Booking through Thursday: Foreign

Posted on October 21, 2010 by smellincoffee

Booking through Thursday asks:  What is a book from a country outside your own that you love?

One of my favorite books is the autobiography of Emilie Carles, called A Life of Her Own. A professor of mine assigned it for either a French history or general European history class, as it depicts the advance of modernity — particularly, industrialization and nationalism — into a mountain village in the French alps.  I didn’t expect much from the biography of a farming woman, but it changed my life.

Emilie Carles has lead an inspirational life, for one. At an early age she developed a love for books and reading and began to spurn tradition. She became a true freethinker, and her values advanced accordingly.  This confirmed my belief that the morals of reason and empathy are not only superior to those of custom and religion, but  that they are universal, and that anyone can realize them.

Secondly, Carles broadened my political understanding. Before reading her, my perceptions of various political viewpoints were primitive: I thought communism and socialism were always linked to large, intrusive governments (like the USSR and China), and knew nothing of anarchism beyond a conceptions of bomb-throwing and worship of chaos. As the Great War drags on, Carles writes of her thoughts and those of her relatives, and they do not see it as a great patriotic struggle against evil. They see the war as the product of selfish aristocrats, ever covetous of glory and land, and they resent the deaths of so many people at the orders of   the land-owning elite.

They become radicalized in a populist sense, desiring that people rule themselves and have control of their own destinies: through Carles’ words, in sharing her opinions and those of her friends and family, I realized there was an entire spectrum of thinking I’d never heard of — that socialism and communism could be rooted as firmly in democracy, and that anarchism had less to do with revelry and disorder and more to do with the stern, principled lives of men like Henry David Thoreau.

I embarrassed myself for a year after reading this book, because I could not help thanking my professor profusely for having us read it, so great was its impact on my understanding of the world.

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This Week at the Library (20 October)

Posted on October 20, 2010 by smellincoffee

This past week at the library was a productive and enjoyable one. I’m caught up on the Voyager relaunch, having read Unworthy, and I also read a collection of short stories featuring the old Voyager family. Beyer’s best work for my money is still Full Circle,  but her humor and character drama continue to stun me.

Rapt’s one of the better books I’ve read recently, touching on attention’s role in personal happiness, morality, creativity, and personal relationships. I picked it up because of my interests in psychology, but found it more interesting from a mindfulness point of view.

Edith Hamilton’s Roman Way is her sequel to The Greek Way, and I read it to follow up on Caesar and Christ. Hamilton’s a writer from the old school, but Roman devotees will enjoy her attempt to find the Roman character via Rome’s plays, letters, and histories.

I also followed up on a recommendation from a friend and read The Good Guy. The opening plot — a man who is mistaken for a hitman by a murder contractor, and then mistaken for the contractor by the hitman — seemed interesting enough, but Koontz tells the story in chapters that alternate between the Good Guy and the hitman. The hitman is a sociopath, and being in his head creeped me out.

On a whim I also picked up The Worlds of DS9 volume 2 to touch base with the DS9 Relaunch. Years ago I thought the book unreadable, but I clipped through it in a couple of days. The book contains two novellas, one set on Trill and the other on Bajor. Trill’s plot was most interesting, being a political/crime mystery that gives Ezri room to become her own character. Bajor”s novella was interesting, but mostly sets the stage for further novels.

I had intended to combine the weekly recap with selected passages from the books, but I…forgot to write any down before I turned the books to the library. I’ve been losing interest in the weekly recaps as of late, and would be interested in knowing if anyone finds them of any use — I now only look forward to the recap post for the quotations and introduction of next week’s list, myself.

Potential Reads for Next Week:

  • The Seventy Great  Mysteries of the Natural World. I’ve been gazing at this book hungrily all week, picking it up and putting it back down again because I know it will be magnificent, so much so that I don’t want to spoil the anticipation by actually reading the book. It’s a bit like wishing I could have my cake and eat it, too. 
  • I’m finally going to finish The Good that Men Do by Martin and Mangels. The poor book has been twice preempted by other book series, but I’m a hundred pages away from finishing it. Even if a stranger knocks on my door and says, “Hello. Would you like this box of Trek Relaunch novels, none of which you have read?” I‘m going to finish it. 
  • A teacher of mine mentioned that she’s reading Charles’ Portis True Grit, a novel that inspired the John Wayne movie of the same  name. I started reading it in the library, and it appears to have some  of the film’s more memorable scenes included.
  • Finally getting around to The Devil’s Punchbowl by Greg Iles. Should be a doozy, if it’s anything like Iles’ previous work.
  • The War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells is a “classic” that I’m revisiting: I don’t think I’ve ever read the actual work, just abridged versions for kids.
  • The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley,  which explores the effects of Teddy Roosevelt’s “Cruise of the Great White Fleet” and its impact on foreign relations….especially with Japan.
  • I may extend my recess from the Story of Civilization for a week more, and I may try to read a chapter or two from The Age of Faith. 
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Worlds of Deep Space Nine (Volume 2)

Posted on October 19, 2010 by smellincoffee

Worlds of Deep Space Nine, Volume 2: Trill and Bajor
© 2005 Martin, Mangels, and Kym
380 pages

On the cover:  Nicole de Boer as Lieutenant Ezri Dax; Avery Brooks as Captain Benjamin Sisko.

S.D. Perry’s Unity ended the first major phase of Star Trek relaunch literature, bringing multiple Deep Space Nine storylines together and capping them off with the assassination of Bajor’s prime minister on the eve of its admission into the United Federation of Planets. The assassin, working on behalf of the government of Trill, operated on the concealed knowledge that the minister was posessed by a parasite genetically related to the symbionts of the Trill homeworld.  Trill’s government, highly protective of the symbionts that so many of its leaders are joined to, was desperate to hide the symbiont/parasite connection.  In the midst of this chaos, Benjamin Sisko returned to the land of the living just in time for the birth of his daughter; previously, in “What you Leave Behind”, he vanished into the etheral realm of the Prophets, aliens who occupy a nearby wormhole and are the objects of Bajoran religion.

Worlds of Deep Space Nine is a three-part series that explore the aftermath of Unity while TNG launched its own arc which eventually culiminated in Destiny. The book contains two novellas that are set four days apart from the other and on their respective worlds. In Unjoined, authors Martin and Mangels depict a Trill on the edge of chaos. Its streets are filled with citizens brimming with anger, demanding full transparency from the government — and some, giving into fear, demanding an end to the custom of joining. After Lieutenant Ezri Dax and Lieutenant Commander Julian Bashir are called to Trill to give testimony at an official inquiry into Trill’s role in the assassination, terrorist groups target the symbionts and government officials while Dax discovers buried history that may forever change Trill.  While the political story and cultural examinations are interesting enough, Unjoined is most notable for me in seeing Lieutenant Dax come into her own as a character: she’s finally adjusted to being joined, and her experiences since then are setting her on a path away from her old life.

Fragments and Omen‘s major theme is adjustment: Bajor is now a member of the Federation,  and while the general populace is looking forward to the future, there are others who fear Bajor’s individuality will be left behind. Jake Sisko is also trying to find a life for himself now that his father has returned — and Ben Sisko believes that he was sent back because Bajor is about to undergo a crisis.  While Kym’s novella is perfectly enjoyable to read for DS9 fans, it lacks the active punch of Martin and Mangels: it’s more a prolouge for what is to come, though readers are only teased by this in the last chapter of the book.

I haven’t read a novel from the Deep Space Nine relaunch for five years: I bought this and another book in the “Words of Deep Space Nine” series, but found both too dense to get in. I’m apparantly better at reading now, for this read was smooth sailing. In the five years that have past, I’ve forgotten most of the details of Unity, but was able to piece them together from this book’s infrequent exposition. While Unjoined is the Dax-and-Bashir show, Fragments and Omens draws from most of DS9’s officer ensemble plus a Bajoran politician or two.

Good read for general Trek readers, particularly Unjoined. As said, Fragments and Omens is mostly prologue.

Related:

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Teaser Tuesday (19 October)

Posted on October 18, 2010 by smellincoffee

It’s that teasin’ Tuesday time again!

Tim was getting a bad vibe. Not a look-out-he’s-a-werewolf kind of vibe, just a feeling that the guy might be tedious. 

The stranger said, “I jumped out of an airplane with my dog.” 

On the other hand, the best hope of a memorable barroom conversation is to have the good luck to encounter an eccentric. 

(p. 10-11, The Good Guy. Dean Koontz.)

[Sisko] reached into the crib and scooped his daughter up in his arms. Check for leakage, the Old Dad instincts told him. Structural integrity may be compromised. 

(p. 204, Worlds of Deep Space Nine volume 2: Trill and Bajor.) Quotation is from J. Noah Kym’s Fragments and Omens.

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The Roman Way

Posted on October 17, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Roman Way
© 1932 Edith Hamilton
281 pages

                                        Slave: He saw the girl.
                                        Master: Oh, hell! How could he?!
                                        Slave: …with his eyes.
                                        Master: But how, you fool?
                                        Slave: By openin’ ’em! (“Merchant”, Plautus)

The Roman Way follows up on the success of Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way, and models itself after that first work of Hamilton’s, in which she used Greece literature to evaluate it. In Roman Way, she draws on the comedic plays of Terence and Plautus, the histories of Caesar, the letters of Cicero, and the poetry of Catullus and Horace among other authors.  The book’s greatest virtue is that Hamilton’s choice to reproduce pages from plays and longer passages from letters allows students of Roman history to connect with that history more directly — to test the waters of literature from another time while protected from confusion by the presence of the author’s commentary. Hamilton’s writing is strong and flourished, conveying a clear affection for the subject: she reads plays originally written in Latin for pleasure.

When generalizing, Hamilton is golden for the lay reader, though the more focused analyses of poetry and literature are likely to find their best audiences in serious students of literature and Roman history. Being a somewhat serious student myself, I found a lot of value here. I enjoyed reading Roman plays and realizing that for all the centuries that have passed, it’s still possible to get a laugh out of them. I found Cicero’s  humility (!) in his letters especially endearing:  sensitive about his constant bragging and the disconnect between his political values and the political choices he made, he frets to his brother:  “What will history be saying of me six hundred years hence?”  I also enjoyed the chapters on Roman romanticism and aesthetic values. Broader narratives forget to see the Romans as people at times, and Roman Way makes good on that. Times pass and values change, and the literature reflects it.

Good follow-up to Caesar and Christ;  Romanophiles and those interested in literary history should find it engaging.

Related:

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Shelfari

Posted on October 17, 2010 by smellincoffee

Earlier this afternoon a friend brought the social community for bookworms (“Shelfari”) to my attention, and I found it hospitable enough to register an account for my use. I liked the idea of being able to survey a virtual bookshelf of everything I’ve read in recent years, so I invested a little time this afternoon in adding everything from the TWATL archives to my shelves.

Okay, maybe more than a little time. Point is, now my Shelfari account has everything I’ve read here on the blog, minus a possible percentage of books that I overlooked. I also added some of the books I read in 2006 and 2007 prior to getting in the habit of raiding nearby libraries on a weekly basis. Because I filled the shelves from most recent to oldest, the most recently added books may be new to you: this blog’s original home was on something called a “MySpace” account and those first posts were copied to my archives when I made the switch to Blogger.

I’m interested in meeting other bloggers and readers who have shared their books on Shelfari; my username there is listed above, and if you want to hunt me down via email address, just tack on @gmail.com. I will continue to update Shelfari in the future with books I’m reading or want to read, and will add a link to the sidebar once I find an appropriate but tidy place to stick it.

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The Good Guy

Posted on October 16, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Good Guy
© 2007 Dean Koontz
400 pages

“Good guys finish last, Tim.”
“Maybe not if they stay in the race.”

Tim Carrier’s just an honest working man who enjoys relaxing at a local bar in the evenings, exchanging insults with his friend the barkeep and drawing eccentric strangers into interesting conversations. Only…the last conversation ended with him being given an envelope containing $10,000 and instructions that he would receive the rest once the woman was dead.  Tim’s been mistaken for a hitman.

Being mistaken for an assassin is odd enough, but then the actual hitman takes for Tim for his new boss. Thinking quickly,  Tim tells the man that his services are no longer required: the job is off, but he’ll still be paid. The ruse works long enough for Tim to escape and find the woman whose life hangs in the balance. Soon both he and she are on the run from a talented killer with vast resources.

A friend of mine has persistently recommended Dean Koontz,  and after reading The Good Guy I can understand why. Koontz is an effective horror writer: alternating chapters tell the story from the vantage point of both Tim and the hitman, who is one of the most disturbing characters I’ve ever encountered.  He’s a genuine sociopath, and while in his head Koontz uses small details to creep the reader out. The flowers that Tim notes for their smell are seen and dismissed by Krait reflexively as not being useful; they’re nontoxic.  The plot advances quickly, and Koontz’s writing constantly hits the reader — his descriptive prose and dialogue are evocative, and every paragraph made putting the book down more difficult. I read it in one sitting, not being able to resist the feeling of “Just one more chapter…” until well after midnight, when the story ended for these characters who had so ensnared my attention.

Koontz is a compelling author, and will remain of interest for future reads — though, like King, I wouldn’t be surprised if I avoided him given the creepiness factor. Suitable reading as we approach Halloween, though.

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Distant Shores

Posted on October 16, 2010 by smellincoffee

Distant Shores
© 2005, ed. Marco Palmieri
390 pages

Only hours after the onset of its first mission, the USS Voyager was thrust across the galaxy into the Delta Quadrant — a distance so great that even at maximum speeds,  returning home would take at least seventy years. Rather than giving into despair,  Voyager duly set a course for home, determining to search for new technologies and shortcuts on the way while still fulfilling Starfleet’s directive to explore space and seek out new life. Seven years later, having blazed a trail of new discoveries, alliances, and repeated victories snatched from the jaws of defeat, Voyager emerged from her long exile. Distant Shores celebrates the show’s tenth anniversary with a twelve-story anthology featuring now-familiar authors like Christopher L. Bennett, Kirsten Beyer, and Keith Decandido with many others. While a few authors write their stories around episodes from the show,  other stories are completely new or examine parts of the Voyager story that the show ignored — the integration of the Maquis and Equinox crews into Voyager’s ranks, or the effect of the ship’s disappearance had on the friends and family of her crewmembers.

The stories are arranged chronologically by season, with a slight concentration on the fifth and sixth seasons, and every member of the ensemble cast has a story in which he or she dominates. The book as a whole assumes some familiarity with the show,  which is understandable given that it’s written for fans of the show who want to take a nostalgic look back ten years after the story began. Lay readers can piece together the details of what happened with the Equinox from the two stories that feature their difficult integration with the crew, but they’d be better off looking up the episode in question. There are no disappointments here, and even though I had no intention of reading the book this week, I found putting it back down once I’d read the introductory story to be difficult; I read most of the book through in one sitting.

Although not essential for enjoying the Voyager Relaunch books, Kirsten Beyer did build on certain elements introduced in this collection when writing Full Circle and Unworthy. The collection is also perfectly enjoyable on its own, both for general Trek readers and those with a particular fondness for Voyager.

Some stories of note:

  • “Command Code”: when Captain Janeway is put out of action soon after integrating Chakotay and other Maquis members into her crew, the newly-appointed First Officer Chakotay and Tuvok have a face-off on the bridge amidst a crisis when Tuvok doubts Chakotay’s judgment and suspends his just-minted command access.
  • “Letting Go” takes place across the opening seasons Voyager, as the loved ones of Voyager’s missing and presumed crew try to adjust to the thought of their spouses, friends, and children being gone forever — and try to move on with their lives.
  • “Eighteen Minutes” gives the Doctor’s side of “Blink of an Eye”, wherein in the course of eighteen minutes he experiences years of life on the surface of a planet wherein time passes a bit differently. 
  • “Isabo’s Shirt” explores Janeway and Chakotay’s friendship and gives J/C shippers something to squee about. 

Related:

  • Prophecy and Change, Deep Space Nine’s own ten-year anniversary anthology which also features some of the authors that worked on Distant Shores, including Christopher L. Bennett. I think maybe I’m going to be re-reading it in the future.
  • Distant Shores on Memory Alpha
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Rapt

Posted on October 15, 2010 by smellincoffee

Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
© 2009 Winifred Gallagher
256 pages

 You’re sitting comfortably in your favorite chair, reading, when out of the corner of your eye your brain registers movement, and you automatically turn to look for its source. You spot a green anole lizard, which crept in through an open window. You try to pick it up, and it scurries from the arm of the couch onto the end table nearby.  When you focus on the lizard in an attempt to sneak up behind it, you realize that the lizard’s tail is brushing your lost keys — keys which are sitting in plain sight, but which have escaped your passive gaze for hours.

Such are some of the curiosities of attention. The book’s title caught my eye while browsing the library catalogue, and such is my interest in the workings of the human brain that I checked it out. The author introduces the book by pointing out there are two different kinds of attention: “bottoms-up” attention, wherein your instinctive brain automatically focuses on an objects that may be a potential threat (as in the moving lizard) and top-down attention, which we ourselves consciously control what our brains are focused on (as when tracking the lizard and noticing the keys as they entered the sweep of attention).

Rapt is more a social science work than hard science, replete with studies but no neurological maps. Instead, the author addresses attention’s role in morality, creativity, personal relationships, and health. Buddhism and cognitive theory are present, and both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus are mentioned by name.  The author believes that people can move toward greater health and happiness by being mindful of what we pay attention to — taking charge of our own minds —  and practicing mental focus through exercises like attention or by engaging in leisure activities that encourage it (painting, say).

This is easily one of the most interesting books I’ve read this year. I was disposed to enjoy it, of course, given my interests in Stoic philosophy. I know full how attention can alter our mental state, but the chapters on art and morality were pleasant surprises. Gallagher is quite readable, and if you’re interested in psychology or mindfulness I recommend it.

Related:

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Booking through Thursday: Rewrite

Posted on October 14, 2010 by smellincoffee

Booking through Thursday (via Joy) asks: If you could rewrite the ending of any book, which book would it be? And how would you change it?



John Grisham’s The Appeal is notable for its disheartening ending. The novel’s subject is political corruption: more specifically, a company in legal troubles over its criminal negligence (poisoning a community’s water table to the point of increasing cancer rates by a substantial amount) decides to buy a judge. They find a candidate and bankroll his election campaign, slandering his opponents as being too soft on Democrats, intellectuals, and homosexuals. They win; their boy dons the black robes and gets the case.  This kind of corruption is depressing by itself, but The Appeal is cruel in making the reader think the judge’s moral crisis (following the death of his son from another company’s negligence) will see him turn against the business, or at least step down. But no. He throws the entire community under the bus despite having sufficient motive to do the right thing.


I’d like to see it rewritten so the ending is…..at LEAST ambiguous. Have the judge declare a mistrial and step down — give us hope of SOME kind.  







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