Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

Posted on May 4, 2009 by smellincoffee

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao
© 2007 Wayne Dyer
416 pages

In continuing my philosophical and comparative religion studies, I’m reading another book on the Tao Te Ching. While The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu was more or less a commentary on the Tao Te Ching, Dyer’s book is a “devotional”. The book consists of eighty-one short essays, one for each ‘verse’ or ‘chapter’ in Tzu’s work. Each essay is introduced with the ‘verse’ in full, and Dyer then draws on a variety of translations and commentaries to explore the meaning of it. In writing on the greater meaning of the Tao Te Ching, Dyer will often look for connections to other religious or philosophical workers, including poetry. After explaining what he thinks is the meaning, Dyer tries to distill that meaning into a couple of short statements, which he then commets on. Each essay ends with a section titled “Do the Tao Now”, in which Dyer urges the reader to put Taoism into practice and makes suggestions. Some of his suggestions are a bit…severe. For instance, he asks the reader not to fight colds, but to live in harmony with them, and to abstain from watching news footage that mentions violence.

The book is a curious blend of philosophical advice and “New Agey” thinking, making every reading session pretty varied. Dyer’s explanations make more sense than the ones in The Guiding Light, although past a certain point there’s no point in explaining some of the Tao’s statements. Albert Schweitzer commented in his Out of my Life and Thought that Taoism is much more intuitive than western philosophies. Taoism makes more sense to me now, and however uncomfortable some portions of it made me, I generally enjoyed the book and would like to revisit it in the future.

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The Great Journey

Posted on May 3, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Great Journey: Peopling the Americas
© 1987 Brian Fagan
288 pages

Fourth grade history was most memorable for me, for it was that year that we learned local history. Because Alabama was home to at least four native populations before the arrival of Europeans, we learned a bit about their cultures and I’ve had a lingering interest ever since. This book addresses how the first Americans arrived in the western hemisphere and how they lived. Fagan begins with European colonization and subsequent rising interest in how long people had lived in the “New World”. He then tracks developing and diverging theories on how the Americas were “peopled”, taking a break to caution the reader that there is still much we do not know. Half of the book is spent in “establishing” phase, but after that we follow the expansion of human populations across the continents — although Fagan never makes the leap to Cuba. There’s a lot of information here on how pre-city-dwelling people might have lived: Fagan writes at length on stoneworking, for instance, bringing to mind the Earth’s Children series. Although there is a lot of information here that is quite interesting, I thought the book was somewhat…dry in parts. I suppose I’ve been spoiled by narratives, while this is more of a straightforward account.

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A People’s History of the United States

Posted on May 2, 2009 by smellincoffee

A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present
© 2003 Howard Zinn
729 pages

I attracted a fair number of dirty looks and endured numerous assaults on my non-existent patriotism for reading this book, making it especially fun to read in public. Zinn begins the book with the story of Columbus discovering the United States, and from a more cynical viewpoint than one is apt to hear anyone else. After writing on the horrors that Columbus and his compatriots visited upon natives, Zinn talks to the reader directly on historical narratives. He accepts the idea that any historical account is loaded with bias: his aim is to tell the story of the United States from the perspective of the “losers” of history: the natives, the poor, women, blacks, homosexuals, immigrants, labor, Cuban rebels, South American revolutionaries, and more. The book is written “to be skeptical of governments and their attempts, through politics and culture, to ensnare ordinary people in a giant web of nationhood pretending to a common interest”.

He then takes the reader through the downtrodden’s history of the United States, eviscerating even the sacred cow of the American Revolution. I worked through it a little by little, day by date, taking breaks to read from other books to give myself a break from the sad story that American history apparently is. I can’t really criticize Zinn’s approach: history is a narrative. People who take it seriously, like myself, can try as best we can to be objective, but the facts we choose to use and the manner in which we connect them is still subject to bias. This book is not the story of inevitable progress, of people working together to create civilization out of wilderness and fight evil — it is a story often repeated, one of the powerful subduing the weak — but one also of the weak standing up for themselves and forcing changes. At book’s end, Zinn writes that he wants to end narratives that depend on the Great Men of history stepping in to guide the people — Abraham Lincoln through the Civil war, FDR through the Depression, Carter through the post-Watergate era. Few if any of America’s political leaders escape Zinn’s criticism.

The book was interesting for me, because much of the great America narrative had already fallen apart for me before reading in. During my freshmen year of college, my western civilization professor would often comment on how the authors of our textbook treated various subjects. “I think they do a fair job on this subject,” he might say, or “They passed this over”. During my first semester with him, I was very uncomfortable: what was he doing criticizing the authors of the textbook? The idea impressed upon me in the three semesters I took classes with him — accidentally, I might add — was that authors bear responsibility for what they write, that indeed history is written by people. Textbooks are no more objective than popular history books, and getting used to that took some doing. As I read more and grew in both knowledge and age, I realized there were problems with the History of the United States as I knew it. My skepticism began with the Mexican and American Civil War, but soon touched almost every aspect of US history except for World War 2. When I began looking at the Revolutionary War differently, I realized something in me had changed. That certainly has something to do with my coming a student of philosophy and thinking about the way and why people believe what they do.

This book will appeal to some and appall others, and so all I can say this is (tongue-in-cheekly): he who hath an ear, let him hear.

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This Week at the Library (27/4)

Posted on April 27, 2009 by smellincoffee

Books this Update:

  • The Associate, John Grisham
  • A People’s History of American Empire, Howard Zinn
  • Abounding Grace, M. Scott Peck
  • The House of the Vestals, Steven Saylor
  • Our Inner Ape, Frans De Waal
  • The Sane Society, Erich Fromm
  • The Reason for God, Timothy Keller
  • Out of my Life and Thought, Albert Schweitzer

Please note that Out of my Life and Thought, The Sane Society and The Reason for God have not received individual comments yet, although they will. Two of the books require more thoughtful commentary than usual, and I’ve not finished ordering my thoughts yet. As for the third, I just forgot about it until now. I began the week with John Grisham’s The Associate, his latest legal thriller and one that is in some ways a return to the style that made him popular. Although it has received mixed criticism, with an author as well-known as Grisham I don’t know that it really matters: people with high expectations will be disappointed, while those who just expect to be entertained will probably be so. The book is pure entertainment, lacking the criticism of The King of Torts, The Street Lawyer, The Last Juror, The Rainmaker, and a few others. (There are those who don’t like Grisham expressing his opinions about society in what they expect to be just a bit of amusement, but quite frankly you’re going to get opinions even if you read the Sunday comics.). The book reminded me of The Firm: in both books, the young hero finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Although the book was a page-turner, it ended somewhat clumsily and if I didn’t know Grisham better I’d think he was setting up a sequel.

Speaking of entertainment-as-criticism, I then read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of American Empire, presenting a lecture by Zinn on the history of American imperialism in the form of a graphic novel, or comic book. Zinn begins with the last of the Indian Wars and ends with the invasion of Iraq. Had the book been published later, there’s no telling how much Zinn could have found to write about. Most of the book serves to illustrate Zinn’s lecture as a comic version of him gives it, although sometimes Zinn uses stories that seem outside of his lecture’s narrative to push the book’s overall story forward. The story itself is the growing power of American and corporate imperialism, their indifference to the sufffering they cause, and the people who fight against them. Although this isn’t really a “comic book”, it definitely has its heroes and villains. I knew most of what Zinn wrote about, and I think his interpretations are mostly fair. One of my friends voiced objection to Theodore Roosevelt’s association with racists, but I don’t know enough about his “Rough Riders” to comment intelligently. I enjoyed the book and thought it a pretty smart commentary.

Throughout the week I read from a book of quotations called Abounding Grace, compiled by M. Scott Peck, some of whose work I read a few weeks back. The quotations are organized into twelve themes — Courage, Happiness, Love, Faith, and so on, most of which have subheadings. The only theme without a subheading, actually, is “Wisdom”, the book’s final chapter. Peck introduces each theme with a brief essay that delves into why he thinks the matter important and — indeed, what he thinks it means. I have shared my favorite quotations from the book at my philosophy and humanities blog.

I also continued in Steven Saylor’s Roma sub Rosa series, although I deviated a little from the pattern and read one of his short-story collections instead of the actual novels. I want to read his books through chronologically, not in their publishing order. The House of the Vestals is set between Roman Blood and The Arms of Nemesis, tying them together well. The book consists of nine mystery stories, most of which are solved by Gordianus the Finder. (The remaining story is not actually a case of Gordianus‘: rather, it is a mystery story told to him by the woman would will become his wife.) I enjoyed all of the stories, and appreciate Saylor grounding them in historical accounts.

I finish Erich Fromm’s The Sane Society this week, a sturdy book of social criticism published in the 1950s. While it is not “popular sociology”, it isn’t a stuffy academic tome, either. Fromm was a member of the Frankfurt school, which is sometimes labeled Neo-Marxist from its members’ shared criticism of capitalism. Fromm begins by asking the question: can we criticize a society and make useful judgements about it? He believes we can, and then establishes criteria to that effect. A good portion of the book is devoted to “Man in Capitalistic Society”, as Fromm believes we can only understand why people are the way they are by studying the culture that shaped them. In this, his biggest chapter, he analyzes the needs of capitalism and shows how they are met by trying to reshape the minds of men — but since our minds are not infinitely moldable, and since the shape we are being pressed into is unnatural, misery develops. He then addresses attempts by people to reform the system through “Supercapitalism” and “Socialism” and delves into their problems. He finishes the book with “The Path to Sanity”, in which he introduces the reader to “Humanistic Communitarian Socialism”, which is a bit of a mouthful. The book reads well, given that it is being written for old Germans in the mid 1950s with very specialized vocabularies. Its scope is wide-ranging: Fromm discusses everything from religion to consumerism. I found the book interesting and engaging, to say the least, but I don’t know how many readers it would actually appeal to.

Next, at the behest of a friend, I read Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Apparently, it’s all the rage in evangelical circles these days and is touted as an answer to all the various atheist books released in recent years. Keller addresses the “Four Horsemen” — Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens — by name at various points in the book and cites from some of their work, although he displays a decided preference for quoting Dawkins and Hitchens. I suspect this is because their style is more aggressive. After introducing his worldview — a fundamentalist perspective that includes a desire for social justice — Keller addresses various “attacks” on Christianity. Although some of what he says is true, he rarely seemed to address the claims themselves. He seemed to dance around, attacking questions rather than answering them, and he lost my respect a hundred pages in. It took me two weeks or so to read through this book, mostly because I would pause to avoid getting trapped in a argumentative mindset. In the second part of the book, Keller presents arguments for Christianity, including an argument from beauty and an argument from “well-why-would-they-have-written-it-down-if-it-weren’t-true?”, in which he expresses his belief that it’s more likely that Jesus did rise from the dead than that people would make it up. He asks “Why else would they have said this?”. Why do Catholics canonize saints who “perform miracles” in their life? Why do people share testimonies about being abducted by aliens? Given that all these people are expressing the same basic story — “I was abducted by bobble-head aliens who gave me an anal probe!” — isn’t it more likely that this is True rather than they just made it up? I mean, what is the likelihood of people just believing things because it feels good?

The book is in my view a poor example of apologetics, and I am amazed that so many Christians are raving about it. It seems to me a matter of “preaching to the choir”. I will be posting more formal responses at my philosophy and humanities blog on Fridays. Also, I was disappointed by another matter. When I placed this next to The God Delusion, nothing happened. I was hoping that they would be repelled by one another like oil and water, or attracted like the opposite ends of magnetic poles, but nothing happened.

Next I read Albert Schweitzer’s Out of my Life and Thought, a biography of sorts that I found through reading The Book that Changed my Life. Having read it, I’m certain why it changed that essayist’s life. It’s certaintly about a very interesting man who expresses engaging thoughts, but much of the book consists on theological musings and a history of the organ. Schweitzer — who I had never heard of before — grew up in Alsace, a German-French region that officially belonged to the German Empire, although its citizens spoke both German and French. Schweitzer details some of his life — mostly his experiences at seminary, his writing career, and his position as a doctor in Africa — while musing on various topics. He writes about the decay and need-for-revitalization of western civilization, which he sees as having lost an ethical impulse that drives society forward. He comments on various religions and philosophies, giving Stoicism in particular high marks. I will be looking more into this man, who I had never heard of before.

Lastly, and a very enjoyable reprieve from the heavy criticism and philosophy, I read Our Inner Ape by Frans De Waal, a Dutch primatologist who uses the book to compare chimpanzee, bonobo, and human societies against one another to see what our biological heritage can teach us about power, violence, sex, and kindness. De Waal believes that our nature is Janus-like, in that it has two faces. The same heritage gives we and the other apes a propensity for violence as well as empathy. In a very casually written and enjoyable narrative, De Waal goes into great detail about his and other’s experiences observing chimpanzee and bonobo tribes. I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

Pick of the Week: Our Inner Ape, Frans De Waal. To be fair, there’s something of a three-way tie this week, and I probably went with this one because its impression is so fresh on my mind.

Quotation of the Week: “There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumblings of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, [and] kindness. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many where people have behaved magnificently — this gives us the energy to act. Hope is the energy for change. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of the worst of everything around us is a marvelous victory.” – Howard Zinn, The People’s History of American Empire

Next Week:

  • Comments on Out of my Life and Thought by Albert Schweitzer, The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, and The Sane Society by Erich Fromm
  • A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
  • The Great Journey: Peopling the Americas, Brian Fagan
  • Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, Wayne Dyer
  • Maybe more, because most of my classes are winding down and my computer is broken so my main source of entertainment is reading. (This is the reason my list is longer this week.)
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Our Inner Ape

Posted on April 27, 2009 by smellincoffee

Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are the Way We Are
© 2005 Frans De Waal
288 pages

I’ve been passing by this one for weeks now, and decided to give it a go this past weekend. It was a short, quick, and incredibly interesting read. Although we human beings like to separate ourselves from the (rest of the) animal world, De Waal states in his opening chapter that we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying the society of our closest relatives, the great apes. While his introduction mentions gorillas, the book is utterly dominated by examinations of chimpanzee and bonobo society. Bonobos are a subspecies of chimpanzees who are in some ways closer to us — both physiologically and socially. Although we associate our animal nature with “brutish” behavior, De Waal maintains that our nature is a “Janus nature”. The nature of the apes lends itself to both violence and peace — to hate and love. Rather than focusing on one “face” of our existence over the other — or on one kind of chimpanzee studies over the other — De Waal belives that we have a lot to learn from either.

The book is divided into four sections — “Power”, “Sex”, “Violence”, and “Kindness” and finishes with an epilogue. In each, De Waal compares human societies with chimpanzee and bonobo communities, commenting at length on the extent and type of behavior being observed. The book is very well written, I think, and draws directly from field research. He references Jane Goodwall’s work as well as his own. He goes into a lot of detail: for me, having read one of Goodall’s books so recently was quite helpful. There are a couple of particular points he makes I’d like to share. In the “Sex” chapter, De Waal notes that sexual behavior among the great apes is done a disservice among humans when forced to fit into only a few boxes — “Hetero”, “Homo”, and “Bi”. Chimpanzees, bonobos, and human beings don’t fit into those boxes. Given the range of behavior exhibited by all three species it is more likely that most of us are capable of enjoying intimate relations with everyone when cultural inhibitions are taken out of the equation. Also of note for me was the chapter on “Kindness”, in which De Waal demonstrates that even chimpanzees — the “killer ape” — are capable of acting with reason and empathy to beings within their group. Religions don’t introduce kindness to people, in De Waal’s (and my) words: they only build on its natural tenders in us .

I recommend the book — not only is it very interesting, but it’s quite readable as well. I went through it in a matter of hours.

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The House of the Vestals

Posted on April 24, 2009 by smellincoffee

The House of the Vestals: The Investigations of Gordianus the Finder
© 1997 Steven Saylor
260 pages

In previous weeks I have read two novels by Steven Saylor starring Gordianus the Finder, ancient Rome’s very own private detective. This book is a break from Saylor’s usual format in that it is a collection of short stories set between Roman Blood and Arms of Nemesis. The novel includes nine stories, although the font is set rather small so there is more to the book than its page numbers tell. The various mystery stories are not repetitive, although many of them make use of Gordianus’s new friend, a patrician named Lucius Claudius. Old familar characters like Cicero make a reappearance. The stories themselves give the reader an idea about Roman theatre, the vestal virgins, Roman beekeeping, and even include a ghost story. The stories are not all about Goridanus: in the book we see his family grow and mature, and Eco and Gordianus’ slave-only-in-name/wife Bethesda both feature prominently in helping him solve some of the mysteries. In one, “The Tale of the Treasure House”, Bethesda relates an old Egyptian folk story (a mystery) to Gordianus to lull him to sleep. The book is quite enjoyable: not only is it well-written, but it draws heavily from historical documents and gives the reader an accidental briefing in late-Republic Roman history. Saylor ends the book with historical notes and a timeline.

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Abounding Grace

Posted on April 24, 2009 by smellincoffee

Abounding Grace: An Anthology of Wisdom
© 2000 ed. M. Scott Peck
384 pages

Abounding Grace is a strangely titled book of quotations, compiled and commented on by M. Scott Peck, a psychologist who wrote a number of so-called “self-help” books. The book is divided into twelve major themes, most of which have subsections. For instance, “Happiness” — part one — id divided into “Acceptance”, “Cheerfulness”, “Contentment”, “Forgiveness”, and so on. Peck introduces each theme with a few pages of commentary, explaining the meaning and importance of the theme. Peck writes that he was careful to choose quotes that were devoid of too much mystical language, hoping instead to err on the side of “pithy”. I recognized many names among the quoted — Robert Ingersoll, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Anne Frank. Peck seems to have deliberately chosen quotations so that quotations in a given section might contradict one another, presumably to force the reader to think about context.

Outside of this, I don’t know what to add. I enjoyed reading the quotations, and will go through the book later to cull out my favorites and write them down.

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A People’s History of American Empire

Posted on April 23, 2009 by smellincoffee

A People’s History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaption
© 2008 Howard Zinn
273 pages

Earlier in the week, I read A People’s History of American Empire, composed by Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, and Paul Buhle. The book is a graphic novel, and framed through a lecture given by Howard Zinn — featuring Zinn as a character, introducing his lecture on American imperialism in the introduction before beginning it in chapter one. The story of American imperialism is expanded in twelve chapters, beginning with the end of the “Indian Wars” and ending with the invasion of Iraq. Most of the text is Zinn speaking, with the pictures providing illustrations. There are numerous “stories” set in the text, in which Zinn-as-narrator almost disappears. Given the nature of the book — or the graphic novel, as it were — its narrative reads very well.

This is very much a book about individuals who have resisted American and corporate imperialism as well as government and corporate indifference to the misery they cause. There are two general themes: one, the developing nature of imperialism, and two, the reactions of the ‘people’. The reader thus will be engaged in a critical history of the United States which gives the labor, civil rights, and peace movements their due. Both stories are developed pretty well, I think, and the illustrations were good as well. (I’m not exactly sure how to comment on a graphic novel other than to say I enjoyed the pictures.) I did find fault with one panel, in which the Lusitania is shown carrying tanks. The Lusitania was sunk before the development of tanks, and one of the tanks appears to be a model from the Second World War.* As for its historical credibility: I knew much of this before, having accidentally learned it for the most part. If he took liberties with the facts, they weren’t obvious to someone who is — in my and other’s estimations — a fairly well-read history student. Some interpretations are more questionable than others: no one can deny the self-serving motives of the Spanish-American War or the Indian Wars, but it’s also fairly difficult to cast World War 2 in such a cynical light.

Although the book’s story can be seen as somewhat grim, the number and conviction of people who have stood against the book’s villains gives the reader cause for hope — and indeed, Zinn deliberately concludes the lecture/book on a hopeful note. “There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumblings of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, [and] kindness. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many where people have behaved magnificently — this gives us the energy to act. Hope is the energy for change. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of the worst of everything around us is a marvelous victory.”

I’m going to recommend this one.

* This may be excusable on the basis that lay readers will more easily equate “tank” with ‘weapons” than unmarked boxes of ammunition.

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The Associate

Posted on April 22, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Associate
© 2009 John Grisham
373 pages

I will admit to taking John Grisham for granted. Like old t-shirts and Star Trek, when I begin a Grisham novel I do so with the expectation that I will enjoy it. Grisham rarely disappoints. Although he is known for his legal thrillers, in recent years his new releases have been away from the courtroom. He returned to legal thrillers last year with The Appeal, but it seemed different from the novels of old and was (in my experience) reacted to negatively. Although Grisham’s novels rarely end with everyone living happily ever after, the ending of The Appeal struck readers as…”wrong”, somehow. It is one of the few Grisham books that I didn’t really enjoy — but with The Associate, Grisham has returned to a similar style.

This book, like most Grisham novels, is written in the third-person. The book’s main character is Kyle McAvoy, the son of a small-town lawyer who has little interest in making a career out of working for big-league Wall Street lawyers. The book begins one night at a community basketball game, at which McAvoy is coaching. As he watches the game and yells at the kids, he sees a rather obvious man watching him — a man dressed in the apparel of a government agent. Unnerved, he tries to leave the gym after the game via a back entrance, but is apprehended regardless. The man — a “Bennie Wright” — asks Kyle for ten minutes of his time.

Kyle soon realizes that Bennie holds power over him — evidence that links him and three of his friends to rape allegations from their early college days. While Kyle is perfectly innocent, the evidence shown to Kyle makes him realize that there is a very real possibility two of his friends aren’t, and that their indiscretion may ruin him. Bennie knows Kyle’s fear, and exploits it: in return for a guarantee that there will never be a trial about this issue, Bennie wants Kyle to accept a job at a major Wall Street law firm and gather information for him. Kyle is thus stuck between Scylla and Charybdis: he can risk the ruin of his name by helping Bennie and violating his future clients’ trust, or he can risk the ruin of his name by allowing the federal investigation to go on. Neither are attractive possibilities, but the latter ruin is far more likely than the former.

Even as Kyle bites the bullet, he learns that Bennie is not who he claims to be. There is something far greater going on here than an FBI investigation: defense contractors are going to (legal) war with one another over the design and production rights of a major piece of military equipment. Not only are the investments of the United States government at risk, but there are foreign governments like China, Russia, and Israel willing to interfere in the trial — and Kyle is being made to take part in this madness, to help unknown people by stealing information from his law firm and delivering it to his handlers.

Kyle, knowing unpleasant things are bound to happen to him if he just passively cooperates, begins planning his extrication from the situation he’s been trapped in from the very start. Although the book is primarily about him, Grisham occasionally gives the reader a rest from Kyle and follows Baxter Tate — the alleged rapist — instead. Tate’s problems with alcohol and descent into the world of rehab and relapse provide occasional breaks for the reader and eventually connect to Kyle’s problems.

The case of the lacrosse players from Duke entered into my mind, and I would wager that their trial in 2006 gave Grisham inspiration. The book is somewhat similar to The Firm in that a brilliant young antagonist quickly finds himself stuck between two impossible-to-accept scenarios, who has to find his own way out of the mess. The book’s ending chapters were pretty gripping for me, although I did have a “Wait, really? That’s it?” moment at its final conclusion. It’s almost as if the ending isn’t properly realized. The book doesn’t have the “untold story” quality of The King of Torts or the criticism of The Street Lawyer or The Rainmaker, but it was pretty enjoyable for me all in all.

(Please note that The Associate is not a prequel to The Partner.)

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This Week at the Library (20/2)

Posted on April 20, 2009 by smellincoffee

Books this Update:

  • Persian Fire, Tom Holland
  • Shattered Mirror, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
  • Kingdoms of Gold, Kingdoms of Jade, Brian Fagan
  • The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu, Henry Wei
  • The Moscow Option, David Downing

Although I read most of Persian Fire last week, I didn’t quite finish it before my weekly trip to the library. Tom Holland writes on the development of the Persian Empire and its extended period of conflict with the Greek powers of Athens and Sparta. He employs the same narrative approach he used in Rubicon, much to my enjoyment — I prefer my history written as a story. The book is quite thorough, and I think Holland does a good job of not only writing about the material causes of the war and the political development of the various powers, but gives the reader an impression of how these people so far removed from us thought. One of the more interesting aspects of the book is that Holland frames the war from the Persian perspective as a religious conflict between those who serve Truth and those who serve lies.

Next I returned to Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ fiction in Shattered Mirror, the third of her books and one set in the same universe as In the Forests of the Night and Demon in my View. While the protagonists of the former books were respectively a vampire and a human, this book (written from the third person point of view) focuses on Sarah Vida, a young witch. Her family and kind serve to protect humanity from the vampires who prey on them — but Vida’s moral and familiar obligations come into question when she accidentally befriends two pacifistic vampires. I enjoyed the book — perhaps more than Demon in my View — but it seemed quite busy after the half-way point. There are more principle characters involved here.

Brian Fagan’s Kingdoms of Gold, Kingdoms of Jade was next, in which I read about many various cultures of the Americas before Columbus. Although I had expected to read about the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca, Fagan’s approach is more broad: he writes on those three, but he also dwells with small tribes living in South America’s desert and everywhere else — from Inuit to Moundville people in Alabama. He writes on societal structure, religion, history, and agriculture. The last topic also constitutes the bulk of his last chapter, in which Fagan explores the agricultural and medicinal contributions of the Americans to the Europeans who vanquished them. The book is quite well written and enjoyably illustrated by hundreds of photographs.

Next I moved from history to religion and read Henry Wei’s The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu, a book written on the Tao Teh Ching, the basis of Taoism and written by Lao Tzu. The book is divided into two parts. In the first, Wei introduces the reader to Taoism and writes on specific topics within Taoism, such as the possibility of the afterlife and the benefits of meditation (including time travel). The Tao Teh Ching itself is reproduced in the second part of the book, with commentary from Wei. The book’s organizational scheme works well: thanks to Wei’s interpretive essays in the first section, I was not as confused by the Tao Teh Ching’s more mystical passages. I’ve not read enough about Taoism to say if this book is apt: it was fairly enjoyable to read, for whatever that is worth.

Lastly, I read The Moscow Option, on loan to me from a coworker. The book is alternative history, although it does not present a “Nazi victory” scenario: when the book closes, the war is still on-going. Author David Downing focuses rather on how the war would have proceeded differently had two little things been changed, changing both the War in the Pacific and Hitler’s invasion of Russia. The book begins with the Russian campaign, hence the “Moscow option”. Some reviewers at Amazon took offense to how the campaign is presented in the book, but the day people aren’t arguing on the Internet is the day there is no Internet. I don’t know enough about the “orders of battle” to comment on the historicity of most of the book: what was written seemed to be plausible. The style of the book is a different story: at times it seemed like a popular history book from an alternate universe, and at times it seemed like a military report. Sometimes the author invents fictional characters and has us see what is happening through their eyes, but they never linger long and are mostly forgotten by the time the reader has moved on. Although it’s not a crime for history books to not be written in narrative form, I thought the writing — more so in some parts than in others — was choppy. Sentences that should have been tied together were left alone, and some that were stuck together were not done so well. It’s as if the editor read over those passages and forgot to change them.

Pick of the Week: None of the books I read this week demand special recognition (as some do), but I could be pressed into recommending either Persian Fire or Kingdoms of Gold, Kingdoms of Jade.

Next Week:

  • The House of the Vestals, Steven Saylor. This is a collection of short stories written under his Roma sub Rosa series and featuring Gordianus, ancient Rome’s private eye.
  • Out of my Life and Thought, Albert Schweitzer. This is one of the books I saw mentioned in The Book that Changed my Life.
  • A People’s History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaption, Howard Zinn.
  • Abounding Grace: An Anthology of Wisdom, ed. M. Scott Peck.
  • The Associate, John Grisham. I’m finally getting around to reading his latest, which I received for Easter a few weeks back.
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