Books read recently by J. Zimmerman.
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Books read
Best books read in 2009.
Best writers of poetry and prose
Harry Potter;
also
Harry Potter en Español.
New books on Christianity and Spirituality
by Pagels, Ehrman, et al. 
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Why read a book?
The Mental Health of George W. Bush
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{ September : septiembre (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }
Short-listed for the 2009 Man Booker Prizes.
Byatt's book is set in southeast England from 1895 to 1919, in a long Dickens-like tale covering about 100 people of the generation of the grandparents and great-grandparents of Baby Boomers. Issues include:
Beautiful black and white and ink wash graphic novel of poignant loss in a 1950's childhood of embittered parents and a vicious grandmother.
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions of the Bible
(and Why We Don't Know Them) (2009)
by Bart D. Ehrman.
Some of the miscellaneous factoids on the largest wildfires (pre-2009):
Maybe California should put money in prescribed burns that create serious Fire Breaks along the length of California.
An emotionally unstable man acts sociopathically or at least as if exhibiting an anti-social personality disorder.
[Much preferable to the Hanson/Heath whining Who Killed Homer?]
A personal account of what he has witnessed, particularly rising tides, wetter storms, and warmth-induced migration of plants and creatures, and desertification. Lynas tells of people coping with flood, storms, desertification, saline intrusion, and rising sea levels from England to Alaska, from the Pacific atoll Tuvalu to Inner Mongolia, and from the Peruvian Andes to the south Atlantic coast of the U.S.A. Everywhere the problems are increasing. But the world leaders are not working quickly enough to solve them.
{ August : agosto (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }
(8.31.2009)
Learn about trees, birds, creatures, fish, amphibians, and some interesting trails.
Eifert includes Cedars (Western Red, Alaska, Port Orford); true Firs (Grand, Pacific Silver, Noble), and Pacific Yew, as well as board-leaf Big-Leaf Maple, Black Cottonwood, and Pacific Dogwood. More species at redwood forest species.
And flowers like Bunchberry (like a tiny Dogwood of four white bracts around tiny central blooms and 'oval leaves in whorls of six')
| Not yet being ready to read Homer's Iliad in
Ancient Greek,
went for a more approachable summary:
CliffsNotes on Homer's The Iliad
by Bob Linn. It is quite helpful with summaries of all 24 books, main characters, and the social guidelines of warfare and peacetime. |
| Ancient Greek Texts |
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The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (2007) by Christine Kenneally. |
But most of the writing and the characters (un-aided by the reading) are dull. The writing feels like a person feeling their way with eyes closed, trying to do something perfectly and tense about it. The book is carried more by the reader's interest in the in-China personal and political tensions just before the 1989 Tiananmen Square rebellion. [Ha Jin left China in 1985 and has not returned.] Story improves in the last quarter when the protagonist gets away from the university and turns out less feckless than he began.
Karin Fossum is a Norwegian detective novelist with excellent psychological insights. She is particularly discerning in her understand and defense of the 'psychologically different', the people that 'normal' people tend to scapegoat. The book centers on Emil, a man who can say only one word, "No" and on Tomme, potentially a criminal-in-training.
This is less interesting than the earlier books, perhaps because there seems to be less time spent with Inspector Sejer. Or perhaps I am just getting concerned about Norway's high number of citizens with mental illness, as one is always implicated in a Fossum murder.
Not sure if this book is less interesting because I have O.D.'d on Fossum recently, or because the original book is less interesting, or because this different translator is less effective. For what ever reason, put this at the bottom of your Fossum list.
Also see Karin Fossum's:
{ July : julio (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }
This was particularly rich on the people and places and political interests in Morocco and Northwest Africa. A little more exciting than others in the series, but still a "cozy" thriller: nice to listen to while cleaning the house.
Previously Gilman's read:
His prose is more accessible and interesting than his poetry. Many of his poem (like the are "Metabolic Isthmus Sestina"s) are an iconoclastic response with mechanistic permutations to traditional forms.
Karin Fossum is a Norwegian detective novelist with excellent psychological insights. She is particularly discerning in her understand and defense of the 'psychologically different', the people that 'normal' people tend to scapegoat. The book centers on Raymond, a man with Downs syndrome, and on Halvor, an apparently weak and possibly brain-damaged youth.
Along the way, we find that most of the 'normal' people have their own secret or secrets that might be scapegoated if known about: but they have stronger defenses. Meanwhile Mrs. Holland (mother of Annie, the murdered teenage girl) says:
| [p. 49] 'There's supposed to be a sea serpent in the fjord here. ... If you're out rowing and hear a splashing sound behind your boat, that's the sea serpent rising up from the depths. You should never look back, just be careful to keep on rowing. If you pretend to ignore it and leave it in peace, everything will be fine, but if you look back into its eyes, it will pull you down into the darkness.' |
Which, in the end, is a metaphor for why Annie was killed, though not an explicit pointer to the murderer.
Along the way, Fossum gives some advice on dog training to her detective, Sejer, whose dog responds aggressively in body and voice to visitors:
| [p. 116] 'If that's the case, you're too attached to him ... You shouldn't treat a dog as if its the only thing you have in the world. But maybe it is?' |
Ironically, Sejer's first name is Konrad:
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[p. 215]
Skarre said ...
'And you're the one that's supposed to be giving advice.'
'What do you mean by that?' [Sejer said] 'Your name,' Skarre said. 'Konrad means: The one who gives advice.' But maybe it is?' |
Also see Karin Fossum's:
Despite being a little precious in places, this is a "class work on the Japanese tea ceremony and the value of beauty". Vocabulary:
| Chado | The way of tea |
| Chanoyu | The tea ceremony. Also a way of life. |
| Machiai | Portico where guests wait (not more than five ... more than the Graces and less than the Muses') |
| Midsuya | Anteroom 'where the tea utensils are washed and arranged before being brought in. |
| Roji | Garden path that connects the Machiai with the tea room |
| Sukiya | Tea-room. |
| Teaism | A way of life arising from the aesthetics of the tea ceremony. |
Sections:
| Classic | Chinese Tang dynasty | Cake-tea is boiled |
| Romantic | Chinese Sung dynasty | Powdered-tea is whipped. |
| Naturalist | Chinese Ming dynasty | Leaf-tea is steeped. |
| Haijuko was walking in the forest with a disciple when a hare scurried off at their approach. 'Why does the hare fly from you?' asked Haikujo. 'Because he is afraid of me,' was the answer. 'No,' said the master, 'it is because you have a murderous instinct.' |
The book centers on Errki, a man suffering from psychosis:
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[p. 121]
'Would it be possible for you to explain to an ordinary person what psychosis actually is?'
Sejer asked her [Dr. Struel].
'Are you an ordinary person?' There was something mocking about her tone of voice, and he wasn't quite sure whether the question was meant as a compliment or something else. In his confusion he started fiddling with the cell phone attached to his belt. 'In some ways it's impossible because it's so abstract,' she said in a low voice. 'But I think of it as a kind of hiding place. It's a matter of having all the normal defense mechanisms totally break down. Your soul is thrown wide open, so that anyone and everyone can step right in. Even the most innocent advance is experienced as a hostile attack. Errki has found himself a hiding place. He's trying to survive by creating a survival strategy, a sort of corrective force that gradually takes over entirely and restricts his freedom and the possibility of making his own choices.' ... 'And ... schizophrenia? What is that?' 'We call it that, in our helplessness, when it's practical to have categories for things. It's when a psychosis has been going on for a while. Let's say several months.' |
Later:
| [p. 218] 'He who fears the wolf shouldn't go into the forest,' Errki whispered. |
This novel has been a DELIGHT to read as a relief from the Cather-Faulkner-Calvino-Rushdie-et-al of the Reading Class. The psychology of the five main characters in He Who Fears the Wolf is different for each and holds up well. A quick 40 pages daily and the book is done in a week.
Sadly Fossum's book suffers from huge coincidence that is convenient to the plot but pretty unlikely and implausible.
Nonetheless, and I would put Fossum above most writer that I've read in the crime genre. In part it's her use of interior focus for many of the characters. In part it's because I felt pleasantly (or sometimes horribly) surprised by what the characters thought and did: the process of reading the book was intriguing.
This book is quite different from those of Scotland's Ian Rankin or the serial-killer-Minnesota John Sandford, for example (so it's an apples and oranges comparison). It seems more similar to the excellent The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson, in that both deal sympathetically with psychologically abnormal people. Fossum had published for decades before Larsson; as a fellow Scandinavian, I imagine he would have known her work.
The 13th REBUS book: very complicated: almost 50 people are named in the character list at the start of the book. Something of a slog to get through this, which is partly an excuse for giving Rebus' partner, DS Siobhan Clarke, more independence and initiative.
Other REBUS books include:
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Related pages:
Books on Buddhism.
Books on Learning Spanish.
Poetry - Learn How to Write Your Own.
Forests of California and Trees of the World.
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