The Book of Disquiet

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith

The book is structured as the random thoughts of a Portuguese bookkeeper and aspiring writer. Though the author died in 1935, this book was not published until 1982. He muses on the culture and the life, providing armchair discussions of history and philosophy. He explores the concepts of joy and culture. The religion that served as the base of society was cut down, leaving nothing much in its place. Postmodernism is seen as just "anti" without any strong coherence to itself. Are dreams or reality better? The book has little organization, but is filled with interesting thoughts.

Bicycling in Seattle, 1879-1904

Bicycling in Seattle, 1879-1904 by Frank Cameron

This is a short history of the first bicycle boom in Seattle. Seattle missed some of the earlier booms, such as the penny farthings. However, it took big to the late 1800s safety bike boom. There were once dozens of bike shops on second avenue. Multiple velodroms appeared all around the regions. The bicycle advocates also wanted roads to ride on. Hills posed challenges, but there were still various bike routes created. They worked hard to improve existing roads and to build roads to travel on. There was a bicycle toll road started to the south. It was never completed, but did have a viaduct through the mud flats built. Other key routes were improved with cinder trails. (However, they had to make sure animals were kept off.) Alas, the bicycle boom tapered off. Many of these bicycle routes become roads, while building lots encroached on others. Interlaken is one of the few remnants. Just imagine if we still had the network radiating from downtown connecting to other places.

The Tao of Pooh

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

The characters from Winnie the Pooh help explain the philosophy of Taoism. The philosophy encourages one to take life as it comes. The anticipation of something can be better than the actual experience. Looking for too much can cause one to be miserable. I need to dig up some details that I wrote about it when I read it a long time ago.

The Ware Tetralogy

The Ware Tetralogy by Rudy Rucker

The four books of the series are available as a free download. They explore a near future world, but have different approaches. There are various cyborgs and androids. There are conflicts between the various degrees of artificial. Scientists are exploring new things. One drug is "merge" that allows beings to merge together. These can be different species or two of the same. In some cases they briefly go together before separating. In others they can be made more permanent. Regardless of these changes, people seem obsessed by sex from a very masculine, mechanical point of view. I guess this is male vs. female authorship.

Miss Nelson Is Back

Miss Nelson Is Back by Harry G. Allard Jr. (Author), James Marshall (Illustrator)

Miss Nelson is getting her tonsils out and will not be teaching for some time. The kids worry that "the witch" will be their sub. Luckily it is the principal. Unfortunately, after a few days, the kids are bored to death with him. A few decide to stand on each other's shoulders and disguise themselves as Miss Nelson. They get away with it and then leave school to have fun. Unfortunately, they pass by Miss Nelson's house. Shortly after, a new sub, "the witch" appears. (This is likely Miss Nelson in disguise.) Now the kids really want their real teacher back. The story has a very dry sense of humor that works well.

Merry Christmas Mom and Dad

Merry Christmas Mom and Dad by Mercer Mayer

Critter tries to help out with Christmas activities, but just makes things worse. He eats the cookies rather than make them. On Christmas morning he lets his parents sleep - by bringing his drums and toys up to their room. His heart is still in the right place.

But Not the Hippopotamus

But Not the Hippopotamus by Sandra Boynton (Author, Illustrator)

The other animals do lots of fun things, but the hippo is shy and avoids them. At the end, they all invite the hippo and she joins them - but the armadillo is left alone. The book has a fun style and quick interesting story.

The Bicycle Man

The Bicycle Man by Allen Say

Kids at a Japanese field are excited about sports day. In the middle of the day, they are silenced by two American soldiers at the fence. They communicate with motions to the principal. One of the soldiers does tricks on the bicycle while the other leads him on. Everyone enjoys the performance. The principal gives them the big prize. The drawings are nice. The message is a bit bizarre. Americans and Japanese make friends shortly after the war. However, they do get the big prize. The black GI does the tricks while the red-headed one is the ring-leader. It is possible to treat it as a nice wholesome book, or to find all sorts of offensive ethnic views if you feel that way.

Dicey's Song

Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt

Dicey does not have a good life. Her mother has abandoned her and her siblings. She lives with her grandmother who has adopted her. Her grandmother is poor and must get aid to support the kids. She is going through puberty and has to get a bra with grandma. Eventually, she flies on an airplane and goes to see her mother in the hospital. Her mother dies and they don't even have the money to bury her. Eventually they find a solution and make it back home. She thinks her grandmother was very knowledgeable about traveling, but then discovers that this is her first time to leave home. The book is a bit sappy and slow moving, but well written.

The BFG

The BFG by Roald Dahl

Most giants like to eat people. They have various preferences for the type of person and will snatch them during the night to eat. The BFG is the exception. He is a Big Friendly Giant. He likes to eat plants and other animals instead of people. One day he captures a girl. He doesn't plan to eat her. However, he can't let her go back because she has seen him.

We get to know the personality of the giant. He has trouble with words, often saying one word when he means another. He also has a number of "giant terms". There are different animals and plants that don't exist in our world. They all have ridiculous sounding words. The book is filled with all of the misspoken and made up words, but is never hard to understand. 

The BFG likes to capture dreams. The girl and the BFG decide to use the dream skill to help the Queen to understand what the other giants are up to. She dreams about giants, and then reads about kids getting stolen. They are then able to make a plan to capture the giant.

The book is filled with plenty of silliness as the giant tries to communicate with humans. Their cultures are very different, with challenges ranging from size requirements to "farting music", not to mention all the vocabulary and communications issues. The plot is the icing on the cake.

Dear Zoo: Lift the Flap

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

Somebody writes to the zoo and asks for an animal. He keeps getting animals that he does not like, so he sends them back. The flaps provide a nice touch with the "package" of the animal, and then the actual animal inside. The book can be read  fine without the flaps (because flaps have a habit of disappearing.) Each animal has a humorous way why it is not good.

Shawshank Redemption

Shawshank Redemption is a Stephen King novella that was later made in to a movie. A ton of King books have been made into movies, yet very few have been bona fide box office hits. However, they are often cheap to produce, so the low revenue may be justified by the low expenses. The story is narrated by Red, a convicted murderer who grew to know another convicted murderer, Andy, in prison. Andy was a well-to-do banker who continued to claim his innocence and refused to let prison get the best of him. He had to endure many horrible situations (which were described too graphically), but always fought through and refused to adopt the "institutionalized" mentality. He used his knowledge and skills to help the inmates and the guards (including providing account support for various scams.) Alas, the staff found him too valuable, and when evidence surfaced from another inmate that would identify the true murderer, the inmate was quickly transferred away. In the end, Andy realized he would have to help himself, and managed to carry out an escape on his own. In doing so, he never forgot his friends. The story is very engaging and hard to put down. One theme in the novella is that prison helps to make prisoners. After being institutionalized for a long period of time, people have adapted to the "rules" of prison life, no matter how harsh they are. Freedom can appear to be a new burden as it presents new challenges and new decisions that were not required while incarcerated. (Red in particular had trouble adjusting to his "new" life after gaining parole.) This contrasted significantly with Andy and his strength to avoid letting his sole get institutionalized.

Foundation's Edge

This was the first of the "written because there was fan demand" foundation books. It seemed better than the other two that I have read. However, it deals with similar themes and the story of finding planet earth.

Here we have parallel stories of both the first and second foundation. Members of each fall out of favor with their group and are sent on missions. They end up finding each other on Gaia, where one has been "recruited" to make a decision on the course of humanity. He decides on "galaxia" instead of the basic Seldon plan. This most of "chosen" to provide for the "free choice" rather than forceful adoption. People of Gaia are all independent parts of a collective. However, they must chose to do that. (The Mule from the main Foundation books was a rougue escapee from there.) Through the mind control mechanism, the others have been send back thinking they have eeked out a minor victory.

There seems to be some concern here with institutions becoming too old and set in their ways. New blood is needed to invigorate them. However, the old blood often tries to push out the more radical ideas. The desire of individual legacy can often interfere with the long term goals of the institution itself.

Friday

Friday mixes some of Heinlein's early and late career style. It is a space travel adventure, but also a sociological critique. The eponymous Friday is an "artificial person". She was created by combining the best bits of DNA from different people to create a "super-human" embryo. She works as a courier, delivering special items (often in a secretive navel case). She knows little about the true purpose of her mission, and is thus not able to reveal much when tortured. She longs for a normal life (in one of those bizarre Heinlein familial relationships.) However, after joining the family, she is offended by the prejudice shown to other races and to artificial humans. (The New Zealand family is against a marriage to a primitive Tongan, however, they would have been ok with a Maori, because they are "normal") She gets booted, and goes back to other jobs before getting the big job as a courier for the seed of a ruler. However, she realizes she will be killed after delivering, and jumps ship with the help of her artificial human guards. She then goes on to live happily ever after on the "Botany Bay" planet colony.

So much for the plot. It is not bad, but the real power of the novel is in the world that is created. This near-future world has been balkanized in to many new states (like independent Texas and California.) Multi-nationals also play a strong role, often being more powerful than the states - in part because they don't have a distinct area that can be attacked. California is democracy and equality taken to the extreme. The referendums can be used to correct any "wrong". (People were upset that people with bachelor's degrees earned more than people without, so they legislated that everybody would receive a degree as soon as they graduated from high school - and then later grandfathered in people that graduated a long time before.) These places also have many laws that are not enforced, thereby degraded the remaining laws. Artificial people have a strange role here. They are often given false birth certificates, usually from places that have been destroyed (like Seattle). People expect them to be easily recognizable as artificial. However, in reality, they blend in with normal people. They however, become a vehicle for rhetoricians that need some foil to advance their cause.

He also describes a balmy planet, with near perfect weather, flora and fauna. It becomes an ideal retirement community. And in order to enforce that, voting is restricted to those property owners above the age of 70. Younger people serve long periods of indentured servitude, thus providing services at much lower wages than would otherwise be required. (Hmm... Many examples of similar situations could be pulled from the earth today.)

In the end, the lead character finds pleasure in the simple life of being a mother and a homemaker on a rather primitive colony. Perhaps this slow pace is a utopia from the modern, fast-paced world.