WWW Wednesdays is a weekly quiz-thing hosted by ShouldBeReading. I'm out of town and offline from early Monday morning to late Tuesday evening, so I haven't been able to do Teaser Tuesday or Top Ten Tuesdays as of late.
What are you currently reading?
Entirely too many books. I was almost done with The Third Chimpanzee before it vanished somewhere, and then I started reading Seven Ages of Paris for Bastille Day last week. However, on Sunday, someone lent me Why Choose the Episcopal Church (John M. Krumm) which has my current 'devotion'. Annnnnd there's a Star Trek novel I'm half-done with, Christopher L. Bennett's Department of Temporal Investigation: Watching the Clock.
What did you recently finish reading?
Nothing, alas. The past two weeks have been great for starting books but terrible for finishing them.
What do you think you will read next?
I think I'll finish off Krumm tomorrow (it's rather short), then return to Seven Ages of Paris and perhaps my Star Trek novel. Right now I'm reading about the Sun King, Louis XIV.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
An Altar in the World
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
© 2009 Barbara Brown Taylor
240 pages
Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest who no longer pastors a church; for although she still finds enriching experiences inside the walls of her parish and its creeds and rituals, her journey has led her to look for ultimate meaning in the living of life itself. Although she incorporates a great deal of religious language (God, blessings) into Altar, the central theme of mindfulness is one accessible to anyone -- and an antidote to the constant busyness and distractions of today. She finds the sacred in the ordinary -- meaning in simple, universal experiences like labor, walking, and even getting lost. Readers with an interest in Buddhism will notice that Taylor seems to be walking the eight-fold path, particularly in the sections on vocation and labor. I found An Altar in the World a beautiful work and an instant favorite. It should be of great interest to those with interests in simple living, mindfulness, and inspiration drawn from life instead of old books and extinct civilizations.
© 2009 Barbara Brown Taylor
240 pages
Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest who no longer pastors a church; for although she still finds enriching experiences inside the walls of her parish and its creeds and rituals, her journey has led her to look for ultimate meaning in the living of life itself. Although she incorporates a great deal of religious language (God, blessings) into Altar, the central theme of mindfulness is one accessible to anyone -- and an antidote to the constant busyness and distractions of today. She finds the sacred in the ordinary -- meaning in simple, universal experiences like labor, walking, and even getting lost. Readers with an interest in Buddhism will notice that Taylor seems to be walking the eight-fold path, particularly in the sections on vocation and labor. I found An Altar in the World a beautiful work and an instant favorite. It should be of great interest to those with interests in simple living, mindfulness, and inspiration drawn from life instead of old books and extinct civilizations.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire
© 1985 Isaac Asimov
383 pages
In Isaac Asimov's robots novels, Earth is home to some eight billion people living in vast underground complexes known as Cities or "caves of steel". In his Empire novels, those billions have vanished: large patches of land are radioactive, and the few who remain hold on bitterly to memories of Earth's past glory. How did Earth fall from being the heart of humanity to passing out of memory entirely in the Foundation series? Its decline, and the rise of the Galactic Empire, begin in Robots and Empire -- a fantastic novel which uses a plot of political mystery to seamlessly knit together Asimov's series.
Two hundred years have passed since famed Earth detective Elijah Baley died, but his legacy is strong and growing. Baley helped the people of Earth to look again to space, to build civilizations away from the tired old Earth from which they sprang. Humans had looked outward before, settling some fifty planets, but the people there used robot labor to create lives of leisure for themselves. They ceased to grow, to expand -- and they regarded their less-advanced Earth ancestors with disdain. It was their power and Earth's fear of change that Baley defeated with the help of others, but now both Baley and his allies are dead. There are those among the "Spacers" who do not want to see Earth expand again...and they will strike at the planet itself if that is what it takes. They work their plans in secret, but Baley's old partner R. Daneel Olivaw is determined to thwart their plans.
Robots and Empire functions as both an SF political thriller and a bridge between Asimov's series. He's written other books to serve the same function, and together they tell a story which lasts for thousands of years. Although there are still some loose threads (What happened to the Cities during the Empire novels?), Robots and Empire reveals how Earth decayed and why robots (present in Robots, absent in both the original Empire and Foundation novels) fell from use. His central character here, and consequently the Robots-Empire-Foundation meta series, is the robot Daneel Olivaw, who is driven by a vision from his friend and partner Elijah Baley that will see its final fruit in the last Foundation books. Still, Robots and Empire is more solidly a Robots novel, featuring Elijah Baley (in flashbacks) and his other associates, the Solarian woman Gladia and a telepathic robot named Giskard, who has his own role to play. It reminds me much of Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, both in style and in the measure that I enjoyed it.
© 1985 Isaac Asimov
383 pages
In Isaac Asimov's robots novels, Earth is home to some eight billion people living in vast underground complexes known as Cities or "caves of steel". In his Empire novels, those billions have vanished: large patches of land are radioactive, and the few who remain hold on bitterly to memories of Earth's past glory. How did Earth fall from being the heart of humanity to passing out of memory entirely in the Foundation series? Its decline, and the rise of the Galactic Empire, begin in Robots and Empire -- a fantastic novel which uses a plot of political mystery to seamlessly knit together Asimov's series.
Two hundred years have passed since famed Earth detective Elijah Baley died, but his legacy is strong and growing. Baley helped the people of Earth to look again to space, to build civilizations away from the tired old Earth from which they sprang. Humans had looked outward before, settling some fifty planets, but the people there used robot labor to create lives of leisure for themselves. They ceased to grow, to expand -- and they regarded their less-advanced Earth ancestors with disdain. It was their power and Earth's fear of change that Baley defeated with the help of others, but now both Baley and his allies are dead. There are those among the "Spacers" who do not want to see Earth expand again...and they will strike at the planet itself if that is what it takes. They work their plans in secret, but Baley's old partner R. Daneel Olivaw is determined to thwart their plans.
Robots and Empire functions as both an SF political thriller and a bridge between Asimov's series. He's written other books to serve the same function, and together they tell a story which lasts for thousands of years. Although there are still some loose threads (What happened to the Cities during the Empire novels?), Robots and Empire reveals how Earth decayed and why robots (present in Robots, absent in both the original Empire and Foundation novels) fell from use. His central character here, and consequently the Robots-Empire-Foundation meta series, is the robot Daneel Olivaw, who is driven by a vision from his friend and partner Elijah Baley that will see its final fruit in the last Foundation books. Still, Robots and Empire is more solidly a Robots novel, featuring Elijah Baley (in flashbacks) and his other associates, the Solarian woman Gladia and a telepathic robot named Giskard, who has his own role to play. It reminds me much of Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, both in style and in the measure that I enjoyed it.
This is an obvious recommendation to anyone who has enjoyed Asimov's various series. While having read the rest of the books isn't a requirement, catching the multitude of little references added to my appreciation. I would suggest reading the Robots novels (The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn) first, since the relationship, history, and culture differences between Earth and the Spacer worlds provide the central conflict here.
Friday, July 8, 2011
This Week at the Library (8 July)
Between the Fourth of July and hospitalized relatives, this has been a poor week for reading. I typically read and review a book around the Fourth about the American Revolution: this year's read was and still is The First Salute, which focuses on European politics during the war. Various continental states found the idea of curbing Britain's growing power attractive, among them France and Holland. I'm interested in Dutch history, particularly of the Dutch republic's days as a commercially powerful entity which contributed mightily to science and the growth of knowledge, so Tuchman's partial history of Holland here has been a treat. I'm almost done with The Third Chimpanzee and would be so if I hadn't misplaced it. In the meantime, I've been reading Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov for leisure.
While I still have two pending science reads (Radiation and Modern Life; Creations of Fire: the History of Chemistry), I'll have to return to them next week or the week after, as next week marks Bastille Day and as such I'll be doing some France-themed reading. I'm expecting Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne in the mail over the weekend, and if it's anything like La Belle France I don't imagine I'll have problems getting into it before the 14th. I may also pick up The Three Musketeers by Dumas at the library, though given that I also want to pick up Altar in the World: The Geography of Faith by a retired Episcopalian priest and a book on human spaceflight in commemoration of the last shuttle launch earlier today, I may be preparing too full a plate.
While I still have two pending science reads (Radiation and Modern Life; Creations of Fire: the History of Chemistry), I'll have to return to them next week or the week after, as next week marks Bastille Day and as such I'll be doing some France-themed reading. I'm expecting Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne in the mail over the weekend, and if it's anything like La Belle France I don't imagine I'll have problems getting into it before the 14th. I may also pick up The Three Musketeers by Dumas at the library, though given that I also want to pick up Altar in the World: The Geography of Faith by a retired Episcopalian priest and a book on human spaceflight in commemoration of the last shuttle launch earlier today, I may be preparing too full a plate.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Top Ten Rebels, Revolutionists, and Iconoclasts
Top Ten Rebels in Literature
1. Ernest Everhard (The Iron Heel, Jack London)
With a name like that, he's either a hero from a more innocent time, or a star in a certain branch of the film industry. Everhard is leading a revolution against a proto-fascist state, the result of corporate takeover, but he's not just an angry man with a gun. He's an angry intellectual with a gun, and The Iron Heel is a fantastic Marxist critique of society.
2. Uhtred of Bebbanberg, (the Saxon Stories, Bernard Cornwell.
Uhtred of Bebbanberg is a man torn between two worlds -- Anglo-Saxon by birth and Viking by sympathies. Kidnapped from his family's estate by the Vikings who razed it, Uhtred delights in the Norse's unapologetic rivalry and despises the pious misery of the Anglo-Saxons. Service to the English king (Alfred the Great) is his only path to reclaming those family lands, however, and so he exists as a man truly loyal to no one but himself. Given the treachery to be found on either side, that's probably the best thing to do.
3. Alexander Til (The Revolutionist, Robert Littel)
Xander Til was just a boy when his parents and he emigrated from Russia, but now as a passionate young man he's on his way home. America is not the promised land for Til and his neighbors, and back at home the people are rising in fury against the Tsarist government. Til becomes a leading Bolshevik, but quickly realizes the drivers of this revolution are just as corrupt as the men they fight against.
4. Jefferson Davis Bussey (Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith)
Jefferson Davis Bussey is, contrary to his name, a Union man. His family is sternly anti-slavery, and he lies to the recruiting office in order to don the Union blue and fight against the wretched men who want to bring slavery to Kansas. When a scouting mission goes awry and Bussey is forced to pose as a Confederate soldier to save his life, he learns that the men who fight for the legendary general Stand Watie are fighting not to expand slavery, but to establish their own nation -- for Watie is a Cherokee.
5. Sirius Black (The Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix; J.K. Rowling)
Raised to be a hateful aristocrat, Black rejected his family in favor of hanging out with his half-blood friends, one of whom was a werewolf. He remains one of the series' favorite characters as a foster parent to young Harry.
6.Charles Croker (A Man in Full, Tom Wolfe)
Charlie Croker turned his back on a life of wealth and influence to become a Stoic evangelist, which is odd enough that I think I'll just leave it there.
7. Michael Brock, The Street Lawyer. John Grisham
Michael Brock is your standard overworked, overpaid, unhappy lawyer until a homeless man takes him hostage. After the man is shot by a police sniper and leaves portions of his brain on Brock's new coat, he's bothered to the point that he begins serving the needs of the poor and homeless as a lawyer working for a nonprofit. In short time he loses his wife, but gains a lot more.
8. Huckleberry Finn (The Adventures of, Mark Twain)
"All right, then. I'll go to Hell," Finn says after being forced to choose between doing the human thing (being loyal to his friend) and the social/culturally-accepted thing of turning his friend Jim in as an escaped slave.
9. Richard Sharpe (Sharpe's Series, Bernard Cornwell)
I almost feel like I'm cheating because I've used one of Cornwell's figures before. but Sharpe is a lovable loose-cannon character who remains a soldier because he's good at it -- not because he thinks King George deserves his service. Indeed, he's liked many of his enemies more than his bosses.
10. Scout Finch, (To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee)
Looking back on this list I realize I read far too few books with female heroes, but I'm happy to include Scout. Despite being raised in a culture that encourages subordination and meekness among its women, Scout is marvelously pugnacious and self-willed. She's a real credit to her father.
1. Ernest Everhard (The Iron Heel, Jack London)
With a name like that, he's either a hero from a more innocent time, or a star in a certain branch of the film industry. Everhard is leading a revolution against a proto-fascist state, the result of corporate takeover, but he's not just an angry man with a gun. He's an angry intellectual with a gun, and The Iron Heel is a fantastic Marxist critique of society.
2. Uhtred of Bebbanberg, (the Saxon Stories, Bernard Cornwell.
Uhtred of Bebbanberg is a man torn between two worlds -- Anglo-Saxon by birth and Viking by sympathies. Kidnapped from his family's estate by the Vikings who razed it, Uhtred delights in the Norse's unapologetic rivalry and despises the pious misery of the Anglo-Saxons. Service to the English king (Alfred the Great) is his only path to reclaming those family lands, however, and so he exists as a man truly loyal to no one but himself. Given the treachery to be found on either side, that's probably the best thing to do.
3. Alexander Til (The Revolutionist, Robert Littel)
Xander Til was just a boy when his parents and he emigrated from Russia, but now as a passionate young man he's on his way home. America is not the promised land for Til and his neighbors, and back at home the people are rising in fury against the Tsarist government. Til becomes a leading Bolshevik, but quickly realizes the drivers of this revolution are just as corrupt as the men they fight against.
4. Jefferson Davis Bussey (Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith)
Jefferson Davis Bussey is, contrary to his name, a Union man. His family is sternly anti-slavery, and he lies to the recruiting office in order to don the Union blue and fight against the wretched men who want to bring slavery to Kansas. When a scouting mission goes awry and Bussey is forced to pose as a Confederate soldier to save his life, he learns that the men who fight for the legendary general Stand Watie are fighting not to expand slavery, but to establish their own nation -- for Watie is a Cherokee.
5. Sirius Black (The Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix; J.K. Rowling)
Raised to be a hateful aristocrat, Black rejected his family in favor of hanging out with his half-blood friends, one of whom was a werewolf. He remains one of the series' favorite characters as a foster parent to young Harry.
6.Charles Croker (A Man in Full, Tom Wolfe)
Charlie Croker turned his back on a life of wealth and influence to become a Stoic evangelist, which is odd enough that I think I'll just leave it there.
7. Michael Brock, The Street Lawyer. John Grisham
Michael Brock is your standard overworked, overpaid, unhappy lawyer until a homeless man takes him hostage. After the man is shot by a police sniper and leaves portions of his brain on Brock's new coat, he's bothered to the point that he begins serving the needs of the poor and homeless as a lawyer working for a nonprofit. In short time he loses his wife, but gains a lot more.
8. Huckleberry Finn (The Adventures of, Mark Twain)
"All right, then. I'll go to Hell," Finn says after being forced to choose between doing the human thing (being loyal to his friend) and the social/culturally-accepted thing of turning his friend Jim in as an escaped slave.
9. Richard Sharpe (Sharpe's Series, Bernard Cornwell)
I almost feel like I'm cheating because I've used one of Cornwell's figures before. but Sharpe is a lovable loose-cannon character who remains a soldier because he's good at it -- not because he thinks King George deserves his service. Indeed, he's liked many of his enemies more than his bosses.
But I just had to include him because he's Richard Sharpe.
10. Scout Finch, (To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee)
Looking back on this list I realize I read far too few books with female heroes, but I'm happy to include Scout. Despite being raised in a culture that encourages subordination and meekness among its women, Scout is marvelously pugnacious and self-willed. She's a real credit to her father.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Sharpe's Prey
Sharpe's Prey: Denmark 1807
© 2001 Bernard Cornwell
288 pages
Richard Sharpe has fallen from grace -- or rather, the Lady Grace, his love, has fallen from him, perished in childbirth along with his child. His Indian fortune has been legally stolen from him by Grace's family, and now Sharpe is heartbroken and penniless. After settling a childhood score and running for his life, Sharpe is saved from further ruin when an old friend asks him to escort an admiral's aide to Denmark on a mission of utmost importance. Sharpe -- professional rogue -- has become a spy, intent on convincing the Crown Prince of Denmark to send his ships to Britain for safekeeping against the threat of Napoleon. When the mission is destroyed through treason and Sharpe stranded in Denmark to fend for himself, he's forced to choose between love for an innocent woman and her country, and his duty to Britain -- for since Sharpe's mission to secure the Danish fleet has failed, the British navy must destroy it least it be seized by Napoleon
Sharpe's Prey is almost a complete departure from Cornwell's usual fare, turning his hero into a spy far removed from the battlefield. Weakened by his recent losses, Sharpe still has to command his usual strength and wiliness to survive the debacle he's been thrown into. I enjoyed the novel's Danish setting, centered in the exquisitely beautiful city of Copenhagen. Since the novel is a prequel to the core of the Sharpe series -- the fighting in Europe against Napoleon -- I knew Sharpe wouldn't truly decide to stay in Denmark and seek a quiet life, but watching him almost yearn for peace after all of his battles, victories, and losses, makes him a more sympathetic character. The villain is an odd duck: I wasn't sure if he was a devious, sociopathic creep or just affably self-centered. Prey is an excellent spy adventure which leads right into Sharpe's Rifles, where poor Sharpe is still a miserable quartermaster...the fate he tried to escape earlier on in Prey.
I think Sharpe's Prey shall rank among my favorite in the series.
© 2001 Bernard Cornwell
288 pages
Richard Sharpe has fallen from grace -- or rather, the Lady Grace, his love, has fallen from him, perished in childbirth along with his child. His Indian fortune has been legally stolen from him by Grace's family, and now Sharpe is heartbroken and penniless. After settling a childhood score and running for his life, Sharpe is saved from further ruin when an old friend asks him to escort an admiral's aide to Denmark on a mission of utmost importance. Sharpe -- professional rogue -- has become a spy, intent on convincing the Crown Prince of Denmark to send his ships to Britain for safekeeping against the threat of Napoleon. When the mission is destroyed through treason and Sharpe stranded in Denmark to fend for himself, he's forced to choose between love for an innocent woman and her country, and his duty to Britain -- for since Sharpe's mission to secure the Danish fleet has failed, the British navy must destroy it least it be seized by Napoleon
Sharpe's Prey is almost a complete departure from Cornwell's usual fare, turning his hero into a spy far removed from the battlefield. Weakened by his recent losses, Sharpe still has to command his usual strength and wiliness to survive the debacle he's been thrown into. I enjoyed the novel's Danish setting, centered in the exquisitely beautiful city of Copenhagen. Since the novel is a prequel to the core of the Sharpe series -- the fighting in Europe against Napoleon -- I knew Sharpe wouldn't truly decide to stay in Denmark and seek a quiet life, but watching him almost yearn for peace after all of his battles, victories, and losses, makes him a more sympathetic character. The villain is an odd duck: I wasn't sure if he was a devious, sociopathic creep or just affably self-centered. Prey is an excellent spy adventure which leads right into Sharpe's Rifles, where poor Sharpe is still a miserable quartermaster...the fate he tried to escape earlier on in Prey.
I think Sharpe's Prey shall rank among my favorite in the series.
Sharpe's Trafalgar
Sharpe's Trafalgar: Spain 1805
© 2001 Bernard Cornwell
301 pages
Richard Sharpe did well for himself in India, rising in the ranks from private to Ensign, as well as finding love and fortune. But while Sharpe has been helping Britain grow powerful in India, an ambitious man named Napoleon has turned France from a nation divided by civil war into a power which dictates the fortunes of all of Europe. Only Britain's small navy stands between it and invasion by the new French Empire's grand fleet. When Ensign Sharpe sails home to Britain, he's caught between an epic naval confrontation and thrown into the furore of one of the Napoleonic War's most decisive battles: Trafalgar
Bernard Cornwell notes in the novel's afterword that a soldier such as Sharpe has no business in a naval battle like Trafalgar, but it's not Sharpe's fault that his ship was seized by a French privateer en route to join France's fleet. Aside from a little derring-do on shore, where Sharpe brings a dead man to life and makes a steadfast friend in an English naval captain, Trafalgar takes almost entirely aboard ship -- making Trafalgar a case of "Richard Sharpe meets Horatio Hornblower". Instead of focusing on naval maneuvers, however, Cornwell uses Sharpe to tell the story of the Marines, who, given Britain's preference for close combat, and Admiral Lord Nelson's desire to capture the enemy fleet -- have an important part to play. The battle itself is the climax of a plot rich in mystery and treason, where Sharpe's fortune and future are placed in jeopardy.
Trafalgar is yet another strong title in Sharpe's Series, one which offers a refreshing change from land battles and gives our hero a new ally, one who I was glad to see return in Sharpe's Prey.
Related
© 2001 Bernard Cornwell
301 pages
Richard Sharpe did well for himself in India, rising in the ranks from private to Ensign, as well as finding love and fortune. But while Sharpe has been helping Britain grow powerful in India, an ambitious man named Napoleon has turned France from a nation divided by civil war into a power which dictates the fortunes of all of Europe. Only Britain's small navy stands between it and invasion by the new French Empire's grand fleet. When Ensign Sharpe sails home to Britain, he's caught between an epic naval confrontation and thrown into the furore of one of the Napoleonic War's most decisive battles: Trafalgar
Bernard Cornwell notes in the novel's afterword that a soldier such as Sharpe has no business in a naval battle like Trafalgar, but it's not Sharpe's fault that his ship was seized by a French privateer en route to join France's fleet. Aside from a little derring-do on shore, where Sharpe brings a dead man to life and makes a steadfast friend in an English naval captain, Trafalgar takes almost entirely aboard ship -- making Trafalgar a case of "Richard Sharpe meets Horatio Hornblower". Instead of focusing on naval maneuvers, however, Cornwell uses Sharpe to tell the story of the Marines, who, given Britain's preference for close combat, and Admiral Lord Nelson's desire to capture the enemy fleet -- have an important part to play. The battle itself is the climax of a plot rich in mystery and treason, where Sharpe's fortune and future are placed in jeopardy.
Trafalgar is yet another strong title in Sharpe's Series, one which offers a refreshing change from land battles and gives our hero a new ally, one who I was glad to see return in Sharpe's Prey.
Related
- Hornblower and the Crisis, for Hornblower's own role associated with Trafalgar.
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