Reading Freely

This week at the library:

It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes! proved a breezy but interesting read, containing some forty essays on the world above — the sky and both the celestial and earth-bound bodies that inhabit it. The essays cover not only weather, but biology and astronomy as well.

The Ethics of Star Trek first illustrates and examines the scope of Western ethical philosophy through Star Trek episodes that are directly or indirectly influenced by them. Author Judith Barad then attempts to sort out which ideas most predominate the series. As both a Trekkie and an aspiring student of practiced philosophy, I found the book interesting if not wholly fulfilling.

Lastly, I enjoyed Frances’ Gies biography of Joan of Arc, a thorough and entertaining read that lives up to the high expectations I have for Gies’ work.

Quotation of the Week:
“[P]ope Pius II thought that the French were superstitious, which suggests that superstition, like venereal disease and sexual deviation, is always the attribute of another nationality.” – 145, Joan of Arc: the Legend and the Reality


I laughed well at this. It’s easy to accuse and even write people off as being superstitious, ignoring our own beliefs and assumptions. For instance, my brain is under the impression that if I hit the “Shift” key repeatedly while playing a certain video game, things will go my way. I always feel like one of Skinner’s pigeons when my finger itches to start tapping the key.


Upcoming Reads:

• Letters from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr.
• The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell. This I’m reading for class: I bought a copy used off of Amazon that was originally sold as a 75 cent paperback back when the US still had a socialist labor movement, so it’s endearing already.(I like old books, especially the dainty ones that demand I take care of them.)
• The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Stephen Miller. My religious/cultural literacy effort has not yet touched Hinduism: the subject is so vast I’ve been inclined to tread more familiar territory. Still, it’s so influential that I can’t avoid it forever. I figure it’s fitting to begin with the most well-known Hindu text. 
• I also have a small mound of books about medieval and Renaissance science, since I’m going to be writing a paper on Renaissance science in the coming weeks. Some I may read properly, although I suspect I’ll mostly be scanning them for notes. 
• There are other books in the air, particularly one novel I devoutly want to read but know I should ignore in favor of school-related books. 

American Infidel is a biography of Robert G. Ingersoll, one which places slight emphasis on his career as a “secular preacher”, one who railed against the abuses of organized religion while promoting liberty and humanism.  The biography is thorough, presenting a rich view of his life.

Murder at the ABA is one of Isaac Asimov’s few straight mysteries. Unusually, Asimov himself is a primary character, helping protagonist and narrator Darius Just find out if the death of a mutual acquaintence was an accident or murder. The result is a humorous whodunit.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is a 1889 fantasy story in which a proud believer in the American ideal is transported to the sixth century, where he puts his “Yankee ingenuity” and knowledge as a machinist to work, attempting to build the 19th century from the bones of Dark-Age England.  The book is not only a fantasy story, but an attack on the romanticized medieval world and a slight commentary on the 19th’ own views of progress.

Hitler’s War, first in a new series by Harry Turtledove, is a straightforward “What if? story with two points of derivation from reality, one of which sees World War 2 beginning at the 1938 Munich Conference. The book’s ending plot twist guarantees that I’ll be reading the second novel.

The Archie Americana — Best of the Fifties two-volume set collects forty Archie Comics stories from the 1950s. The books’ portrayal of the fifties is largley limited to clothing fashions and slang, with the occassional story about Elvis or the Beats.

Potatoes are Cheaper by Max Shulman uses the classic formula of a love triangle to present a comedic novel. Although these stories can  be somewhat tragic,  the lead character of Marty Katz doesn’t necessarily command the reader’s sympathy. This is a hilarious story all the same.

Pick of the Week:  American Infidel or Murder at the ABA.
Quotation of the Week:
“It was useless to argue with her. Arguments have no chance against petrified training: they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff.” (p. 87, Connecticut Yankee)
Next Week:

• It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes by Jerry Dennis  amounts to a collection of essays about curious weather phenomena.  
• The Human Zoo, Desmond Morris. I’ve been nibbling at this one for weeks, but never really diving in. 
• The Ethics of Star Trek, Judith Barad and Ed Robinson. The book uses episodes with pointed philosophical themes alongside more conventional philosophical works (Plato’s Republic, The Nicomachean Ethics) to tackle ethics, exploring the ideas of justice, personal virtue, and morality. 

It’s also time to dive into more term paper research, so I’ll probably be reading about medieval/renaissance science and submarine warfare in the next month or so.