Boomsday by Christopher Buckley

Boomsday is a Washington DC political tale that is based on a plan to incentivize the elderly to "remove themselves from society" voluntarily so as to save on the costs of caring for them. The concept is floated as a political joke, a farce to show that more must be done to help the elderly or a plan like this is inevitable. But it seized upon by those who denounce it not realizing it is a farce, and but those who embrace it as a bold new way of dealing with the problems of budgets and increasing Social Security costs. It's a funny set up, and sadly, the reactions are all too likely from those who can't see sarcasm and from those who would embrace anything to save money.

The inventor of the idea continues to push the concept as though it is true and it becomes the dominant political issue of the day. The books reveals (maybe) how the sausage is made in legislation and the halls of power. It's a fun read and a send-up of everything from the religious right to the insatiable news media and punditocracy to the President and Congress and more, all of which can use a good skewering at times. Perhaps too many caricatures but who's going to complain in a book like this.

I got this for about $1 at HPB and will probably just give it away. It was a fun vacation book--light, quick read, funny but still a little thoughtful. I read it while we were in California in June 2013.

The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

I've liked everything I've read by Steinbeck. Though his vision of humanity is certainly jaded and bleak, I kind of like that in a book. TWOOD was an interesting one, a story of a man who keeps a shop for an immigrant man in a small town but has greater ambitions, and he plots to fulfill those through a betrayal and an ingeniously planned bank robbery. His children long for his respect but he is ultimately let down by one of them. There's a woman he is tempted to commit adultery with. He contemplates suicide despite having his fortune made, though not via the bank robbery as he'd planned.

Ultimately, this one was a little unsatisfying, though. Far-fetched in places and overdramatic in others, it does a good job of portraying the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist, but the plot is a bit too tidy for this kind of story.

I should have expected that. I got my copy of this from a friend who was giving away a lot of books, and when I selected that one, he said that it was not Steinbeck's best work and I probably would not like it. I actually liked it OK as I was reading it, but when I finished I realized it seemed to have been written to be a Hollywood movie. It was apparently made into one, but not a good one at all. Figures.

I started this during a company outing to Six Flags and finished it on our vacation in California. I probably reshelved it but if I find it I'll take to Half Price Books.

Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Dana wrote this book about his years on board a ship in the1830s. He had just finished law school and signed on for two years to a merchant ship that would end up sailing around the tip of Argentina and to the coast of California to buy hides for return to Boston. The story is well-told by a well-schooled man with a way with words. Harrowing events surround the whole trip, and it paints a thoroughly unpleasant picture of the sailor's life at that time. It was back-breaking work and the work could be for days at a time with no rest if required. It is quite amazing that they make it at all, let alone with a load of hides. The most irenic period is when he is put ashore to help manage the hide-house near San Diego, when he forms friendships with locals and is somewhat comfortable, if bored.

Near the end, I was wondering why anyone would go to sea given the conditions and the absolute sovereignty of the captain over his men, (in his case a capricious one, which sounds not uncommon.) And in his conclusion he reveals that his purpose for writing was to dissuade young men from taking to the sea with any romantic notions of the nobility of the profession.

I heard about this book when we visited California in June. A woodworker at the Santa Barbara sidewalk art show talked to me for quite awhile about the history of the area and where he lived, which was up in Lompoc. He mentioned this book and I got it from the library. I've mentioned it to several people and their boys had all read it when they were young. I guess i missed the book since I have daughters.

The woodworker also told me about the 1923 naval accident at Honda, up the coast a bit from Santa Barbara near Lompoc. I found a book on that which I am reading now.

I finished this book in early July I think.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

This kind of book is precisely why I do this blog. I found it on my brief list of books that I use to keep track of my reading, and it took some time to recall what it was and why I read it. It came back, but in 6 more months that would have been doubtful.

The story is of a sort of United Nations of planets that is trying to bring another world into the fold for its own protection and benefit. The problem is that the planet does not believe in other civilizations outside their world, and their king distrusts what he assumes is an imposter trying to tie their hands in some way. The planet has its own problems, chief of them being that it's primarily ice, though the people there seem to prefer it that way. The story becomes one of court intrigue in part, though in a very muscular fashion--it is a very primitive planet with primitive ways. The story drags a bit, I thought, when the ambassador and one of the court members undertake to cross a glacial plain in order to get to another outpost of the civilization. The crossing is arduous and well told, but long.

Overall, I loved the book for its ideas, but it was a bit of a tedious read in spots.

Le Guin's book is a classic of sci-fi though I had not heard of it until I read a random twitter post by David Malki, asking why no one had pointed it out to him in the past because it was so brilliant. Seeing that, I put it on the library list and read it, finishing it in mid-May 2013.

A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse (Audio book)

One of my favorite Wodehouse books. It's an early Wodehouse (1919 I think) when he was coming into his best form. It is about the events that ensue when the girl Maud hurls herself into a cab of George to hide from someone, and George treats her as a damsel in distress and immediately falls in love with her to boot. He finds her at a country castle and all the to-become-usual Wodehouse events of mistaken and assumed identities ensue. 

Got it from the library in audiobook format. The image is the edition that I have. Cathy and I listened to it in the car on the way to Lyss's graduation in early May. It makes the miles melt away when you have something of this quality to pass the time with. 

Eggs Beans and Crumpets by P.G. Wodehouse

Sounds like breakfast, doesn't it?

One of Wodehouse's collections of short stories, Eggs Beans and Crumpets includes stories of many of the Drones Club members and is hilarious. Enough said.

Pulled it from my Wodehouse collection to read on a sleepless night and read it in a couple of sittings in April 2013. I have a nice Overlook Press copy of it that I received as a gift, and will, of course, be hanging onto it.

Radical Together by David Platt

In Radical Together, David Platt applies his challenges to believers to the corporate entity of the church. We are called to spread the gospel by making disciples but we often neglect to do so because we are wrapped up in the programs of the church itself, leaving no time for loving our neighbor and building relationships with those who need the Lord. He reminds us that we do not need to develop a grand strategy because the Word does the work. The Spirit calls whom He will and He does so by the Word. So Platt calls for less "church activity" and more work in making disciples in our neighborhoods. 

I got this book to read as part of a Session vision meeting and finished it back about April 15, 2013. I'll hang onto it or pass it along. 

In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker

Keeping up with my sci-fi reading trend. Baker has a series of books about "The Company." The setup of the story is promising. In the future immortality is invented and time travel is invented to test it out. The owners of the technology (the Company) make some people from olden times immortal and use them to amass wealth and save extinct species, working within the various times as operatives.

Promising. The story is told by a recruit from the time of the Spanish Inquisition, a young girl who is made immortal and trained as a botanist to save several medically-valuable species. A "Spanish" team of operatives goes to rural England in about 1554, just before England is reconnected to Roman Catholicism. The estate where they stay is divided as far as religion, with factions in each camp. It's an interesting setup, as the "Spanish" as suspected to be agents of the Inquisition (though they are irreligious altogether, but pretend to Catholicism in order to fit expectations.)

I was unhappy with what becomes a main thrust of the story--the young woman becomes entangled with a Protestant "true believer" who had previously been a libertine. He essentially becomes one again, however, taking the girl as his sexual partner for the duration, all the while endeavoring to "save her soul" by urging her to convert to the true religion. The inconsistency between belief and behavior is obvious, but never even commented upon by the girl, oddly, or the others who seem to be aware of it. It all leads to tears, of course, when the Roman Catholic church is reestablished and Protestants are now under the thumb of the throne.

Baker was recommended by the Plano Library based on other books I enjoyed, mainly because of Connie Willis and her books on time travel. I enjoy Willis's a lot more than I enjoyed this first book of Baker's series. I may try another of Baker's to see how the series continues as far as narration and content.

The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (Audio)

Another audio book! The same reader as did Carry On, Jeeves did this one. Another PGW book that I've read several times, so I knew what was coming each moment. But it was fun to hear someone else read it to me.

The book includes stories about unmarried Bingo Little and also his eventual marriage to Rosie M. Banks. To please Bingo's uncle, Bertie has posed as Rosie M. Banks ("his pen name") and is found out eventually when the real Rosie shows up, married to Bingo.

It also includes "The Great Sermon Handicap" and "The Purity of the Turf," two stories with the blighter Steggles who nobbles the favorites to ruin the book in local bets on sermon length and the children's races in the village fair.

I listened to this on the way to Chattanooga on 3/21/13.

Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul by John M. Barry (Audio)

Barry's work on Roger Williams spans 150 year's time and two continents. He covers a thorough history of the schisms and changes of religious affiliation in England in the period from 1500-1680ish and the journey of Puritans as outsiders, insiders, and leaders. This book was a great supplement to the Teaching Company class I listened to recently on the history of Christianity in the Reformation era. It expands to cover the beginnings of a church/state separation. Edward Coke, about whom I recalled learning nothing in the past, was an attorney and statesman who was in and out of favor, and who brought Williams into his practice as a lad and whose thought influenced Williams greatly.

Though a long listen, it was engaging throughout, and detailed enough to provide insight beyond just the historical facts.

Williams was an original thinker who stood for his convictions and fled England when his nonconformance threatened his life. Initially accepted warmly in America, he eventually alienated the authorities in Massachusetts and Connecticut and was banished. He fled in a deep snow, and sought refuge with various Indian groups, whose languages and leaders he had taken the time to get to know. He believed that the State should have no role in religion and that all religions should be accepted equally. This was tested severely when the Quakers and Ranters came to Rhode Island, but it remained a refuge for those who had been rejected by other colonies.

I got this from the library and finished it as I was driving to Chattanooga to visit my daughters, on 3/21/13.

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business

Business books are usually pretty uninteresting to me, because most I have read (parts of...) are poorly written and have few new insights. The Advantage is a notable exception that I was eager to read. The premise, supported by statistics, is that (as the subtitle notes), companies with healthy organizational behavior are more profitable and successful. Having worked in a few less-than-healthy organizational environments and with non-business groups with similar problems, I can attest that much less gets done by everyone when the leadership is fragmented and has disparate visions for the company (or no vision at all.)

Lencioni combines and condenses insight he put into five separate books, making this a quick overview of his concepts and learning. His practical suggestions were a highlight--asking new teams as they come together to spend time coalescing as a team and getting to know one another--seems obvious but it's not. One question he suggests teams start with as they get to know each other (beyond the obvious name and role) is to tell one thing that was a particular challenge to them when they were growing up. He gives a few examples of organizational understanding breakthroughs when the simple exercise was used. 

I finished this on about 3/12/13. I bought and read it as a learning exercise for our church Session planning, so I will add it to my business book library. 

Carry On Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse (Audio)

P.G.Wodehouse is always a pleasure. I've probably read this short story collection at least 10 times, ans I picked the audiobook version up at the library to listen to during NPR pledge drive week. It only took a few days of commuting to get through this short book, and it was the first actual audiobook I have actually listened to. (Usually it is "college" classes on CD that I check out.) 

It was fun to have this read to me. It took some getting used to to as the reader played Jeeves as a considerably older Jeeves than I have always envisioned. But, it makes sense that he would be older given his wisdom and knowledge, so I got used to it and got to hear some of my favorite Bertie and Jeeves stories during otherwise wasted commute time. Win win!

The History of Christianity in the Reformation Era by Brad Gregory

Not actually a book but this is a good place to keep track of it.

This is a class from the Teaching Company, with the usual 1/2-hour lectures on CD. It covered the origins of the Reformation up through the Restoration in England. The professor took a geographic approach along with tracing the major movements (Anabaptism, Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.) He took the approach of trying to portray the nuances of the various movements vs. a black-and-white set of motivations for change (or lack thereof.) One interesting thing was the changes the Catholic church made in response to the complaints of corruption and lack of personally vital spiritual life. The response was to create an educational and catechetical approach to training the laity in the beliefs of the church.

I learned a lot about the Anabaptists and the distinctions from Protestants. Gregory also did a nice job accurately portraying the Calvinist movements and Lutheranism.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

A quick read, sci-fi with a lot of great ideas that drive the content and action.

In the not-too-distant future, immortality has been attained by serial use of clones to replace worn out or even tiresome bodies, with your "content" downloaded to the new body. If you're murdered, a clone is grown and "you" are restored from backup. Further, the economic society is now reputation-based, with credits ("Whuffie") accumulating based on good and cooperative behavior in the Bitchun Society, and antisocial behavior costing the user Whuffie, which can be seen by anyone looking at you as a readout if they look above your head, thanks to the electronic brain interface built into the clones. It could make a ponderous and pompous sort of intellectual sci-fi book, but instead Doctorow weaves an engaging first person narrative, with the protagonist a 100 year old man who has "recycled" only four times, the latest taking place at the start of the book when he is murdered.

The protagonist has taken up residence at Disney World and helps maintain Liberty Square and the Haunted Mansion. A rival group takes over the Hall of Presidents and threatens to take the Haunted Mansion as well. Underhanded deeds make it hard to maintain reputational currency, but sometimes they must be done.

Doctorow does a nice job of exploring options available in such a society. You can choose your age look: a 50-year-old can be "19 apparent" and a younger doctor could appear to be a wizened septuagenarian. You could "deadhead" by making a backup and killing yourself with a "wakeup call" set for years, decades, or centuries in the future. What are the implications for your family for this kind of decision? What does it say about whether you care for them or find them interesting to be around? You can do something evil and then kill yourself and restore from a backup and not even remember it. You can forget to backup and have an "old version" of yourself as the only restore option, one that perhaps does not know your current love--or that she has dumped you.

The story alone is a really imaginative one, and the "science" is explained only as narrative, revealing itself as it needs to.

I finished this on 3/4/13. I got it from the library. I've read good things about Doctorow before, and when Seth Godin mentioned him in his blog recently, I added this book to my library queue.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemningway

Hemingway's first book is one of the few of his that I have not read, for some reason. I picked it up at the library to amend that situation and finished it on 2/23/2013. As usual with Hemingway, it seems to be close to a biographical account of a period or episode in his life. He explores themes of fidelity and lust, primal urges and bloodlust, bravery, antisemitism, class differences, and more. This is the book with the scenes from the Feast of San Fermin in Pamplona, more popularly known as the time when the running of the bulls and the bullfights happen.

Sadly, it seems that despite a variety of meaningful interactions, affairs, betrayals, fights, etc., at the end, the characters have changed very little. Vanitas vanitatum.

ARGO by Antonio Mendez

ARGO: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History is the story of the freeing of six Americans from Iran after the American Embassy was overrun by Iranian students in 1979. It was made into a popular movie that just won the Oscar for best film. I have not seen it as I wanted to first read the book. It was a quick read and a riveting book, but most of it would not make a very interesting movie. The conceit that the CIA uses to free the Americans is that they are Canadians scouting locations for a Hollywood movie. They have few problems exiting the country when all is said and done, while I hear that the movie makes the whole process much more dramatic.

But it was still a fun book to read. The CIA agent involved exposes some of the "tradecraft" that allows them CIA to make false passports and fool the customs agents and others. The story of expatriating the Iranian they call RAPTOR is actually more harrowing one than the freeing of the Americans, and it sets up the difficulties in physical needs (costumes, fake passports, "pocket litter," etc.) as well as psychological requirements of the person being exfiltrated.

I remember the six Americans being rescued by the Canadians and the story being that they were given Canadian passports. The whole story was not released until 1997 and I read it at the time, but this book does a nice job of combining Iranian history, interesting CIA stories, and some human drama into a hard-to-put-down book. I got it from the library and read it on 2/23-2/24, 2013.

The Cross in the New Testament by Leon Morris

The first Bible commentary that I ever read was by Leon Morris. It was on the Gospel of John, and was so clearly written and helpful that I still measure the value of commentaries based on that book. I snapped this up at Half Price Books when I saw it in a stack of new but remaindered books for a great price. I then proceeded to not read it for quite some time, which I know because I found the receipt in it dated August 2003. Anyway, I'm glad I finally did read it, because it too is a well-written, easily-understood and nontechnical book.

Morris goes through the theology of the cross as seen from the standpoint of each author in the New Testament. Of course, these (along with the OT) make up a complete theology of the cross, and not several separate and unique understandings of the work of Christ in his death. Still, each author emphasizes different aspects of that theology based on the points that they were trying to get across to their readers at the time. And so the cross is shown to have practical implications that arise from the theology. One author may emphasize the redemptive aspect, another may emphasize that through his death Jesus earned the right to give the Holy Spirit to his followers, for example. Each has his purpose for those emphases, and Morris draws them out and exposits the theology contained in each.

Morris is careful in his analysis, never force-fitting to a predefined theory. And that attitude is a good reminder for someone who teaches on occasion.

I read this over the course of late 2011 through late 2012, with lots of starts and stops as I read other things. While it is simply written, it's not one to read as you go to sleep, which is when I tend to read the lighter items on my list. I'll be hanging onto this.

GONZO: A Graphic Biography by Will Singley and Anthony Hope-Smith

Gonzo is a brief biography of the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson told in graphic novel form.  It was a quick and interesting read. I knew a little about Thompson and had read some of his work. The graphic novel treatment was used to good effect with this biography. Savannah gave it to me for Christmas and I read it on December 26, 2012.

Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi

Reclaiming History's subtitle is "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy," and its intent is telegraphed in the main title. Much of America has come to believe that there is more to the JFK assassination that the government has told us, and people have bought into a variety of shadowy conspiracy theories or the idea that "we'll never know what happened that day." As such, many people hold to an alternate history of the events of 11/22/63. This book seeks to reclaim the actual history of the assassination by setting forth the facts as discovered at the time. It also debunks (yea, ridicules) the various conspiracy theorists and "researchers" who have posited that the assassination was a conspiracy perpetrated by the Cuban government, Cuban exiles, the Mafia, the Russian government, LBJ, the CIA, and/or a variety of other supposed conspirators.

Bugliosi's book is extensively researched, footnoted, and careful in its factual assertions. A detailed description of the events surrounding the four days around the assassination starts the book, and that 320 pages is a thorough, minute-by-minute history of its own. Those who have casually come by an alternative theory about the assassination by watching Oliver Stone's preposterous myth "JFK" or from one of the dozens of TV specials would do well to read this section of the book if no other. It will likely lead to reading the section(s) of the book that debunk their favored theory, which comprise another major section of the book. Also included is a long and detailed biography of Lee Harvey Oswald and his family. The biography was a bit of a slog, but it is worth reading all the detail if only to realize what kind of a man Oswald was, and why he would do what he did.

Bugliosi also does a thorough, if frequently repetitive, job of laying out some facts that are often cited by what I'll call "casual" conspiracy believers. "Oswald was a terrible shot." No, he earned a Marine sharpshooter rating. "No one can fire three shots with that weapon that fast." Yes, they can, as proven by several tests done with people using that rifle who had the same training as Oswald, who in fact beat the time Oswald shot the three bullets, one by a couple of seconds. "The magic bullet had to make a right turn in midair to hit John Connally." No, Connally was in a jump seat to Kennedy's front left, and a reenactment showed it was a straight line through Kennedy's back and to the places it hit Connally. "People heard more than three shots and only three bullets were fired by Oswald." No, 95 percent of the witnesses in the plaza heard three shots, and only a few thought they heard more. "There were people who shot from the front." Not according to the eyewitness testimony that day. Most of the "grassy knoll shooter" "witnesses" came forth years after the assassination, after Mark Lane began propounding his lame conspiracy theories. Bugliosi is able to debunk each of their testimonies, many of whom could be proven to have been in other states at the time.

My only criticism of Bugliosi's massive effort is his frequent dismissals of the conspiracy theorists via well-deserved but off-putting mockery. (This after making a good case, by the way. The ad hominem is never his sole attack, though it is added as an emphasis pretty often.) Though deserved, it piles up to petulance when you read straight through. Which is hard to do, by the way. It is understandably VERY long, over 1600 oversized pages of small text, not including reference footnotes, which are included on a DVD along with the Warren Commission report and other documents. Still, it's a riveting read and a terrific doorstop.

I'm glad I read this as I know the JFK assassination by Oswald will get scrutiny again this year since it's the 50th anniversary.

I got this from the library in early October 2012. I rechecked it out for the maximum of 6 times before finally finishing it about January 15, 2013. It was too big for travel, hence I read other books over the holidays and during business trips during this window, but it's a major commitment. After I finished, I read the review the New York Times ran when it came out in 2007. They discussed how long it is, and also that they were sure it was meant as a reference book, not something that anyone would actually read through. Now they tell me.

Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Yonder by Walt Kelly

This collection of Pogo comics was my bedside companion for several months, providing a break from other reading as I drifted off to sleep. Kelly's comic ran in my local paper when I was growing up, and not surprisingly, I was not very impressed with it as a child. It was hard to understand the satire or even the language sometimes, given the Southern dialect the characters use. I did enjoy some of the story arcs, and I liked the continuity, which contracted with most of the daily gag strips. It was funny and yet continuity like "Dick Tracy" and the serious comics did.

The collection at hand is from the beginning of the strip in the 1940s. I have not seen the follow-up volumes (though I'd like to) but the first one is well done, with strips nicely sized for reading. The color Sunday strips are included in the back, and a short essay describes Kelly's work as well as some of the ins and outs of comic publishing.

My recollection of the character Pogo was fairly accurate, and I began to understand the content of the comic as I grew up, so I was not terribly surprised at the humor. I don't recall many of the other characters, or their general dim-wittedness. If the content was close to what he was doing in the 1970s, I surely missed most of the humor.

I finished this slowly, over the course of 5-6 months, probably completed it about 12/15. I have shelved with with the comics books.

MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman wrote and illustrated two books that outlined the experience of his parents in Jewish ghettos and concentration camps during WWII. Maus and Maus 2 came out in 1987 and 1991, respectively, though Spiegelman began Maus in 1972, originally as a 3-page version. I read both of the books about 7 years ago, after becoming familiar with them by reading In the Shadow of No Towers, his return to doing "comics" that was precipitated by the demise of the World Trade Center towers and the political repercussions thereof. 

MetaMaus is the story, told through a series of interviews, of how the Maus books came to be. The interview covers Art's relationship with his father, mother, and wife, lots of interesting technical information on his process of drawing and editing, his process for researching the content (beyond the interviews with his father), how he drew from comics traditions and history in his book, struggles he faced getting it published, personal and family difficulties and tragedies, and lots more. It's a wide-ranging interview/book, and held my interest throughout. His thought process behind every aspect of the Maus books seems to have been very thorough, and deeply thought out, more than you would expect from a "comic." His defining metaphor of a page as a paragraph and a row of panels as a sentence is brilliant, and explains why the book is so concise and yet satisfying. The constraint of the form, imposed by none other than himself, helps to keep the story moving. 

I was also interested to read about the growth of interest in the history of the genocide against the Jews during WWII. I've seen so many documentaries and miniseries and moves that it did not occur to me that it was most neglected as a topic until the late 1970s. 

I got this for Christmas in 2011 and read it over 2 days during a short vacation in Long Key, FL, finishing on 1/13/13. I'll definitely be hanging onto it, and putting it next to the Maus books on my shelf.

Reminds me: I think I got the Masters of American Comics (which Spiegelman helped curate) a year or so ago. I need to dig that out.