queenlyzard

{1222-1227}

*** 1222) "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

No, I've never read this-- or any Austen book-- before now. Amazing, isn't it? I enjoyed it quite a lot-- the short chapters offset the period language and made it easier to read than I expected. I love Austen's dry, situational sense of humor, and I was thoroughly swept away by the main plot once I got into it, which did take me a little while. I don't know that it will become one of those favorites that I read over and over, but I'm definitely happy to have read it once.

Quotes:

Charlotte: "' Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation...' " 24 Not sure if I agree entirely, but it's a very interesting point to consider!

Darcy:  " 'The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.' " 49 Austen actually has a real knack for being snarky, come to think of it.

of Elizabeth: "It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty; and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition." 227 I envy her that! And they totally got her wrong in the movie with Kiera Knightly (although I liked the movie all the same, romantic piece of drivel that it was. We watched it and read the book for book club last month. I really was annoyed at the movie for leaving out some major plot-points, though).

of Mr. Bennet "...where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given." 231 What a marvelous description!


*** 1223) "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

Enjoyable, although verging on the overly simple at times. Unexpectedly funny in places, although I wouldn't describe it as a humorous work on the whole, as many people do. A wonderfully astute sketch, a pie-slice of life, a celebration of normalcy and oddity... all the stuff I tend to find boring in standard "literature," but written sparely and lightly enough that it isn't boring.

"...there are two possible reactions to social ostracism-- either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world, and does even worse things. This last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma." 132

" 'It has always seemed strange to me,' said Doc, 'The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.' " 135


**** 1224) "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Marvelous-- everything a novel should be. A tall tale, and a wonderful one. A grouchy old man in a nursing home recalls his days with the circus, and as he finds his power over his own mind and body slipping away from him, he is reminded of the experiences that make life worth living. Adventure, intrigue, and wonder abound.


*** 1225) "War of Worlds" by H. G. Wells (on audio)

Wells is an excellent storyteller, and even though I already knew the basic plot of this one, I followed it with no less eagerness for that. It was amazing being reminded throughout how different the world was a mere hundred years ago-- no mass media, no means of communicating over a distance, no rapid transit of any kind. Nothing electric, for crying out loud. How did they manage? It's amazing to see how even such little questions as food storage were handled so differently then. I found it interesting to speculate, too, how science fiction has changed over the years-- I mean, in every era, we imagine, for example, aliens coming to earth with technology we've never seen, but the way in which we envision that futuristic technology depends so much on our own stage of development. Wells' Martians wouldn't even start to be a threat today, and "Independence Day" would make no sense at all in his time.


**** 1226) "Bagombo Snuffbox: Uncollected Stories" by Kurt Vonnegut

Well, if these are the stories that didn't make it into the original collection, I'd better go read those ASAP, because these were amazing. Vonnegut seems a little less cynical, a little more lighthearted and uplifting, in his short fiction. I expected the reverse. He has fun playing with little "what if" scenarios, but realistic and un.

And I'm very glad I finally got a good look at the title. I've been thinking of this book as "Bombago Snuffbox" for years. I really can be rather lysdexic at times. Oh wait, crud, that's the actual name of the place, too? I had that wrong as well. Oy, what am I going to do with me?


*** 1227) "Timequake" by Kurt Vonnegut

Interesting, but not my favorite of his books by any means. Took me a bit to get into this one. Also, very baffling in parts because he talks about himself alternately as a character in the book and as the author writing it.  Impossible to tell fact from fiction for a large part of the novel.  Some good quotes, though:

"I myself say atomic energy has made people unhappier than they were before, and that having to live in a two-hemisphere planet has made our aborigines a lot less happy, without making the wheel-and-alphabet people who 'discovered' them any fonder of being alive than they were before.
"Then again, I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good." 89 I love Vonnegut.

Vonnegut's suggested further amendments to the US Constitution:
"/Article XXVIII:/ Every newborn shall be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity.
"/Article XXIX:/ Every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do, at a living wage." 152

"At the time of their invention, books were devices as crassly practical for storing or transmitting language,albeit fabricated from scarcely modified substances found in forest and field and animals, as the latest Silicon Valley miracles. But by accident, not by cunning calculation, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and soul, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about." 157 A fascinating theory.

"Any dream of taking care of our people [needs] some scheme for giving us all the support and companionship of extended families, within which sharing and compassion are more plausible than in an enormous nation..." 164

"Still and all, why bother [to write]? Here's /my/ answer: Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone.' " 193

{1222-1227}

**** 1221) "The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia" by Laura Miller

We read this as a "book club" book over at  bookaddiction a while back, but I never got around to making a personal post on it. I'm going to copy material from my discussion posts there, so this will be a bit longer than my usual book review. In short, in this book Miller talks about her childhood love of Lewis's Narnia series, her disillusionment with the books when they were presented to her as Christian symbolism, and her search for the reason why she still loves them despite disagreeing with their religious premise. Part memoir, part literary criticism and history, part psychology, and with a bit of biography about Lewis and his writings, I found this book very enjoyable and full of interesting ideas. The only thing that frustrated me was the lack of source notes. She presents many references to other works, but no specific sources for her most tantalizing speculations.

Quotes (some that I liked and some that I just thought were good discussion topics)

"...we all know that the books we've loved best are seldom the ones we esteem most highly-- or the ones we'd most like people to think we read over and over again" (p 4).

"...while the process of writing about a book can reveal things you'd never get from simply reading it, it can also make reading a less immediate and visceral experience" (p 5)

"The relationship between book and reader is intimate, at best a kind of love affair, and first loves are famously tenacious" (p 11)

"Do the children who prefer books set in the real, ordinary, workaday world ever read as obsessively as those who would much rather be transported into other worlds entirely?" (p 23).

"...all stories are escapes from life; all stories are unrealistic, or at least all the good ones are. Life, unlike stories, has no theme, no formal unity, and (to unbelievers, at least) no readily apparent meaning. That's why we /want/ stories... Perhaps that's why humanity's oldest stories are full of outlandish events and supernatural beings; the idea that a story must somehow mimic everyday life would probably have seemed daft to the first tellers. Why even bother to tell a story about something so commonplace?" (p 25).

"Like Lewis's, my material life [in childhood] often seemed to be nothing more than the drab and shadowy interludes between the hours when I could read and retreat to an interior realm furnished with the fabulous treasure I had scavenged from hundreds of books." 42

"Gardens make a particularly good image of the self for a writer, because while a garden can be cultivated and enjoyed privately, it can also yield fruit that can be shared with others." 50

"...children are literalists; they lack not only the cognitive skills but also the sheer bulk of information it takes to formulate abstractions and recognize general patterns. They think in specifics, of the concrete, tactile reality they encounter every day. As Philip Pullman... is wont to say, 'Children are not less intelligent than adults; what they are is less informed.' Sometimes they do not see the forest because they're still getting acquainted with the trees." 87

"Once we learn to see things with the idea that they belong to a particular category, we're in danger of missing all the qualities they share with things in other categories, not to mention all the qualities that are theirs alone." (p89)

"Like Lewis, I hankered after the ineffable and the sublime, but the story of Jesus had never spoken to that part of my imagination. Christianity was too monolithic, comprehensive, and established. Temperamentally,  preferred uncertainty, slippery boundaries, little neglected corners of the world where magic lurked unnoticed, and strangeness." (p 100)

"If literary writing has any distinguishing characteristic, it's that the more you look at it the more you see, and the more you see the more you want to go on looking." (p 113)
I am tempted to disagree with this, although I cannot say why. I can think of an example in which it is true-- Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle In Time" (another children's book with an underlying religious message, in some ways). Perhaps I object not so much to that statement as to one which follows it closely:
"The closer and more completely you can come to explaining what a work of art means, the less like art it seems." (114)

"[In school] If anything, the more I enjoyed a story, the less likely it was to be serious, worthwhile literature." 116 How true!!

"Disgust, however elemental it feels, is often just a matter of the company you keep." 122 There is some room for debate on this, from a psychology perspective.

"We want the artists who have changed our lives to lead exemplary lives of their own." (p 125)


This following section is not very well informed, I think, but a fascinating premise to follow up on:

"But surely what the sadist or masochist craves most is a particular /dynamic/, generated by a theatrical imbalance of power, in which one player towers above, possessed of all the strength, glory, and authority, while the other cringes below in utter humility and dependence. The imbalance creates a charged emotional appeal; who plays what role matters less than the voluptuous contrast between them. Often no real violence and very little pain are involved. The sadomasochistic impulse seems to arise not from the urge to behave aggressively, but from the desire to be suspended in an ever-unfolding continuum of overwhelming feeling. And this, in turn, throw new light on the emphasis Lewis put on him submissiveness before God; for here was a man for whom piety and prostration were very much the same thing...

"...my friend asked, 'But isn't that the same thing as almost everyone's relationship to God? It's about bowing as low as you can before an incomprehensible power.'
"
His observation stopped me in my tracks. Surely not every believer is a closet sadomasochist? On the other hand, perhaps sadomasochism is not as exotic as it's made out to be. Perhaps its devotees are merely people whose affinity for a particular dynamic takes a sexual rather than a spiritual form? ...[in church as a girl] I saw the tortured body of a man, swooning in agony, blood dripping from his brow, hands, feet, and side. What would someone with no prior knowledge of Christianity conclude upon walking into /that/ god's temple...

"Remove the overt sexuality and the paraphernalia from a sadomasochistic scene, and the emotional center of helplessness and dependency isn't so very different from the intense bond between parent and child or a god and his worshipper. Perhaps all of these are facets of something universal that I, too, can recognize. It's the desire to be carried away by something greater than ourselves-- a love affair, a group, a movement, a nation, a faith. Or even a book." (166-7)

I confess, I just love the idea of religion as an S&M relationship with God!

"Men like J. M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll preferred the company of children not (as the jaded modern mind sometimes presumes) because they were pedophiles seeking adult pleasures from children, but because they longed for the childlike pleasures they couldn't share with
adults." 174 My instinct is to agree strongly. But this is one of those places where I'd love to see some source material for her conclusion.

"Ideally, reading is a kind of collaboration; the more a reader brings to the book, the more he has to contribute to the experience and the richer it will be." 264

"Fairies, neither angels nor men, neither good nor evil, have no place in God's plan. That is the real source of their appeal and their threat, and the reason why fundamentalists object to witches, wizards, and other occult elements in children's books. It's not that these figures lure readers to Satanism, but that they introduce the possibility that God and Satan are not your only options." 276

"The power of a myth doesn't arise from the particular words used to convey it; it can even be felt when no words at all are used." 286


( more of my own opinions )

*** 1220) "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" by Tom Robbins

In spite of my longstanding love of Robbins, it took me a while to get into this book. I often have the same problem with Vonnegut, for some reason. But in the end, as always, I loved it. Robbins has such an excellent grasp of how to mingle the absurd with a realistic story until you have trouble remembering which bits should be hard to believe. And somehow, the most ridiculous parts are always the most true to human nature.

Quotes:

"Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the reflection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it..." 234

"[America is] an 'abusive democracy,' one in which everybody wants to control everybody else. Lately, even tolerance, itself, has been usurped by the sanctimonious and the opportunistic, and turned into an instrument for intimidation, bullying, and extortion." 258

An interesting sociological observation:

" [Skeeter Washington said] '...I fail to detect where they be a hell of a lot of /difference/ between the terms 'colored people' and 'people of color.' Or between ''Afro-American' and 'African-America,' far as that goes.'
'The distinctions are subtle, all right,' Switters admitted. 'Too subtle for the rational mind. Only the political mind can grasp them. I suspect there's a bid for empowerment behind it all, the power going to whoever seizes the right to coin the names. In a reality made of language, the people who get to name things have psychological ownership of those things.'" 211

Switters: "'Politics is where people pay somebody large sums of money to impose his or her will on them. Politics is sadomasochism.' "
Also, he says "Terrorism is the only imaginable logical response to America's foreign policy, just as street crime is the only imaginable logical response to America's drug policy." 394

I had to copy this following passage down (ok, most of it, anyway... I did elide quite a few bits) because it has so much in it that is very astute, although I think it could also be very easily problematic if taken too seriously as an over-generalization. All in all, though, it is an excellent explanation of how situational depression can turn into purely biochemical depression. Although I'm not sure I agree with her assessment (not included here) that the best way to save someone from this fate is to make fun of them until they learn to make fun of themselves!

Maestra: "'All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously...
For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which, if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression...
"then depression can become a neurological habit....
"Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way...
"Once depression has become electronically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it...'" 44-5

{1214-19}
Adult fiction from the "normal" shelves


** 1214) "Sum: 40 tales from the afterlives" by David Eagelman

Fun little book. Reminded me a bit of "Einstein's Dreams." Each mini-story covers a potential life after this one-- some thought-provoking, some absurd, some frightening, some wonderful. The first story was truly the best. A few made me laugh out loud. I was a bit surprised that, although many of them turned classical ideas on their heads and went out on quite a limb, most of the ones involving a religious afterlife of some kind seemed very much based in Judeo-Christian thinking.


*** 1215) "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult

Yes, I gave in a read a popular novel, and enjoyed it quite a bit more than I thought I would. The writing isn't brilliant, but it's compelling and evenly-paced. The story held a good mix of serious content, light moments, and heart-string-tugging. Around about 2/3 of the way in, I realized that there was no possible ending that could make me satisfied given what I knew so far, so I wasn't surprised when I found the end unsatisfactory. I'm curious to know how they changed it for the movie and whether I'll like that ending any better. I suspect I'll pick up another of her books when I want a light human-interest thriller.


*** 1216) "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" by Terry McMillan

No, I haven't seen the movie. I didn't love this as much as the other book of hers that I read, but I did still enjoy it quite a bit. Too much romance for me, and I found myself caring about whether it would work out far more than I wanted to! I guess the story sucked me in against my will. The descriptions were wonderfully vivid and I certainly found myself jealous of Stella (and for more than just the romance!).


*** 1217) "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck

Yes, yes, I should have read it years ago. Good story, and all the more enjoyable for being a lot damn shorter than "East of Eden". Sad and real and all those other things that are the main reason I avoid classics :)

In the intro, Steinbeck is quoted as writing "Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love". Not sure I agree, but it's definite food for thought.
 

*** 1218) "Hocus Pocus" by Kurt Vonnegut

I will never understand why I keep putting off reading the rest of Vonnegut's books. Even when one of them isn't my very favorite-- such as this one, with its complex and meandering plot-- I still enjoy his style immensely. And as always, I found a few disturbingly deep thoughts disguised as cynical witticisms:

"My own feeling is that if adultery is wickedness then so is food. Both make me feel so much better afterward." 120

"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance." 225

"Beer, of course, is actually a depressant. But poor people will never stop hoping otherwise." 259


1219) "Enduring Love" by Ian McEwan

Book club book. Typical "literary fiction"-- disturbing, off-putting, depressing, and just plain weird. My favorite bit was the epilogue and that's only because it made the novel sound as though it were based on a true story, which would have been excellent indeed. Instead... I might recommend it to fans of Updike's "Rabbit" novels-- it has that same morbid tone of classical hubristic tragedy about it.

"No one could agree on anything. We lived in a mist of half-shared, unreliable perception, and our sense data came warped by a prism of desire and belief, which tilted our memories too... Pitiless objectivity, especially about ourselves, was always a doomed social strategy. We're descended from indignant, passionate tellers of half-truths, who, in order to convince others, simultaneously convinced themselves." 196 A good point indeed! Really, if the novel had focused just a bit more on the neurological factors at play, I might have liked it a lot better.

"I've never outgrown that feeling of mild pride, of acceptance, when children take your hand." 248 This line just struck me so poignantly. It's exactly how I felt, not long after, when I visited with conuly and her two adorable young nieces, who on several occasions reached out with absolute trust to put their tiny, soft hands in mine, making me feel proud and responsible and touched and protective and trusted all at once. It's really something of an overwhelming feeling when one isn't used to it.


Ok, enough for one entry.

I saved the best for last. These are quotes from the real life of myself and my roommates, plus a few random ones thrown in. No gaming, just the insane silliness that was our home. *Sigh* I admit, I got over Berto pretty quickly when he left-- but one thing I will say, the guy sure could make people laugh.

[btw-- yes, my real name shows up in here a few times-- I couldn't be bothered to change it. I would, however, appreciate it if those of you who know what it is continue to refer to me only by my screenname on LJ. I'm paranoid-- go figure]


( lengthy, but worth it )

Consisting of stuff nabbed from old High School friends and their gaming group(s):


Dave (The Horde): You are drawn towards the castle by large and obvious plot hooks
Gamer: I try to walk away...
Dave: The plot hooks waggle menacingly.

Dave (The Horde): One more word out of you and you're off to the fire mine. To mine fire. It hurts.

Liz (the Horde): I'm Satan's Mistress. I have evil privileges. SO RESPECT MY AUTHORITAY AND CALL MY MOMMY!

Liz and Pheebs (Hordlings): "Wow, your lips are really sparkly." "Yeah, well, I ate a fairy this morning."

(?): "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

Steve (The Horde): "Hey, I'm a Paladin! It's my job to open divine cans of whup-ass on stuff!" 

Horde Lore: "You have a longsword named Katana"

Payton: I'm sorry, but all dark gods are busy with other sacrifices right now. Please stay on the line. Your sacrifice is important to us.


...As much as D&D drives me up the wall, I really do wish I'd been around for the Horde campaigns. I have heard such stories from those guys...!

ok, inspired by this post, I have dredged up the old Computerized Makeshift Official Quotelist from many years ago-- a compilation of gaming quotes and other hilarious sayings from my then-bf (Roberto/Berto), our college friends, his college friends, and my high-school friends-ish. I'm going to try to weed out the completely context-dependent ones, tidy them up into categories, and post them here. Apologies in advance to anyone who recognizes themselves or others or notices a misquoted or mis-attributed line-- I know our records were far from perfect.


Part One: Scenes from Roberto's College Gaming Group (as far as I know, this consisted of D&D and Vampire the Masquerade):

( under cut and in chunks for easier reading )

Really, this kind of humor was the only part of gaming I ever truly loved.

*** 1195) "When You Are Engulfed In Flames" by David Sedaris

One of his better collections, in my opinion; surprisingly, it didn't contain a single story that grossed me out-- except maybe the one about keeping pet spiders, but still. Witty and fun, and I only wanted to smack him a few times.


*** 1196) "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion

A book club book (shows you how far behind I am on my journaling-- I think I've listed three club books lately, and we only meet once a month!) This is a beautiful and heartbreaking memoir about a woman who loses her husband and has her daughter fall into a coma in the same year. It is a terribly honest and moving story of grief, love, and surviving heartbreak. Poignant.

"These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible." 75 This quote in particular struck me when I looked at the author's photo on the back cover-- she had that exact look in her eyes, so full of grief it was as though you could see straight into her.

"...many people I knew, whether in New York or California or in other places, shared a habit of mind usually credited to the very successful. They believed absolutely in their own managerial skills. They believed absolutely in the power of the telephone numbers they had at their fingertips, the right doctor, the major donor, the person who could facilitate a favor at State or Justice... Yet I had always at some level apprehended, because I was born fearful, that some events in life would remain beyond my ability to control or manage them." 98 Oh, I know how that feels!

"...I realize how open we are to the persistent message that we can avert death./ And to its punitive correlative, the message that if death catches us we have only ourselves to blame." 206

"The craziness is receding but no clarity is taking its place./ I look for resolution and find none." 225

{1184-6}

* 1184) "Love in the Time of the Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I confess, I might not have finished this one if it weren't a book-club assignment. It's very literary, yes, but dense and hard to follow. The storyline jumps around so much, flashing forward and back, that I suspect one would only get the full effect on the second reading. I found the main love story impossible to believe, although it was fun trying to imagine such an obsession and the world in which it could happen. In short, the book was beautiful, but not my type.


**** 1185) "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This book, on the other hand, swept me off my feet. Tense, gothic, lush, and mysterious, this is a book about a book, a mystery within a mystery, a maze of a story all wrapped up in gorgeous writing like dark chocolate. Let me share some quotations with you:

"I wondered what on earth she saw in me that could make her want to befriend me, other than a pale reflection of herself, an echo of solitude and loss. In my schoolboy reveries, we were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams." - Daniel, p29

" 'Army, Marriage, the Church, and Banking: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' " - Fermin, p98

" 'The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.' " -Nuria Monfort, 167

" 'Life on the streets is short. People look at you in disgust, even the ones who give you alms, but this is nothing compared to the revulsion you feel for yourself. It's like being trapped in a walking corpse, a corpse that's hungry, stinks, and refuses to die.' " - Fermin, 322

"Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell hat happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind." -Nuria, 428

"Julian once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise." -Nuria, 444

"Does the  madman know he is mad? Or are the madmen those who insist on convincing him of his unreason in order to safeguard their own idea of reality?" -Nuria, 444

"[She] says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do so with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day." -Daniel, 484


*** 1186) "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes

Fascinating, touching, poignant. All that stuff great literature is supposed to be. I can't believe it took me this long to get around to the book, but I'm very glad someone finally talked me into it.

**** 1174) "The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook: what traumatized children can teach us about love, loss, and healing" by Bruce Perry

Not an easy book to read, but it ought to be required for anyone who works with children, people, and trauma/abuse victims of any kind. The carefully-analyzed case studies in this book are fascinating, insightful, and not overly hyped or simplified. Beyond that, I'll let it speak for itself. Favorite quotes in bold.

"I do not believe in 'the abuse excuse' for violent or hurtful behavior, but I have found that there are complex interactions beginning in early childhood that affect our ability to envision choices and that may later limit our ability to make the best decisions."

"Biology isn't just genes playing out some unalterable script. It is sensitive to the world around it..."

"...the stress-response systems are among only a handful of neural systems in the brain that, if poorly regulated or abnormal, can cause dysfunction in all four of the main brain areas..."

"It's important to understand that our default is set at suspicion, not acceptance." (regarding any kind of new stimuli)

"While not all ADD, hyperactivity and oppositional-defiant disorder are trauma-related, it is likely that the symptoms that lead to these diagnoses are trauma-related more often than anyone has begun to suspect."

"Our bodies and especially our brains are built to magnify practically imperceptible initial incongruities into massively differentiated results."

"Fortunately, the virtuous cycle is every bit as cascading and self-amplifying as the vicious cycle."  (eg, praise at the right moment can spark interest, resulting in modest potential flowering to fullest extent.)

"The key to healthy development is getting the right experiences in the right amounts at the right time."

"If you're planning for consequences, in some sense, you are empathizing with your 'future self.' " (Empathy relates to impulse-control)

"Humans are social animals, highly susceptible to emotional contagion. Training, logic and intelligence are often no match for the power of group-think."

"...'trained intuition' is a large part of what distinguishes experts from amateurs in most fields. We don't always consciously what what it is that doesn't fit, but somewhere our brain recognizes that part of the puzzle is missing, and it sends up a signal that something's askew. (This 'gut feeling' is actually a low-level activation of the stress response system, which is acutely attuned to combinations of incoming signals that are out of context or novel.)"

"What maltreated and traumatized children most need is a healthy community to buffer the pain, distress and loss caused by their earlier trauma. What works to heal them is anything that increases the number and quality of a child's relationships. What helps is consistent, patient, repetitive loving care. And, I should add, what doesn't work is well-intended but poorly trained mental health 'professional' rushing in after a traumatic event, or coercing children to 'open up' or 'get out their anger.' "

"As technology has advanced, we have gotten farther and farther away from the environment for which evolution shaped us. The world we live in now is biologically disprespectful; it does not take into account many of our most basic human needs... For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that 'unless you love yourself, no one else will love you'... The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation."

{1170-73}

I've been so busy reading every spare moment I never have time to write reviews anymore!

Oh hey, I think I'll start a new rating system too, since I'm getting more readers: books will be given 0-4 stars (*), instead of the previous 0-2.


Have some nonfiction.


*** 1170) "A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid

A wonderful (small) book in which Kincaid muses about her home island of Antigua, in her vivid, acerbic, insightful way. Funny and sad and wistful and angry all at once.


**** 1171) "A Primate's Memoir" by Robert Sapolsky

July's book club book. With Jewish humor and unflagging optimism, Sapolsky tells tales of his years in Africa studying baboons. Part science journal and larger part memoir/travelogue, this book is a joy to read despite the many frightful facts and events it covers. Through his stories, Sapolsky reminds us subtly that we, like his baboons, are strange primates whose behavior is often hard to comprehend.


*** 1172) "Alex and Me" by Irene Pepperberg

A sweet memoir about the bird who changed the world-- or at least made people think twice about the term "birdbrain." Alex was an African Grey parrot and Irene was his trainer and advocate. The book doesn't focus so much on their work as on the deep personal relationship the two formed over the years.

A caveat: I passed the book along to my roommate, who is a professional scientist, and she pretty much hated it. So-- not to be read from a scientifically critical standpoint (I don't think Pepperberg talked enough about her studies to judge them, but apparently a lot of her personal decisions-- turning down a teaching post and then complaining that she didn't have the funding to do her research, for examples-- are major faux-pas in the world of professional science. My roommate branded her a "kook"-- but I still have to recommend the book, if only as an animal lover's personal odyssey).


** 1173) "My Lobotomy" by Howard Dully

The story of Dully, a man who, at age 12, was given an "ice-pick lobotomy" at the request of a stepmother who found his behavior unmanageable. It is unclear from Dully's description of himself as a child whether he may have had ADHD or something similar-- honestly, he struck me as a normal, if somewhat rambunctious and mischievous, boy.

What is so strange to me is how little the lobotomy seems to have changed Dully, at least according to his own descriptions. He seems to have given up on himself as hopeless at that point and went through many years of delinquency, alcohol dependence, and assorted self-destructive behaviors-- but no more so than anyone who grew up in a broken and distant family. I think, oddly enough, that the psychological effect of what was done to him may have been worse than the physical effect on his brain-- although his life-long history of poor choices and impulsive behavior is certainly consistent with frontal lobe damage.

This is an interesting memoir, strange and disturbing at times, and often disturbing in its tone of normalcy and banality. Perhaps some of the flatness of the descriptions is, in fact, due to the lobotomy... and perhaps not. It's hard to tell. As someone with an interest in brain science, I found this very frustrating to read because it is truly a memoir, not a case study, and leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

After long years of researching his own history, and some heavy soul-searching, Dully at last is content in his life, and has realized that, in some ways, he is both better and worse off than others-- as are we all.

"That's true for everybody, I guess. We are all the victims of what is done to us. We can either use that as an excuse for failure, knowing that if we fail it isn't really our fault, or we can say 'I want something better than that, I deserve something better than that, and I'm going to try to make myself a life worth living.' " Amen!

{1166-69}

So, I missed a few... and have read more since last entry.

** 1166 ) "Podkayne of Mars" by Robert Heinlein

Ok, I officially take back everything bad I ever said about sci-fi. I love the stuff. It just has to be character-driven for me to get into it. Granted, this one isn't heavy on the science, which may have been part of why I liked it-- it's a good story that just happens to take place in the far future with a young woman from Mars as the main character. It's very interesting to see how a female character (not to mention the future itself) was written about half a century ago. In some ways, Poddy should be considered a very anachronistic-- if not downright old-fashioned-- woman. In other ways, despite the outdated gender standards and ideas, she's a very strong and self-determined character, and it's hard to see where she gets any raw deals.


* 1167) "The Stepford Wives" by Ira Levin

Having seen and liked both versions of the movie (for very different reasons, of course), I figured I should give the book a try. It was quite fun-- almost more of a novela than a novel. And much more heavily feminist than I'd realized. Creepy, too-- much more like the first movie than the second.


** 1168) "Stardoc" by S. L. Viehl

I actually picked this one up out of curiosity because padparadscha is writing something a bit along these lines and I was curious to see what a similar, published work would look like. This one turned out to be an exciting sf drama featuring a brilliant doctor working a crappy job at the far end of space in order to escape the secrets of her past... slight shades of "Firefly" here. It was a good and compelling story with highly engaging characters... but padparadscha and her many fans will be happy to know that it was no "Doctors!... In!... Space!..." While some of the alien species are quite fascinating, the author spends very little time making them medically or anthropologically plausible.  Still, good story.


** 1169) "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey

So I've finally gotten around to reading this book after years of dithering and griping that it was too long. Yeah, it was good. A bit too much religious back-story and political intrigue for me, occasional off-putting usage of archaic language... and yet. It was lyrical and mesmerizing and truly remarkable in that it was a long book about a woman who is essentially a courtesan, but it is not an erotic novel. It's just a long, complicated, and very good story. I really must pick up the next one soon.

Favorite line:  "There is no situation so dire that a hot bath cannot improve one's outlook"

{1163-1165}

1163) "Deal Breaker" by Harlan Coben

You know, I'm so used to reading series' in order that I've forgotten you don't always have to. Particularly with mysteries, I'm starting to wonder if maybe it isn't always best to start with the author's first book, because those tend to be a bit rough around the edges. We'll see if I can overcome my OC tendencies in that respect-- I've accidentally read books out of order before and liked them just fine, but I never can bring myself to do it on purpose.

So, apart from being a touch rough around the edges, this was a good mystery. A bit too much about sports for me personally, but other than that, I have no complaints.


1164) "Rest in Pieces" by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown

Another mystery in a cute and charming setting-- but somehow, I don't think mystery will ever be my "brain candy" genre. For some reason, I find reading about murders a little too creepy unless there's some good supernatural stuff thrown in to set my brain in "non-reality" mode. Still, her characters are a lot of fun, if sometimes a bit too southern for my finicky taste.


** 1165) "Up Country" by Nelson Demille

I read this one on recommendation of a customer, and I have to admit it was pretty damn good. It was longer than what I usually read, and more male-chauvinistic by a lot, and entirely too much about war... but I didn't mind any of that because it was an incredibly gripping and well-written book. The main character is a Vietnam veteran, and as far as he's concerned, he's also retired. But then the army approaches him with an offer he can't refuse-- to go back to 'Nam in search of some "important articles" from the war. Something even he isn't allowed to know about. So begins a vivid story of travel and intrigue and soul-searching as well as the more physical kind.

The only thing that really bugged me was the ending, which I found far too open-ended and unsatisfactory. I don't think it's any spoiler to tell you that he eventually uncovers a secret which should, quite frankly, put his life in grave danger-- but as I see it, that threat is never really properly addressed. And yes, the ending is a big deal, but when you can read several hundred pages and be unable to complain about any except the last two, you still have to call it a damn good book. Even if, like me, you're not much for either mysteries or war stories. Got a few good lines out of it, too.

"Nostalgia is basically the ability to forget the things that sucked." 225

"You can fake a lot of things in life-- women fake orgasms, and men fake whole relationships" 246

{1156-62}
(The last two books listed here are the good ones)


1156) "The Other End of Time" by Frederick Pohl, whose name I invariably mix up with Poul Anderson's.

It was... interesting. I'm coming to realize that I'm not as much of a hard sci-fi fan as I thought. Still, this was a fascinating adventure, nicely mysterious, and with some good unique ideas about the future.


1157) "Sun of Suns" by Karl Schroeder

I found this one a bit of a slog. It drops you into a science fiction world without explaining much, and takes too long to get around to those explanations-- in the meantime, you're left reading a lot of jargon. The world itself is a fascinating one, an intriguing variation on the Dyson Sphere concept, but I often found details implausible to say the least. Oh right, and the plot, once you can find it under all the world-description, was pretty good. I bet the sequel is a lot better, since you'd have all the background information you need to understand the world. But I doubt I'll pick it up. Still, Larry Niven gave it a good review, so who am I to complain?


1158) "The Caterpillar's Question" by Piers Anthony and Philip Jose Farmer

This one had the same Men's Adventure feeling to it that I found in Farmer's other book. Lots of swagger and bluster and protecting of the lady (who turns out to be from another dimension and a major part of the plot, but anyway...). Good solid storyline, strange aliens, epic battles, man outsmarting robot, etc etc. Fun book, really. Couple of good one-liners, too.

"Empathy might not be the same thing as conscience, but the effects could be similar." 153

"The unconscious was a tricky and unpredictable bastard." 34


1159) "The Becoming" by Jeanne Stern Stein. (LOL on the edit-- I accidentally substituted the name of an old friend for the author)

Somewhat of a standard modern-vampire-mystery novel. A woman who has no idea that vampires exist is attacked by one on the job and finds herself suddenly adjusting to a new way of life-- and a lot of dangerous intrigue. Kudos for being heavier on the mystery than the romance, and for keeping the mysteries coming hard and fast. Good pacing and action, but the writing style is nothing special. Good book to take on a plane ride.


** 1160) "Turn Coat" by Jim Butcher

Umpeenth book in the Dresden Files, and I still love them to death, in spite of having forgotten who half the characters are since I read the last one. Still, he's good enough to recap the important points for the reader, and after that, it's hard to put the darn thing down. I really ought to reread the whole set sometime.


** 1161) "Odalisque" by Fiona McIntosh

OMG I want the sequel to this book!! Which, sadly enough, none of the local libraries or bookstores carry! I hate how quickly things go out of print in the genre fictions.

This is among the better-written fantasy novels I've read in a long time. Set in a world that seems to be loosely based on the Persian empire, it would be a completely believable story in many ways but for the fact that the gods of this world are quite obviously real-- and preparing for a showdown. The plot follows a set of palace characters-- a scheming wife, a young ruler, an honorable captain of the guard, a new harem girl, and a few others-- as they are drawn into a supernatural plot where none of them can see the larger picture that is emerging.

It's neat, because so many aspects of this story are, honestly, predicatable or cliched, and yet it is so well written, the characters so compelling, the descriptions so vivid, that it all feels new all over again.


** 1162) "Passage" by Connie Willis

Willis has this extraordinary ability to write sci-fi that skirts on the edge of actual science. I'm tempted to write to her and ask what research she read that led her to this book.

This is a novel about near-death experiences. A skeptical young scientist is trying to conduct solid research, while dodging the supernaturalists who keep trying to suck her into their circle... and steal her research subjects. She teams up with a neurologist who has discovered a drug that similates near-death experiences in the brain, and gets to experience one for herself. And finds something disquietingly familiar about it. As she becomes increasingly more obsessed with them, her work becomes more and more dangerously personal-- it turns out that death is one thing it's hard to study objectively. (And no, it isn't a bit like "Flatliners").

This is one of those books that you simply cannot put down. I'm not sure whether I should recommend it-- I held my breath for most of the second half of the thing, and I'm pretty sure that's not healthy.

*** 1154) "On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not" by Robert Burton

This was downright brilliant-- or if not brilliant, at least Very Important. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The book explains, on a biological level, why we think the way we think-- and, most importantly, why we're /sure/ we're right. Mind-opening when it comes to the science of belief, and indispensable for anyone who wants to go into any psychology, sociology, or cognitive fields... or just wants to understand a little bit more about People. I will now let the book speak for itself.

[NB: I tend to put all quotes in italics for easy identification. words emphasized in the original text are enclosed within /backslashes/. Bold is my own emphasis]

"It is through extreme examples of brain malfunction that neurologists painstakingly explore how the brain works under normal circumstances."

"Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of 'knowing what we know' arise out of involuntary brain mechanism that, like love or anger, function independently of reason." ** This was basically the entire premise of the book.

"My goal is to strip away the power of certainty by exposing its involuntary neurological roots. If science can same us into questioning the nature of conviction, we might develop some degree of tolerance and an increased willingness to consider alternative ideas" Yes, that!

"I cannot help wondering if an educational system that promotes black or white and yes or no answers might be affecting how [neurological] reward systems develop in our youth. If the fundamental thrust of education is 'being correct' rather than acquiring a thoughtful awareness of ambiguities, inconsistencies, and underlying paradoxes, it is easy to see how the brain reward systems might be molded to prefer certainty over open-mindedness." Oh, yeah, it's kinda obvious now that you mention it. No wonder America's youth are doing so poorly.

"The /feeling of knowing/, the reward for both proven and unproven thoughts, is learning's best friend, and mental flexibility's worst enemy."

"Any concept of free will assumes that we possess a portion of mind that can rise above the biological processes that generated it." Well, that's a bit of a mind-fuck.

"We have no mechanism for establishing the accuracy of a line of reasoning until it has produced a testable idea."

"All thoughts-- the trivial, the brilliant, the mundane, the profound, the catastrophic, and truly dangerous-- percolate up from the unconscious (the hidden layer). The issue isn't whether or not unconscious thoughts can be of great value, but in sorting out those that are from those that aren't."

" 'Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny.' " - S. J. Gould

"Our mental limitations prevent us from accepting our mental limitations." Yup!!

"...it is impossible to overlook the shared qualities of the /feeling of knowing/, a /sense of faith/, and feelings of /purpose/ and /meaning/."

"...the sense of purpose... carefully weighs all inputs, positively weighting those ideas that /feel right/ while negatively weighting those that fell /wrong, strange/, or/unreal/. The best that a rational argument can accomplish is to add one more input to this cognitive stew. If it resonates deeply enough, change of opinion might occur. But this is a low probability uphill battle; the best of arguments is only one pitted against a lifetime of acquired experience and biological tendencies operating outside of conscious control. To expect well-reasoned arguments to easily alter personal expressions of purpose is to misunderstand the biology of belief." And that, my friends, in a nutshell, is why it's so hard to change people's minds.

"The belief that we can rationally determine the difference between purpose and pointlessness arises out of a misunderstanding of the nature of purpose."

"If science is to carry on a meaningful dialog with religion, it must work to establish a level playing field where both sides honestly address what we can and cannot know about ourselves and the world around us... And we must factor in that irrational beliefs can have real adaptive benefits-- from the placebo effect to a sense of hope. Insistence upon objectivity and reason should be seen within a larger picture of our biological needs and constraints."

** 1147) "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiesen (Matthiessen?)

I picked this book up because I figured it would be one of those naturalist books all about snow leopards. Instead, it turned out to be a physical and philosophical travelogue, the story of a man's journey into the depths of the Himalayas and Buddhism. Just wonderful. The language is at times dense, the writing often lacking in technical finesse, and the author/narrator himself is not always the easiest man to understand; still, I learned so much. I /felt/ so much. This book was Worth It.

(woddly_spinning , you ought to read this one-- it strikes me as right up your alley)

On to quotes:

"The Universe itself is the scripture of Zen, for which religion is no more and no less than the apprehension of the infinite in every moment." 35 ...I think I need to study this "religion" a bit more...

"Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterpreted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same." 42

"...I already had what Kierkegarrd called 'the sickness of infinitude,' wandering from one path to another with no real recognition that I was embarked on a search, and scarcely a clue as to what I might be after. I only knew that at the bottom of each breath there was a hollow place that needed to be filled." 43 (oh haven't we all felt that way!)

" 'The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; the classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way "Tao," and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly toward its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfillment, wholeness, one's destination reached, one's mission done; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things' " -Jung (45). Ok, maybe I need to read some Jung, too.

Man is described as "this haunted animal that wastes most of a long and ghostly life wandering the future and the past on its hind legs, looking for meanings, only to see in the eyes of others of its kind that it must die." 57 (gave me shivers to read that-- so true)

"...scholars are less apt to be mistaken in small matters than in large ones..." 160 Ha!

"The secret of the mountains is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no 'meaning,' they /are/ meaning; the mountains /are/. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day." 212 And yet, when I read the chapter that ended with these words, I felt them ring in me.

"I love wild rocks, I covet them..." 247 Oh, me too!!

"With the wind and cold, a restlessness has come, and I find myself hoarding my last chocolate for the journey back across the mountains-- forever getting-ready-for-life instead of living it each day." 247

"Frustration at the paltriness of words drives me to write..." 248 I bet a lot of writers feel that way.

"Safe from the dogs and the night cold, my belly placated... I lie back in near-spiritual bliss. Why do I work so hard at mediation? Someone once said that God offers man the choice between repose and truth: he cannot have both. I have scarcely decided on a lifetime of repose when the dogs set up a terrific row, and everyone rushes forth into the night." 294

"...I am still beset by the same old lusts and ego and emotions, the endless nagging details and irritations-- that aching gap between what I know and what I am." 298 That's being human all right-- or at least, being a philosophical one.

Well, I think this is a good time for me to post this review!

** 1146) "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race" by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Been meaning to read this book for years, ever since I first saw the title. Because, of course, I had that question myself once I went to college and was in a place with enough Black people to sit together at their own table(s). After all, there was only ever one Black kid in my class and she sat with the rest of us... wasn't that how it was supposed to work?

This book went above and beyond my hopes of addressing issues, explaining race relations, and telling stories to which I could relate. Among other things that hit close to home, Tatum talked about Jews as sort-of minorities, Jews feeling more Jewish than White but still having White Privilege (and this book is one of the few contexts where I've seen discussions of White Privilege that don't, frankly, make me grind my teeth), and the story of a woman who grew up completely sheltered from seeing prejudice, as I did, and the surprising drawbacks of such an upbringing.

Suffice it to say that it's an excellent book for anyone of any race who is interested in any way in race relations in America. I'll leave the rest of the convincing up to the quotes:

"As our nation becomes more diverse, we need to be able to communicate across racial and ethnic lines, but we seem increasingly less able to do so." xvi (Intro)

On privilege: "She could be late for meetings, and talk with her mouth full, fairly confident that these behaviours would not be attributed to the fact that she was White. She could express an opinion in a meeting or in print and not have it labeled the "white" viewpoint. In other words, she was more often than not viewed as an individual, rather than as a member of a racial group." (8) Best description I've read!

Linda James Myers "refers to two groups of people, those of acknowledged African descent and those of unacknowledged African descent..." (15) Cute! But apt...

"...where a person is a member of the dominant or advantaged social group, the category is usually not mentioned [in their self-description]. That element of their identity is so taken for granted by them that it goes without comment....  The parts of our identity that /do/ capture our attention are those that other people notice, and that reflect back to us." 21

On minorities choosing whether or not to try and "fit in" with the majority group: "The use of either strategy, attending very closely to the dominants or not attending at all, is costly to members of the targeted group. Not-learning may mean that there are needed skills which are not acquired. Attending closely to the dominant group may leave little time or energy to attend to one's self. Worse yet, the negative messages of the dominant group about the subordinate group may be internalized..." 26.

And just in case you don't read the book, Yes, it is a good thing that the Black kids sit together-- it helps them develop their own sense of racial identity and comfort with who they are.

"The young person whose racial identity development is out of sync with his or her peers often feels in an awkward position. Adolescents are notoriously egocentric and assume that their experience is the same as everyone else's." 67

"Those whose work or lifestyle places them in frequent contact with Whites are aware that their ability to 'make it' depends in large part on their ability and willingness to conform to those values and behaviors that have been legitimated by White culture." (84) Ouch.

Whites go through "racial development" too. Clayton Alderfer writes that in the final (ideal) step, " 'We have a more complete awareness of ourselves and of others to the degree that we neither negate the uniqueness of each person, regardless of that person's group memberships, nor deny the ever-present effects of group memberships for each individual.' " (112) I think that's kinda like what I was trying to say about acknowledging the "Black" in Black music, actually.

Lois Stalvey writes " 'We whites would have to be naive to expect that hundreds of years of humiliation can be forgotten the minute we wish it to be. At times, the most poignant part of the test [the social testing that Blacks do towards Whites] is that black people have enough trust left to give it. Testing implies that we might pass the test. It is easier and safer for a black person to turn his back on us. If he does not gamble on our sincerity, he cannot be hurt if we prove false. Testing shows an optimism I doubt I could duplicate it I were black.' " (105) Like I said, there's some serious food-for-thought in here.

*** 1145) "The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness" by Elyn Saks.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and it was a large part of my inspiration to write both my final paper and final speech this semester on mental illness. It's the story of a very bright woman who struggles with schizophrenia for many years before getting it under control... and then is nice enough to share her story with the rest of us. In fact, I don't know how else to recommend it except to give you some actual quotes. Oh, and you can see a speech of hers here: http://mylaw.usc.edu/blog/index.cfm

"...I'd been taught all my life: Intelligence, combined with discipline, could overcome any challenge. And mostly, that belief had served me well. The problem was, it assumed that the intelligence at hand was fully functioning, fully capable-- but I'd been told by experts that my brain had serious problems. Was my brain the same thing as my mind? Could I hang onto the one while conceding that there was a big flaw in the other?" (183-4)

On a similar note: "The fundamental flaw in all this, though, is that it neglects something intrinsic to the complex real world and to complex real human beings. In fact, it is /not/ necessarily true that everything can be conquered by willpower. There are forces of nature and circumstance that are beyond our control, let alone our understanding, and to insist on victory in the face of this, to accept nothing less, is just asking for a soul-pummeling. The simple truth is, not every fight can be won." (32) Yes, yes, and thank you, yes.


On the nature of psychosis:

"Philosophy and psychosis have more in common than many people (philosophers especially) might care to admit.... each is governed by very strict rules. The trick is to discover what those rules are, and in both cases, that inquiry takes place almost solely inside one's head." 40

"Psychosis is like an insidious infection that nevertheless leaves some of your faculties intact; in a psychiatric hospital, for example, even the most debilitated schizophrenic patients show up on time for meals, and they evacuate the ward when the fire alarm goes off." (98-99)

"Psychosis does traumatize you, much in the same way that ducking gunfire in a war zone or having a terrible car crash traumatizes you. And the best way to take away the power of trauma is to talk about what happened." (289)


On treatment:

"Stigma against mental illness is a scourge with many faces, and the medical community wears a number of those faces." (232)

On the vast and disturbing differences between the treatment she received in America and England (did you know they don't use restraints in England? They actually treat mental patients like, you know, people) "Part of the problem was that I was behaving like a patient in psychoanalysis. When Mrs. Jones and I were working together, I was encouraged to say exactly what was on my mind, always, no matter how crazy it sounded-- that was how analysis worked. That was the /point/. Otherwise, how would she know what was going on inside me? But the people at MU10 didn't want to know. If they couldn't tolerate what was in my head, why were any of them in this business? When my Scrambled thinking revealed itself, they put me in the hospital version of "time out' [restraints]. Where was the 'treatment' in this? Were they wanting to help me get better, or did they just want me to be socially appropriate?" (161)

"While medication had kept me alive, it had been psychoanalysis that had helped me find a life worth living." (298)

"This is a classic bind for psychiatric patients. They're struggling with thoughts of wanting to hurt themselves or others, and at the same time, they desperately need the help of those they're threatening to harm. The conundrum: Say what's on your mind and there'll be consequences; struggle to keep the delusions to yourself, and it's likely you won't get the help you need." (161-2)

"More than anything, I wanted to be healthy and whole; I wanted to exist in the world as my /authentic self/-- and I deeply believed that the drugs undermined that. And so I kept backing away from them, tinkering with the dosage, seeing how far I could go before I got burned. And of course, I got burned every time-- even in my denial, I knew that." (245)


on being defined by your illness "But if, as our society seemed to suggest, good health was partly mind over matter, what hope did someone with a broken mind have?" (255)

"'Crazy people' don't make the evening news for successfully managing their lives; we only hear about them when something horrible happens." (289)

Concluding quote:
"If you are a person with mental illness, the challenge is to find the life that's right for you. But in truth, isn't that the challenge for all of us, mentally ill or not?" (336)

{1140-44}

I've been so busy fussing over bookaddiction I've let my own book journal slide. Ok, I've also been crazybusy with life, work, and one very large dog, and oh yeah reading, but anyhoo...

Let's start with some sci-fi:


** 1140) "Second Contact" by Mike Resnick

"A Few Good Men"... in space. Yeah, that's basically the shape of it. The main character is hired to be lawyer to a starship captain who killed two of his crew members, claiming they were alien infiltrators... which they obviously weren't. But for some reason, everything related to the case is being kept hush-hush... why? The truth can be a dangerous thing, especially when you work for the military.


The Lilith's Brood trilogy, by Octavia Butler:

** 1141) "Dawn" -- book one, and my favorite, although the whole series is amazing.

Lilith awakes after WWIII to find out that she's been captured by aliens... and is one of the few survivoring members of the human race. The more advanced species that has captured them treats the humans like any endangered species-- to be cared for, studied, and perhaps saved... if possible. But their plan for saving the human race brings up some disquieting questions about the very nature of humanity itself. And if Lilith accepts their offer, will she be humanity's savior, or its traitor?

An incredibly creative, philosophical, and deep story, both intellectually and emotionally.

* 1142) "Adulthood Rights" --book two

...about which I have nothing particular to add other than the fact that for some reason, my subconscious keeps on mixing up "adulthood" and "adultery" in my mind.

** 1143) "Imago" --book three

And can I just say how much I long to be an Ooloi, a creature who can experience, study, and manipulate all kinds of organic chemistry including DNA itself? Hell-- talk about self-medication! Great quote from this one, too, which is told from the viewpoint of a non-human character.

"Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everyone had to spend time and energy figuring out what they really meant." 27


* 1144) "Cybermancy" by Kelly McCullough

Another fast-paced and creative Greek-mythology-based cyberpunk mystery. I enjoyed this one as much as the original "Webmage"-- and I don't know from computers! This is the "Percy Jackson" series-- for adults (and technogeeks).

{1137-39} Adult novels.

** 1137) "A Day Late and A Dollar Short" by Terry McMillan

I confess, I've been eyeing this book for years on account of loving the title to death. But somehow, due in part to my reticence to read "real world" fiction, and in part to some disappointing experiences with other African-American fiction, I kept putting it off. Big mistake on my part.

This book swept me away. It opens from the viewpoint of a middle-aged woman wondering where her family has gone wrong-- her marriage has fallen apart and her grown children range from lay-about to overachiever; more importantly to her, none of them seem truly happy.

Then the book jumps from character to character, telling the stories of each family member in their own words (the author has a glorious talent for giving each character a distinctive "voice" without hitting you over the head with various dialects). And slowly, you gain a sense of each individual person and how they fit together as a family. Better still, they start to figure it out, too.

"Maybe /everybody/ is dysfunctional and God put us all in this mess so we can learn how to function.  To test us.  See what we can tolerate.  I don't know, but we don't seem to be doing such a hot job of it.  I guess we need to work harder at getting rid of that d-y-s part.  I just wish I had a clue where to start."  - Viola (probably one of my favorite quotes ever referencing the God I don't believe in)

"As a man, it makes you feel small when you know what your limitations are.  When you know you ain't lived up to your potential, when you ain't sure if you ever will." - Lewis

"I don't care what color she is.  But dumb is one color I don't like and have a hard time tolerating." - Paris (Thank you Paris!!)


1138) "The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis

I admit, it had its funny moments, and some excellent insights into human nature, but mostly this book just reminded me how happy I am not to be a Christian. Oh, for those of you who don't know, this book consists of the "advice" from a senior demon to a junior one on how to corrupt a man.

"...[a man] can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him..."

"In civilised life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the /words/ are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face."

"In discussing any joint action, it becomes obligatory that A should argue in favor of B's supposed wishes and against his own, while B does the opposite. It is often impossible to find out either party's real wishes; with luck, they end by doing something that neither wants, while each feels a glow of self-righteousness... and a secret grudge against the other..." Oh dear god, that's my family in a nutshell.

"the Present is the point at which time touches eternity."

"Cowardice, alone of all vices, is purely painful-- horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the /compensation/ by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear."


** 1139) "Cast in Shadow" by Michelle Sagara

Weirdly enough, I can't bring anything about this book to mind right now... except that it was a fantasy novel and I couldn't put it down. I don't think I've been so intensely into a fantasy novel since "Poison Study"... so why can't I bring the plot to mind? Can't wait to read the next one, though.

"Silences were barbed in unexpected ways; with words, you generally knew where the traps were." (p 202)

" 'History is our guide, it is not our friend. It is a passing stranger, one which shadows legend, sprinkling it with seeds of truth.' " -Tiamaris (p 483)

{1131-1136}


1131) "Spiral Hunt" by Margaret Ronald

Pretty good modern supernatural mystery, and won my heart for being set in Boston. Fans of Kat Richardson and C. E. Murphy may want to check this one out. Well-researched with some creative reuse of old myths.


** 1132) "Bellwether" by Connie Willis

Just brilliant-- I kinda wish I had the money to keep this one. A researcher studying trends finds her life perpetually turned upside-down by the same forces of fad and fashion that she is trying to explain. Witty, insightful, and occasionally uncannily realistic, this fantasy novel is definitely food for serious thought.


* 1133) "Last Watch" by Sergei Lukyanenko

Book four of the Watch series. Continues strong, but I think I need to sit down and read them all in a row, because there are so many plot details that carry over-- not to mention keeping track of all those complicated Russian names. Still, very imaginative and full of good mystery.


* 1134) "My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding" edited by P. N. Elrod

A seriously fun collection of romance-related fantasy stories, ranging from the sexy to the creepy to the downright hilarious. Stories by L. A. Banks, Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine, P. N. Elrod, Esther M. Friesner, Lori Handeland, Charlaine Harris, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Susan Krinard. I quote from Esther Friesner's story, "The Wedding of Wylda Serene":

"There is no fortress more unassailable than the resolution of a heretofore submissive woman.  Such creatures take all the willpower they have deferred during a lifetime of obedience, compliance, and meekness, gather it into one titanic mass, and focus it like a laserbeam."


* 1135) "Enchantment Place" edited by Denise Little

Another very fun anthology, this time about the various shops of Enchantment Place-- essentially, a supernatural mall. Whether you're shopping for a familiar or trying to remove a hex from your business, this is the place to go... and things certainly get interesting in a place where a security breach can mean the end of the world as we know it. A surprisingly good group of authors turned out for this collection, making for some very fun reading.


* 1136) "Witch High" edited by Denise Little

Forget Hogwarts-- this is really what it's like to be a teenage witch. Again, an excellent group of fantasy writers takes on the challenge of exploring life within the walls of Salem High School, known to its otherworldly students as "Witch High." Enchanted classmates, magical proms, uncontrolled powers and teenage angst. Good stuff-- just don't ask me to teach there!

{1123-24}

I shall drown beneath a sea of books.


1123) ** "The Case of the Frozen Addicts" by J. William Langston and Jon Palfreman

This one was damn hard to put down. A medical mystery so thrilling it's hard to believe it was for real. When a handful of drug users got hold of a bad batch of drugs in the 1980s, they came down with a sudden, bizarre, and crippling condition that looked disturbingly like end-stage Parkinson's. Originally dismissed as a fluke, they luckily came to the attention of medical researchers, who started to untangle the complex circumstances leading to their condition. These researchers fought to do groundbreaking work with stem-cell research that provides incredible hope for Parkinson's sufferers. Just amazing stuff.

I also really need to look into the history of the Human Fetal-Tissue Transplant Research Panel, which was held at the NIH, in October, 1988. The authors write of that meeting:

"The atmosphere in the room was explosive. Intelligent men and women who had considered all the rational arguments in good faith were still divided by convictions that they felt passionately." Ultimately, though, and distressingly, the decisions made by that panel wound up having very little effect on America's stem-cell research policies.


1124) ** "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" by William Styron

This brief book should be, at the very least, required reading for anyone going into the mental health professions. In simple, eloquent terms, Styron describes the attack of major depression which descended upon him in his 60s and nearly drove him to suicide. I share some of those words with you now:

"Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self-- to the mediating intellect-- as to verge close to being beyond description." 7

"I was feeling in my mind a sensation close to, but indescribably different from, actual pain" 16

"Depression is much too complex in its cause, its symptoms and its treatment for unqualified conclusions to be drawn from the experience of a single individual." 34

"...mysteriously, and in way that are totally remote from normal experience, the grey drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain." 50

"...the acute sense of loss is connected with a knowledge of life slipping away at accelerated speed.  One develops fierce attachments.  Ludicrous things-- my reading glasses, a handkerchief, a certain writing instrument-- became the objects of my demented possessiveness.  Each momentary misplacement filled me with a frenzied dismay, each item being the tactile reminder of a world soon to be obliterated." 57


I'm going to try making these entries shorter, in the hopes that more of you will bother to read them. Have no doubts: I have many more books to list.

{1114-16}

OMFG life needs to stop getting in the way of my literary ambitions.


1114) "The Zookeeper's Wife" by Diane Ackerman

True story set in Warsaw, Poland, WWII. A couple dedicated to the keeping of a large menagerie get some leeway from the Nazis, who are big (oddly enough) on animal conservation and so on (still, I don't recommend the book to the PETA crowd-- it does get brutal at points).

Anyways, the zookeeper and his wife undertake the daring task of hiding Jews and other endangered species on the zoo grounds. The book is not incredibly well written (I don't know if Ackerman's abilities have gone downhill or if I'm just more sensitive to grammatical errors than I used to be or both), but it's captivating, and tells the story of life in wartime Poland from a very microcosmic, almost stream-of-consciousness, viewpoint.

Also, lots of mini-biographical sketches of amazing people. I think I need to look into Jewish Mysticism a bit more. Apparently, it isn't all celebrity bandwagon material, but also quotes like this:

"To be human is to be a problem, and the problem expresses itself in anguish" - Abrahan Joshua Heschel



*** 1115) "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" vol 1 & 2, by Art Spiegelman.

Actually, I read this last year, but could never bring myself to write about it. This has got to be among the most brutal and gripping memoirs I have ever read, and the fact that it's presented as a graphic novel gives it an emotional impact that no other medium could deliver. I outright sobbed at parts.

For those who don't know, "Maus" is the story of a son drawing out his father's tale of surviving the Holocaust. In it, the Jews are represented as anthropomorphized mice, while the Nazis are cat-like creatures. At the same time, the characters are all so strikingly human in their expressions and body language that it will give you chills. One facial expression in particular haunts me still-- the mouse seen from the front, with head thrown back, crying out in the agony of having just experienced an unendurable tragedy. Somehow, I can't imagine that any other face could be capable of showing such pain. You can almost hear the broken cry of despair.

I've read so much about the Holocaust, yet no book or movie has ever brought it home to me the way this did. Despite growing up very estranged from the Jewish community, I heard such echoes of my grandmother and even my mother in the way the father speaks and acts. He is sarcastic and serious, an inexplicable mix of over-sensitive and stoical, stubborn as hell about the little things but able to shrug off the larger problems of life; in short, utterly infuriating in many ways-- traits that anyone who has known a Jew of their generation will instantly recognize. And this book makes you /almost/ understand why.

Read it. Read it for them. But don't say I didn't warn you.


* 1116) "Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel" by Richard H. Minear

A fascinating retrospective of Seuss's career as a political cartoonist. I found myself both intrigued and disquieted by this book. On the one hand, it was wonderful to see another side to the man's genius. On the other, I couldn't help realizing that Seuss was quite the warmonger, and extremely prejudiced against the Japanese.

While in retrospect I can cheer him for encouraging American intervention in WWII, I have the uncomfortable suspicion that I would have disagreed with him quite strongly at the time, not knowing then what I know now about Nazi Germany. At the time, he didn't know it either-- he (and we) just got lucky in that we chose the right side. Heaven knows we haven't always done so since.

And his appeals to patriotism (and distaste for dissent and conscientious objection) at times come perilously close to the same kind of scare tactics I deplored 50 years later when we went to war with Iraq. Like I said, disquieting stuff. But the cartoons are brilliant and the commentary is both insightful and historically interesting. I do recommend this one.

1113) Rabbit, Run by John Updike

We read this one for book-club, and pretty unanimously liked the writing and hated the main character. We spent a long time discussing why this book may have been so popular: theories ranged from "on account of all the sordid sex scenes," (my idea) to "because it really was rebellious at that time for a man to sneak out of his marriage like this," to "people can relate to the put-upon sort of every-man that Rabbit was" to "guys are incomprehensible and total dicks." Which ought to give you some idea of what the novel was about. I personally spent most of the time trying to figure out what mental illness Rabbit needed to be treated for-- lots of social anxiety, I think, plus some serious impulsiveness problems and a scary amount of narcissism. He may have had Borderline Personality Disorder, actually.... Still got some good quotes, even if some, like the first one, pretty much just highlight the problems with Rabbit's thinking (which was heavily influenced, I grant you, by 1950s American culture).

"With women, you keep bumping against them, because they want different things, they're a different race. " p93 (Also, can I just say how much I /hate/ the usage of the term "love" to mean sexual attraction and/or intercourse? I'm sorry, but you do not "love" someone you've just met no matter how much you want to go to bed with them. And for that matter, it isn't the right term to use for your wife either, when you view her as an object rather than a person.)

Just for the sake of another possible diagnosis: "[Eccles] seems unreal to Rabbit, everything seems unreal that is outside of his sensations." p197. Any ideas?

" '...life. It's a strange gift and I don't know how we're supposed to use it but I know it's the only gift we get and it's a good one.' " -Mrs. Smith p224

"There exists a sense in which /all/ Christians must have conversations with the Devil... suffering, deprivation, barrenness, hardship, lack are all an indispensable part of the education, the initiation, as it were, of any who would follow Jesus Christ." p237. Again, glad I'm not Christian!

"Hate suits him better than forgiveness. Immersed in hate he doesn't have to do anything; he can be paralyzed, and the rigidity of hatred makes a kind of shelter for him." p287

I might as well do this!

1112) The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

I found this one a bit hard to get into at first-- the language is a bit dated, and the descriptions are all very particular to the period (just following WWI). Lots of stuff about the lives of the rich and posh, most of which assumes you know what sorts of things were considered gauche to wear to a dinner party, etc... but once I got into the story, I kept being swept away by Maugham's incredible descriptions and talent for bringing concepts and characters to vivid life. The plot is almost a minor part of the story, and I'm not actually sure whether this is a novel or memoir-- but either way, it's a very true story about young people trying to find their way in the world. I must now relate to you many quotes:

"It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they were born, the city apartment or farm in which they learned to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard..." p8

" 'It's all very unsatisfactory, but that's the sort of thing you run up against when young people are left to arrange their marriages on no better basis than mutual inclination' " - Elliott, p44

A conversation between the narrator and Isabel, on why Larry has been putting off his marriage to Isabel in favor of his studies:
" 'What I'm trying to tell you is that there are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.'
'Even the people who love them?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Is that anything more than plain selfishness?'
'I wouldn't know,' I smiled.
'What can possibly be the use of Larry's learning dead languages?'
'Some people have a disinterested desire for knowledge. It's not an ignoble desire.' " p91

And his further discussion on why Larry is acting this way
" 'I suggest to you that whatever it was that happened to Larry [in the war] filled him with a sense of the transiency of life, and an anguish to be sure that there was a compensation for the sin and sorrow of the world.' " p93

" 'He's the idealist... I'm cast for the hard, mercenary, practical part. Common sense is never very sympathetic, is it?' " -Isabel p93

In answer to the question of whether she loves Larry, Isabel answers " 'I don't know. I'm impatient with him. I'm exasperated with him. I keep longing for him.' " p95. If that isn't a great description of love, I don't know what is.

"Most people when they're in love invent every kind of reason to persuade themselves that it's only sensible to do what they want. I suppose that's why there are so many disastrous marriages.' " p100

Narrator to Isabel: " 'American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.' " p164

" 'I've always felt that there was something pathetic in the founders of religion who made it a condition of salvation that you believe in them. It's as though they needed your faith to have faith in themselves.' " Larry, p270

{1091-7}  Yes, it's a loooong entry.  But I've bolded all the titles to make it easy for you to skim!

Ok, the list needs me to take another whack at it. Let's see if I can't make another dent in the quotes file, too.


1091) The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Pico Iyer

Not my usual sort of book (chosen by book club), but I found it... enlightening (sorry, couldn't resist). Written by a personal friend of the DL (Dalai Llama), this book skims over a lot of the better-known facts and the DL's personal history, and focuses on exploring his beliefs more deeply. I felt that I got to know him through this book, and was both surprised and impressed at how different the DL is from his watered-down media portrayals. This narrative reveals the DL as a complex man, more wise than saintly, and incredibly hard-working. The author also does not shy away from stickier topics, either, such as the DL's firm stance against homosexuality (more specifically, against non-"missionary" sex-- I've actually drafted a letter to him on this topic and am debating sending it), and the uncertainties tearing Tibetans apart as their homeland and traditional life is destroyed while their leader puts his faith in nonviolent solutions. Some wonderful quotes from the book:

"Those who long to be entrusted with real consequences in our lives [politicians] acquire that power increasingly by presenting themselves as fairy tales."

"Where the Christian believes in the transcendence of everyday life, through finding a higher life in God, the Buddhist generally believes in the transformation of it, by finding the better life in the here and now." The more I read lines like that, the more I suspect that I am more Buddhist than I realize.

Instead of human beings, the DL thinks of "... 'human becomings,' and the ways each one of us could travel along the open road to becoming more compassionate and responsible."

"A global peace reached by men who are themselves still restless or frightened or jealous is not going to be much of a peace at all."

On the topic of how such leaders as the DL can make a difference in such formats as media conferences, Iyer writes that the teachings of a "spiritual celebrity" should "help people return to the clatter and commotion a little differently, in part by seeing how they could change the world by changing the way they looked at the world."

"Kindness without wisdom is sometimes no kindness at all." Ain't that the truth!!

It takes a lot to make the DL cry-- one such instance occurred, however, when a Californian audience member asked, "What is the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to attain enlightenment?" Oh dear. Oddly enough, I think I could come up with some great answers to that question. The more serious ones are hard to put into words, however.

On poetry written by the youth who are Tibetans in exile, "Identity crises, the search for something, a sense of pervading sadness or frustration that reaches no further than the small cosmos of the self, are, to some extent, the universal currency of the young."


1092) Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

Excellent adventure story for fans of "Inkheart."  It took a little while for the story to win me over, but the writing is luscious from the beginning.  The main character is a girl who loves words, in a world (based quite closely, it turns out, on a particular period of medieval England) where books are tightly censored and religious arguments have caused decades of strife.  Leaving her tiny village with no friend but a goose with a serious attitude, young Mosca finds herself completely unprepared for the complexity and deviousness of the larger world.  However, she's a shrewd and canny young girl herself, and her knack for getting into trouble is just barely matched by her knack for weasling out of it again.  Memorable lines:

"Brand a man as a thief and no one will ever hire him for honest labor-- he will be a hardened robber within weeks.The brand does not reveal a person's nature, it shapes it."  -Tamarind

" 'Do you know what courage is?Not a willingness to fling oneself into danger without proper thought-- that is nothing, nothing.There is cowardice in all impulse.Real courage lies in thinking things through, seeing all the risks and taking them anyway.' " -Toke

"A race through treacle is very hard on the nerves."


1093) The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Intense, heavy, beautifully written, and thoroughly beyond my comprehension.  This story weaves the tale of a simple tragedy -- a girl's rape by her father and her subsequent descent into madness-- through the eyes of her fellow children and the histories of all the adults around them. It is an amazing story where every facet adds another piece to the puzzle and changes the reader's perspective yet again. Above all, the book provides a stunningly clear window into the world of racial self-hatred.

"Being a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment."

"But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer."

"Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another-- physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion."  Actually, that quote almost sums up the entire message of the book right there.


1094) Janie's Private Eyes by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Technically, this is a reread, but it's been many many years.  Also, ZKS is brilliant and I will take any opportunity to harp on that fact.  This is one of the books that I squealed to see at library branch I visited two weeks back.  I just adore Snyder's writing, even though her books are aimed at a younger audience.  She has the remarkable ability to make them down-to-earth real but uncannily witty (Paula Danziger had that same knack), and to let the normal brush up against the supernatual so lightly that you're never quite sure what to believe.  At least, that's definitely the case with the Stanley Family mysteries, which are my very very favorites of all her works.  The series in order is as follows, in case you should be smart and decide to pick them up!

The Headless Cupid (still in print and widely available, like, at any Borders)
The Famous Stanley Kindnapping Case (a great story and inexplicably hard to find)
Blair's Nightmare
Janie's Private Eyes (these last two can probably be found in any decent library whose children's department dates back to the 80s)

Also, *squeee* her website says that "Black and Blue Magic" is back in print!!  If you know any kid who liked or would ike the first Harry Potter book but is a little too young for the rest of the series, recommend this book to them ASAP!


1095) Blair's Nightmare by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I'm pretty sure I've read this one before too.  It was fantastic.  See above.


1096) Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt

You know, I read "Dicey's Song" a few times as a kid, but was much too young for it and also frustrated because it was all boringly realistic.  Going back to the first book in the series helped a lot, and now I want to reread "Dicey's." "Homecoming" is an amazing story of a family of children making it on their own, and very apt for me to read now, since my volunteer work may very well involve children who have had to care for themselves a lot due to mentally ill parents, as in this case. The story is very believably told, yet sweet at the heart of it.  And still, very foreign to me, both in terms of the time period and the attitudes of everyone in it.  I can't imagine experiencing anything remotely similar as a child, even though it takes place where I grew up.


1097) Swallowing Darkness by LHK

Back to the Merry Gentry series, and a total disappointment.  The plot was kinda interesting, the descriptions were excellent as usual, but the text was far too repetitive and the sex scenes almost nonexistent (and the few extant ones were pretty disappointing-- damn it, we prefer this stuff in writing to real life because book sex is supposed to do away with all the annoying interruptions and similar glitches!)


Well, there, it's a dent at least.

{1081-83}

Ok, let's tackle a bit more of The List.


1081) ** "Sir Apropos of Nothing: The Woad to Wuin" by Peter David

I think this is fast becoming my favorite fantasy parody series after Terry Pratchett. The books are more serious in some ways-- at least, the main character is. But the absurd moments equal anything on the Discworld. In this sequel, Apropos collides with a rather naughty version of Tolkien's tales, stumbles through some very bad puns, escapes across a bridge known as "the middle finger," and for the most part does his best to let evil triumph, because only an idiot would stick their neck out for something as intangible as Good. I find him a remarkably likeable character in spite of his utter lack of morals... and maybe even, in a way, because of it. After all, you can always count on him... to do whatever is in his own best interests. How can you blame him, with a life as miserable as his? It actually makes rather more sense than most of the heroic stuff you read about (let's face it-- in the real world, the majority of abused children do not grow up to be saints, particularly when too much power falls into their hands. Why should fantasy characters be any different?). And you can't help feeling sorry for the guy-- nothing ever goes well for him, especially on the rare occasions when he does actually try to be a decent person. Good quote from this one:

"...the truth is that the fear of death can get you killed." -Sharee


1082) * "The Diaries of Adam and Eve" by Mark Twain

Technically a short story, I suppose, but it was bound as a book. Very clever, very funny (especially, to me, the part from Adam's perspective). Got a little strange at the very end, but ah well. Good stuff.


1083) "Nature Writings" by John Muir, comprising "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • My First Summer in the Sierra • The Mountains of California • Stickeen • essays"

Every once in a while, I worry that books like the one above shouldn't really "count" for my list because they aren't long enough. Well, I think this one made up for all of them. It's /831/ pages of small print (849 if you include the chronology of his life, which I did browse), and even if I did skim a few of the essays on account of their containing repeated material from earlier sections, that's still a /bloody ton/ of reading. It isn't easy reading, either. I shall be nice and sum it all up for you.

( Much shorter than the book, and with quotes )


Well, I think I'd better leave it there for now, so as not to make your eyes bleed from reading.

{1073-80}

Right.  Let's get at 'em.


1073) * "Change Your Brain; Change Your Life" by Dr. Daniel Amen

Read this ages upon ages ago and kept meaning to get specific quotes, etc., from it.  In short: very interesting.  Good stuff about brain scans.  Lots of good proof that mental illness isn't a matter of "fault" or "willpower."  On the downside, lots of speculation, very heavy drug recommendations, and too much extrapolating from individual case studies.  Also, the doc has that uppity know-it-all streak that gets under my skin.  Rants about the Evils of Drug Use (but at least makes the point that caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes can be as bad for you as the illegal stuff). 

The only part that made me cringe outright is when he talked about not listening to "Toxic Music," thus proving once again that a degree is no guarantee against idiocy, and that people shouldn't be allowed to work in the mental health field unless they've experienced depression for themselves.  See, Dr. Amen thinks that because loud rock music jangles his nerves and makes him feel unsettled, it is Bad For Everyone and we should all go listen to some nice classic.  Remember that study a while back about how "crack babies" were calmed by spending time with twittery little birds?  Because the birds' twitchiness was around the right speed for these poor babies whose nervous systems were racing around like crazy.  Whereas all the stuff that normal babies found calming just annoyed these ones. 

Anyway, the point being, there are times when I enjoy some nice classical music.  And there are times, depending on my chemistry, when listening to something nice and calm makes me feel like I'm listening to nails dragged on a chalkboard.  There are certain anxiety states I get into where the only thing I can stand to listen to is R.E.M.'s "So Fast, So Numb"-- the song whose background sounds a bit like sped-up sirens.  Soothes me like anything.  From there, I can relax down to some of the lighter heavy metal, and then down to ordinary rock 'n roll, and soon I feel all evened out.  Listening to something which matches my mental state makes me feel better, whereas if I tried to listen to The Beatles while I was in that mood, I'd end up smashing my head against the wall.  How's that for toxic music, doctor?


1074)  "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah

One of those wrenchingly real books.  To my surprise, much of it was about Beah's experiences before joining up with the army-- as a refugee on the run for years from the revolutionary fighters who destroyed his village.  He wandered alone or with friends, just trying to stay alive, never able to rest or feel safe.  Every part of his story is told with a heartbreaking honesty and simplicity from the point of view of a boy in his early teens.  Very little philosophy here; just the brutal facts.  What's most amazing is that he was able to recover from these experiences (four years straight of constant material for PTSD) and regain something of a normal life.  I was also surprised that there was so little of the "us" vs. "them" hatred that one expects in the indoctrination of child soldiers.  No Nazi youth here.  Just damaged and drugged kids pushed past the point of caring, willing to do anything for survival.  Again, just amazing.


1075) ** "The Interpretation of Murder" by Jed Rubenfeld

A painstakingly researched mystery novel set during Freud's only visit to America.  Freud and his collegues are called upon to analyze a woman who falls hysterically mute after a brutal attack... and uncover a web of lies, murders, mistaken identities, and professional rivalries.  I admit I was captivated from the very first page, whereon I read:

"Unhappy men are all alike.  Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn-- or worse, indifference-- cleaves to them, and they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays.  The happy man does not look back.  He doesn't look ahead.  He lives in the present.
"But there's the rub.  The present can never delver one thing: meaning.  The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same.  To find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live /for/ the moment.  But if he wants meaning-- the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life-- a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for his future, however uncertain."

Another quote I liked was "Every neurosis is a religion to its owner, and religion is the universal neurosis of mankind." This was attributed to Freud, and according to the endnotes, was therefor almost certainly something he actually wrote or said at some point.

I did find parts of the story a little hard to follow, especially considering the large number of characters, but all the same, I recommend it highly.


1076)  * "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" by Gordon Dahlquist and Dave McKean

It is very unfortunate that I began reading this book just after the one listed above, because the period and setting were so similar that I spend the first quarter of this book getting the two confused and trying to remember which characters belonged to which.  But then, I did get swept away by the story, and an epic story it was, too!  I confess to a slight disappointment-- no book really could be as cool as this title suggests, and although it came close, it fell short of the creativity and magic that I expected. 

I think it would do better as a TV mini-series than a book; far too much of it is taken up with vividly described action sequences better suited to the visual medium.  Also, it has cliffhangers in scores as the story rotates between the three main characters-- three very different persons who are pulled into the intrigue of a mystical plot which may bring about the downfall of the country (never named as such, but assumed to be Britain, at an indistinguishable time period resembling the Victorian era), if not the entire world.  Like I said, the story is suitably epic, but I felt that it went on too long for one book, like Cliver Barker's "Imagica"-- you couldn't quite put it down because there was still more plot to unravel, but I'd still catch myself thinking "my god, is it still going on?" in parts.

Still, if you want a good, long, engaging historical fantasy, you could do a lot worse than this.


1077)  * "One Good Knight" by Mercedes Lackey

Every once in a while you need a good fluffy fairy tale, and I enjoyed this one thoroughly.  While a number of authors have taken to parodying or overtly referring to the fairytale Tradition in their works, only Lackey cites it outright as a distinct force-- a plot device of which her characters are aware and wary, and sometimes deliberately use to their advantage!  Much fun, and although I foresaw all of the plot twists at least a little ways ahead, they were still enjoyable to read.


1078) **  "Dragon Slippers," by Jessica Day George

While this book reminded me forcibly at first of Patricia Wrede's series, it quickly became clear that this author has a creative storytelling streak all her own.  The dragons are quirky and impressive; the main character spunky but realistic, and the storyline is fraught with hardship but ends very satisfactorally.  I strongly suspect that if I had come across this one as a young teen, I would have reread it to pieces.


1079) * "Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean" by Justin Somper

Not as goofy as the title suggests.  Although there are some inconsistencies in tone and the setting is a little unclear-- one of those tales that doesn't sound modern but still makes reference to the modern world-- it's a good adventure story.  Twins-- a boy and girl-- are lost at sea, and while one becomes an apprentice pirate, the other is taken aboard a ghostly vampirate ship crewed by supernatural beings.  But which will end up having to rescue the other?


1080) "The Secret" by Eva Hoffman

A near future science fiction-ish tale.  I admit I had trouble relating to this one, because the premise, which strikes the main character as so horrific, isn't one which I find morally reprehensible. I won't give away the secret, although I guessed it quite quickly and it is revealed in the first third of the book, but I can say that I didn't understand quite why it was supposed to be so earth-shattering.  All the same, the writing was beautiful enough to keep me reading.  A lot of the little side-notes about this future world fascinated me more than the main storyline-- I'd love to see more stories set there.  It didn't quite come across right, though-- this is supposedly set in the not-far future, and characters refer to things that happen in the 20th century... but at the same time, certain technologies and cultural aspects seem dozens, if not hundreds, of years away from where we are now.  Well, who can say?  Still, I think it was a mistake for the author to claim such a nearby time period.

I didn't realize when I picked the book, incidentally, that this is the author of the memoir I loved so much a few years back, "Lost in Translation."  This book was very lyrical, but I think maybe she ought to stick to nonfiction, or at least realistic fiction.

"This was unbearable, to mourn what had not died, to feel the loss of what could not disappear." Taken out of context here, but what better way to describe the pain at the end of any relationship?

" 'Thank heavens for the Nazis,' someone else put in acidly. 'Where would we find our evil analogies without them? Is your imagination so goddamn LIMITED?' "  I have to admit I've thought the same myself from time to time, even as I use the analogy myself!

"In order to keep transgressing, you have to change your venue.  Once is transgression, twice is just... not right."

"...how are we to explain ourselves to ourselves?  How can we divide the palpitating, impalpable inner substance into something intelligible, except by parsing it into cause and consequence?"

" 'If there's anything I've learned from studying the objective world, it is that we make everything up, including the truth.' " -Robert



OK, there's a dent, at leat.  I've gotten the easier third of the books out of the way.  Ooof.

{1067-72}

ok, so I am officially months behind on book journalling.  Now that I've had my few days of rest, let's see what I can do about that.


1067) * "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls

No, I had not in fact ever read this book before, and between the old-fashioned language and the old-fashioned ideas about hunting and women, I think I wouldn't have liked it much as a child.  But I'm glad I've read it now, because it is indeed a beautifully told story.  It probably helps a lot that I'm more of a "dog person" now, too.  (Interesting side-thought-- did coming to like dogs help me become a more extroverted person, or was it the other way around.  As a child, I had a very "cat" temperament-- quiet, loner, inscrutable-- but I've really changed a lot in the past two years, become much more outgoing and demonstrative.)


1068) * "Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books" by Francesca Lia Block

I read the entire collection, in spite of having read the first one previously.  Whoever told me that I would like the other books more was right.  I certainly did identify more with Witch Baby as well.  I actually had trouble with the first book about her ("Witch Baby"), because I couldn't figure out what age anyone was supposed to be, and it kept throwing me off.  But I loved "Missing Angel Juan," which is told from Witch Baby's perspective.  And the entire collection holds together wonderfully as a complex modern myth/fairy tale.


1069)  ** "Emissaries from the Dead" by Adam-Troy Castro

*laughs*  I kept forgetting the actual title of this one.  If you read it, you'll understand why I keep mistakenly titling it "Unseen Demons."  This is a brilliant sci-fi mystery, hard-core stuff.  It reminds me of Edward Willet's "Lost in Translation" for the detail and care given to creating alien species.  Andrea Cort is an excellent heroine-- tough, no-nonsense, and with enough personal problems to read as realistic.  No fluffy romantic moments in this novel, although there is something of a happy ending.  But mostly, lots of intrigue and creative futuristic ideas.  I can't wait to read his next book.  Great quotes:

" 'Management's true agenda has always been making things more pleasant for Management' " - Lastogne

" 'Many extreme acrophobes are frightened of heights, not because they see those heights as dangerous, but because they don't trust themselves that close to an opportunity to jump.  They see themselves surrendering to impulse.  It's not the fear of heights, in other words, but the fear of impulse that paralyzes them' " -The Porrinyards

On why not to befriend a certain aggressively nice person: " 'The last thing I could ever want was understanding from someone so arrogant she actually believed other people could be understood.' " -Lastogne


1070) "Key to Conflict" by Talia Gryphon

I think that's how the author spelled her "name", anyways.  I wonder who she really is?  I never used to notice things like that, but that is too obviously a nom-de-plume for me to pass over it.

Anyhoo, about the book.  I don't know what to tell you on this one.  It's another vampire-mystery-romance, one that really belongs in the romance section.  On the whole, I found it hard to put down in spite of some major problems with the writing itself.  Most of the problems are about timing.  The main character seems the wrong age for her accomplishments and for her attitudes, and she's written to be a hard-ass who softens up when she experiences love, but it really doesn't come across that way.  The supernaturals (mostly vampires and ghosts) are frequently described as being traditional and stuck in their ways-- as befits creatures centuries old-- but again, the author ignores her own rules there and has them completely reversing their behavior within a few days of meeting the heroine.  And then, near the end of the book, an entire year somehow goes by without any indication that anything changing at all.  And yet-- Ok, I admit it-- I even considered buying this book, purely for the-- to use one of the author's favorite phrases-- panty-liquifying romance scenes.  The story may not be consistent, but it sure is sexy.  I may even pick up the sequel.


1071) * "Pyramids" by Terry Pratchett

As usual, an excellent parody both of the fantasy genre and of certain specific histories (notably the Egyptian, obviously, and also a good bit on the Greek philosophers).  It's not my favorite of the Discworld books, but even the worst of them is pretty damn good.  (People always compare things like that to sex or pizza, but I've had pretty lousy experiences with both of those, so I don't feel that the phrase "even when it's bad, it's good" applies to them.  Maybe to chocolate, though...).  Without further dithering, quotes:

"Belief is a force. It's a weak force, by comparison with gravity; when it comes to moving mountains, gravity wins every time."

"It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four.  Scientists say that these things don't normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself.  This either means that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along."


1072) "City of Bone" by Cassandra Clare

I wasn't as blown away by this one as everyone else seems to be, but I do concede that it's an excellent YA modern-setting supernatural story, with plenty of intrigue, wit, and originality, and I did prefer it to Holly Black's "Tithe."  It's pretty much Harry Potter for an older crowd.  Now, if only I hadn't read so many similar books, I might be really impressed!  Still-- yes, it was quite clever, and I'll probably pick up the sequel when I get the chance.  Even got one good quote out of it:

" 'Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow... And it's no picnic being different.' " - Magnus 


OK, that's made a dent at least.  It's all the ones I can sum up quickly, at any rate!

{1063-1066}

So, of course, when I finally have a day off from work and school and figure I'll catch up on everything... I get sick. So I took it nice and easy today, got done the most important of my errands (including spending /way/ too much money on books)... and now I'm going to try an catch up on my book journal just a bit before I fall so miserably behind that I have to give the entire thing up.


1063) "The First World Fantasy Awards" edited by Gahan Wilson

Perhaps because the awards were held in honor of Lovecraft (whom I'm embarrassed to confess I have not read), this collection of stories struck me more as horror than fantasy. I'm intrigued by how the genre has changed. Overall, I liked the book a lot. A quick run-down of the contents:
( details )

Each story was accompanied by a short biographical sketch on or musing by the author. Robert Aikman (a bit of a superstitious nutcase, mind you) provided these marvelous quotes in his:

"The belief that one day, by application of reason and the scientific method, everything will be known, and every problem and unhappiness solved, seems to me to have led to a situation where, first, we are in imminent danger of destroying the whole world, either with a loud report or by insatiable overconsumption and overbreeding, and where, second, everyone suffers from an existential angst, previously confined to the very few. There is a fundamental difference between worrying about where one's next meal is coming from and worrying about the quality and reality of one's basic being."

"...nothing which is worthwhile can be predicted scientifically, let alone brought about, and least of all guaranteed"

"I believe in what the Germans term /Ehrfurcht:/ reverence for things one cannot understand."

"I believe [in something beyond this world]... because I can make no sense otherwise of the tragic lives that people lead; except, perhaps, upon the heretical, though far from illogical, thesis that the world is a construct of the devil..."


1064)  ** "Kindred," by Octavia Butler

My thanks again to mj_automatic for recommending this superb author.  The overall plot concept is one I have encountered before in "Stigmata" by Phyllis Alecia Perry, but this book has a very different tone to it.  In both stories, a relatively modern-day black woman finds herself "unstuck in time" to use Vonnegut's phrase, and travels against her will into the lives of her enslaved ancestors.  But while Perry's book is written as the simple chronicle of a family, "Kindred" has a more science-fiction tone to it. 

Dana is bodily transported into the past where she is an anachronism, and woefully unprepared to endure the lives of her predecessors.  Her personal pride and revulsion towards slavery war with her need to blend in and stay alive... and, she realizes, to save the lives of her great grandparents.  The book presents a brutally realistic psycho-social portrait of the contradictions and confusions inherent to the African-American psyche.  It's just... stunning.  I couldn't put this one down, and highly recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in race relations.


1065) ** "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie.

This is apparently Alexie's first YA book-- I haven't read any of his adult novels, though.  I believe the review from Chris Crutcher described the experience of reading this book as "laughing your ass off while your heart is breaking" and I couldn't have said it better myself. 

The protagonist of this novel is a young teen growing up on the reservation... and dreaming of a better life against all odds.  When he gets the opportunity to attend a white school in the nearest town, he takes it-- and finds himself mostly ostracized both in his new situation and in the life he left behind.  The book is amazingly witty, which is the only thing that saves it from being unbearably grim-- it reminds me a bit of Klass' "You Don't Know Me" that way.  It also brought home to me how much fiction can sometimes illucidate something better than nonfiction. 

In many ways, this book contained all the same facts about Indian life (apparently, the Indians scoff a bit at the term "Native Americans"-- like us being PC does anything to help them?) as the book "The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams"... and yet, I found it much harder to deal with.  The casual discussion of the agony in which these people live-- almost everyone is alcoholic, nearly every family abusive, and the rates of violent crime and death are beyond imagining-- makes it all the more tragic.  The book is beautiful and brilliant, and really not as depressing as I've made it sound.


1066)  "Whirlwind" by David Klass

Book 2 of the Caretakers Trilogy.  I didn't like it as much as the first book, "Firestorm"-- a little more heavy-handed-- but it's still a good series to recommend to Pendragon fans, and a bit more adult and fast-paced.  I got a wonderful quote from it, too:

"Here’s a sad but true definition of home: it’s where you go to find out if you’re still you, or if you’ve become somebody else."


OK, I'm going to take a break now.  More later, I hope.

{1057-1062}

1057) "The Coastliners" by Joanne Harris.

Well, the book club tore it to shreds, but I rather liked the book, though it got off to a slow start.  A young French woman returns to her exceedingly rural island home to try and reconnect with her father and her past.  She finds herself more deeply involved in the life of the island than she could have imagined, and tries to pull her village out of their apathy and reticence... only to learn, once again, that putting your heart into something can be dangerous.  Still, I liked how to story drew me into the insularity of this tiny community and made me care about them, how I got ever more deeply into the tangled family mysteries of the island.  It's light reading, but worth it, especially for francophiles.

"What fools love makes of us.  What savages.  My mistake was thinking that it has to be earned.  Deserved.... But merit has nothing to do with it.  Otherwise we would only ever love saints."


1058) * "Unshapely Things" by Mark Del Franco

Another of those modern setting supernatural mysteries that I love, and a darn good one at that.  Not as witty as Butcher's "Dresden Files," nor as dark as Rob Thurman or Simon R. Green, but rather like Kat Richardson's "Greywalker" with a male protagonist.  Most of it is straight-up mystery, that just happens to take place in the supernatural.  Good integration of issues like racial tension into an alternate reality version of Boston.  Also, occasional quotable lines:

"Life's an ass, sweetie, you just have to bite it." - Briallen

On the topic of drugs "...I realized that pummeling my body with extreme temperatures was no different than the way others punished their bodies to soothe their inner emotions.  It was all a matter of degree and rationality.  I was just trying to feel alive."


1059) "Child of a Rainless Year" by Jane Lindskold

A very beautiful book that left me having massive art-cravings.  Still-- it's funny how being in a book club and writing these reviews has made me far more technically critical of the things I read.  I might have said that I had a bit of trouble getting into this book, but that wasn't really it.  The problem was that the book itself was a bit too long for the story it was telling; too much set-up for the amount of plot.  The plot itself was both wonderful and fantastical, and I enjoyed it greatly.  But it left me feeling like it should have been bigger, somehow.  What's really amazing, though, is that I picked the book up very nearly at random... and it happened to be set where my brother is going to school, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, an odd little town with an interesting and mysterious history.  His school is even mentioned!  (United World College at Montezuma Castle).  And damnit, I want to go paint now, lots and lots!


1060)  "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" by Jules Verne, Puffin edition with introduction by Diana Wynne Jones.

Ok, so I have a few admission to make.  I've never read Jules Verne before, and was intimidated on account of those books looking like Classics (you know, the kind with impenetrable writing style, my fear of which I totally have to get over on account of being perfectly capable of reading such things).  Anyways, I went to see the movie, yeah the cute kiddie one with Brendan Fraser being adorably himself... and it made me want to read the book like anything.  Then when I saw a copy of the book introduced by my very favorite author, I just had to read it (also-- almost couldn't find it on Amazon because I hadn't noticed that it used the British spelling!).  Her intro is adorable, by the way-- she warns her readers of the archaic language (there were a few difficult bits) but assures us that the story is worth it.  And so it was.  I got an excellent quote out of it, too:

"Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead us little by little to the truth." -Prof. Lidenbrock



Also, I have a mystery quote on the same scrap of paper.  I don't think it's from "Journey," but I'm at a total loss for its possible source!  I remember being amused that someone said it besides Douglas Adams, though:  "When men competed for positions of power, it was generally acknowledged that the ones who got it were invariably the ones who could least be trusted with it."  Oh man, this is going to drive me nuts.


1061) "To Save a World" by Marion Zimmer Bradley (comprising the novels "Planet Savers" and "World Wreckers")

OK, I admit it-- after years of dodging most MZB books for being too serious in tone, I enjoyed the hell out of this.  Solid, serious sci-fi here, somewhere between Larry Niven and Anne McCaffrey in tone.  it is written primarily in Male, but I enjoyed it quite a lot anyways and even got to like many of the characters.  Good storytelling all around.  I may have to pick up the rest of the Darkover books one of these days.


1062) "The Sorcerer of the North" by John Flanagan

Book 5 of the Rangers Apprentice series and still going strong.  I found the plot twists in this one a bit predictable, but loved them anyways-- and was only able to predict them on account of having been totally blown away by similar ones before.  As a kid, I would have been amazed by this book, I think.  Still fun reading!



Well, ok, that takes care of a few of them.  Enough until tomorrow, I guess.

{1052-1056}

Ok, so I've been seriously slacking here.  Got stuff from months ago to write up.  Let's haul out the notes and give it a shot.


1052)  "Why Popcorn Costs So Much At the Movies: And Other Pricing Puzzles" by Richard McKenzie.

Well, I figured I should get into this trend of pop economics books, and wasn't quite ready to jump in with "Freakonomics," so I picked up this one instead.  A lot of it is aimed at correcting mistaken "assumptions" about pricing, many of which I hadn't made in the first place (I never thought, for example, that those post-holiday "blow-out" sales were the result of the stores over-ordering product-- I know damn well they are planned in advance, although I probably couldn't have explained why).  Many more of the "puzzles" are probably only puzzling if you already think in, and care about, the language of economics (while written in terms the financial layperson, even me, can understand, it's obviously from an economist's point of view). 

And I was kind of intrigued and dismayed that an entire two thirds of the book went by before the quote "...work done by psychologists and behavioral economists brings into question the extent to which people behave rationally, at least /as rationality/ is posited in conventional microeconomic analysis."  Well, shit, if that's news to anyone in the field, no wonder I can never make heads or tales of what these money-minded types are always going on about.  This book did little to change my opinion that economists are all an odd mix of brainy and naive as hell.

Despite that lackluster review, I really didn't find the book too dull, and I did finish it.  There were even a few sections that really caught my interest-- particularly the bit explaining why, genderism aside, women will always make less, on average, than men-- barring a major overhaul of the way society works (ok, so yes, this was under the social psych section of the book, which is a little more in my area).  Point is-- earning power is a major factor for men in terms of mating potential, whereas it isn't for women.  The upshot being, men are far more competitive than women-- on average, remember, not in every case-- over top positions and salaries.  The number of women who take jobs as supplemental income or or temporary, non-career positions, skew the average amount that women make downwards by quite a lot.  Very good points, all.


1053) ** "The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization" by Daniel Pinkwater

Everything I read by this author makes me love him more.  This-- how to describe this book?  It's historical fantasy, I suppose, set in the earlier half of the 20th century.  Neddie and his eccentric family take a journey across the states, described in such a way that the most ordinary things seem strange and magical.  And then, slowly, actual magic begins to creep into the story, starting with Neddie's encounter with a mysterious Indian shaman.  The great thing is, the story tells all the miraculous events as though they were perfectly matter-of-fact, to the point where you start to lose track of what is ordinary and what is extraordinary.  And in the end, it is an epic, an amazingly heroic tale in such a small and simple way.  Glorious, either for the grade-school boy who wants to read a good adventure, or for the adult who wants to recapture the greatness and wonder of childhood.


1054) ** "The Goldren Dream of Carlo Chuchio" by Lloyd Alexander

It took me a long time to work up the courage to pick up this book.  It's his last work, published posthumously, and I was just too saddened by the thought that there will be no more Lloyd Alexander books after this.  Mind you, I still need to finish reading everything he wrote while he was alive...

This was a wonderful novel, true to form-- adventure, love, wittiness, badass women-- everything you could want.  I think it still may have wanted a little editing though-- subtle things, like punctuation, weren't quite up to standard.  There seemed to be a little less conflict than the story called for-- but still, it was wonderful.  Alexander definitely has the knack of mixing cultures and appropriating words so as to come up with a fictional setting which is still recognizeable (Other authors with that knack include Megan Turner and John Flanagan).  I really do have to get used to the word "ferenghi" meaning something besides "big-eared aliens," though.  I'm such a nerd.

Much about this work reminded me of my favorite of his books (now, shockingly, inexcusably out of print), "The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha."  The main character is something of a dreamer and layabout who sets off on an unlikely quest for treasure.  He quickly comes to realize just how naive and inexperienced he is, and finds himself a bit overwhelmed by the world.  But with the help of an unlikely set of friends-- a hilariously bumbling, silver-tongued fellow who gets himself hired as Carlo's assistant, and a fierce girl on a mysterious quest of her own-- he finds things more wonderous than the treasure he was seeking.


1055)  ** "Gale Force" by Rachel Caine

Yes, there's another Weaher Wardens book out!  And I just can't stop loving this series.  They're quick, clever, and remarkably easy to identify with, considering the amount of supernatural stuff flying about.  Kudos to her, too, for having a hot romance without any explicit sex-- harder to pull off, but very worth it, especially in the wake of the LKH craze.  Also, Caine is one of the few fantasy authors who makes a point of stocking her cast with characters who aren't exclusively white.  OK, so her main characters are a white chick and a, um, caucasian djinni-American, but at least there's a solid amount of diversity in their world.


1056) "The Dimension Next Door" edited by Martin Greenberg (who else?) and Kerrie Hughes (who?).

An OK collection of "other world" fantasy stories.  I do commend the collection on it's diversity of interpretations o the "parallel universe" theme.  Quick rundown of contents:

-"The Fourteenth Virtue" by Anton Strout.  Historical fantasy.  Didn't really get it; wasn't really interested.
-"Waiting For Evolution" by Jody Lynn Nye.  Pretty good story with a charming twist at the end.
-"The Trouble with the Truth" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.  I can't for the life of me remember what it's about right now, but I put a star next to it, so it must have been pretty darn good.
-"AFK" by Chris Pierson.  An excellent twist on the idea of virtual reality soldiers... and the types of missions they might have to undertake.
-"Unreadable" by Steven Schend.  Maybe I took it too fast, but sadly, I found it to be exactly what the title says.  Pity-- I should have liked it- something about evil books and people getting trapped inside them.
-"Not My Knot" by Irene Radford.  Intriguing.
-"www.karmassist.com" by Donald Bingle.  A lovely little reminder that power corrupts and that it's dangerous to throw stones... even online.
-"The Avalon Psalter" by Lillian Carl.  Another one of those historical ones I don't like.
-"Shadows in the Mirrors" by Bradley Beaulieu.  Good, but obviously creepy.
-"God Pays" by Paul Genesse.  Not sure if I liked this one.
-"Jack of the High Hills" by Brenda Cooper.  *shrug*
-"The Silver Path" by Fiona Patton.  Didn't much care for it.
-"Hear No Evil" by Alexander Potter.  Likes it quite a lot.  Why is it that I can only remember the plots to the ones I didn't like??  It's driving me nuts.

OK, it's getting lateish, and firefox already crashed this entry once.  I'm off to bed.  At least I made some progress.

{1048-1051}

1048) * "I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK? Tales of Driving and Being Driven" by Naomi Shihab Nye

This was a beautiful book, billed as YA for some reason I don't quite get, philosophical and meandering. I found I a bit too disjointed, personally, but also enjoyed it a lot more once I realized it was a book of memoir vignettes and not a novel with a plot. Nye discusses critical journeys in her life-- mostly in taxis-- and the things she learned there, with a particular focus on being culturally displaced and identifying herself as a wanderer. Memory and dialogue interweave into a flow of stream-of-consciousness musings-- some simple and some profound. Perhaps a few quotes will give a better impression.

"It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in."

A Scottish cab driver tells her " '...we think that anyone who runs for a political office can't really have good intentions up his sleeve... But you, in the United States, you /want/ to believe in your politicians and that's why you're always so depressed and disappointed.' "

"We all now so much we wish we didn't know. This is another reason why I love children's books. They restore us to the world before /excess knowing/, that keener, crisper world of filtered light and high hopes, that wide and beckoning field."


1049)  ** "How I Created My Perfect Prom Date" by Todd Strasser.

It's not a Weird Science tale, but it's still pretty good.  When Nicole doesn't get her expected prom date, she decides to "fix up" her old friend Chase instead, setting off a tangled web of break-ups and hook-ups and social status shifts among the kids of Time Zone High.  At the same time, Nicole and Chase's families are going through some complicated issues of their own.  Told in alternating viewpoints, the story is charming, witty, and a touchingly realistic testament to the powers of friendship... and popularity.  At first I found the teens a little unbelievably naive, but then remembered how little I knew at that age... Good book.


1050)   "The Innocent's Story" by Nicky Singer

13-year old Cassina has just been killed in a suicide bombing by a radical fictional religious cult (the author makes a point of mentioning the other major religions throughout the book so you know none of them are the basis for this story).  She finds herself a free-floating "para-spirit" who must hitch a ride in the brains of living humans, where she can observe both their actions and their thoughts, but cannot interfere or even make her presence known-- except to the other ghosts she encounters.  Jumping from person to person, she sees the reactions to her death from a variety of viewpoints... and gets involved in a strange religious mystery.  When another girl's life is at risk from the same group responsible for her death, Cassina struggles to find a way to change the course of events... with unexpected results.


1051) * "There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom" by Louis Sachar

This story was a lot more serious than I expected from the title.  In simple, straightforward language, without psychological explanations (which my brain couldn't help putting in anyways), it tells the story of an antisocial grade-school boy who has given up ever trying to do anything right or be liked.  When a new boy in his class and a new school counselor make Bradley realize there are alternatives to his bad behavior, he is suddenly in the terrifying position of having to reinvent himself.  Is it worth trying?  Can he make friends and good grades?  Or should he fall back on his old tricks?  Amazingly real-- this book may be written at an easy-chapter level, but I think some child psychologists could probably still learn from it-- I know I did!


Just so you know, I am insanely behind on this journal.  And also out of energy to continue for now.  If only I didn't insist on writing something meaningful about each book!

{1045-1047}
Unfortunately, the only scary thing about my booklist is how far behind I am. If I have time later I may do a "favorite spooky books" Halloween post. Maybe.


1045) "Creating Minds: An Anatomy Of Creativity As Seen Through The Lives Of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, And Gandhi" by Howard Gardner

Ok, I've tried to think of a way to describe this book without using the term "intellectual masturbation," but I have concluded that it cannot be done. Gardner gives biographical overviews of major "creative" figures of the modern period and attempts to explore their similarities with a view to determining the template or archetype for the creative genuis.

Really, he should have just left it at the biography sections-- which are excellently informative and well written. The intro, conclusion, and other short sections related to the overarching theme of creativity, however, are repetitive, steeped in Dead White Male-isms, very poorly supported from a scientific standpoint (ah well, most social science is) and above all, exemplars of the sort of intellectual masturbation one expects from pretentious Ivy League intelligensia. OK, yeah, I'm being harsh, and the author did acknowledge many of his own biases, but really... when an intellectual snob such as myself finds a book too stuffy, you know it's got issues. Still, I recommend reading the majority of the book-- just not the "thesis" parts of it.

Here's why I'll never be a professional artist. "...nearly all creative individuals must devote significant energies to the management of their careers. Such political activity by no means guarantees success, but in its absence, aspiring creative individuals risk permanent oblivion."

Gardner did make one really good point; sadly, it's one that rather invalidates the entire point of his book: "...it is not clear whether people who already exhibit these characteristics become creative or whether, as a result of acknowledged creativity, people come to exhibit such positively tinged traits [independedce, self-confidence, unconventionality, alertness, ready access to unconscious proccesses, ambition, and commitment to work]"

Actually, I was never really sure what the "point" was, apart from a simple survey. Was he suggesting that we can identify people who will become creative geniuses? Providing a template for creating such people from ordinary folk? Claiming that creativity requires these innate characteristics and that no one without them has a chance? Or giving guidelines to potential creative geniuses for what they can expect and how they can maximize their potential? I'd have felt a lot better having a reason behind those 480 pages. Well, at least I'm done with it.


1046) ** "Mick Harte Was Here" by Barbara Park

A wonderful and heartrending chapter book about a girl whose brother Mick has just died in a bicycle accident. In honest, compelling language, Phoebe provides a beautiful and remarkably unsentimental retrospective of her brother's life, while at the same time struggling with her own responses to his death-- despair, anger, bitterness, and frustration with her friends' well-meaning attempts to sympathize with a situation they can't understand. It is ultimately a heroic story, and an inspiring one, but it avoids the trap of trying to make everything ok or meaningful at the end. In spite of the characters' behavior not always quite matching their ages (I find this so often in children's and YA books, and it scares me that even now I'm forgetting how huge a difference there is between being 10 and being 12), this has got to be one of the very best books I've read in a long time, and definitely one of the best dealing with death. Wear your helmet, kids.


1047) * "Make Me Hot" by Marissa Monteilh

No, it's not a porno, though that's what I first assumed from the title.  Rather, it's about plastic surgery.  Our protagonist, Morgan, has spent her life fighting to feel accepted and to build up some self-esteem.  And she's succeeded-- she's a financially successful single Mom, and has a very handsome boyfriend who swears he loves her huge nose and small breasts.  And then, at age 40, she's offered the chance to change it all-- she's won a radio sweepstakes for a full physical makeover by Hollywood's top surgeons.  Obviously, after some serious dithering, she takes the plunge, and finds her life changed in more ways than she could have possibly imagined.  It's not the very best book ever-- the writing isn't extremely literary (there's a weird perspective-switch near the beginning that threw me off), there's far too much stuff about God for my taste, and of course since it's a popular Af-Am novel, there are a number of gratuitously detailed sex scenes that I personally wasn't excited by-- but all the same, it's a good story.  The characters and relationships are dynamic and complicated, without devolving into pure drama.  And Morgan will win your heart as she discovers that self-esteem is one hell of a complicated thing.


ok, that'll have to do it for now.  More later.

When you see this, post in your own journal with your favorite quote from The Princess Bride. Preferably not "As you wish" (except for mj_automatic , who has a great reason) or the Inigo Montoya speech.

"You mean, you''ll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword, and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?"

Ok, maybe it isn't my very favorite line, but there are so many good ones to choose from!  I'm pretty fond of just about everything that Fezzik says.

{1038-1040}


1038) * "Sir Apropos of Nothing" by Peter David

I've been meaning to write this one up for ages now, but I misplaced the damn thing with all the quotes sticky-noted, so I couldn't.  Finally found it at the bottom of an old lunch bag.  Took me forever to get around to reading this one, too.  It's not actually as funny as one would expect from the title.  See, I'm used to the Terry Pratchett version of Fantasy Satire, steeped in absurdity and rarely venturing into the land of the serious, except perhaps for a few major plot points.  This one, while deviating from the standard fantasy epic in many ways, was primarily a serious story, intersperced at unlikely intervals with random witticisms and puns that would make Spider Robinson groan.  I guess it really was more of a Satire than a Parody, or is it the other way around?  At least, it's a parody for people who are accustomed to far more serious fantasy than I would ever read.  Die-hard Tolkein fans would probably find it quite light and fluffy.  Anyways, the odd mix of serious story and sarcastic asides reminded me a bit of Simon Green's "Blue Moon Rising," another wonderful fantasy book which can only be taken half-seriously.

The protagonist of this novel plays the role of would-be hero and unwitting fool, brought low more by fate than by hubris.  You feel rather bad for him, actually.  At least his reaction is wonderfully realistic-- he becomes cynical, paranoid, selfish, and more than a little bit ruthless.  In fact, in most stories he'd probably be considered the villain.  And yet, I still identified strongly with the character-- after all, faced with that much bad luck, I'd probably turn a bit evil, too.

Apropos (yes, that's actually the character's name) makes a number of wonderfully snide but often accurate observations, such as:

...isn't it the very illicitness of an affair, the forbidden nature of it, which makes it so exciting?  Even pedestrian sex can be elevated to new heights when one isn't supposed to be having it.

...people who attribute any sort of miracle to life can only be considered fools...  Even the most common creature can generate the biological process that is reproduction.  Life, miraculous? Nonsense.  Putting infants on this planet, there's nothing miraculous about that.  What's miraculous is when we let them live to grow out of infancy.

The slaying of wizards is a foolish endeavor, and should only be undertaken by those who are of a mind to commit suicide on a cosmic scale.

"As with all things, Apropos, it has both its positives and its negatives.  Life is a double-edged sword."
"That's why I try to live it to the hilt."  (-Bea and Apropos.  Just witty banter, or a deeply philosophical standpoint?  I'm not sure)

Apropos also refers to the phrase "live happily ever after" as

"Four words that have no business in each other's company."

"Youth believes itself immortal.  There is a cure for such an attitude, but unfortunately it is a cure from which one never recovers." - Sir Umbrage

"That, child, is one of the glorious advantages to being a madman.  I don't have to make sense.  It's very liberating.  You should try it sometime." - King Meander


1039)  ** "The Divide" by Elizabeth Kay

A wonderful fantasy adventure with an engaging plot, serious morals, and a cast of very well-rounded and believable characters.  Felix stumbles into a magical world full of elves, dragons, and math-obsessed gryphons, where a human boy is considered a mythical creature!  He makes friends as he goes along, helps the world out of serious trouble, and searches for a possible cure for the heart condition which was slowly killing him back in the human world.  I found a lot of the made-up words for creatures frustratingly silly, but that was my only real gripe with the book, and I doubt it would be noticed by the age-group for which the story is intended.  A wonderfully touching story.


1040) "Heroics for Beginners" by John Moore

Another fantasy-parody, this one more humorous (or perhaps I should say "slapstick") than "Sir Apropos," but still with a jarring tendency to leap back and forth from funny bits to more serious (or at least seriously-told) storyline.  Mostly funny bits in this one, though, but not as funny as I would have liked.  A lot of playing with cliches and overturning expectations, but the language and jokes aren't nearly so good as when a master (Pratchett, Adams, Jones) takes on the genre.  Still, it's a fun romp of a quick read, especially for anyone who's played too many "knight and castle" RPGs.  If they made a movie out of this, it would fall into the same category as "Monty Python's Holy Grail" and "Robin Hood: Men In Tights."


Oh boy, all this writing up is taking longer than I thought!

{1036}
OK, I managed to get through one difficult book. Let's see if I can't pull of the other one, the one I told gryfindormiaabout several months ago (as in, it should have been one of the books that brought me up to 1000)...

( more serious politics on ass! )


Hey, you know, I think I should write entries in the middle of the day when I'm wide awake more often!

All that effort to finish my review in the allotted time and I missed a quote!  Ah well, I get to put it here.  And if you're going to argue with me about it, you'd better read the book first (see previous entry).

"All that most of the undocumented want is a fair shake and a chance to work hard and realize what we proudly call the American Dream.  Give them the chance to regularize and legitimatize their status, and watch as they become another unique component of the national mosaic.  Maybe they will even become Republicans.  But the chances of that happening in the currect toxic environment are almost zero."

And, because I love it so damn much, I have to repeat the quote about our current fear-culture and "...a color-coded alert system that managed simultaneously to frighten and confuse the entire country.  Red, orange, yellow, green?  What are we supposed to do with these alerts?  Look under our beds?  Call our mothers?  I was waiting for a code pink signifying an imminent invasion by gays, or code black (with the skull and crossbones) for a pirate attack."

{1035}
Ok, I've been meaning to write these up for months and months now, but somehow I never found the mental energy or clarity.  I think I can pull it off now, and I finished up my test early so I've got almost an hour until my next class.  So *deep breath*... Yes, this post is going to be very political, very issue-laden, and probably very emotional.  Please do read it (especially the Republicans) -- I think it's got some important things to say.  I know not everyone on my f-list will agree with my position, though most of you will.  If you do disagree 1) please be respectful about it, 2) please understand that I may not have the emotional energy to carry out a full debate, and 3) please be willing to research the facts before you just react.  I'd recommend reading these books for a good start.

{1031-1034}

Ok, at some point I need to take a break in my ravenous reading and actually start catching up on my book journal.  Now is probably as good a time as any.  Oh, and did I mention I saw the baby black rhino at the zoo, too?  Didn't get a good picture, unfortunately, but still... it's nice just to know it's there.


1031) * "Mort" by Terry Pratchett

Death decides to take on an apprentice.  Told as only Pratchett could tell it.  I have to share a quote, too, about the city of Ankh Morpork, which sometimes applies quite well to downtown San Diego, or at least to our bookstore when a number of our homeless regulars are visiting.

"You couldn't help noting with every breath that thousands of other people were close to you and nearly all of them had armpits."


1032) * "Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett

On the Discworld, the eighth son of an eighth son is a wizard.  And if he has an eighth son, the result is a world of trouble.  It is mostly for this reason that wizardry is typically not allowed to run in families.  This novel features the wizard Rincewind (and, of course, his Luggage), a variety of barbarians, and the college of wizards, magical books, and Librarian.  Fortunately, the world doesn't come to an end because, among other things, several of the main characters have made off with three very important horses, causing Death and company to decide that the "one Horseman and three Pedestrians"
 of the Apocalypse doesn't have quite the right ring to it.


1033) * "The Slave Dancer" by Paula Fox

Young Jessie is shanghaied to serve aboard a slave ship on account of his musical talents.  When the slaver has picked up its cargo, it is Jessie's job to play music for the slaves while they are forced to exercise by "dancing."  Jessie's growing horror with the slave business is complicated by his fear of the ship's crew and his uncertainty about whom among them he can trust.  This story is told very well from the perspective of a teenage boy, and is heartrending in its accuracy.


1034) ** "Seeing Voices" by Oliver Sacks

You know, I think this is the only book of Sacks' that I had not yet read!  I have now, I believe, read all of his books (I won't say "all of his works" on account of articles and studies, etc.).  I put this one off for ages because I was so disappointed, after reading the title, to find out that is was not about synaesthesia.  It is, instead, about Sign language and Deaf culture, which is a fascinating topic in its own right-- a topic Sacks tackles with his usual insight and lyricism, despite his admitted lack of experience in the field.  I am intrigued to think of how Sacks would have gotten along as a native speaker of Sign, considering his love of language and his tendency to be very verbose, to explain everything in myriad, unique, carefully-chosen terms.  How would this translate into another language, and one so different from English?

For any of you who don't know, I will quickly review that 1) Signed languages (there are many) are as complex and complete as spoken languages, with their own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. 2) Signed languages rarely correspond in any way to their respective spoken languages, though they have similarities with one another.  ASL, or American Sign Language, for example, is similar enough to French sign that most speakers of the two can understand one another, whereas British sign is an altogether different thing.  There is also, taking our own language as an example, a pidgin called "Signed English" which is a direct visual transliteration of spoken English-- and most native signers consider it exceedingly clumsy and unhelpful.  3) As Sacks covers in his historical review of the Deaf, a non-hearing child brought up without exposure to Sign is likely to have very poor language skills, quite possibly forever.  The brain needs a "native" language in which to think, and that language comes well before the ability to understand the written word.  Therefore, a child who cannot hear the language around them is at risk for serious mental impoverishment.

As notes to myself from this book, I must be sure to check out the Deaf community in Fremont, CA; to look into cued speech (developed by Orin Cornett), which is lipreading with the addition of hand symbols to help the reader distinguish sounds that look alike; and to explore William Stokoe's "Sign Language Structure," ASL dictionary organized by hand-sign (which was one of my ideas for a Thesis project back when I was a linguistics major), and project to develop a written version of Sign (another thing I considered doing.  I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved that someone else got there first)! There is even, apparently, a computer version now known as "SignFont"!

It was really interesting to read about the history of Sign as well as its neurological implications.  For instance, a stroke patient with hemi-neglect (ceasing to be aware of the left side of the room, and even the idea of leftness), will describe their room with all the furniture, windows, etc, in the right half only.  But, if they are  native user of Sign, they will use both the right and left hands and spacial area in front of them to do this describing.  From this and other examples, it is clear that when the hands are used for language, they are used in a completely different way, neurologically speaking, than when they are used to mimic or mime or perform any non-language task.   And I was surprised to discover that many Deaf people dislike the idea of everyone being brought up to speak Sign (there are some distinct neurological advantages to this), even though it would make it much easier for native Signers to interact more easily with the rest of the world, because Sign language is so central to Deaf identity.  Apparently, most Signers even prefer to use something more like Signed English if hearing people are watching, and to keep Sign as something unique to the Deaf community.  I don't think this is true in all Deaf communities, however; I certainly hope not.

Anyone with even the vaguest interest in the Deaf or in neurology should read this book.  As should people with no interest in these topics at all-- they might well discover one!

Quotes:

"But it is not (usually) the ideas of philosophers that change reality; nor, conversely is it the practice of ordinary people.  What changes history, what kindles revolutions, is the meeting of the two."

On the crucialness of language in the development of a child's brain.  "The origin of questioning, of an active and questioning disposition of the mind, is not something that arises spontaneously... it stems, it is stimulated, by communicative exchange-- it requires dialogue"

"Language is not just a formal device (though it is, indeed, the most marvelous of formal devices), but the most exact expression of our thoughts, our aspirations, our view of the world.  The 'character" of a language, as Humboldt speaks of it, is of an essentially creative and cultural nature."  This is the quote that made me wonder how Sacks himself would come across-- or think!-- in another language.

Speaking of the communities on Martha's Vinyard, where a large enough segment of the population is Deaf that even hearing children grow up bilingual in Sign "Thus the capacity-- the neuronal apparatus-- to acquire spatial language (and all the nonlinguistic spatial capacities that go with this) is clearly present, potentially, in everyone.  There must be countless neuronal potentials that we are born with and which can develop or deteriorate according to demand."



Well, that's a start, at any rate.

{1027-1030}

Oh dear, I've rediscovered the neverending book quiz on Goodreads.com. Now I'll never get anything else done!!

Damnit, I want cookies. Also, more people need to comment on my funny posts. Yes, I am random. Thank you for asking.


1027) "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk (I never can spell that right-- the nearest I got without checking was "palahuniuk")

Ok, I read this ages ago and have held off on reviewing it because I wasn't quite sure what to say. In a way, I'm still not. My reactions to this book ran hot and cold the entire time I was reading it. The characters skirt the line between "asshole" and "genius" so closely that I just couldn't decide where to put them. On the one hand, this is a glorious story of the achievement of the ordinary man, of creating meaning in an absurd life. On the other hand, the view of the absurdity of life, and the devaluing of it all, was brutal.

( the gritty details )

Quotes:

If you don't know what you want... you end up with a lot you don't.

If you're male and you're Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?"

We are God's middle children, according to Tyler Durden, with no special place in history and no special attention.
Unless we get God's attention, we have no hope of damnation or redemption.

I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived... and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables... You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.   [This line really got to the heart of the meaning of the book, and I loved it.  There was also a brilliant bit I forgot to quote directly about how our generation has been brought up with TV telling us we'll all be rock stars and filthy rich and famous and we're just now finding out that we don't have a chance of that happening, and it's pissing us all off.  That also rang very true to me.]


1028) * "Weetzie Bat" by Lia Francesca Block

A post-modern, almost punk, fairy tale, told in simple lyrical language.  It was beautiful, but I found it very hard to relate to, personally.  Still, I think the average teenage girl really needs to read this one, along with Rachel Cohn's "Gingerbread" and Joan Bauer's "Rules of the Road."  The term "keeping it real" was made for stories like these, even though this one involves so many fantasy elements.


1029) * "Welcome to the Ark" by Stephanie Tolan.

A story about a group of extraordinary kids and teens, all of whom end up in an institution together.  Despite a supernatural plot (the kids also have some psychic abilities in addition to being geniuses-- reminds me a bit of "Girl with the Silver Eyes" that way) it's very much about the real struggles that gifted children have, and what they need in order to fit in and learn to cope with themselves.

This is the book that comes before "Flight of the Raven," and I do wish I'd read it first.  I think I still would have preferred this one, however.  It's a very touching story over all.  Two lines stood out:

"When you aren't normal, you don't know how normal people think (except that it's different from how you think), so you don't know how they feel, either." -from Miranda's journal

"...no one thinks children are worth making a priority.  Children don't vote.  They don't control money.  They don't command armies and weapons.  And no matter how many the world loses, there are always more of them." -Miranda. 

Oh, how hideously true.  What worries me even more, and it should go without saying (but doesn't seem to!) is that the children are the ones who will be growing up to handle our economy and our wars and our healthcare and the future.  They should be given every resource we can put at their disposal, both intellectually and emotionally, for the very simple reason that if we don't give them to tools to make good decisions once they reach a position of power, we're all screwed.


1030) ** "Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Grossman

A wonderful parody of the superhero genre, and more.  The novel is told in alternating parts by Fatale, a self-conscious cyborg who's the newbie member of a fading JLA-like organization, and Doctor Impossible, a self-proclaimed evil genius, who struggles with awareness of his own hubris and other failings even as he loses again and again to heroes who lack his intelligence.  It's very clever, really, showing the behind the scenes aspect of both sides to a classic superhero fight.  You really do wind up sympathizing greatly with the Dr. Impossible, his brilliance and angst and the unfairness of his situation.  Also, massive kudos to Grossman for coming up with "Malign Hypercognition Disorder" -- the "technical term" for Evil Genius!!


Well, there, that makes a dent.  I'll have to save my stories about the homeless for another night.

another edit to my last post (the first one being the translator's name).  I missed a few quotes from "Kafka" on account of being thoroughly disorganized.  Here they  are:


"Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents."

"People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring" - Oshima (I think)

{1025-6}
BTW, I know these posts can get a bit long.  Does anyone on my f-list want me to stick them behind cuts so they don't take up so much space on your friends page?  I don't usually bother unless I've rambled at extreme length about one particular title, but if you get sick of scrolling past it all, just let me know, ok?


1025) ** "Powers" by Ursula K. LeGuin

The third in the YA trilogy that began with "Gifts," although again I didn't see how it fit into the same storyline until the very end.  Still, no complaints, or almost none.  One of the young characters struck me as unbelievably mature for their age, but that's a common complaint I have in novels.  Maybe I was just particularly immature as a kid, myself.  Anyways, leGuin is a masteress (yes, that's the proper feminine of "master" because I said so) of storytelling.  I loved this series oh so very much, more than much of the material she's written for adults.  Speaking of which, I really need to get around to reading more of her work.


1026) ** "Kafka on the Shore," by Haruki Murakami

This was last month's book club book, and I loved it beyond the telling of it.  What amazes me is that it's one of those books that is purportedly set in the real world, but has supernatural elements woven in, and it's odd and philosophical and goes off on strange tangents, and it leaves a lot of loose ends and unexplained bits.... all of which are characteristics that I hate in books.  And I still loved it.  I'm not the only one, either-- several other women in the club loved it despite usually hating books that don't wrap things up neatly.  There really is something special about this one. 

It's hard to say, really, what this novel is about, beyond the fact that it's about searching.  The main characters include a teenage boy running away from a prophesy made by his (assumed abusive) father, an elderly man who is mentally retarded but can understand the language of cats, a woman who's lived a half-life since a tragedy many years ago, and to my immense joy, a character who is presented as transgendered but, from the description, is probably actually intersexual (that is, born with intermediate characteristics-- it happens about once in 1000 births according to the article I read, but almost no one outside the medical profession seems aware of the phenomenon).

The characters interact both on the level of the real world and in a sort of shadow-world made up of visions, dreams, and strange experiences that nonetheless all seem to have some effect on physical reality.  The storytelling is breathtakingly beautiful, both in concept (the events, the intertwining of the chharacters' lives) and in the specific translation (the actual words used-- kudos to whoever pulled off that translation job, and I can only hope the original is as impressive!! ok, I can't see a translator listed on the website.  Does Murakami write in English?).  There is a wonderful mixing of the unreal with the matter-of-fact, of elegant philosophical discussions with frank mentions of sex and other physical basics.  I wish I could see this novel in its original-- not just to be able to read Japanese, but to understand the cultural context underlying the story.  Are the myths referenced in this story common knowledge, for example, or unique to this author?  I was left with questions, but mostly, I just want to read it again.  I feel like there is so much more to be found in it.

To give you a sense of just how beautiful the writing is, I present some quotes:

"Listen-- God exists only in people's minds.  Especially in Japan. God's always been kind of  a flexible concept.  Look at what happened after the war.  Douglas MacArthur ordered the divine emperor to quit being god, and he did, making a speach saying he was just an ordinary person... A very postmodern kind of thing." - "Colonel Sanders" (a fascinating character in his own right-- he freely confesses to being only a concept rather than a person.)

I nod. "I know.  But metaphors can reduce the distance."
"We're not metaphors."
"I know," I say, "But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me."
-a romantic exchange between Kafka ("I") & Miss Saeki

"Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves.  So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover.  It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time." -Oshima

"Memories warm you up from the inside.  But they also tear you apart." - Miss Saeki

"Every one of us is losing something precious to us... Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again.  That's part of what it means to be alive." -Oshima

An overwhelming, almost nauseous sleepiness overcomes me.  My thoughts slow down, and finally stop, like a train pulling into a station, and I can't think straight anymore, like the core of my body's coagulating. 
I just had to throw that one in-- it's a perfect description of what my fatigue spells feel like.  I am truly in awe of Murakami's (and translator Philip Gabriel's --thank you dark_phoenix54 for that info) </lj>descriptive talents.


And bother-- it's already time to go get ready for class.  More later!

... on which I am more than a month behind, drat it all. So, without further ado...
{1019-1024}


1019) "Misspelled" edited by Julie E. Czerneda

A charming anthology of fantasy stories in which magic, for one reason or another, goes awry. Most of the pieces were funny, or at least somewhat pen-in-cheek (I'm assuming that's the written version of "tongue-in-cheek").

- The opening story by Lesley D Livingston was a classic example of a wordplay story, but I think it came across as a bit strained despite the excellent idea.

- My favorites were "Chafing the Bogey Man" by Kristin Britain (about the supernatural origins of golf), "Spell Quality" by Kate Paulk (imagine working a Quality Assurance job in a mage's office!) and "Demon in the Cupboard" by Nathan Azinger (a wonderful little piece about cooking, magic, and husband-wife relationships). Ken Pollard's "A Perfect Circle" was pretty interesting, too, a fantasy story with a cyberpunk twist. And Shannan Palma's concluding story warns of the dangers of purchasing a ticket to a fairy-tale life... and not reading the instructions carefully!

- Kell Brown, I'm afraid, despite being Canadian, disappointed me sorely. I don't think I've ever seen so many dangling participles in one place. Shame on the copy-editors, too.


1020) * "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World" by Dan Koeppel

If you didn't think a book about a plant could be fascinating, think again (and you also need to read Pollan's "Botany of Desire"). The humble banana-- it is one of the most widely grown, best-beloved, often-eaten, healthiest fruits known to man. It was also, apparently, one of the first cultivated crops, and is the primary dietary staple in many countries. It's also in imminent danger of going extinct-- at least, the commercially grown variety we see in Western supermarkets is well on its way out. The only reason it's still on the shelves is that new plantations are being planted as fast as the old ones are wiped out-- by a disease with no cure, no treatment, and no resisting plants, since, like potatoes, bananas propagate by cloning. This means that when an illness strikes one banana plant, only the strictest possible quarantine measures will keep that illness from killing every other plant of that strain.

In fact, the variety that first made bananas famous here in the United States all died out decades ago from the very same disease. The "Big Mike" banana is no more-- and after reading this book, I desperately want to taste one! I also want (almost) to jet off to Southeast Asia, where bananas still grow in myriad wild varieties, some nearly as orange (and beta-carotene-laden) as carrots, others with magenta skin, and some creamy and sweet as custard.

This book covers nearly everything, from the origin of the jingle "Yes, We Have No Bananas" to the history of the company now known as Chiquita (back when it was United Fruit, it was truly one of the most evil companies ever. Sure, we say that about all the big conglomerates, but seriously, how many companies have overthrown governments, machine-gunned down an entire village of their workers, or undertaken construction projects with a 90% mortality rate among workers??).

My only gripe with the book was the lack of figures. There were a few photos and illustrations, but the text desperately needed maps, charts, and a botanical schematic of the plant, because the descriptions alone just didn't cut it in many places. Still, very interesting stuff!


1021) ** "My Thirteenth Winter" by Samantha Abeel

Abeel tells her story of growing up with a very unusual learning disorder-- severe dyscalculia, an almost complete inability to comprehend numbers and their relationships. Despite being very bright, even gifted, in other areas such as linguistic skills, she cannot read a clock, count out change, make sense of a map, or even do basic arithmetic. She spent her childhood baffling teachers, too "smart" for remedial classes but always struggling at her grade level, terrified, confused, and constantly complicating the problem (unknowingly) by using her other impressive skills to compensate-- for example, guessing right answers by watching her teacher's facial expressions for clues.

The book is about her childhood overall, but I guess her 13th year is when things really came to a head, with her verging on complete nervous breakdown, finally getting a diagnosis (getting proper schooling help was another story altogether), and making breakthroughs in art and writing that preserved her sanity. At age 15, she published "Reach for the Moon," a collection of poetry about coping with disability.

My heart really bleeds for this girl. She was so sensitive and scared-- as gifted children often are-- and so far from anyone's understanding. Even reading her descriptions, it's impossible to imagine this lack of certain mental skills that almost everyone except stroke victims takes for granted. As a child and young adult, she is the victim of constant panic attacks without knowing what they are. She shuns social contact entirely, and spends most of her time so stressed that she's terrified she's about to vomit. One scene she described, of sitting up for hours in bed afraid that she would become sick too suddenly even to get to the toilet, and then breaking out in sweat at the relief when she realized she was just hungry rather than sick, struck so close to home it tore at me.

Every teacher, every pediatrician, every parent should read this book.

In her own words:

(after encountering tears of gratitude from a man who read her book and realized that his own lifelong "failure" was simply a learning disability) "I could not help but wonder how many thousands, millions of people like him, like me, were out there walking around wounded, lonely, scared, trapped by not understanding what was wrong, feeling as if the dark shadow that plagues them is their fault."

from the afterword "There will, undoubtedly, be more times in my future when things will become difficult again. Hopefully I will be able to draw on the lessons of the past and give myself permission to be who I am. Antidepressants... allow me to feel the entire range of emotions, including sadness, but don't allow me to get caught in cycles of thoughts that overpower me and hold me back. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had been diagnosed with depression earlier, how different my relationships and ability to cope with my learning disorder would have been."


Ok, I'm also doing some rereading lately, and I realize that I want to list some of these, both because I read them so long ago that I had forgotten them, and because I want a more comprehensive list of my total readings. I will, however, have to get my hands on some kind of basic database program soon so I can keep track and make sure I don't list anything twice! So, here goes (it isn't cheating to list stuff I read years ago, really!)

1022) ** "The Colour of Magic" by Terry Pratchett

I know I mentioned it before, but it deserves an entry. This is really three novellas, of wit and wackiness unparalleled in our geometry. These are tales of the Discworld, which rides through space atop a giant turtle, of the Wizard Rincewind, who would love to live in a universe where the laws of physics weren't broken on a daily basis, and of TwoFlower, the Discworld's first tourist, a cheery little man who inadvertently sows chaos in his wake. Also featuring trolls, heroes, a wide assortment of puns, semi-legendary dragons, maidens in various states of undress, and, most of all, The Luggage.

1023) ** "The Light Fantastic" by Terry Pratchett

This sequel continues in much the same vein as the first book, albeit with more of an overarching plot. Apart from the main plot points, I never quite can remember what happens in this one. But it's a rousing good read all the same.

1024) ** "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett

Leaving Rincewind's tale for the moment, we travel to the Discworld's high mountains, the Ramtops, where an eighth son of an eighth son is born, which means that he's Destined to become a Wizard. Only too late is it discovered that the son is, in fact, a daughter. But women can't be wizards! ...or can they? Introducing the formidable character of Granny Weatherwax, practitioner of various magics and also "headology," which she insists is a lot more important. And when Granny insists on something, reality had better agree with her or else!


Ok, it's gotten all late again. More tomorrow, I hope.

{1014-1018}


1014)  * "The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam" by Ann Marie Fleming

This is a fantastic memoir-biography in semi-graphic form.  Fleming learns that her great grandfather was a famous stage magician, world-renowned in an era of serious tension between East and West.... and that now, he is virtually unknown, and even her own family only has small scraps of memorabelia about his illustrious career.  So, she sets out as an investigative reporter to recover the rest of his story.  The book is in the format of her journal, cleverly interspersed with photos, documents, travel information, and comic-strip sections, detailing her discoveries.  I found it hard to put down.  Apparently there was also a film documentary, and I'd love to see that.  Actually, I think that came first, which makes sense given the setup of the book.


1015) ** "The Thief" by Megan Whalen Turner

It's been a long time since I discovered a children's author this brilliant.  Her writing reminds me a lot of Lloyd Alexander's... and she wrote the male protagonist so convincingly that I was actually quite surprised at the end to realize that the author was female!  "The Thief" is set in an alternate world loosely based on pre-industrial (though definitely not Ancient) Greece.  The main character is a boy or young man (I like how she gives no clues to his age-- he could be anything from a precocious 8-year-old to a scrawny 20-year-old) who has made a name for himself as a top-notch thief.... and as such has brought himself to the King's attention.  He's offered a reprieve of his sentence if he'll undertake a secret mission-- to steal a mystic artifact from a neighboring kingdom.  And so he reluctantly sets off, guarded by a small party including the King's advisor.

You really can't beat this one.  It's got adventure, an increasingly complex political intrigue, complicated characters, and a good deal of witty repartee between our hero and his captors.  I really ought to write the the author and tell her how much I loved not only the book but her end notes as well.  It turns out we had many of the same favorite authors in childhood-- Jones, Eager, Nesbit-- and their influence shows strongly in her storytelling.  Apparently, I have to read the book again!  There was a direct quote from "Howl's Moving Castle", she says, hidden in the text.  I only wish I'd known it was there while I was reading-- I'm sure I would have been able to spot it!  (And since I didn't, of course, now it's driving me crazy wondering).


1016)  * "Idlewild" by Nick Sagan

A good cyber-punk story.  The narrator awakes, confused, after a power surge, and begins to piece his life back together-- only to realize quickly that it's a virtual life.  He's stuck in a virtual reality school... and someone may or may not be trying to kill him.  It's a good tense story, and you're never quite sure what's real.  A few quotes:

"Monstre" is Old French for a divine warning, a miraculous sign from God.  It's where we get the English word "monster."  Ironic, I'd say, because who wants to believe monsters ome from God?"...
    Traditional monsters play on three fears.
    First, they echo the predators who chased our ancestors.  You fear the fangs of a vampire the way you fear the fangs of a wolf.  That's an external fear, a fear of the Beast.
    Second, they evoke human aggression and human perversion.  A vampire looks like a man and yet it is an eater of men-- here's a hint of cannibalism, our oldest taboo.  That's an internal fear, a fear of the Beast Within.
    Third, we fear transformation into the Beast...

...according to society, ignorance is never bliss.  Except in retrospect.... Children know precious little, but that profound ignorance comes from profound innocence.  People really mean to say that innocence is bliss.  And bliss is short-lived.

"....love, with a capital 'L,' is merely sleight of hand, doled out by genetic edict in order to keep DNA flowing."


1017) * "Bunnicula Meets Edgar Alan Crow" by James Howe

I confess: when a new "Bunnicula" book showed up after all these years, I squeed a fangirlish squee.  And the book did not disappoint.  Classic comedy-horror.


1018) * "Bluebeard" by Kurt Vonnegut.

What can I say?  I love Vonnegut.  And I really need to get around to reading the rest of his stuff.  This one's been sitting in a box for years waiting for me to get to it.  I finally did, and I'm glad.  No need to say anything about the storyline-- that's not what makes his writing great.  Here's a few gems I pulled from the pages, though:

A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since moderns communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.

One character, who is a fan of fascist Italy, refers to Americans as "Spoiled children, who are begging for a frightening but just Daddy to tell them exactly what to do."  I have to say I can't disagree with that assessment on the whole.  No wonder we're such a religious country.  Even more apropos, the narrator tells us,

    The darkest secret of this country, I'm afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher civilization somewhere else.  That higher civilization doesn't have to be another country.  It can be the past instead-- the United States as it was before it was spoiled by immigrants and the enfranchisement of the blacks. 
    This state of mind allows too many of us to lie and cheat and steal from the rest of us, to sell us junk and addictive poisons and corrupting entertainments.  What are the rest of us, after all, but sub-human aborigines?

One would soon go mad if one took such coincidences too seriously.  One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.


Well, I'm starting to catch up, at least!

{1010-1013}


1010) "Biology: Concepts and Connections: fifth edition" by Neil A. Campbell et al

Yes, I do finally get to list this one.  It was my textbook for the intro biology class I took last semester.  And I hardly cracked it open during the entire course.  I'm sure glad I didn't pay for it (advantages to having a Professor as a roommate...).  But I decided, darn it, why don't I get as much as I can out of this class?  So I started reading the book, cover to cover (well, ok, I skipped the chapter review questions, but I read all the actual text).  And I just finished (781 pages, minus probably 60-75 pages of chapter review).  I suppose it's pretty good, as far as intro bio books go....  There were some freaksome pictures (eg, of caterpillars), but also some great ones of things like the baby platypuggles and planaria that look crosseyed,  and a nifty little water-salamander called an axolotl, and tube worms, which look much nicer than the name suggests.  And the chapter on human reproduction didn't make me nearly as nauseous as I had feared.  I even got a quote, from the final chapter when the book let up on the text-book-speak and got all lyrical:

Biology is the scientific expression of the human desire to know nature.  We are most likely to save what we appreciate, and we are most likely to appreciate what we understand.


1011) * "Doppleganger" by Marie Brennan

An excellent "sword and sorceress" style novel set in a unique world.  The story alternates between Mirage, a Hunter who abhors magic, and Miryo, an apprentice witch.  The thing is, they're connected so deeply that the mere existence of one threatens the other's life.


1012) ** "The Trouble with Testosterone: and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament" by Robert Sapolsky

My only disagreement with this book is over the title.  I think it implies an altogether more shallow look at sociobiology than the  book actually provides.  For instance, the "trouble with testosterone" turns out not to be the aggression, etc, that one would expect from reading popular science articles on the topic, but rather the difficulty of pinning down exactly what testosterone does and how.  Read the essay-- I think you'll be surprised.  Additionally, Sapolsky addresses a wide range of topics, in human and animal biology, with clarity and wit (plus, he's a nice Jewish boy...).  On to quotes!

It's difficult to become an ideologue about bird migration or muscle physiology, but behavioral biology is a magnet for those with an ax to grind.  Conscientious scientists fear that a minute observation, tenuously offered, might be seized upon by someone eager to lend scientific authority to claims like "I'm not responsible for my problems," or worse, "I don't have to help you in combating your problems, because they are incurable."

[on psychopathology] Medicalizing people into being broken cars is dehumanizing, but still a hell of a lot more humane than moralizing them into being sinners.

For the obsessive-compulsive, religious ritual provides the immeasurable comfort of the transition from nameless dread to dread that is abundantly named, measured, weighed, cataloged, and shared.  It is a vast relief when the bogeyman comes with explicit instructions as to his care and feeding. 

[ah, there are times when I wish I could partake of that comfort.  Or as Sapolsky himself puts it:]

...it is a rare week in which, at some point, I do not rage at this god for ceasing to exist for me, in which I do not lament the discrepancy between what I wish to feel and what I can.

He also posed a question to his female readers about, um, female issues.  Even years after the book was published, I'm tempted to write in and answer it.


1013) "The War with Grandpa" by Robert Kimmel Smith

A cute chapter book.  The main character is furious when his beloved grandfather moves in with the family... and takes his room!  The boy declares war on grandpa, and a struggle ensues between two strong personalities who love each other but still refuse to back down.  An excellent look at the pros and cons of standing firm on an issue.


Graphic novels: Runaways, volume 1.  Good stuff, and you don't have to be familiar with the Universe to enjoy the story.  Also, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future For You".  I'm really loving the season 8 comics-- at least the characters look right in these!  And remind me to rave more about "100 Bullets" one of these days.  Actually, I think that deserves a proper listing, since I've now read the whole series.

{1006-1009}

So, today was my first day working an afternoon-evening shift.  It was, in many ways, a lot easier on me (did I mention how much I am not a morning person?)  On the other hand, seeing as I nodded off right after breakfast and slept until it was time to get ready for work, I've really gotten very little done today.  And I have to get up for an early morning shift tomorrow.  Still, today went smoothly at least, and I even managed a bit of grocery shopping on the way home (courtesy of the ridiculously long wait between buses on the weekend).


1006)  * "Biography of a Germ" by Arno Karlen

This is, in fact, just what it sounds like -- the life, relatives, history, discovery, fame and infamy of a bacterium, specifically the one that causes Lyme disease.  This germ belongs to a fascinating family of pathogens, and may well have remained relatively unknown if we hadn't inadvertently caused its population to expand wildly by giving it the perfect habitat in many places.  I found the book a little too short, a little too heavy on the "we brought this on ourselves" moralizing, and not detailed enough about Lyme disease itself... but all the same, it was a very captivating story, and very well told.  I also got an excellent quote:

"...our vision of the future, as of the past, reflects not only evidence but fears and longings.  Perhaps that is why so many prophets foretell utopia or dystopia, heaven or hell on earth, though so much of life really consists of anticlimaxes and muddle."


1007)  "Stop in the Name of Pants!" by Louise Rennison

You know, I was beginning to wonder why I kept reading this series, but this book completely restored my faith.  What fascinates me most, however, is the fact that by this time the books are written almost entirely in an idiolect that has built up over the course of the stories.  Georgia's original glossary at the end of the book was almost exclusively funny explanations of Britishisms, with a few of her own personal slang words thrown in.  Now, it's the reverse, and there are a huge number more of slang words and phrases not glossarized but that have grown to have their meanings through the events of the previous books.  It's really an excellent example of how groups of teenagers come to have nearly their own languages.  Anyone picking the series up at this point would be completely lost, even if they were British.


1008) * "The Upstairs Room" by Joanna Reiss

An easy chapter book.  Like Anne Frank, Joanna was a hidden child in Holland during WWII, living in a second-story room with her older sister.  This isn't a diary but rather a novel based on her experiences, and told from the viewpoint of a relatively young child who doesn't fully understand her situation.  It's a beautifully honest account, with both the sisters and their rescuers being portrayed not as heroes, but just as ordinary good people trying to get along.  Their quirks and failings make them real and lovable.


1009)  ** "Pawn of Prophecy" by David Eddings.

I've been meaning to read Eddings for years, but you know me and my phobia of serious epic fantasy.  Anyways, I finally got around to braving this one, and despite the fact that the prologue left me with a profound feeling of "OMG!  Teh Epic!  It Burnz!" I decided to trust padparadscha's recommendation, stuck it out, and wound up absolutely loving the book.  I have to rank this one up there with Mark Anthony's "Last Rune" series and Trudi Canavan's "Black Magician" trilogy.  And now I have to go dig through my many deep boxes of books and see if I can't locate the remainder of the Belgariad, because I'm sure I've got them all somewhere, it's just a matter of doing the work and finding them.  Thanks a lot, padparadscha!

And I quote:

"It's a poor way to select a king.  The other ways are worse, but election is a very bad way to chose a king."  Isn't that the truth of it!


Ok, I'm bedward bound.  More tomorrow, I hope.

[ticker-tape-parade!!]
Well, I've got lots of stuff to write, as usual, but I'm reading at an alarming pace, so I want to do a bit of catching up on my book journal.  Which means I have to do this entry first. 

Here we are.  The big one-triple-zero.  The (*insert dramatic music*) thousandth book.  So far, anyways.  Now I've decided to read 3,333 books by the time I'm 33.  It was the most pleasing number combination I could come up with that seemed consistent with my reading rate (I wanted to say 5000 by the time I'm 35, but that might be a bit ambitious.  And there's no way I'm witing till I'm 40.  Oh god-- I just realized that I'm going to turn 40 someday.  *blink blink hyperventilate*)

Anyhoo... I had planned to pick something big and dramatic and tearfully beautiful, a brilliant book to end all books, a thousandth read for the ages, that will live in song and.... yeah.  What actually happened was I fell behind and lost track and I have no idea which the thousandth book I read actual was.  And I'm quite sure it wasn't as epic as all that.

So instead, I'm reviewing one I read a while ago.  I think it's appropriate, at least.


1000)  ** "The Read-Aloud Handbook," by Jim Trelease

This book should be read by every educator, every parent, every politician, and anyone who has ever doubted the power of the Word.  (No, not that Word, just the general language-y sort of Word.)

This book talks, obviously, about the importance of reading.  But also about the importance of being read to.  Hearing books, Trelease contends, is by far the number one way that children (and adults!) come to love the idea of reading for themselves.  It's the sort of commonsense argument that requires rigorous supporting evidence, and Trelease provides a fairly solid amount of it.  It's not flawless, of course, but some of his evidence is compelling.

It's nice to see, too, studies on the advantages of reading.  Readers are less likely to drop out of school.  And school dropouts, it seems, are the largest common denominator in people who end up in prison-- 82% of prison inmates in a quoted study were dropouts.  What if, Trelease muses, we could get more kids interested in reading?  Maybe then they'd do a bit more thinking and spend less time on violence.  Ok, I'm grossly oversimplifying, but the point stands.  It's a lot cheaper, he points out, to improve our libraries and schools than to keep people in prison.  A lot.  In a touching tangential study, a number of Juvenile Halls have found a simple way to reduce destructive behavior among their inmates, especially at night-- reading the children and teenagers bedtime stories on the overhead sound system.  It seems that stories really do have a bit of power to them after all.

You don't have to be a genius to take advantage of this, he points out.  Magazines and comic books count as reading.  So does the newspaper.  It's a great opportunity for family bonding, to have one person read aloud the news, or an encyclopedia entry, or a story book.  As far as vocabulary goes, Trelease claims that even picture books have a higher vocabulary (defined as number of rarely used words per 1000-- 31 in this case) than prime-time TV (23 words) or average adult conversation (17).  I was initially skeptical of this claim, but then I flipped through some picture books and realized he's right.  In some fluffy little animal book, the characters frolic and gambol in the forest and so on.  How often do you hear words like "frolic" outside a book?  I figure a well-storied toddler may have a better vocabulary than some adults!

Trelease doesn't object to the internet, although of course he cautions people not to let kids do all their research online and believe everything they find there.  He does contend that it will never replace books, citing that "reading from a computer screen is proven to be slower and harder work than reading from paper."  Also, the internet encourages byte-size information.  "Ninety percent of people reading a web page don't scroll down" shows one study.  So anyone who writes something in more depth and wants it read has to put it into book format.  I find that's true for me-- as much time as I spend in front of this screen, I hesitate to read even a full-length short story online.

Television gets a harsher review.  TV, he shows, "requires and fosters a short attention span.  Reading, on the other hand, requires and encourages longer attention spans in children."

"Neil Postman pointed out that implicit in every one of television's commercials is the idea that there is no problem that cannot be solved by artificial means.... a simple tablet or spray solves the problem.  Instead of encouraging us to think through our problems, television promotes the 'easy way'... the average child is exposed to 350,000 commercials (400 a week) promoting the idea that solutions to life's problems can be purchased."  Oof!  How's that for social commentary?  And I think it's true.  Kinda scary, when you think about it.

So there we are.  This book comes with a list of recommended read-aloud books for all ages and attention-levels, tips like reading-along to books-on-tape for parents whose own reading skills are shaky, helpful websites, and a world of encouraging suggestions to librarians, parents, and educators everywhere.  Whoo!!