2006 July-September zdino book blog (web log)

Books read recently by Joan Zimmerman. [Inspired in part by Catarina.net's book blog.]

Disclaimer. Links. Booker Prizes
Best books read. Books read Best writers of poetry and prose
New books on Christianity and Spirituality by Pagels, Ehrman, et al.

Why read a book?
English grammar.
Harry Potter; also Harry Potter en Español. boo The Mental Health of George W. Bush
Harry Roberts (Botanist and problem solver at Green Gulch Farm (branch of San Francisco Zen Center) from 1973 till his death in 1981 said that before undertaking any task, we need the answers to:
What do you want? How much does it cost? Are you willing to pay the price?

Reader's Bill of Rights - after Daniel Pennac in Better than Life as quoted in the November 2003 Utne Magazine - includes the rights to:

Skip pages Not read Not finish Not defend your tastes

{ September (septiembre (see also books on Spanish)) 2006 }

(9.30.2006)

The Trouble with Poetry (2005), by Billy Collins. See review of The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins.

(9.26.2006)

The Best American Poetry: 2006, Guest Editor Billy Collins.

(9.22.2006)

F is for Fugitive (1989) by Sue Grafton.
Grafton's private investigator heroine, Kinsey Millhone, in the sixth novel. One of her best.

Recommended by The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery, and about as good as my all-time Grafton favorite, R is for Ricochet.

Has a rich collection of suspects and four deaths. She develops more characters than usual and provides a larger (almost Christie-like) bounty of murders and suspects. Set in Floral Beach, a coastal village near San Luis Obispo, north of Kinsey's hometown of Santa Theresa; speculation is that fictitious Floral Beach is near Avilar Beach or Shell Beach or Pismo Beach or Grover Beach.

Sadly, Kinsey does not share my delight in nature, such as its flowers and its romantic banana slugs:

" Some winged creature swooped down close to me and then cruised away, temporarily mistaking me for something edible. I hate nature. I really do. Nature is composed entirely of sticks, dirt, fall-down places, biting and stinging things, and savageries too numerous to list. ... Now we're on our way to the moon and other barren spots where nothing grows and you can pick up a rock without having something jump out at you. The quicker we get there, the better, as far as I'm concerned."

Other books read in Sue Grafton's series include:
A is for Alibi .
B is for Burglar.
E is for Evidence.
I is for Innocent.
K is for Killer.
L is for Lawless.
M is for Malice.
N is for Noose.
O is for Outlaw.
Q is for Quarry.
R is for Ricochet: my favorite in the series so far, perhaps because of the liveliness of the characters.

(9.19.2006)

Read Poetry (September 2006 issue).

Favorites include Paisley Rekdal's "Post-Romantic", Galway Kinnel's "December 26" (in part for naming 'Tuesday, day of Tiw'), and the amazing single-line-stanza poems of Christine Garren (especially "Second Message" and "The Water").

Also I appreciate John Barr's comments on lyric poetry, such as:

" The lyric poem by far dominates as the kind of poem written today. The sole function of the lyric poem, ubiquitous as its footprint has become, is to personalize the subject at hand.
Stated more generously, the aim of the lyric poem is to realize what it is to be human. Lyric poets understand the world through themselves; a great lyric poem may end in a button of self-knowledge. It was lyric poetry Frost was talking about when he made his famous, understated claim for a poem as 'a clarification of life -- not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but ... a momentary stay against the confusion.' Lyric poets pursue knowledge of and through themselves; epic poets, at the other extreme, require a knowledge of the world and how it works. This is because the epic poem renders a world order and does so with moral urgency.
My suggestion here is that the ubiquity of the lyric poem today to the exclusion of other modes of poetry, is another sign of poverty of the art form."

Dan Chiasson praises Linda Gregg's minimalist poems in In the Middle Distance, such as "Highway 90":

An owl lands on the side of the road. Turns its head to look at me going fast, window open to the night on the desert. Clean air, and the great stars. I'm trying to decide if this is what I want.

His comments on the style Mary Karr shows in Sinner's Welcome are apt also: "There has never been a style more gilded with workshop aptness." His pan of Jane Hirshfield's After, however, is unnecessarily bitter: "She's cutting up expired credit cards. ... has made a career of recommending thought-gimmicks to rid ourselves of consciousness ... Poem after poem reports the same findings from their small, tentative forays into the real worls."

(9.17.2006)

The Body in the Library (1941) by Agatha Christie.
The Miss Marples detective novel on the list of recommended reading as prototypes for the weekend novelist.

(9.16.2006)

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters.
A nominee for 2006 Booker Prize. Love and grief on the home front in World War Two London. This big book has some good writing but it drags a bit. I started reading this but it was so slow that I switched to the CD so I could let it roll during domestic chores. It turned out better than its desolate beginning.

(9.13.2006)

Teach Yourself Sudoku (2005)
by James Pitts.

A delightful and informative Sudoku book. Clear advice and tips with helpful diagrams.

The puzzles are true Sudokus (i.e., symmetrical) and at varying levels (beginner, novice, intermediate, expert).

Amusing quotes about logic and numbers.
See also how to keep your mind young with Sudoku. How to solve sudoku -- easy rules.

(9.12.2006)

Su Doku for Dummies (2005) by Andrew Heron and Edmund James.
Very little information; essentially a collection of puzzles.
Teach Yourself Sudoku by James Pitts is much better. See also how to keep your mind young with Sudoku. How to solve sudoku -- easy rules.

(9.11.2006)

Gorky Park (1981) by Martin Cruz Smith.
Heavy handed; sometimes crude and coarse; too long. However, it's on the list of recommended reading as prototypes for the weekend novelist.

(9.10.2006)

When, by the Titanic (2006) by John Pursley III.
This manuscript is the 2006 Portlandia Chapbook Contest Winner, under the leadership of Portlandia's Chief Editor, Karen Braucher.

The best poems are "Evening Having Come Upended--", which tells a childhood story in reverse, and "Capturing a Plum Blossom" (though here his affectation of capitalizing the first letter of each line trips me up at 'Fleeting'):

He is painting. He says, "It's a still life with domestic Fleeting." I think It's a bit much for this world, But don't say so. Instead ... "the way The masks capture the essence Of both the animal's External & internal form." "No," he says, "Like a vase, a deck of cards, And an old rubber fire engine."

(9.9.2006)

Listened to: Chronicles: Volume One (2004) by Bob Dylan.
The first installment of his autobiography. A mixture of clumsy ("my destiny wouldn't be made manifest") and poetic writing. The most interesting parts are his descriptions of his process for composing the lyrics of various songs, and his description of a motorcycle ride with his wife into the countryside from New Orleans, and the places he sees and people he talks with.

(9.8.2006)

Final Gifts: understanding the special awareness, needs, and communications of the dying (1992)
by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley.

(9.3.2006)

Listened to: E is for Evidence (1988) by Sue Grafton.
Grafton's private investigator heroine, Kinsey Millhone, in the fifth novel.
Other books read in Sue Grafton's series include:
A is for Alibi .
B is for Burglar.
I is for Innocent.
K is for Killer.
L is for Lawless.
M is for Malice.
N is for Noose.
O is for Outlaw.
R is for Ricochet. My favorite in the series so far, perhaps because of the liveliness of the characters.
Q is for Quarry.

(9.2.2006)

Listened to Lost in a Good Book: a Thursday Next novel (2002), by Jasper Fforde.
A delight. Includes the introduction of Thursday Next to the interior world of the book, particular through her tutor, Miss Haversham.
The second Fforde/Thursday book:
1. The Eyre Affair (2001).
2. Lost in a Good Book: a Thursday Next novel (2002).
3. The Well of Lost Plots: a Thursday Next novel (2003).
4. Something Rotten (2004).

(9.1.2006)

Finished Theft: a Love Story by Peter Carey.
A nominee for 2006 Booker Prize. Hilarious satire about painters, authenticators, and inappropriate behavior by just about everyone. Lots of brilliant metaphors relating colors and alcohol (one of the two narrators being an alcoholic).
Two narrators. One is the painter who emblazons his paintings with quoted text in shouty letters. The other is his brother who has even less understanding of a social contract and who dots upper-case words around his story showing how he is quoting things that he's been told to do or not do.

{ August (agosto (see also books on Spanish)) 2006 }

(8.31.2006)

Finished Cornhuskers by Carl Sandburg.
22 poems, from 3 lines to several pages. The opener, "Prairie", is very Whitman-esque, with long lines, and lists, and repeated phrases, and exuberance.
This book won the second (1919) Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Sandburg later (1951) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg.

(8.30.2006)

Finished The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale by Sara Teasdale.
Includes poems from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale, for which she won the first (1918) Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

(8.29.2006)

Finished listening to Eleventh month, eleventh day, eleventh hour by Joseph E. Persico.
Non-fictional report of World War One, quoting British, North American, French, and German writings (especially letters home) of the foot shoulders and of a few ranking officers. The non-romance of war is illlustrated in the rat shooting, cootie (louse) infestations, shell shock, and trench flooding and collapse, and diabolical marches across open killing fields toward enemy trenches. Seems repetetive because of jumping back and forth in time so much and folloing the fates of so many people.
One quote of a bemused French soldier, however, is:

"The French are fighting for la Patrie [the homeland of their forefathers], the English are fighting for commerce, ... and the Americans are fighting for souvenirs."

In the last few hours of WWI, after the Armistice was signed and before it went into effect at 11 a.m. on the battle line, the Allied commanders continued to push their men forward, causing 11,000 casualties &emdash; more than during the WWII invasion of Normandy.

(8.28.2006)

Skimmed The collected stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel.
Brilliantly leaping; unpredictable yet exactly as they have to be. See also her At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: Stories.
Chuck Palahniuk, in Stranger than Fiction: True Stories, assures us that he is a huge fan of her work. His own fiction is clearly influenced by hers. See:

(8.27.2006)

The complete works of the Gawain-poet: In a modern English version with a critical introduction (1965) by John Gardner; Woodcuts by Fritz Kredel.

(8.26.2006)

Skimmed Spunk & bite : a writer's guide to punchier, more engaging language & style (2003) by Arthur Plotnik.
Tries way too hard to be interesting and hip.

(8.25.2006)

Abandoned Hayduke lives!: a novel by Edward Abbey, published posthumously. The original terrific The Monkey Wrench Gang was better.

(8.24.2006)

End-of-summer-house cleaning; books nostalgically skimmed and released include:

Confessions of an eco-warrior by Dave Foreman, co-founder of EARTH FIRST!
"If there is one theme that consistently runs through this book, other than the intrinsic value of all natural things and the need for personal action by every one of us, it is an embracing of diversity."
"The Principles of Monkey Wrenching. 'I say, break the law,' Henry David Thoreau."
"In Defense of Monkey Wrenching. 'At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land, and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government, and corporations, `thus far and no farther.` If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, `If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior,`' Edward Abbey."
"Whither Earth First!? 'A militant minority of wilderness-minded citizens must be on watch throughout the nation and vigilantly available for action,' Aldo Leopold."
See also The Monkey Wrench Gang.
The Essential New Zealand by Allan Eddie.
Northern Pride: The very best of northern architecture from churches to chip shops by John Grundy.
Paris Review number 108 includes an interview with Anthony Hecht, "an aristocrat among poets" who says, concerning the composition of a book of poems:
"I incline often to think of it as composed musically. ... I like to demonstrate variety when possible by juxtaposition of items of different form, length, technique, and so forth. My general feeling, however, is that poets, with a few exceptions, sweat blood over these matters and they are noticed neither by reviewers nor by readers, and all the painful calibrations and measurements are for nothing. Sometimes a prolific poet, like Yeats or Frost or Stevens, will produce a book that has a beautiful and self-evident consistency, coming as it does out of a major preoccupation with a theme, or even with a form." [See also the related topic of the structure of a chapbook of poems.]
On learning from others: "I always read the works of others with astonishment, and read my own with a certain initial pleasure that quickly stales because now it's mine and it doesn't seem so bright after all."
On form: "One of the pleasures of reading formal poetry surely consists in seeing how well the poet is able to work within his limitations of meter and rhyme. We applaud his success because we sense its difficulty."
On voice or style: "Any good poet ... creates his own music, which in due course we come to identify with his style. If he is a formalist, his musical capabilities can be enriched and complicated by the rhythms of his individual speech."
On audience: "My audience, ideally, is those poets whose work I admire. That wouldn't sell many books."
O'Reilly Animals: A Pocket Guide edited by Edie Freedman and Nathalie Mainland.

The PC is not a Typewriter by Robin Williams (the writer not the musician). Some words of wisdom, many of which have been read and applied by the text-editing computer programs you will use; get the book to see advice and why, including:

[p.11.] "The type we are using is not mono-spaced, mono-weight, mono-sized, mono-boring: it's capable of ... the highest possible level of typographic quality in this changing world."
[p.13.] "Use only one space after ... any punctuation that separates two sentences."
[p.19.] "Never use two hyphens instead of a dash."
[p.21.] "Take advantage of the special characters available ... ® ... © ... superscript and subscript possibilities."
[p.23.] "Where an accent is appropriate, use it."
[p.25.] "Underlining is for typewriters; italic is for professional text."
[p.31.] "Use ... tabs and first-line indents ... Never use the space bar to align text." Tabs include: left-aligned; right-aligned; centered; decimal (text aligns to the decimal point).
[p.31.] "Never leave widows [fewer than 7 characters on the last line of a paragraph] and orphans [last line of a paragraph is shown by itself at the top of the next page or column] bereft on the page."
[p.39.] Minimize hyphenation and "Never hyphenate a heading."
[p.41.] "Keep the line spacing consistent."
[p.45.] Avoid justifying text unless "the line is long enough to prevent awkward and inconsistent word spacing."
[p.47.] "Hang punctuation [quotation marks, commas, periods, etc.] off the aligned edge to eliminate any visual interruption of the text."
[p.49.] "Serif type is more readable [in extended text] and is best for body text; sans serif type is more legible [for character recognition] and is best used for headlines. ... It's a time-tested and infinitely variable solution."
[p.51.] "Unless you have a background in design and typography, never combine more than two typefaces on the same page. Never combine two serif fonts on the same page, and never combine two sans serif fonts on the same page."

Prayers for Peace selected by Archbishop Robert Runcie and Cardinal Basil Hume. From Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, and other sources.
"On the long, rough road both sun and moon will shine, lightening my step." Thich Nhat Hanh
The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works by Allan Eddie.
Sir Frances Drake by John Sugden. Biography with fascinating details of the life, the times, and the politics. Includes:
1577-1580: Drake sails around the world via Tierra del Fuego, Nova Albion (Now the U.S.A.'s west maritime states) and Drake's Bay, the Philippines, Java, Cape of Good Hope, and the Guinea Coast of Africa.
1588: Battles of the Channel. If it had not been for Drake's knowledge of wind and shoals and waves, the Spanish Armada might have succeeded in its aim of clearing the way for a land invasion of England.

(8.23.2006)

Finished A Book of Five Rings [Go Rin No Sho]: The classic guide to strategy by Miyamoto Musashi, translated by Victor Harris.

'Go Rin' (Five Rings) of Buddhism: head, each elbow, each knee.
'Go Dai' (Five Greatnesses) of Buddhism; the elements are in five books, each concerned chiefly with timing:

Ground (earth):"It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things."
water: "The spirit becomes like water ... clarity ... having one thing, to know ten thousand things."
fire: "you must train day and night in order to make quick decisions"
wind: "other schools of strategy. ... It is difficult to know yourself if you do not know others."
void: "The Way of strategy is the Way of nature. When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally."

Rule for learning this strategy [p.48]:

Do not think dishonestly.
The Way is in training.
Become acquainted with every art.
Know the Ways of all professions.
Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything.
Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
Pay attention, even to trifles.
Do nothing which is of no use.

Chronology:

782: Emperor Kammu started building Kyoto.
792: Kondei ('Stalwart Youth') system established, when the Japanese army was revived by the recruitment of mounted, armored officers who used the bow and the sword (instead of the food-soldier's spear). Samuri class rooted in Kondei. [p.6. "To train in Kendo, one must ... and cultivate a level mind in the face of peril. Warfare was the spirit of the samurai's everyday life, and he could face death as if it were an everyday routine."] New training hall in Kyoto: the Butokuden (Hall of the Virtues of War). Began to overcome the Ainu (original inhabitants) and drive them onto the northern island of Hokkaido.
1390-1600: Blossoming of Kendo ('the Way of the Sword'), with education in both sword exercises and Chinese classics; "Bunbu itchi" or 'Pen and sword in accord'.
1582: Assassination of Shogun (military dictator) Oda Nobunga and his succession by the commoner Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who began to disband the provincial armies, leaving unemployed samurai (each a 'ronin' or 'wave man') wandering through Japan.
1584: Miyamoto Musashi born in Miyamoto village into a branch of the powerful Harima clan of Samurai in the southern island of Kyushu. Musashi: ronin; would pursue the ideal of the warrior, seeking enlightenment through Kendo, with duel of revenge and tests of skill. Strong-willed, large, violent.
1598: Hideyoshi died, succeeded by Tokugawa dynasty.
1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu became Shogun of Japan, after defeating Hideyori (son of Hideyoshi) at battle of Seki ga Hara. Lip service to Emperor of Japan (in Kyoto), while curtailing Emperor's involvement with government. Established government in Edo (now Tokyo), site of his large castle. Introduced stable government and bureaucracy. Yagyu school of Kendo eventually provided secret police of Tokugawa bureaucracy.
1612: Musashi's most famous duel was to kill Kojiro, by surprise (shock and awe), strength, and tactics. Stopped using real swords in duels, now he was invincible.
1614: At 30, Musashi decided his previous victories were not due to strategy, so he began to study strategy.
1616: Tokugawa Ieyasu died, leaving in effect an hereditary shogunate till 1868. The established pervasive bureaucracy kept a rigid class society with samurai at top, then farmers, artisans, and lastly the merchants.
1634: At 50, Musashi came to understand strategy.
1638: Shmawara Uprising. Musashi on field staff responsible for resulting massacre of Japanese Christians. Japan closed to foreigners for next two centuries.
1643: Musashi retires to seclusion in a mountain cave at Reigendo.
1645: Musashi writes Go Rin No Sho shortly before his death. Becomes known as "Kensei" ('sword saint'). Much ink drawing, calligraphy, wood carving, and metal work is attributed to him.
1868: Imperial Restoration. End of Tokugawan dynasty and stability.

(8.22.2006)

Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland Oregon (2003) by Chuck Palahniuk.
A thrown-together collection of essays on the oddities (places as well as people) of Portland. If you wonder where he gets his ideas, read this book to see some real-life influences.
Other books by Chuck Palahniuk:
- Fight Club.
- Haunted: a novel of stories.
- Lullaby.
- Stranger than Fiction: True Stories (better than Fugitives and Refugees).

(8.21.2006)

Bonobo: the forgotten ape by Frans B. M. de Waal (text) and Frans Lanting (photo essays).
The make-love-not-war ape. Great photos from the photographer of Eye to Eye: Intimate Encounters with the Animal World.

(8.18.2006)

The Weekend Novelist (1994) by Robert J Ray.

(8.17.2006)

Finished Murder with Mirrors (1952) by Agatha Christie.
A 'Miss Marple' mystery with the inevitable collection of numerous suspects, a lot of talk, an early clue, and a late additional motive. Also a Solomon-type ending. Interesting to look at the book's structure after reading The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery.

(8.16.2006)

Skimmed Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia: how the whole world is conspiring to shower you with blessings (2005) by Rob Brezsny.

(8.15.2006)

Finished Eye to Eye: Intimate Encounters with the Animal World (1997) by Frans Lanting.
What a treat. A gorgeous collection of Lanting's National-Geographic-quality color photographs, both full-page and double-page, in three sections:
1. One by One: relating to animals eye-to-eye and spirit-to-spirit.
2. Two by Two: how animals come together in amity and in conflict.
3. All in All: gatherings of animals.
Several are familiar from Lanting's spectacular visual symphony: Life a Journey through Time.
In the rear of the book, Lanting gives information on his equipment and techniques. Finally he gives notes on each photograph, together with a square-inch kind of shot.

(8.14.2006)

Finished Saints : who they are and how they help you (1994) general editor, Elizabeth Hallam.
Over 150 saints of patronage and protection, including St. Columba, patron saint of poets. See also: new books on Christianity and Spirituality.

(8.13.2006)

Finished The Tassajara recipe book: favorites of the guest season (1985) by Edward Espe Brown.
My favorites include: Brian's Mango Ice Cream; Fig Bread; Scrambled Tofu.

(8.12.2006)

Finished The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery (1998) by Robert J Ray and Jack Remick.

(8.7.2006)

Finished At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: Stories (1990) by Amy Hempel.

Sixteen remarkable short stories, ostensibly in 137 pages but actually in about 100 pages once you subtract the boiler plate. So they average 6 pages/story or about 1500 words each. The shortest, "The Lady Will Have the Slug Louie" is about people and animals and their eating preferences:

My brother keeps a boa constrictor for a pet. The preying snake suffers from a vitamin deficiency, so my brother buys a large jar of powdered high-potency supplement. Before each meal, he dips live mice in water, then drops them in the jar. He shakes the covered jar until each mouse wears a healthy coat of vitamins A through E. Then he feeds the coated mice to the snake.
When my brother and I were young, I mixed dirt with his scrambled eggs.

Holiday Reinhorn (Big Cats) appears to be a student of Hempel's in-your-face jump-around style.

Chuck Palahniuk, in Stranger than Fiction: True Stories, assures us that he is. For examples see his:

(8.5.2006)

Skimmed The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins.
"As readable and vigorous a defense of Darwinism as has been published since 1859."

(8.3.2006)

Finished listening to the CD of Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford.
A lively and well written memoir of a member of the U.S. Marines (i.e., a "jarhead"), who was a sharpshooter and a decorated veteran of the first (1990) USA invasion of Iraq, Operation Desert Storm and the waiting period immediately before it (Operation Desert Shield). Swofford reads his own book in a thin, flat voice, which calms down the intensity of the terror and aggression in much of what he reports.
And he explains what war is about -- for those who missed the point:

War is about revenge

After this book, I have a little more sense of what George Hayduke (the ex-marine and primary protagonist in The Monkey Wrench Gang) might have experienced. He thus seems a little less extreme and weird than on first reading.

{ July (julio (see also books on Spanish)) 2006 }

(7.29.2006)

Finished The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) by Edward Abbey.
A book of eco-defense. The four protagonists are fairly clear that they are attacking machines, not people. As such, they are not performing terrorism but sabotage.
Note Abbey's key rules monkeywrenching, as propounded by Doc Sarvis in this book and the sequel Hayduke Lives!:
1. Nobody gets hurt. Nobody you know. Nobody you don't know. Not even yourself.
2. Don't get caught.
3. If you get caught, you're on your own.
While The Monkey Wrench Gang is a novel, it could serve as a handbook that our beloved French Resistance would have treasured in WWII, for recipes of how to incapacitate or destroy the machinery of the invaders. Were the USA to be invaded, it could come in handy for the Utah Resistance, the Nevada Resistance, the Texas Resistance, the Indiana Resistance, etc. A movie may be made in 2007.
See also Black sun : a novel (1971) by Edward Abbey.

(7.28.2006)

Listened to The big over easy [a nursery crime] , by Jasper Fforde.
All right to listen to while doing chores, but not as good as the Fforde/Thursday books: The Eyre Affair. Lost in a Good Book: a Thursday Next novel. Something Rotten. The Well of Lost Plots: a Thursday Next novel.

(7.26.2006)

Love Songs (1917) by Sara Teasdale.
This book won the first (1918) Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (at that time called the Columbia University Poetry Society prize) and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America.

(7.23.2006)

Frogpond (Volume XXIX, 2), excellent haiku journal.

(7.21.2006)

Dipped into The Triathletes Guide to Mental Training (2005) by Jim Taylor and Terri Schneider.
Includes many ways to self-access and modify thoughts and routines:
- Prime triathlon profiling.
- Prime triathlon pyramid; the book has a chapter on each factor, starting at the base (Motivation) and continuing to the pinnacle (Pain):
  1. Motivation
  2. Confidence
  3. Intensity
  4. Focus
  5. Emotions
  6. Pain
- Tools for triathlon success. Progress = Vision + Motivation + Goals
- Special concerns:
  1. Psychology of injury
  2. Ironman preparation and racing
  3. Tips from the top
  4. The healthy side of triathlon
But if triathlon is too much, try Nordic walking.

(7.20.2006)

77 Dream Songs (1964) by John Berryman.
1965 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Mostly obscure. Self-indulgent poems of appetites and self-pity. Not a fan, though many are.
Jeffrey Alan Triggs (quoted http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/berryman/song384.htm) noted "The balance between anguished confession and objective statement that Berryman established with the character of Henry in 77 Dream Songs ... Their style, the mad comic jumble of voices that performed a strange and wonderful colloquy of the damned."
William J. Martz (quoted http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/berryman/song76.htm) was mystified by many of the symbols in a "fairly representative Dream Song from 77 Dream Songs ... 'Dream Song 76, Henry's Confession' ... the handkerchief and the sea must become unifying symbols, must take us into the subject. This they do not do in a complete way. ... metaphor is detached from its subject. Part of the problem is that the reference ... is itself vague. The referent of lines 9-11 is too personal to the speaker to have universal meaning."

(7.19.2006)

Stranger than Fiction: True Stories (2004) by Chuck Palahniuk.
Interesting collection of essays on:
1. Groups of people (even if they have never met) like the castle builders ("Confessions in Stone").
2. Portraits of somewhat-famous people like Juliette Lewis ("In her own words") and
  Amy Hempel ("Chasing Amy"): "She breaks your heart. First and foremost. That evil Amy Hempel. ... A good story should make you laugh and a moment later break your heart. The last bit is you will never write this well. ... At any horrible moment, you might pick up a copy of Amy Hempel and find your best work is just a cheap rip-off of her worst". and
  a fan essay to Mr. Ira Levin ("Dear Mr. Levin"), whose work includes The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby. You maybe get a hint of what Palahniuk aspires to do in his books as well as seeing it in Levin's:
  "take some of the thorniest issues of our culture and charm us into facing the problems. ... On our lunch breaks, waiting for a bus, lying in bed, you have us face these Big Issues, and fighting them. ... In big, funny, scary ways, you acknowledge our faults. The problems we're too afraid to recognize. And by writing, you give us less to fear about living."
3. Personal essays about himself, such as what remained to him after someone murdered his father ("Consolation Prizes").
Shows where he finds in the 'real' world some of his ideas in his fiction:
- Fight Club (1996).
- Haunted: a novel of stories.
- Lullaby (2002).

(7.17.2006)

Finished listening to Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages (2003) by Richard E. Rubenstein.

Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages (2003)
by Richard E. Rubenstein.

A delightful fast-paced chronicle of Aristotle's lost-and-found influence on the major Western religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), and the enthusiasms, obsessions, insights, and wars among Christian followers and opposers of Aristotle's teachings. Aristotle was the fourth-century-B.C. philosopher who gave us:

"the idea that the world our senses show us is real, not just a shadow of reality; that humans using their reason are capable of discovering general truths about this world; that understanding phenomena means comprehending relationships of cause and effect; and that natural processes are developmental, revealing to skillful inquirers orderly patterns of growth and change."

Timeline of some lives, to give context to the time when Aristotle lived:

581-497 BCE: Pythagoras of Samos.
550-480 BCE: Siddhartha.
485-415 BCE: Protagoras of Abdera, Greece.
470-399 BCE: Socrates.
450-387 BCE: Aristophanes.
460-360(?) BCE: Democritus.
427-347 BCE: Plato.
384-322 BCE: Aristotle.
351 BCE: Demosthenes (384?-322 BCE) delivers 1st 'Philippic' against Philip II of Macedon.
351 BCE: Aristotle becomes teacher to Alexander the Great.
335 BCE: Aristotle founds the Peripatetic school of philosophy in Athens.

In the mid-twelfth century, Europe scholars translated Aristotle's great works from Arabic into Latin, particularly Aristotle's De Anima [On the Soul]. The religious establishment reeled under the re-covered new concepts of the natural world and the soul of man. This led to work by:

Abelard: Pierre Abelard (1079-1142). Charismatic.
Al-Farabi.
Al-Ghazzal.
Albertus Magnus (Germany 1207? - 1280). Ethical, inclusive, intelligent reformer. Promoter, teacher, and friend of Thomas Aquinas, with whom he adaptated Aristotelian principles to systematic theology and attempted to reconcile Aristotelianism to Christianity. Enquiring mind; one of the first and greatest natural scientists, like Roger Bacon.
Anselm (b.Italy 1033-1109). Theologian. Archbishop of Canterbury.
Aquinas: Thomas Aquinas (Sicily 1225? -1274). "The Angelic Doctor." Italian theologian and Dominican monk. He argued for God's existence using Aristotle's concepts of an Unmoved Mover and First Cause. Also that reason is a necessary component in faith's ability to understand God and the world. Pupil of Albertus Magnus, with whom he adaptated Aristotelian principles to systematic theology; attempted to reconcile Aristotelianism to Christianity.
Augustine, Saint (d.604). Missionary to England. First archbishop of Canterbury.
Avicenna or ibn-Sina (980-1037). Arab physician and philosopher.
Bacon: Roger Bacon (1214?-1294). English scientist and philosopher. Enquiring mind; one of the first and greatest natural scientists.
Boethius: The monk Boethius (6th century BC) argued that reason and understanding were essential elements of faith; translated Aristotle.
Duns Scotus: John Duns Scotus (1265?-1308). "The Subtile Doctor." Scottish scholastic and theologian. Opponent of William of Ockham.
Maimonides: Moses ben Maimonides (1135-1204): Spanish rabbi, philosopher, and physician.
Ockham: William of Ockham (1300?-1349?). "The Invincible Doctor." English Franciscan and scholastic philosopher. Opponent of Duns Scotus. He "liked to argue that God could, if he wished, condemn the innocent and reward the guilty, or make two solid objects occupy the same place at the same time. The point was to demonstrate that God's absolute freedom and power are not limited by our notions of justice or common sense."

Related books:

Bart D. Ehrman's lectures on Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002).
Bart D. Ehrman's Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A historian reveals what we really know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine

Aristotle had created a new system of philosophy that focused on the material world, whose operations he explained by a series of causes. In the second and third centuries A.D., Western Christian scholars suppressed Aristotle's teachings, which seemed to challenge their doctrines of faith and God's supernatural power. By the seventh century, Muslims discover Aristotle's writings and his rationalist philosophy and principles of logic.

One of the best books read in 2006.

(7.15.2006)

Development as freedom (1999) by Amartya Kumar Sen.

Mr. Sen is a great social economist and has received a Press Release from the Nobel Prize Committee regarding the awarding of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (Nobel prize for economics) in 1998 to Amartya Sen for his work in welfare economics.

The first paragraph of his book's Introduction contains:

"Development can be seen, it is argued here, as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. .... Viewing development in terms of expanding substantive freedoms directs attention to the ends that make development important, rather than merely to some of the means that, inter alia, play a prominent part in the process."

He lists five types of freedom:

Political freedoms.
Economic facilities.
Social opportunities.
Transparency guarentees.
Protective security.

Sen based the book on his five lectures to the World Bank in 1996 and one lecture in 1997. Sen divided the material into 12 chapters are:

The perspective of freedom.
The ends and means of development.
Freedom and the foundations of justice.
Poverty as capital deprivation.
Markets, state and social opportunity.
The importance of democracy.
Famines and other crises.
Women's agency and social change.
population, food and freedom.
Bulture and human rights.
Social choice and individual behavior.
Individual freedom as a social commitment.

(7.14.2006)

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004) by Alexander McCall Smith.
Asks for accepting 'we all make mistakes', by the somewhat implausible step of having Senior Detective Mma Precious Ramotswe forget that she was already married when she made her second marriage. Assistant Detective Mma Makutsi solves both professional and personal problems, and becomes a little obsessed with shoes!
Others read:
Morality for Beautiful Girls.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe.

Forget other series by the same author, including the boring: At the villa of reduced circumstances.

(7.13.2006)

Skimmed Tim O'Reilly in a Nutshell (2004), the collected writings of the founder of O'Reilly Media, Inc. in preparation for discard.

A 2002 essay argues that:

Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy. [This relates to the 'long tail' that large-inventory on-line providers find economic to supply.]
Piracy is progressive taxation. [It's more likely to be a bigger impact on on the well-known.]
Customers want to do the right thing, if they can.
Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy. [A shop may not realize for weeks or months that a book has been shop-lifted. Whereas an online copy is never out of stock.]
File-sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing; they threaten existing publishers.
"Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service.
There's more than one way to do it. [Use multiple forms of distribution of your product: paper, on-line purchase, on-line free,

A 2002 essay argues: "Buy where you shop." Good advice. If you browse in a local store, buy there. If you browse on-line, buy there:

"Don't just look for the best price. Look for the best value. And if that value, for you, includes the ability to page through a book, support your local bookseller... the future we create is even more the result of small decisions we make every day."

Finally he lists core books that have shaped his culture:

The Meaning of Culture by John Cowper Powys, who O'Reilly says identified culture as "the incorporation of music, art, literature, and philosophy, not just into your life or your CV but into who you are", and explained that "what we read can enrich what we experience, and what we experience can enrich what we read":
The Golden Warrior by Hope Muntz.
The Way of Life According to Lao Tsu by Tao Te Ching, translated by Witter Bynner.
The Palm at the End of the Mind by Wallace Stevens. "His meditations on the relationship of language and reality have entranced me for more than thirty years. I keep rereading the same poems, and finding more and more in them."
Resselas by Samuel Johnson, "one of my heroes ... Johnson's work is a wonderful reminder that our minds have prodigious energy that must be focused on the right objects, and that much human pathology comes from having insufficient objects for our striving."
The Outsider by Colin Wilson. Addresses "the untapped power of the mind and its constant battle with the world, to make sense of it, or be broken by it". Also his The Mind Parasites.
An Introduction to Realistic Philosophy by John Wild.
Science and Sanity by Alfred Korzybski. General semantics. Also The World of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt.
Rissa Kerguelen by F.M.Busby. "The role of entrepreneurship as a 'subversive force'. In a world dominated by large companies, it is the smaller companies that keep freedom alive, with economics as at least one of the battle grounds."
Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright. Utopian. "Physical labor is a wonderful antidote to the work of the mind."
The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. Complex historical novels of 16th century, featuring "a brilliant leader who isn't afraid of the opprobrium of his peers... He was a hero I aspired to emulate."
Dune by Frank Herbert: "full of wonderful concepts of how to come to grips with a world out of our control. ... The core message of all Herbert's work is that we can't control the future, but we can control our response to it, surfing the edge of risk and change."
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn: "what we already believe shapes what we see. ... Pattern recognition is impeded if you are trying to overlay an existing pattern on the facts rather than letting the facts sit quietly until they tell their own story."

Some books about science and technology that have also had some influence on him:

Code and other Laws of Cyberspace by Larry Lessig. "This book gave me a whole new set of tools for thinking about the complex interplay between four forces: government laws and regulations, social norms, technology, and markets. Lessig makes a simple but profound case that you can't think of technical issues in isolation from their legal and cultural context."
The Unix Programming Environment by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike.
On Writing Well by William K. Zinsser.

Some books about business:

The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. "An analysis of why great companies fail, because innovation often requires throwing out everything that has made you successful in the past." And that innovations don't have to be disruptive: they can be "sustaining technologies (cheaper, faster, better versions of existing technologies".
Built to Last by James Collins and Jerry Porras. It's the cult-like strong values of great companies that makes them stand out.
Positioning and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Read if you want to "start a business with impact".

(7.12.2006)

Skimmed Programming Perl (1991) by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz in preparation for discard. Tim O'Reilly in a Nutshell says this is O'Reilly's most successful book (600,000 copies in print as of 2002).
Best parts are the index and the 33-page glossary with gems ranging from:
Actual Arguments
The scalar values that you supply to a subroutine when you call it. When you call &piglatin('bingo'), the string 'bingo' is the actual argument. Note: be very careful in choosing your terms for actual arguments -- they sometimes turn violent.
to:
Wrapper
A program that runs some other program for you, modifying some of its input or output to better suit your purposes. More generally, just about anything that wraps things up. And that just about wraps things up.

(7.11.2006)

Haunted: a novel of stories by Chuck Palahniuk.
Twenty-three stories that horrify, amuse, and disgust. They're told by people that have answered an ad for 3 months of free board and lodgings at a writer's retreat and enter Lord of the Flies. They proceed to kill each other.
A couple of laugh-out-loud moment, and a lot of gross material that I skimmed over. Some re-use of ideas from previous books: killing people by perverting various new-age practices showed up in as in Lullaby; fighting to a pulp was the core of Fight Club.
The New York Post says it best: "To Palahniuk's credit, there is something here to appall almost every sensibility. The author has a singular knack for coming up with inventive new ways to shock and degrade."
And Time Out New York also nails it: "Summer reading for people who like their lit doused in bodily fluids... Haunted has an anarchic sensibility that hurdles over the top."
And The Cincinnati News Record: "Searing and honest. ...His nasty detail and unimaginably horrible scenarios will give some people nightmares. This creepy action masterpiece could be the definitive novel of our time for its genre."

(7.10.2006)

Abandoned The Reformation by Patrick Collinson.

(7.9.2006)

Read Poetry (July/August 2006 issue), "The Humor Issue".
Most of the poems are weak, along the lines of pastiches or limericks.
The funniest section is the prose "Ask the Poetess", especially for its application of the title "Poetess" (Daisy Fried) to male as well as female poets. The "Want Ads", are somewhat predictable. Some of the contributors' notes are delightful and others are juvenile.

(7.8.2006)

Skimmed Political Fictions (2001) by Joan Didion.

(7.7.2006)

The Tattooed Map (1995) by Barbara Hodgson. A fiction of pictorial journal and mystery.

(7.6.2006)

Finished re-listening to Evolution: the history of a scientific theory (2004) by Edward J. Larson

Evolution (by Edward J Larson) summarizes lots of history and science, as well as the evangelical legislation of terror to protect the young from the idea that monkeys, slugs, and microbes are all God's chillun - don't know about viruses.

(7.5.2006)

Soul Collage (2001) by Seena B. Frost.
Creation of personal 'Neter' ('rhymes with better') cards, the many manifestations of the One Source; the word is from the Ancient Egyptians. Your personal SoulCollage card has:
- One Source card, symbolizing the One, the Mysterious, the Binding Nothing of Emergence, the Origin.
- At least four separate suites. Each suite contains card(s) that symbolize the multiple Netters of your unique life:
  1. The committee suit (psychological dimension): identify, name, and image the inner parts of your personality.
  2. The community suit (communal dimension): local allies, who are the actual humans and animals that have loved, taught, and challenged you.
  3. The companion suit (energetic dimension): animal totems that reside at the seven chakras (major energy centers) of your body.
  4. The council suit (spiritual dimension): these are the archetypes of the great over-arching themes that have shaped human history and affect your life.

(7.4.2006)

Black sun : a novel (1971) by Edward Abbey.

(7.3.2006)

Four Screenplays by Ingmar Bergman translated from the Swedish by Lars Malmstron and David Kushner (1960):
- Smiles of a Summer Night - a delightful romantic comedy.
- The Seventh Seal - the classic game of luck and skill with death.
- Wild Strawberries - a confusion of characters.
- The Magician - a 'comedy' - another confusion.

Adam Gopnik's "Life of the Party" essay on Victorian British politician Benjamin Disraeli in the recent New Yorker includes:

Various efforts have been made to claim Disraeli as the godfather of modern Anglo-American conservatism, but this is a paternity more improbable than any Disraeli ever concocted for himself. ... In America, the conservatism in power is rooted in three of the things he most despised: unquestioning faith in the free market, public displays of narrow religiosity, ... and wars fought for the moral improvement of foreigners. If there is a modern society he would have admired, it would have been that of Gaullist France, which embodied his dream of a strong authoritarian executive, an educated élite exercising the levels of power, and a people made safe from capitalist insecurity through the workings of a paternalistic government.

... His mixture of wild illusion and ironic insight allowed him to do what a mere realist could not: help a ruling class resign its right to rule without destroying its self-respect, or denying its illusions, most of which persist to this day. In poetry or politics, a Romantic with a sense of the ridiculous can do great things.

(7.2.2006)

Given the recent fuss by the heir of Samuel Barclay Beckett (on the heir's orders, a production of Godot in Italy was shut down because the two leads were played by female twins instead of males), I read Beckett on File (1985) compiled by Virginia Cooke.

I have mixed feelings about the control that Beckett wrote into his rules for play productions. I see his micro-managing POV, but I flexibility would allow for more varied productions that I would be interested to see.

Born 13 May 1906 in Ireland, Beckett was more comfortable in France away from Ireland's "theocracy, censorship of books ... I preferred to live abroad" (p.8). He was active in the French Resistance during WWII and then in the French Red Cross; France awarded him the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de la Resistance.

Beckett (p.85) did not write or talk about his work: "I feel the only line is to refuse to be involved in exegesis of any situation or issue. If that's not enough for them, and it obviously isn't, it's plenty for us, and we have no elucidations to offer of mysteries that are all of their making."

1949-1950: En Attendant Godot; translated by Beckett as Waiting for Godot. Eric Bentley (p.16) is quoted: "His English title [Waiting for Godot] does not translate the much more apt French one ... which means 'while waiting for Godot'. The subject is not of pure waiting. It is: what happens in certain human beings while waiting. In waiting they show, ultimately, human dignity: they have kept their appointment, even if Godot has not." Hugh Kenner (p.16) states "the most obvious thing about the world of this play, that it resembles France occupied by the Germans, in which its authors spent the war years. How much waiting must have gone on in that bleak world; how many times must Resistance operatives ... have kept appointments not knowing whom they were to meet."

1954-1956: Fin de Partie; translated by Beckett as Endgame. Eric Bentley (p.20) is quoted: "Mr. Beckett is a poet; and the business of a poet is not to clarify, but to suggest, to imply, to employ words with auras of association, with a reaching out towards a vision, a probing down into emotion, beyond the compass of explicit definition. And this is exactly what the so dangerously simple dialogue of Fin de Partie does.

1982: Quad, a ballet for four people. An amazing piece. My favorite of Beckett's works. No words, just motion and color. Runs a gammut of emotions.

Virginia Cooke concludes:

Beckett's ... answer to Patrick Magee's question about how (in Endgame) he should say that if he could find the key to the cupboard he would kill Hamm: "Just think that if you could find the key to the cupboard you would kill him."
... Like the characters in Beckett's late play, the work stands isolated and must speak for itself.

(7.1.2006)

90th anniversary of start of the WWI Battle of the Somme, where 20,000 died on the first day. More than a million killed on both sides in the next five months.

Finished Soul Music (1994) by Terry Pratchett.
Quite funny. DEATH joins the Foreign Legion, leaving his granddaugher in charge, to deal with Music With Rocks In.

More favorites from the many reviewed books by Terry Pratchett:

[Thanks for visiting.]

Disclaimer. Links. Booker Prizes Best books read. Books read Best writers of poetry and prose New books on Christianity and Spirituality by Pagels, Ehrman, et al.
Why read a book? English grammar. Harry Potter; also Harry Potter en Español. The Mental Health of George W. Bush Harry Roberts (Botanist and problem solver at Green Gulch Farm (branch of San Francisco Zen Center) from 1973 till his death in 1981 said that before undertaking any task, we need the answers to: What do you want? How much does it cost? Are you willing to pay the price?