Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer is a book about a journalist's adventure into becoming a world-class mnemonist.  I picked this up as an audio book.  I've listened to other audio books before, but this is the first I've added to this blog.  I decided that audio books should be recorded here as well.  Oddly, I started this blog to help me remember which books I'd read and when I'd read them...

Started:  5/23/2011
Completed: 7/24/2011
Recommendation: Strong recommendation to everyone.
Recommended by:  I saw this as an audio book in the library and I thought it would be a good thing to hear as I commuted to and from work.
Review:


This book reminds us why memory is valuable.  Not so much that memory is necessary in today's world, but that it has value.  The experiences of the author and his examination of memory are mildly inspiring, but his recounting of why memory has been important throughout history is without parallel in value.  I'd also throw out that learning how to memorize certainly has its place in our society and I like very much that I've learned some of the techniques just from reading this book.

The Adept, Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris

The Adept by Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris is a book that I picked up at a library book sale (I picked up several in the series).  I know Kurtz from the Deryni series which I enjoyed during my high school years.  The fact that several books in the series were published suggested to me that the books were well received.

Started: 6/5/2011
Completed: 7/1/2011
Recommendation: Probably not worth the read
Recommended By:  Nobody, just saw this series at a library book sale.
Words I looked up:


aspergillum -- a brush or instrument for sprinkling holy water
fortalice -- a small fort
garret -- a small, wretched attic
nacreous -- lustrous, pearly
Sephiroth -- a manifestation of God.
shrift -- an act of confession.  In this case, I think the word was misused as it related to removing or putting on clothing.
temenos -- a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain.
widdershins -- in a direction opposite the movement of the sun; counter-clockwise.


Review:


I'd like to point out that this book ends at Loch Ness.  That should be enough.  I'm likely to read the remainder of the series and it isn't that this book is without value, but, geez.  The list of cliches is long and annoying.

The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt is the story of the loss of the Fenice theater to a huge fire in Venice, Italy.

Started:  February 7, 2011
Completed: October 27, 2012
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By:  I found this in the office book exchange while I was waiting for coffee to brew.  The title intrigued me and my mother and sister had read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and raved about how good it was.  I figured I'd give it a try and just leave it at work to fill the spare moments while I was waiting for a meeting to start or coffee to brew.

Words I looked up:


exigent -- pressing or demanding

Review:


This book ends up being more of an adventure through Venice then just about the Fenice.  It feels to me that the Fenice story was just a short story and the author went to great pains to explore other avenues related to his tracking down the Fenice story in order to make this a book.  This is, in part, a mystery...why did the Fenice burn down?  There is a resolution to this mystery, but it seems as though the author is very much an observer.  Not a fly on the wall, but someone who recounts interview after interview without an ability to fill in most of the gaps between interviews.  It is as though we have a series of newspaper stories about an event intermingled with an autobiographical journey through Venice.  To me, it is an odd mix.

I did find out some fascinating things about Venice--things that should be obvious, I guess, but things I hadn't considered.  There are times when the canals stink and the tides cause the experience of traffic going by outside your window to be very different (the traffic can be well below you, or literally in your window!).  There are no cars, so everyone walks.  The walking causes people to interact highly and the nature of neighborhoods to be distinctly different from most other cities.  It is generally quieter without the background drone of cars moving about.  The walking is also hard on seniors making it necessary for neighbors to help out and knitting together the community a bit more.  The lack of cars also makes construction difficult as huge volumes of materials have to come by the boatload through the relatively thin canals.  Also, fires are put out using canal water (salty and sometimes muddy).

It is difficult for me to recommend this book to anyone else.  The pace was slow in both my reading and the book.  The drama that is present isn't really about the Fenice, but largely about things only slightly related.  In the end, it just wasn't that interesting and the prose was not compelling.

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is a book I picked up when Vertigo was closing.  I really enjoyed American Gods and Anansi Boys.  I saw this book before I had read Anansi Boys, but it caught my eye because of the advertising for American Gods that was on the cover.  I choose to read this book now with a little trepidation, because I have since learned that Gaiman started out writing horror and that is not a subject matter I particularly enjoy.

Started: June 4, 2011
Completed: June 4, 2011
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By:  I saw this on the shelves as Vertigo was closing.

Review:


Yeah, I read this book in one day.  Start to finish.  That was not the plan.  I had a lot to do.  The stars aligned, however, and I got time to read combined with a book that made turning the page not just a way to move the story forward but a hungry demand.  There is no "good place to stop" in this book.  The writing is engrossing, the plot and sub-plots are clever, the characters are compelling, and the author's ability to engross the reader is engaging.  As I sat in the dead of night with my book light illuminating the final pages, I experienced the deliciousness of the stolen moments from my childhood when a book drew me under the covers with a flashlight.  So, I liked it.

Who should read it?  Well, those who like a clever turn of phrase, "There were four ways for the astute observer to tell them apart [4 very distinct descriptions are given]....in addition, they looked nothing alike," will likely walk away from this book satisfied that the author has leveraged his craft.  Those who would like to believe that there is no such thing as a chance encounter or a sound in the night that is not caused by some unseen and potentially malicious "thing" that could only be properly removed from the world by deft knife work will not go unsatisfied.  A geek, nerd, klutz,  or other everyday person who knows in his heart that under the right circumstances, with just a little persuasion from an indifferent universe and a troop of friends who really want to help each other any obstacle can be overcome by reaching deep down inside themselves to become something they truly are not will find in this story a parallel.  Yes, Dungeons and Dragons fans, here is the "real life" nitty gritty embodiment of your obsession without the need to go to magic or creatures that live so far from reality that one might look back to find the bridge to the real world obscured by rolling hills.

The hero of this story is so nondescript that you never find out what he looks like.  The few descriptions that appear are so distorted by circumstance as to represent the situation more than the individual.  You know that he doesn't think much of himself and the world around him agrees.  He is not very good at living and his only outspoken trait is a mild compunction for those who are homeless.  This sole characteristic, however, drives the story forward and his own ineptitude--his willingness to be swept along by events rather then to craft a life of his own--draws him via one swirling eddy into a new world where he learns to live his life because death is around every corner and drifting is tantamount to suicide.  It is a delicious joy to see this person who struggles to exist become Someone.

There is a certain sickness to readers who become engrossed in this type of story.  It is a sadness about one's own sense of one's self, one's life, and the hope that if things were just "different" one might shine.  The characters in this book, for the most part, do not understand one another, are not compassionate towards each other, and betray one another with a nonchalance that is oddly breathtaking.  The small, fleeting moments when one character reaches out to another directly (the poor comfort offered Door as she returns to her home where her family has been murdered and Richard's compassion for the rat-speaker--examples that don't ruin the story) are sufficient to humanize an inhumane environment.  The social ineptitude of the cast of characters on all levels reflects the social skills of the engrossed reader and imply that the failings of the reader himself may, in some odd way, be an advantage.

So, if you read this book and like it then you are sick.  Your sickness does not coat your life with a stench that well-meaning people cannot help but avoid.  It does, however, leave you on the fringes of society looking in and aching for the teeming acceptance that the others seem to enjoy.  This book also suggests that the acceptance is as illusory as Springsteen's "Glory Days" and the way to feed your hunger is to go live your life rather then stare from the backwaters.  In this way, this book is a self-help tome for those who have this sickness.  The question is, do you have to pick up a bleeding woman from the street to go find your life?

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.