McPherson uses them to explain the soldiers' motivation on three different levels: intial motivation (why they enlisted), sustaining motivation (why they stayed in the army) and combat motivation (what gave them courage under fire). He also at times makes appropriate use of scientific studies of soldiers which were done in later American wars to explain highs and lows in morale and courage under fire. Basically, this book is well worth reading for those who want a deeper look into the psyche of the typical Civil War soldier but don't mind that it can be a bit dry and academic at times.
As a sidenote, this book was published in 1997 and, in light of the current war against terror, I found one soldier's words (quoted on page 145) very interesting because of their similarity to President Bush's rhetoric after 9/11:
Every cursed mother's son of them that does not support the war by word and deed ought to be hung or sent to the south where they belong. There is no middle ground. Every man who is not for us is against us.
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January 11, 2007
"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
I finally got around to reading "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole after it was recommended by a friend and it wasn't at all what I was expecting. For one, I don't usually ready books that are known for their hilarity. Secondly, only one book has ever made me laugh out loud and that was because of a quote about an obscure incident in the American Civil War (pretty nerdy, huh?). It's not that I don't have a sense of humor, it just takes a lot for a book to make me laugh.
With that in mind, this book didn't make me laugh out loud but I was certainly chuckling inside as I read the story of Ignatius J. Reilly. From his various jobs as hot dog vendor and pants factory clerk to his attempts at fomenting a worker's rebellion and his letters to his female antagonist Myrna Minkoff, Reilly has some pretty whacky experiences in the pages of this novel. Throughout it all, it's easy to feel sympathetic for him as well. After all, he's a pretty messed up guy. But despite the undertones of tragedy that shimmer just under the surface - both in Reilly as a character and the pre-Katrina New Orleans setting - the hilarity in this book makes for very entertaining reading.
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January 1, 2007
"Terrorist" by John Updike
The "Terrorist" that the title of John Updike's latest offering refers to is 18-year-old Ahmad, a young man in New Jersey who despises the Western culture around him and embraces Islam, the religion of his absent father but the book is really a story of two adults trying to influence Ahmad onto what they each consider a proper path. Mr. Levy, Ahmad's Jewish high school guidance counselor, attempts to sway Ahmad towards college while Ahmad's religious mentor is steering him (pun intended) into becoming a truck driver (with the obvious but unspoken intention of using him as a suicide bomber).
I had never read any Updike before this and it took me a while to get used to his long-windedness and lack of dialogue, but it's clear that Updike did his homework. Additionally, his observations on psychology and the motivations of each character flesh out the story and make it wholly believable.
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December 31, 2006
"Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
I became a fan of David Mitchell last year when I read "Cloud Atlas" (my review) so it was fortunate that I ran into his 2006 book "Black Swan Green" at the library. Since I had seen it on several year end lists I picked it up and was not disappointed. It's very different from "Cloud Atlas" but does keep the style of having separate stories in different chapters. The major difference this time is that the stories are all about one year in the life of Jason Taylor, an ordinary 13-year-old boy in the UK in the 1980s. In various chapters the boy deals with bullying, popularity, girls, poetry, stammering and his parents divorce, amongst other things. As with "Cloud Atlas", the writing is engaging but this book is more satisfying because there is a resolution to every story and a sense of fulfillment after finishing the 13 chapters - a sense that Jason's story has been told well and fully. I'm excited that Mitchell has two other older novels out there that I haven't yet read.
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February 6, 2006
"Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell, the mousey-voiced contributor to NPR's "This American Life" and voice of Violet in "The Incredibles" is a nerd when it comes to presidential assassinations. "Assassination Vacation" is a collection of historical tidbits about the murders of presidents Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield. It's a fascinating read for history buffs and even for those who only have a casual interest in presidential history and forensics.
Vowell visits all sorts of crazy sites related to the assassinations including the National Museum of Health and Medicine which contains fragments of Lincoln's skull and the Museum of Funeral Customs which is just a short walk from Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, IL. Along the way, she tells the story of the assassinations and the characters that are involved in them. Lincoln's son Robert, for example, was in the vicinity of all three presidents when they were killed. It's such a weird coincidence that Vowell refers to him as Jinxy McDeath. Stranger still is the fact that John Wilkes Booth's brother Edwin saved Robert's life during the war when Robert fell off a train platform next to a slowly-moving train and was pulled out of the gap by Booth. The book is full of interesting stories like these and Vowell comes across as an expert in the telling.
Along the way, Vowell isn't afraid to criticize the current administration and make some connections between the present war in Iraq and McKinley's preemptive Spanish-American war. Later in the book she likens the squalid conditions that a Booth co-conspirator faced at a prison in Dry Tortugas, FL to the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (which isn't as far-fetched as it probably sounds).
Although Vowell wanders off-topic often, this humorous and entertaining book is a quick and enjoyable read for anyone who has even a slight interest in history. I just hope that she someday writes a sequel about the fourth (and still taboo?) presidential assassination of John F. Kennedy.
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May 17, 2005
"The Confessions of Max Tivoli" by Andrew Greer
Max Tivoli begins life as a young man in an old man's body and his confessions tell what it is like to grow younger as he grows older. In other words, he gradually gets smaller, regressing from a man of 60-something to a young boy. It's an interesting way to frame a story, much less a love story, which is what this book is.
Max meets the love of his life, Alice, when he is about 16 but looks like an old man. This rather perverted situation ends with Alice and her mother moving away after Max declares his love. Later, he is lucky enough to find Alice again, and this time their ages are roughly the same. They get married but, despite the fact that he grows younger, she leaves him for another man, but not before getting pregnant with their child. Max then tries to reconnect with his family, finally catching up to them again when he is around 12 years old and that's the only bit of plot I will reveal here.
I will say however, that this story struck me as being the confessions of a selfish, pathetic man. Max is only ever concerned about himself and his great love of Alice. I found it sad that he caused so much pain to Alice and the others around him in the pursuit of his own personal happiness.
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May 16, 2005
"Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell
"Cloud Atlas" is unlike any book I've ever read. The plot is a series of different pieces that span the globe and countless generations. The pieces at first seem to have nothing to do with one another, but they all fit together when examined closely as a whole. It's quite hard to describe so it might be a good idea to explain how the story is structured.
The reader is first presented with "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", which is not particularly exciting but strangely engaging nonetheless. It breaks off in mid-sentence and suddenly the confused reader is dropped into the next chapter and is reading the letters of Robert Frobisher, a con artist slash musician who is living with a semi-retired composer. The letters suddenly stop and it's the story of Luisa Rey, a wannabe investigative journalist who is trying to unlock the secrets of a nuclear power plant in California. As Rey is hot on the trail of the villainous power plant executives, the reader is dropped into the life of Timothy Cavendish who is tricked into a prison-like retirement home by his brother. By this point I was really starting to wonder what the deal was with this book, but I eagerly pressed on and was rewarded with the next chapter about a clone servant in 22nd century Korea. Just as I started to get the hang of the future, the chapter ends and the "final" chapter begins: the firsthand account of a woman in post-apocalyptic Hawaii. Mitchell rewards the faithful reader at the halfway point of the book by actually writing a full chapter. The Hawaii story actually has a conclusion but this final chapter is not the end of the book. Confused yet?
At this point Mitchell goes back through the chapters in reverse order, finally finishing what he began in the first half of the book. It's in this second half that the connections between the different stories become evident. It is also an intensely rewarding way to finish the book because the ending of each story is revealed. I found myself plowing through the second half nearly twice as fast as the first.
Laden with subtle commentary and symbolism, Mitchell's book shows the connectedness of the human race across time. At the end of the book I felt like he was trying to make some sort of grand point and although I ultimately was not able to figure out what that point was I was certainly entertained all the way through. The unique structure of the chapters is refreshing and I've rarely felt such expectation while turning the pages of a book. For me, this is the true measure of a great story.
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March 8, 2005
"Master and Commander" by Patrick O'Brian
I don't really have a very good excuse for not posting in such a long time. I have a backlog of six albums and about three books to review so hopefully I will get to those at some point.
About two hours ago I finished the first book of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series: "Master and Commander". My dad has raved about the series for years and, since the movie was the best film I saw in 2003, I figured I ought to get around to reading them at some point.
My dad was, of course, right. The book is spectacular. The opening pages detail the first meeting between Captain-to-be Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, a physician with no naval experience. Despite a rocky (and funny) beginning, the two soon become fast friends and Aubrey invites Maturin to be the surgeon aboard Sophie, the ship he has recently been given command of. The novel then follows the sloop through the Mediterranean where it engages in several battles. Between the fighting, O'Brian writes about politics, religion and the intricate relationships between Aubrey and Maturin as well as Lieutenant James Dillon.
O'Brian has an interesting style and uses lots of colons and some interesting sentence structure but the book is still hard to put down. That's saying a lot considering that most of the naval lingo went completely over my head. But that's what makes this book and, presumably, the others in the series, so good. O'Brian dives right into naval matters, military strategy, etiquette and politics of the time so deeply that the book almost requires a second read to catch and absorb everything. It's nice to know that I have 19 more books like this one left to go.
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December 26, 2004
Early Leetspeak?
Magnus later destroys the evil robot but of course leetspeak lived on! No word yet on whether there's more leetspeak in later issues.
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December 20, 2004
"Rats" by Robert Sullivan
I heard about this book when it came out and was reviewed in the New York Times but forgot about it until I saw it in the library and picked it up. I have sort of a vested interest in rats because the neighborhood I live in has a lot of them and has historically been the site of many infestations in the past. On nights when the garbage is stacked high on the curbs they are all over the place. Several times I've nearly stepped on them as they run between the garbage bags and the buildings.
Sullivan spent over a year observing rats in an alley in lower Manhattan but his observations are not the major subject of the book. The rat-watching nights he describes at the alley are not nearly as interesting as the people he interviews: exterminators, city employees, residents of rat infested buildings and scientists.
Because of the knowledge Sullivan learns from those he interviews, the book is a good primer on basic rat behavior and habits. Surprisingly, it's also a history of the city. Sullivan weaves rat stories into the human stories of New York which span the entire history of the city from its beginnings to the present day.
The history is good but of course the rat stories are even better. One of the most entertaining parts of the book, and by "entertaining" I mean "made me squeamish", is when Sullivan goes out to catch rats in Brooklyn with some city employees who are doing research. He describes catching the rats in cages and then sedating them with cotton swabs soaked in chemicals so blood can be drawn. It turns out that New York City rats are tough and the rats need double, triple and quadruple the amount of chemicals that would be needed to knock out a cat. In addition to drawing blood, the crew measured the length of their catches finding several that were one foot long. By the way, that measurement does not include the tail.
The book does not attempt to give an estimate of how many rats there are in the city but it seems safe to say that there are a lot. And by a lot I mean that there are an unknown number living in abandoned tunnels under the city who have never seen the light of day. It is these and other insights into the city's most hated residents that make "Rats" a sometimes disgusting albeit interesting read.
permalink | comments (1) | posted at 8:00 AM
December 19, 2004
"Vanity Fair" by William Thackeray
I'm just going to come right out and admit it: I'm a sucker for classic 19th century novels. "Anna Karenina" is one of my favorites and I've read my share of Jane Austen. When I saw the previews for "Vanity Fair" with the incredibly hot and wicked-looking Reese Witherspoon a few months ago I immediately reserved the book at the library. I haven't seen the movie yet but the book was quite entertaining.
The novel revolves around Rebecca Sharp and Amelia Sedley. Amelia is naive and is a tragic character through much of the story while Rebecca is basically a conniving social climber who I couldn't help but be intrigued by. In light of all the Alias I've been watching lately, I would say Rebecca is a sort of double agent who is very good at manipulating men to get what she wants.
Unfortunately the story bogs down towards the middle, which may be due to the fact that it was originally published chapter-by-chapter in serial form. Then, as if someone kicked Thackeray and told him to finish the book already, another burst of action and dialogue brings to the story to an unexciting but satisfying conclusion.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 1:07 AM
November 6, 2004
"The Universal Baseball Assocation, Inc" by Robert Coover
This is a book that my dad had been telling me about for years. "It's about a guy who has a dice-based baseball game and during one of the games his favorite player is killed by a pitch," which sounded like a pretty interesting concept. I've always had this book in the back of my mind for some reason, and my brother's recent obsession with Strat-O-Matic baseball (a dice-based baseball game) finally made me pick it up.
This is not an ordinary baseball book and it's more of a commentary on the life of J. Henry Waugh, the main character, than baseball. After the Universal Baseball Assocation's (UBA) rising star Damon Rutherford pitches a perfect game Waugh sends him in, somewhat unrealistically he realizes, the next day to pitch again. The most rare roll of the dice on the game's Extraordinary Occurrences chart shows a mortal result for poor Rutherford and he is struck down dead by a pitch when he comes up to bat.
The traumatic event sends Waugh's life into a tailspin and the book turns dark. His obsession with the game becomes all-consuming. Conversations will real people begin to mix with the UBA in Waugh's mind and the reader's. The author, Robert Coover, blends imaginary conversations with UBA players into the description of the game that Waugh is playing. This serves to make the latter half of the book very confusing but does successfully give the impression that Waugh is certainly going nuts. Unfortunately, it also made me want to skim over large portions of the book. An unsatisfying ending didn't help much either. I can see how some people might consider this a good book but it ended up being a bit disappointing for me. Sorry dad.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 5:11 PM
October 20, 2004
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss
I never thought I'd read a book about punctuation. Actually, that's not really true. I should admit now (because I never will again) that I own a copy of Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" and read it back in high school. Yes, you read that right: high school. You'd think that would make me a better punctuator (I'm not even sure that's a word), but if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time you've undoubtedly realized by now that that is not the case.
In Truss's, (or Truss' - she says the rule is not set in stone), eyes I would probably be considered what she calls a "stickler", albeit not a good one. I do, however, notice when commas are misplaced and other punctuation marks are obviously used incorrectly. And believe it or not, I actually know another stickler who gets quite enraged when she sees excalamation marks used too liberally. My point? This is a good book for someone like me and, according to the sales figures, a lot of other people around the world as well.
It is indeed quite an accomplishment for Truss that she has written a book about punctuation that has been good enough to warrant such high praise from the likes of Frank McCourt, who says she should be canonized were she only Catholic. At once both informative and surprisingly funny, this should be required reading for writers and students. I think it may have even improved my writing in the week since I've finished it, although I'll leave that decision up the two of you who are still reading this.
permalink | comments (3) | posted at 8:08 PM
September 30, 2004
"Mutants" by Armand Marie Leroi
I wish I had the stomach for this type of stuff but after making it through just one chapter of "Mutants" I had to give up. You see, I have a bit of a weak stomach when it comes to all things medical, and this book is nothing but medical. I began to suspect that I might not be able to even begin when I picked up the book at the library, flipped through the pages and saw some of the photos of deformed bodies and strange medical diagrams.
So all I can really say in this "review" is that the first chapter gives a scientific explanation of how DNA cause genetic abnormalities, technically referred to as "polymorphisms". I tried to read the second chapter on the subway this morning but it grossed me out. The author does seem like a good writer however, so this one might be worth checking out if my short description intrigues you. As for me, I'll be returning this one to the library tomorrow.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 5:55 PM
September 29, 2004
"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown
I've been neglecting reviews lately, and will have a few coming up in the next few days. I'll start with "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, which I actually finished early last week, and which I couldn't have devoured any quicker.
I knew absolutely nothing about this book before I cracked it open, which I realize is a bit hard to believe considering it's popularity. Because I must be one of the last people in the world to read it, and so I don't give anything away, I'll refrain from a detailed plot summary and just offer my opinion.
It was immediately apparent to me that Brown is not a spectacular writer and this told me that the popularity of the book is based on plot, not Brown's use of the English language. I don't mean to demean Brown's writing style, which is above average, but his strength clearly lies in plot development.
And what a plot it is. There is a twist or startling revealation in nearly every chapter, and that's what has made the book such a page-turner. The plot can be summed up simply: symbologist Robert Langdon and crypologist Sopie Neveu decode various clues and riddles left by Neveu's murdered grandfather in order to find the answer to the secret that he had been protecting.
Along with most other people who have read it, I enthusiastically recommend "The Da Vinci Code" - just keep in mind what it says on the front cover: "A Novel".
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 9:30 PM
September 22, 2004
Moneyball and O Zone
I could feel my understanding of baseball changing as I turned each page of "Moneyball". Michael Lewis is a very good writer who explains how the small market Oaklad Athletics, managed by the irascible Billy Beane, took everything they knew about baseball and, with the help of people like Bill James, turned it upside down. Batting average is not important; on base percentage is. Drawing walks is preferable to being fast on the basepaths. They turned out to be right, and the A's won a lot of games (100+ in 2001 and 2002) and made it to the playoffs several years in a row.
The book is hardly all about statistics however, and Lewis provides biographies of several players by telling the personal stories of Jeremey Brown, Scott Hatteberg, Chad Bradford and Beane himself. The chapters about individual players and Beane's antics give the book the glue that holds it together and allows Lewis to blend in the statistics and theory without boring the reader.
The only notable drawback of this book is that it doesn't touch on the batting order. As I understand it, traditional baseball knowledge says that you put your fast runner first, a good bunter or hitter second, a high batting average player third, and your power hitter fourth. The goal is to get as many runners on base so that your cleanup hitter can drive everyone in. Considering that Beane does almost everything different than most general managers, I would guess that he has a very different way of putting together a lineup but, sadly, this is not mentioned in the book.
Since he is so interested in stats, I'd be interested to hear Beane's opinion of the new MLB statistic, O-Zone Factor, unveiled on MLB.com a few days ago:
"The O Zone, a creation of MLB.com, measures a team's ability to score runners once they have reached second or third base, as well as its ability to prevent opponents from scoring runners from second or third."
I think he would say it has some merit because it compares runs scored to runs allowed, but he would also ridicule the whole idea of "scoring position" and "clutch hitting" as a way to determine how good a team is. Not to mention the fact that plenty of runs score when a runner has started on first base in the case of the triple, homerun, and even double. It seems that MLB is trying to come up with some sort of catch phrase statistic that TV announcers can spout off like they do in some other sports. They even tried to give it a catchy name which, as far as I can tell, means absolutely nothing but sounds like it might. The news release on MLB.com even acknowledges that it's basically just a buzzword, or buzzstat if you will:
"It is a statistic not unlike football's red zone and hockey's power play statistics -- stats that have become the accepted standards when measuring a team's ability to succeed when inside the 20-yard line, in the case of football, or when it has a man advantage, as in hockey. And conversely, in preventing opponents from cracking the end zone or finding the back of the net."
Time will tell if the new stat will stick around and be an accurate model of a team's success but I wouldn't be surprised to see it fade away when it doesn't catch on.
permalink | comments (2) | posted at 6:57 PM
September 13, 2004
Public Libraries Rock
Thanks to my parents, especially my Dad, I've always had great respect for public libraries - those huge repositories of free information. They're like the internet, only the information (books) that one can get out of them is infinitely more satisfying than the things that flit across a computer screen. I am a proud card carrying member of perhaps one of the best public libraries in the nation - the New York Public Library. With 80 branch locations all over the city and a stellar website I am able to get virtually any book I want. Right now, for example, I have four books which have been shipped to my local branch and are awaiting pickup. Several are bestsellers too, which the NYPL wisely stocks up on: The Da Vinci Code (431 copies), Moneyball (65 copies) and A Short History of Nearly Everything (74 copies). These books, and the seven others that I have requested, will keep me in fresh reading material for a long time. I haven't even mentioned the free internet access, educational videos, music, magazines, and online resources that libraries provide.
Because of the great, free service that public libraries provide I make an effort to donate to them whenever possible. I've given libraries back in Minneapolis several fines donations of well over $20 on numerous occasions and will be making my first $20 fine donation to the NYPL tomorrow. I encourage all users of public libraries to pay their fines support them like I do.
permalink | comments (2) | posted at 6:01 PM
September 1, 2004
"Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose
By far the best book I read on my recent journey, "Undaunted Courage", by Stephen Ambrose details the journey of Lewis and Clark across the American frontier. I read this book at the perfect time because the 200th anniversary is this year and I recently traveled across much of the same ground that Lewis and Clark did. Ambrose, if a bit un-academic at some points, is a fantastic writer and he relates the tale of the journey of the Corps of Discovery in riveting fashion. I never understood all the fuss about the anniversary of the expedition but Ambrose brings the topic alive. Someone really ought to make a feature film about this expedition and base it on this book (the Imax film "Great Journey West", highly recommended, is as close as you can get for now).
Drawing heavily on the journals of the expedition, Ambrose goes into fascinating detail about the character of Merriweather Lewis, picturing him as a highly motivated and skilled explorer, naturalist and ethnographer. I had virtually no knowledge of Lewis before I read this book but I now see him as one of the most fascinating characters of American history. He and the others set out into the unknown, documented almost everything they saw, and lived to tell about it. The expedition made huge leaps forward in science, relations with the natives and geography. It's not hard to see how Lewis and Clark's journey changed America forever by expanding her borders and making the unknown of the frontier accessible to settlers.
I have newfound respect for all the men, woman and baby who took part in the expedition. They were perhaps the last true explorers, at least until humans land on Mars. Thanks to Ambrose, I now understand why the 200th anniversary is such a big deal. Whether you're travelling over the same ground or not, this book is a fascinating story worth reading.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 2:29 AM
"The Great Railway Bazaar" by Paul Theroux
Writer Paul Theroux goes on a rail journey that must be at least five
times longer than the one I just completed. He starts in London and
travels through Europe, Turkey, the Middle East, India, China, Japan and Russia. I disagree with Theroux's travel style, which seems to consist of taking the train just for the sake of taking the train. He spends little time in cities and towns along the route and spends most of the book describing the trains themselves and the people that ride them.
The best tale of the book comes in the first couple of chapters when he describes the other person in his compartment, Duffill, and then relates how poor Duffill gets left on the platform somewhere in Europe, while his bags remain in the compartment. Apart from that, there are few good bits in the book.
Theroux lapses into a description of every type of landscape the trains pass through and the various types of people he encounters, all of whom he looks down upon rather haughtily. It's worth a read, if only for the descriptions of landscape which many of us may never travel through. Just don't expect much of a plot or humor beyond the first couple of chapters.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 12:56 AM
July 31, 2004
"In the Presence of Mine Enemies" by Edward Ayers
In his book "In the Presence of Mine Enemies", Edward Ayers takes two typical counties during the Civil War, one from the South and one from the North, and compares and contrasts them. In the early 90's, Ayers started the "Valley of the Shadow" project. After choosing two counties linked by the Shenandoah Valley, Franklin to the north of the Mason-Dixon line and Augusta to the south, Ayers obtained relevant documents from both counties during the Civil War period, transcribed them with the help of an army of UVA students, and put them all on the internet. The project alone is remarkable, and has become a valuable online resource for the war, but Ayers went a step further. He dug through the collection that he himself created and used selected resources to write a history that compares and contrasts the counties. His results in some cases are typical and fit the stereoypes for each side, but they are simply astonishing in others. What is most noticeable in the end is that the two counties weren't all that different at the start of the war, and both became almost completely devoted to the side they were fighting for.
Ayers has written a book that successfully uses micro-history to tell the reader about individual people and events while maintaining the wider context and relevance to the Civil War period as a whole. With "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" Ayers has made a valuable and lasting contribtion to Civil War scholarship.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 11:37 PM
June 27, 2004
"The Confederate War" by Gary Gallagher
Noted Civil War historian Gary Gallagher takes on some of the common perceptions of the Civil War in this thoughtful historiography, "The Confederate War". He contends that Civil War historians look at the conflict by working backwards from Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and by examining why the South was defeated. Gallagher takes on the issue in a different way, looking at the conflict from beginning to end and detailing how the Confederacy was able to last so long in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.
Gallagher begins by looking at the previous works of other historians and sets forth his own hypotheses in three areas: popular will, nationalism, and military strategy. In the first, he looks at the widespread belief that the South lost the will to fight. Most historians contend that this occurred in the summer of 1863 after the dual defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Gallagher disagrees, and gives ample evidence that the South was still in favor of continuing the war. He even claims that, if anything, the South became more determined as the war stretched into '64 and '65. To prove his point, Gallagher looks at desertion rates and attacks the widely held theory that the Army of Northern Virginia was disintegrating during the Petersburg campaign. He argues that desertions occurred because soldiers were worried about the safety of their families in the face of the Union advance into Virginia, not because they were losing faith in the cause. He also contends that many soldiers actually returned to the front lines after ensuring the safety of their families.
As the war continued, and as the Confederacy became more desperate for troops, the idea of gradual emancipation was raised, even by such notables as Robert E. Lee. Gallagher uses this to show that the South was willing to do anything necessary to win the war; they were even willing to give up their basic social structure: slavery, in order to become an independent nation. At this point Gallagher brings up the idea of nationalism, and contends that civilians of the South felt a strong national identity. Furthermore, that sense of nationalism is due in large part to the Army of Northern Virginia and it's charismatic General Lee. Gallagher makes a strong case throughout the book that the Confederate people saw the army as the figurehead of the South.
Finally, Gallagher tackles military strategy. Historians often make the case that the Confederacy should have changed it's military strategy by waging a defensive campaign and by adopting guerilla warfare. Gallagher argues that these are flawed ideas, and this is the strongest portion of the book. Neither of these strategies would have been successful because they both lack inspiration. By waging a defensive war, the South would not have received the benefits of the morale boosts provided by Lee's army after victories like Chancellorsville and Fredricksburg. Gallagher uses Lee's first campaign as an example. During the Seven Days, he was nicknamed "King of Spades" because of his insistence on digging earthworks. During this time morale flagged in the South because Lee was waging a defensive campaign. Thereafter, he employed an aggressive offensive strategy which was mostly successful until Ulysses S. Grant took command in 1864.
Gallagher uses a similar argument to contend that a guerilla war would not have produced a Confederate victory. He goes through a long list of problems with this theory. Most importantly, there would be no massive army like Lee's to look up to, which would cause morale problems amongst the civilians of the South. A guerilla war would have caused problems with slavery and would have required ceding some territory to the Union because the very nature of a guerilla war is that it is fought against an occupying force. Also, the professional military would have been alienated and there would be almost no chance that the Confederacy would be recognized, much less supported, by European nations.
In summary, this book looks at some of the most common perceptions of the Confederacy which have been in place throughout this century and refutes them. However, Gallagher encounters the same problem of the historians that he is refuting, in that he is still generalizing. Of course he can find letters from the common Southerner that speak of "our country", but there are plenty of letters that support the opposite theory. Because of this, there will always be disagreements about what was in the hearts and minds of Southerners during the war. The strong point of this book is when Gallagher shows that Lee's army was the rallying point and figurehead for the Southern cause and that they followed the best strategy possible by more often than not taking the fight to the enemy, rather than letting the enemy come to them. In the end, the book once again shows just how important Lee and his army were to the Confederacy, and demonstrates that without his leadership and the inspiring effect he had on the populace, the war would certainly have ended much sooner.
permalink | comments (1) | posted at 12:24 PM
June 22, 2004
"Dreams of Iron and Steel" by Deborah Cadbury
Originally a television show aired on the BBC in Britain, "Dreams of Iron and Steel" is TV presenter Deborah Cadbury's print version of the popular series. In it, she looks at seven wonders of the industrial age: the Great Eastern, London sewer system, Brooklyn Bridge, Panama Canal, transcontinental railroad, Bell Rock Lighthouse and Hoover Dam. Each modern marvel receives its own chapter in which Cadbury delves just deep enough into the topic to keep the reader informed and interested. She gives enough technical information to show the genius of each design, and tells of the common workers and the conditions they endured to build each of the seven wonders. If anything, Cadbury's book is as much about the people as it is the technology. And, considering the volumes that have been written about every one of the wonders in this book, she manages to narrow each one down to perhaps 40 or 50 pages, making "Dreams of Iron and Steel" a captivating read.
BBC History has a brief summary of it's popular series along with a gallery of images that were not put in the book.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 11:10 PM