Culture of Fear

People love to overreact to sensationalism. I remember hearing scare stories of people trying to kill kids with bad halloween candy. How many times has it actually happened? Uh, none. We have parents paranoid about their child being kidnapped, even though the odds of it happening are next to 0. Even more disturbing is when fear causes a dangerous behavior to be substituted for "safe" one out of fear. In order to avoid all the "danger" out there, parents drive their kids excessively, exposing them to one of the most common causes of death. The media loves to hype up new dangers, because that is what sells. Activists can use this coverage to push for new legislation to "protect" people. Alas, soften the legislation comes at great cost, without significantly increasing safety. Meanwhile, small dangers gradually create greater danger to society. (Banning cars, or limiting their maximum speed would result in a huge increase in safety, but we have gradually become accepting of the dangers.)
The author attempts to present a politically neutral viewpoint. However, his viewpoint comes across as significantly left wing. He criticizes both Republican and Democratic presidents for using the "War on Drugs" to distract from more significant issues. However, he then proceeds to criticize Bush and Trump administrations by heaping praise on Obama. Is this because Obama really did eschew the politics of fear? Or is this because he views the fears that Republicans rely on less pertinent than those of the Democrats? Similarly, the spin on issues tends to favor the more liberal viewpoint. Conservatives have an unjust "fear" of gun control, rather than liberals having an unjust fear of law abiding gun ownership. (Though he does call out working gun legislation that both sides are proud of.) He brushes aside fears of crimes committed by minorities. He also goes on to point out "journalistic objectivity" causes less respected viewpoints to be given undue weight. But how do we determine what the respected viewpoint should be? His examples tend to have a left of center feel. Guns are constantly brought up as a cause of problems, with gun control advocates arguments viewed as missing the main issue. Alas, these are the arguments that tend to strengthen the right wing rhetoric. This inadvertently strengthens the validity of using fear.
The media has generally abused its role in using fear of small probability events into worrisome calamities. Alas, this also makes it difficult to identify cases where there is a need to worried about something. "Fake" experts abuse their power to get their message across, while real experts do not. Things that happen slowly over time do not invoke the fear, and are not properly held in check. A low probability occurrence ends up taking precedence over the true dangers.
Trump has significantly ramped up the blatant use of fear as a political motivator. The left has responded by being more public in their invocation of fear. Perhaps this is a good thing in that it makes it much more easy to identify. Alas social media had made it easier for one-sided fear-based messages to spread without even an attempt at journalistic objectivity. This has made fear an even more powerful tool.

The Wisdom of History

J. Rufus Fears attempts to extract "key themes" from world history that we can learn from. His condescending tone makes it clear that this "wisdom" is his viewpoint. Any other beliefs are not acceptable. One point he keeps returning to is that history is caused by single men making decisions. Their failure to have proper foresight lead to the fall of empires. Those that have the proper character have a lasting positive impact. He views other events and cultural currents as not being nearly as important. However, even his own lectures contradict this. Some societies (like Russia) have historically preferred a strong leader to "freedom". This background culture helped support the rise of communism. The French culture set the grounds for a revolution. The United States needed the strong rights that were part of British culture. Without this, George Washington would have never been a significant leader.
We are limited by the single thread of history that we have lived. If Napoleon had died in his youth, would the course of history significantly changed? Would somebody else have come in to do exactly what he did? Or would history have turned in a totally different direction? Most likely, the short term events would have been drastically different, but over a longer horizon, history would have proceeded very similarly to how it did. We can look in the past at bad decisions of leaders. However, we know the outcome. At that time, those decisions may have been the "best". It is easy to look back and say "these people were great rulers." But how much of this was pure luck, and how much was due to the person. There may be many other people that had a strong moral compass and the ability to cause a similar (or even better) outcome.

Weather Makers

Weather Makers is such an over the top climate change book that it could turn even a true believer into a skeptic. This is in spite of its effort to present the science to help convert us to the urgency of doing something about climate change. The book presents many examples of species and land areas that are suffering due to the change in climate. It contains research on climate and the models and tools that have been used to identify the warming. However, it also presents the many feedback cycles and contravalent factors. Should we just encourage more airplane contrails to reduce the impact? Do hybrid cars really help - or is it the roads that are problems. We have been doing climate science for a half century now. How accurate were are predictions for today based on past assumptions? What assumptions have changed?
I also wonder what our society will look like 10,000 years from now. Could a society with our technology have existed 10,000 years ago, and we just don't see any record of it? Did other societies trigger climatic change like we have? I also wonder what is important and what is not. Are we already on an irreparable path towards turning earth into a sauna? Or are we just experiencing random blips. How much of the change we see are just random variations? It is a difficult question to answer. We only have detailed records for the past century, which happens to correspond to times of heavy increased CO2. We have tried to use ice cores, trees, and various other means to extrapolate past conditions. But, how accurate are those? Do we have other factors like airplane contrails and particulate matter that conteract CO2 in the air? There are so many different questions that could leave us in a state of paralysis.
The book also seemed to focus on "burning" to produce CO2. It even posited that if everybody switched from a hummer to a Prius, we would be on track. This is the type of thinking that could get us in real trouble. What about the "urban heat island"? What about our land use devoted to cars. We are trying to solve a global problem caused by our current societal choices. A simple surface change will not fix it. We need to make the appropriate sacrifices to be better stewards of the earth.

Praise of Folly

Praise of Folly is an old book, so it can be found in free project gutenburg and kindle editions as well as librivox audibooks. It was initially written in Latin and the John Wilson translation I listened to was done a couple centuries ago and is not the easiest to follow. At the start, Erasmus makes some puns on Thomas More's name. Then he proceeds to present folly praising herself. The work ends with more of a straightforward list of good things to do with one's life. I wanted to like this book more than I did. I just had trouble working through it. It is interesting that in the early renaissance period, works were written in Latin so that they would have a large audience. though today, those are all in a "dead" language, while if they were written in the the then-provincial language of English they would continue in a modern literary tradition.

The Western Literary Canon in Context

Professor Bowers had "second hand" experience with some of the great authors discussed in his lectures. William Faulkner was "author in residence" at University of Virginia. J.R.R. Tolkein taught at Oxford (before he arrived.) These authors both made his list of the Western Literary Canon. Distilling western down to 36 lectures involves a great deal of picking and choosing. What is insightful about these lectures is the interwoven discussions of what makes something canonical. There are past authors that were once well respected, yet have fallen out of favor. ("It was a dark and stormy night.") Other authors, unknown during their lifetimes, are now highly respected. Regardless of the circumstances, all authors in the canon are good writers. Some may have been popular, while others were relatively unknown. Some may not have been the "best" of their time - they were just lucky enough to have endured the test of time. Being taught in school is a good way to last. These lectures focus on the "classics". There are plenty of Latin and Greek works. The lectures are over halfway through when they get to Voltaire. This is a nice approach for exposure to more of the older works that are not so commonly read today.

Life of Pi

I had watched the Life of Pi moving a while ago, and now am reading the book. It is very well written, and the author manages to sew doubts about what is real and what is fiction. The main character adopts the name Pi to avoid vulgar puns on his real French name. He lives in India where is family owns a zoo. He is extremely interested in religion and is a devout Christian, Muslim and Hindu (all this while living in a secular house.) There are a lot of interesting insights about captive animals and zoos. He compares people's city houses to the animal's zoo houses. If you took some people out of their house and drove them to the country and said they were free, they would think your crazy. Similarly, many animals are perfectly content living in the zoo.
His family decides to immigrate to Canada. They board a boat with all the animals. It is a rather normal voyage until the ship sinks. Then Pi ends up losing his family and finding himself on a lifeboat with a heyena, zebra, orangutan, and a tiger named Richard Parker. Most of the book deals with his struggles out at sea. He must will himself to survive, while at the same time making peace with the carnivorous tiger.
At the end, he is finally rescued and tells his tale to accident investigators. They do not believe him. He then tells an alternate story with a murderous french chef, his mother and an injured sailor in the boat. We are left to wonder whether he just made up the animal parts to make a better story. Though it doesn't really matter. The story was that of overcoming great adversary through faith in God.

Bipolar 101: A Practical Guide to Identifying Triggers, Managing Medications, Coping with Symptoms, and More

in Bipolar 101, I was hoping for some interesting background on the psychiatric condition. Instead, the book is geared towards people that have already been diagnosed and want help dealing with their conditions. The book has a tone that talks down to the reader. It assumes they want help with the condition, but are not eager to make the needed sacrifices. Half the book is a very general "how to live a healthy life". There are occasional mentions of bipolar, but most of it is applicable to anybody (eat healthy, exercise, sleep well.) It is very US-centric. (Can we really trust the USDA?)

Fever Crumb

Fever Crumb is set in a futuristic post-apocalyptic London. Population is now less than 100,000. A group of people that view themselves as homo-superiorous had ruled the city. However, due in part to lack of reproduction, they had been killed off by the local population. The book focuses on a group of "engineers" that work to support science regardless of who is in power. They stress rationale thought above all else, and try to avoid personal superstition and human relations. One day, however, a little girl appears on their doorstep. She is somewhat "different" with miscolored eyes. Dr. Crumb takes her in and raises her as a fully rational engineer. At 14, she is sent out to help with an archaeological site. In the process, she runs into some people that think she is one of the previous rulers. An old hunter and boy try to hunt her down, providing the drama. Eventually, new rulers come into London, with plans for moving cities. They discover Fever's parentage and Fever decides she wants to be out on her own.
The world is an interesting future that discovers bits and pieces of today's world, but obviously still has a large technological gap. Fever is a very sympathetic character. She is trying to find her way in the world after her very rationalistic upbringing. You can see how this can turn into a large number of future stories.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

In A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson starts with the beginning of the universe and works his way down. He laments the poor stats of science textbooks. They often have a few diagrams that attract you to the possibilities of learning, then let you down with very poor text. In this work, he tries to provide an accessible "history" of the world. It starts with the big bang, works through how the universe, suns and planets were formed, then goes down to describe life on earth. From here, it goes through the initial history of organisms, the evolution to different species, and the many extinction events that have taken place and the new species that have come to fill voids. The narrative follows a dual chronology approach. The author discusses key events in rough chronology that the occurred. Within the discussion of the events, he discusses the way that our knowledge of the events has unraveled, with special attention to the key figures in the discovery process. In many of the cases the "first discoverer" is disregarded by society, and only comes to light after somebody else has popularized and attached his name to the discovery (it is almost always a he). The earth has often been much hotter than it is today. (We are in part of a long term ice age.) However, global warming has a lot of uncertainties that could make matters worse. The book ends with a look at homo sapien and how he has come on the scene, with both the ability to both understand and destroy the world.

The Emperor's Soul

The Emperor's Soul sounded familiar when I started reading it. It turned out that I had read it before in Brandon Sanderson's Arcanum Unbounded story collection. However, I had not written about the interesting thought behind it. In this exploits, we follow the exploits of a master forger. She uses "soul stamps" to help forge things (both living and inanimate) into something else. The target appearance must be somewhere in the realm of plausibility. A rock could be another type of rock if that type could have logically been mined instead of this one. Works of art tend to be fairly easy. A simple painting could have easily be painted as a master work of art. However, the forger would have to have an intimate understanding of the work of art to properly forge it. These can be extended further to change people. A possible fork in a life can be used to create a "soul stone" that gives a person an alternate life. It poses interesting chances to relive "missed opportunities".

My Plain Jane

Similar to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, My Plain Jane takes the story of Jane Eyre and spins it on its head. Here, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre both exist in the same world. A Victorian "ghostbuster" society is trying to rationalize its existence and recruite Jane Eyre to its membership. However, Jane likes her ghost friend and doesn't want to join. There are also the advances from Rochester as well as other shenanigans going on. With this and the Eyre Affair, I've now read two books in the Jane Eyre universe that have left me totally confused as to what the actual book is about. Maybe I should try to read the original. This one, however, is rollicking good fun.
It presents the actual novel as a story that was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's experience with the real Jane Eyre. Charlotte and Jane are friends in this novel. Other historical and fictional characters also have various roles. I can make some educated guesses as to who is from the novel and who is from the author's life, but some could have just as well been created solely for this novel. The understanding doesn't really matter. (Though it could make things more interesting.) There are various cases of good ghosts, bad ghosts, and ghosts just meandering around. The bad guy ends up being super bad, but there are plenty of twists and turns, with just about everyone being a possible "bad guy". The book is a great "ghost mystery comedy" on its own.

The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too)

The author divides people into four categories: Obliger, Upholder, Rebel, Questioner. I can see myself being a little bit of each, but probably reside more in the questioner category. These are just aspects of people's lives and how they "get things done". The tendencies can be used together with other different types of frameworks. Each of the tendencies has certain advantages and disadvantages. Most of these are "inbuilt", so there is not much sense in trying to change. However, it can be useful to know your tendency to help cope. A rebel will want to be in control, and will be reluctant to respond to requests to do something. Yet, they may do something just to be contrary, or they might do it to avoid being stuck doing something else. An obliger has trouble doing things for themselves, but if somebody else is depending on them, they are likely to do it. A Questioner must understand why something needs to be done. Good reasons can help them to do things. An upholder will follow the rules and do things for themselves because they are needed. Some types can work well together, while others are more challenging. Understanding people's tendencies can help you to work better with them.

Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think

Nature tends to win out over nurture when it comes to raising children. So, why are we so stressed out over the job we do parenting? Why do working moms of today spend more time with kids than stay at home moms from the 60s? In trying to focus on children instead of ourselves, we often hurt the children. Modern parents have grabbed too much responsibility for themselves, and it doesn't really matter. Children are most likely to turn out like their biological parents, regardless of how they are raised. Many twin and adoption studies show that genetics plays a significant role in adult behavior. Nurture, alas, provides some short term advantages, but little advantage for adults. These studies were mostly done with first world, middle class parents. Nurture can benefit those that are an extreme poverty. But for most middle class families, it wont make much of a difference. Alas, the book does spend a long time drilling down every facet of genetic determinism. I got the point on the first few examples, and did not need every last study. The economic and societal benefits are presented almost as afterthoughts. Our world needs children to support the elderly. Most of the improvements come through inventions. More people means we have a greater likelihood of more inventions. The "ills" of overpopulation are mostly caused by excessive consumption of resources. Don't reduce the people. Instead, reduce the excessive consumption. In the end, the author does not suggest that everyone should be a Dugger, but that we are capable of adequately raising more kids than we think we can.

Mincemeat: The Education of an Italian Chef

I often think of Chef's as being elite, skilled professionals. They have the talent of picking out the right ingredients, preparing them properly and presenting a beautiful meal. A chef at a small mom and pop diner or an elite restaurant is exercising creative juices in an edible art. I have thought of them as being apart from the other restaurant staff, which is primarily low-wage workers (often including illegal immigrants and short-termers aspiring to do something else.) Mincement, however, portrays a different view. Chef's are the "boss" of the kitchen, but they often integrate themselves with the depravity. It is not unusual for them to be paid under the table. Fake resumes and the like are not unheard of. Experience is valuable, but as long as a chef can feed people, they can have a job. The restaurant business is not a stable one. Most restaurants are run by small scale entrepreneurs. Some know how to run a business. Many do not. The employees are used to turn over. They live a life that is filled with vices. (And these are the people feeding us?) The author lived and worked in Italy, though his experiences sound like they could have taken place anywhere.

Storm Front: Dresden Files Book 1

Harry Dresden is a wizard and a private investigator in Chicago. He is recruited to help solve crimes. Lots of stuff happens. The end. I felt I was just powering through this book. Seemed like an interesting premise, but I could not get into it. I also had trouble with the narration on the audiobook. The narrator's voice seemed to oscillate in volume and be difficult to understand at times.

Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be

Adult behavior change can be very difficult. Often we go into change as optimists. However, an "improbable" event of some sort is likely to occur that helps derail us from our desired change. We also encounter various triggers that can help or hurt our prospects for change. OFten the problem we ha is that we don't follow our own boss (ourself.) We have things we want to do, but then do not follow through. There was one example of a group of high ranking executives at dinner. Somebody said that anytime somebody talked poorly (rude, mean, etc.), they had to pay $20 that would go to charity. They ended up with a lot of charity. The only person who did not have to pay was a man who had a little note written down to remember to behave himself. Similarly, little reminders can help us. Sometimes, they can be small things, like an hourly reminder to be happy when guests are over. This can make the drag of showing people the same thing again a happy experience. You are doing it not out of obligation, but as a means to have a positive, happy friendship. Other times, they are items that you want to fulfill on a longer term basis. You score yourself on how well you have done on these goals and continue to work to improve. Once it is second nature, you can drop the goals.
The book does not have any "quick fix" solutions, but instead encourages you to acknowledge challenges and continue remind yourself to work to improve.

The Red Pencil

The Red Pencil is a children's book set in war torn Africa. It is told from the point of view of a young girl who suffers through much as a young child, yet doesn't really realize how bad things are. Becoming literate and using a red pencil become highlights of her life. The book "trys hard" to give us a feel for the refugee children in a state of conflict. It almost succeeds.

Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

Fascinate talks about the 7 triggers that fascinate people. People tend to have one that is the primary one that they use and one that they do not use. Using a different trigger can help make something more fascinating. However, it can also be a negative if it is too far apart. The triggers include Power, Passion, Mystique, Prestige, Alarm, Rebellion and Trust. (Though in this edition, Lust and Vice were used instead of Passion and Rebellion. Almost seems to be a turn away from the "fascinating.) Different attempts to make more money can often backfire in reducing the rarity of items. Negative publicity can often usefully inspire people to seek out something. A lot of marketing and media today seems to be based on fascinating, even if it does not seem to be explicitly doing it.
The book contains some applications for individuals, but is primarily focused on business and marketing.

Anathem

Anathem is a long philosophical novel. The world is just different enough from ours to make it difficult to understand what is going on. Most of the book involves conversations with "math monks". They discuss math, philosophy, theoretical physics and their interaction with the secular world. Interspersed with this philosophical discussion is a "mission" and the appearance of alien visitors. They discover that they are similar but different from the humans of their planet. Eventually people from both meet up and explore possible outcomes. In structure and length, the novel feels like a fantasy work. On content, however, it is science fiction write with clear modern day mores. There are plenty of ideas to keep for a long "geek" conversation.

Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life

In Growing a Revolution David R. Montgomery advocates farming practices that center upon building healthy soil. Conventional agriculture depletes soil of nutrients and gradually leads to an erosion of topsoil. Fertilizer attempts to restore some of the critical nutrients. However, it does not restore the important micro organisms that help make healthy soil. Also, a good portion of the fertilizer runs off, contaminating water supplies. In addition, the tendency to plant the same crops over and over makes them more subject to pests, requiring more pesticides, leading to resistant pests and more pesticide use.
He advocates for "no till farming" with crop rotations. Rather than plow the ground, the previous crops are used for mulch. New crops (of a different variety) are planted in the ground. The organic matter decays and improves the health of the soil. The rotation and planting of cover crops helps improve the health of the soil and make it more resistant to pests. This healthier soil is also much better at holding water than plowed soil. No till farming can be either organic or conventional. In general, it may more closely resemble organic farming because of less dependence on pesticides and fertilizer. However, the practice can be done with either conventional or organic approaches. (Pest control with conventional would still be an acceptable if needed.) An initial shift to no-till farming may see a drop in productivity. However, as the soil health builds up, productivity tends to be similar to conventional farming. However, the input costs of no-till farming practices are much less. Thus, even when productivity is lower, the no-till farms are still much more profitable.
The main problem with no-till farming is that there is not a business interest behind it. It results in lower demand for big agrichemicals. Perhaps what they need to do is get big farm implement companies behind it. There has to be a good deal of money behind "no-till" tractor equipment. Perhaps seed companies could also get behind selling more seeds. (Though the author does discuss a breeder who is working on perennial grains.)
The author also takes the discussion across the world. In Africa, he meets with a no-till advocate. In Asia, society has been returning human waste to the ground as fertilizer for many years. (Cities even sell their waste to farmers.) Even Tacoma sells processed sewage as fertilizer. Farmers in North Dakota have adopted no-till to significant success.

Light in August

Light in August tells the story of various people in the small town south. A preacher is disgraced by the bad behavior of his wife. However, he refuses to stop preaching until he is locked out of the church. He finally resigns, but refuses to leave town, even after he is attacked. Gradually, he is forgotten. Too guys make whiskey. They leave town after an incident where their land lord is murdered and house burned down. Later one of them comes back to try to collect a reward for the death of the lady. He claims his friend was having an affair. His credibility seems to go way down - until he brings out the trump card of his friend having negro blood. Now the town trusts him. (Were southerners really that racist?) He also had come to town to escape the pregnancy of a girl. Alas, she has followed him, and now has another guy chasing after her. The various stories are woven together with a timeline that flows back and forth to gradually provide backstory and action. The background helps explain the "scars" of the characters and why they behave the way they do. (Even though the civil war ended a few generations earlier, racism is still going strong.) While the primary characters get most of the print, there are other characters, such as a "wanna be military" gun nut. The storytelling also seamlessly switches between different styles, helping things to move along quickly. The novel was much better than I anticipated.

Tuck Everlasting

Tuck Everlasting is a whimsy tale of immortality. A girl is "kidnapped" by a family. However, they just want to befriend her. They have drunk from a spring and now cannot age or die. They don't want other people to drink from the spring. However, a man in a yellow suit wants to bottle up the spring water and sell it. He trick's the girl's family into signing over the property in exchange for delivering her back. In an altercation with the family, he is hit and eventually dies. This leaves the possibility of the gallows - which would not be pleasant for somebody that can live forever. However, the girl helps them escape. She also helps toad become immortal via the spring water. At the end of the book, the family visits the girl's grave. She had lived a full life. They also spot the toad, who is now ambivalent to any vehicles that may cross the road.
The book presents immortality as a lonely experience. How can you really have life if you don't have death?

So Cold the River

I fell victim to promotions and borrowed this book after hearing a preview at the end of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The first chapter seemed interesting. A failed filmmaker has a knack for identifying important things in people's life. After witnessing a funeral slide show he created, a woman hired him to do a project on her father-in-law's life in French Lick, Indiana.
The book continues with us learning more about his life. He is on the outs with his wife - mostly because he feels dejected for his failed film career. His anger seems to get the best of him.
Once in Indiana, he discovers that the namesake of the person he is researching had lived long ago and would now be well over 100. He also drank some of the mineral water from the area (Pluto Water). This caused him to have hallucinations where he felt he was experience events that occurred in the area. He discovered that his subject was notoriously evil. He also became "addicted" to the water, and would have serious withdrawal symptoms. He hooks up with another out of towner that is also doing research in the area (his family has connected with the black hotel economy of the area.) He does find that "original" water from an elderly widow helps relieve the cravings, while letting him experience situations from a distance. We also meet a Josiah Bradford, a good-for-nothing descendant of the research subject. He is the bad guy and eventually "becomes" the historical figure they are trying to research. There is a huge storm that comes through the area, with everything reaching a simultaneous climax before everyone lives happily ever after.
The book piqued my interest in the area of Indiana. (Apparently, the old hotels in the area inspired the author to write the book.) The book is fast moving and doesn't try to spend much time explaining why some of the supernatural things occur. Some of the key twists (like HAM radio) are fairly well broadcast, though there are some curve-balls. Amazon has it categorized as "horror", though contemporary fantasy may be a better categorization.

The Hero With A Thousand Faces

The Hero With a Thousand Faces combines Freudian psychoanalysis with mythology to present a "universal" of human beliefs. The comparison of different archetypal myths across different culture is appealing. However, the book gets really bogged down in the psychoanalysis. The discussion of myths is interrupted with analysis of dreams (which often seems to show some sexual or maternal feeling.) The analysis of different mythologies has an odd relationship with "non-western" mythologies. They are at the same time referred and treated as inferior. This may just be a symptom of the analysis which seems to bring out the most extreme views that match the thesis. This leaves me wanting more, and stories are often left half-told, ending once they have got their point across.
I was less than impressed with the book. The conclusion and epilogue were especially demoralizing. He was attempting a focus on mythologies and had great respect for the importance in societies. He acknowledged the many different explanations of myths, and laments the lack of myths in modern society. (Society discovered the "light" of science, but lost the "light" of myth.) There was so much potential in a work of comparative mythology. Alas, the actual work got bogged down with the then-modern theory of psychoanalysis that it was not able to provide adequate treatment of the different myths.

The House of Seven Gables

House of the Seven Gables is written in the flowery prose common in the mid 19th century. The story deals with a house that has been in the home of the Pyncheon family for some time. However, it was originally obtained by not so good means. (Somebody was accused of witchcraft, and then their property was taken.) Alas, since then, the house has been "cursed". One of the current residents opens up a store. There is also a resident that is in poor health - however, he is rumored to know the source of a vast wealth sought after by a relative (a judge.) The Judge dies and it turns out there is an "indian dead" that is now worthless.
It brings about an interesting point about wealth. If somebody has accumulated a vast amount of wealth and nobody else knows about it, what happens? It may be something that the owner could call upon. However, the people currently working with it would probably just continue on their lives with it as is. It probably wouldn't do anybody else any good.
The book itself has stood the test of time. It has served as an influence for other writers and genres (alas, not ones that I have a particular fondness.)