What I Am Reading - The World Until Yesterday

The World Until Yesterday

Jared Diamond

Read it in Hardback at 512 pages.

Jared Diamond, you are a man of many talents and educational degrees who has traveled the world for a variety of reasons and are able to take many interesting conjectures from so many different points and spin them into a comprehensive and unique vantage point that dissect human history and aim to improve the human experience.  This is why I read your books, despite the handy-cap of an unequal margin of intelligence.  Last year I read Mr. Diamonds book titled Collapse and was intrigued and educated throughout its pages.  This year as I was stumbling through Costco I decided to rummage past the book and media isle, something I usually try to actively not do, and saw this.  Into the over-sized cart it went.

The World Until Yesterday takes a magnifying glass to what Diamond labels as Traditional societies compared to its modern counterparts and what we can learn from our roots. 

The broad parent topics include:

1: Setting the Stage by Dividing Space - This section details out how modern and traditional societies handle their citizens, the threat of transients and unknowns, and also how we both decipher their intentions and deal with subsequent enemy menace.

2: Peace and War - The states of any society and how they handle these unsure topics.  How societies treat their neighbors and how they war with their enemies.  Both Traditional and Modern societies handle this interestingly and have different fallout because of it.

3: Young and Old - A common problem no matter what society you are part of is the fact that everyone gets old, but how does everyone deal with their elderly?

4: Danger and Response - You think you may know what kind of dangers befall a traditional society but there is some really eye opening things in this heading about our westernized society.

5: Region, Language, and Health: The bits about Health are scary, really scary, at least the implications of modernizing the world.

The overall criticism of Diamonds writing is that it is too opinionated or that he pushes a conclusion and that his opinion is the only available logical conjunction.  As each of his books come out I see less and less of this in his writing, except on the topics that are no-brainers, and I don't know if that's in response to these criticisms or if the subject matter provides less opportunities to readily say which is the right way.  Throughout reading The World Until Yesterday I was waiting for Mr. Diamond to tell me which was the right way but he rarely takes sides, except on the easily apparent, which I appreciated.

What I Am Reading - The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairy Land and Led the Revels There

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairy Land and Led the Revels There

Cathrynne Valente

Read it in a beautiful purple bound hardback tomb at 258 pages.

I hadn't planned on reading this and in fact I didn't even know Miss Valente was even writing a sequel. When perusing Amazon it just popped up and I was elated since I enjoyed the first one so much. I ordered it immediately.

Last we saw September (the character not the month) she had been safely returned to Nebraska with nothing but the dream of Fairyland and the want to return.  Sadly September had no way to return until it presented itself unexpectedly as befitting Fairyland.  So September has returned but things aren't right once again and one should always be keen to know what they are giving up in previous adventures and the effects it may have on future outings.  That little thing she left is creating big problems.  Luckily for September she is of the moral conviction and fortitude to put wrongs right, even if it is with some hesitation.  Teamed up with some old friends (kind of) and some new ones September sets out on a most unexpected journey through Fairyland below where she must face what she left and what she thought was already a closed book.

I dig these.  Just a lot of fun to read.  As a reader though, I wanted September to meet a whole new host of new friends, not just kind-of-meet-up-with-the-last-adventures-friends, if that makes sense.  Overall I thought the visualizations were better in the first but that is not to say that what Valente was able to capture and display in the sequel isn't equally impressive, because it is.

Miss Valente, I hope you wright a third and someday I will get to your other works. 

What I Am Reading - Human.4

Human.4

Mike Lancaster

240 pages in flimsy paperback.

Ah, February’s pick for OLT book club.  I’m so behind on reviews.

Anyway, last month’s selection brought us another YA book, the second ever read for our book club, and strangely enough selected by the same person that picked our first YA book last year, The Hunger Games.  Human.4 is a very different story from The Hunger Games however.

Kyle is a typical youth from a small town in England.  He spends most of his time playing with friends and trying to figure out the things that are important at the age grouping.  Specifically, the yearly town talent show is approaching and Kyle’s friend Danny is planning on performing.  On the day of the event Danny approaches the stage to begin a feat of hypnotism, Kyle just so happens to be one of the subjects, but did the trick go wrong?  Nothing is as it was supposed to be and everyone else appears hypnotized instead.

It’s a quick easy read (I read it in one sitting), not a lot of depth, not a lot of explanation, but it was enticing enough that we all finished.  If you are looking for a super quick read that’s at least interesting, this might be an adequate selection.

-Spoilers Below-

So how was it received by OLT book club?  Well, a solid 4.5 average from the whole ten of us that completed.  Over here OLT book club uses a 10 point system with one being atrocious and ten a blissful dreamy read.

Here is what we thought:

Th3ee: 4

Dust: 3 (hater)

AndyCoug: 5

Sprocket-T: 5

Tech-D: 5

G$$: 5

Shely-don: 5

SS: 3 (hater)

ELeach: 4

JHylen: 6

Talking straight characters Kyle with the lead role won, but we did have some surprises.  Most notable was that people liked Rodney.  Rodney is this sort of sniveling worthless creature in the onset of the novel that really doesn’t do anything at all throughout the book.  The only reason people even liked this sheep was because there was a touching moment that explains why he is a sniveling sheep.  Fine, fair enough.  Another mention for the other adult in the party, Kate, who actually seemed to be one of the only real decision makers of the group.  Not unrealistic since the other two are children and the only other adult is the aforementioned Rodney.  Danny the hypnotist also got some mentions but it is arguable if Danny from earlier in the book is still Danny near its end and Danny end game/post transformation was what most people liked.

 All of our favorite moments included some device that explained or furthered the plot or scenes in which a lot of action was prevalent.   People’s most notable scene was basically when ‘new’ Danny explained what was going on.  Which was nice because without that little sequence the whole thing would be a mystery. I won’t give away the reveal (even though I said spoilers) but we all kind of were stumped.  Not that it couldn’t happen but that they wouldn’t choose to become part of the current cast so to speak.  We couldn’t really understand why anyone would choose that fate instead of just joining.

I’ll close this out in the words of SS.

“Well, it was a book.”

What I Am Reading - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Junot Diaz

Read it in Paperback, 335

I had intended to read this before his latest novel 'This is How You Lose Her' but alas the bookstore was unable to find the three copies their inventory promised were there so I ended up reading this later.  This also is my second Pulitzer for the year, eight more to meet that goal and obligation.

I wish I had Read this this before 'This is How You Lose Her' just for context alone.  Both stories are loosely told through Yunior, but this isn't Yunior's story at all.  This is the story of Oscar de Leon and his family, but mostly about Oscar.  Oscar is the kind of guy everyone knew growing up.  The socially awkward kid that tried and tried to be accepted but eventually gave up, but did find sanctuary in the fantastic and the possibilities of the future.  Through a series of events Oscar finds most of his time playing D&D, reading fantasy and sci-fi novels, and dreaming of girls.  Sadly, Oscar has a hard time with women, a Frodo with the ring bad time and he just can't seem to seal the deal.  He's always in the friends zone with no hope for a touchdown no matter how much he tries, no matter how much he loves them.  It really isn't jiving with his Dominican heritage and every sees fit to tell him.  This is his story and I don't want to give too much away.

I would love to talk a lot more on plot but I don't want to reveal any of the juicy bits.

Read this.  You will enjoy it I promise.  The strength of the story is in the telling and Mr. Diaz kills it in the prose.  The whole cadence of the story is brilliant.   It's told in a framework that speaks to me and tells a definitive story wrapped in some history of the DR, all while being entertaining and informative.  I loved the splicing of Lord of the Rings references into the story and it's consistency throughout makes a great match to the events of DR history. 

Again, read this.

What I Am Reading - The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49

Thomas Pynchon

Read it in wide paperback, 152 pages.

Well for such a short book I sure dragged my feet to write this.

This is my first Pynchon and when completed a friend that I was reading it with said 'achievement unlocked.'  The small book itself wasn’t much of a challenge, but this was a sort of introduction I suppose.  A place to start before digging into Pynchon's more notable work such as Gravity's Rainbow, V, and Against The Day, although I have no idea when I will be reading any of these.

So sally forth and what not.

The Crying of Lot 49 tells the brief story of Oedipa Maas, a Californian house wife, who is shocked to hear that her wealthy ex-boyfriend, Pierce Inverarity, has died and left her as the executor to his will and estate.  Pretty simple entry to this small book.  We meet some of the characters that will lead Oedipa Maas through her adventure, and all have equally ludicrous names.  Her husband, Wendell "Mucho" Maas, is a radio jockey.  We also meet Metzger, the lawyer assigned to help Oedipa execute on the will.  So many brief character entries with so many weird names.  But we have gotten carried away.  As Oedipa begins digging through Pierce's things, she learns that he was a collector of many things, but most importantly weird stamps.  Through this discovery she goes on a journey to figure out and uncover the maybe conspiracy of a secret underground postal service.

For my first Pynchon I certainly wasn't disappointed.  The writing is fantastic, although I don't think I am clever enough to see or understand a lot of the humor.  Nonetheless there were some great moments and I loved most of the dialogue in this book.  Some of my favorite sequences involved the Paranoids, a band of pot smoking hippies and a play in which the actors portray the history of the underground postal service.  Those both were top notch.

Where the book fell flat for me was the lack of any defining ending.  I won't give away anything about the ending but it is in the last chapter that we learn the reason for the name of the book, but not much else.  I personally think Oedipa was in fact on LSD, but who knows except Pynchon I suppose.