Books read recently by J. Zimmerman.
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Books read
Best books read in 2007.
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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Skip pages
Not read
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Not defend your tastes
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{ March : marzo (see also books on learning Spanish)) 2008 }
(3.31.2008)
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others. Series 2 of Red Dwarf is excellent. |
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87 pages of poems; 44 poems, with average of 2.0 pages per poem. Many are fragmentary, many are erudite, and many are prose-like. I would be surprised (should I live that long) if any survive the 21st century. Not sure about his presentation of translations in a way that they could be mistaken for his own. Why for example, is "After Goethe" presented as his own poem:
In all the mountains, Stillness; In the treetops Not a breath of wind. The birds are silent in the woods. Just wait: soon enough You will be quiet too. |
instead of as a paraphrased translation of Goethe's poem:
EIN GLEICHES (1780)
Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Haich;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
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Robert Bly gave us a translation (which I prefer) of Goethe's poem:
The Second Poem the Night-Walker Wrote Over all the hilltops Silence, Among all the treetops You feel hardly A breath moving; The birds fall silent in the woods. Simply wait! Soon You too will be silent. |
Her best book.
A boring quote-thriller-unquote by an author who thinks lap dogs are more important than people.
One of the first and a really excellent "cozy" spy thriller. The glory days of amateur spies triumphing for a democracy that meant moral freedom as opposed to the freedom to buy consumer goods.
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others. |
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Includes the travels and opinions and actions of: Richard Burton, F. M. (Eric) Bailey, Robert Byron, Bruce Chatwin, Lawrence Durrell, Patrick Leigh Fermor, T. E. Lawrence, David Livingstone, Gavin Maxwell, Alan Moorehead, Geoffrey Moorhouse, Jan Morris, H. St.J. Philby, J. H. Speke, H. M. Stanley, Freya Stark, Wilfred Thesiger, Laurens van der Post, and Francis Younghusband.
Time to return to library.
A lightweight read so returned it quickly to library.
Well! I was promised "p-o-r-n-o for liberals" and was not disappointed. What a joy-ride of Solomon-esque justice upon the avaricious, the mean, the Republican. The nature and intensity of the story made it and appropriate bathroom book for the last couple of months. The only act that can follow this is another Hiaasen book, Skinny dip, it turns out.
What a pleasure to read. So well written, and rather a contrast in writing with light-weight detective novels like The Three Evangelists and with complex experimental fiction like Peter Høeg's The Quiet Girl.
Biographies that Barker acknowledges for material include:
Read by Simon Prebble, whose voice does not do the book justice because he unfortunately swallows his consonants, making it hard to understand at low volume. Robotham's second book in this series, Lost, was by contrast brilliantly read (actually 'performed') by Ray Lonnen, including wonderful north-country (English) accents.
In Suspect, psychiatrist Joe O'Loughlin appears to have been framed, though it takes almost the whole book to sort things out. Joe's experience in being pursued relentlessly by D.I. Vincent Ruiz (the protagonist of the second book, Lost) makes it both surprising and inevitable that Joe is convinced of Ruiz innocence and so determined to help him.
Some excellent cameos, including Joe's Dad. Should be a movie!
A pleasant relaxing Saturday book. Dedicated to the author's brother.
Compare with other books by Fred Vargas:
Danish magical realism with some gorgeous writing; often funny. The idea of a man with ultra-sensitive hearing works very well:
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"they said ... the rest of my life might be very short. They closed
two doors before they said that, but I heard them anyway."
He heard her empathy. ... "I heard the hospital, the trip home, the car, the winter quarters, as I've never heard it before. It wasn't just the physical sounds; it was their context. ... And for the first time I heard some of the world alive, unfiltered, unmuted." |
The part of the story about a dozen children with super-powers (such as causing 'earthquakes' in a localized region of Denmark) is complex and muddled. The world's physical beauty of his best book, Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow is also missing.
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Steep gasoline prices and the weak economy
are beginning to curb Americans' gas-guzzling ways.
In the past six weeks, the nation's gasoline consumption has fallen by an average 1.1 percent from year-earlier levels, according to weekly government data. ... Investors piling money into commodities as a refuge from inflation helped push oil prices Monday above their inflation-adjusted record of $103.76 a barrel, set in 1980. |
Includes my honorable mention in the 2007 Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi Memorial Haiku Contest plus two of my haiku.
Brilliantly read (actually 'performed') by Ray Lonnen. Wonderful north-country (English) accents.
The story has a very confusing start, which would have been helped had I read Suspect, the previous book in this series, where D.I. Vincent Ruiz (the protagonist of Lost) appears with Psychiatrist Joe O'Loughlin (the patient friend and advisor to Ruiz).
Lost makes heavy use of coincidence and obsession. While it is well-recommended, it is better listened to than read.
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others. |
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{ February : febrero (see also books on learning Spanish)) 2008 }
Much interesting work, but particularly two essays:
| a system of evaluation simple enough to be used by newbies, but powerful enough to apply to the work of masters. ... [It includes] a rating system ... [with] a scale laid out in three parts -- one each for the three elements -- form, content, and style -- with a bonus section for special considerations. It is possible to score from zero to three points in each part -- zero for not using an element or using it incorrectly, one for ordinary usage, two for usage that has a significant impact on the poem, and three for usage that has a significant impact on the genre." |
He illuminates this system by applying it to several haiku, most usefully to a haiku in Japanese (by Basho), to which he assigns 8 points, and its translation into English by R.H. Blyth. to which he assigns 4 points.
Kacian divides the Haiku Hierarchy into seven levels, the first three being concerned with the acquisition and use of one of the three elements of a haiku, and the next three ("the professional minor leagues") being "achieved through a process of revaluation of those things we learned on the first three levels", and the final level of Mastery:
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American haiku poets don't grasp the idea that the shadow has to have risen up
and invaded the haiku poem, otherwise it is not haiku.
Quoting Bly's Little Book of the Shadow. |
See also our comments on:
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others. Series 2 of Red Dwarf is excellent. |
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At the book party (cookies and beer) sticky notes and markers invited people to "Write your memoir on your nametag!" One was most quintessential among equals: "Former child star seeks love, employment". The winner, whose memoir was used as the book title, thought it was a scam when she received email: "Your contest entry has been chosen".
Mine could be "I could spend a lifetime brainstorming".
Other interesting articles in this above-above-average issue:
| Now, this is the way we give then the water cure. ... Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don't give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I'll tell you it is terrible torture. |
"Ultimately outraged dissenters ... Herbert Welsh -- forced the question of U.S. atrocities into the light."
But in the end: "As the investigation of the water cure ended and the memory of the far-away torture faded, Americans answered it with their silence."
| Scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute reported that the carbon footprint [as opposed to the Ecology Footprint] of Christmas -- including travel, lighting, and gifts -- was six hundred and fifty kilograms per person. That is as much, they estimated, as the weight of 'one thousand Christmas puddings' for every resident of England. |
Provides interesting data that refutes a hard-line Local Foods approach. Example:
| Researchers at Lincoln University in Christchurch found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped eleven thousand miles by boat to England produced six hundred and eighty-eight kilograms of carbon-dioxide emission per ton, about a fourth the amount produced by British lamb. In part that is because pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing lands in Britain (or in many parts of the United States). |
Similarly for New Zealand apples.
Interviews Richard Sandor, who "invents markets to create value for investors where none existed before ... who believes that free markets can make inequality disappear" and who had early success in the late 1980s with advocating the creation of an exchange for sulfur-dioxide emissions.
Much interesting data, and primarily, to quote Sandor:
| We need to address the problems that exist, not drown in fear or lose ourselves in morality. Behavior changes when you offer incentives. ... Our problem is global warming, and my job is to reduce greenhouse gasses at the lowest possible cost. I say solve the problem and deal with the bad guys somewhere else. |
Detective Lucas Davenport is slowing down and also less funny than he used to be His wife, Weather, is insightful in seeing connections before Lucas. Still, as always, Lucas gets his serial killer.
Books read in this series:
| Title | Series ordinal | Year |
| Broken Prey | 16th | 2005 |
| Invisible Prey | 17th | 2007 |
| Mind Prey | 7th | 1995 |
| Naked Prey | 14th | 2003 |
| Night Prey | 6th | 1994 |
| Rules of Prey | 1st | 1989 |
| Secret Prey | 9th | 1997 |
| Sudden Prey | 8th | 1996 |
A pleasant relaxing Saturday book. Dedicated to the author's twin; in the book, the protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, rediscovers his twin.
But the book lacks the quick-off-the-starting-line energy and quirkiness of (and is less interesting than) Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas.
I wanted sooner and more of characters with the sensibilities of the robust Retancourt and the elderly Josette:
| Oh, I transfer stuff, I balance it up, I share it out. |
Adamsberg's recognition of the goddesses out of the machine is reflective of the somewhat contrived plot:
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'These last few days, my life has been in the hands of magical women.
They've been tossing me from one to another,
and everytime they save me from falling into the abyss.'
'Is that a problem?' asked Josette, seriously. |
A cute response, but in terms of the novel, it is.
Another questionable statement is from Retancourt [p. 247 of paperback]:
| To kill, you need to be emotionally involved with other people, you need to get drawn into their troubles and even be obsessed by what they represent. Killing means interfering with some kind of bond, an excessive reaction, a sort of mingling with someone else. So that other person doesn't exist as themselves, but as something that belongs to you, that you can treat as a victim. |
While I agree with the last sentence, I'm doubtful that such criminal behavior is always generated from emotional involvement. Crimes of passion, yes. But not for the more cold-blooded crimes of business, such as by Chigurh in No Country For Old Men.
(2.15.2008)
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others.
Series 2 of Red Dwarf
seems to be the best of them all,
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See also his The Foundations of Western Civilization: Part I and Blog of Part I
I like many of his poems, admire his willingness to use words not usually in poetry, and enjoy both his frequent "pathetic fallacies" and his complete indulgence in adjectives.
(2.6.2008)
(2.5.2008)
HAPPY SUPER TUESDAY -- VOTE!
Details specific problems with the policies and actions of George W. Bush and his administration. Excellent material. Sadly, Carter's voice is less clear than that of most readers of Recorded Books; he does not do full justice to his own material, and a more clear reader would be better.
(2.4.2008)
What a disappointment. I now abandon all hope (after attempting three of his books) that he can write anything up to his The Brief History of the Dead (2006), one of the best books read in 2007. Maybe Celia is a blurry exploration of the ideas that later become The Brief History of the Dead.
A quirky and enthralling French noire thriller. A lot of off-stage gore and violence, and the amazing normalcy and abnormal bravery of some very eccentric characters.
Some of the characters may be related to Smilla (Smilla's Sense of Snow), who put her faith in Euclid's Geometries. In particular, the heroine Camille is calmed by and draws "her vital energies from two sources: musical composition and The A to Z of Tools for Trade and Craft".
And here is the detective, Commissaire Adamsberg, a non-linear thinker [p. 73 of Simon and Schuster paperback first edition]:
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The Waters of Liffey was a brick-built Irish pub where there was always a tremendous din.
Commissaire Adamsberg
liked solitude, he liked to let his mind wander far out to sea, but he also liked people
and the movement of people,
and he fed on their presence around him like a flea.
The only burdensome aspect of other people was that they would talk nonstop,
and their conversations constantly interrupted Adamsberg's musings.
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The Waters of Liffey provided a first-rate solution to his dilemma. The only people in the bar were noisy, boozy Irishmen speaking what was for Adamsberg a completely hermetic tongue. ... In this precious hidey-hole Adamsberg spent many an hour dreaming away, peacefully waiting for ideas to rise to the surface of his mind. |
Adamsberg is skeptical of poetry [p. 76]:
| Too wonderful or too poetical to be true. When poetry bursts into real life you may be amazed and delighted, but it is never very long before you see that you have been had by a con or a scam. |
Another character calmed by a book is Soliman, who has memorized and quotes the dictionary, sometimes somewhat orthogonally [p.193]:
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"Watch it," Watchee went on, with a glance at Soliman. "We're sharing the lorry
with the young lady. Behave respectably, and with respect to her."
He dismissed Adamsberg with a brief nod and climbed back into the lorry. "Hospitality," said Soliman. "'Reception and entertainment of guests with liberality and goodwill.'" |
And for one of the best description of true love, see p. 267 for Adamsberg's "looney drainage system".
(2.2.2008)
(2.1.2008)
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others. |
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{ January : enero (see also books on learning Spanish)) 2008 }
(1.29.2008)
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others |
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A peaceful story of the assimilation of Iranians and adopted Korean baby girls into the culture that previous generations (primarily from Europe) have created as 'American'.
(1.23.2008)
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others |
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(1.22.2008)
Effectively a pair of novellas by the Rob Grant and Doug Naylor (under the collective name Grant Naylor). The first is crude and covers material mostly not in the TV shows. The second is better, containing material more similar to the shows, as well as some clever and funny extensions. The toaster plays a larger part in the book (particularly compared with Holly, the computer, which is one improvement over the TV shows) and makes at least one perceptive comment:
| You can't operate without fear, anger, guilt, and vanity. They're all vital emotions that protect your personalities and keep you sane. [p.274] |
Documents Keats' life and how Keats 'rejects romantic pleasure for "posterity's award"' [p. 103].
The book is particularly rich in the "social and political contexts in which Keats came to maturity".
The main weakness of the book is an ambiguity of time and sometimes pronoun. This could have been helped by a timeline. Often, the ambiguity of time arises from the detail through Motion's book, such as when he includes three different dates in a paragraph, and then says something like "that November", which is now ambiguous. Sometimes it is because Motion is assuming the reader will read this book linearly. But a book with a very helpful 23 pages of tiny-font index is intended more as a text to be referenced.
In terms of emphasis in the index, John Keats occupies 8 columns (4 pages of double columns). Other main characters in his life and their significance as in the lines of the index include:
(1.19.2008)
(1.18.2008)
(1.16.2008)
(1.15.2008)
(1.12.2008)
(1.09.2008)
A thriller that meditates on loyalty, love, and the collapse of society:
| A lot of the time ever when I say anything about how the world is goin to hell in a handbasket people will just sort of smile and tell me I'm gettin old. That's one of the symptoms. But my feelin about that is that anybody that cant tell the difference between rapin and murderin people and chewin gum has got a whole lot bigger of a problem than what I've got. Forty years is not a long time neither. Maybe the next forty of it will bring some of em out from under the ether. If if aint too late. |
and
| I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics. Maybe he did. I told that to someone at breakfast the other mornin and they asked me if I believed in Satan. I said well that aint the point. And they said I know but do you? I had to think about that. I guess as a boy I did. Come the middle years my belief I reckon had waned somewhat. Now I'm startin to lean back the other way. He explains a lot of things that otherwise dont have no explanation. Or not to me they dont. |
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I always thought when I got older that God would sort of
come into my life in some way.
He didnt.
I don't blame him.
If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.
You dont know what he thinks. Yes I do. |
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And sometime the next night I come to an American position and that was pretty much it.
I thought after so many years it would go away.
I dont know why I thought that.
Then I thought that maybe I could make up for it and I reckon that's what I have tried to do.
... You end up layin a lot things at your own door that you didnt plan on. If I was supposed to die over there doin what I'd give my word to do then that's what I should of done. ... I didnt know you could steal your own life. And I didn't know that it would bring you no more benefit than about anything else you might steal. I think I done the best with it I know how but it still wasnt mine. It never has been. |
and
| You can say you like it or you dont like it but it dont change nothin. I've told my deputies more than once that you fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there aint nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem. It's just a aggravation. |
Humorous haiku are now called senryū, to distinguish these jokey little poems, often targeting their mirth on someone else, from the more austere and inward haiku. Some western groups differentiate them strongly, while others (in acknowledgment of their sometimes fuzzy boundary) do not; the premier USA journals Modern Haiku and The Heron's Nest do not currently differentiate.
The delightful introduction includes:
Senryū's
aphorism-like character, along with its 5-7-5 syllabic form, has become so ingrained
in the mass mind that Japanese police today often issue signs for traffic control
in this format to catch people's attention.
Street signs and posters may carry:
There are many similar signs about speeding, traffic lights, and so forth. A comedian then came up with a witty saying:
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The pictures throughout have the same ramshackled, rambunctious spirit of the
(1.4.2008)
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'Red Dwarf' -- the complete 18-DVD collection
by Grant Naylor and others |
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Watched three episodes of Series 1 of Red Dwarf by Grant Naylor:
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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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Copyright © 2008-2016 by J. Zimmerman. |