Book It. Part 1: Recent Reads

So I have been doing a lot of reading this summer. Especially before camp started and for the last month. I've actually sacrificed a fair amount of sleep so I could read. Also as I have mentioned most of my free time is spent reading. Today I had a great conversation about books with another staff member and one of our 16 year old campers (16 years old, but mature beyond his years, very intelligent and well read for his age). I enjoyed talking about books I read recently and in the past so much that I have decided to do a post about it. For one maybe some of you will be inspired by my short book reports and decide to read it. Then we can talk about it and that would be sweet. Also I sometimes forget what books I've read, and why I did or did not like them. Maybe if I do this consistently I will be able to look back and know. So let's start with the books I've read recently. If it is a series of books I will just talk about them as if they were one.

Books I've Read in the Past Few Months

Lonesome Dove Series (Larry McMurtry)- The Lonesome Dove saga has 4 books of which the first written was Lonesome Dove and the Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. After LD was written Street of Laredo which I have not yet read came, followed by Dead Man's Walk and finally Comanche Moon. Within the story they go chronologically DMW then CM, then LD, then SOL. Like most people I ready LD first. After that I started at the beginning reading DMW then CM. I will likely read SOL by the end of the year. LD is absolutely amazing if you value great characters on the background of reasonably simple plot. It is about 900 pages and almost nothing of any plot consequence happens for the first 250. It doesn't matter. McMurtry uses that time to start building the foundation for one of the greatest group of characters in any book I've read. Many of the characters are trite on the surface. Gus; the smartalack who never shuts up, who loves women and drink, detests hard work, but is keenly talented and in a pinch has a heart of gold. Call, the stoic hard working leader who cares about his responsibility and doesn't mince words, Gus' clear foil, him and Gus make up the two main characters. Deets, the uniquely competent and loyal member of the troop, the only black man in the group, who would do anything for anyone. It goes on. McMurtry takes these and other superficially archetype characters and adds a depth and genuineness that makes them some of the most memorable characters I have known. The story is simple, a group of former Texas Rangers, the semi-famous leaders of which are Gus and Call, now getting old have decided to take a herd of cattle to Montana to try and strike rich. The primary plot is their journey from the town of Lonesome Dove where they have lived to Montana which includes trial and tragedy. One of the things I like about this book is that often death happens as it does in real life, quickly and without great drama. It makes the book much less predictable, though when something happens to a character you have truly been endeared towards McMurtry gives it it's due. Throughout the book casual reference and stories are made about Gus and Call's glory days as Rangers. When I finished the book I was left with two things; a quiet sadness and a strong desire to read a tale that would shed light on those glory days.

That is where DMW and CM come it. Both are good but only CM comes anywhere close to LD. DMW takes place when Gus and Call are first starting as Rangers (about 25 years before LD) and is good but feels like it was written purely to set up the book that one truly wants to read after reading LD, Comanche Moon. Virtually all important surviving characters from DMW are still in CM which starts about 10 years later and finishes after about another 10. It does in many ways leave you fulfilled in filling in the gaps of Gus and Call's life, particularly their love life, both minor tragedies unto themselves. Unfortunately I lost the book with about 100 out off 800 pages left and had to wait two weeks before finishing it as I rushed through it in a bookstore not wanting to buy it again. It kind of ruined the end for me I think. Maybe I'll read it again someday. I think I may read LD again before I read Streets of Laredo. LD is really just that good and reading CM makes me want to go back.


Enders Shadow Series (Orson Scott Card)- Ender's Shadow was the parallel novel to the highly acclaimed and well known young adult scifi book Ender's Game. Incidentally if you haven't read EG you really should, it is a modern classic of youth literature. Ender's Shadow was a parallel novel, it followed mostly the same story but from the perspective of a different character, one that was moderately important in EG, Bean. Both books tell the story, taking place in the Earth of about 200 years in future, of a group of children who are sent to 'Battle School' where they learn to command armies to hopefully aid in an expected 3rd war with the only known other sentient species in the galaxy, nickname the 'Buggers'.

There are three sequels to ES; Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the giant. They all take place in about a 10 year period following the aftermath of that war and are focused on the geopolitical situation of this future earth. The characters are mostly derived from characters in EG/ES and are not it's strong suit. Outside of Bean himself, there are only a couple characters that are particularly intriguing and even then not the strength of the book. What makes this a fun read is watching the evolution of the political situation on earth as being manipulated by a number of different people. In this future construction essentially all of nations of the earth are the same as they are now but the balance of power is somewhat shifted though many things are still the same as well. Basically there has been a loose unity in the nations of earth due to their need to challenge a unifying enemy, the aliens. With that enemy no longer a significant issue, once again the power plays between nations start and war seems almost certain. These are super fast reads written on a pre-college level but plenty clever to keep adults entertained and engaged. A good number of twists and turns plus Bean is a worthy protagonist who you do grow to care about. I enjoyed them and would recommend them to anyone that enjoyed Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow more than I would recommend the sequels to EG.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies (Jared Diamond): This was the first non-fiction book I read this summer. It won the Pulitzer for non-fiction a few years back. It feels like a member of a growing class of books; books written by academics on academic issues, often combining disciplines, but meant for layman's and at least somewhat readable. The point of the book is to answer why certain societies in earth dominated over certain others. Diamond quickly argues that in recent times (recent being 1400s-present, sufficed to say recent is a relative term) the reasons have been primarily that certain societies either possessed superior weapons, carried diseases that they were largely immune to but others were not, possessed other superior technology which could include not only machines but thing like writing, science, complex government or some combination of those. He uses the symbols, Guns, Germs and Steel for these ideas. Showing that these were the short term reasons for their success is gone over quickly. The majority of the book is spent trying to explain in his opinion how certain societies (in general the Eurasian Societies) got those things in the first place. It is more history than anything, but not a traditional Euro-Centric history, New Guinea is discussed more then all of western Europe combined and the US gets hardly a mention. He refers to a number of different reasons some of which are: variety and nature of plants suitable for agriculture and animals for domestication, whether a land mass has an east/west or north/south primary axis, and other factors. Although he claims it is something else it reads pretty much like environmental determinism to me, not that that is a bad thing. I enjoyed it and it had some ideas that I already had and some others I did not. I think the part I enjoyed the most was learning more about the process of domestication of plants and animals. Towards the end of the book it seemed to get redundant as he just goes from one case study to another proving the same points. I skimmed the last 50 pages. As it has been highly succesful there has also been a great deal of criticism surrounding the book claiming things like: his ideas are stolen, the question he is asking is simpler then he makes it out to be, it just repackaged enviromental determinism and others. All in all I would say a good read if you have an interest in sociological history or just like to learn stuff. I would be lying if I called it a page turner though.

A Song of Ice and Fire Series ( George R.R. Martin)- This is a series that Blake has been trying to get me to read for two years. He loves it and I can see why. It is on the surface just another fantasy series but it is actually quite unique for two reasons. One is that although it is set in a fantasy world a great deal of the book is a very complex political thriller with a good deal of twists. It is by no means the story of some single minded quest for right and good. There are few completely evil characters and only one significant character who has been shown to be always virtuous. It is mostly a world of greys. As the books go on you become more familiar with the different political situations of more places and the universe of the books becomes slowly larger. The other thing I like about these books is their unpredictability, particularly when it comes to mortality. It seems it most fantasy books there are a few characters which about a 1/4 the way through you can be almost positive are going to make it. That is not the case here, no one is sacred and characters that seemed essential can die or leave in a flash. Likewise characters that were merely background or were just casually mentioned can quickly become focal points of the story. Each chapter is from the perspective or a character. For each book there are about 8 of them that get the 1st person treatment. Each book about two of those are changed. I have read the first two: A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Four have been written of an eventual six. They are very entertaining and quick reads for their length (~800 pages). I intend to read the rest of the series.

Stargirl (Jerry Spinnelli): I just finished this ultra fast youth read (I can be a sucker for kids books, a few of my campers are reading it right now). It is by the author of one of my all time favorite books, Maniac Magee, a book I read around the 3rd grade and have read about every other year since. Spinnelli has a talent for creating wonderfully endearing characters, people you can't not root for. Stargirl is written from the perspective of Leo a high school Junior. At the start of his junior year a new girl comes to school, Stargirl. She is a wildly unique girl, either ignorant or unconcerned with social norms, caring and nice to a fault, and has a sweetness to her that for me is hard not to fall in love with. Leo has the same problem as he falls in the love with her and her with him. At first the school (it takes place in a fictional suburban outskirt town in Arizona) embraces her and she has a dramatic positive effect on the school, but eventually they turn on her, and Leo. It is a story about non-conformity and young love and some of the difficulties that come along with both. What makes the book is the Stargirl character, supposedly loosely based on Spinnelli's wife, she is an ideal, and a fun one. I really enjoyed this book and found out there is a sequel which came out last August (Stargirl was written in 2000) entitled Love, Stargirl which I intend to read.


Stumbling on Happiness ( Daniel Gilbert)- This is another in what I also think is an growing type of books. They are a more specific group but these are also academic produced books that are highly digestible (more than Guns, Germs and Steel for instance) and are just fascinating reads on human nature and the human condition. Books like Freakonomics, Blink, or The Tipping Point. This book I am currently reading and love. It is about the objective scientific nature of happiness. It attempts to describe fundamentally and empirically what makes us happy. It strives to disabuse people of some highly intuitive notions of what makes both them and other people happy. A great deal of the book is focused on how the human brain works in general in creating memories and imagination and how that relates to our happiness and perception therein. It also talks about the nature of feelings; is thinking you are happy the same as being happy? The author is a physiologist by study and practice but the books samples from many disciplines. It is interesting, clear, and sometimes genuinely funny. It is not a self help book and is not in anyway designed to help anyone achieve happiness. I look forward to finishing it.

Up next will be similar write up on some of my all-time favorites. First I have to figure out what makes the cut.

Joey

Just Finished: Star Girl, Clash of Kings
Currently Reading: Stumbling on Happiness and The Uncommon Reader
On Deck: A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire) and The Tipping Point