Stories Behind Words

Posted on February 23, 2010 by smellincoffee

Stories Behind Words: The Origins and Histories of 285 English Words
© 1986 Peter Limburg
288 pages

I have long held an interest in etymology and the history of language, thus this book’s interest to me.  Author Peter Limburg expounds upon the meanings and derivations of hundreds of words in 285 essays sorted into seven general categories. The book’s table of contents — displayed on the main cover, incidentally, which you may view by clicking the preview image above —  is not quite complete, as Limburg typically discusses similar words that branch off from the topic in the same essay. For instance, the essay “To Badger” gives not only the meaning and history of that phrase, but discusses other words derived from the behavior or perceptions of animals.

The essays tend toward the thorough, with only a few exceptions. Even though I’m a “word nerd” and a student of history, I found here much to inform. I learned why the US legislature is a “Congress” and not a “Parliament” for instance — and that cathedrals are named after the residing bishop’s throne, the cathedra.  Uncomfortably, there are no citations or references given — a potential problem for me given that I’ve not heard of some of Limburg’s opinions and would like confirmation. For example, he posits that the medieval church’s chief problem with witchcraft was that it amounted to heresy: only later was the accusation of witchcraft used as a weapon against  people.  Limburg’s tone is conversationally informal: he likes to end the essays with dry humor or a pun, which is appropriate for a book of word-history. My favorite: when Limburg ends the essay on brassieres, he first comments on the changing perception of bras in the modern age and then notes that ‘men will be watching future developments with great interest.’

All told, this book of essays on the history of words made for an enjoyable and informing read.  Those interested in the subject — particularly in the words listed in the table of the contents — will probably find this book both useful and entertaining.


Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Year of Living Biblically

Posted on February 22, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible
© 2007 A.J. Jacobs
388 pages

Photobucket

Day 111. When I’m jotting down tips on how to land a second wife, it’s clear that the pendulum has swung too far into the Bible’s crazy territory.  (p. 138)

I began this blog in May 2007 with A.J. Jacob’s Know-It-All, in which he records his experience reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. I enjoyed the book immensely, and so jumped at the chance to read another work of Jacobs’. In A Year of Living Biblically,  he tasks himself with following every rule and suggestion in the Judeo-Christian bible as literally as possible in an effort to understand what religious beliefs and practices do for people. He intends to honor the various commandments’ literal meaning, rather than their specific expression*, and establishes references to help him along the way. Not only does he convene a panel of religious leaders to help him navigate the maze of translations and cross-interpretations, but he begins to build a library of biblically-focused works for his own research. He also commits to spending time with other biblical literalists (the Amish,  Mormons, and Young-Earthers) and making “pilgrimages” to Jerusalem and the Creationist site in Kentucky.

Jacobs’ initial steps onto this new religious path are bumpy indeed, as he attempts to adjust to a confusing new regimen. Jacobs isn’t content to take the bible’s ethical mandates seriously: not only does he begin living the Golden Rule, but he lets his beard grow out, attaches tassels to his clothing, avoids his wife during her period, and begins each month by blowing a shofar. He thus strives to fulfill its ritualistic laws as well. He also attempts to follow the Bible’s advice for punishing others for their sins, but breaks no laws in the process: he does stone adulterers, but does so with pebbles. As the months pass, Jacobs immerses himself in the life, becoming the sort of person others cross the street to avoid coming near. So intrusive are the biblical laws that Jacobs fears he is being absorbed by a newborn alter-ego — the long-bearded, staff-toting, moralistic “Jacob”.  Jacobs fights to maintain his sanity, even though he obviously enjoys the journey in part. When the time comes for him to leave the Hebrew scriptures for the Christian, he is reluctant to abandon his beard and horn-blowing.

Although Jacobs intended to follow both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, his attempts to live a Christian life are stymied by the fact that he can’t accept Jesus as the Messiah: beyond that, all the New Testament contains are a few ethical rules already covered by the Hebrews. Thus, he spends his three Christian months visiting Christian churches. This causes a bit of a stir given his beard and fondness for robes. Humorously, Jacob’s year-long research into the Bible causes him to take issue with the way Christians like Jerry Falwell misuse the Hebrew scriptures, robbing them of their context.  Speaking of Falwell, Jacobs finds out that despite the man’s ability to vomit sound bytes, his actual sermons are dull.

When the year-long journey ends, Jacobs seems conflicted. Although he’s relieved of the burden of following so many rules, he enjoyed the structure they gave his life.  He especially enjoyed the group activities, like dancing with drunken Hasidic Jews on a night designated for revelry. He feels as though he has benefited from the experience overall, having gained a reverence for life while remaining agnostic. I enjoyed watching him grapple with the life, and I recommend the book to both religious and nonreligious audiences. It will allow us — particularly the nonreligious — to understand our fellows better. Religious audiences may glean the same, but not so much if Jacobs happened to subscribe to his own life stance. In any case, both audiences are sure to be amused by Jacobs’ constant reacting to what is expected of him. This was an exceptional read, one I’m sure to remember with fondness.

The inside cover includes pictures that track the growth of Jacobs’ beard and hair over the course of a year. You may view it here.

*“Those who piss against the wall” could be taken literally to mean hobos and drunken college students, for instance, but its literal meaning would be males. Females would be hard-pressed to pee against a wall.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Dinner with a Perfect Stranger

Posted on February 18, 2010 by smellincoffee

Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering
© 2005 David Gregory
100 pages

 When  Nick Cominsky received a personalized dinner invitation from Jesus of Nazareth, self-proclaimed Deity Extraordinaire, he was more than a little dubious. Obviously, his friends have concocted yet another wild joke. Since springing their trap is more interesting than helping his wife tend to their 20-month old, Nick drops in by the appropriate Italian restaurant on his way home to see what his friends have planned for him. The reservation is valid, but Nick is surprised: he is met not by the robed hippie he might expect from a joke, but by a disappointly conformist fellow in a stylish blue suit.

“Nick Cominksy,” he said. “Hi. Jesus.”

In retrospect, a thousand comebacks were possible — “Jesus H. Christ! So good to finally meet you!” ….”Are twelve of our party missing?”….”I didn’t know they buried you in a suit.”

The absurdity of the scene, though, stunned me into silence. What do you say to that?

Although startled by the man’s matter-of-fact demeanor, Nick decides to humor him. The longer their initial conversation goes on, however, the more uncomfortable Nick becomes. “Jesus” makes no attempt to convince Nick that he is in fact Yeshua bar Joseph of Nazareth. He does no miracles, yet stands by his claim. He is as gentle and unassuming as the “prince of peace” might be. Intrigued, Nick agrees to humor the man further: he’ll suspend his disbelief and they’ll work from there. In return for a dinner of conversation, “Jesus” will tell Nick who set up the evening in the first place.

What develops from here on out is a thinly veiled author tract. The storied setup lingers for a while longer, but slowly and surely Nick becomes a character in a Chick tract. The tract begins as Jesus and Nick discuss religion as a means of making sense of life. Jesus delivers a spiel on various religions in turn — Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Armed with memories from a comparative religion class, Nick holds his own briefly before being subdued into silence by the fact that his debating partner has come to the table much more prepared than he. Jesus — by which I mean author David Gregory — makes a distinction between something working and something being true. In his eyes,  if something is not completely true, it will cease to function at some point. His approach to analyzing other religions is whole-cloth: there’s no chance of dividing effective practices (meditation or yoga, say) from  the religious context that they are associated with.

Gregory — speaking through Jesus — develops the conversation in such a way that religions other than Christianity are proven to be unteneable. Religion itself is untenable, for —  Gregory-Jesus says — there is no path to God. Humanity is damned. Its own efforts to reunite with God are pointless, for there is no way to earn the forgiveness of God. It can only be accepted, and that by accepting the fact that Jesus — God — took on the price of humanity’s  sin.  Nick has no reply: his Chickification has increased at a steady pace throughout the book,  his character become a thoughtful-looking strawman. He is saved only from 2-D damnation by the fact that he hasn’t quite converted by book’s end.

I was somewhat disappointed in the book. I read it knowing that it was a work of Christian evangelicalism, and the strength of its opening portions was encouraging. What started as an interesting exercise in apologetics — and thus for me, counter-apologetics — quickly became rather shallow. Gregory does do a good job of making Christianity appear to be superficially cohesive, and I would have loved a book that continued to challenge me by giving that facade depth of substance and thus a strong case. Instead, Nick becomes a sock puppet and Jesus/Gregory looks weak for taking advatange of the situation: the author is reduced so far as to bring out the old “Lord, Lunatic, or Liar” tack. The book will probably be well-received by Christians, and I can imagine it working on a Nick-like  person who’s not prepared for its arguments. Nonchristians  who are prepared might profit by reading the book, if only to give their brains a brief workout. I enjoyed it at the beginning — it’s a pity the conversation became one-sided so quickly.

As an end-note: this book may have worked better with Paul as the inviter. He is, after all, the inventor of the Christian narrative as we know it : he’s the man you can thank for making the doctrine of original sin a cornerstone of Christianity. Bible-Jesus never really elaborated on what “believing in me” meant, beyond renouncing worldly goods, following the Torah, and committing to a kind of agape love.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

This Week at the Library (18/2)

Posted on February 18, 2010 by smellincoffee

I haven’t done a review post in nearly a month, as I’ve been toying with the idea of dropping the weekly summaries. When I changed from a weekly to an individual format over a year ago, I maintained the weekly posts because I posted those where this hobby of mine began, on MySpace. I’ve avoided MySpace for a long while, though, so that need is lost.

Additionally, I liked the idea of having shorter summaries and longer comments both: one allowed readers to get a quick idea of what a book was about, while the other provided more details.  The weekly review posts also punctuate the routine, and enable me to give people previews of what’s coming.

On the other hand, writing the truncated summaries tends to be tedious. I like writing about the books I read, but I delight in details. The summaries seem rather bland, which is why my favorite part of the review posts are the ending features — the highlighted quotation, favorite pick, and list of upcoming reads. I’ve been thinking about various ways to accomplish what I like while ditching what I dislike, and the approach I’m going to try for a while is to limit summaries to a sentence or two.  Hopefully, that will serve to introduce people to reads they might potentially like, while reducing the tedium on my part.

  1. The Motorcycle Diaries:  I read this book to introduce myself to “Che” Guevara, but the Diaries are chiefly about the geography of the land and his occasional misadventures. Political reflections are present, but marginal. 
  2. Letters from a Stoic consists of the classical Stoic Seneca’s letters to his friend and student Lucilus. The translation made for an easy and informative read: Seneca’s approach to Stoicism may be the most accessible text beyond The Emperor’s Handbook.
  3. Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran was my second visit with that author. Unlike The Prophet, which is poetry and philosophy in a novel form, this consists mostly of one-line aphorisms. These aphorisism are poetic and mystical in form, and I enjoyed many of them.
  4. Red Emma Speaks, an Emma Goldman anthology, was certainly a thought-provoking read.  Goldman’s anarchist perspective and her attempts to grapple with the role of violence in political activism were particularly interesting. The book added much to my understanding of the period and to the philosophy.
  5. Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger is the strangest war memoir I’ve ever read. Although giving a detailed account of the gruesomeness of life on the Western Front, Junger rarely reacts to this as a human being might be expected to react. Even when he is wounded, his recorded thoughts are bizarrely unemotional. The book may be regarded as “pro-war” as Junger sees armed conflict as a supreme test of character.
  6. The Tyrannosaurus Prescription consists of one hundred and one essays by Isaac Asimov. I doubt I’ve ever read an Asimov collection with a wider range: he covers science, language, science fiction, history, culture, and more. As usual, I was delighted.
  7. A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is another collection of essays, this one by Howard Zinn. The essays emphasize the need for and the  role of popular movements in political reform. I thought it encouraging.
  8. A Guide to the Good Life is William Irvine’s attempt to create a popular introductory work to Stoicism. The guide emphasizes Stoicism as a way of life rather than being an academic approach. It’s easily the best guide I’ve read: I admired it for its thoroughness and readability. 
  9. I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy is both an autobiography current to 1995 and a Star Trek memoir. It’s been one of my favorite books for years, giving Trek fans like myself an inside look into the franchise and into Nimoy’s fascinating life. The book is charming and often hilarious.
  10. The Emperor’s Handbook,  a translation of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations by David and Scot Hicks, is the most readable approach to Aurelius I’ve yet encountered. This fresh translation is very direct, increasing the books’ communicability while maintaining Aurelius’ meanings for the most part. A few passages seemed flat, but they were a definite minority.  

Favorite Quotations:

“Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it, but it divides us from truth.” (Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam)

“Don’t become disgusted with yourself, lose patience, or give up if you sometimes fail to act as your philosophy dictates, but after each setback, return to reason and be content if most of your acts are worthy of a good man. Love the philosophy to which you return, and go back to it, not as an unruly student to the rod of a schoolmaster but as a sore eye to a sponge and egg whites, or a wound to cleansing ointments and clean bandages. In this way you will obey the voice of reason not to parade a perfect record, but to secure an inner peace. Remember, philosophy desires only what pleases your nature while you wanted something at odds with nature.” (The Emperor’s Handbook: Book 5, passage 9)

Upcoming Reads:

  •  Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering, David Gregory
  • A Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs 
  • Yours, Asimov: A Life in Letters; Isaac Asimov
  • American Infidel: Robert Ingersoll, Orvin Larson. 
Posted in Reviews | Tagged | 2 Comments

I Am Spock

Posted on February 18, 2010 by smellincoffee

I Am Spock
© 1995 Leonard Nimoy
356 pages

Photobucket

Leonard Nimoy’s autobiographical I Am Spock has been one of my favorite books for years. I purchased it perhaps over a decade ago: it’s a very battered paperback now, well-thumbed. I revisted it this past week and found it as ever a pleasant affair. Essentially, it is a well-written, funny, and charming autobiography of Leonard Nimoy current to 1995 which doubles as a Star Trek memoir.

The book’s title runs opposite Nimoy’s first attempt at the same, I Am Not Spock. That book, published in the early 70s, ran afoul of nearly everyone and haunted Nimoy for years. People believed it was his attempt to rail against Star Trek and the character of Spock in particular, and he was not rid of the legacy until the Star Trek movies began anew.

He opens this book with the admission that for years he has carried on dialogues with the Vulcan living inside his head. Said dialogues introduce the book’s many chapters and sometimes contribute to their contents. Nimoy’s relationship with Spock often takes center stage, even in chapters not actually about  Star Trek.  After some initial autobiography,  he launches into the three year mission of Star Trek, describing Spock’s birth in the mind of Gene Roddenberry and recounting his growth as Nimoy fleshed out the character. There are many tidbits here for Star Trek fans: I can’t watch the original series without thinking of Nimoy’s many ancedotes, whether they be amusing and trivial or meaningful.*

Nimoy identified strongly with Spock from the outset as being “different”, but as he made the character his own, his feelings became decidedly affectionate. Nimoy’s authorial voice is a treat for readers — warm, and often hilarious. He recounts William Shatner’s many pranks, and DeForrest Kelly’s gentle refereeing between himself and Shatner during their brotherly feuds.  After NBC pulls the show for its poor commercial ratings, Nimoy goes on to other work — sitcoms, plays, and the odd movie.  To Nimoy’s occasional discomfort, Spock follows along. He appears on inappropriate billboards and continues to shape Nimoy’s pattern of thinking even after the last script has been memorized. Nimoy also recounts the rise of the Trekkies and their influence on culture, particularly in the naming of the first Space Shuttle.

In the eighties and nineties, Star Trek movies return to production. Nimoy must grapple with the death of his character and assume greater responsibilities as director — both of Trek movies (Star Trek III, IV) and of other films, ranging from light comedies (Three Men and a Baby) to more serious exploratory films (The Good Mother). Nimoy offers plenty of anecdotes about the stories behind these films, as well.  His relationship with Spock continues to evolve as they age together: Spock becomes more at home with his human side as Nimoy grows increasingly comfortable in both his and the Vulcan’s skin.

Obviously, this is a recommendation for Star Trek fans, for it has added much to my appreciation for the original series and movies. I imagine they — we — constitute the bulk of Nimoy’s fanclub, but this book proves he’s had an interesting  career outside Roddenberry’s creation.

Spock: Live long and prosper.

Nimoy: I think I’ve already done the former, Spock. And — in no small part thanks to you — I’ve certainly done the latter.

* One such tidbit: when deciding to produce a sixth film for Star Trek’s anniversary, Paramount initially planned on a prequel film visiting the power trio’s Academy days, but scratched it in favor of a Cold War story called The Undiscovered Country. Strangely, the Soviet Russia collapsed as the story of the Klingon Empire’s collapse was being filmed.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Emperor’s Handbook

Posted on February 17, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Emperor’s Handbook: A New Translation of the Meditations
© 2002, translated by David and Scot Hicks.
160 pages

Photobucket

I first read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in 2007 and have returned to selected passages from the book time and again. The good emperor is often in my thoughts, a severe figure attempting to live and govern wisely, but beset by the vastness of his responsibilities as ruler of the Roman Imperium. I’ve been looking for quality translations of both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus to purchase this year, and I was excited to learn of the existence of The Emperor’s Handbook, a modern-English translation of Aurelius written by two brothers. One brother translated the literal Greek, while the other used the literal translation to convey the passages’ actual meaning as they understood it. The result is direct, simple, and unadorned to the point of austerity.

I predict this book will have two audiences:  those interested in Aurelius’ philosophy and thoughts, and those interested in how those thoughts have been rendered here. I especially enjoyed reading this for its straightforwardness and lucidity. Aside from the occasional allusion, I had no difficulty in understanding what Aurelius was attempting to say to himself here. I compared various passages from more formal translations, and their substantive integrity appears to be intact. Although some shorter statements fall a little flat,  this is an overall improvement to other versions I’ve read. While I sometimes missed more elegant phrasings* from other translations,  this translation is more communicative. I think  The Emperor’s Handbook will be well-received, particularly for those exploring the philosophy of the man.

Speaking of those explorers, what is it about Marcus Aurelius that compels translations and commentaries of his work today, hundreds of years after his death?  He seems the model of a philosopher-king, a ruler governing with wisdom and virtue. As Roman emperor, Aurelius’ power is unparalleled and unchecked: if potential excesses are to be prevented, he himself must prevent them. As a Stoic, Aurelius believes that his life must be guided by Reason — keeping in mind not only his duty to his people and the gods, but the difference between what he can control and what he cannot. Aurelius may be emperor, but his primary focus is governing himself well to prepare him for that task.  He does this through extensive self-counsel: he reminds himself constantly of his principles, reflecting on his life as it relates to the greater pattern.

The crisp passages vary in size from one-liners to page-long reflections, serving both to remind Aurelius of general ideas and explore ways of putting those ideas into action. For instance: since we are not truly bothered by men’s actions, but by our reaction to them, what reason is there for growing angry about others’ shortcomings, like poor personal hygiene?  Aurelius emerges as a fascinating character — a pious monk, a dutiful soldier, and a patient administrator who longs for a quiet life of contemplation and philosophy but who is compelled to take on the heavy mantle of responsibility amidst the  stressful circumstances of war, natural disasters, and difficult people. It is a marvel to me that he withstood the pressures as well as he did, and The Emperor’s Handbook reminds me why I was attracted to Aurelius’ Stoicism in the first place. I recommend it with ease.

You can preview some of the book’s language here, or browse selections from more formal translations here and here. The latter links to my personal favorites from my first time reading Aurelius.

Related:

* Compare the Hicks’: “This world is change; this life, opinion.” to “the universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.” I prefer the latter expression: it seems to communicate more. This was the weakest passage in the book for me, and the only one I took any real exception to.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Teaser Tuesday (16-2)

Posted on February 16, 2010 by smellincoffee

Teaser Tuesday time once more, from Should be Reading. 

I complained to Houghton Mifflin that a reviewer in  discussing my book The Neutrino (my 70th) spoke of my “factory production”. I said that made it sound as though I had batteries of writers slaving over typewriters with myself walking down the aisles, looking over shoulders and occasionally saying, “I’d put a comma in there if I were you.”  
– Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters
Posted in General | Tagged | 5 Comments

A Guide to the Good Life

Posted on February 14, 2010 by smellincoffee

A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
© 2009 William Irvine
314 pages

Photobucket

Last year when I began to examine Stoicism in depth, having found strength in the works of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, I read or attempted to read various introductions to the philosophy. I was unable to find a truly useful guide: the accessible books were highly technical and intended for an audience well-versed in academic philosophy. While I was able to understand more about Stoicism’s history and context, I found nothing that truly added to the primary sources – nothing that knit what I understood already and shed light on what I did not.  William Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life is the book I was looking for. I have not yet encountered a better introduction to Stoicism:Like Alain de Botton and Epictetus before him, Irvine brings philosophy to the level of everyday life and does so in a thorough, emimiently readable, and fair-minded style.

            Irvine begins by establishing context, explaining what philosophy is, why it was important to the classical world, and why it is still of use today. He differentiates academic and applied philosophy, and makes it clear that he believes philosophy ought to be used to help people live more fully.  He then introduces Stoicism proper, giving a history of the various Stoic teachers and famous practitioners. He focuses on Roman Stoicism particularly, given that the works of four — Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and Musonius Rufus — constitute the only surviving primary sources for understanding what the Stoics thought and how they lived.

 After this introductory portion of the book, Irivine examines how Stoic attitudes changed the way these people understood and responded to the world, devoting next sixteen chapters focus on Stoic attitudes, psychological techniques, beliefs, and practices. These range from the general (understanding Epictetus’ “dichtomy of control”) to the specific (handling insults). He gleans these concepts from the primary sources, but attempts to justify them through his and other’s experiences. I remain dubious about some of them, but I’m hardly an orthodox Stoic. Irvine often draws connections between Stoicism’s ideas and practices and those of other thought-systems, particularly the Zen Buddhism he espoused earlier in his life. If the book had stopped there, it would have been pretty good, but it gets better. The last part of the book sees Irvine give Stoicism a naturalistic rather than a theological justification and discuss the problems and benefits of living Stoically in the modern world. Grounding Stoicism in the natural is necessary, given that few people would accept Stoic theology and physics today.  What this does is turn around Stoicism’s approach, as we are often fighting nature instead of following it. Because human nature was not created for our happiness in mind, we have to subvert the plans of what Richard Dawkins calls our “selfish genes”.

This is the best book on Stoicism I’ve yet read, and I doubt I’ll ever read a better practical introduction to the philosophy. I recommend it highly.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

Posted on February 11, 2010 by smellincoffee

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
© 2007 Howard Zinn
293 pages

Photobucket

This year I have become convincted that democracy is not something that happens at the ballot-box but on the streets. It consists in mass movements forcing the institutions that oppose them to reform. Howard Zinn’s pet subject, social movements, is thus of great interest to me. His book title and cover invoke a spirit of conviction, of fighting for justice — and its contents do not disappoint.

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is a collection of essays, most written on a simple theme but some working the theme into biographical coverage of people and organizations. Zinn introduces the book with an essay on the use of history to inform, inspire, and provoke people to action. The essays that follow constitute such a history, although not one as general or as tightly woven as A People’s History of the United States. The essays can be read by themselves, and topics vary.  Although most of the essays are about people of conviction of who have stood up against the powers that be (Freedom Riders, Henry David Thoreau, Eugene Debs, soldiers in revolt) many see Zinn attempt to provoke readers more directly by writing on topics such as class, immigration, nationalism, pacifism,  government, and war. Although to witness so much injustice throughout history is almost discouraging, the ending essay encourages optimism: even when the odds are against us, human history has proven to be unpredictable. Struggling for a better society is always a gamble, but if we do not participate, there is no chance that matters will improve. 

As usual, Zinn communicates his own passion clearly. Because the essential idea is one so positive that no one could be against it — people struggling against injustice — I suspect those who object to Zinn do so owing to his approach. While some might prefer to defend various nations and concepts with some concessions that they do harm , Zinn sees national boundaries, war, and the like as fundamentally malevolent. I enjoyed visiting the stories of those who have tried to “fight the good fight”, and can imagine re-reading this book in the future. I reccommend it.

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Tyrannosaurus Prescription

Posted on February 9, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Tyrannosaurus Prescription and 100 Other Essays
© 1989 Isaac Asimov
323  pages

I take for granted that I will enjoy a work by Asimov, particularly a collection of essays, but this made for a particularly enjoyable read. The Tyrannosaurus Prescription covers a lot of ground: while the initial sections of the book contain essays on the future, space, and science in general,  the book’s large “Forwards” section spans much of the humanities (history, literature, linguistics) in addition to miscellaneous matters like dogs and fantasy. Asimov’s essays on humanity’s future were especially enjoyable for me to read, given that the essays were written decades ago and many are dated now. “The Globalized Computer Library”, initially published in 1980, predates popular access to the Internet, but imagines a computer system like it — although closer in spirit to the databases of Star Trek. He’s a talented communicator, riveting me with his speculations on how humanity might begin to colonize the solar system. His own ideas emphasize the Earth-Moon system, but they won’t be happening anytime soon. Coincidentally, as I read that particular section I heard news that the US is more or less canceling its lunar and Constellation project plans. The book ends with reflections on science fiction and a few personal essays coauthored by himself and Janet Asimov.

A book like this would have never been published without the author’s name being the key selling point, however much I enjoyed it.  Although I don’t know how many people would enjoy the book in total, the scope is so general and varied that I imagine anyone can enjoy at least some of it — and readers who enjoy Asimov will be interested regardless. I enjoyed this more than I’ve enjoyed any Asimov work since reading Constantinople in the fall.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | Leave a comment