This Week at the Library (20/11)

The majority of my reading for the past week or so has been exclusively class-paper related. For my medieval history class, I chose to investigate Jeanne d'Arc's influence on the Hundred Years War. I have been intrigued with her since the seventh grade, when I first read about her, and the eighth grade when I saw a movie based on her story. (The video is music from the movie set to excerpts from the movie. Leelee Sobieski shows at at :54) I went into the paper expecting to find that Joan's victory at Orleans had united the French people and won the war, but as I read more and more about the war I realized that England it when they lost their alliance with Burgundy. The Duke of Burgundy and the Duke of Orleans began feuding at the start of Charles VI's reign, and their feuding turned into what amounted to a civil war.

The first book I read was The Hundred Years War, by Desmond Seward. I read this book to obtain my background information. I wanted to understand the war so that I could sort out what Joan's real influence was. The book is very interesting, telling the story of the Hundred Years War through a casual sort of narrative. It was easy to read and very informative. If you want to get a handle on what caused the war and what happened in it, I would reccommend this one. The next book I read was Joan of Arc: the Image of Female Heroism. This book was likewise interesting (if not as much as Seward's book), and helped me to understand why the story of Joan has survived for so long despite the fact that her raising the siege at Orleans didn't do much.

Those were the only two books I read straight through; others, like Joan's trial transcript, I only used for specific information. I did read two other books not related to the term paper that I turned in today, though. The first was Great Tales from English History I. If you will recall, last week I read the sequel to this as part of my term paper research, and I was quite taken by the book and the author. This first book did not disapoint. The short chapters, each telling a story from English history, are immensely entertaining. I even found out why J. Rowlings chose King's Cross station to be her magic train station -- legend has it that a Celtic warrior queen, Boudicca, was buried there.

The last book I read was Stephen Colbert's I Am America (and So Can You!). I was quite giddy to find out that the university library had received it, and I checked it out only yesterday -- finishing it today. The book relates Colbert's opinions on religion, family, immigrants, science, and so on. The book is as funny as the show, so if you enjoy the show you'll probably enjoy the book.
The entire book is essentially like this. It's a strange book: it has stickers and games and strange things like that in it. This coming week will see me exiled to Selma for the Thanksgiving holidays, during which, I'll be doing research
, but I have some leisure reading planned:
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, reflections of a Stoic Roman emperor.
- The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism by Ardea Skybreak. The title is rather ambivalent, no? I'm reading this one to refresh my knowledge of biology. My brain despises biology and genetics, but in the interests of maintaining a balanced education, I have to set aside the history books for a few days and tackle biology.

The next term paper-related book I'll be reading is The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War. Now to study Deutsch!

Oh, and Pick of the Week: Great Tales from English History

This Week at the Library (6/11)

It's been a couple of weeks since the last time I updated, and most of my reading has been focused around school. I'm taking three courses that require readings to prepare for each lecture, and to supplement that (and prepare myself more for tests) I read from other books. For German History, for instance, I'm reading through The Complete Idiot's Guide to Nazi Germany, which is immensely helpful. For Geography, we had to skip a lecture on Israel, so I've been reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Middle East Conflict. (I own a lot of the The Complete Idiot's Guide and ...for Dummies books: they're wonderful in providing a general overview of a given subject.)

Last week, I picked up Great Tales from English History 2 because it had a chapter on Joan of Arc, who is the subject of one of my term papers. The chapter on her was actually quite short, but I found the other stories in the book -- short chapters about Azincourt, Oliver Cromwell, the feud between Elizabeth and Mary, the many wives of Henry VIII -- to be immensely interesting and entertaining. I enjoyed it very much, and it became my breakfast reading for the week.

In more conventional reading, however, I have also read two books for my German History class. In addition to the "textbook" -- a compilation of letters, memos, and such from various German political leaders, our class also had to buy Mephisto by Klauss Mann and Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany by Marion Kaplan.

We read and discussed Mephisto about a week and a half ago. The book concerns the career of a German actor named Hendrik Hofgen. All of the characters in the story with the exception of bigger names (Hitler and Goering) are based on actual people in real life, which is a little interesting.

Hendrik starts out as an actor in Hamburg -- a very talented and a very career-driven one. He's nominally involved with the far left, politically. His friends include Communists and Socialists. The book is set in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, a turbulent time for Germany. Germany had recovered from the hyperinflatation of the early 1920s and had begun to prosper -- only to have all that recovery taken away by the Great Depression.

Hendrik's determination to become a famous actor makes him immensely successful in Hamburg. He realizes, though, that to get to where he needs to be, he needs to make a name for himself in Berlin. He eventually moves to Berlin and uses friendships to advance his name. While filming in Spain, the Nazis come to power in 1933 -- disaster for a socialist like Hendrik, since the Nazis despised the left.

Rather than giving into despair over the loss of his life in Weimar Germany -- the deportation of his friends, the persecution for his political ideas -- Hendrik sells himself out. He relies on his friendship to the Minister of Propaganda's wife to insert himself into the new ruling circles. Hendrik is completely at home with the Nazi elite, given how much of their platform they began to ignore once they were actually in power. The Nazi ranks were full of political opportunists like Hendrik. Hendrik's performance as Mephistoles in the play Faust is what really makes Hendrik's name known. Mephistoles is one of the "Devil's" familars. Mephistoles convinces Faust to sell his soul for gain, but that's all I know.

Eventually, Hendrik has to face his inner demons -- guilt at advancing while his friends live as exiles and deteriorate in concentration camps. The book ends as he realized that like Faust, he has sold his soul to the "devil". For a "mandatory" read, I found the book to be quite enjoyable.

The third book, one which I finished over this past weekend, is Between Dignity and Despair. In high school I developed a morbid interest in the Holocaust. The very idea of shipping people off in cattle cars and exterminating them in gas chambers was (and is) so surreal that I was driven to read about it, in hopes of making sense of it.

Learning the German language and studying German history has made me somewhat sympathetic toward Germany, but this book angered me and made me sick. The author portrays the persecution against the Jews as increasing in stages. At first, Nazi rule is merely inconvienent: there are stores that won't sell to Jews, and some Jewish men have to find other places to work. As the years drag on, Germany becomes more and more Nazified. The German people are exposed to more and more propaganda against the Jews and become absolutely hateful toward them.

I learned some things that I didn't know -- for instance, that there were tremendous barriers against Jewish people emigrating from Germany. You would think that the Nazis would make it as easy as possible to get their "undesirables" out of Germany, but that wasn't the case. Jewish bank accounts were frozen and massive taxes levied against Jews trying to leave Germany for places like Japan . Eventually, Jewish emigration was completely banned.

It seems that the Nazis didn't want to get the Jews out of Germany: they wanted to exterminate them.

Pick of the Week: Great Tales from English History 2

My reading for the next week will be dominated by readings for my research papers. I'm going to be writing about two pet subjects -- Joan of Arc and the Luftwaffe -- for my Medieval European and German history classes, respectively. I went to the libraries (today -- 8/11) and checked out a number of books regarding my two papers. One was completely unrelated -- Great Tales from English History. I'm quite looking forward to it.

Some of the books I'll be perusing in the weeks to come:
- World War II in the Sky
- The Air War 1939-1945
- The Influence of Air Power upon History
- Hitler's Luftwaffe in the Spanish Civil War
- To Command the Sky
- The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe
- The Trial of Joan of Arc
- Joan of Arc: Her Story
- Joan of Arc: Heretic, Mystic, Shaman

I think I have one more book about Joan, but I can't remember the title at the moment. For reasons that escape me, I have had a strong interest in the story of Jeanne d'Arc since middle school. (Well, one of the reasons doesn't escape me.) I suppose it's because I'm a Francophile, but Joan fascinates me even though I'm a cynic about religion and she was purportedly being talked to by dead Catholics.

I have harbored a fondness for propeller-driven airplanes since high school. I don't know where or when (the clothes you're wearing are the clothes you wore, the smile you are smiling, you were smiling then...), but I developed a strong interest in the second world war and especially the air war. In ninth or tenth grade, I picked up a book called The Airman's War by Albert Marrin, and I loved it. Marrin is a fanstatic writer in my opinion. In tenth grade English, we were told to write a paper on anything that interested us.

I wrote twenty-two pages on the air war. It was an awful paper, really -- a glut of information that wasn't really focused -- and I only receved a C. I was going to do my German History paper on Nazi building projects during WW2, but I was unable to find a lot of information on that other than Albert Speer's memoirs. I decided to go with a pet subject. I hope to do the subject justice with this paper.

This Week at the Library (12/10)

Life at college tends to cut into my reading time. I'm not particularly caught up in doing any one thing, but there are a multitude of little affairs -- going to classes, working, practicing German, studying, club meetings -- that add up. Consequently, I'm not able to read through a given list as quickly as I used to be able to. My most recent reading:

- Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan
- The Assault on Reason by Al Gore, Nobel Laureate
- The End of Faith by Sam Harris
- And The Darwin Awards, edited by Wendy Nortcutt.

When I visited the campus library to obtain Broca's Brain, I had to go upstairs. The layout is very dense up there, and I was momentarily confounded by the Library of Congress system. While I looked around for the Sagan book, my eyes fell upon The Darwin Awards. The Darwin Awards, for those of you who don't know, are given to people to remove themselves from the human gene pool in incredibly stupid ways. The awards (given posthumously, of course) are so named because the removal of these genes are said to aide the human race in evolving. I visit the website on a regular basis, and I was delighted to discover this book, which is a compilation of submitted stories. The stories contained therein are hilarious.

After I finished The Darwin Awards, I was very eager to begin former Vice President Gore's book The Assault on Reason. Gore begins by explaining how the culture of television has negatively impacted the democratic process, leaving Americans entertained but uninformed. Then begins the book proper. Some of the topics Gore addresses are "The Politics of Fear", "The Politics of Wealth", "Blinding the Faithful", and "The Assault on the Individual". You can probably figure out what these chapters are about. "The Assault on the Individual" deals with the abuses the Constitution has endured in the past six years under the reign of You-Know-Who*. "Blinding the Faithful" concerns how those in the right wing have used Christians in America to come to power. Of course, there's no way I'm going to feel sorry for fundamentalist Christians who continue to be duped by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I used to be one of `em. I say if you find a supporter of the current president, ask them about the Military Commissions Act and the Patriot Act. Their faces will go blank. They'll have no idea what you're talking about. The same is true of Executive Order 9066.

After finishing The Assault on Reason (which I would recommend), I read Sam Harris' The End of Faith. This book was one of the first to be written when rationalism and atheism started coming into vouge a few years ago. The book doesn't just attack fundamentalism (Christian and Islamic) and promote rationalism and compassion-based ethics; it contains a good deal of philosophy. I enjoyed the book, although it wasn't quite what I expected. My favorite part of the book was when Harris compares faith to a rhinoceros. In Harris' words, a rhinoceros won't do any real work for you, but up close it demands your attention.

Finally, I read Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. This book was written by Carl Sagan, so as you can imagine I enjoyed it. The book strikes me as a collection of individual essays rather than one tightly-focused book. In one chapter, Sagan gives the biography of Albert Einstein. In another, he muses on the role science fiction plays in affecting people's ideas about science. The subjects are varied, and most are interesting. Given how different each chapter is from the other, I think it's safe to skip a chapter that focuses on something the reader isn't personally interested in.

Pick of the Week: The Assault on Reason. The Darwin Awards was a hilarious book, but I prefer substance over amusement.

This week's reading: unknown. I haven't really determined what all I want to read this week. I know I'll be reading Mephisto by Klaus Mann for my German History class, and I'll also be reading England in the Time of Chaucer by Roger Hart. I may also do some reading in the direction of my research papers.

This Week at the Library (21/9)

Current Music: "Rock and Roll All Night", KISS

The first book I read last week was River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins. The river is a "river of information" -- genetic information. The book doesn't have the focus of The Ancestor's Tale; it strikes me as almost being a collection of essays dealing with questions of biology. From the book's dust cover:

Filled with absorbing, at times alarming, stories about the world of bees and orchids, "designed" eyes and human ancestors, River Out of Eden answers tantalizing questions: Why are forest trees tall -- wouldn't each survive more economically if all were short? Why is the sex ration fifty-fifty when relatively few males are needed to impregnate many females? Why do we inherit genes for fatal illnesses?

The book answers those questions and adequately. The only chapter where my attention began to drift was the chapter on Mitochondrial Eve -- the ancestor of the human race. That was completely about how genes are transferred through sexual reproduction, so I was a little bored. I did find Dawkins' suggestion that our true universal ancestor was an Adam to be intriguing, though. He bases his argument based partially on the fact that male animals often rule over harems of females -- one animal sharing his genes with a larger number of females, and thus increasing his contribution to the gene pool exponentially. Female contribution in humans is still limited to one pregnancy every year, and so an individual female's contribution is negligible compared to the male who rules over the harem -- even considering pregnancies that produce multiple offspring. My favorite chapter was "God's Utility Function" where Dawkins explains why there are so many inefficiencies in living systems -- problems that make no sense if everything was designed by an all-knowing Creator, but that make perfect sense when seen through the eye of gene-driven evolution. "Do Good By Stealth" was also quite interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

The second book I read was Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by F.L. Allen. The book's title is spot-on; the book is very informal. It's not written with the historical objectivity that I would like; the author assumes that his reader is an American, and so speaks of "us" and "we". The book was written in 1931, and the language of the book -- the usage of 'Negro", for instance -- dates it. Despite the informality, I did enjoy the book. The 20s and 30s are of particular interest to me; I've been reading about that era for almost four years now. Before, my main area of historical interest shifted year to year; in ninth grade, for instance, I was stuck on the Great War. In tenth grade, I moved on to the Second World War. In eleventh and twelfth grades, I was engrossed in Civil War history. Then in 2004 I began to research the Mafia and here I am years later still reading books about the 1920s and 1930s -- the Prohibition Era. The book increased my appreciation for living in the here and now; I wouldn't want to live in the time of the Red Riots the KKK, and the birth of Christian fundamentalism.

The last book I read was Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali was born in Somalia and raised as a Muslim. Her family moved around a bit because of her father's political activities (resisting the communists), and so she experiences life in different parts of the "Islamic" world. Ali writes of the clan blood feuds and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. She tells of how she threw herself into the religion even while questioning it. The systemic flaws of Islam do not go away with time, and eventually she finds herself in western Europe, having fled there to avoid an arranged marriage. In Germany and Holland, Ali discoverers what humanity is capable of when freed from the fetters of dogma -- civilization. The values of Europe were completely against the values Ali had been handed by her upbringing. Ali writes of her puzzling over the fact that Europe paid no attention to Allah or the Quran, yet was still prosperous and civilized. She enrolled in a university to better understand how such a society could have formed, and was immediately challenged by the western ideas being presented at her through her classes.

"Sometimes I could almost sense a little shutter clicking shut in my brain, so that I could keep reading my textbooks without struggling to align their content with my belief in Islam. Sometimes it seemed as if almost every page I read challenged me as a Muslim. Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas."

Ali moves further and further away from the values of her upbringing and begins to become "secularized". She becomes a Dutch citizen, and Dutch values become her values. After 9/11, she decides to examine her faith. It falls apart the minute it is exposed to scrutiny. The last chapters of the book deal with the controversy she involved herself in when she wrote about the instability fundamentalist Muslims were bringing to Holland. The same problems are being caused in the United Kingdom and Canada. Ali summed the conflict up in a brilliant way, but I can't remember the exact wording and can't seemed to find it now. The gist of her statement was that the western European nations were overly tolerant of their Muslim populations in the hope that understanding and reconciliation would be reached --- but there would be no such toleration or understanding from the Muslims toward the unbelievers who were giving them a safe harbor.

I found similarities in the author's departure from religion and my own, although of course her situation is a lot more difficult than mine. I enjoyed the book, and that ends the week's reading.

Pick of the Week: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

This week, I'm going to be reading Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science by Carl Sagan. I discovered this one a week or so ago in a card catalouge and realized that here was a book by Sagan that I hadn't read. Well, I have to rectify that. After that, I'll be reading The Assault on Reason by Al Gore. I'm not sure what it's about, but I'm going to guess that Gore will be mentioning a "Republican war on science". Lastly, I'll read The End of Faith by Sam Harris. I've read Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation and enjoyed it. The summaries of the book that I've read say that it is a book aimed at fundamentalist Islam and Christianity. I'm looking forward to it. Next week my reading will probably drift into history and stay there for a bit as I ready myself for a couple of term papers.

• Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan
• The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
• The End of Faith by Sam Harris

This Week at the Library (11/9)

This Week at the Library (11/9)

Currently Listening To: "Waking Up in the Universe", Richard Dawkins


" It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it. " - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot


Last week I checked out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Shelters of Stone by Jean M. Auel. I had only half-finished Shelters the week before, and aimed to finish it -- which I did. I also finished The Deathly Hallows, which finishes the Harry Potter series. I had to wait almost an entire week to get it after I finished Half-Blood Prince. (I have been informed by friends who had to wait years between books that I "suck".) If you've not read Half-Blood Prince and plan to do so, kindly close your eyes and scroll down for a few seconds so that your reading experienced is ruined.

I kept thinking of the book as The Deathly Hollows; I thought that one of Harry's friends were going to be killed as he and the rest of Dumbledore's Army fought the forces of Lord Voldemort in some wooded area. As it turns out, the "Deathly Hallows" are three artifacts/relics that all have something to do with death. Actually, only two of them can be sensibly tied to death; associating the Invisibility Cloak with death is a bit of a stretch. In The Deathly Hallows, Harry and friends are supposed to be hunting for Hocruxes that contain bits of Voldemort's soul so that they can kill him off for good. I don't want to reveal too much of the plot, but every thing ties together. I was not particularly surprised by the ending, but I enjoyed it.

As mentioned, I also finished Shelters of Stone. I predicted that Jondolar would have to choose between his community and the woman he loves; well, he doesn't. In The Shelters of Stone, Ayla and Jondolar settle into life among the Zelandonii. Ayla tells the story of her life (the one she told several times in book three and the one she told too many times to count in book four). The reaction among Jondolar's people is pretty much the same as with everyone else; everyone is impressed with the exception of one or two jealous or tradition-bound people. Ayla once again draws some flak when she announces that she was raised by the Clan (the Clan being "primitive" Neanderthals and the Zelandonii being the "intelligent" Cro-Magnons). She makes a few petty enemies, gets mated to Jondolar, and has a baby. That's it. This book's lack of a real plot would be baffling if I didn't know that it's the fifth part of a sixth series. While the rest of the books can stand alone by themselves, though, I don't think this one can. I wouldn't read it without reading some of the others, just so that it makes some sense. It's nice to learn about the customs of these people, but there's no plot-driven story that is developed through the book. Auel simply tells what happens to Ayla once she and Jondolar arrive back at his home; the months recorded here are as uneventful as a few months in an average person's life. I am hoping that Ayla's petty enemies were being introduced in this book to serve some more dramatic purpose in the sixth, final, and yet to be released book.

Finally, I read Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. I have now officially read every one of his books with the exception of the one on the nuclear winter. While I am morbidly interested in the effects of nuclear winter, I think the only nuclear attacks we'll ever really worry about are those that take place at the hands of Islamists with their addled minds set on dreams of Heaven. I may read it later on, though, just to say that I've read everything written by Carl Sagan. I recently watched an "old" interview (1989) between himself and Ted Turner. The entire interview is on YouTube, and you can begin watching it by clicking here. In the second clip, Turner brings up nuclear winter. While the interview is now nearly twenty years old, ridiculously enough we're still facing the same problems -- global warming, inadequate health care, and a woefully uneducated populace. Sagan even mentions that a sizeable percentage of U.S. students couldn't locate their own country on a map; deja vu, anyone?

I enjoyed Pale Blue Dot enormously. That goes without saying; the book is by Carl Sagan. I think the book might dethrone Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors as my favorite Sagan book; we'll see as time goes by. The book is primarily concerned with humanity's role among the stars. A few weeks ago (before I checked the book out) I added a video onto my MySpace profile. Sagan's words in the video feature in the beginning of the book. Toward the end of the video, he says that astronomy is a "humbling experience". This is how he begins the book, by illustrating through a history of astronomy the various ways that humanity's arrogance has been checked by further knowledge of our cosmic insignificance. Sagan moves on to explain how we started to explore the solar systems and goes into detail on how particular parts of the solar system formed; he talks about the natural history of Venus that can be deduced through the available evidence, for instance. The book covers all manner of subjects, all of them tied in some way to astronomy. While I think the book could be enjoyed by anyone, I would especially recommend it to people interested in astronomy like myself. I also want to recommend another video.

A couple of months back, I somehow encountered Prometheus Music, which produces songs dealing with humanity's adventures in space flight. "Surprise!" is about Sputnik, for instance. My favorite song is "Fire in the Sky". I happened to find a visual history of space flight set to the song -- I hope you enjoy.

Pick of the Week: Despite the fight Deathly Hallows put up, I have to say that my favorite reading for this week was Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

I also began reading Only Yesterday. I'm not reading it in book form, but online. I can't find a copy of the book in any of the nearby libraries, and I've been wanting to read the book for two years. Because of this, I have overcome my aversion to e-books and started to dig in. So far it's fantastic.

This week, I plan to read Richard Dawkins' The River Out of Eden. Despite my enormous affection for Dawkins, I have actually only read three of his books -- Unweaving the Rainbow, The Ancestor's Tale, and The God Delusion. I've tried twice to read The Selfish Gene, but genetics bores me. With that in mind, it seems ridiculous that I am reading another of his books about genetics. I plan to read the book largely because of the fact that I'm familiar with and enjoy reading Dawkins' works. I love watching interviews with the man, and I'm hoping that this book is as engaging as he is in interviews.

Dawkins was featured in a panel of interviewees that I watched a few days ago. Another of the panelists was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote about her experiences as an ex-Muslim emigrant to Europe in the book Infidel. I'm interested in her story, so I'll be reading the book this week.

So, this week:
- Only Yesterday, Frederick Lewis Allen
- The River Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins
- Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

This Week at the Library (1/9)

Current Music: "Never There", Cake

I had hoped to delay this week's update until I was able to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but getting my hands on a copy of the final book has been harder than I thought it would be. Most of this week's reading -- well, last week since I'm late -- was Harry Potter-related, but not all of it. There were two non-Harry books I checked out last week -- Storms from the Sun and The Germans. I didn't finish The Germans because I was caught up with the Potter books. Shelters of Stone suffered a similar fate; I was halfway done with it, but Harry interfered.

I found Storms from the Sun to be both informing and entertaining. While I usually enjoy the books I check out, this week was no guarantee given that I picked the book up because of its cover. In effect, I judged the book by its cover. Take that, conventional wisdom. As you can imagine, the book is about how the activity of the Sun affects those of us on Earth. At the beginning of the book, in the second chapter, the author tells a story about Columbus. Columbus' men were relying on the natives for food and supplies, but they soon wore out their welcome by treating the natives in an obnoxious fashion. Being a deeply religious man, Columbus knew just what to do -- sic God on them.

By consulting astronomical tables, Columbus was able to threaten them with a lunar eclipse. He told his hosts that God wasn't very happy that the natives were no longer allowing the Spaniards to treat them like doormats. They would either continue to feed his men and tolerate their boorish behavior, or God would take the moon away. The eclipse showed up as predicted and the Spaniards were able to obtain more free food. I thought this story was funny; it pretty much sums up the best use humanity has found for religion -- exploitation. Most of the book is about solar activity's effect on Earth's electromagnetic field. I found it interesting, but then I like astronomy.

So, two weeks ago when I checked out Storms from the Sun, Shelters of Stone, and The Germans, I planned to return to the library whenever the second and third books of the Harry Potter series were returned. A week later, they were not returned. I had watched the first movie by this point and was quite anxious to resume my reading of the series, so this annoyed me greatly. That Saturday, I came to Montevallo for Spruce-Up day. While I was here, I picked up the second and third books and the third movie. I then drove home and "settled in for a Hogwarts' weekend".

On Saturday, I read Chamber of Secrets and on Sunday I read The Prisoner of Azkaban. The Chamber of Secrets is about Harry's second year at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I have actually read some of this book before, in tenth grade. A friend from school was reading the book and asked me if I had read them. I said no, and she was surprised. She let me read some of the book during class, and I did enjoy what I did read. I read the first two chapters, I think. I remember Dobby quite well. Dobby is this little house-elf, and he shows up to tell Harry not to go back to Hogwart's, because trouble is brewing there. Harry doesn't heed his advice, of course, and goes anyway. As Dobby predicted, trouble starts. The students start showing up "petrified"; they're alive, but not living. They're frozen.

Harry, of course, having his name on the cover, sets out to solve the mystery. I halfway expected Hermione to say "Doesn't it strike you a bit odd that during our second year here, we've encountered a second mystery?". The Boxcar Children did this; every so often they'd say 'You know, mysteries seem to pop up wherever we go!". If you aren't familiar with The Boxcar Children series, you should be. Anyway, back to Harry and his mystery. It seems that one of the founding members of Hogwarts', a fellow named Slytherin, was quite the snob; he only wanted pure-blood wizards to attend the school. The other members (Gryffendor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw) were against this, so Slytherin left the school. Before he did, thought, he built a secret chamber in the school, the "Chamber of Secrets". He said it would unsealed once his heir showed up. When the second year at Hogwarts' starts, a blood-painted message appears on the school walls that says the Chamber has been opened and that the enemies of the Heir should beware. The book is about Harry trying to figure out who the Heir is, where the Chamber is, and who is petrifying the students of Hogwarts'. I was surprised by the answers to the last two questions.

After this, I watched the second movie and started on the third book. If I had any doubts about finishing the series, the third book would have completely done away with them. I love the third book; it was a fantastic read. It had all the elements that make for good fiction. It is called The Prisoner of Azkaban. Azkaban is a wizardry prison where bad wizards go. It's an island prison, which doesn't help people who might confuse the title and read it as The Prisoner of Alcatraz. I figured out the basics of the ending well before I got to it, although I didn't anticipate all of the endgame plot developments. One thing that puzzled me was that Ron and Harry were clueless about how Hermione was taking multiple classes during the same hours and apparently missing none of them. During the book, Hermione "pops" into the classroom, surprising people. She insists she's been there the entire time, but Ron and Harry puzzle over her behavior the entire book. Clearly, neither of them has ever watched an episode of Star Trek.

On Monday I checked out Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I would be leaving for Montevallo in a few days, but I was quite looking forward to continuing the series. Goblet of Fire is when the series' overreaching arc really begins to unfold, and it is the first "big" novel in the series. I liked Goblet of Fire, but not as much as The Prisoner of Azkaban. In Goblet, Harry is chosen by the Goblet of Fire (a talking goblet) to serve as a "champion" in the Triwizard Tournament, this competition between the three largest European magic schools. Each school is represented by a champion, and they compete in three trials that involve magic. The Goblet picks two champions from Hogwarts -- Harry and a young man from Hufflepuff by the name of Cedric Diggory. Harry's inclusion in the championship results in Harry being isolated from almost everyone in the school, who think he is an attention-seeking brat. The book ends with a newly-alive Lord Voldemort attempting to kill Harry, who (obviously) survives.

The next book is The Order of the Phoenix. By this point, the war between the forces of good and evil has already started. The Order of the Phoenix is an order of wizards and witches who are fighting against Voldemort. They're the only ones fighting, because the Ministry of Magic refuses to see that there is a problem. Harry -- who narrowly escaped death in Goblet -- is seen again as a brat who cooks up wild stories to catch everyone's attention. Dumbledore backs Harry, and this results in his being ousted from the school. A new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (Dolores Umbridge, who I dislike even more than Draco Malfoy) is named Headmistress, and she attempts to undermine all of Dumbledore's and Harry's plans to defeat Lord Voldemort. She's quite wretched. Voldemort in this book is seen as trying to find a prophecy about him and Harry, and he tricks Harry into going to the Department of Secrets at the Ministry of Magic to fetch it. Voldemort's forces then attack Harry. While they do lose, they claim the life of Harry's godfather, Sirus. I thought Order of the Phoenix a good read, but I disliked the parts that included Umbridge.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth book in the series, and the last one I've read at the moment. I think this book's purpose is mainly to prolouge the final book, as there's really not that much conflict. The main characters grow in magical ability and personality and Dumbledore begins training Harry for the inevitable final battle against Voldemort. To kill him, they must locate and destroy four Hocruxes, which are objects that contain some of Voldemort's soul. The book ends with an attack by Voldemort's supporters on the castle. I enjoyed this book quite a bit, more so than I have any book since Prisoner of Azkaban.

Pick of the Week: Prisoner of Azkaban

So that ends last week. This week, I'm reading Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot and plan to pick up the final Harry Potter book tomorrow. I'll read it over the weekend and hopefully be done on Monday or Tuesday. School studies will probably limit my weekly reading to one or two books a week, depending on how busy I am kept.

I am now a convert to Pottermania -- like C.S. Lewis, "England's most reluctant convert". My conversion started with the first movie and was cemented by the third book. One of my friends is a severe Potterhead, and she has seen fit to introduce me to some elements of Potterfandom -- like Wizard Rock and the Potter Puppet Pals. (I especially enjoy "The Mysterious Ticking Noise".) My conversion to Pottermania was helped by the fact that I'm given to geeky fan behavior anyway. There's no limit to the amount of things I can associate with Star Trek, and when I approach an automatic door I make a "Force Open" gesture a la Obi-Wan Kenobi out of habit. I think maybe that I knew I would be sucked into this and wanted to stave it off for as long as I could.

And so I end. Tomorrow I'll pick up the last book (assuming the library is open, anyway). I'm also interested in reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, which is about her experiences growing up in various Muslim countries and leaving them for Holland, eventually becoming an atheist and a critic of Islam. I'm going to figure out a way to obtain the DVD of The Goblet of Fire, and then await Order of the Phoenix's release on DVD. Pity my friends didn't convince me to start the series a week earlier; I could've caught Phoenix in theatres!

This Week At the Library (13/8)

Smellincoffee003: I read my first Harry Potter book today.
Potterhead: excellent
Potterhead: and?
Smellincoffee003: I kinda liked it.
Potterhead: muhuhahahaha

They're out to get me! This is the library I have gone to all of my life, by the way. I literally grew up with this library, as it added a new wing when I was in seventh grade. If you look at the second chimney, you can see where the library used to end. Everything to the right of that chimney is new, as is the courtyard below. The nonfiction and reference sections are in the upstairs of the older part, and the adult fiction is downstairs. The children's section is in the upstairs of the new wing, and the downstairs is mainly offices and conference areas. The inside hall facing the courtyard serves as an art gallery.



My first read last week was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which is first in the seven-book series. The majority of my online friends have been insisting (with varying degrees of intensity) that I read the the first book. Annoying as this was, it did prompt me to investigate. The Sorcerer's Stone is an enjoyable book. I enjoyed the storytelling, although I didn't really like "Lord Voldemort's" backstory. Too much supernatural weirdness for me, what with the "talking out of the back of other people's heads" thing. He'd better get his own body pretty quick-like.

There's little point in writing about the plot of the book, seeing as everyone who reads this has probably already read the Potter novels…but I will anyway. This is the story about a young boy named Harry Potter who is orphaned and sent to live with his relatives. His relatives don't like him and they mistreat him as he grows up. When Harry is very scared or angry or whatever, strange things happen -- like a large snake being released from its cage. Harry is magical, you see.

In this, the book reminded me a lot of Roald Dahl's Matilda. Matilda is about a young girl who is raised by obnoxious relatives who mistreat her as she grows up. When they are making her life miserable, however, strange things happen...like the television blowing up. Matilda has telekinesis, you see. Both Harry and Matilda get to escape to school. Despite having trouble there with other students and teachers, Harry and Matilda are both enormously helped by school. Matilda is adopted by her teacher, Miss Honey, and Harry gets six more books.

The Sorcerer's Stone also reminded me of The Sims: Makin' Magic, which I never bought for a number of reasons. I have read numerous reviews and Sim-stories, so I know what the game is like. Magic is treated the both way in both the novel and the game expansion. Overall, I enjoyed the book. My favorite part was the interplay between Ron Weasely and Hermione and Wizards' Chess. Much better than three-dimensional chess from Star Trek.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Turtles and Tortoises was wholly devoted to the subject of turtles as pets. I have given thought to how my life will be after university and such, and I figure I'll have a few pets -- a cat if I can, plus a smaller pet like a hamster or turtle. After reading the book, I am now certain that turtles deserve more care than I may be able to give them. I had already come to this decision a few weeks ago. Of course, if I move to a place where cats are prohibited (and that will factor in, as I want one), I may rethink this issue. The book is informative, but doesn't get into the behavior of wild turtles so its appeal is limited.

The Rising Tide is a novel of the Second World War, written by Jeff Shaara. I've read everything else Shaara has written, and had high expectations for this book. Those expectations were met; I think this is one of his better works. Shaara writes about the war through the eyes of the men who fought it. He writes in the same style as his father -- a style that attempts to convey the character's thoughts as they would think them. It's a curious style, but effective. I was pleased to learn that The Rising Tide is in fact first in a three-part series about the second world war. This one concentrated on North Africa, moved to the invasion of Sicily, and ended with the deposition of Mussolini and the invasion of Italy. The principal characters were General Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and two enlisted men named Logan and Adams. Logan was a tank gunner in Africa, and Adams was a paratrooper. I don't recall their first names. I found this book, like all the others written by the Shaaras, to be both informing and entertaining, and I look forward to the second and third books of the series. Both are as yet unwritten, but the first is supposedly centered around Operation Overlord -- the invasion of Normandy.

I checked out Blood and Iron thinking it was a novel of German history, focusing on one particular family. It turns out that this is a novel of genealogical history, focusing on one particular family, with German history providing the setting. I'm not all that interested in familial histories; I wouldn't even read a book on the Roosevelts.

The last book I finished was Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-5", a work of fiction inspired by his experiences as a POW in Dresden when it was firebombed. It is a rather curious book. It was very interesting and entertaining, but it was such a peculiar read that I'm really not sure what to say about it. Vonnegut tells his story through the character of a man named Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim isn't Vonnegut, but he is supposed to have been one of Vonnegut's fellow POWs. The book tells about Pilgrim's war experiences, but it also tells about what happens after the war, even covering his death. The book doesn't do this in a chronological fashion, though. Pilgrim thinks he has been abducted by aliens and they allow him to experience all of life all at once, so that he can be in 1964 in one minute and in 1934 in another. While Vonnegut is telling this story, he's also commenting on greed and war. However peculiar a read this was, I think I may read more of Vonnegut's fiction in the future.

Pick of the Week: The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara.

This week, I didn't really make a reading list. I had two books I knew I would get, but I hadn't gone beyond that. First, I was planning to check out Shelters of Stone to finish the Earth's Children series (as it is written so far; Auel hasn't finished the sixth book yet). Secondly, I decided to read the second Harry Potter novel.

Last week, I visited the children's section first to covertly check out the first Harry Potter book. I was more than a tad uncomfortable being present in the children's section, seeing as I haven't fit that label for quite some time. I felt the same way when I sneaked in there to check out a Redwall book, but not as embarrassed as I felt to be walking around with Left Behind novels. After I checked out the book, I placed it my car and re-entered the library through the main doors. That way, no one saw me walking about with a "kiddy" book. This week I decided to check out my adult books first, then exit the library through the children's section and pick up Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on my way out. After I picked up Shelters of Stone, I had no real idea what to get upstairs. I thought I should get another book on Germany, so I picked out The Germans. Then I saw a book called Storms from the Sun that looked interesting. After that, I decided to dart inside the children's section.

As it turns out, the librarians were having a meeting right beside the shelf where the Harry Potter books were. I'd be spotted by two of the main librarians! I stood there dumbly for a minute, then realized they could see my head over the short shelves and went to get the book. It wasn't there. I kneeled there listening to them speak, but the book wasn't there. I thought maybe they had isolated some of the books and put them in a special display. I went to get the movies -- I was checking out the first two movies as well -- but still couldn't find the books. Eventually one of the librarians noticed me wandering about (looking uncomfortable) and asked me if I needed help.

It turns out the web catalog was showing the book as "in" when it was really "out" and due in tomorrow. She gave me a "hold request" to sign, so they're going to call me tomorrow to come fetch the book. I chatted a bit with one of the librarians, and she says lots of adults check out books in the children's section. It was really a moot issue by then; I had been wandering about the children's books for so long by this point that whatever "adult dignity" I had was gone. I felt as comfortable as I felt when I was little and one of the founding members of the Goosebumps Fan Club.

So, the reading for this week:

1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (if it's returned on time)
2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (I'll pick it up when I pick up the second.)
3. Shelters of Stone, Jean M. Auel
4. The Germans, by Gordon Alexander Craig
5. Storms from the Sun by Michael J. Carlowicz

I'll also be watching the first two movies. I actually already watched the first movie today, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Special thanks to Mikado, for spotting the errors that I miss. I've gone a lifetime thinking Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was written by "Ronald" Dahl!