qebo's 2014 books (5)

A grasshopper on the Joe Pye, October 2013.

Books Read



ROOTs Read

Currently Reading

Read But Not Yet Reviewed

January
#01: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston -- (Jan 3) - ROOT
#02: Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston -- (Jan 9) - ROOT
#03: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer -- (Jan 14) - library
#04: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Jan 20) - ROOT (e-book)
#05: American Nations by Colin Woodard -- (Jan 26) - ROOT
#06: January magazines -- (Jan 27)
#07: Spider Woman's Daughter by Anne Hillerman -- (Jan 28) - library

February
#08: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard -- (Feb 2) - new
#09: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 3) - library
#10: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde -- (Feb 4) - new (e-book)
#11: Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold -- (Feb 10) - new (e-book)
#12: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan -- (Feb 17) - new (e-book)
#13: Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 20) - library
#14: February magazines -- (Feb 25)

March
#15: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen -- (Mar 2) - new (e-book)
#16: The Great Influenza by John M. Barry -- (Mar 4) - ROOT
#17: The Thing with Feathers by Noah Strycker -- (Mar 11) - ER
#18: Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James -- (Mar 12) - ROOT
#19: Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink -- (Mar 19) - library
#20: March magazines -- (Mar 28)
#21: My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell -- (Mar 30) - ROOT

April
#22: The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon -- (Apr 5) - library
#23: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion -- (Apr 12) - new (e-book)
#24: Animal Wise by Virginia Morell -- (Apr 23) - ER

May
#25: Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple -- (May 4) - LFL
#26: Moving Violations by John Hockenberry -- (May 20) - ROOT
#27: The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose -- (May 25) - ROOT

June
#28: Critical Mass by Sarah Paretsky -- (Jun 8) - new (e-book)
#29: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy -- (Jun 9) - new (used)
#30: Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett -- (Jun 12) - new (used)
#31: Nabokov's Blues by Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates -- (Jun 12) - ROOT
#32: Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell -- (Jun 18) - ROOT
#33: The City & the City by China Mieville -- (Jun 27) - ROOT
#34: Pets in a Jar by Seymour Simon -- (Jun 29) - new (donated to LFL)
#35: April magazines -- (Jun 30)

July
#36: Longbourn by Jo Baker -- (Jul 2) - new (e-book)
#37: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott -- (Jul 18) - new (e-book)
#38: Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz -- (Jul 20) - ROOT
#39: Rubber: An American Industrial History by Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr. -- (Jul 27) - ER
#40: May magazines -- (Jul 30)

August
#41: Generosity by Richard Powers -- (Aug 3) - ROOT
#42: Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim -- (Aug 7) - ER
#43: Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome -- (Aug 13) - ROOT (e-book)
#44: The Map Thief by Michael Blanding -- (Aug 19) - ER
#45: In Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery -- (Aug 26) - ROOT

September
#46: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis -- (Sep 2) - ROOT
#47: A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah -- (Sep 6) - ROOT
#48: Farm City by Novella Carpenter -- (Sep 13) - ROOT
#49: Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor -- (Sep 21) - new (e-book)
#50: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon -- (Sep 22) - ROOT (e-book)
#51: June magazines -- (Sep 27)

October
#52: Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer -- (Oct 2) - ROOT
#53: Finding Iris Chang by Paula Kamen -- (Oct 8) - ROOT
#54: The Secret World of a Monarch's Metamorphosis by Susan Langerock Schuldt -- (Oct 8) - new
#55: Who Needs a Prairie? by Karen Patkau -- (Oct 12) - ER
#56: The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith -- (Oct 17) - new (e-book)
#57: July magazines -- (Oct 18)
#58: The Martian by Andy Weir -- (Oct 21) - new (e-book)
#59: The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith -- (Oct 30) - new (e-book)
#60: August magazines -- (Oct 30)
#61: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins -- (Oct 31) - new

November
#62: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki by Haruki Murakami -- (Nov 1) - new (e-book)
#63: The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-hwan Kang -- (Nov 5) - ROOT
#64: Law of the Jungle by Paul M. Barrett -- (Nov 11) - ER
#65: The Evolution Wars by Michael Ruse -- (Nov 16) - new
#66: My Real Children by Jo Walton -- (Nov 17) - library
#67: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami -- (Nov 21) - library
#68: September magazines -- (Nov 22)
#69: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson -- (Nov 24) - library
#70: October magazines -- (Nov 30)

December
#71: Animal Weapons by Douglas Emlen -- (Dec 4) - ER
#72: Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz -- (Dec 7) - ER
#73: November magazines -- (Dec 13)
#74: December magazines -- (Dec 24)
#75: Conquering the Electron by Derek Cheung -- (Dec 28) - ER
#76: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith -- (Dec 29)

I came back to say hello after long absence, and I seem to be first! I'll backtrack to your last thread to see if any drama is simmering.

I was afraid to post in case there were going to be more reserved threads! But it looks like it's safe now.

I have Without You, There Is No Us in my TBR pile as well, so I'm interested in seeing your thoughts on it, but not until a couple of weeks from now when I've actually read it myself :P

>7 ffortsa: I haven't been around much either.
>8 _Zoe_: Nope, I reserved them all immediately, shoulda added an "open for business" post at the end. I was following the comment system thread yesterday, skimmed it this morning but couldn't devote enough time to figure out what was going on. Glad you've been on the case. :-) Now my comments page is all messed up, can't get at comments that I've archived over the past few days; I hope because they're in the process of making changes. Fortunately, nothing there was crucial, but I've saved all of my personal email since 1997 and have a similar attitude toward comments.

Happy New Thread Katherine! I've been meaning to get to The Selfish Gene for an age, but unfortunately too overbooked to join you this month. I really loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I discovered it a few years ago thanks to LT and will reread it eventually. Hope you enjoy it.

>9 qebo: Yup, I was excited to have a new feature to discuss at last! Hopefully they'll get all the bugs sorted out soon. I was encouraged that Tim seemed to listen to all the feedback, figure out what was likely to make people happiest, and then actually come to a decision that didn't just involve reverting everything. I'm cautiously optimistic that there will be more progress in the future.

>10 Smiler69: Well lucky you, The Selfish Gene was the 3rd quarter book, and is now a done deal. Alas, I'm at the start of Chapter 4, behind the times but too far along to stop.

Happy New Thread!!

Happy new thread! I had to look at bit at the picture but I did find the grasshopper. I cannot remember the last time I saw a grasshopper in real life..... I used to see lots of grasshoppers when I lived on the prairies but I don't see any here on the island.

>14 lkernagh: I get a bazillion of them in my yard this time of year. Not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. They're not bothering me personally, but I don't know much about them ecologically.

I don't think they matter much one way or the other unless they are swarming (the kind of grasshopper we call locusts). - Being fairly large though I bet they are a good food source for a lot of birds and other animals. I've never eaten one..... but supposedly they taste pretty good! I suppose you roast them or something.

#54: The Secret World of a Monarch’s Metamorphosis by Susan Langerock Schuldt -- (Oct 8)

why now: A local monarch expert told me about this book a couple of years ago, when it had not yet been published; the author had sent him photos of the chrysalis. I was reminded of the book when the author mentioned it in a post to a monarch forum a few weeks ago. Also it is short, and I need some of those.

This is a religious book for kids, inspired by a incompletely formed chrysalis with a window to the developing half-butterfly. I bought it for the photos, which are indeed interesting, if amateur (not a criticism, mine are too, just a caution not to expect macro detail). It is more about God’s plan and less about science.

#42: Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim -- (Aug 7)

why now: An effort to catch up with ERs. This, the most recent arrival, wasn’t yet buried by other books.

Suki Kim was born in South Korea, emigrated with her family to the US at age 13, and grew up in New York. She had already interviewed North Korean defectors and visited Pyongyang accompanied by a minder, when she was presented with an opportunity to see North Korea from the inside. She applied for, and was accepted to, a position teaching English at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), founded and funded by Christian missionaries. There she had to be secretive about two aspects of her identity: she was a journalist, and she was not Christian.

For reasons not fully explained, North Korea had shut down universities and sent students to construction sites, so PUST became a haven for sons of elite families. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, but far worse than the lack of material comforts such as nourishing food and heat, were the isolation and censorship. Though the students talked optimistically about going home for visits, in reality contact with families was restricted. Every student was paired with a buddy, ostensibly for support, but the effect was no privacy whatsoever. The teachers were occasionally escorted on scripted field trips. All lesson plans had to be approved by the “counterparts”. She devised a general strategy of assigning her students to write letters, a mystifying practice, but she successfully argued that future officials should become familiar with the format. Though the letters were amply infused with the “solicitude” of Kim Jong-il, and insistence that every feature of North Korea was the first or best of its kind, hopes and questions and personalities slipped in over time. She cautiously introduced glimpses of another world, where information could be found on the internet, where people could choose careers and travel without permission... though always with anxiety that she might cause distress for her students or provoke punishment from authorities. The constant vigilance was exhausting.

So this all should have been fascinating, and it came close; eerie routines of daily life combined with revealing incidents kept the pages turning (one culture clash all around involves Harry Potter). Somehow, though, it fell short, or didn’t dig deep enough. To an extent this was intentional; she had to avoid identifying students and teachers, so she held back details that might have added nuance or psychological insight. And she was writing from surreptitious notes and memory, could not discuss background or interpretation with anyone there. Still, the tone often tilts toward bewilderment rather than investigation, and doesn’t quite fit with the bravery of going and the persistence of staying.

I wonder what will happen to the school.

#19: Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink -- (Mar 19)
group read

why now: This was a Club Read group read already on my radar when I noticed it on the new books shelf at the public library. I read it a little too late to participate, and outdoor activity picked up just about the time I finished. So although I took a page of notes at the time, 7 months later I’m feeling unmotivated to organize them into paragraphs.

In August/September 2005 during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, a concerning number of patients died at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans; nine died in the same place at the same time and contained high concentrations of the same drugs: morphine and midazolam. This book meticulously documents events at the hospital during the disaster, and the legal inquiry afterward, focusing on Dr. Anna Pau, with facts and anecdotes and alternate realities pieced together from interviews with dozens of doctors, nurses, administrators, patients, and rescue workers.

While the hurricane was obviously a major contributor to the disaster, it was also an overwhelming layer on a weak foundation. The hospital had an emergency plan as required by law, but it was a formality not supported by actual resources. The building had problems, such as an electrical system vulnerable to flooding, that had been known but left unaddressed over a period of years. There seems to have been an implicit assumption that in a hospital crisis, the outside world would be functioning normally. The loss of electricity was crucial: without air conditioning, the heat was dangerous; without life support equipment, patients needed vigilant attention; without computers, medical records were inaccessible. (All the while, electricity in a connected building stayed on.) A major factor was the absence of behavioral protocol. Everybody went into crisis mode, individually. Communication broke down. Decisions were made without the usual checks and balances. Contradictory orders were given. Rumors spread. Staff members were unclear about who was responsible for what, and patients were terrified of being abandoned. Almost in passing, a comparison was made to another hospital, similarly vulnerable and strapped for resources, where the staff kept to the usual schedule and the usual hierarchy as much as possible, with significantly better results. I wanted to see more.

This is a long book with lots of detail, perhaps more than strictly necessary to tell the story, but conveying in sheer volume how very many things went wrong, how very many people were involved, and how difficult it was for the legal system to figure out exactly what happened and who if anyone was to blame. It’s compelling but not always a page-turner; with chapters increasing in length – 60 pages, 100 pages, 130 pages – there are few clear points to pause and assess and mentally summarize before moving on, and after the shift from hospital events to legal process my interest was decreasing. Still, if the entire book is too much, even half of it is important and well worth reading.

Yesterday was drizzly and this morning was chilly, and I enjoy cleaning the house even less than writing book reviews, so phew! a couple of old ones out of the way. Now it's sunny and mid-50s, so I'm outta here.

#55: Who Needs a Prairie? by Karen Patkau – (Oct 12)

why now: This September ER arrived promptly, I put it on my desk to post to the arrivals thread, then began to page through, and total reading time was maybe 15 minutes. I need more books like this.

This is an illustrated book for kids, one of a series. I don’t have kids available as a test case, but the illustrations are attractively realistic and detailed, each accompanied by a few sentences about who’s where or who’s doing what, and a section after the main text shows two dozen animals in alphabetical order with brief descriptions, so it’d seem an interesting activity to find and identify the animals in each habitat or context: ecosystem, seasons, food chain, life cycle. This book focuses on the North American prairie. A map at the end shows the locations of prairies and grasslands around the world. I’d think best to have other books in the series for comparison.

Happy birthday Katherine!

>23 norabelle414: Thanks! It will be, alas, a normal day at work.

Happy Birthday, Katherine!!! One more on the road to retirement when you may stay home and celebrate if you choose!

>24 qebo: That's the hardest part of adulthood.

Stopping by with hellos and discovering that it is your birthday.... Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday!

Ha! At least I am not missing this birthday! Hope it is smooth sailing at work and happy in some way NOT involving work!

Dropping in to wish you a Happy Birthday!

ah, Happy Birthday! Sorry you had to work. Anything special planned for another day?

Thanks everyone! Nothing eventful today. Family thing tomorrow.

I'm tempted to order an e-book... a page-turner for the evening. Nothing I'm currently reading is grabbing me. Though I suspect the problem is me, not the books.

>32 qebo: It's your birthday, of course you should buy a book!

I hope your birthday evening was relaxing!

How about a bit of cake?



This image is from a site called Cake Heros which I thought was very appropriate - you've done a heroic job with the Monarchs!

>34 streamsong: That's fantastic! It'd be a shame to eat it though. Well, maybe a cupcake...

>32 qebo:, >33 norabelle414: I had two in mind, wasn't sure which to choose, so I got both: The Cuckoo's Calling and The Martian.

That is a wonderful cake, and cupcakes!

I haven't read The Cuckoo's Calling but I am currently reading The Martian and can say you made a great choice with that one!

Oh, you'll enjoy the Martian!

Happy belated birthday! I also predict that you will enjoy The Martian.

>37 lkernagh:, >38 ronincats:, >39 banjo123: Yup, I started The Martian last night. As a reward for finishing a batch of magazines and making a bit of progress in another book. There's really nothing wrong with the more serious books I'm reading, I'm just not in the mood.

Crap. I'm a bit over halfway through The Martian and it's a school night so I have to stop.

Finished The Martian. Funnest book I've read in some time, maybe since Ready Player One, with which it shares some qualities.

This completes the birthday books. Return to regular programming tomorrow.

And The Martian moves still higher up my wishlist....

You are correct. The Martian does share some qualities with Ready Player One. I need to find more books with the same similar qualities... ;-)

>44 lkernagh: If you do find more, let me know.

I loved both those books, although I suspect The Martian is the better technical success. So glad you enjoyed it as much as I did! ;-)

Yes, both books were tons of fun! It would be great to find other books with that essence.

Climbing out from under that rock known as Real Life and catching up on the threads. Sorry to have missed your birthday Katherine -- hope it was great fun!

Loved that review of Five Days at Memorial. One of the better books I've read this year.

>45 qebo: - I am on it! ;-)

Happy birthday, uh, like 11 days late, which shows how long it's been since I've stopped in.... and I'm so glad you're loving The Martian.... I may have to just bump that into the next pile.

Happy birthday! Mine was five days after yours. We're practically twins. ;-)

I just finished Without You, There is No Us and need to write my ER review asap. I thought it interesting because there is so little known about North Korea and this was an interesting glimpse, but also that the writing and writing structure were a bit amateurish. Heard part of an interview with her on NPR, but didn't learn anything new.

I too wanted to see more of why some hospitals fared so much better than others during Hurricane Katrina. The legal part slowed me down too, although overall I thought the book excellent.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a first-time read for me last year. Beautifully written. How are you liking it?

Just got back from the library. The children's librarian was dressed like a monarch butterfly.

Thanks for birthday wishes! Sheesh, seems not much beyond yesterday but it's been over two weeks.

>51 labfs39: I find that when I pick up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I get absorbed in the characters, but I often don't feel motivated to pick it up because there's so little plot.

This was a catchup month, with an abundance of fluff. Countable fluff, so I'm about where I should be for 75. Of course I'm woefully behind with reviews.

Countable fluff

I've had lots of that this fall. I haven't even bothered to list it all, but I have counted it. ;-)

#62: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki by Haruki Murakami -- (Nov 1)

why now: This was a 75er group read that I became aware of because reviews popped up on several threads. I read Finding Iris Chang a few weeks ago, intend to follow up with The Rape of Nanking, a subject of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which I haven’t read. So, with this coincidence of timing, I read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki out of curiosity and as a segue.

Tsukuru Tazaki is an engineer who turned his childhood fascination with train stations into a career. At age 36, he leads a bland existence of work and exercise in Tokyo, living alone with occasional brief and amicable but emotionally detached relationships with women. As the story opens, he has recently met travel agent Sara, and after a few dates he reveals more than usual, telling her about a significant episode in his past: He belonged, intensely, to a group of five friends in high school. Though he went away to Tokyo for college, and the others remained in the hometown of Nagoya, the friendship continued for another couple of years until suddenly the others rejected him and refused to explain why. After a period of isolated despair, he reset himself, and from the outside he seems fine, respectable and responsible, but he still thinks of himself as colorless; he was the only one of the five whose name did not contain a color, and has not moved beyond this identity. Sara believes that he is emotionally blocked, and will remain so until he resolves the situation with his former friends. She manipulates persuades him to seek them out, and uses her research and logistical skills to get him started with current contact information; in the interim years, the friends have all gone separate ways. As Tsukuru reconnects with each in turn, the truth begins to emerge.

I’m probably missing a whole lotta cultural context. Sara gave me the creeps. The “pilgrimage” reveals that Tsukuru was a casualty of loyalty and denial and trauma, and I wanted to know what happened, so I kept paging onward, until... the end. WTF? And yet, I don’t care all that much, except as a matter of intellectual curiosity. The backstory is described from a distance rather than shown in action, so the people never felt quite real, and the trauma at the core is several levels removed, a causal factor but never dealt with directly. Maybe this is the point.

Oh, dear. I received this one for my birthday, and it's on the runway to my bedside table.

I hadn't realized that Iris Chang committed suicide. I was one of those who thought The Rape of Nanking an important look at a forgotten chapter of history. What did you think of Finding Iris Chang? Would you suggest I look for it?

>56 labfs39: Hmm, I haven't reviewed Finding Iris Chang yet... As a quick response, it's worth reading but I found it oddly clinical; it's presented as a series of questions (because this was Iris Chang's suggested approach to journalism), each as chapter title, with researched answers. Or non-answers. Iris Chang's mother wrote a book about her too, and I've just ordered it for comparison.

#58: The Martian by Andy Weir -- (Oct 21)

why now: A birthday gift to myself, based on a bunch of positive LT reviews.

This was tremendous fun. Mark Watney is the engineer/botanist (everyone has two roles) member of a Mars exploration crew that is forced by a sandstorm to abandon its mission mere days after arrival. In the rush to escape an accident occurs, Mark is presumed dead with no hope of retrieval, and the others leave him behind. Of course, he isn’t dead. This book is his daily log of survival. “I’m pretty much fucked.” he begins, and this sets the tone, light attitude belying extreme predicament. Well, it’s not eternal; another crew is scheduled to arrive on Mars in four years, so step one is to calculate what he’ll need until then. And calculate he does: calories, oxygen, energy, speed... making use of the available equipment and supplies not exactly as intended by NASA. He spends his days chipping away at the problems, and his evenings with the digital entertainment the others brought along: disco, 1970s TV shows, and Agatha Christie. Meanwhile, back on earth, an alert satellite operator notices that items on Mars are changing positions too precisely to be the result of natural forces...

This book reminded me of Ready Player One with its obsessive geekery and problem-solving action. Didn’t matter that physics is not my thing; the author so obviously enjoyed the game: Here’s a set of stuff. How does it work? What can go wrong? How can the pieces be recombined? What is the Rube Goldberg route from here to there? Highly recommended.

So glad for Martian love!

I had picked up The Woman Who Could Not Forget, but didn't manage to finish it. It seemed to me that Ying-Ying Chang wasn't able to be objective, and she isn't really that great of a writer. Not to be critical of her--she seems an amazing woman and what a tough way to lose your daughter.

>59 banjo123: Yeah, I wouldn't expect objectivity from the mother. I'm interested in a different POV, sorta filling a hole in Finding Iris Chang; Paula Kamen was unable to interview Ying-Ying Chang.

Really? No interview with the mother? That's a big hole. Ying-Ying Chang is fascinating, but she is a scientist, not a writer.

>61 banjo123: She tried. Seems though that the mother's book was already in progress, or there was a contract with a publisher, or some such.

Clearly a woman after my own heart, as I also linked Ready Player One to The Martian even though they are actually quite different subject-wise. On the other hand, I haven't heard from anyone of the many LTers who have read The Martian and haven't thoroughly enjoyed it!

I've been meaning to read The Martian after drneutron on LT approved the physics. Glad to hear it's fun too.

I read and enjoyed The Martian on your recommendation; thank you! I had been seeing it around for a while, but it was something you said earlier that made me finally move it to the top of the wishlist.

I'm just starting The Martian!.

You've got some interesting books waiting for your comments!

I've read The Rape of Nanking and The Woman Who Could Not Forget. I'm wondering how much Finding Iris Chang differs from her mother's story.

And The Martian .... great review! I'll have it high on my list after the first of the year.

Catching up. Yay for The Martian!

I've lived in this city for five and a half years, and we've always had a choice of paper or machine ballots. Today, paper only. The reason, according to a poll worker: when the machines break, they're expensive to fix.

>69 qebo: Interesting. I usually have a choice between paper and computer and I usually pick paper because no one else wants paper and thus the line is shorter. Today I did not have a choice and had to use the computer. But the line was only 5 people so it was okay.

Washington has all mail-in voting. No lines--ever! I love it. Mailed mine in last week.

Well yay, that was quick: Corbett out, Wolf in.

>72 qebo: That was quick, but not really a surprise.

>19 qebo: I really liked your review of Five Days at Memorial. I'm glad you got around to organizing your notes into paragraphs (as you described it) because I agree with everything you said.

Good riddance, Tom Corbett.

>74 kidzdoc: yeah!

Despite the results nationwide our little town experienced the little triumph of being the only town in five in our school to vote NOT to join an elementary and middle school merger, that would ultimately mean the closing of our own elementary school. (middle is already in the next town). It was voted down 2 to 1 and I am thrilled and relieved for our children. Our Union High School is unbelievably expensive and unwieldy and the money spent on bussing alone, well, it's a scandal as far as I'm concerned.

>55 qebo: Nice review there! I also was a little creeped out by Sara. Kept expecting the other shoe to drop and find out she had some hand in the earlier estrangement somehow.

>76 sibylline: Sometimes it's best to focus on the little local triumphs.
>77 michigantrumpet: Huh, I hadn't thought of that; would've added quite a twist. I did see her as disturbingly enmeshed.

#63: The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-hwan Kang and Pierre Rigoulot -- (Nov 5)

why now: North Korea on my mind w/ Without You, There is No Us recently read as an ER and floating around in the threads, I remembered this book languishing on a shelf.

Kang Chol-hwan was 9 years old in the late 1970s when his family was removed to Yodok, North Korean concentration camp #15. The reason was his grandfather.

In the 1930s, his grandparents had emigrated separately from Korea to Japan. They met and married and raised four sons. The grandfather became a wealthy businessman, the grandmother became a political activist, and after the Korean War she persuaded the family to return to North Korea to help build the country. The North Korean government placed the grandfather in a prominent position in Pyongyang (and took his money). But while the grandmother remained a true believer, the grandfather never had been; his criticism eventually went too far, and one day he disappeared forever. Soon afterward, the rest of the household was rounded up for reeducation. By this time, the household consisted of the grandparents and two sons, one with a wife and two children (Kang and his younger sister). The wife, deemed innocent, was left behind and forced to divorce, though she tried to join the others. The family was held in Yodok for ten years, then released suddenly without notice, probably because the grandfather died. Some years later, Kang escaped to South Korea.

Yodok has all the horrors you would expect of its ilk: brutality, starvation, disease, cold (the building devoted to Kim Il-sung’s portrait was heated; buildings occupied by prisoners were not). The story is told loosely chronologically, as Kang matured from child (half day of school, half day of labor) to young man (full day of labor). Family members were kept together in primitive huts. With savvy maneuvering, Kang and his uncle were able to scrounge food; the area near the huts was stripped bare, but labor further afield offered opportunities to collect plants, bugs, worms, and small animals. The grandmother, remorseful and weakened by pellagra, was the emotional glue, and encouraged resilience in the others with characteristic willfulness and creative cookery. (Another family enterprisingly rearranged the space and used one room to raise rats for food.)

The book was actually written by two people, the North Korean concentration camp survivor and a French journalist, then translated into English. I wondered sometimes whether a man in his 30s could remember events of his childhood in fully accurate detail, but as far as I’m aware the basic facts are not in doubt. Its purpose was to reveal the horrors of North Korea, so it is more about objective features of Yodok than about the psychological interior of Kang; though he mentions the necessity of numbing to sadistic treatment and gruesome death, and the difficulty of adjusting to civilian life in North Korea and to an unimaginably free life in South Korea, he does not dwell, and his personality is somewhat subsumed to documentary style. I’d consider it more a supplement to other books than a top recommendation.

I read this one a few years ago and heartily agree with your last paragraph. The French journalist who ghostwrote the book seemed to have an agenda, so between it and the translations ( I think I remember that the French journalist didn't speak Korean), it was a bit difficult to know what Kang's true thoughts were. Interesting family story though.

I've also been considering reading more about North Korea after Without You, There Is No Us, but maybe not that particular book....

Interesting review of The Aquariums of Pyongyang. I think I will put it on my list, as I am fascinated by North Korea. Have you read Nothing to Envy? I thought that was very good.

>79 qebo: Have you read Escape from Camp 14? That was written by a journalist based on the memories of a young man who escaped, well, from Camp 14, one of the slave labor camps. I also wondered about some of the specific details in that, but certainly the broad outlines are accurate. I agree with >80 labfs39: that the family story in this one is interesting. And both she and I highly recommend Nothing to Envy!

I read Nothing to Envy a few years ago, and thought it was excellent. I don't have Escape from Camp 14 on hand, but I'd like to read it for comparison.

I would recommended the North Korean books in the following reading order (with most valuable being at the top):

1. Nothing to Envy
2. Escape from Camp 14
3. Aquariums of Pyongyang and Without You, There is No Us rate about the same with me.

Does anyone have addition books they would recommend?

Not specific to North Korea, but certainly pertinent and very good was The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam.

Edited to try and fix touchstone...

The Coldest Winter looks excellent, though at 736 pages, it won't leap to the front of the queue.

It is large, but it read like narrative fiction. Almost.

Hi, Q! Far behind, I'm happily reading The Martian, about a quarter of the way into it. And I will eventually get to the Murakami. I expect I'll leave Korea alone though unless somebody just grabs me and pulls me in.

Years ago, and I mean decades ago, I read Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest and was impressed, so The Coldest Winter may make it to my TBR. For fiction* about the Korean War, The Hunters by James Salter can't be beat.

*but probably based on Salter's real experiences

No. 1 reviewer with Aquariums of Pyongyang! You go girl!

I really loved The Orphan Master's Son, which is fiction about N. Korea. I thought it was a good compliment to the non-fiction reading I had done.

>90 labfs39: Heh. Must be a slow day on the threads.

>91 banjo123: Oh, thanks for the reminder. I read a bunch of reviews when this was popping up everywhere awhile back, enough to be intrigued but ambivalent; I've just plopped it onto the wishlist, think it's worth trying.

Stopping by - haven't been bitten by a 'must read about North Korea' bug, but in case it ever happens, I'm glad to be aware of the good books out there.

Just a drive-by hello . . . *waves*

I was truly good about constraining the book acquisitions early in the year, but then... I went outside in March, inside ceased to be of interest, and somehow I was picking up books here and there, and I've been stacking them on my dining room table, on the stairs, on the office floor... With the 75er Swap and SantaThing imminent, I had to record them or risk duplicates. To clear space for book organization, I had to get six months of unsummarized magazines and scattered papers off my desk, and while I was at it I removed the dying printer and dysfunctional scanner and set up the printer/scanner that I bought a few months ago. To keep the newly recorded books from getting mixed up with the books that I culled from the shelves several months ago, since I don’t have enough shelf space and they’re going back to the floor but in more organized stacks, I had to mark the culled books as deaccessioned in my catalog before carrying them downstairs to the stacks on the living room floor that are for the Little Free Library and the public library book sale.

I was going to limit my book purchases to 36 this year... HAH! I have 99 books in the To Be Organized collection, all entered since last February or so, and not including the e-books. However, the good news is that they are in fact entered in my catalog, tagged for general categories, and also physically stacked in corresponding categories with stickers so I can see status at a glance. And I dusted and vacuumed too. The office has not achieved perfection, but it has achieved not-completely-absurd-ness, which is major progress. I wish I could claim that I will never again fall so far behind, but decades of precedence suggest otherwise.

I still have to deal with the To Be Organized collection and the Wishlist, but these are computer tasks only and relatively simple to do in the evenings when the light is dim.

You GO, girl!

WTF is going on with touchstones? Churning, churning, churning, timeout.

Congrats on your cleaning up an cataloging. What is the 75er swap, I think I've missed this. And I can't believe I have been so restrained, but so far only about 67 or so books in. Christmas will bump it up of course!

>98 sibylline: 75er Swap is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/182814 .

Nobody in RL would dare give me books for Christmas.

>97 qebo: Fixed. Apparently thanks to Zoe who, unlike me, was not passively assuming the elves would show up sometime soonish.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/183104
http://www.librarything.com/topic/183106

Hehe.

Thanks for looking out for us, Zoe!

#66: My Real Children by Jo Walton -- (Nov 17)

why now: It was on the New Books shelf at the public library. I borrowed two books that day, and started reading the other first, then realized time was passing rapidly and new books are not renewable so I switched.

In 2015, Patricia is in a nursing home where daily medical notes often describe her condition as “very confused”. It is partly dementia, but partly that she clearly remembers two different lives, and isn’t sure which is real. Stage set, the timeline rewinds to her birth in 1926. She had one life until 1949, through college and engagement to Mark and a few years of romance conducted mostly at a distance through letters, until in a moment of panic Mark declared that they must marry “now or never”, and she made a choice. Or rather, she made two choices, which set her life in two directions in two alternate world histories.

The focus is domestic. Tricia marries Mark, and has a constrained life with four children. Pat all-but-marries Bee, and has a more expansive life with three children. The stories are told alternately in chapters of a few years each. World events, recognizable in relation to ours as crises averted or escalated, are mostly in the background but occasionally have effects on the families. The children mature and leave home and produce grandchildren. Not much of a spoiler: Mark dies. Bee dies. Patricia deteriorates. In both families, she is placed into the same nursing home and the strands come together.

The book is engaging; I wanted to read when I should’ve been doing other things. I enjoyed the domesticity, the relationships between characters, the process of individuals wending through worlds undramatically. I kept expecting more though. If the separate lives had been separate novels, I doubt that I would’ve cared enough to continue either one. I wanted to see more connections between the worlds, the same people in different roles as a result of Patricia’s decisions, not just rare glimpses. I wondered what was the point of alternate world histories. A scenic backdrop for perspective relief? Not necessary. An indicator of butterfly effect or multiverses? To heavy a burden. In essence I think the story of one woman split in two could have been more intricately constructed, and could have managed on its own merits. Worth reading to see what Jo Walton is up to, but not her best effort.

Enjoyable review, qebo!

>102 lauralkeet: Well, there was a bit of self-interest involved as well ;)

>103 qebo: Ooh, that sounds interesting. Added to the wishlist.

Did you see where another caterpillar showed up over the weekend? I'm guessing there was a spare egg somewhere on the plant.

>106 ronincats: I did see. I've been keeping an eye on your thread because I expect butterflies are imminent.

>103 qebo: If the separate lives had been separate novels, I doubt that I would’ve cared enough to continue either one. I wanted to see more connections between the worlds, the same people in different roles as a result of Patricia’s decisions, not just rare glimpses.

That was very much what I thought of My Real Children. It promised a lot, but didn't quite deliver.

#67: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami -- (Nov 21)

why now: I read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki as a segue, and this was available at the library.

Toru Okada has quit his job and isn’t sure what to do next. His wife Kumiko assures him this isn’t a problem financially, and meanwhile he can be helpful at home while she works; she instructs him to search for their lost cat in the alley behind their house, and alerts him to expect a call from a psychic she has consulted about the situation. The alley connects to an abandoned property with a notorious reputation, where a “wind-up bird” with a distinctive sound is never seen. Across the alley he is observed by a teenage girl who is out of school recuperating from a motorcycle... accident? or maybe not... and offers a bit of macabre comic relief in her chitchat about her job with a wig manufacturer. The psychic’s sister is a “prostitute of the mind”, who was in body “defiled” by Kumiko’s brother, who is now a politician rising in prominence. Kumiko disappears, and informs Toru by letter that she has gone to her brother, which seems dubious as a voluntary action because she had married in part to extricate from her dysfunctional family. An old friend of the family, who had endorsed the marriage, dies and leaves a package that is delivered by a lieutenant who was stationed in Manchuria during WWII and tells a story about imprisonment in and escape from a dry well. Toru climbs into the dry well on the abandoned property, and enters a dream? magical? world that has real physical effects such as a mark that appears on his face. Toru also whiles away time at a train station, where he his noticed by a healer because her father, who was a veterinarian at a zoo in Manchuria during WWII, had an identical mark on his face. The healer’s son is a mute genius, whose computer system provides a more mystical than technical route to communication with Kumiko.

So maybe I lack the cultural context to notice references. Or maybe the story doesn’t make sense. There is a hefty component of meaningful? gratuitous? weirdness. If it’s meaningful, I don’t get it. If it’s gratuitous, I don’t like it. At one point Toru wonders why all these connections are swirling around with WWII at the center, and I thought ah, this will be clarified eventually, but alas no, at least not that I could discern. 600 pages and I guess the thing is to enjoy the journey, but I didn’t especially. Or rather, I was quite drawn in to paragraphs and pages and chapters at a stretch because of the meticulous descriptions, but the pieces didn’t hang together. I don’t need “reality”, but I do need coherence.

Also, a warning: I typically skip over graphic violence, but the matter-of-fact tone didn’t sufficiently mark the entry into horror so I kept going, and felt obligated to stick with a few disturbing and nauseating scenes of torture. After the first such episode, when I reached the start of a war chapter at night, I set the book aside until morning so my memory would be eroded by distractions during the day.

You have convinced me that I probably won't like The Wind Up Bird Chronicles and can focus my attention on other books. I have troubles with graphic violence and tend to get frustrated when I read books that don't make a lot of sense to me.

Happy weekend, Katherine!

New pictures are up!

I think it's safe to say that you can give up on Murakami now.

>112 kidzdoc: :-)
Well, he's not lacking for readers, so he won't miss me. I can see the appeal of the writing style. Some parts of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle were originally published as short stories, and maybe the fit into a novel was forced. The "magical realism" didn't annoy me as much as I'd expected. It was more of an all that and what's the point feeling. The description of 1Q84 looks interesting, but now we're up to 900 pages...

I wouldn't recommend tackling 1Q84 if you didn't like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, Katherine!

>109 qebo: Interesting review! I had some similar feelings about iQ84, but I really liked Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood. I was planning to read more Murakami sometimes soon, but I think I need to spread him out.

eta: Norwegian Wood is really different and doesn't have the magical elements that sometimes seem like a distraction.

I’ve hit 69 books, so 75 won’t be a problem, but it has specific requirements: 3 ERs and 3 months of magazines. Bonus will be 1 more ROOT, which started weeks ago and set aside. And I now have a backlog of 10 reviews. I’ve sent 75er Christmas Swap books on their way, am awaiting SantaThing assignment. So that’s my unexciting life on LT for the holiday season.

#69: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson -- (Nov 24)

why now: I was reminded of this while reading My Real Children, because of the similar theme of different decisions setting a life on different paths. I’d looked for it in the public library last year when there was buzz on LT, but it was a new book and not readily available. Last week there were two copies on the regular book shelf.

Ursula is born in 1910 and dies immediately because the umbilical cord is wrapped around her neck and the doctor has been delayed by a snow storm. Ursula is born in 1910 and survives because the doctor manages to get through the snow storm and cuts the cord, but she drowns in 1914 during a family outing to the beach. Ursula doesn’t drown in 1914 because an artist painting the beach scene from a distance rescues her, but she dies of influenza in 1918 because the maid goes to London to celebrate Armistice Day and returns with city germs. Ursula doesn’t die of influenza in 1918 because she pushes the maid down the stairs though she doesn’t know why she felt this was necessary. Ursula is sent to a psychiatrist because of her inexplicable premonitions and sense of déjà vu. Ursula lives many lives with many deaths, intellectual or practical education, this man or that man, England or Germany during WWII. Her family remains essentially consistent, though with different paths as well. In the beginning as a preview of the almost end (i.e. not a spoiler), Ursula shoots Hitler, able to get close enough because Eva Braun is her friend.

This book is 500+ pages long, but it’s not dense. It’s engagingly and undemandingly readable. I didn’t get too attached to anyone because, well, what does death mean when life restarts on the next page? Also I wasn’t wild about Ursula; didn’t dislike her but didn’t greatly care about her fate(s). Also I wasn’t wild about the feeling of dread as a mechanism for avoiding the previous wrong turn, and by the end I was rather muddled about what Ursula could remember/predict and how she had become so certain about Hitler, though maybe I wasn’t paying sufficient attention. Also killing Hitler is a time travel cliché. Also the world was not becoming unambiguously more perfect with each iteration, and are there infinite timelines and if so why bother? Still, again, engagingly readable.

#64: Law of the Jungle by Paul M. Barrett -- (Nov 11)

why now: Oldest of the ER backlog.

In 1964, Texaco arrived in Ecuador and began drilling for oil in the rainforest. By the early 1970s, the government had increased its cut of the profits, and demanded that Texaco give part ownership to the newly formed state oil company Petroecuador. In 1992, Texaco departed Ecuador, transferring its remaining operations to Petroecuador. Over three decades, the rainforest had become an environmental mess of contaminated water and oozing pits of sludge, a consequence of lax laws and the “prohibitive costs” of adhering to standards that would be expected in the US. Of course the people most affected were not the politicians and executives making decisions and deals, but the indigenous inhabitants of the rainforest. In 1993, Cristobal Bonifaz, native (from a prominent political family) of Ecuador and immigrant to the US, filed a class action law suit against Texaco in its New York City headquarters, assisted by Steven Donziger, formerly a journalist in Nicaragua and more recently a Harvard Law School classmate of his son. In a series of judgments from 1996-2001, the case was dismissed in New York. In 2000, Chevron acquired Texaco. In 2003, the case was resumed in Ecuador.

This book is about the ins and outs, ups and downs, twists and turns, of the Aguinda v. Texaco/Chevron case in its various manifestations. On its face straightforward: Texaco had polluted the rainforest, and Chevron had assumed legal responsibility. In reality complex: Texaco had coexisted with Petroecuador, and Petroecuador had continued dubious practices in overlapping locations, so how to determine which sites had been polluted when by whom? The rainforest inhabitants correlated illnesses and deaths with oil company activity, but how to link specific cases with certain causes? If only all the problems had been practical. The focus is on Steven Donziger, who may have begun with honorable intentions, but got caught up in winning the game and lost sight of his ostensible clients: dramatizing court appearances, inviting a promotional video documentary (“Crude”), discouraging cleanup because it would destroy evidence, composing a report supporting damages in the multiple billions and recruiting a puppet consultant to present it as objective and neutral. Chevron was far from pure and innocent, especially considering its wealth and the moral spirit of the case, but did have a point that the Ecuador legal system was corrupt, and the damages had been wildly exaggerated. In the end, two decades after the beginning, the rainforest could have been restored to pristine condition with the money that went to legal fees.

The book seems exhaustively reported. I don’t doubt its factual accuracy, and I appreciated the restrained and nuanced portrayal of environmentalists vs. international oil corporations. The style is a tad tedious; the 250+ page book is arranged as an extended magazine article, with legal/financial event after event, chronologically and monotonically. It is not as historically or culturally immersive as Toms River, for example. Still, definitely worth reading for its merits, but prepare to be demoralized.

Nice reviews of Life After Life (which I enjoyed more than you did, I think) and Law of the Jungle, Katherine.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving with your family!

Excellent reviews from Murakami to the latest ER. I perhaps ended up a shade more enthusiastic about the Atkinson, but only a shade. I have read Murakami stories in the NYer for ages and found them, even as stories, going but not getting somewhere. Someone gave me the Murakami and I might still have it lurking about, but I think I decommissioned it finally knowing I would never read it. The writing is somehow beguiling and leads you on but I didn't feel like being led.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

>119 kidzdoc: You did? I'm surprised. I would've expected too fluffy for you. :-)
>120 sibylline: There was a Murakami story in the New Yorker I finished last night, one of the Octobers, and I was tempted for the sake of curiosity, but only for a brief moment.

Happy Thanksgiving to you both! And to other USians who happen to pass by...

I can't dawdle on LT long, my cooking skills are such that I'd better start my food responsibility well in advance.

>121 qebo: Nope. I gave Life After Life five stars.

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, Katherine!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, Katherine. xx

#31: Nabokov’s Blues by Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates -- (Jun 12)

why now (where “now” = 6 months ago): I’ve had it around for awhile, and pulled it off the shelf to read soonish when butterfly season was imminent.

Before he became an internationally famous novelist, Vladimir Nabokov was a lepidopterist, amateur and professional. Upon arrival in the US he volunteered at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and while teaching literature at Wellesley he was also employed as curator of the lepidopterological collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. He wrote a number of journal articles, and continued butterfly collecting expeditions well after his career shift. Although he was recognized as a competent taxonomist, he was not formally trained, he was nowhere near as prolific as would be expected of a career scientist, and his work tilted more toward sorting through details than grand theorizing. So his classification of South and Central American Blue butterflies, published as Notes on Neotropical Plebejinae in 1943, slipped into obscurity.

This book focuses on two tasks: resurrecting Nabokov’s reputation and legacy as a scientist, and picking up where he left off with the Blues. I was most engaged by the chapters about Nabokov, biographical with an emphasis on science in its journalistic and literary manifestations. Nabokov was embedded in the science of the times, and aware of the cutting edge; in Notes, he applied modern techniques of anatomical (not merely wing pattern) comparison, and speculated on evolutionary origins. With a mere 120 specimens from museum collections, he proposed a general classification scheme, anticipating that butterflies found in the future could be placed within it. And he was right in all essentials. Author Kurt Johnson is a lepidopterist whose attention was elsewhere in the 1980s when new discoveries of Blues prompted him to revisit Nabokov’s work. This component of the book is rather inside lepidoptery, as an international team of researchers is brought together and specimens from museum and field are studied. It is probably more compelling to people who are more familiar with the professional terminology than I, but with no qualms about skimming over esoteric passages I was informed and entertained by the difficulties of simply collecting a sufficient variety of butterflies for meaningful analysis, ranging from tedious examination of museum storage drawers packed with poorly labeled specimens, to adventures in barely accessible terrain with success dependent on cooperative weather. Highly recommended for the butterfly enthusiast with literary inclinations.

#50: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon -- (Sep 22)

why now: I downloaded this a few years ago after reading the author’s non-fiction New Yorker article about the death of his infant daughter, but it faded from immediacy. With the end of the year approaching, I was looking for a shortish (to step up the pace to 75) fiction (already reading two non-fiction) ROOT (to make progress on the annual goal) on the Nook (easier to read at night than print on paper), and there weren’t many options.

Vladimir Brik is a Bosnian immigrant to Chicago, an aspiring writer sparsely employed as a columnist, married to a neurosurgeon. His wife is supportive but frustrated with his slow pace to success, and he is hoping to make a name for himself with a book about Lazarus Averbuch, a Jewish immigrant to Chicago, who was killed in 1908 under questionable circumstances by the police chief. At a Bosnian social event he meets a wealthy philanthropist, who on the basis of strategic schmoozing awards him the “Susie” grant soon afterward, and Rora, a photographer and acquaintance from his youth in Sarajevo. The grant pays for a trip to retrace Lazarus’ route, and Rora tags along.

Chapters alternate past and present. Lazarus was a real person, and the novel revived interest, though it mingles actual events with speculation, focusing on his sister Olga, who was intent on giving him a proper Jewish burial in a city fearful of immigrants and anarchists. The present is a depressing road trip though the seamy side of Eastern Europe, heavy on atmosphere and imagery rather than plot; as Vladimir broods about displacement and guilt, while Rora sees with his camera. I was more engaged by 1908 Chicago than the bleak present; in general I prefer more plot, especially when I have little to grab hold of culturally.

Note to self: Reading 8 New Yorkers, 2 Atlantics, and 2 Scientific Americans every month in the 4th quarter because I fell behind in the 2nd quarter gets to be a tad demanding and oppressive. It'd be better to stay caught up with the magazines and fall behind with the books. I can always zip through fluff at the end of the year if I need it for the count. Oh, and, timely attention to ERs would make holiday vacations more relaxing.

>127 qebo: Oh, watch out. Don't get too behind on those New Yorkers, or you risk ending up like me, still somewhere in 2008! Somehow I haven't been able to focus on them these past few months, with the predictable loss of momentum.

>128 ffortsa: Yes, you are a lesson. :-) Really, I fell just as far behind, but when sibyx started the magazine group I caught up for that year and cut my losses for previous years. This year's strategy, of reading what I feel like for the three subscriptions I want to keep, is sustainable with a bit of nudging in the spring when I'm desperate to get outside.

I got all caught up at one point and then fell back to my usual 4-6 mos behind. That seems to be the point where I get serious about keeping up!

We subscribe to The Economist and Time Magazine - when the week's up, out they go.

But it's harder with stuff like The New Yorker.

Wish I could find a good general science magazine to read - Scientific American seems to be over my head most of the time, and Discover seems to be written for eight years olds.

I tried Science News this year but it hasn't been satisfying.

My F2F book group is after me to read Nabokov - last time we tried "Pale Fire" and most of us ran screaming into the woods. But we might give him another try.

>131 magicians_nephew: I got interested in Nabokov w/ the butterfly book, but have yet to read anything by him. I had a subscription to Science News for years, but it was weekly and I felt too bombarded, also the news was in little snippets that I'd read then immediately forget. With Scientific American, I skip some of the filler and skim some of the articles, but there are typically a couple articles that I read carefully. I mostly appreciate the illustrations, which summarize and make sense of the articles. I subscribed to the Economist for awhile, but I rapidly fell behind and gave up trying. I skim or skip chunks of the New Yorker because much of the cultural stuff is of peripheral interest, but I could see it rising in importance if it were local as it is for you.

>132 qebo: I get New Scientist electronically, and until this year I was able to read it during working hours - now it's a good thing it's not on paper! You might give it a try. It's not as deep as Scientific American (as I recall that magazine), but maybe a little more than 'snippets'.

>133 ffortsa: Oh, yeah, I had a subscription to New Scientist for awhile too, for exactly that reason, full articles but not so demanding, but I think I'm maxed out on magazines until I retire, which'll be awhile. I've been juggling three subscriptions for several years trying to get the balance right (if I dutifully read any one of them cover to cover, then the others suffer), and this year I was finally reasonably successful (by relaxing the standards, skipping, skimming, scrapping midway through unless I'm seriously interested). If I get any more magazines, then the books will suffer...

On the plus side, SantaThing’s algorithm worked pretty well; my Santee has a bunch of overlapping math & science books. On the minus side, my Santee is asking for science fiction similar to Terry Pratchett, John Scalzi, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman... (described in general as “clever and funny with a deep sense of human nature”) none of which I’ve read. Anyone have thoughts? I'm figuring it's unlikely that my Santee will see this thread before the fact; it's not anyone I'm familiar with, and there are 500 participants.

>135 qebo: I can probably help you. I'll send you a PM just in case they're a lurker :-)

>135 qebo: How about The Flying Sorcerers?

>136 norabelle414: Thanks for the PM!
>137 magicians_nephew: Thanks. I'll add it to the pool for consideration...

>131 magicians_nephew: Do you find Science News too thin? I kind of use it as a guide to what is going on and if something interests me I scope it out on-ine and can usually find a lot more information.

>139 sibylline: For me, that would involve too much reorganization; reading and online research occupy different compartments, mentally and physically.

Hmm, my computer, or LT, was evidently not posting my posts a while ago. About 1:40 your time, I posted the following suggestions. And I'm a big fan of all 4 authors mentioned as models. These are the first books of series, and if your LTee has the authors in their online collection, they've probably read them.

Jhereg by Steven Brust
Carpe Diem by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

>141 ronincats: Thanks! The LTer has some but not all of those.

>139 sibylline: yes too thin and too "high level" I want a deep dive into some stories and I can't get it there

Through work I get a free daily email called Total E-Clips from the Foundation for Biomedical Research. Although it says it's for animal researchers, it also has articles with strong human interest. (Today there was one on Ebola funding and one on weight control and fasting).

http://fbresearch.org/media-center/total-e-clips/

And then of course, on Facebook, I love I Fucking Love Science.

>144 streamsong: on Facebook, I love I Fucking Love Science
Me too! I also get a bunch of science blogs by RSS feed.

#56: The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith -- (Oct 17)

why now: A birthday gift to myself, a break from more serious books.



#59: The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith -- (Oct 30)

why now: Oh, why not?

Clever.

#65: The Evolution Wars by Michael Ruse -- (Nov 16)

why now: For a RL discussion group.

An historical account of evolution as an idea, its reception outside the scientific community, and controversies within the scientific community. The gist is that scientists are people too, so pure objective facts and well grounded theory get entangled with cultural assumptions and ideologies. This thesis is somewhat sloppily presented, e.g. evolution in its formative era is characterized as “secular religion” but “religion” is never defined (it seems approximately equivalent to “worldview”), and the level is layman but background familiarity with salient details is implicitly expected. Still, the perspective is useful for making sense of modern controversies where the sideline observer might wonder what the argument’s about. The book was published in 2000 and it shows; e.g. there’s a somewhat vituperative chapter on Steven Jay Gould, and a chapter on Intelligent Design and its ilk that predates the Dover PA trial.

>146 qebo: I read those two in rather rapid succession also. They're fun!

>148 lauralkeet: I'm glad there are only two so far, or I'd be making little progress elsewhere.

Heh, I loved the first one and plan to give the spousal unit the second one for Xmas, so clever of me, eh?

>150 sibylline: you devil, Lucy!

#71: Animal Weapons by Douglas Emlen -- (Dec 4)

why now: Oldest of the remaining ERs.

What’s a product of Quaker heritage to do when he finds himself fascinated by the structural oddities that animals develop for defense and attack? Also arrowheads. This one had a biologist grandfather and a biologist father and a childhood of field expeditions to the tropics, so he took up the profession with a specialty in animal weapons as seen in dung beetles. I requested this ER because of the evolution aspect; I’m not exactly enthusiastic about weapons. This though is a nicely arranged and amply illustrated book, and its relatively narrow focus allows the author to stray into entertaining anecdotes without losing sight of the primary agenda. He begins with camouflage, passes through teeth and claws, then expounds on his topic of enthusiasm: the arms race of exotic protrusions ranging from subtle to ridiculous. The dung beetles are of interest because the bazillion (well, tens of thousands) species, some with disproportionate weapons and some without, can be studied with attention on the environmental and behavioral conditions that set body plan evolution along one path or another. Various other creatures make appearances too. Each chapter ends with a comparison to military weapons used for similar purposes, and the book ends with a section on fortresses, ships and airplanes, guns and bombs... I doubt that I would’ve stuck with a history of the AK-47 in any other context. Engaging and informative.

Interview with the author here: http://www.yourwildlife.org/2014/10/before-they-were-scientists-doug-emlen/ .

#72: Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz -- (Dec 7)

why now: Chipping away at the ERs.

I’ve been the the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, and it’s certainly an intriguing place with all manner of medical deformities. I was unaware that Thomas Dent Mütter, the doctor behind it, was far more than a collector; he was a prominent and, um, cutting edge surgeon of the mid 19th century. Orphaned at an early age, he was taken in by a distant relative who funded his education (but balked at the excessive bills for fashionable clothing). In poor health for much of his life (with lungs chronically prone to infection, and gout that hindered manual dexterity), he encountered caring doctors at a crucial juncture, and directed attention to medicine as a way to make his mark in the world. Philadelphia was the obvious starting point, and Paris the obvious next step. Upon returning to Philadelphia (with an exotically umlauted name), he attracted patients by reputation of skill and personality, and when Jefferson Medical College was founded, he was invited to join the faculty. There he remained, influencing a generation of students, until his sadly premature death.

Mütter was an advocate of compassionate honesty in diagnosis and prognosis, preparation (before anesthesia, he massaged the relevant tissue to desensitize it to instruments), recovery (he insisted that patients be monitored after surgery, not sent home immediately), cleanliness (before the germ theory of disease, he recognized a correlation of unwashed and reused equipment with infection), and anesthesia (who wouldn’t be? well, it was considered by some to obscure feedback from the patient, and to be irresponsibly risky as the dosage could not be controlled precisely). Two especially fascinating chapters detail (with diagrams) repair of a cleft palate in a young man so born, and removal of crippling scar tissue from a young woman burned in childhood; both patients desperate for normal lives, both stoically enduring the painful cutting and sewing without anesthesia.

This 300 page book reads quickly, partly because carefully selected photographs abound, but mostly because the story is told so engagingly, Mütter central but entwined with the profession of medicine as it progressed from leeches and gruesome hacking off of appendages and tumors, to recognizably modern ideas and practices. Although familiarity with Philadelphia may enhance appreciation, this book is not of merely local interest; it is extremely well researched, organized, and presented.

I have now arrived at the October ER, which I received a mere month ago: Conquering the Electron. It's excellent so far, i.e. through chapter 1, but won't be nearly as quick as recent others. I'm hoping the November ER won't arrive before the end of the year, but even if it does I think OK to let it sit until 2015.

I want to read something fluffy now, but I'm not allowed. :-(

>155 qebo: I finished that today, too! What a coincidence!

I AM allowed to read something fluffy now, though ;-)

Well, I have an excuse since I haven't received my October ER book yet (or my November one--or my May one). AND the June, July, August and September ones are read and reviewed. So fluffy read now!

>155 qebo: great review! It's not the sort of thing I usually read but you make me want to read it.

Very familiar with the Mutter Museum! One brother's wedding took place also in that marvelous front hall of the upstairs building with a portrait of a medical gggfa looking over it all benevolently (I hope).
(For non-Fluffians, the museum is housed in the basement of a grand building, the College of Physicians which houses an historical medical library and also rents out the main front rooms for weddings!) Anyhow, the museum was open during the rehearsal so most of us went downstairs to look at everything which was an odd juxtaposition, really. I took interested visitors there after that. It's too interesting to be gruesome, wouldn't you agree, Q?

>160 sibylline: rents out the main front rooms for weddings
And company Christmas parties, which is how I first encountered it.
It's too interesting to be gruesome
And that was intentional. It was an educational collection for students. Also he would buy carnival curiosities to give them a respectful home.

Great review of Dr. Mütter's Marvels, Katherine. I loved it as well, and I'm a fan of his museum, as you know.

I did receive my November Early Reviewers book this week, Keep Out of Reach of Children: Reye’s Syndrome, Aspirin, and the Politics of Public Health by Mark A. Largent, so I brought it with me and started it yesterday.

Catching up: The Evolution Wars and Dr. Mütter's Marvels have been on my TBR list for awhile; your review bumps up the latter while the former I think will wait a little longer. Animal Weapons is new to me but also sounds fascinating.

Why are you not allowed to read something fluffy?

>164 _Zoe_: Because my punishment for letting magazines and ERs pile up during garden & caterpillar season Reading Plan sez so. No marshmallows until I've tied up loose ends for the year.

And the November ER arrived today: The Bird Market of Paris. It's short, and I can let it be until January, so it doesn't add much pressure.

#53: Finding Iris Chang by Paul Kamen -- (Oct 8)

why now: A semi-random book off the shelves.

Iris Chang became famous with The Rape of Nanking, and was researching a book about the Bataan Death March when she committed suicide at age 36. The suicide was planned in advance, and involved purchase of a gun and delivery of documents and photographs to libraries for posterity. Among the people she tried to contact by phone in the days preceding her death was Paula Kamen, who had been a friend since college. Unfortunately, a conversation with Iris was invariably intense and long, so Paula was not the only one who let the outreach go to voice mail, waiting for sufficient time. Iris Chang appeared to have it all: successful career, happy marriage, recent baby; she was immersed in harrowing subjects, but she had already been through one round, and emerged resilient and engaged in the political ramifications. So what happened? This book is Paula Kamen’s effort to piece together a complex person and the steps leading to suicide. It is arranged as a series of questions, an homage Iris and a reflection of the universal reaction to her suicide: what was going on behind the surface of competence and perfection? In a journalistic sense it covers the relevant information, collected from public sources, old letters, interviews with colleagues and friends and family (not, however, Iris Chang’s mother, who was also writing a book), evaluated with a filter of personal relationship (oh _that’s_ what it meant, oh _that’s_ what was going on). In an emotional sense, it can get a tad clinical, perhaps an intentional distancing for objectivity or protection or respect. Definitely recommended, but I want to read the book by Ying-Ying Chang for comparison.

I read The Rape of Nanking and was impressed by its soul searing honesty.

That lady had stared down into the pit of Hell.

And the Japanese government still won't stand up and admit that facts are facts.

>168 magicians_nephew: The Rape of Nanking
I have it and plan to read it, but I have to ration that sort of thing for the sake of sanity.

Was the suicide to do with her own life or the emotional intensity unleashed by her research? I doubt I will read it and I don't quite see RL as 'spoiler' material in any case. I'm wondering about depression caused by taking on something too hard. And then taking on Bataan!

>170 sibylline: Seems more to have been a combination of exhaustion and manic-depression, entangled with medication (or lack thereof); and once she'd decided to do it, she went forth with the logistics. She'd become more private with old friends over time, and they saw her as being at another level of success so didn't probe, and also she had a husband so other people stepped back, and she'd recently had a baby (weirdly never mentioned pregnancy or adoption to friends, turned out she'd used a surrogate mother) who was diagnosed with Asperger's (but she didn't tell people this either). My memory is murky so don't quote me on anything. Taking on something hard is what she did, had always done, and as I noted in the review she had already dealt with one horror. The Rape of Nanking was published in 1997, and she committed suicide in 2004. She was on the book tour for The Chinese in America (touchstone brings up Jane Eyre???). Paula Kamen and Ying-Ying Chan apparently disagree on cause/blame, but I haven't read the other book so I can't say. Paula Kamen refers repeatedly to "mental illness", insufficiently diagnosed or treated.

Conquering the Electron started out great, but this is because it started out with what I learned in high school and still resides in the recesses of my brain. At 1/3 through, I hit the must-supplement-with-Wikipedia point. I feel that I must understand vacuum tubes, kinda sorta, before I can move on. Calling DrN...

The Rape of Nanking has been on my list forever, but I hadn't heard the author's story. How interesting and very sad.

>172 qebo: Oh, I read that title as 'Conquering the Election', which didn't sound like a book for you at all! Electron much more sensible.

>174 ffortsa: Yes, my main reaction to elections is "go away". (But not really; the alternatives are even less appealing.)
I have arrived at semiconductors... I am resigned to limited understanding, but the story remains interesting. I'm reading at the rate of one 10-15 page chapter per day. It'll be #75. The author has demonstrated an ability to include diagrams when he feels like it. Wish he'd done so more often.

Hmmm, sounds like inspiring Christmas reading material, Katherine!

Or perhaps I should say enlightening?

>176 ronincats: The Christmas present will be getting caught up with ERs. :-)
Or illuminating... It's a frustratingly _almost_ book, a coherent history, but it assumes background knowledge that I don't have.

The Rape of Nanking was one of the most disturbing and unforgettable books I've ever read, and it's one of my all time favorite nonfiction books. I also liked The Chinese in America.

I have Finding Iris Chang and The Woman Who Could Not Forget, but I haven't read either book yet. The husband of one of my closest friends from medical school grew up with her in the Champaign-Urbana area, as both sets of parents were in graduate school at the University of Illinois. He said that she was a very quiet and private girl, and even though their parents were good friends, as they all emigrated from China, and he and she were about the same age he didn't know her very well.

#52: Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer -- (Oct 2)

why now: Plucked off the shelves as something different. Describing his ordinary memory, the author remarks that awhile after reading a book, he might be able to remember the general theme and whether or not he liked it. Alas, that’s about what I tend to remember too, so let’s see what I can reconstruct two and a half months after the fact...

Joshua Foer got interested in memory when a chance visit to a museum dedicated to physical strength got him wondering about the mental equivalent, a bit of googling got him to feats of memory, and a comment by a memory champion that anyone can learn the techniques piqued his curiosity. He set out to interview the major players in world memory championships, and with their encouragement decided what better way to understand the process than to enter a competition himself. The US Memory Championship was regarded as within his reach; American “mental athletes” pale in comparison their European counterparts. He recruited a researcher to test his memory baseline (as expected: nothing special) and improvement over time, and went to work.

The fundamental technique is chunking. Instead of trying to remember digits individually, group them into pairs or triplets. Instead of trying to remember meaningless digits, convert them into meaningful items. The Major System associates each digit 0-9 with a consonant, so each pair of digits becomes a word by inserting a vowel between the consonants. The PAO system associates each pair of digits 00-99 with a person performing an action using an object, so each string of six digits combines the person of the first pair, the action of the second pair, the object of the third pair. (This is the origin of moonwalking with Einstein.) Instead of trying to remember an abstract sequence, convert it into tangible locations along a path. This is the gist of the memory palace (which has been around for 2000 years): place attention-grabbing scenarios in a familiar space, and step through it. The scenarios should have associations with multiple senses and emotions: e.g. ugly or beautiful, cacophonous or musical, bitter or sweet, fetid or fragrant, sharp or soft; funny, risque, bizarre. The space can be a building or a landscape, real or imaginary. Creativity helps. Creativity on the fly is difficult, but can be aided by practice with pre-memorized systems.

As you might suppose, people who devote careers to memorization can be a tad eccentric, and a survey of the field, along with the coaching sessions, yields an engaging cast of characters. Practice has its amusing moments, such as what happens when one of the people is your mother, and some of her actions are too disturbing to contemplate. The goal of winning the US Memory Championship keeps the many digressions more or less on track. In the end (not revealing the result of the competition), it turns out that developing skills for a championship doesn’t do much for life in general. While formal test results improved, recall of, say, the content of books did not. Memorization takes conscious effort; it’s not that you train your brain and from then on everything automatically settles into position for later retrieval. But if you have specific situations where the techniques can be usefully applied, apparently there is truth to the claim that anyone can do it.

10 days, 2 whole and 2 partial magazines, 7/20 of a book, and 2 reviews to go...

10 days, 1 whole (the last New Yorker of the year! but it's a double issue) and 1 partial (Scientific American) magazine, 6/20 of a book (Conquering the Electron plodding along at 1 chapter per day), and 2 reviews to go...

Catching up - I do enjoy your dry wit, Q!

Love the review of the Foer. My husband might like that book!

>182 sibylline: It's a fun book! And with his geeky inclinations he'd surely find something to memorize and recite...

9 days, 2 partial magazines, 5/20 of a book, and 2 reviews to go...

8 days, 1 partial magazine, 4/20 of a book, and 2 reviews to go...

Keep up the good work, Katherine, but don't forget to save time for celebrating the holidays as well. It's Chrismas Eve's eve, and so I am starting the rounds of wishing my 75er friends the merriest of Christmases or whatever the solstice celebration of their choice is.

>186 ronincats: don't forget to save time for celebrating the holidays as well
That's the plan. Obligations are under control, so on Christmas I can read SantaThing / Xmas Swap books.

Oh dear, I'm going to see that blinking cat eye on every thread I visit now...

I fear so. But what can I do?

Hi Katherine, just stopping by to wish you a very merry Christmas!!

>189 lauralkeet: Thank you! I'm hoping to make the rounds soon, but LibraryThing is having trouble with image upload, and I don't suppose many bug fixers are around today.

Happy Holidays!!

>191 scaifea: Thanks! I see we're both doing the mass posting at the same time...

Happy Holidays! to everyone who drops by...

Katherine, have a great Christmas and New Year!

Katherine, what a clever Christmas image! I love it. It has been truly the Year of the Monarch for you this year.

Merry Christmas,Katherine, and a joyful Happy New Year!
I'll simply add that Monarchs Rule!

Merry Christmas, Katherine. I do hope you enjoy your Christmas books!

>197 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Santa! I decluttered the dining room table today so the package is prominently enticing, but I'm not opening it until tomorrow.

0 magazines! The remaining partial magazine was Scientific American, and that plus conquering another chapter on electrons may be too much for Christmas Eve, especially since I'll be heading out the door in about 45 minutes.

Congratulations on getting through the magazines! I wish I could clear out my reading backlog before the new year.

>199 qebo: - Great job on getting caught up with your Scientific American magazines!

I have enjoyed following your reading and pretty much everything else posted here in 2014. Stopping by now to wish you and your loved ones a happy holiday season and all the best in 2015!

Merry Christmas, Katherine! I'm glad that we met in Philadelphia this year, and I look forward to seeing you again in 2015. BTW, I'll visit my parents from January 3-7, and I'll almost certainly go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the 4th, as I want to see the Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography exhibition, which closes that day.

>201 lkernagh:, >202 kidzdoc: Thanks!

This morning I opened the enticing LibraryThing packages that have been sitting on my dining room table. I got...

From 75er Christmas Swap Santa DeltaQueen50, two animal / naturalist memoirs from my wishlist:
The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony
The Snoring Bird by Bernd Heinrich

From SantaThing (which hasn't yet revealed comments):
The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond, which oddly I have never read, though I've enjoyed other books of his.
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, which I hadn't heard of but looks to be very much my sort of thing.
The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, anecdotes about the periodic table and chemistry.
The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean, anecdotes about DNA and genetics.

A pretty good day. :-)

Wow - wonderful, thoughtful bunch of books, Katherine!

It's a pleasure to know you!

Wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!
On the eve: Do I smell turkey?
During: Worn out:

Happy Holidays! Nice review of Finding Iris Chang. I may have to look it up. From my reading (her mom's book, I guess, and some internet surfing) I think you are right that her depression and suicide were multi-caused.

Merry Christmas, Katherine! Hope you've had a very relaxing and happy day.

>205 streamsong:, >206 drachenbraut23:, >207 sibylline:, >208 banjo123:, >209 cushlareads: Thanks!

I have returned from the family gathering with... another book! and a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble! Gifts are supposed to be for kids only, but my sister-in-law and niece are not to be deterred by the rules. In previous years they've given me wine because that’s what I drink at social events, which is when they see me; I’ve tried hinting and stating directly that I rarely drink otherwise, to no avail. I don't really want a gift, except to be heard. This year somehow I got through, and without the standard fallback, they both had the same idea. The book is perfect: Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening.

Great! Glad they listened this year. :)

After a lethargic morning and a moderately productive afternoon of house tasks, I headed out for mundane errands such as groceries and cat supplies. Conveniently the pet store is across the parking lot from Barnes & Noble, where I spent (um, 3x) the gift certificate on:

An Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins
Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence Krauss
Ebola by David Quammen
The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
The Philadelphia Chromosome by Jessica Wapner

Good haul!! And great that you didn't waste a cent of the voucher...

I read An Appetite for Wonder earlier this year and enjoyed it so am keen to see what you think. And the Alan Turing book also sounds promising. I'm not even going to click on the others because I am sure I'll go and buy at least one then not read it for ages, and my Kindle is overloaded with unread books.

>214 cushlareads: Well, this week I have acquired enough books to occupy me for three months, if I'm exceptionally diligent. Which precedent suggests I won't be.

Getting back on track: 5 days, 2/20 of a book, and 2 reviews to go... Obviously 75 won't be a problem; it's those 2 reviews that are dragging me down. I'm aware that the new group is up, but I'll be here until the end of the year. I'm hoping to finish ROOT #24 for 76.

Have a lovely holiday, Katherine. Got a message in my mail today that there is a parcel for me at the post office. Wonder what that can be?!

Nice book haul, Katherine! I hope that you like The Philadelphia Chromosome as much as I did.

>217 PaulCranswick: Hmm...
>218 kidzdoc: Flit through my mind when I picked it up that you'd probably read it, and I was intending to check for a review... ah, not a frequently read book, so your review from a year and a half ago is on the front page, with 5 stars.

Delurking to say that I love your illustration (@193). Did you do that yourself?

>220 countrylife: Sort of. The caterpillar is my photo (I found better photos on the internet but I was queasy about copyright). The bow is clip art. The caterpillar was actually inside a cardboard box, and the bow color was not compatible, and the edges were not easy to separate cleanly, so I played around with effects in Photoshop to obscure the problems.

Is it too early to ask, or may I inquire as to what your "monarch plans" are for 2015?

Tee hee!

>222 SqueakyChu: Dunno. I have been looking for a smaller house with a bigger yard, and various other criteria not so easily found (appropriate situations exist, but don't come onto the market frequently). So much depends on the timing. If I switch before gardening season, then I aspire to expand the operation. If I switch in the middle of gardening season, then I probably won't have time to do much of anything anywhere. The caterpillars were a lot of work. I got more efficient with practice, but they still need continuous attention, which I may or may not be in a position to give.

Wonderful plans! You have taken such a fancy to native gardening that a bigger yard will be such a boon to you and all of the creatures you nurture.

Yikes! Does your Little Free Library convey with the house...or will you be bringing it with you?

>224 SqueakyChu: Little Free Library
I'm thinking I'll ask the next owner(s). If they want to keep it, then I'll leave the box (and maybe a starter set of books) and get another.

Oooh! Multiplying LFLs...Yes!

>226 SqueakyChu: They're multiplying anyway... my brother and sister-in-law have a box awaiting decoration, and my other brother's wife's brother set one up a few months ago.

Cool! Are they located near you?

>228 SqueakyChu: Yup. All within walking distance, but different neighborhoods so they'll get different sets of pedestrians.

Nice!

#61: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins -- (Oct 31)

why now: Science, Religion, & History group read for, um, 3rd quarter...

What does natural selection act on? Dawkins makes a case for the unit of replication: the gene. Or less succinctly, the sequence of DNA that remains together when chromosomes cross and divide. This is in contrast to E. O. Wilson (I was interested to see that they’ve been arguing about this for 30+ years), who proposes selection at multiple levels: individual – kin - group. The gist is that “life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities”. Genes replicate; organisms do not. Genes cooperate in cells to keep chemical pathways together. Cells cooperate in organisms to allow specialization. It is not that genes intend anything; genes are the perpetual entities that improve the “survival machine” (organism) by influencing its features and behaviors, all other things held equal. An analogy is choosing crew members for a boat: If a boat is propelled by multiple rowers, then a single best rower can’t be determined; but if boats propelled by rowers in a variety of combinations compete in a series of races, then individuals can be correlated with winning.

Dawkins advocates a game theory model of assessing populations. Instead of assuming that a balance of characteristics is optimal for the population as a whole, investigate actions of individuals with costs and benefits to understand why the population has settled into a particular “evolutionary stable strategy”. A simple example is the ratio of male : female. This model is not a Dawkins original; he refers frequently to the work of John Maynard Smith and Robert Trivers. Which is not at all to discount the contribution of Dawkins; he makes an engaging and persuasive presentation, perhaps not flawless, but extremely useful as a general perspective. (Dawkins elaborates in The Extended Phenotype.) This book is a classic for a reason.

You make me actually want to read the Dawkins. Generally I don't trust the hyper-rational any more than the other end of the spectrum, although in the end I'm drawn towards the rational side of things as somewhat inescapable.... kicking and screaming perhaps?

I read The Selfish Gene 25-30 years ago, and my memory was vague. I was a bit hesitant to reread, because I’m not wild about Dawkins on religion, and The Selfish Gene is where he introduced the meme. Though I share his opinions about the simultaneous ridiculosity and danger of fundamentalist strands, I find his analysis of religion to be rather unscientific; it’s a poorly defined catchall term for stuff he doesn’t like that strikes me as more generally human than specifically religious. I am more concerned about the ferocity of Us-vs-Them-ism than the irrationality of religion. So I was expecting to be annoyed, and was pleasantly surprised. It didn’t seem rigidly reductionist; it seemed more to be presenting a helpful approach to understanding: try looking at things this way, and they’ll begin to make sense.

4 days, 1/20 of a book, and 1 review to go... Really I could finish reading the book this evening, but I want to get the review mostly written first, and that won't happen until tomorrow. Also I'm feeling the onset of a headache and sore throat, which is probably a consequence of spending time with other people over the holiday. Hopefully sleep will fix this.

Sleep didn't fix it. I am retiring with lemon ginger tea for awhile...

#75: Conquering the Electron by Derek Cheung -- (Dec 28)

why now: October ER.

This history of science, technology, and industry is presented in three main sections: electromagnetism, electronics with vacuum tubes, electronics with semiconductors. Through the first section, I thought it was excellent. The scientists and inventors were familiar, the technology was relatively simple and coherently described, the events were nicely connected in a story from the initial glimmerings of possibility (electricity can be transmitted along a wire to a distant location, electricity can produce light, electricity can be converted to kinetic energy and vice versa) to ubiquitous infrastructure. Early in the second section, I hit an obstacle, and had to supplement with Wikipedia. I never got fully back on track; I continued to follow the story, but became increasingly resigned to superficial comprehension.

The author is an electrical engineer who entered the semiconductor business in the late 1960s, so he tells the story with insights from inside. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It is a good thing in that he knew directly or by reputation the major players of recent decades; this is not a dry recounting of lockstep progress, but an often dramatic tale of egos, patent wars, corporate shenanigans, flawed decisions, fluke discoveries, with appreciation for careers devoted to the meticulous plodding research necessary to solve a specific problem or turn a intriguing result into a product. It is a bad thing in that he may be too familiar with the technology to realize what needs to be explained to the layperson; every so often he offers an extremely helpful diagram, but mostly he does not, and the buzzwords accumulate. Recommended for both reading and reference, but with caution.

And... that does it for the 2014 obligations. With 3+ days to go though, I may as well try to finish book #76 / ROOT #24. I began A Tree Grows in Brooklyn several months ago, and I'm obviously not all that enthusiastic, but I'm halfway through and I'm unlikely to pick it up again next year.

Congratulations on completing your 2014 reading obligations and I am sorry to see that you have come down with a head ache and a sore throat. I am a big fan of lemon ginger tea - with a big dollop of liquid honey - for sore throats. ;-)

Uh-oh. You seem to have the current plague. I hope it doesn't linger - mine lasted 4 days, almost to the minute. Good luck, and congratulations on your 2014 reading.

Well, I still feel pretty crappy but I've read through page 378/464 so finishing in 3 days should be no trouble. Sadly I have to work on Monday and Tuesday, but I don't expect high pressure.

Congratulations on reaching 75! Now to kick back and relax!



You capture my own thoughts about Dawkins perfectly. Methinks he protests too much.

#76: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith -- (Dec 29)

why now: I downloaded this e-book last year shortly after a visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden where it was displayed in the gift shop. It gets occasional positive mentions on the threads, so perhaps that’s what triggered me to read it now (where now = a few months ago); I don’t remember.

This is a slice-of-life / coming-of-age story set in Brooklyn in the 1910s. There’s not much plot, but then one could say there’s not much plot in the typical life. I enjoyed it while I was reading, but didn’t feel much motivation to pick it up again. I was interested mostly in the setting. I can imagine a kid identifying with the main character, but I missed that experience.

So that was ROOT #24, far short of the goal of 36. I finished today because I'm still sick, and there wasn't anything all that compelling going on workwise so I dredged up the energy for one small task and that was that.

I hope that you're feeling better, Katherine.

Oooooo, Ruffino Chianti is one of my faves!

And the summary... 12 months of magazines (New Yorker, Atlantic, Scientific American) and 64 books:

Non-Fiction – biology / nature (12)
Farm City by Novella Carpenter
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Animal Weapons by Douglas Emlen
Nabokov's Blues by Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates
Animal Wise by Virginia Morell
Who Needs a Prairie? by Karen Patkau
The Evolution Wars by Michael Ruse
The Secret World of a Monarch's Metamorphosis by Susan Langerock Schuldt
Pets in a Jar by Seymour Simon
The Thing with Feathers by Noah Strycker

Non-Fiction – medicine (4)
Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
The Great Influenza by John M. Barry
Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Non-Fiction – science (2)
Conquering the Electron by Derek Cheung
In Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery

Non-Fiction – culture (3)
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-hwan Kang
Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim

Non-Fiction – history (4)
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz
Rubber: An American Industrial History by Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr.
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
American Nations by Colin Woodard

Non-Fiction – miscellaneous (8)
Law of the Jungle by Paul M. Barrett
The Map Thief by Michael Blanding
Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Moving Violations by John Hockenberry
Finding Iris Chang by Paula Kamen
Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett
The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose

Fiction – scifi / fantasy (7)
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
The City & the City by China Mieville
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Generosity by Richard Powers
Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston
The Martian by Andy Weir

Fiction – time travel / alternate history (4)
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor
My Real Children by Jo Walton
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Fiction – historical (4)
Longbourn by Jo Baker
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James

Fiction – mystery (4)
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Spider Woman's Daughter by Anne Hillerman
Critical Mass by Sarah Paretsky

Fiction – classic (5)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Fiction – miscellaneous (7)
Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki by Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

>244 kidzdoc: Slept 12 hours last night, still felt pretty wobbly this morning, but by early afternoon I wanted coffee instead of tea, so that's a good sign. :-)

I'm not quite up to gallivanting about this evening so I've been sitting at the computer organizing, and I aspire to deal with household tasks over the holiday, so I've started my 2015 thread earlier than usual.

Glad you're feeling better, Katherine. Hope by tomorrow you'll be mostly yourself again. I am impressed with your year's reading. I read 75 too, but my 75 are mostly fiction with some biography and history thrown in. Anyway, you've had a good year. And you got wonderful books to draw you into 2015. I'll be interested to see what you make of the R. Holmes. I've read and enjoyed a couple of his, but to dive into 19th century science that way seems daunting to me.
Anyway, Happy New Year - and I guess I should put this on your new thread, eh?

>249 LizzieD: Yup, going on 9:30pm and I feel pretty near normal. I hear through the grapevine that my brother has similar symptoms, so I suspect a Christmas disease vector. I really have no excuse not to read 3 roots per month in 2015, since everything I got for Christmas this year will count... Though maybe I should stock up on light fiction tomorrow.

So glad you are feeling better, Katherine. Such an organized summary! I need to work on mine tomorrow, whip it into some sort of shape. I'll visit you on the other side!

>251 ronincats: Didn't take long. I didn't have preconceived categories. I copied the list of books for the year and shuffled them around into groups related by some theme, then added titles.

I hope you're feeling well by now.

BTW, I was tired of reading books (I know, weird) and opened up the next 2008 New Yorker on the pile, to find a review of a book a friend has just recommended to me. And other goodies. Maybe marinating has improved the issue.

Happy 2015, if I haven't said it already. Even if I have.

>253 ffortsa: At least after 6 years of marination, you know which political articles you can skip.

:-)

I'm making my last swing through the 2014 threads, Katherine. See you on the other side!

Kath I am always impressed about how darn organizaed you are!

>256 magicians_nephew: You should see my house. You'd be much less impressed. :-)