Three More Books

One day I’ll comment again on books I’ve been reading, but not today. The last three books I read were:

• 1Q84
• How To Build A Dinosaur
• Diocletian and the Roman Recovery

Even More Books…

So I managed to read a bunch more books without writing anything about them, although they were all interesting. I’ll need to figure out about getting more time somewhere.

Here’s what I’ve read lately.

• The Pale King
• Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played
• ‘What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?’ Jimmy Carter, America’s ‘Malaise,’ and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country
• Packing for Mars
• The Art of Non-Conformity
• Oblivion

5 1/2 Books…

I’ve fallen way behind on blogging about books. Instead of trying to say something about each, I’ll just list them and then catch up with stuff I’m reading now. So, here goes:

* Superfreakonomics
* A Land the Size of Binoculars (I only got halfway through this one)
* The Varieties of Scientific Experience
* Einstein’s Cosmos
* The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
* The Crow Road

Next, The Pale King and Strokes of Genius.

I Was Expecting It From The Beatles

I recently finished reading You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup and Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. I wasn’t surprised how unpleasant The Beatles’ breakup was in all of its details and how nasty they could be to each other. I was surprised that David Sedaris’ book was even nastier and unpleasanter than that.

Although it was full of not fun stuff, The Beatles’ break-up is a big part of their mythology and it was interesting to read about it. It seems painful to hear about how close they got to being back together a few different times, but I’m glad they didn’t—their story wouldn’t be the same if they did keep going on and have a series of bad recordings. It seems like ultimately they knew that too. There are quotes that say they realized they could never live up to their own reputations and it seems like that is what really kept them apart instead of unfortunate timing, egos or whatever.

And then there was the book about the animals. I understand how you would want to try something different after having done a series of great books that all had a very similar format and style. I can even understand if you wanted to do something that wasn’t funny. I have a hard time seeing how cruel, sadistic and awkward stories would be what you would try for instead. Fortunately it wasn’t long and the last story was enjoyable, but reading about yet another lawsuit involved Allen Klein was better.

Up next, Superfreakonomics and something else.

Pre and Post Apocalypse Food Advice

I just finished Michael Pollan’s Food Rules and Stephen King’s The Stand. One is a very short non-fiction handbook and another is a 1,000+ page novel about a superflu epidemic but they do have some similarities—both have useful advice to how to eat in certain situations.

• Before apocalypse: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
• After apocalypse: Hope for the best. Eat twigs or people as needed.

Other than the food advice…

I often get impatient with novels where everything fits together perfectly (what would have happened if people hadn’t made fun of Trashcan Man at the end?) but things felt like they came together in service of the story instead of feeling contrived (compare this to A Prayer for Owen Meany which I’m still annoyed at having read).

I hadn’t read any Stephen King before and don’t feel an urge to read more, but I am glad I gave this a try.

Up next: You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup

A Road Trip and a Cruise

I recently finished reading Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace and got in the mood to read more DFW so then I read A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

It was all great (I like tennis so I loved the tennis parts, but anything he wrote about, including math theory, is so good) and I haven’t had this much fun reading anything else lately. Not too surprising since David Foster Wallace is catnip to mid-thirties over-educated white guy types.

I feel like I had more to say about these, but I guess I waited a little too long to post after finishing the books. Maybe I’ll come back and update this later.

Up next, Food Rules and something else.

Lose Yourself?

I keep falling behind posting about books, so I’m going to do two at once from now on. The last two books I read, The One-Straw Revolution and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana happen to be a good fit for each other so it seems like this should work. We’ll see how other books go.

Although one is a non-fiction book about natural farming practices in Japan and the other is fiction about a man in Italy with amnesia, they both cover similar ground.

The first tells you to see the world how it really is by losing yourself by growing your own food, but then the second tells how someone who has lost his memory is unable to see the world without knowing who he is.

I have no idea who is right here, but at least I learned some tricks about how to grow more vegetables in my yard and also some interesting stuff about Italy in World War II.

Up next, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace and something else to be figured out later.

Panicking and Running

I recently finished reading The Panic of 1907 and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

The first book is about one of the largest financial crises before the Great Depression. Main thing—living in a world where you could lose all of your money in a run on your bank sounds awful.

It’s encouraging to see that solutions were put in place for some of the causes of this panic, but future crises certainly weren’t avoided. Fixing problems is worthwhile, but it seems like someone will be able to game any system that gets put in place.

The second book is a memoir by Haruki Murakami. I’m not a runner, so I took a while to get around to reading this but I’m glad I did. His running seems like a way to have some mental space in the midst of a busy life.

As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I’m not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.

This can be done with running, yoga, gardening or whatever. Something like this has stuck in my mind since reading an article about David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel that takes place in an IRS agency.

“I caught a glimpse of a long room filled with I.R.S. examiners in long rows and columns of strange-looking tables or desks, each of which (desks) had a raised array of trays or baskets clamped to its top, with flexible-necked desk lamps in turn clamped at angles to these fanned-out arrays, so that each of the I.R.S. examiners worked in a small tight circle of light. . . . Row after row, stretching to a kind of vanishing point near the room’s rear wall.” Wallace’s unquiet mind is not yet ready for this paradise. Ms. Neti-Neti quickly spirits him away.

Basically, if something is valuable because it is scarce then boredom is gold for many people now. What does that mean for things?

Up next, The One-Straw Revolution.

He Was Saying Bin Bag

I finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go a few weeks ago. It was odd in a Haruki Murakami sort of way (a good thing). Not too surprising since I was having a discussion with some friends about Murakami and they lent it to me since they thought I’d like it.

The book also solved a 16 year old mystery. I saw Shallow Grave when it came out in 1994 (best Ewan McGregor movie ever) and watched it probably more than a dozen times on video. The Scottish accents get pretty thick and I couldn’t always tell exactly what they were saying.

There’s one scene were I thought one of the characters said that he’d stuff someone in a bean bag. I just figured he was trying to come up with an eccentric threat. Apparently this is one of those English vs. American boot vs. trunk things though and he was saying ‘bin bag’.

This book is set in England and they mention bin bags at one point and suddenly I understood. Thank you Kazuo, now I know.

Next, The Panic of 1907.

Machine Vended Chili Burgers

I finished reading Norman Mailer’s Of A Fire On The Moon a couple of weeks ago. This is certainly not the most well known of his books to start with, but I like space and was curious.

My first impression was amazement that he turned the biggest moment in the 20th century into a book largely about himself. The reference to him in The Simpsons now makes more sense (“Norman Mailer’s latest claptrap about his waning libido.”)

He did have some interesting ideas about something other than himself. Most stories about Apollo don’t really go beyond The Onion’s reporting, but Mailer has some legitimate concerns about what comes next and what unintended consequences may come from this.

For example, the Green Revolution has feed millions, but has come at a cost of severe health and environmental risks. Chemicals used in rocket fuel have begun showing up in humans, but that’s not quite what he means.

Some of his specific concerns (such as what may happen with computers) seem quaint, but the general idea seems right. We can’t do something like this without changing ourselves and not everything will be positive. Even after 40 years, it still seems too early to tell.

One other note: the title of this post comes from a great anecdote about trying to find something to eat at a press event at one of the NASA centers. Just in case you were wondering…

Up next, Never Let Me Go.