I do not grok

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I do not grok this in fullness, the waiting is.

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Great talk

Great talk, especially love the challenge at the end.

math fun :)

The Joy of Pi by David Blatner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For someone who is a professional mathematician, this little collection of facts and anecdotes about the number Pi might seem trivial or boring. But to a math amateur like me who had about two dozen hours of math in the college of Engineering, this book was great fun. Lots of interesting facts, and many many humorous and sometimes scary stories about people who were fanatical about the number Pi and "squaring the circle". I enjoyed this collection!

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The Neverending Story

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the more creative and fascinating stories I've read in a while, and one of the best children's or middle years stories I've ever read. The story is actually two stories in one, or, as the title says, is about The Neverending Story. The story line and characters are rich and imaginative, and leaves the reader with many philosophical concepts to ponder, without beating the reader over the head with them as some other stories do. As i completed the book, i was left with warmness in my heart and a feeling of awe and wonder. It is not often that a story can nestle itself within your heart, but this one certainly did for me. I loved it, and am so thankful for my daughter's persistence in getting me to read it. Thanks sweetie :)

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The Giver - part 2

The Giver by Lois Lowry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As i mentioned in my last note,  I had just re-read "The Giver" because a movie is being released based upon the book. I just came across the trailer for the movie in another blog that i follow. In watching the trailer, I had a really weird, unexpected experience - I recognized almost NOTHING from the book in the trailer! I guess this should not come as a surprise, given the disconnect between so many movies and the books on which they are based. But still, perhaps because i had JUST read the book, the differences felt significant. I'll have to see the movie now to give it a fair shot, but my expectations have been tempered by the trailer.

The trailer:

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The Giver

The Giver by Lois Lowry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Giver is a great story about society, the status quo, and shaking things up to make a difference. I had read it with one of my kids when they read it in school, and wanted to re-read it because a movie is being released based upon this story. Great story.

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The Soul of a New Machine

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Soul of a New Machine is an extremely interesting story to someone like me who has been working with computers for over 30 years. Presented within it is much detail regarding the people and processes that make up the engineering and design process involved in the Data General Eclipse MV/8000. Much of it felt familiar as i recall my 15 years spent in IC Engineering, followed by 15 years in IT in support of Engineering processes. Even having lived though some of this story myself, i found the account fascinating and affirming in that my experience was representative of the engineering process in general. This narrative does not flow as smoothly and seamlessly as i expected, but i'm not going to argue with the Pulitzer Prize committee :) It is a great story and I'm thankful to Mr. Kidder for telling it. It had to have been a significant task to capture and report this story.

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The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Afghanistan is a name heard often in current events and the media. The Kite Runner gives an up close and personal look into life and death, love and hate in a place and culture that most of us never imagined. In this book, we meet real Afghans, and walk with them through their life and trials in a culture that is in the midst of destruction. It is so easy to forget that real people are affected by events and actions in this far away place. I recommend this book to those who wish to gain insight into a culture that he borne the brunt of failed political policies of much larger nations such as the U.S. and Russia. This story is excellently told, and brings the characters and their experiences to life for the reader. Must read.

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life in Cannery Row

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A delightfully told tale of life in Cannery Row. I especially enjoyed the parts which were included in one of my favorite movies of the same title. Looking forward reading the rest of the story in Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday!

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It has always seemed strange

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

"It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, the love the produce of the second."

page 143, Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

stunningly beautiful

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another stunningly beautiful tale told by John Steinbeck. In a mere hundred pages, Steinbeck paints character portraits so rich and real that i could see and feel them. What a heartbreaking, yet inevitable ending to this short but powerful story of grace, love, and trust, and of the triumph of love in spite of, and in the midst of a tragic, horrible ending. It is the mark of a great author to leave the reader in a state of awe and of shock at the ending of a story, even knowing that this ending was inevitable, and even expected. Welcome, John Steinbeck, to my list of favorite authors.

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a mixed journey

Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

England is on my list of places I'd like to visit, and I enjoy Bill Bryson's writing, so what better way to get introduced to England than by an American writer i enjoy who has lived in England for over 20 years? I love Bryson's irreverent smart-ass humor. He is not politically correct nor proper, but I think he is funny. When Bryson tells a tale, he throws in enough creative embellishment to make his point without making it unbelievable. He is fun to read.

I'm glad that I read this book, but i'm not sure that I could recommend it to others. I came away from the reading with the feeling that Mr. Bryson spent about half of the book, spread out through the entire volume, talking about how England is not what it once was, especially architecturally. He spent a significant number of pages lamenting the recent poor architecture, and the lack of preservation of the very old traditional buildings and infrastructure. I am not sure why he dedicated such a large part of his book to this criticism, except that perhaps in his twenty-plus years in England, he had witnessed some of the economic and sociological policy that caused this change. Sadly this distracted from the richness of the journey.

I did enjoy the perspective and knowledge gained on a large array of things English. I especially enjoyed the insights into the people, food, and history. I enjoyed getting a feeling for many of the little details and quirks of the places and people of England. Mr Bryson traveled over the entire island for this travelogue, and gives a good sampling of the island. But even with all his misgivings and laments, a few closing quotes sum it up for the author.

"It looked so peaceful and wonderful that I could almost have cried, and yet it was only a tiny part of this small, enchanted island. Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that i loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it."

"All of this came to me in the space of a lingering moment. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love it here. I like it more than I can tell you. And then I turned from the gate and got into the car and knew without doubt that I would be back."

Mr. Bryson was indeed true to those words. He moved back to England in 2003 to live, and serve as chancellor of Durham University from 2005 through 2011. A fun read, if you can overlook the recurring criticisms.


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The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time by Mark Haddon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is wonderfully written, a detective story told by a young person with Asperger's. So many great insights into time, space, people, events, and life from a perspective most of us do not have. I loved this book and wanted to read it in one sitting. I highly recommend this book to anyone with interest in, or even just curiosity about Autism. And WHAT a STORY!!! Loved it.

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timeless - The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

TheGrapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is one of the most powerful books i've read. It affected me on many levels, some of which i'll mention in this review. Despite having heard about this story since high school, loving the song  "The Ghost of Tom Joad" by Bruce Springsteen, and having seen the HenryFonda movie several times, this is my first reading of this novel. It has certainly earned its place in the top novels of American Literature, and, for reasons both good and bad, is a timeless story that should be read by every generation as time goes on.

The Grapes of Wrath is the elegantly told story of the Joad family, poor sharecroppers, forced from their farm in Oklahoma during the GreatDepression and Dust Bowl era, and their subsequent migration to the "promised land" of California.

Much of their journey and experiences are told in their own words, in the vernacular of the "Okies", as they were derogatorily referred to. Interspersed through the story is Steinbeck's commentary on the reasons for the sharecroppers dire situation and some of the systemic disfunction that left hard working people fighting for their very survival in a nation of wealth, abundance, and power. This is a story of desperation and hope, failure and hopelessness in the face of a financial, political, and social system in the U.S., that dehumanizes and destroys the bodies and spirits of good hard working people.

One of the levels on which this story moved me was related to my own family's history. My father and his siblings grew up during this same time period, across the state line, in the Ozarks of Missouri. Unlike the fertile river bottom farm land of the Missouri River and Mississippi River valleys in northern and eastern Missouri, the Ozark mountains are a rocky, unfriendly place to scratch out a living by farming. This was especially true in during the Great Depression. I think that one of the few ironic advantages the poor farmers of the Ozarks had over the sharecroppers of Oklahoma during the Depression was that the Ozark land was so poor that no large farming companies or banks wanted it, and therefore the farmers were not forced off. This at least saved the dirt poor farmers like my grandpa from having their land taken from them and turned into large commercial farms. In spite of being able to keep their land, my father and most of my uncles and aunts moved from the Ozarks to California during this period of history (during the 1930's). Altho the specific reasons were different, i believe the reasons were similar (economic collapse of small farming economy) and i felt like i was reading some of my own family history in this novel.

Unfortunately, the timelessness of this story is in part due to the fact that the same humiliation and dehumanization of marginalized groups in the U.S. is still going on today, and is caused by the same systemic disfunction that existed in the Depression years. Corporate and personal greed and the valuation of profits over people in the U.S. society is stronger than ever today. The timeless story of The Grapes of Wrath needs to be told today more than ever. As i think back in the history of my own family, my parents and my siblings, and the struggles they faced during the 1960's and 70's to put food on our table and clothes in our closets, i see that the hardship and struggle was in a large part due to the same systemic disfunction that existed in the Depression years. Our national priorities are political and economic power rather than the health and welfare of our citizens and immigrants. Our society is only as strong as our weakest member, not the strongest. We would be wise to learn from our mistakes, and help create a society that values all people, not just those living in privilege.

Six stars for this one!
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refired forever

"And here's a story you can hardly believe, but it's true, and it's funny and it's beautiful. There was a family of twelve and they were forced off the land. They had no car. They built a trailer out of junk and loaded it with their possessions. They pulled it to the side of 66 and waited. And pretty soon a sedan picked them up. Five of them rode in the sedan and seven in the trailer, and a dog on the trailer. They got to California in two jumps. The man who pulled them fed them. And that's true. But how can such courage be, and such faith in their own species? Very few things would teach such faith.

 The people in flight from the terror behind - strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever."

John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath - p. 122

It's the monster.

"We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man."

"Yes, but the bank is only made of men."

"No, you're wrong there - quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it."

John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath - p.33

Gather at the River

Gather at the River: Notes from the Post-Millennial South by Hal Crowther
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is another fantastic collection of essays from Hal Crowther. Great insights, wisdom, knowledge, and views expressed in excellent writing. Mr. Crowther is becoming one of my favorite authors :)

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Wildflower

Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa by Mark Seal
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is an interesting story about Joan Root and the contributions she made, with her husband Alan Root, and on her own to the cause of conservation and wildlife preservation, primarily in Africa and Kenya, but also around the world. It also chronicles her contribution to pioneering work in documentation of nature and wildlife in both motion picture and photography. Combining their excellence and passion for both film making and wildlife, they were able to be among the first to document nature as unseen by western peoples before, and to provide evidence for the tragic destruction of both wildlife and environment in Africa by business and government policy. Insight is given into the complicated, messy, and violent sociology and politics related to the environment and wildlife in Kenya, specifically around Lake Naivasha. It should serve as a warning for us, that no matter how wild and unspoiled a place may be, humankind can completely destroy it, without conscience. We have witnessed that all too often in the U.S. and North America. Joan Root paid dearly for being the conscience of nature in Kenya and Lake Naivasha.

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a hope in hell

Alan Root comments at the 1967 premier of The Enchanted Isles for the British series Survival

Q: "Are you trying to save wildlife or merely film it?"

 A: "My job is to show what is there, and not to spoil it by having a presenter for the last five minutes. If we had a film about North America before the white man came... would you want to hear an Indian chief or white man talking, or would you just want to have an hour to see what it was like?" 

"I don't think our environment has a hope in hell. I don't think mankind is smart enough to do anything about it. And Africa is going faster than anything."

from the book: Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa by Mark Seal

Dr. Sagan - I miss you

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finishing this book leaves me with a profound sense of loss realizing that Dr. Sagan is no longer with us. His voice is needed more than ever today in all areas of our society and lives. He lends such great knowledge and especially wisdom to all the subjects covered in this book. Our world would be a better place if more people had access to this book. I heartily recommend it as required reading. Spend some time learning at the feet of a true master. He was a prophet to our world, and i'm grateful he has left some of his wisdom and knowledge behind to be taken to heart.

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ps. apparently, i've set my goal too low!!!