This Week at the Library (11 January)

Currently Reading: How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker; The Positronic Man, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg; The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene (on hold until I finish How the Mind Works).


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"It's ridiculous, sir! Getting married."
"Women like it, Patrick."
"Why do they need us? Why don't they just do it and tell us afterwards. Christ!"

p. 313, Sharpe's Honour. Bernard Cornwell.

"Virtually nothing is known about the functioning microcircuity of the human brain, because there is a shortage of volunteers willing to give up their brains to science before they are dead."

p. 184, How the Mind Works. Steven Pinker. 

You are a robot, Andrew reminded himself sternly.
You are a product of the United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation.
And then Andrew would look at Little Miss and a sensation of great joy and warmth would spread through his positronic brain -- a sensation that he had come to identify as 'love' -- and then he would have to remind himself, all over again, that he was nothing more than a cleverly designed structure of metal and plastic with an artificial platinum-iridium brain inside his chrome-steel skull, and he had no right to feel emotions, or to think paradoxical thoughts, or to do any other such complex and mysterious human being.

p. 51, The Positronic Man, Asimov and Silverberg.

Sharpe's Honour

Sharpe's Honour
© 1985 Bernard Cornwell
320 pages

In Sharpe's Enemy, Richard Sharpe vanquished one foe only to create another, this time the subtle French intelligence officer Pierre Ducos. Ducos is an enemy both to England and Sharpe, for with one plan he manages to ensnare Sharpe in legal turmoil that may end in a death sentence, and begin the destruction of the Anglo-Spanish alliance which is driving the French army back across the Pyrenees. Sharpe's only hope is the possible help of a treacherous and dangerously attractive 'Marquesa'.

Without giving too much away, Sharpe spends most of the book in trouble as an escaped and condemned outlaw working behind enemy lines.  The escape tests Sharpe's character several times, not just his resourcefulness;  there are times when giving his parole or simply refusing to go one would make his life much easier, but Sharpe insists on making a fight of it.At the same time that Sharpe is engaged in a battle for his life,  Wellington's army and the French are moving toward one of the most decisive altercations of the Peninsular War: the Campaign at Vitoria. Much of the battle takes place without our rifleman, but it wouldn't be a Sharpe novel without him making a dramatic entrance at a pivotal moment. The book is worth it just for the ending; being completely unfamiliar with the history of the Peninsular War, I flew into the book blind and didn't know what surprises Wellington had up his sleeve or what fate would await him.

Although I missed the usual running interaction between Sharpe and his men, Honour offers plenty of excitement and a thoroughly satisfying ending that lifts the pall remaining from Sharpe's Enemy's conclusion.

Next time: Sharpe's Regiment invades France!

Bowling Alone

Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community
© 2001 Robert D. Putnam
544 pages

Every so often I read a book that strikes my brain as lightening, forever altering my thinking and earning a permanent place both on my bedside bookcase and on the tip of my tongue, for I will be thinking, talking, and writing about it from that point on. Bowling Alone is such a book. In it, Robert Putnam makes the case that America has experienced over a half-century of social decline -- decline that is universal, across all demographics and throughout the nation. He uses a concept called social capital, a representation of the strength of social ties between individuals and their networks; the more social capital a society has, the more cohesive it is and the better it functions as a human community in matters of health, safety, and problem solving.

He first charts a steady decline in social capital by  using falling rates in civic organizations (like the Rotary Club), locally-organized political activity, religious participation, communal leisure activities, and other markers. Putnam then attempts to ascertain the causes of this steep decline, which seems inexplicable given that the baby boomer generation has reached the age where civic participation is at its greatest. He finds a variety of society-wide forces (increasing job and security pressure; suburbanization; the rise of television), but also notes a major generational influence.  The most active civic generation in American history is dying off, but much of their strength comes (Putnam believes) from the unifying force of WWII.  That war called upon the resources of the entire nation -- women in the workforce and children gathering scrap metal were just as important as the soldiers in the field. People didn't simply work together; they believed they were working together, and for a common goal. Putnam believes that this extended period of national solidarity cast a shadow over that generation's lives -- but the baby boomers and generation-Xers have had no such struggle. No one would think of the Vietnam War as bringing people together; indeed, it must stand out as one of the most divisive wars in American history.

In making his argument, Putnam is both exhaustive and conservative -- anticipating objections to his conclusions and answering  them as a matter of course. He's also not quick to overestimate the influence of any one factor, when sometimes I thought such emphasis might be appropriate. Putnam then asks the question, "So what?" and examines the ways in which social capital is a boon to society and then the consequences of losing it. He then ends by offering several goals for American society to work forward to as a way of strengthening itself. My interest in this book stems from my interest in the 'human habitat' in general, and community is an essential part of that.

Bowling Alone is imminently worthy of consideration -- not just for the ideas it contains, but for the thorough manner that Putnam presents them. A small caveat; the book may be marginally dated given the rise of social networking sites. While Putnam does address online communities, facebook and similar creatures are altogether different from usenet groups and static websites --  and although they're scarcely a replacement for what we've lost, certainly they're a factor that would need to be considered if this book were published today. For my own part, I am resolutely committed to doing my part to live my life in connection with other people.

Highly recommended.

Related:

• The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler

The Son of Neptune

The Heroes of Olympus, Volume II: The Son of Neptune
© 2011 Rick Riordan
521 pages

In The Lost Hero, Rick Riordan introduced another epic battle between the gods, forcing three young demigods to free Hera from imprisonment and forestall the awakening of Gaea and her Giants -- but without their leader, Percy Jackson. The 'lost hero' returns to the story in The Son of Neptune, robbed of most of his memory and under constant attack by monsters until he finds refuge in a camp of demigods...named Camp Jupiter.

This is no small camp of half-bloods; Camp Jupiter is a bonafide city styled on Rome, where its illustrious history and mythology live on. These campers are born of the gods' Roman personalities and they regard their rumored Greek relations with contempt. Beset on every side by monsters and without their own leader, they regard the unexpected arrival of Percy with suspicion. But Hera -- Juno -- has a plan, and Percy must play a part in it together with two new characters, both with mysterious pasts they would prefer to hide.  The trio are given a quest -- to travel beyond the reach of the gods, to a place where no demigod has returned from alive before....Alaska. There they must free Death from the clutches of one of Gaea's giants, because no one is staying in the Underworld like they should and it's causing quite a bit of confusion.

I welcomed the return of Percy and couldn't wait to read this book, eager to see how Riordan developed the Roman camp. They're far different beyond referring to the gods by different names; the Romans are populous enough to live in a large city defended by legions of demigods and their descendants, governed by a senate. They are organized, energetic, and militant. I delighted seeing little nods to both history and mythology. For instance,  Percy is forced to join a disgraced legion which lost its eagle in the artic hinterlands years ago, under the leadership of a man named...Varus.  One of Riordan's new heroes (Frank Zhang) gives him the opportunity to create a character with a fascinating backstory out of a possible Romano-Chinese connection in history, a 'lost legion'. The Son of Neptune is the "end of the beginning" for Riordan's new series: now Juno's plan to unite the camps is laid out in full, for only together -- and with the gods -- can they triumph over the ancient and wrathful earth-goddess by marching on the Doors of Death. I took for granted that the heroes would triumph in this little adventure -- surely they must live on to fulfill the Prophecy of Seven introduced in the original series. It wasn't quite as novel as The Lost Hero given that the reader has already learned most of the mystery by this point, but I still enjoyed the Roman aspects and dramatic tension which is building in the series. The next book, the Mark of Athena, will unite the seven properly, and I'm excited to see where they're going...for the next battle will be fought not in America, but in the home of the gods....Greece.

The Week at the Library (4 January)

Pending Review(s): Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam.
Currently Reading: The Son of Neptune; Rick Riordian; The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene (on hold until next week)
Potentials: How the Mind Works, Stephen Pinker

This blog started out as a weekly affair until I switched to individual book reviews, and since then I've been trying to work with the weekly post and make it purposeful, but not redundant.  In addition to the info above, I'll also be including quotations I would have otherwise scribbled down in my journal or posted to my facebook wall -- funny bits of diaogue, deliciously rich exposition, or thought-provoking passages.

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"We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter's the one
And Voldy's gone moldy, so now let's have fun!"
"Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?"

p. 746, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Finally finished up my Harry Potter Christmastime Re-Read!

The reason there are no humanlike robots is not that the very idea of a mechanical mind is misguided. It is that the engineering problems that we humans solve as we see and walk and plan and make it through the day are far more challenging than landing on the moon or sequencing the human genome.Nature, once gain, has found ingenious solutions that human engineers cannot yet duplicate. When Hamlet says "What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable!" we should direct our awe not at Shakespeare or Mozart or Einstein or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar but at a four-year old carrying out a request to put a toy on a shelf.

p. 4, How the Mind Works. Stephen Pinker.

British political philosopher John Stuart Mill lauded the effects of participatory democracy on character. Without shared participation in public life, Mill wrote, a citizen "never thinks of any collective interest, of any objects to be pursued jointly with others but only in competition with them, and in some measure at their expense...A neighbor, not being an ally or an associate, since he is never engaged in any common undertaking for joint benefit, is therefore, only a rival." The engaged citizen, by contrast, 'is called upon...to weight interests not his own; to be guided, in case of conflicting claims, by another rule other than his own private partialities....He is made to feel himself one of the public, and whatever is for their benefit to be for his benefit."

p. 337, Bowling Alone

TV-based politics is to political action as watching ER is to saving someone in distress. Just as one cannot restart a heart with one's remote control, one cannot jump-start republican citizenship without direct, face-to-face participation. Citizenship is not a spectator sport."

p. 341, Bowling Alone

Top Ten Anticipated Reads for 2012

At the start of 2012, the Book and the Brokish are looking forward to this year's anticipated reads!


1. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes us Human, V.S. Ramachandran

This was scheduled to be released in January of last year, and I fully expected that I would buy it at some point.  I didn't get around to that, but it's being re-released this month as a paperback; the decreased price  means it might make it to my bookshelf.  As it happens, this is the only book on last year's anticipated reads list that I never got to read.

2. Death from the Skies! or Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait

Phil Plait is an astronomer, blogger, and activist within the skeptical community. He's also my favorite geek: I always get a kick out of hearing him on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe or StarTalk (the latter of which is hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, another astrophysicist), and it's high time I try out one of his books.

3. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Charles C. Mann

Mann's 1491: New Revelations about the Americas before Columbus rocked my world. It's one of the best history books I've ever read, and I fully intend on getting my hands on a copy of his newest release, which (one assumes) will tackle the ecological and political changes European expansion brought to the Americas.

4. Department of Temporal Investigation: Forgotten History, Christopher L. Bennett

While I'm generally excited about many of the new Trek releases scheduled for 2012,  Bennett is one of my two favorite contemporary Trek authors (along with David Mack), and he never disappoints.

5. Battle of Shiloh, Jeff Shaara

In 2012 Jeff Shaara will be returning to the American Civil War to do a set of novels set in the western theatre, with the first book centered on the bloody battle of Shiloh. He hasn't shared its title yet, but I'll be waiting to see if it's in my library. I'm curious if he'll continue in his own developing style (which  tends to concentrate on one character and use other viewpoint personalities only as a supplement) or revert to his father's, given that Michael Shaara's original Civil War novel, The Killer Angels, inspired Shaara's own career.

6. Coup D'Etat, Harry Turtledove
The fourth novel in Turtleodove's "War that Came Early" series  should be promising, given that in The Big Switch,  his WWII began taking a drastically different shape than ours. I'm guessing from the title that the leadership position of one of the belligerant nations is going to go through a bit of turmoil.

7. The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan
Second in the Young Olympians series, I'm going to guess this novel finds out what Percy Jackson has been up to while living among the Roman demigods. This was released in October, but I've been waiting for my library to acquire it.

8. A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing, Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

This one sounds interesting. Dawkins is a biologist and Krauss a physicist, and a book that draws on their respective fields will be quite a treat indeed. I'll probably wait for reviews to seriously think about buying it for myself, though; I've never read Krauss before and cosmological physics can be a daunting subject. I'm also interested in Dawkin's The Magic of Reality, a little book that introduces the wonder and methods of science to children. From what I've heard, it not only answers common questions kids have about the universe, but it explains how we know it -- and how kids can find out themselves.

9. The Foregone Conclusion, John Grisham.

Again, I'm predicting that Grisham will release another thriller this autumn. He's been fairly consistent these last few years.

10. Technological Narcissism, James Howard Kunstler

JHK hasn't yet given his upcoming book a title, but he's mentioned several times on his podcast that he's in the process of writing a new book on our "technological narcissism", which I believe he means our obsessive belief that we can always dig ourselves out of a hole using new technology when a change in our behavior is what is called for.  Given Kunstler's interests in criticizing urban sprawl, he's probably thinking of people who believe Americans will develop Some New Fuel that will allow us to maintain the same patterns of automobile use that we have now -- when it might be a brighter idea to invest in transit, like trains, or urban planning that results in walkable neighborhoods that don't force the majority of people to be utterly reliant on cars.

I couldn't find any information on it, but James Kaplan is supposed to release the second half of his Sinatra biography -- and I would assume that will happen this year or next.

The Best of 2011: Annual Year in Review

Previous yearly wrap-ups:  2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010

Ever since I began blogging about books in May 2007, I've taken time in early January to reflect on the previous year of reading. There are always stand-out books I like to spotlight, and trends to mull over.

Using ChartGo.com, I broke my reading down into the main genres I visit, excluding miscellaneous works. Last year I commented with some wariness that for the first time ever, fiction had surpassed nonfiction reading. It accomplished the same feat this year, and by a larger margin.  I blame Bernard Cornwell. Discovering the police mysteries of Michael Connelly also helped, as I've read more than a few Harry Bosch mysteries this year.

Early in the year I resolved to read ten particular books, most of which had given me trouble in the past; I'm happy to say I read nine of those. I was also able to maintain my 'bookish resolutions'for the most part. An undeclared goal was that of finishing Isaac Asimov's Empire series, which I did.

And now...the best reads of 2011!

In general fiction, there were some truly outstanding novels:

• The Sea-Wolf by Jack London combines adventure at sea with an epic story-discussion about morality, the meaning of life, and the measure of a man when a literary critic is kidnapped and forced to serve on a sealing schooner dominated by a brute who fancies himself a Nietzschean superman.
• To Kill a Mockingbird is, "classic" status aside, simply one of the best novels I've ever read. This coming of age story set in Depression-era Alabama features two young people who are forced to grapple with adult questions of conscience and courage during a legal battle. They are guided by their extraordinary father Atticus Finch.
• The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner is a beautiful, wild, wrenching story about a restless man who drags his family through peril and poverty looking for financial success.Though the man Bo is never a viewpoint character, he dominates the book and its central characters with his admirable energy and sometimes destructive passion. Even months after reading it, I simply can't get over the novel.
• The Ethical Assassin by David Liss is an altogether different experience than these prior three. It isn't grand or profound, but quirky and provocative. At first glance it might come off as merely a whimsical novel, but the fascinating interplay between the titular assassin and the main character should stir the minds of readers. 

 Historical fiction proved to be a mainstay this year. Last year its success was based on two series (Horatio Hornblower and the Saxon Stories), but in 2011 Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels swept the field. Sharpe is a stand-out action hero, almost legendary, but so much more attracts me to the series -- the way Cornwell brings the world the early  of the 19th century so utterly alive, the relationships between the characters, and oh...that wit. Almost every week I share a quotation from a Sharpe novel on my facebook wall because they're just too good to keep to myself.

‎"What I don't understand," Sharpe persevered, "is why she ran away."
"She's probably in love," Hogan explained airily. "Nineteen-year-old girls of respectable families are dangerously susceptible to love because of all the novels they read."
(Sharpe's Havoc)

It's terribly hard to choose between the Sharpe novels, but the three most memorable --

• Sharpe's Prey, in which Sharpe plays the part of spy during the British siege of Copenhagen. 
• Sharpe's Fortress, involving an unintentionally hilarious villain and a fantastic ending.
• Sharpe's Fury is another "Sharpe alone behind enemy lines" story, which I seem to like best of all. 

I did read historical fiction outside of Sharpe, though:

• The Revolutionist is down as one of my ten favorite books this year. It's the story of Alexander Til, a Russian-American immigrant who returns to his homeland following the collapse of the tsar and the rise of the Bolsheviks. Til is a believer in the cause of the people -- not the state, which gets him into trouble when the new Soviet state turns out to be just as vicious as the old empire. What follows is an intense thriller set during the opening decades of Lenin and Stalin's reign.

Other notable works included Bernard Cornwell's The Fort, Bernard Cornwell's Gallows Thief, and Bernard Cornwell's --  look, I can't help that the man writes brilliant books. His heroes are fantastic, his villains loathsome,  his supporting characters often hilarious, and the relationships between characters done to a T.  Combine that with the plots and the man can't be beaten.

Bernard Cornwell, Author of the Year

It just can't be helped. Moving on --

Last year I jumped back into Star Trek literature and had intended to keep up with new releases throughout the year, but my ability to do so flagged over the summer. And yet, it's one of the stronger categories. Good heavens. I enjoyed the Vanguard series as a whole, but the big standout is Christopher L. Bennett's Over a Torrent Sea. 


Outside of Star Trek I read a fair bit of science fiction, mostly in finishing Asimov's Empire series. Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine is definitely worth mentioning, but as far as SF goes I liked The Currents of Space and The Gods Themselves the best.

History is of course my staple, and this year saw me return to Will Durant's Story of Civilization series, along with knocking out volume one of H.G. Well's The Outline of History. My library doesn't have volume II, hence why I've never finished it. The Age of Faith stymied my progress last year, and it took me three attempts to tackle it properly, but once I did it proved to be my favorite of the series. Other fantastic books:

• With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain, Michael Korda
• To End all Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, Adam Hochschild; a history of WW1 which focuses on those who resisted it. 
• Electric Universe: the Shocking True Story of Electricity, David Bodanis. A strangely captivating history of electricity, which introduced me to one of the best stories of WWII: Operation Biting. How can you not want to read about a scientist who trains as a paratrooper to steal a high-tech radar assembly and who is rescued by lost Scottish highlanders? 

And though I'm hopelessly biased, I won't go without mentioning Montevallo: Images of America, a pictorial history of my beloved university town.

The numbers lie: this was a slow year for science,  a year which I propped up  with books of essays by Asimov and a few "made simple" works. As it happens I'm in the middle of a substantial science read, but it won't be finished until 2012, I'm afraid. Marlene Zuke's Sex on Six Legs and the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs  were high notes, though. The best would be Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, which I sort of forgot to review, because I'm a boob.

Religion-wise, I read a few books on the Catholic and Anglican churches as part of my ongoing cultural literacy goal; Why Do Catholics Do That? was a stellar introduction.  Early in the year I enjoyed Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, a naturalistic approach to the development and growth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Philosophy and social criticism are related subjects for me, so I shall mention them together. While the Dhammapada was enjoyable, and Michael Pollan's food books were fairly eye-opening (even if they had to be taken with a grain of salt given his anti-scientific slant), the undisputed king this year was Michael Foley's The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to Be Happy. I read it early last year but just couldn't do it justice in a review, so I read it again in November and tried afresh.  KunstlerCast is a close second: I yelped in surprise to see it listed on Amazon and was positively delighted when I won it from LibraryThing.  I listen to the podcast every week, you see, and practically swear by Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere, so this print version of the conversations Kunstler and his cohost have on suburban sprawl, urban planning, and the global oil economy was right up my alley.

This year marked the first time I've read books relating to health and/or nutrition: The Complete Guide to Walking for Health, Weight loss and Fitness and The Beginning Runner's Handbook are both excellent.


As for next year....I predict that historical fiction will make another strong showing, because I'm not quite done with the Sharpe series yet. I'll be continuing in the Story of Civilization series with The Age of Louis XIV at some point. There are still a fair few Trek lit books I'm just waiting to read, but science books are going take priority when it comes to new acquisitions. I also intend on visiting the nonfiction works of Alison Weir, whose novels I've enjoyed so much.  If  I read Asimov's End of Eternity, I'll be in the awkward position of having read all of his best-known work, save perhaps the collection I, Robot. After that it's just...short story and essay collections for the most part.