Retrieved from: the library
(0743250605)
Well, I had to read this. The title alone got my attention as I cataloged it last month. Another spur was the fact that I work with two former Encyclopedia Britannica employees.
So, yeah, this guy, a senior editor at Esquire decides he's going to read the entire 32-volume set of the 2002 edition of the EB. In a year. He's nuts. And that's before he starts.
The arrangement of the book is alphabetical by encyclopedia entry, beginning with a-ak ("Four words and then: 'See gagaku.'") and ending with Zywiec ("a beer-soaked town in south-central Poland). He interspersed the Micropedia (short annotations) with the Macropedia (long, long, long articles) so as to preserve some semblance of sanity. And he actually remembers stuff. But not necessarily the stuff you'd probably want him to remember if you were his teacher. He remembers the five-rumped catfish and a French predilection for cross-eyes.
In the process, he comes to terms with his father's penchant for practical jokes and weird trivia, his wife gets pregnant, his know-it-all brother-in-law turns out not to be such a bad guy who actually doesn't know everything, and he annoys his friends and acquaintances with inappropriate spoutings of dull facts. Oh, and he goes on Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire and loses on the definition of "erythrocyte."
Reading this book made me want to read the World Book. ;-)
Fun book. Snarky tone. Light reading.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Escape from Slavery, by Francis Bok, with Edward Tivnan
Retrieved from: the library
(0312306237)
This is how this book begins: "I have told the story many times about that day in 1986, when my mother sent me to the market to sell eggs and peanuts: the day I became a slave."
This is how it ends: "Finally, I want to thank God for blessing me and guiding me in the worst of times and the best of times." (Acknowledgements)
Here is a boy, age 7, who was suddenly and brutally removed from his family, his town and his culture, kidnaped by northern Sudanese raiders and enslaved for 10 years. He escaped three times, was recaptured twice and was lucky enough, not to mention strong and brave enough, to succeed when he ran away at age 17.
Read this book. It could be a companion to Frederick Douglass' works, or Harriet Tubman's. Except it happened in places that are currently in the news--Darfur, for instance--and clarifies exactly why Darfur is in the news now, why people are starving and why the refugee camps exist in the first place.
And, if you don't want to read a book, check out this website: iAbolish.com
As for the book itself, the story of course is compelling and eminently readable. There are a couple of 'a-ha' moments--"Yes, he really stopped learning as a child at age 7," moments when he shows himself to be kind of stuck there. But he has overcome that 'redirection' of his childhood (to euphemize horribly) in ways that are astounding. His memories of his parents are so clear, and the games he played in his village are so real that they seem to be taken from yesterday.
Amazing book, quick read, horrifying subject, and hopeful at the end. Wow.
(0312306237)
This is how this book begins: "I have told the story many times about that day in 1986, when my mother sent me to the market to sell eggs and peanuts: the day I became a slave."
This is how it ends: "Finally, I want to thank God for blessing me and guiding me in the worst of times and the best of times." (Acknowledgements)
Here is a boy, age 7, who was suddenly and brutally removed from his family, his town and his culture, kidnaped by northern Sudanese raiders and enslaved for 10 years. He escaped three times, was recaptured twice and was lucky enough, not to mention strong and brave enough, to succeed when he ran away at age 17.
Read this book. It could be a companion to Frederick Douglass' works, or Harriet Tubman's. Except it happened in places that are currently in the news--Darfur, for instance--and clarifies exactly why Darfur is in the news now, why people are starving and why the refugee camps exist in the first place.
And, if you don't want to read a book, check out this website: iAbolish.com
As for the book itself, the story of course is compelling and eminently readable. There are a couple of 'a-ha' moments--"Yes, he really stopped learning as a child at age 7," moments when he shows himself to be kind of stuck there. But he has overcome that 'redirection' of his childhood (to euphemize horribly) in ways that are astounding. His memories of his parents are so clear, and the games he played in his village are so real that they seem to be taken from yesterday.
Amazing book, quick read, horrifying subject, and hopeful at the end. Wow.
Friday, November 19, 2004
The Sistine Chapel: the Art, the History, and the Restoration, by Carlo Pietrangeli, et al.
Retrieved from: the library
(051756274x)
I really just looked at the pictures here, in the context of listening to Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. I look at this book pretty regularly, about every 2 or 3 years.
The depressing thing about this book is that it's nearly 20 years old and the ink in the photos is fading. Still, it's good to see the changes since I was there in '85 while the restoration was going on; seeing the (fading) pictures reminds me that I really have to go back and see the whole ceiling, finished, someday. Soon would be nice.
I'd like to own a book that really delves into the art on the ceiling and altar wall in depth without "wasting" pages on other artists of the time. I say that tongue-in-cheek. Just the Sistine photos, please.
(051756274x)
I really just looked at the pictures here, in the context of listening to Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. I look at this book pretty regularly, about every 2 or 3 years.
The depressing thing about this book is that it's nearly 20 years old and the ink in the photos is fading. Still, it's good to see the changes since I was there in '85 while the restoration was going on; seeing the (fading) pictures reminds me that I really have to go back and see the whole ceiling, finished, someday. Soon would be nice.
I'd like to own a book that really delves into the art on the ceiling and altar wall in depth without "wasting" pages on other artists of the time. I say that tongue-in-cheek. Just the Sistine photos, please.
The Square Halo and Other Mysteries of Western Art: Images and the Stories That Inspired Them, by Sally Fisher
Retrieved from: ILL
(0810944634)
Interesting, but a little basic. I'd like a real text-y book about this subject. But there were some good chunks of info to help understand some of the symbolism in Medieval/Renaissance art. For instance, the Virgin Mary usually has lilies around her and wears blue; that's how you know it's her. The Magdalen is usually in red with her perfume jar.
I will say that it certainly helps to know the Bible to 'get' some of this stuff. On the other hand, the saints are quite complicated: they usually are pictured with the devices that martyred them (assuming they were martyred) or some important scene from their lives. If that's not enough--there are three women saints that involve dragon stories--you just have to guess.
A little mythological knowledge is useful as well, since the Medieval view was that even though the Greek culture was at it's high point before Christ's arrival, all their prophecies and so forth were really about Christ, even though they didn't ever figure it out. So we have Venus and Mars having something to do with the gospels. Or something.
The most valuable thing I retained is the symbols for the four evangelists:
The upside: there is a decent bibliography. More books to read. Yee haw!
(0810944634)
Interesting, but a little basic. I'd like a real text-y book about this subject. But there were some good chunks of info to help understand some of the symbolism in Medieval/Renaissance art. For instance, the Virgin Mary usually has lilies around her and wears blue; that's how you know it's her. The Magdalen is usually in red with her perfume jar.
I will say that it certainly helps to know the Bible to 'get' some of this stuff. On the other hand, the saints are quite complicated: they usually are pictured with the devices that martyred them (assuming they were martyred) or some important scene from their lives. If that's not enough--there are three women saints that involve dragon stories--you just have to guess.
A little mythological knowledge is useful as well, since the Medieval view was that even though the Greek culture was at it's high point before Christ's arrival, all their prophecies and so forth were really about Christ, even though they didn't ever figure it out. So we have Venus and Mars having something to do with the gospels. Or something.
The most valuable thing I retained is the symbols for the four evangelists:
Matthew, the winged manThere are reasons for this, but she doesn't get into them, and I wish she had.
Mark, the winged lion
Luke, the winged ox
John, the eagle
The upside: there is a decent bibliography. More books to read. Yee haw!
Gilligan's Wake, by Tom Carson
Retrieved from: the library
(031229123x)
Hello James Joyce-influence! There is something to be said for being the same age as the author of something like this book, because, even if you don't get the plot completely nailed down, you at least understand the allusions and puns. For example, from the first section:
The bones of this book are the seven characters on Gilligan's Island, appearing in the same order as the song: Gilligan, the Skipper, the Millioinaire, his wife, the movie star, the professor, Mary Ann. Kind of deflating:
(031229123x)
Hello James Joyce-influence! There is something to be said for being the same age as the author of something like this book, because, even if you don't get the plot completely nailed down, you at least understand the allusions and puns. For example, from the first section:
Rats were patrolling Room 222, gunsmoke made the sea be yesterday, oh Dr. Kildare F. Troop I'm on to you: I know what the Mayo Clinic is.... When dawn wells up in the sky, she knots me together. Then we'd sit around in the Cleaver Ward in our robes and gowns.... The one across from us was called the Burt Ward, and every schizo in it wore a mask and hopped around like batty robins.OK? Count the pop-culture references: I find at least 9, with a couple others buzzing around the perimeter that I can't place. But do you see what I mean about the plot? To be fair, this is the least intelligible chapter, kind of like someone who has done nothing but watch TV his entire life would sound like if you took him out of his living room.
The bones of this book are the seven characters on Gilligan's Island, appearing in the same order as the song: Gilligan, the Skipper, the Millioinaire, his wife, the movie star, the professor, Mary Ann. Kind of deflating:
Confused yet? This is defintely a book to read again, more closely, if I had time. I'd skip the movie star and professor chapters because they were terminally depressing. Intricate book, good for book clubs, if you have a group that's pretty avant.Gilligan's nuts, as is obvious from the quote above the Skipper is living in the past (World War II to be exact, where he meets JFK) the Millionaire is entirely clueless (recommended Alger Hiss for a government job even though he knew Hiss was a Communist...) his wife was a morphine addict in the 20s who married Thurston as a backstop when her father died the movie star is from "Alabam'-goddamn' and is actually a B- and X-rated movie star whose biggest claim to fame is sleeping with Sammy Davis, Jr., in Sinatra's house in Palm Springs while her sister did JFK in the pool the professor--one of the characters I liked best on the show--is a narcissitic sex-addict who worked on the Manhattan Project and other creepily nefarious underground government programs Mary Ann is a perpetual virgin who left home for a year of college in France where she lost her virginity...the first time...and can't get back to her Kansas home because it's Brigadoon, so she just keeps wandering the globe losing her virginity time after time
Friday, November 12, 2004
Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, by Ron Koertge
Retrieved from: the library
(0763621161)
I have never read anything by Koertge that didn't rate above a 7 on my scale of perfection. This book is no exception, although it is quite different from his usual Teen Problem Novel. This time we are led through mono and poetry exercises by a 14-year-old baseball star, bored out of his mind and doing anything to pass the time, even writing poetry. He turns out to be pretty good at it: from free verse to sonnets to sestinas (I'd never heard of these, but I'm now itching to try one!). On the other hand, he's no expert, so the sonnet's scheme doesn't flow exactly right, but he talks about revising in the dugout after he's finally able to play baseball again....
Good book for boys (and girls) who think poetry is for weirdos.
Here's his Elegy example:
I've looked everywhere. In the closets,
downstairs, in the garage, the attic.
I know you've found a really cool place
to hide, but it's been long enough now,
okay?
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
It's dark, and you're really late for dinner.
(0763621161)
I have never read anything by Koertge that didn't rate above a 7 on my scale of perfection. This book is no exception, although it is quite different from his usual Teen Problem Novel. This time we are led through mono and poetry exercises by a 14-year-old baseball star, bored out of his mind and doing anything to pass the time, even writing poetry. He turns out to be pretty good at it: from free verse to sonnets to sestinas (I'd never heard of these, but I'm now itching to try one!). On the other hand, he's no expert, so the sonnet's scheme doesn't flow exactly right, but he talks about revising in the dugout after he's finally able to play baseball again....
Good book for boys (and girls) who think poetry is for weirdos.
Here's his Elegy example:
Ollie, Ollie, All in FreeIt's okay to come out now, Mom.
I've looked everywhere. In the closets,
downstairs, in the garage, the attic.
I know you've found a really cool place
to hide, but it's been long enough now,
okay?
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
It's dark, and you're really late for dinner.
A Ghost in the Machine, by Caroline Graham
Retrieved from: the library (looked good as I cataloged it, so I snagged it)
(0312324219)
Frustratingly opaque at the beginning, this book was one that picked up speed about two-thirds of the way through. An unusual mystery (for me, at least) in that the reader actually spends some time getting to know the eventual victim, and liking him. Usually, the dead person is a creep, or at least it's understandable why he's dead. This time the victim doesn't die till nearly halfway through and the person most likely--the one I would have LIKED to have committed the murder, so she could be jailed--is the least likely to have been able to do it, as it turns out. The murder itself is reminiscent of early Barnard, the character with the collection of torture devices is the victim in his books; here it's the creator of the museum of war machines who is in for it.
The depth of psychological portraits reminded me a bit of Ruth Rendell. UNlike Rendell, however, there were enough decent, upstanding individuals amid the dregs to make me want to find out what happened. And the end, the youngest member of the cast turns out to be quite a corker. I may be adding Graham to my "List" of authors. Interesting characters.
(0312324219)
Frustratingly opaque at the beginning, this book was one that picked up speed about two-thirds of the way through. An unusual mystery (for me, at least) in that the reader actually spends some time getting to know the eventual victim, and liking him. Usually, the dead person is a creep, or at least it's understandable why he's dead. This time the victim doesn't die till nearly halfway through and the person most likely--the one I would have LIKED to have committed the murder, so she could be jailed--is the least likely to have been able to do it, as it turns out. The murder itself is reminiscent of early Barnard, the character with the collection of torture devices is the victim in his books; here it's the creator of the museum of war machines who is in for it.
The depth of psychological portraits reminded me a bit of Ruth Rendell. UNlike Rendell, however, there were enough decent, upstanding individuals amid the dregs to make me want to find out what happened. And the end, the youngest member of the cast turns out to be quite a corker. I may be adding Graham to my "List" of authors. Interesting characters.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
The Bear’s Embrace: A Story of Survival, by Patricia Van Tighem
Retrieved from: the library
(0375421319)
The author and her husband--a nurse and a doctor--went hiking in 1983 a happy-go-lucky young couple in their mid-20s. In the midst of their hike, they were attacked by a grizzly and were fortunate enough to make it to medical facilities in time for their lives to be saved. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of their return to passably “normal” lives. The bear nearly destroyed both the carotid and the femoral arteries of her husband, but he eventually regained the use of all his limbs and had successful reconstruction of his jaw. Patricia has been through at least 20 surgeries to correct the damage done to her face, scalp and jaw since the attack. Each of these took a little more of her self away, until finally, almost 12 years later, she has to be hospitalized for depression. She receives ECT while there, and also is treated with something similar to aversion therapy where she is repeatedly told basically to “just get over it.” Meanwhile, her physical condition is deteriorating yet again.... This is a terribly painful, difficult book, but one that is impossible to stop reading.
It reminds me a great deal of Going to the Sun, by James McManus, one of my top five favorite books.
(0375421319)
The author and her husband--a nurse and a doctor--went hiking in 1983 a happy-go-lucky young couple in their mid-20s. In the midst of their hike, they were attacked by a grizzly and were fortunate enough to make it to medical facilities in time for their lives to be saved. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of their return to passably “normal” lives. The bear nearly destroyed both the carotid and the femoral arteries of her husband, but he eventually regained the use of all his limbs and had successful reconstruction of his jaw. Patricia has been through at least 20 surgeries to correct the damage done to her face, scalp and jaw since the attack. Each of these took a little more of her self away, until finally, almost 12 years later, she has to be hospitalized for depression. She receives ECT while there, and also is treated with something similar to aversion therapy where she is repeatedly told basically to “just get over it.” Meanwhile, her physical condition is deteriorating yet again.... This is a terribly painful, difficult book, but one that is impossible to stop reading.
It reminds me a great deal of Going to the Sun, by James McManus, one of my top five favorite books.
Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence About the Origin of the Gospels, by Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew D’Ancona
Retrieved from: the library
(0385480512)
Hmmm.... This was one of those books that I felt like I missed something at the beginning that would make the book coherent. Sometimes authors come back around to it in chapter two, but not this time. It just felt like I walked into the room after the discussion started so not only didn’t I hear the beginning of the conversation, I didn’t even know the cast of characters or what everyone was all upset about. Ultimately, I made it to p. 108, just after the chapter on Charles Bousfield Huleatt, the man who discovered in Egypt three small (like thumbprint-sized) fragments of papyrus on which is written parts of St. Matt. He’s the real drama here: these fragments sat in the collection of miscellany at Magdelan College for almost 70 years before anyone even bothered to look them over closely. They then proceeded to turn biblical scholarship on its head. Huleatt himself was an Evangelical cleric in Luxor in the 1890s who was also interested in the field of textual criticism. He was transferred to Messina in Italy where he, his wife, and all of his children died in an earthquake in 1902. He was quickly forgotten, only to be rediscovered in the latter part of the last century, almost by accident.
I wish the book hadn’t been so hard to figure out. I didn’t finish it, which is extraordinarily unusual for a book like this. Oh, well. Less arguing about what the fragments mean and more explanation of what they say would be my suggestion!
(0385480512)
Hmmm.... This was one of those books that I felt like I missed something at the beginning that would make the book coherent. Sometimes authors come back around to it in chapter two, but not this time. It just felt like I walked into the room after the discussion started so not only didn’t I hear the beginning of the conversation, I didn’t even know the cast of characters or what everyone was all upset about. Ultimately, I made it to p. 108, just after the chapter on Charles Bousfield Huleatt, the man who discovered in Egypt three small (like thumbprint-sized) fragments of papyrus on which is written parts of St. Matt. He’s the real drama here: these fragments sat in the collection of miscellany at Magdelan College for almost 70 years before anyone even bothered to look them over closely. They then proceeded to turn biblical scholarship on its head. Huleatt himself was an Evangelical cleric in Luxor in the 1890s who was also interested in the field of textual criticism. He was transferred to Messina in Italy where he, his wife, and all of his children died in an earthquake in 1902. He was quickly forgotten, only to be rediscovered in the latter part of the last century, almost by accident.
I wish the book hadn’t been so hard to figure out. I didn’t finish it, which is extraordinarily unusual for a book like this. Oh, well. Less arguing about what the fragments mean and more explanation of what they say would be my suggestion!
Dicken’s Fur Coat and Charlotte’s Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England’s Great Victorian Novelists, by Daniel Pool
Retrieved from: the library
(0060183659)
Lots of minutiae about Dickens and the Brontës along with Thackeray, Eliot, Hardy, Trollope and all the “lesser lights.” I remember learning in high school that Dickens dumped his wife (my term, by the way); this gets into some more detail, but not much. I still don’t get it completely, and it’s shocking that Victorian novelists were apparently less concerned with propriety as a whole: Dickens leaves his wife to hang about with an actress much younger than he, Thackeray put his wife in an asylum, George Eliot was living in sin with a married man (which is why she wrote under a man’s name--it wasn’t exactly a secret who she was), and so on. Charlotte Brontë was in love with her (younger) publisher and when scorned by him married her father’s rector and then almost immediately died. What a group of characters. Almost enough to get a novel from their lives alone! It’s a good reminder that those uptight 19th century Brits weren’t actually as disciplined as we'd think. At least some of them weren’t!
(0060183659)
Lots of minutiae about Dickens and the Brontës along with Thackeray, Eliot, Hardy, Trollope and all the “lesser lights.” I remember learning in high school that Dickens dumped his wife (my term, by the way); this gets into some more detail, but not much. I still don’t get it completely, and it’s shocking that Victorian novelists were apparently less concerned with propriety as a whole: Dickens leaves his wife to hang about with an actress much younger than he, Thackeray put his wife in an asylum, George Eliot was living in sin with a married man (which is why she wrote under a man’s name--it wasn’t exactly a secret who she was), and so on. Charlotte Brontë was in love with her (younger) publisher and when scorned by him married her father’s rector and then almost immediately died. What a group of characters. Almost enough to get a novel from their lives alone! It’s a good reminder that those uptight 19th century Brits weren’t actually as disciplined as we'd think. At least some of them weren’t!
Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, by Ross King (on CD: read by John Lee)
Retrieved from: the library
(0736696058)
Fascinating dissertation on the four years it took Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Not only about the painting, the painter and the pope, it also discusses Julius’ disastrous military campaigns in the north of the peninsula, the rivalry between Michelangelo and Raphael (who was painting frescos in the Pope’s apartments beginning about a year after the ceiling work began in the chapel), the destruction and planned rebuilding of St. Peter’s by Bramante, and Michelangelo’s dysfunctional, mostly male, family. Really good. It was especially nice listening to it because of all the lovely Italian names that just rolled off Lee's tongue. The word "Rusticucci" I loved especially.
The only downside was not being able to look at the pictures as I was listening because I was driving at the time. However, now having seen a copy of the book itself, I still would have wanted a full volume on the ceiling at hand. There are relatively few illustrations, although those included are very interesting in themselves. The map of Italy is helpful, too.
(0736696058)
Fascinating dissertation on the four years it took Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Not only about the painting, the painter and the pope, it also discusses Julius’ disastrous military campaigns in the north of the peninsula, the rivalry between Michelangelo and Raphael (who was painting frescos in the Pope’s apartments beginning about a year after the ceiling work began in the chapel), the destruction and planned rebuilding of St. Peter’s by Bramante, and Michelangelo’s dysfunctional, mostly male, family. Really good. It was especially nice listening to it because of all the lovely Italian names that just rolled off Lee's tongue. The word "Rusticucci" I loved especially.
The only downside was not being able to look at the pictures as I was listening because I was driving at the time. However, now having seen a copy of the book itself, I still would have wanted a full volume on the ceiling at hand. There are relatively few illustrations, although those included are very interesting in themselves. The map of Italy is helpful, too.
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