Neal Stephenson - Reamde

In Stephenson's oeuvre, Reamde, despite its 1056 pages, is light reading. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The man is a master of plot construction, not in terms of technical complexity but rather in terms of sheer engagement: he gets those pages turned. The novel's most striking feature is its action sequences, in which Stephenson shows off his impressive gunfight-choreography chops.

The novel's cyberpunk elements center around the computer game T'Rain (the fictional successor to the online hegemony of World of Warcraft), whose most salient characteristic its elaborate economy, based on a virtual-gold standard whose integrity is ensured by an elaborate geological simulation which determines the location of deposits of ore within the game world. The game is designed to exploit, rather than be exploited by, the existence of "gold-farmers," or kids in China who perform repetitive in-game actions (or grinding) in order to harvest virtual items and currency that they can then sell to rich Westerners - a real phenomenon in games like WoW. Stephenson's picture of how this all works is really quite ingenious, and somehow constitutes both a more sophisticated version and elaborate parody of early cyberpunk depictions of the function of virtual spaces in the global economy, like Stephenson's own depiction of the "Metaverse" in Snow Crash.

A series of elaborate coincidences embroil the creator of this game, the draft-dodging black sheep of a gun-toting Idaho clan, and his adopted Eritrean refugee niece in a globe-trotting hostage plot involving Islamic terrorists and Russian organized crime; all of which is much too complicated to even begin to explain here. Suffice to say that the entire thing is incredibly entertaining, and the characters are extremely well-written: I thought that the terrorist Abdullah Jones, a suave Black American convert, was a particularly intriguing figure.

In Reamde, Stephenson dials down the whole "novel of ideas" business and writes a fairly straightforward thriller that delivers exactly what it promises and in fine style. The Stephensonian themes are all here, but muted and lighthearted in a way that I think is actually a very good artistic move, especially following the somewhat more ponderous (but very good) Anathem. If nothing else, the book makes me wistful for a world in which the rest of the bestseller list was even a fraction of Reamde's quality.

I would recommend the book, but read the essential Stephenson first: Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon.

Stephenson's Novels

• The Big U (1984)
• Zodiac (1988)
• Snow Crash (1992)
• Interface (1994) 
• The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995)
• The Cobweb (1996) 
• Cryptonomicon (1999)
• The Baroque Cycle
• Quicksilver (2003), volume I
• The Confusion (2004), volume II
• The System of the World (2004), volume III
• Anathem (2008)
• The Mongoliad (2010–2012)
• Reamde + Colin's review (2011)

China Mieville - The City & The City

Mieville has always had a thing for patchwork cities. I first encountered the author years ago with the strange and wonderful Perdido Street Station, which I highly recommend. That novel was a masterpiece of imagination, set in a politically fractured steampunk metropolis. Its two sequels were entertaining but lackluster, and Mievelle fell off of my radar.

The City & The City, which shared the 2010 Hugo with Bacigalupi's vastly inferior The Windup Girl, is a detective novel set in the absurd divided city of Beszel and Ul Qoma, located somewhere in a post-Soviet Eastern Europe. I don't want to say too much about the nature of the relationship between the two cities, as the gradual unfolding of this relationship in the early part of the novel produces a somewhat maddening sense of disorientation that I found to be fairly masterful on the part of Mieville. For this same reason, I would recommend that one avoid reading too much about the book before diving into it.

The setting itself is something of a literary-theoretical thought experiment taken to an absurd extreme; this is self-conscious, as Foucault and Baudrillard are referenced by a character in the text (although I think the conceit is more due to Deleuze). Which is to say: this book is ambitious, in a way that (especially with the noir trappings) reminds me of nothing more than Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, to which this book is clearly indebted. And Mieville, somehow, pulls it off, producing a novel that's both a technical masterpiece and lot of fun.

edit: As a sidenote, you can understand the thematic structure of this novel in terms of Greimas' semiotic square, which is a bit like a two-dimensional dialectic and a really powerful analytic tool in general.

When the Thrill is Gone

Walter Mosley writes vivid mysteries and crime stories, usually set in LA, but sometimes elsewhere, as this one, which is set in New York City. Many of the stories have a noir feel and all feature very sharp urban dialog that's a pleasure to read. The subtext of all the stories is race relations, embodied in the action, rather than described. This one, in the Leonard McGill series, was not my favorite (I have most enjoyed the books featuring Easy Rawlins or Fearless Jones) but still had wonderful moments of human interaction. Any Mosley is a pleasure!

Dorothy Sayers!

Recently read two excellent mysteries by Dorothy Sayers, Wrong Body and Unnatural Death. I enjoyed the first, but thought the second was really great. I appreciate the wit (and silliness) of Lord Peter Wimsey (whom the prominent critic Edmund Wilson described as "...a dreadful stock English nobleman of the casual and debonair kind, with the embarrassing name of Lord Peter Wimsey"). Oh well.

Sayers (Wikipedia says she preferred the pronunciation "Sares" to "Say-ers") led a very interesting life, with accomplishments in many fields. Her mysteries, usually featuring Wimsey or the smart and independent Harriet Vane, are clever and urbane, with interesting plots, often featuring specialty information on subjects such as medical practice, or "change ringing" ("...the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called "changes". It differs from many other forms of campanology in that no attempt is made to produce a conventional melody" - thanks Wikipedia!), or advertising (Sayers worked, very successfully, for many years at an advertising firm that later became Ogilvy and Mather).

Sayers was precocious and learned - her father, chaplain at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, began teaching her Latin at age 6, and she studied modern languages and medieval literature at Oxford, eventually becoming one of the first women to receive a degree there. Sayers considered her best work to be the well-regarded translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Edmund Wilson, HA!

The Otterbury Incident

This delightful and entertaining story is written by Cecil Day Lewis, who held the Chair of Poetry at Oxford University and was Poet Laureate of England from 1968 until his death in 1972. (His son is the actor Daniel Day Lewis). This was his only children's book; it's been out of print for some time (I had a used copy sent from England. Interested? I'll loan it to you!) and came to my attention via Hayao Miyazaki's List of 50 Recommended Books for Children, which is now available via an Amazon List. It's a believable "mystery", with much whimsy and humor. Wonderful!

William Gibson's Count Zero

Count Zero, although at times confusing, is another Gibson masterpiece. The world he envisions is Tolstoyan in its richness, fullness, and complexity. He is strikingly creative and his vision of the near (although technologically distant) future is dark, grimy, and dangerous without being oppressingly alarmist. Gibson's characters ring true and his literary grasp is impressive, and far improved from Neuromancer - he convincingly weaves together multiple narratives to reveal a complex and fascinating picture of cyberspace and its potential. In this work, Bobby, aka Count Zero, is an aspiring cyber cowboy (or "hotdogger") who gets swept up in the veiled machinations of an incomprehensibly wealthy entity named Virek. ("Entity" because Virek's body is a pool of molecules in an enormous vat, and he "lives" in the matrix.) The story follows Virek's attempts to locate the maker of mysteriously haunting collage boxes through various hitmen and an art collector. The book's themes, largely introduced in Neuromancer, include AI, systems theory, the synthesis of man and machine, and the spatial nature of cyberspace. The religious potential of the matrix is also fruitfully explored. A real page-turner and a must-read!

Gibson's 3 Trilogies:

The Sprawl Trilogy:

• Neuromancer
• Count Zero
• Mona Lisa Overdrive

The Bridge Trilogy:

• Virtual Light
• Idoru
• All Tomorrow's Parties

The Bigend Books:

• Pattern Recognition
• Spook Country
• Zero History

Kay Thompson

I heard the author interviewed on NPR, who said Kay Thompson (well-known as the author of the Eloise books) was not widely appreciated for her impressive influence on singing styles and singers of the 40's and 50's. She was vocal coach and mentor for Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli, Andy Williams and countless others. And she created a nightclub act that was widely regarded as one of the best ever. She also had substantial impact on fashion shows. She was a true eccentric, extremely talented, and not all that nice a person. This book is fun to read, with all kinds of insider info and show-biz gossip - but it wasn't exactly gripping. Let me know if you want it, and I'll give it to you for Christmas! Otherwise, the library gets it.

Raymond Chandler

Just finished The Library of America's Chandler Stories and Early Novels, which included 13 "Pulp Stories" and 3 novels, including The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, and The High Window. The stories, particularly, were wonderful - sure, there is lots of vivid tough-guy talk, but also great plotting, amusing dialog and tangled mysteries unwound by Philip Marlowe (or, in some stories, Mallory or Malvern), who has a code of honor but is still tough and wise enough to see through the lies and cheap ambitions.
One discovery - there's lots of humor in these stories! Fascinating and immensely readable. I grew up in LA - was it really like this?
(Art from Steve Weissman)

William Gibson's Neuromancer

Gibson's Neuromancer is his first book ever, and the second book of his that I have read. I previously read Idoru (out of order). Neuromancer is good - far from as excellent as Idoru; you can really tell he is an amateur writer. The narrative is choppy and often confusing and the dialogue feels false in various places. However, the ideas are still really interesting and at times purely brilliant. The book is famous as a seminal sci-fi work rather than on its own merits, so I would still suggest reading it, especially since it lays out some of the characters for the later works (e.g., Case, Molly). I'm looking forward to reading Count Zero.

Gibson's 3 Trilogies:

The Sprawl Trilogy:

• Neuromancer
• Count Zero
• Mona Lisa Overdrive

The Bridge Trilogy:

• Virtual Light
• Idoru
• All Tomorrow's Parties

The Bigend Books:

• Pattern Recognition
• Spook Country
• Zero History

Witchblade: Origins Volume 1

Just finished reading Witchblade: Origins Volume 1, my first comic book ever. I asked the guy in the comic book stand at Dragon*Con to recommend me something that:

1. Has a strong plot (not stupid or silly)

2. Has interesting character development

3. Is visually cool

4. Has cool costumes

I would say this largely fits the bill. The plot is definitely intriguing and it is visually awesome. It remains to be seen whether the characters will develop in the next volume, although I will check them out and see. As far as costumes go, this girl wears next to nothing all the time, so there isn't much to speak of there. The Witchblade itself is pretty sweet though (pictured on the cover), so I could definitely do a costume with her wearing it with one of her many miniscule dresses.

At first it was hard for me to get used to reading all the different speech bubbles, and the intermittent (and seemingly arbitrary) bolding of words was annoying, but I got over that.

Would recommend.

Bony and the Kelly Gang + Bony and the White Savage

Two more excellent stories by Arthur Upfield, featuring the half aborigine detective, Napoleon Bonaparte. Bony and the Kelly Gang is delightful! As usual, the setting is Australia, but this time in a deep, nearly inaccessible, valley populated by two lively and rebellious extended Irish families. A good mystery filled with warm human interactions***. Bony and the White Savage is an excellent mystery/thriller - still some light touches and good fellowship, but a darker theme and deeper mystery.

***Amazing coincidence! Today's NY Times has a story about Ned Kelly:

"In Australia, Kelly needs no introduction; for Americans, it may help to think of him as Jesse James, Thomas Paine and John F. Kennedy rolled into one. Born about 1854 to an Irish convict exiled to Australia, Kelly became a folk hero as a very young man. He took up arms against a corrupt British constabulary, robbed banks and wrote an explosive manifesto. He was shot and arrested in a final shootout in which he wore homemade metal armor, and in 1880 he was hanged by the Anglo-Irish establishment he despised. "

Kelly and these events serve as a key backdrop to the story in Bony and the Kelly Gang!

Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin

This quick, pleasurable read sketches the very interesting life and character of Branch Rickey, for many years the general manager and part owner of the St. Louis Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers and the man who single-handedly integrated major league baseball by recruiting Jackie Robinson and, immediately after, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella. Breslin is a master of the lively anecdote and a shrewd commentator on American life - highly recommended!

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

This excellent book more frequently made me uncomfortable than anything I have read in a long time. The Berglund family and their relatives and friends are interesting and troubled - and their weaknesses and vanities are placed under the klieg lights of Franzen's simple but powerful prose. I identified at least a little with all the characters but one, so I felt uncomfortable in turn when the faults and troubles of these characters were highlighted. I identified least with the disaffected and cynical rocker Richard Katz, so I guess that's why I liked him the most - I didn't squirm when he was under the light! But there were many laugh out loud moments also.
In a way, the book seems like a well-crafted puzzle - though the narrative was composed largely of grim events afflicting not-so-likable people, these people all eventually and convincingly achieved some peace and the ending was moving and uplifting. Very interesting. Highly recommended.

Moonfleet

This lovely Folio Society book is an adventure/treasure/coming-of-age story and, as such, has been compared favorably with Treasure Island. (e.g. VS Prichett says ‘In the class of Stevenson’s Kidnapped or Treasure Island’). I thought it was a very good story, although pretty sentimental and with some plot coincidences that strain credibility. Sentimentality doesn't slow me down much, but I would not really recommend it to others on that account. Paraphrasing Lloyd Bentsen: "Moonfleet, I have read Treasure Island, I know Treasure Island, Treasure Island is a favorite of mine. Moonfleet, you are no Treasure Island".

Partially Finished with Infinite Jest - Preliminary Thoughts

On page 161 of the 1079-page epic Infinite Jest and figured I'd better do a preliminary post since it's taking me a while to work my through this book and I am reading other books at the same time.

I sort of like this book so far. I know that's blasphemy (especially in Colin's mind) since the consensus is that this is a masterpiece on par with Joyce's Ulysses, but so far it isn't really doing it for me. There are definitely ideas of pure genius and some parts that are uproariously funny, Hal is a compelling character, and the theme of entertainment/media is very interesting.

However, it took me til ~150 to become slightly eager to know what happens in the rest of the book. My beef: 1) the mixed up chronology is irritating since I don't know when anything happened and am having difficulty piecing together any coherent storyline. Colin says that it comes together at a certain point, but I don't see why I should have to wait this long for it to make sense. 2) I dislike that the perspective switches so frequently - most of the segments are interesting individually but the sheer number of them feels a little bit gimicky and is another distraction for me.

Hopefully I will like it better as I go along since everyone else finds it brilliant and inspired.

***Updates***
- 6/29/11: on page 185 I have hope!!! There is a reference to "anticonfluential cinema," which is described in footnote 61 as, "an après garde digital movement... characterized by a stubborn and possibly intentionally irritating refusal of different narrative lines to merge into any kind of meaningful confluence" - does this sound familiar???

I feel vindicated and more hopeful that I will ultimately enjoy this novel - I doubt it is coincidence that the description of anticonfluential cinema so closely parallels my experience of the book thus far (especially since the concept is significantly attributed to J.O. Incandenza, a central figure in the novel).

I hope that now that this underlying structure has been revealed, it will be rejected. In other words, the different narrative lines of I.J. damn well better merge into some kind of meaningful confluence.

***Links***
- http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-and-hypertext.html

Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A(n uninspiring) milestone in my literary career: finally read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I read in 2.5 hours. Up til page 41 I found the book juvenile, boring, and silly, and felt that this was probably because I am not a prepubescent boy (no offense to you males). The first line that changed my opinion somewhat was "The robot camera honed in for a close-up on the more popular of [Zaphod's] two heads and he waved again." I suspect my satisfaction with this line is because it is atypically Philip K. Dick-esque (c.f. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch). I found the rest of this book a mix of mediocre and mildly amusing. I really don't understand the enthusiasm people feel for this work, and this is coming from a blogger who ends most posts with "Highly recommend!" The only intriguing character for me was Zaphod, although he could not redeem this book for me. Would not recommend.

Three Californias

Three Californias is a trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson written prior to the Mars cycle. Each of the three novels, The Gold Coast, the Wild Shore, and the Pacific Edge, posits a radically different future taking place in Orange County. I've just finished the Wild Shore, read the Gold Coast over spring break, and will be picking up the final one soon. The Gold Coast takes place in a total-sprawl landscape of designer drugs and party lifestyle, the Wild Shore takes place in a post-nuclear America quarantined by Japanese ships off the coast, and I'm not entirely sure what the other one is about.

While these novels don't quite stand up to the magnum opus that is Red Mars, and are not as dense in ideas and sheer brilliance, they are definitely worth checking out even if only as a prelude to his later work.

William Gibson's Idoru

In this utterly wild and brilliant book by William Gibson, two characters' narratives intersect to reveal the story of a famous rockstar - Rez of the band Lo/Rez - who is determined to marry an idoru, or virtual celebrity, despite the objections of his P.R. team and devoted, massive, scarred bodyguard Blackwell. Set in the near (but technologically greatly advanced) future, the intersecting narratives are from the perspectives of Chia, a fourteen-year-old Lo/Rez fan and skilled hacker from Seattle, and Laney, a hacker with an uncanny ability to detect "nodal points" in data. The theme of emergence is evidenced at the meta- as well as macro-level, wherein the individual stories interact to create a totality which far exceeds the sum of its parts. The tale is a true page-turner, and rife with crazy characters and novel ideas. Definitely worth reading!!

**Update**

Helpful info from Colin: Gibson's 3 Trilogies (turns out this is book 2 of one of them - oops)

Gibson's 3 Trilogies:

The Sprawl Trilogy:

• Neuromancer
• Count Zero
• Mona Lisa Overdrive

The Bridge Trilogy:

• Virtual Light
• Idoru
• All Tomorrow's Parties

The Bigend Books:

• Pattern Recognition
• Spook Country
• Zero History

The Pattern

This gripping page-turner, currently available as a Kindle or Nook eBook, was written by JT Kalnay, the very accomplished and very interesting husband of my first graduate student, Dr. Susann Brady-Kalnay. JT was trained as a computer engineer, worked as a professor, then as a systems architect at Merrill Lynch, then went to law school, specialized in patent law and now has his own patent law firm - oh yeah, he's also a certified rock-climbing instructor and competes in ironman triathlons. Jeez.

(Here's an interview with him about the book).

Well, this book, about a mysterious virus-induced glitch in airplane software, will make your skin crawl - I had to fly on a bumpy flight from Rochester to Detroit right after finishing the book, and I was not a happy camper. Download onto your phone and enjoy a great read while waiting in lines!!

Tales of a Female Nomad

Wow... All I can say is that this woman has lived one heck of a life. The book is essentially an autobiography of Rita Gelman, who at the age of 42 turned her life into a travel story most of us only dream of.

After she had an argument with her husband, they agreed to a two-week break from each other, and then to try marriage counseling. She took off to Mexico, where two weeks turned into two months, which turned into four months, which turned into divorce.

After that, she was free to live however she liked, so she decided to travel to all different exotic locations that she had only dreamed of visiting. For the next 14 years, she visits places such as Indonesia, Thailand, Nicaragua (during Reagan's war!), New Zealand, and more, staying with locals, and truly bonding with the communities she visits.

The book is an awesome read that anyone will enjoy. Recommended highly.

Numbers Rule Your World

I kind of found this book by accident while searching for something else at the library, but I figured, "Hey, why not try it?"

Sadly, I wasn't impressed with the book. Some moments really stood out, but most of the "aha" moments that are supposed to make a book like this shine were more of, "huh? um... isn't that obvious?" moments.

The organization of the book, which divided it into 5 chapters, with two stories per chapter that each had a core lesson in statistics, was a good idea, but was poorly executed so that I never fully understood the connections between the stories.

Overall, I felt the book was too simplistic to engage, and so I would not recommend it to close friends or family.

Vagabonding

All I gotta say is... WOW.

The book, while it is subtitled "An uncommon guide to the art of long-term world travel", is more of a philosophical text than anything, one that is certain to get one excited about traveling.

If you've ever wanted to travel (I know that seems like a broad category)... this book is definitely for you.

Lord of Misrule

This quirky novel won the National Book Award - appropriately, as a dark horse entry.  It was issued by a very small publisher, who reluctantly increased the initial printing from 2,000 to 8,000 only when the book was chosen as an Award finalist.  The author, Jaimy Gordon, has taught writing at Western Michigan University for 30 years - the Times ran a very interesting story about her  - here's their description:

Ms. Gordon, who has a graduate degree in writing from Brown but also spent time working at a racetrack and briefly lived with an ex-convict who set fire to their apartment, has never been very conventional. She has a huge corona of springy, tightly curled hair that suggests prolonged exposure to a light socket, and a personality to match: forthright, disarming, uncensored. She is a wiser, chastened version of the reckless young female character who turns up in many of her books and never misses a chance to endanger herself.

 I really liked the book, which tells of some disastrous happenings at a second-rate racetrack.  The chapters (and title) are taken from names of the protagonist horses: Mr. Boll Weevil, Little Spinoza, Pelter and Lord of Misrule.  Kind of like a contemporary Damon Runyon, with very colorful language punctuated by laugh out loud humor - and a streak of darkness.

The Old Man and the Swamp

SO! Another souvenir from Portland.

The book, as it describes on the front cover, details, "The true story about my weird dad, a bunch of snakes, and one ridiculous road trip".

My response: meh.

The funniest parts of the book were when he described his dad, which he did quite well through various anecdotes and choice phrases. As for the road trip and snakes... that's a bit exaggerated. Honestly, most of the book was told in flash back, and so the whole book comes across as more of a biography of a dysfunctional father than it does about an event in the present.

The book lacked a bit of, "So what?", as my Latin teacher would say. Essentially, the book was almost over by the time Sellers had reached the part where I expected the story to pick up.

My verdict: Kinda funny, but not all that great.

Zen in the Martial Arts

A souvenir from Portland!

The book is a series of short vignettes that reflect lessons the author has learned in his martial arts training over the years. With each story, he then demonstrates how he applied the principle to his actual life.

If you're at all interested in zen, you would find this an interesting read. If you're also looking into martial arts, you will love the book. I recommend it highly.

A Fierce Radiance

This book takes place in Manhattan during World War II and follows the development of penicillin with a love story thrown in. Although it is a novel, it is based on historical fact (with some poetic license). I was surprised to learn that blood poisoning was a real threat up until the 1940s - people could die of something as simple as a cat scratch. Fascinating to see how the race to make penicillin readily available to the troops led to the rise of drug companies frantic to patent their own special formulas. Much of the novel takes place at the Rockefeller Institute so especially recommended to Brack and Jesse.

The Imperfectionists

This book takes place in Rome so I had to pick it up from the library although it turns out the city plays a very small part in the story. It is about a English-language newspaper in Rome over roughly a fifty-year period. The structure is a little unusual: each chapter focuses on a different individual with little connection between characters. This makes it sound like a collection of short stories, which I usually avoid like the plague, but it was written so well that the stories intertwined enough to make it engrossing. I found it easy to relate to many of the characters being an imperfect perfectionist myself.

Dr. Zhivago

I really enjoyed this book - wonderfully descriptive and imaginative writing and thoughtful reflections upon the individual versus the state.  Strange that I didn't care much for Zhivago....or for any of the other characters, really!  Well, the one main character I liked was Russia - vividly and lovingly portrayed.

The Broker

Recommended by our Italian tutor, Antonio, this was the first book I have read by John Grisham and it's unusual for him, because it's not about lawyers as much as it's a kind of spy story in which a miserable power broker, Joel Backman, betrays his country for money, is caught and thrown into a high security prison, but after six years is pardoned by a lame duck President, at the behest of the CIA. The CIA wants to learn more about the secrets Backman was selling by finding out who will kill Backman after his release! So they drop him in Italy, help him get adjusted, and then leak his whereabouts to the Russian, Chinese and Israeli security forces. Well, it's not fantastic literature, but it IS a page turner, and it's laced with Italian phrases, and wonderful descriptions of the people and sights of Bologna. Leggiamo!

David Harvey - Spaces of Hope

This is one of the books I am reading for my thesis. In it, Harvey presents a convincing case for and way of adapting Marx's ideas to the conditions of capitalism in postmodernity, particularly in the context of globalization and the death of the Modernist utopian project in the aftermath of WWII.

Particularly interesting is Harvey's application of his "historical-geographical materialism" in his case study of Baltimore in the second half of the twentieth century, as he examines the ways that capital manipulates the construction of urban space in order to maintain its exploitative control over the working class.

In this book Harvey brilliantly addresses the worries of postmodernity and the various postmodernisms while maintaining a commitment to the utopian dream and political praxis, offering both a framework to understand the mutual interactions of geography and capital and to offer resistance to the bourgeois myth that "there is no alternative" to consumer capitalism, democracy, and the tyranny of the free market.

I read two chapters of this book for a class in my sophomore year, and it has been highly influential in the development of my own political sympathies. Harvey's writing is clear and accessible (for the most part, although some background in literary theory and intellectual history of the twentieth century is useful) and completely devoid of the obscurantism that plagues a lot of academic writing. Fascinating and highly enjoyable.

Animals in Translation

I almost always finish books I start. The first book I never finished was Penrod by Booth Tarkington. And I have bookmarks still stuck in the early parts of Moby Dick and Don Quixote. I have concluded that, in general, the likelihood that I will complete a book is proportional to the rate at which I read it. Further evidence, at the other end of the spectrum, would be The Girl Who Played with Fire.

But now I have to reconsider this theory, based on a most unusual experience with Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation. I heard about the very interesting Temple Grandin on a flight to Portland, from a woman who ran a ranch for abandoned or abused horses. Temple Grandin is both extremely intelligent and autistic, and uses these traits to make amazing observations about how animals (and humans) think. She is particularly famous for having devised both mechanisms and evaluation schemes designed to make slaughterhouses more humane. She's so remarkable that she was the subject of a semi-biographical HBO movie.

Well, I thought Animals in Translation was fascinating, but I could not read more than 10 pages or so at a time, so it took me forever to get through. It's still not clear to me exactly why I could only read so little at a time - the writing is simple and clear. Partly I think it's because the book seemed a little disorganized to me.

But Temple Grandin discusses a lot of contemporary neuroscience research that is extremely interesting, and she has unusual ideas and insights. Just as one example, she cites evidence that wolves (and their descendants, dogs) co-evolved with humans, in very meaningful ways. "Basically, two different species with complementary skills teamed up together". She strongly believes, and cites some supporting evidence, that humans also picked up many "human" traits from wolves, including hunting in groups, complex social structures, loyal same-sex and nonkin friendships, and more. I'm only hinting at the thoughtful and sometimes provocative views she expresses here and in other parts of the book. Very highly recommended!

Anna Karenina

Another post on a book I read a year ago, so my thoughts are not as fresh. However, I have thought about the book a lot since then so have more broad-picture type comments.

Anna Karenina is one of the best books I have ever read. Tolstoy's writing is incredibly realistic, complex, deep, moving, and beautiful, and his thinking is prophetic. For me, the best things about this book are:

1. The complexity, coherence and realism of the world that Tolstoy invents. His writing comes as close to representing reality on paper as I can imagine is possible, and he does this in such a way that it feels completely natural. It is also fascinating: he knew such an immense about about so many things! Horse keeping, hunting, domestic life, business affairs, fashion, politics, relationships, gambling, agriculture, adultery, etc, etc. - all topics on which Tolstoy writes in depth and with ease.

2. The complexity, understanding and sympathy with which Tolstoy regards humanity: from the peasant to the nobleman and from the virtuous to the amoral, Tolstoy seems to understand everyone. The grace with which he is able to portray the inner life of various individuals is unparalleled. Anna Karenina is the greatest exception to this sweeping realism: for me she felt (at times) flat and under-explored, which was disappointing. Lyovin, on the contrary, is shockingly real, perhaps aided by the near-autobiographical nature of his character (by many accounts).

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Fathers and Sons

I realized I never made this post, even though I read the work last Christmas, so here goes: my thoughts on Turgenev's (1862) Fathers and Sons (Отцы и дети is actually Fathers and Children, although it's true that I don't recall any daughters in the novel).

This book is truly genius. I think of it often. The two generations under discussion are the Fathers (1840s) and Sons (1860s). The book describes (primarily male) family and friend relationships and the way that these interactions evolved during a time of major social change: the emancipation of the serfs occurred in 1861 and freed millions of people from serfdom, causing great upheaval in landed/aristocratic families and in society. The Fathers and Sons represent conflicting ideologies which are very interesting to consider, because their opposition foreshadows the 1917 revolution.

One of the two primary Sons in the book is Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov. He has recently graduated from St. Petersburg University where he became friends with a man named Bazarov. The Sons' values are boldly and at times offensively embodied by the larger-than-life Bazarov, a loud-mouthed, frog-dissecting, arrogant nihilist. These values include: egalitarianism, nihilism, and rejection of sentimentality and of bourgeois values.

The book begins with Arkady taking his friend Bazarov home to meet his father, the sensitive land-owner Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. Although Nikolai is one of the Fathers, he is liberal for his generation, and as an educated and thoughtful man is trying to make sense of and in some ways assimilate the liberal values of the youth while holding onto his appreciation of literature, the arts and the beauty of nature.

The conflicts in this book are fascinatingly timeless and really bear thought. Although I was not bowled over when I first read the book a year ago, it has been on my mind very frequently since and I have come to appreciate it very much.

Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West's Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen

Tales Behind the Tombstones is a delightful collection of short biographies of colorful figures from the Old West, including desperadoes such as Billy the Kid and Jesse James, prostitutes (or "soiled doves") such as Julia Bulette, women's rights activists, sheriffs, and others. The language is lively and engaging and there are numerous black and white photos of these individuals and in many cases of their gravestones. It was fascinating to read about these individuals' very unusual and exciting lives. Definitely recommend!