Challenges Updates

I've decided I'm going to have to cut some of the challenges. I definitely don't have enough time to finish most of these. In some cases, I've only read 1 or 2 books from the list.

So, I'm dropping the following:
Whitcoulls
Reading Your Name
What's in a Name
It's the End of the World II

And keeping the following:
Non-Fiction Five (need to read 1 out of 5)
TBR (need to read 11 out of 12)
Guardian 1000 (need to read 10 out of 10)
R.I.P. (need to read 3 out of 4)


At least that's how it is so far. I might have to drop another 1 or 2.

Joining the RIP challenge again this year.

http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/?p=1132

I'll be doing Peril the First of course (4 books) and here is my book pool. I might add a couple more but this should be plenty if I don't.

Monster Nation - Wellington
Ghost Road Blues - Maberry
Dead City - McKinney
Mister B. Gone - Barker
Living with Ghosts - Sperring
Dead to the World - Harris
Manitou Blood - Masterson
The Red Tree - Kiernan
Street Magic - Kittredge

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

copyright = 1962
pages = 297
source = purchase
date completed = 07/11/09
challenges: Non-Fiction Five

There's really nothing that can be said about the content of this book that hasn't already been said, analyzed, etc. I didn't particularly enjoy reading it until it got to the biology--genetics, cell structure changes, cancer. Before that it just seemed all muddled. Obviously all these things are known now so there were no revelations, but it was interesting to see what wasn't known during that time.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman

copyright = 1997
pages = 352
source = purchase
date completed = 06/21/09
challenges: Non-Fiction Five

This was a set of autobiographical essays by physicist Richard Feynman. He is definitely not a writer. The essays were disjointed, out of chronological order, and dry. I really wasn't interested in reading the book after I started, but I finished it for the challenge. I had previously read somewhere this was supposed to be humorous, but I didn't find it that funny. I'm sure he's a great scientist, won the Nobel prize, etc. But I just didn't enjoy reading these essays.

Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

copyright = 2007
pages = 200
source = purchase
date completed = 06/03/09
challenges: Non-Fiction Five

This is a very thought-provoking book in which the author relates several artists to current ideas of how the brain works. The problem with this is that after the fact, an association can always be found. Some of the connections seem stretched--did the artist really "discover" the idea or was it just noticed afterwards that this is how the brain works?

Lehrer uses 8 artists to convey his point: Walt Whitman, George Eliot, Auguste Escoffier, Marcel Proust, Paul Cezanne, Igor Stravinsky, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. I am familiar with all of the names (except Escoffier) but not familiar in detail with their works. I'm quite sure it would have helped if I had been because Lehrer discusses the works and lives of the artists in detail. It seems most of the artists created new ways of doing things--new forms of literature, new painting styles, etc. For example, Cezanne was integral to the postimpressionist movement. He began leaving more and more canvas blank in his paintings which relates to how the brain sees--the brain fills in what isn't there. Of course, the book explains this in much more biological detail.

Overall, this book made me think--often having to put the book down to think about a sentence or two. I enjoyed it, but would have enjoyed it more if I were more familiar with the artists' actual works. Or perhaps, this book is just a jumping point for that.

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

copyright = 2009
pages = 284
source = purchase
date completed = 05/21/09
challenges = Non-Fiction Five

The Lost City of Z is the story of Percy Fawcett, an adventurer of the Amazon in the early 1900’s. The majority of the book is about Fawcett’s several trips to discover unknown regions of the Amazon. He eventually became obsessed with finding ‘Z’, which some say is El Dorado. He made his last trip in 1925 from which he never returned. Others have gone searching for clues to his disappearance, often themselves not returning. The author even takes a trip to the Amazon to see what he can find out.

The bulk of the book is about Fawcett and his life. Several of his diaries and letters have survived, which the author researched. There is quite a bit of information about fellow (and rival) adventurers and the Royal Geographical Society which supported and funded explorations. Almost as an afterthought though, the author goes to the Amazon as well. Based on what I expected from this book, I would have thought more time would have been spent on the author’s experience. However, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Fawcett. The trials of the expeditions were fascinating (malaria, bugs, lack of food) and it is hard to imagine someone willingly doing it. Fawcett is supposed to be the inspiration behind Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World so I look forward to reading that as well.

A Canticle For Leibowitz

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr.

copyright = 1959
pages = 338
source = purchase
date completed = 04/03/09
challenges: It's the End of the World II; TBR

The story starts out after a nuclear destruction with Brother Francis of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz in the Utah desert. He is performing his Lenten vigil in order to become a full monk of the order. During this time a wandering traveler “inadvertently” finds an entrance to some ruins that Brother Francis ends up investigating. The Order’s main purpose is to preserve pre-nuclear (called the Flame Deluge in the book) writings for future generations. Brother Francis finds what is reportedly some of Leibowitz’s original writings and takes them back to the order. Much controversy ensues since Leibowitz is currently a candidate for canonization and the validity of the documents is in question. Part one follows Brother Francis through the years as the documents are evaluated.

Part two is several hundred years later, following Dom Paulo, abbot of the abbey. Man has regained an appreciation for literacy and the old documents are to be studied again. They have also started replicating ideas (electric light, for example). But the political landscape is unsettled and in the years of Dom Paulo’s leadership issues break out between warring tribes.

Part three again is several hundred years later, this time following Dom Zerchi. Man has advanced—spaceships, cars—but they are living with the effects of past blunders. Genetic defects and radiation sickness still occur and euthanasia camps are set up for those too sick to be expected to live. It is in this part that Man repeats his mistakes.

There isn’t much I can say about this book that hasn’t already been written/analyzed. There is a wiki on it of course. I found the book compelling, eager to find out what would happen, even knowing Man would probably fail again anyway. I know that I need to read it again because it seems I didn’t quite grasp it all. I definitely recommend it.