<i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> by Fyodor Dostoevsky

p>Two items of note about this book---it is the first book I read on my Kindle and Sedina had recommended it.

The only other Dostoevsky book I know well enough to compare it to is Crime and Punishment, which I last read about 3.5 years ago. The biggest similarity is the presence of a mystery and some sort of forensic investigation. In both cases, the police spend a lot of time asking questions, finding clues and doing the 19th century equivalent of modern police work.

Crime and Punishment was written 5 years after The Brothers Karamazov. It appears in that time Dostoevsky changed his assessment fo police work a bit, as the detectives are a bit bungling in The Brothers Karamazov, following only material leads and making only the simplest psychological guesses, where as in Crime and Punishment the detective's focus is primarily on the psychology of the crime. This also may be seen as a contrast between city and country police forces, as Crime and Punishment was set in St. Petersburg, where The Brothers Karamazov was set in a small town. But the representatives of the big city---the doctors and lawyer---do not fair well in The Brothers Karamazov, so this seems to speak more in a change of Dostoevsky's thinking, rather than a consistent evaluation of the innate competence of city versus country folk.

As far as the characters go, the most interesting to me was Ivan. Mitya was a bit over-the-top in terms of his passion and behavior. While believable especially in his reaction to being arrested, I found his inability to stay focused one goal infuriating. That he couldn't bring himself to go to Katya and have her take mercy on him despite the fact that he did trust her was more proof that he had, through his own short-sightedness, put himself in a position he did not and could not understand.

Alyosha, while the most sincere and patient of the brothers, was in no way a participant in the story. His actions were most involved when he was a messenger. His reason for being in the story seemed to be mostly as the observer and as a point of comparison---the purest and most confident in the belief of his brother's innocence.

Ivan, on-the-other-hand, seemed caught between the two brothers (quite literally as teh middle brother as well...). He wrestled most openly with his brother's arrest and possible guilt. He did the footwork to try to understand what had happened and the role Smerdyakov played in the death of his father. he was the only one who was able to put together all the pieces and arrive at the true conclusion.

The way Dostoevsky plotted the mystery was very good. I liked how we didn't quite know the whole truth until Ivan did. Though the reader could put much of it together as the plot advanced,t he entire story wasn't clear until Ivan arrived at the same conclusions the reader had reached.

A good read.

9/10

<i>Not Without Peril</i> by Nicholas Howe

I have trouble with some books like this where the author inserts himself to hike in an area or otherwise give their own opinion on the topic when the rest of the work is focused on retelling the stories from a more historical perspective. Here Howe describes a death or near death experience on Mount Washington then in many cases describes where you can find traces of the incident or describes his own experience going there.

Generally the stories of trouble on the mountain are very interesting. Especially the early ones when there were fewer people in the area and the hikers did not have modern equipment. Reading about how they hiked through fluke summer storms and missed buildings by 50 feet was very engaging and remind me why we carry all that extra gear in our bags.

I could have generally done without Howe's interjections. Particular on the story about Jesse and her fall while ice climbing. That was a compelling enough story on its own. I did not need the author's memories of her to get there.

Overall, an okay read. Good for camping and other times when you are pitted---even slightly---against nature.

6/10

<i>Living to Tell the Tale</i> by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I generally liked this book Marquez tells the story of his early life in the same style that he uses in 100 Years of Solitude. I was expecting fantastic things to happen at every turn. Generally, though since this is a story of real life, there were few fantastic occurrences. Despite that, I enjoyed the adventures he told of his early years and the stories that had grown into his family's legends about how both his parents and maternal grandparents had met, courted and married.

Marquez's father is a bit of an enigma. He would leave the family for large amounts of time, then call for them when he had secured a location to open a pharmacy or had otherwise arranged a place for them to live.

As much as a I enjoyed Marquez's stories of living with his grandparents, going to school and otherwise growing up, I struggled to make it through the sections where he was talking about the newspaper industry in Columbia. The stories outside the paper would good---finding a new place to live, the riots, etc., but much of the rest seemed merely like name dropping. He gave lists of people who were important in the industry and who he spent time with, serving little other purpose other than just to list the names.

Overall, I learned a bit about the history of Columbia and enjoyed the stories of Marquez's childhood and personal struggles.

<i>The Bell Jar</i> by Sylvia Plath

I am glad I didn't read this during high school. I think the main character's personal crisis about her education might have been a little unnerving at the time (though probably more so if I had read it after I had graduated from college and not yet found work), since as I read I identified in many respects with the main character and how she performed in high school and college.

I wonder if the "bell jar" she experienced was what we would think of today as a quarter-life crisis---a realization that all this stuff you've spent learning up to now is not how the real world works and much of the stuff you've learned you really can't apply in any meaningful way. I suppose, though that the quarter-life crisis rarely results (though could) in as extreme an action as a suicide attempt and a need to be committed.

Part of the main character's crisis may have been due to the limited opportunities for women as well. She seemed to have two options in her head: be a great writer or be a stay-at-home wife and only one was at all attractive. Once her confidence as a writer was broken there was only the wife option---to a boy she didn't much like, making the option even more unattractive. The bell jar may have been due more the loss of any other option rather than to any real "craziness" on her part.

From the post matter, much of this story was based on Plath's own experience as a young adult. She says in the book that she dreads the return of "the bell jar," which in real-life seemed to return for Plath based on her later suicide.

The narrative is very tight and believable resulting probably from Plath's intimate similarity to the main character. I like how it is told in first person, as it gives insight to why she is acting as she is. That is always fascinating to me, to see the rational side of an outwardly "crazy" person's behavior.

A very enjoyable read.

<i>Torchwood's Another Life</i>

I grabbed this out of the library in the hope that it would keep my Torchwood high going after watching Children of Earth a couple weeks ago. I overestimated the quality of TV adaptations. It wasn't absolutely horrible---the other Torchwood book I grabbed at the same time was---but it really didn't do much in terms of giving the same complex sense of wonder and fear the show does.

Maybe the key is that if a character or a set of characters developed for a TV show and therefor defied more by the actor's interpretations of them, it is difficult to convey their actions entirely as you would see the actors do on the show. Everyone in the audience sees each of the characters differently, so putting down out particular description will not satisfy every reader's interpretation. As a result, there is probably little hope of any adaptations being much good and i should stick primarily to the show and maybe the radio dramas.

Or, I guess I could write my own fan fiction...

<i>The Futurological Conference</i> by Stanislaw Lem

This is very different from Solaris in tone and topic. Solaris was brooding and rather lonely, whereas this book was frenetic and very crowded. The title---The Futurological Conference---is used as only a device to get us to a dystopia based on hallucinations.

The idea of mind control---very specific mind control---using aerosol drugs is pretty frightening. One section where the main characters were discussing the reason for over population, they noted that everyone thought progress was going well on the space bases because the information they were told included an aerosol for naivety. With no way---and with the drugs no desire---to check, the bases on Jupiter never did, and were never going to, exist.

So, instead of just the standard government pulling the wool over the eyes of the citizens, you have the corporations pulling the the wool over the eyes of the government. Not even the people in charge---or who you think are in charge---know the truth. I guess it is the ultimate in lobbying.

I enjoyed the book, especially the dystopian section, which was quite different from the others I have read. The style was tough to get into at first, but as the story started out so outlandish, I couldn't stop because I wanted to find out just where it would end up.

<i>The Elephant and the Flea</i> by Charles Handy

I think I found out about this book from Slate when they were doing their pieces about memoirs quite a while ago. It had ended up on our Paperbackswap list and showed up in the mail.

Handy did something that very few people were doing in the early 80s---he went portfolio (aka freelance). He did it at a time when everyone was still quite happy to work for large, slow moving corporations---elephants. He notes that he was ahead of the curve, as was his wife who was doing this long before he was. Many more people at the time he wrote the book (2001) were working as fleas (jumping from assignment to assignment, contract to contract, job to job). One number that he quotes is that by 1996, 67% of British businesses had only one employee.

Since this experience sounds compelling based on the self quoted sales figures of his business books, I anticipated Handy's writing to be compelling. While it wasn't unreadable, nor uninteresting, it wasn't quite what I thought it would be as Handy tended to meander his way through his stories, focusing in on bits that did not tend to mesh well with other bits. For example, thoughts on the speed of modern communications were tacked on to a more on message section covering the influence of the Internet on the economy.

There were two parts of the book that I found very interesting and would have liked to read more about. The first is Handy's experience working for Shell in the 50s and 60s. That was an elephant of the elephants. He told how Shell employees did everything. No contracting of cooks, janitors or anyone else. An employee living overseas was given all elements he needed to live there including domestic staff and recreational outlets (Shell cricket or rugby teams) not to mention the expected help with housing and schools. It sounded like one was given a great life and ushered through the management structure as an expected result of long term employment and not rocking the boat. I would hvae been very interested to hear more about this sort of life and the experiences of others inside Shell and other elephants.

The other section that was very interesting was about how Handy and his wife divide their lives to support each others' livelihoods. For six months of the year, his wife is acting as his administrator as was as working on her background research for her photography books and works. During the other six months, his wife is actively doing photo-shoots and he helps her by editing her books and supporting her shoots while he works on research for his books and talks. It is a great strategy and they are able to chunk their time well and each work on their own passions while supporting those of the other. Very cool.

Overall, a pretty good read with some neat ideas and observations here and there, though it does not come together very well as a whole.

<i>The Art of Teaching</i> by Gilbert Highet

I picked this book up after reading an ask.metafilter.com post about teaching methods. Overall, there was little new to me here, though there was much codification of what I knew intuitively. That was was helpful, as it says to me, yes, you are going about it the right way.

So, some of the guidance includes clarity and preparation: make sure you know your material, know how it will be split up and can present it in a clear manner. Another is patience with those who you are teaching, as all topics are not equally understandable to all students. A final one (though not of the complete list) is to lead the students to discovery and stimulate their curiosity by enjoying the subjects and the presentation and by staying dynamic in the class.

Highet present these pieces of advice in an appealing way, using personal anecdotes, some findings of studies and experiences of others (including well-known writers). It gave a dynamic presentation of the information, but caused me to lose the thread of the discussion in some cases.

This is a book to take notes from and is definitely not written int he modern self-help manner with the outline dominating. While such a structure might be helpful in this book to communicate the points, there would be much lost from the dynamism. The book would do well with a summary chapter that gives the details in an abridged form for later reference, as was done in How to Read a Book with much success.

While I won't look to own a copy of this book, I may come back to it again for reference.

<i>The Sphere</i> by Michael Crichton

I am fed up with Crichton. The plot lines are far too predictable: man escaptes everyday life to investigate some amazing new thing; something goes wrong; people die; time is spent figuring it out; more people die; problem is solved; es cape is made; everything is better---or is it?

Here the mystery was intriguing for a time---I was very curious about what the alien was saying ans was very disappointed to find out it wasn't really an alien speaking and they never really did figure everything out...plus, once everyone was trying to escape, the formula was far to obvious and I go really fed up with the book.

There is one more Crichton book I want to read---Andromada Strain---but I think I will have to wait quite some time before I'm ready to pick up another of his books.

3/10

<i>The Unbearable Lightness of Being </i> by Milan Kundera

I was surprised, though I suppose I really had to be, by how similar this book was to Immortality. The similarity is not so much in the content---though Kundera does address male-female relationships primarily here as well---but more in the style. One of the big things is the non-linear story telling; another is the commentary on the characters from the writer's perspective. I am a big fan of the former---driven primarily by my love of Kurt Vonnegut, I would say. Really in general, nonlinear story telling gives something outside the plot. One is no longer trying to figure out what happens next, but just how we got here. And with the story already presented before one, it is easier to focus on other aspects of the writing.

I am a bit annoyed by Kundera's habit of commenting as the writer of the story on the character's behavior. While it can be helpful or amusing to have the thoughts of the writer on the characters, it gets old pretty fast: I *know* you created this character; I know you have very particular thoughts on how the character interacts with the world. I *do not* need to have the entire rundown of how the personality was formed to understand why some one behaves as they do.

I was very interested in the historical events that shaped the plot of the book. I know very little about Czech history, so I found the story of the Soviet invasion, especially from the average Czech's perspective engrossing. And the thought of Tereza out in the street with her camera, taking photos of the Russian soldiers, taking advantage of living her one life to resist in a manner that made the most sense to her. It was all very dramatic, very interesting and will stick in my mind.

Kundera's larger point with the book and its title revolve around the idea of a human's life being only a single blip, one that makes little difference or influence on the future---the unbearable lightness of being. We don't like it, but human life is light and there is nothing to be done otherwise. Thomas says so much to Teresa regarding his medical practice---he didn't regret giving it up as it allowed him to lighten himself.

Excellent read overall, though I think I liked Immortality better.

7/10

<i>Angela's Ashes</i> by Frank McCourt

This book has a different reading history compared to most books I've read. I started it as a audio book and got through about half of it before I ran into broken tapes. The next quarter or so was read in two or three page bursts as a "car book" when I had to wait for 5 or 10 minutes before tutoring or kung fu. The remainder was read on my flight to Copenhagen for vacation.

The audio book was really the best way to read this book. McCourt read it and with his Irish accent brings more life and reality than I can in my head. Reading it a bit at a time was also good, as the anecdotes he tells are generally short and stick well. Reading it in large chunks, though, is not so good, as it is a rather depressing story.

So, McCourt gives us the story of his childhood. How his parents escaped Ireland for America, only to go back again, thinking there would be more chance to work there than in the US. Instead, resulting from a drunk father and a fertile mother, there is little more than death and poverty.

It is a good book for what it is. McCourt is a good story teller and is able to relate his life well. The poverty is overwhelming in many cases. I can understand---though not condone---why his father wouldn't come back.

7/10

<i>The Complete Persepolis</i> by Marjane Satrapi

Going into this book (or, rather, graphic novel), I knew little-to-nothing about Iran. Satrapi give an interesting description about how a more secular family dealt with the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq wars. I had a much better sense by the end of what had happened in Iran, how its people where affected and the breadth of cultures that existed in Iran during that time (for example, I was surprised to find out there was a Jewish population in Iran).

One thing that Jason pointed out after reading this book was there were plenty of Iranians who didn't agree with the Islamic rule---the idea of wearing a veil was just as foreign to them as to any Westerner. That point was very clear in what Strapi described: parties and drinking still went on, they just had to be very careful and ready to clear the men out at a moment's notice.

In the same vein, Strapi described how the veil was subverted. How hair could be shown or how a woman could indicate her figure by the way she wore it. I figured that any woman that would want to could get her point across even with a veil in the way.

One of the major themes of the book was the ability to fit-in, whether that be in Europe or back in Iran after Strapi completed high school. Since she had a secular education and was able to live outside the repressive regime, moving back would be difficult. But, living abroad was almost as bad: Iran was still her country and no one had any idea of the terror she had experienced as a child except her own countrymen.

This book is the first graphic novel I have read. I thought the form added to the experience of reading it. There were not only the words to guide you through Strapi's experience, but also the images she used to represent them. One particular part that exemplifies this is how she described how quickly she matured around age 15/16. She draws a pictures showing how she grew unevenly---"first one eye, then the other"---giving a graphic representation of just how awkward she felt.

An excellent read that I couldn't put down. Highly recommended.

10/10

<i>Structures: or Why Things Don't Fall Down</i> By J.E. Gordon

Sheila gave me this book a number of years ago as a birthday gift. It was suggested reading for one of her classes and she was impressed enough to pass it along.

The beginning of the book is very good. It gives an excellent background and an intuitive explanation of the equations that are fundamental to engineering design. Gordon spends much of the book explaining things that we see in every day life and how an engineer might look at them by giving a history of common designs and context for engineering materials and decisions.

This, though, is not a book that ages well as far as engineering science goes. One of teh difficulties I has was that sine Gordon reference modern (at the time) research, some sections of the book were painfully out of date. As such, current analysis methods (such as life cycle analysis), which are now expected when doing energy comparisons, are missing. I can't, truly, hold that lack of foresight against a book written in 1979.

The last chapter was more perplexing. Gordon sees two forces at work in design: efficiency and aesthetics:

The mechanical, that is to say the functional parts of any mass-produced car are not attractive, being made largely of wire and bent metal which we find it hard to admire, however useful they may be.

It seems to me that much of the point in understanding structural design and other engineering elements is to appreciate the elegance and details of the design---why the engineer made the decision, whether good or bad. The aesthetic value may not be instantly evident, but having the engineering literacy that this book is intended to impart, give purpose and thereby value to the bits of "wire and bent metal".

As an example, artwork is not always easy to understand. Looking at a Pollack or a Picasso does impart to every person who look at it an aesthetic value. Once, though, they are put into context of other artists of the time, one can learn to appreciate the aesthetics by understanding the structure it is built on.

A good read. Doesn't cover the latest research, but is good for those who have been away from structures for a while. I learned about thrust lines and why statues sit on top of buttresses. Do yourself a favor, though, and skip the last chapter. There have been better things written on engineering aesthetics.

6/10

<i>Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them</i> by David Anderegg, PhD.

Jason and I read this book together. Anderegg's argument is that our cultural understanding of nerds---as obsessed with science, focused on things other than human relationships, wearing glasses, being bad dressers and having no sex---while less harmful on an adult level---as adults understand irony and sarcasm---is extremely dangerous to children since they take what adults say as the truth (no developed sense of irony). This, as a result, turns kids away from science, math and intense curiosity at a young age as nerds are seen as bad (since adults make fun of them) and therefore undesirable to be. While some kids overcome this in high school, some do not and as these kids become adults, it only deepens the anti-intellectualism in the US.

Anderegg makes a compelling argument for this based on a few studies, his own experiences as a child psychologist and the development of the idea of a nerd in American culture (all the way back to Bram Bones and Ichabod Crane). I definitely agree the cultural idea of a nerd is damaging to America, in that it stigmatizes knowledge, thereby affecting the competitive of our country in science, technology and economic areas. It also brings about a general science and math illiteracy, causing the general public to not understand the intricacies of the debates on global warming, IVF and stem cell research, thereby making the public more susceptible to positions based on slogans (drill, baby, drill) and knee-jerk ideology.

Anderegg finishes by offering some prescriptions to parents on how to get their young kids to understand that being a nerd is not bad or that nerd is not a real idea. I was sorry to see that he did not offer ideas for those of us currently in science and engineering fields on how to improve the perception in American culture.

Overall, an interesting read with insightful assessments of American culture.

7/10

<i>Immortality</i> by Milan Kundera

I have a lot to say about this book, but have had trouble putting it all together in an entry. Here's a try.

Kundera uses a number of techniques in this book, which he claims are "precisely what can only be expressed in a novel, so that every adaptation contains nothing but the non-essential" and is written "in such a way that [it] cannot be retold." He does this by interweaving multiple stories, putting the writer in the story, bringing a character in to serve a single purpose and telling the story out of sequence, among other things.

While some of this may be difficult in film, I've seen movies that do many of these things: Pulp Fiction and Memento tell stories out of sequence; Stranger than Fiction and Adaptation involve the writers in their stories; Crash and Pulp Fiction (again) interweave multiple story lines and there are numerous films where characters are introduced merely to play a single line ro scene. It may be a different experience than reading a book, but it can be done and it can be done well.

One particular scent in the book that i enjoyed was the interaction between Brigitte and her German tutor:

"It isn't logical, I know, but through the centuries this became the common usage," he said as if begging the young Frenchwoman to take pity on a language cursed by history.

"I'm glad that you admit it. It isn't logical. But a language must be logical," Brigitte said.

The young German agreed. "Unfortunately, we lack a Decartes. That's an unforgivable gap in our history. German lacks a tradition of reason and clarity, it's full of metaphysical mist and Wagnerian music, and we all know who was the greatest admirer of Wagner: Hitler!"

Of course, as soon as I read that, I laughed out loud, as I was instantly reminded of the similar internet meme. I am not sure is this is the source material (after a quick search via Google, I can't find any earlier references), or if it was rederived or if Kundera took it from somewhere else.

The introduction of this tutor is interesting for another reason, as aside from Göethe, he was the only German in the book (Agnes was Swiss). The tutor and his embarrassment of his own language stands in sharp contrast to Göethe, who, as a poet, knew the virtues of German and how to make it do what he wanted. The tutor, instead, was embarrassed by Hitler on behalf of his entire country, expecting little from a language used by such a universally understood evil man.

This brings me to the last scene---or set of scenes---that I want to address here: Göethe and Hemingway in heaven. I always enjoy when these sorts of thought experiments are done well, as it is here. When you enable cross-time-line people to interact, you allow not only a judgment backwards, but also one forwards. It is easy for a modern musician to give his opinion of Mozart, but it is far more interesting to ask what Mozart would think of Yo-yo Ma.

While Kundera didn't show us this initial interaction, he implies that it went well as Hemingway and Göethe end up being good friends. As Kundera mentions, it is silly to assume that in heaven, with all of time to choose from, one would only be friends with one's contemporaries. But, I am left to wonder if Göethe remained friendless up to that point when Hemingway arrived.

I really enjoyed this book. I had some trouble with the bits about Göethe since I had little-to-no knowledge about him. I liked how the story lines lapped over the other and intertwined in the head of the author. A great read.

8/10