Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems by Rita Dove
I had my firephone read this book to me. It may have been better to read the poems in print. There were some that dealt with watergate and slave politics. Also other bits of random poems. They went in one ear and out the other.
A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen
This play was a lot better than I remember it in high school. Nora is a ditzy materialistic housewife. She seems very excited about the promotion to bank manager her husband Torvald is about to receive. He chastises her for plotting to spend it before he has started to receive it. She has three kids, but likes to have the hired-help take care of them. She likes to buy presents for others, but just presents for herself. An old friend comes to town. She has been divorced and needs a job. Nora pulls some strings with her husband to secure a job at the bank. However, this ends up causing things to unwind for her. To give a job to her friend, her husband is letting Krogstad go. Nora had received a loan from Krogstad with a forged signature from her dying father. Krogstad holds this against her. (Nora had taken out the loan to help her husband convalesce in the south.) Nora doesn't want her husband to find out. However, he reads the letter from Krogstad and flips out. He is more concerned for himself than for Nora. Then when he receives the paid off note, he is happy again. It is Nora's turn to flip out and decide she will leave them to be independent.
Nora is quite unreliable and is prone to take things to extreme. I wasn't sure that she had really taken out the loan. Was she just exaggerating to feel better with her friends? When it appeared she did take out hte loan, she went to extremes to hide it from her husband and prevent it Krogstad from doing negative things. There was a lot of toeing around issues to try to get what was needed. Then when it came to that she did it, she flipped out and decided to drop her life and not live in a "Doll House". They both seem to delight in controlling each other. There seemed to be some love in the relationship, but also some mutual manipulation. They both were most interested in caring for themselves. Nora also came from a family with some not-so-good characters. Is the rash behavior and familial abandonment just another case of this behavior? The L.A. Theater Works production was well done with some great actors. This helps the play come alive.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett
The early part of the book was heavy on religious discussion. The end was a murder trial. In between it was quite slow moving. The early writing was good, but it went on for too long. The trial was fast paced and tied in some of the moral discussions of the early part.
Boring Asian Female by Canwen Xu
This reminded me of Best Offer Wins. In both cases, an Asian American lead is driven to succeed in the way she understands the American Dream, but goes off the rails.
In this book, Elizabeth Zhang is in her last year at Columbia, getting ready to go to law school. She grew up in South Dakota with hard-working immigrant parents. She was the only Asian at her high school and never quite fit in. She went to Columbia because that was were the snobby elite in a TV show went. She had her mind set on attending Harvard Law school to achieve the life of wealth and prosperity that other classmates seemed to have. Then she learns she didn't get into Harvard Law, or any law school other than Georgetown. She also hears that another Asian female, got into Columbia. When Elizabeth talks with the pre-law advisor, the. feedback is that she has a good application, but that she is a "boring" Asian female. Then she seadil goes off the deep end.
She is convinced that Laura stole the spot at Harvard Law. She starts stalking Laura. She impersonates a high schooler to learn more about Laura. She even asks to be called Laura when making love. Then things get worse. She hatches a plan to get Laura's admission rescinded. She publishes an anonymous far-right blog in a way that would be identified as Laura. However, people eventually trace it to the male student whose login she used to publish it. He ends up dropping out of school, only to later become a right wing commentator. Elizabeth finds out she is pregnant. After getting money from the guy for an abortion, she decides instead to have the kid, so she can be less boring. She later sneaks into Laura's dorm, but Laura comes home (with limited mental functionality due to substance use.) After Laura finally realizes everything Elizabeth has done, Elizabeth sprayed her with pepper spray and got away. Laura dies from the spray. (she had a heart condition). Elizabeth showed no remorse, and was fine when another girl was charged with the manslaughter death. Elizabeth has a miscarriage. She later impersonates Laura in the Harvard law admit group. She has a big breakdown when the group calls her out as not being a real future student. After recovering, she gets a call from Harvard, letting her know there was an error with her score reporting and that she was now being offered a spot.
Previously, Harvard said the decision was final and there was no way to validate the data. If only they hadn't Elizabeth would not have gone wacko. However, she showed clearly that she would do anything to have her desired success. Is this really the type of person you would want? The steps seemed logical, but the results were horrid. Is this an indictment of an over-driven Asian culture? The narrative was compelling and the characters. were interesting, though I really wanted to see her charged rather than end up with her dream.
Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman
We are horrible at focussing today. Devices regularly distract us from the present. We are churning from one item to another without focus. Inner, outer and other focus are all key areas that can help us succeed. I found the book very well written at the start. (It even caught me off guard not being focussed enough!) The later part did seem to reiterate the main point a few too many times. The examples were good, but not as powerful as the start.
Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Ted Widmer
Before reading this book, I didn't know much about Wings. I knew McCartney's post-Beatles band sang "Live and Let Die". I could also hum the corus for "Band on the Run". That was about it. This story is somewhere between an oral history and a narrative book. It starts with Paul and his wife retreating to the countryside to escape the limelight at the end of the Beatles era. However, the music bug will just not die. Paul does some work with studio musicians and then Wings came about as a relatively stable thing. There was a time there where they would do a "pop up tour" - going from city to city and playing a show with minimal advanced warning. I have trouble fathoming how there would not be crazy support for an ex-Beatle showing up in town. This would only have been possible in the days before cell phones and social media. Later they evolved to more traditional tours. These were always family affairs, with mom and dad in the band and the kids coming along from city to city. Wings got more popular. Then things came crashing down when Paul was busted for marijuana possession in Japan. The Beatles were a 60s band. Wings were a 70s band. Both pretty much ended as their representative decade ended. I found the story compelling even though I knew little about the band.
Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan by Richard Overy
The United States is unapologetic in the use of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II. It is believed that the bomb saved half a million American lives - more than the Japanese lives lost in the explosions. We often second guess the use today. However, the important question to ask is why did America of the time choose to drop the bomb? Americans were tired of the war. Germany had surrendered and Americans wanted to go home. However, Japanese kept fighting what seemed to be a losing cause. The American public now saw Japanese as less than human and wanted to do whatever it took to end the war as soon as possible. The atomic bomb seemed like a great solution.
The firebombing of Tokyo was the most destructive conventional bombing in history. More people were immediately killed in this bombing than immediately by either of the atomic bombs. The Japanese initially dismissed the atomic bombs as just another big bomb. It is uncertain whether this bombing changed the timeline of the Japanese surrender. However, they did finally surrender not long after the bombing, leading to a cause and effect alignment in the minds of Americans.
This book is an interesting exploration of the bombing that looks at it from the lens of 1945 America while tying in modern knowledge of the Japanese mentality. It does a good job of exploring how people felt and why things were done as they were.
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Apocalypse: Expert Advice for Doomsday Situations by David Borgenicht amd Joshua Piven
How would you handle the collapse of civilization. At first, the book purports to offer "survivalist" advice on gathering supplies. It gets more extreme as it discusses hoarding gold and building a hidden bunker. Then it goes off the deep end and turns pure comical. There are discussions of surviving widespread destruction from zombies, dinosaurs and aliens among others. This was probably more fun to write than it is to read.
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst
A couple went boating and got "lost at sea", needing to spend a long period of time on a raft. This was a stressful experience that ultimately made their relationship stronger. They had a few "false hope" near-rescues before they were finally saved. They received a lot of publicity afterwards. The experience proved transformative, and they kept a strong relationship through life.
This book is based on the account of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey. The "lost at sea" experience was only part of the story as the book focuses on the later impact of their life. (At first it felt odd to have it discuss the "post-shipwreck" experiences with so much remaining in the book, but it does make sense in the end.)
Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
This is a long space opera about people on the moon. There are big families that control a lot of the moon activity. Law is primarily carried out as contract negotiations, thus there is little need for appeal. A marriage between two families goes bad and conflicts arise. The book is long and boring, and is lies much more in the "soap opera" realm.
The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future by Joel J. Miller
Books have played an important role in the development of humanity. Knowledge has been able to be passed down down and accessed by greater numbers of people. There were challenges. Books were initially hand-copied. This required skill and limited the number of copies. It was also seen as a negatively impacting memory. Printing opened up more wide-spread reproduction of books. However, this also opened up significant cultural and religious conflicts. Printing rose in concert with the reformation and counter-refomration in the Christian world. Each side was keen to destroy books that they did not like, leading to the loss of many ancient texts. The Islamic world simply opposed printing, leading to a stagnation in intellectual capacity. (During the earlier era, the Islamic world had been the primary source of intellectual advancement.)
New forms of books later evolved. Don Quixote has been acknowledged as the first novel. Soon fiction branched to cover people from many diverse backgrounds. Today books have proliferated in paper and electronic formats. They are easy to produce and cover variety of different specialized topics.
This book seemed extremely appealing and interesting. I enjoyed the discussion, yet very little of it stuck out as memorable.
Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence by Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins
The authors divide everyone into those with a "promotion" and a "prevention" mindset and provide advice on how to best guide and influence people based on that understanding. It is the standard "fit everything into this view" book. It makes sense in the context of the book. However, real people may alternate between risk avoidance and success seeking behaviors, even at the same time.
The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned by John Strausbaugh
The Soviet Union built up its space program primarily by making crude copies of western technology. There focus was more on embarrassing the west than on technological innovation. They hid their failures while exaggerating their successes. They lacked some of the advanced technology, so they would over-engineer heavy machines. The program did send people to space and made celebrities out of initial cosmonauts. However, they never did get a man to the moon. After Khrushchev lost power, the USSR shifted resources away from the space race. This book is a very snarky take on the Soviet program, with an emphasis on the structural problems and ineptitude of the space program.
There Were Giants in the Land: Episodes in the Life of W. Cleon Skousen by W. Cleon Skousen, Jo Ann Skousen and Mark Skousen
W. Clean Skousen's family members assembled an autobiography from his journals. Skousen was born in Canada, then served a church mission in Europe and then came to live in the USA. He spent time working for J Edgar Hoover in the FBI. He was later a university professor and a police chief before focussing on his National Center for Constitutional Studies. The organization advocated a conservative focus on the study of the constitution and it's religious basis. In addition to the political writings, he also wrote parenting works and a "thousand years" series of books on the Old Testament. He was very devoted to his organization and his brand of conservative principles. However, he had trouble with others that differed in the way to run things. His anti-communist beliefs were perfect for the cold war mentality and seemed to reach the mainstream peak during the Reagan era. After the end of the cold war, his relevance appeared to wane.
The Woman Who Died a Lot: A Thursday Next Novel, Book 7 by Jasper Fforde
The book is filled with literary puns and indirect political commentary. There are "smitings" happening from some diety. The Goliath Corporation has some scheme and way to benefit. There are some history from librarians and sushing. All this comes together in a detective story that, alas, is not terribly engaging.
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
This is a fairly long memoir that also moves too fast. It feels that it rushes through key points as side notes, almost putting an afterthought that a song was "Born to Run". I don't remember anything mentioning how he got the nickname "the Boss". Either I missed it, or it was not mentioned. The book follows the typical rock star format. He struggled initially and barely made ends meet as he was trying to get the career off the ground. He stuck with it and then became a super star. His career arcs up until he has the greatest mainstream success with the misunderstood "Born in the USA". Then he continues on.
Gone Before Goodbye by Harlan Coben and Reese Witherspoon
The book was ridiculously engaging at first. Then it starts to drag with a few too many twists and turns. The book starts by introducing us to the protagonist, a doctor who has lost her medical license and her husband. They had been involved in a charity that would perform surgery to those in violent areas and husband was caught in cross fire. She later has an old friend offer to help her out. She is asked to do a job on some rich people in Russia. She will get special authorization there to do it. While there, she has a conversation with an AI grief bot of her husband and realizes that she could be in big trouble. She flees and later comes in contact with a government operative. She ends up in Dubai and is asked to do more special surgery. Then she sees the Russian oligarch get killed but learns that he was just an imposter and the the real oligarch wants her to perform surgery on him. She also learns the charity got involved with money laundering and organ harvesting and there were some murders planned and carried out. There were just a few too many twists at the end.
The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future by Samuel Arbesman
What is the philosophy of coding? This book explores computer programming from a near metaphysical standpoint. How are we able to communicate with computers? How has this communication evolved over time? How does this relate to the way we can describe ourselves with genetics? It is a different take on the history of code and how it impacts us.
At one time, mainline protestant churches were community institutions. They represented a cross-section of the community, with different political beliefs. Today these churches are rare. Evangelical churches have risen up and are tightly associated with the right. Born Again and Evangelical are associated with politics as much as they are with religion. (There are even cases of non-religious or other religions adopting those terms.)
While right wing is associated with religious, left wing has been more associated with agnostic. There is a dearth of the "middle". The churches that could appeal to everyone have been dying off. Many small towns have lost their churches. People with fall away from churches due to political beliefs. There are also few avenues for people who are honestly questioning. Churches have represented multiple things. They are provide community, service, moral guidance and spirituality. With them falling away, society is at a loss.
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
This thought provoking science fiction collection deals more with philosophy than hard science. (Though mathematicians and linguists may beg to differ.) The story notes were rather short and placed at the end rather than after each story.
Story List (titles rom Wikipedia entry):
"Tower of Babylon" (originally published in Omni, November 1990) (Nebula Award winner)
This is an exploration of the Tower of Babel with a "literal" cosmology like the bible. It is fun, but not super insightful.
"Understand" (originally published in Asimov's, August 1991)
A man receives a medical treatment that gives him super-human intellect. The scientists are trying to study this, but he is always one step ahead of them due to his abilities. He later secretly obtains more of the treatment, making him even more intelligent. He eventually connects with another super-human. They fight with their capabilities, leading to one surviving. Could we have any control over "super-capabilities"? Part of super-smartness would be an understanding of what people are trying to test, making it difficult to measure.
"Division by Zero" (originally published in Full Spectrum 3, June 1991)
What if math were not fixed and division by zero were possible? The woman who discovers this struggles with sanity and causes issues with her marriage. Her husband is both her support and falling out of love with her.
"Story of Your Life" (originally published in Starlight 2, November 1998) (Nebula Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner)
How would we learn to communicate with aliens? A scientist is tasked with understanding the language of heptapods that have visited earth. Their language is structured different from ours, with a non-linear structure closely related to how they are. They also find some math "simple" that we find more advanced. It is an intriguing look at the challenges of communication when there are large differences. It also comes to an abrupt end when they decide it is time to leave.
"Seventy-Two Letters" (originally published in Vanishing Acts, June 2000) (Sidewise Award winner)
Names have power. While this was one of the reasons I read this collection, I was a bit lost in the story.
"The Evolution of Human Science" (originally published as "Catching Crumbs from the Table" in Nature, June 2000)
What would the role of humans be if we had "metahumans" with greater capacity?
"Hell Is the Absence of God" (originally published in Starlight 3, July 2001) (Hugo Award, Locus Award and Nebula Award winner)
In this world angelic visitations are common, but not worry free. Sometimes people are healed, while others may be injured by flying shrapnel. People may end up in heaven or hell depending on their behavior and everyone knows where they go. The story focuses on people with different faith journeys. It is portrayed as pure fantasy which allows it to better explore relationships between faith and knowledge. It has an interesting structure nearer to a documentary of intertwined people.
"Liking What You See: A Documentary"
People can get a special treatment that causes them to not notice people's looks. Thus they will not be lead astray by common concepts of beauty. Many parents would have their kids undergo this process. The central focus is a college where the students are voting to have this treatment mandatory so as not cause harm to people without good looks. It is an interesting exploration of equality gone to extremes, while also exploring how we often make bad decisions based on appearance. How would life be if we could have this treatment?
Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace by Nikil Saval
White-collar jobs were originally confined to proprietors that may have a clerk helping out. This began to change during the industrial revolution. Giant organizations and economies of scale led to many of these white collar workers becoming employees. Now employee is the norm, rather than entrepreneur. These workers see themselves as being closer to the management than to the blue collar workers. They identify with the middle class and are generally not unionized. This is an interesting exploration of how office work has changed over time.
The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin by Kip Wilson
In Weimar Germany, queer clubs were popular and somewhat accepted. This book paints Germany as an LGBT Utopia that was only brought down by the rise of Hitler and Nazis. The book paints a picture of revisionist history that was extremely black and white. It feels like a revisionist Germany painted to look like the modern world. It is pretty short.
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
This book explores the human body. There are many different "stories" talking about parts and systems of the body. It is not a complete reference, but it does provide interesting exploration of different topics, from the common to obscure.
The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
A fungus wiped out most of the population and turned those in contact with it into zombies. A few other "off the grid" humans managed to survive, but would fight against other groups. There were also some military groups that survived and are studying it in a lab. They are studying some kids that have been exposed to the fungi, yet still function as normal humans. The lead researcher is portrayed in a negative light throughout the book. This sets up the conclusion where they realize the best course of action is to let the funga do a massage spore release that will wipe out the current state of humanity and lead to a future human/fungi symbiosis. The narrative flows very well and stays interesting, even as it presents a non-standard conclusion to the post-apocalyptic zombie tale.
