46 Pages, Scott Liell

46 Pages:  Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence by Scott Liell contains the entire text of the Common Sense and includes commentary to help explain it.  Concise and well-written, Liell's commentary is said to be a "must have."  My wife and I both have an interest in this book, so she reads it to me while we are driving on long trips.

Started: 4/18/2011
Completed: 6/2011
Recommendation: Strongly Recommended
Recommended by:  I saw this book at Vertigo when it closed and it called out to me.  Common Sense is something I've always felt I should read.  This book was also selected by the family for a book discussion this summer.
Words I looked up:


encomium -- A speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly.
jesuitically -- basically means "like a Jesuit," but that isn't helpful.  Describing someone as a Jesuit (who is not a Jesuit) is to say that person is "given to subtle casuistry."  Casuistry is excessively subtle reasoning intended to rationalize or mislead.
papistical -- of or relating to or supporting Roman Catholicism

Review:  Common Sense is funny and Liell helps give the context necessary to understand the humor.  The back story of Thomas Paine is interesting as well.  This is a fantastic discussion of one of the most important books in the American Revolution.  Just wonderful.

Memoirs of Pontius Pilate, James R. Mills

Memoirs of Pontius Pilate by James R. Mills is a novelization of Ponitus Pilate's thoughts on Jesus of Nazereth written by a politician.


Started: 4/16/2011
Completed: 4/17/2011
Recommendation: eh, unlikely to be worth your time unless you haven't read the Gospels
Recommended by:  An extended family vacation led to the creation of a book discussion group and this was the #3 book voted upon by family members for us all to read.
Words I looked up:


obstreperous -- resisting control or constraint in a difficult manner; unruly


Review:  Well, sadly this book was annoying.  It was supposed to be a politician's view of Pilate's perspective. Instead, Pilate plays idiot savant to Mills recounting of the Gospels.  There were  a couple of errors that really rubbed me the wrong way and one blatant effort to forward the author's own political position.  This book didn't feel like a novelization of Pilate's Memoirs, it felt more like a novelization written in the hollow voice of a flawed character that was neither investigated nor developed.  One might have expected something about Pilate's childhood, but you hear about Jesus' childhood.  One might have expected a ton of issues that had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth, yet the entirety of the book revolved around the dubious "questioning" position of Pilate who, by turns, disregards and upholds the beliefs of both Jews and Christians.


One shocking thing is that the author used Pilate's wife as a plot foil, but failed to address her death at all; a topic that was clearly of very high importance to the Pilate developed by the author.  IMNSHO, this book was poorly written.  I have no understanding at all how it made it onto the top 100 list of historical novels forget #2.  The only list this would make for me is "Approachable Restatings of the Bible."  I'd care to add that while this book might make such a list, it would be so completely buried by virtually every other book on that list as to be unfindable.  Ugh.

The Feud, Thomas Berger

The Feud by Thomas Berger is a comedy written by the same man who gave us "Little Big Man."  This book looks at two feuding towns in 1930s America.  This book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Started:  4/14/2011
Completed:  4/28/2011
Recommendation:  It is difficult to recommend this book.  It isn't fun.  It is close to truth.  Close to painful truth.
Recommended By:  An extended family vacation led to the creation of a book discussion group and this was the #1 book voted upon by family members for us all to read.
Review: So what to say about this book?  This is the mountain out of a mole hill writ hick.  So a minor disagreement and a line of constantly topping intolerance leads to a modern comedy of errors.  The middle of the book is a mild twist in so far as simple character flaws start becoming serious downfalls.  Characters start taking a beating...individuals start falling apart in every way imaginable.  Some new characters who, themselves, represent the fulfillment of poor decisions appear, splatter, and slip from the pages.

The book does not end with a belly laugh, a chuckle, or even a wry grin.  It is as harsh, greasy, and oddly, stale and sweet as the crumbs in the bottom of an empty bag of donuts.  Like the bag is empty, sadly the story is as well.  While you've learned about these people and, in some ways, started to sympathize with them, in virtually every case they are repugnant at a base level.  I didn't come away from this book wondering what happened to them or with any desire to hear more of their sordid lives.  I had a very hard time laughing at the ridiculous behavior after the consequences turned so dire.  Perhaps that is a good thing.

The Feud is edgy.  Not the way "edgy" is viewed today.  It is not raunchy.  It is not foul.  The Feud looks at people as they horribly are.  It unashamedly offers up the devastating consequences of our own flaws drawn out upon the stage of destitute poverty,  The consequences of small flaws--big sins--are even worse when put under the vise of financial stress.

I'm not convinced you learn anything by reading this book.  It is mildly entertaining and unabashedly forthright, but it uses the comedic tool of drawing everything to extremes--the sheriffs don't disagree, they actively wish to hurt one another; the sex abusers aren't ashamed of themselves; the self-interest knows no bounds; and the doormats stand before cavernous spaces.  Since everything is so extreme it is impossible to view the book in anything but the harsh black and white light that bursts from caricature.  It feels like the humor can only be enjoyed by those how titter uncontrollably as the three year old throws a baseball into his father's scrotum.  The humor seems painfully reminiscent of a Peeping Tom's look at squalid indignity.

Of course, the worst part is that I'm writing this two days after the rest of the review.  Maybe the quality of this book shows in that I'm still stewing about it.  Maybe I felt like a Peeping Tom because the author had taken the trouble of making these comically distorted characters seem real.  I'm still mad at some for their behavior, sorry about the sad situation for others, and worried for the poor decisions that characterized them all.  No, I don't want to read more about them, I'd just as soon forget them.  But somewhere, somehow, the author has managed to make them "real" enough to have woven themselves into my thoughts occasionally bumping against real people with real problems.  And that, my dear reader, may be why this book was nominated for a Pulitzer.  Still and all, it is annoying.

The Most Human Human, Brian Christian

The Most Human Human by Brian Christian is a look at a classical test, the Turing Test, from the human side.  Plenty has been written about the computer side of the Turing Test, but this is a new book that addresses the uniquely human side.

Started:  3/23/2011
Completed: 6/19/2011
Recommendation: Recommended for programmers.  It is amazing how humbling it can be to "look" from the other side.
Recommended By:  I saw the author speak on John Stewart
Words I looked up:


anaphora -- repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect 
asterism -- a group of three asterisks shaped into a triangle that are used in typography to denote subchapters in a book.
hegemony -- gaining control through consensus, not force.
ineffable -- too great or extreme to be described in words
pilcrow -- a typographic mark typically used to denote a paragraph, "¶"
palimpsest -- a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped and which can be used again.
polysyndeton -- repetition of conjunctions in close succession
sanguine -- cheerfully optimisitc
stevedore -- a dock worker
trenchant -- vigorously effective and articulate
voided lozenge -- A symbol in heraldry (also called a "mascle") that is a diamond within a diamond.

Review:  


When a journalist looks at computer interfaces, there is something to learn.  Having read this book in concert with listening to Moonwalking with Einstein it is interesting to me that these two books which each try to reach into the essence of humanity from different angles share so much in common.  Neither is a repeat of the other, but the overlaps are significant.  There is more to human interaction then simple communication--there is a certain degree of binding that occurs when two people talk well and it cannot be approximated well by computers who are simply mimicking what has been put into them (albeit quite well).  At the same time, the vast store of sheer information stored by computers can be approximated through the human mind with a little effort and that allows for a structure in which to hold not only a good discussion but even more information.

At some points, Brian Christian suggests that the novelty of a good conversation lies in its surprise and Joshua Fore suggests that one of the most engaging uses of memory is being able to create novel links between seemingly disparate sources.  It seems to me (making a novel link :) ) that effective use of memory facilitates good conversation.  Brian Christian talks about leaving footholds for conversation by leaving many open-ended references and Joshua Fore points out that having established memory points lets us view information within a context that takes us beyond rote knowledge or parlor tricks into a deeper understanding of the world around us.  It may just be me, but it seems like these two different books (both by journalists about competitions) are particularly in tune with one-another and should be read together for maximum gain.

To the heart of being the most human human, Mr. Christian found it anti-climactic as one might expect.  Being acknowledged for what one is is rarely as interesting as becoming something more then one is.  The journey, however, that brought him to that point is well worth the read and is a good overview into the shortcomings of a "heartless" interaction that characterizes current AI systems that purport to interface with us.  As companies have developed increasingly complicated systems to try to address anticipated customer needs, the flexibility and creativity of a real human being has never been more in evidence.  These elaborate efforts are fairly good at handling simple items (phone trees work reasonably well for movie theaters until the theaters forget that the phone tree is intended to drive people to the movies and start inserting advertising that is far less effective), but if you have ever tried to call a bank and do something relatively unusual (like stop payment on a check) the phone tree feels impenetrable as it both fails to handle the need and obscures the process for getting to a real human (which is where the phone tree ends up if one happens to find the right path).

As a programmer, the intuition and research that Mr. Christian offers in his book is important and something to be considered in developing a system that interacts with people.  I think that one thing programmers largely have in common is an inability to interact well themselves and so it is no surprise that the applications generated by this social inept group should themselves be socially inept.  Some of the information offered by Mr. Christian may help programmers become more socially skilled and, by extension, facilitate the growth of socially skilled applications.  Physician, heal thyself.

Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart is written in the style of ancient Chinese literature.  It is an imaginary story that takes place in an imaginary China circa 600.  I've had this book on my reading list for 15 years and finally got a copy.

Started:  3/26/2011
Completed: 4/4/2011
Recommendation: EXCELLENT, fun, read!
Recommended By:  I think I read about this book in the Washington Post Book Review
Words I looked up:


bonze -- a Buddhist priest in Japan

Review:  What a fun book!  From references like a story that one of the characters gives of his life that beings with:  "It was a dark and stormy night..."  There is clear humor and there is subtle humor and there is the humor that you get three pages later.  This is the kind of book where you have to share a passage with someone else!  If you read only one book in 15 years, this would not be it, but if you need a good beach read or you want an exciting chuckle (it is an adventure novel) then run out to a used book store (it is out of print) and grab a copy.  You will not regret it.