Category Archive: Books

Reviews and comments on books

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July 09, 2009

Generations

Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069

by Neil Howe and William Strauss

I previously posted a review of “The Fourth Turning” which describes Anglo-American history as cyclical with a repeating pattern of four kinds of generations. In their model, the Baby-Boomer generation is very similar to the Puritan generation born starting around 1584, the Awakening generation born starting around 1700, the Transcendentalist generation born starting around 1792, and what they call the “Missionary” generation born starting around 1860 - each being an example of what they call an “Idealist” generation. In each case the preceding (Adaptive) and following (Reactive) generations also have significant similarities, and so on.

The book “Generations” is actually the same authors’ previous work along similar lines, which they referred to liberally in ‘Turning, so I purchased the book back then and have just gotten around to reading it.

Both books acknowledge that the pattern has failed once - the Civil War cycle missed a beat, skipping one of the kinds of generations and going directly from what they call a “Reactive” generation to an “Adaptive”generation without the appearance of a “Civic” generation in between as has occurred in other cycles.

The book “Generations” however explores this flaw in more detail - explaining within the theory as to why it happened. Essentially, the Idealist generation of that cycle managed to gain power (win elections, etc.) earlier in life than the Idealists of other cycles, and in their idealism forced a civic crisis (the Civil War) sooner than it would have other wise (a periodic crisis like the civil war is a part of the cyclic model they propose, only it normally occurs when the Idealists are elders, not in midlife). The result is that the people who would have been nurtured to become the natural heroes of the crisis weren’t ready, and we went straight from the pre-crisis generation to the post-crisis one.

All this is interesting when they get around to suggesting what the future might look like if the pattern holds. According to Generations, we are due for the next Civic Crisis around 2020; but they note in the book (written in 1992) that it is possible the Boomer/Idealists might once again come to power early in which case we might hit the crisis (some combination of war and economic downturn) between 2001 and 2008. The authors express concern about this possibility since it would result in America being engaged in a conflict being led by people who view the issues moral terms, not practical ones (sound familiar?) If this does happen (which in hindsight, I think it did), then once again we may see the “Millennial” generation (those born 1980 and beyond) become more of what they call a “Reactive” generation as opposed to a “Civic” one, just as it happened in the Civil War cycle. I have been looking at the 20-somethings around me, and that too might fit.

Bottom line - an interesting read and I certainly recommend reading one or both of these books.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 02, 2009

The Trouble With Physics

The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

by Lee Smolin

Theoretical Physics is another of my “roads not taken”; but I try to stay as on top of things as I can given my amateur status (and greatly atrophied calculous skills). For the last couple of decades, I’ve not been sure if I was missing something or if there was something wrong in the field; but for all of the great ideas that seem to be floating around, I wasn’t able to see anything coming together the way advances did in previous generations.

Physicist and writer Lee Smolin, is definitely of the mind that there is something wrong with how Physics has been practices of late, and makes his case in this very compelling (and readable to a laymen) book.

He starts with quick summary of the big 5 questions in theoretical physics that were unanswered 30 years ago. He then takes most of the rest of the first half of the book to examine string theory - the approach to solving these problems which has been studied over those 30 years by the vast majority of working physicists as a possible solution to these questions. The bottom line is that string theory has failed, and part of Smolin’s point is that in the past, any theory which failed as badly as string theory has would have been discarded.

Smolin take his time in this part of the book to ensure that no one can claim he is unfair or incorrect in his statements. He very carefully gives credit for every small victory achieved by string theory (without going too far over a layman’s head), while clearly pointing out the limitations of those victories. As it stands now, with almost all of the physics community working on it for 30 years, string theory can not make a single falsifiable prediction, a single unique calculation, or even be proved to be consistent or produce finite results for real situations.

The next section of the book explores some alternatives to string theory which have been ignored by most of the physics community. Essentially, the point here is to make clear that string theory isn’t the old game in town - there are other approaches that people could be working on instead.

Finally, the last quarter of the book steps back and examines the worldwide community of physicists (and academia in general) from a sociological point of view to explain how it got into this state and how it can possible get out of it. This may in fact be the best part of the book - if Smolin gets ostracized by his fellow physicists (as may well be the reaction to this book), he may well have a second career as a philosopher and sociologist.

Of course, I’m really not the target audience for this book - the people who really need to read it are university administrators and foundation managers; but I certainly enjoyed it.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 25, 2009

Christian Reading List

I often get asked, out of the many book I have read, which ones I would most recommend to other Christians to read. Now obviously we are all in different places in our journey with God, and so what books would be helpful to one individual might be different from those which would be helpful to someone else. Still there are certain books that I tend to turn to time and time again, and I have finally gotten around to organizing a formal list of highly recommended books.

To make this list, I looked through my shelf, my blog entries, and a log I have been keeping since November of books I have read. I initially started with 25 books I would recommend, wanted to get it down to a “top ten”, and finally compromised at 15 books. Here’s what I came up with:

“Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God” by Gregory A. Boyd
A great book that really gets to the root of how Christianity represents a fundamentally different world view, and how so much of what is called “Christianity” isn’t. If you want to read about a church that really applies these ideas, I’d suggest “No Perfect People Allowed” by John Burk.

“Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller
Christianity is about relationship, not religion. This book really captures that idea.

“Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith” by Rob Bell
A great explanation of Christianity which uses new metaphors and also reconnects it with its Jewish root.

“The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God” by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
A great “big picture” view of Christianity in the context of Eternity. Another book in this vein is “Epic”, also by Eldredge, and the DVD of Eldredge “performing” Epic is fantstic.

“Messy Spirituality” by Mike Yaconelli
A reminder that God has never been looking for perfect people (they don’t exist); but rather likes to collect around Himself spiritual misfits and losers who are willing to Follow Him.

“Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians” by Don Willliams
A great answer to the question “OK, I’m saved. Now what?” This would likely be review to older Christians; but a very useful review.

“How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
By far the best single book I have found about how to study the Bible. Raises all of the kinds of questions which should be asked when looking at any portion of the Bible.

“Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God” by Dallas Willard
God’s intent is to communicate with every Christian as a normal part of their lives. This is the best book I have found on that subject.

“The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel Has Worn You Out” by Dan Stone, David Gregory, and Sally Rackets
We were never meant to live our lives as Christians in our own strength. God’s intent was that we would live victorious lives by the power of Jesus living in and through us. This book explores exactly what that means.

“This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God” by Rick McKinley
A great teaching on what it means to demonstrate God’s Kingdom to a hurting world

“The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible” by Scot McKnight
Another great book on how to study the Bible with a different style than Fee and Stuart’s book above.

“The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church” by Gregory A. Boyd
A must-read for any American Christian. All about how Christians should view the relationship of Church and State.

“Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality” by Donald Miller
A very honest and open memoir of one Christian coming to understand the faith. I recommend this book both in terms of what the author learns and in his willingness to talk about his life, faults and all. He’s a great example of what Christia transparency should be.

“Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens” by Neil Cole
A great book on some alternative ways to “do church”. I recommend this highly to anyone who thinks that your typical Sunday church service is the only way to do things. I would also recommend (with some reservations) “Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity” by Frank Viola.

“Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile” by Rob Bell and Don Golden
A great Christian perspective on activism - how we are to serve in the world’s redemption, not through secular means by by the Kingdom of God.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 13, 2009

Evolution, Past and Future

Read two books last week, both on the subject of evolution although with very different points of focus.

The first was Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution Is True” which is by far the best defense of the Theory of Evolution I have seen in print. It would have been perfect if Coyne had included a chapter that explains our latest understanding of how bodies are formed based on genetics (and therefore how only small mutations are needed to produce significantly different forms). The book did successfully address a couple of my concerns with the current formation of evolution. (As noted, perhaps too frequently, on this blog – I have no problems reconciling evolution with my faith; but as an amateur scientist I do have questions that I think have yet to be addressed by the current formations of evolution).

The one big concern I still have with evolution for which I found Coyne’s presentation still lacking is an explanation of speciation – how we end up with many different species as opposed to a single (although diverse) gene pool. Coyne presents the best understanding that exists today – that most animal speciation is a result of geographic separation (there is another mechanism which accounts for the existence of many plant species). This is because where there’s a population of creatures that are not physically separated; any mutation that would limit what other creature they could breed with would tend to be selected against. Furthermore, to find those species living in the same area, the geographic separation must have been overcome. If you consider the number of different animal species you tend to find living together, that’s a whole lot of separation and reuniting going on. This might well prove to be a reasonable explanation; but I’d like to see more thorough modeling of this – is the amount of dynamic isolation needed for this to work supported by the geological, fossil, and timeline evidence?

Then from the practical to the speculative.

The second book I read was Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”. The essential argument of this book is that the evolution of sentient intelligence naturally leads to biological evolution becoming surpassed by the evolution of non-biological life-forms – artificial intelligences and/or human intelligence transcribed into computer software. If evolution states that life-forms which are better adapted to produce fertile offspring will succeed over those less capable, then technological life will naturally succeed over biological life. A robot programmed with a human’s consciousness is “fitter” in the evolutionary sense.

What’s more, Kurzweil argues, this transition will be happening soon, perhaps in our lifetimes. He first makes the case that technology is accelerating at an exponential rate (Moore’s Law writ large). Based on that, laptop computers with more memory and processing power than a human brain are just around the corner. Likewise the ability to completely analyze and model a human brain is also on the way. Further, Kurzweil believe that true artificial intelligences are also close (although I personally found his arguments here weak), and once they exists they will tend to further accelerate the rate of technological innovation (you can have a computer rack full of artificially intelligent “scientists” working together on any problem for a fraction of the cost of a lab of real humans). The bottom line is that Kurzweil believes that artificial humans will exist by 2040, and by 2100 biological intelligences will be in the minority. And since the rate of change of technology is increasing exponentially, even if it is 10 times harder then he thinks, that only delays it by a decade or so.

I’ve read Kurzweil’s theories before (particularly in his “The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence”) which covers much of the same ground and I am of mixed feelings. On the one hand, while I can raise objections to some of his individual points, I can’t argue against the overall flow of his theory - it does seem inevitable (I am ignoring here the question of whether any part of consciousness is hosted in something other than matter). On the other hand, there’s a significant part of me that is frightened of such a future. I’ve actually done some fiction writing on my own to explore how I feel about this (nothing worthy of publishing, just a way to get my own thoughts in order), and should such a time come, I may in fact be one of the bio-luddites who objects to it.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 01, 2009

Mission accomplished

As long time readers of this blog (are there any other kind?) know, in the fall of 2007 I reached a crisis of shelf space. My “shelf of books purchased but unread” had overflowed the shelf, the bookcase, the bedside table and on to the floor around my bed. I had 167 books I owned that I had wanted to read; but had not gotten to yet (this despite reading over a hundred books every year).

So, over the next year I made a concerted effort (particularly in the form of limiting my purchases of new books) and managed to work the total down to 73 (with only 25 new books purchased) – good progress, but not finished. Actually, while it was easy to monitor my progress in the early stages in numerical terms (how did the pending list increase or decrease in a given week), my ultimate goal was geometric. I wanted all of my “pending” books to fit on a particular shelf in such a way that I could identify each of them at a glance (so no book could be obscured in a way that prevented my being able to tell what it was).

Well, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, I reached that goal last night. The count turns out to be 29, although that will obvious vary as the thickness of the books I purchase vary. The main import of this accomplishment is that my “rules of engagement” at Amazon are relaxed. I can now buy whatever books for Kindle I want, as long as I have budget; and I buy whatever paper books I want as long as I have budget AND there is room on the shelf for them (so I need to read a couple more before doing my next order). Feel good to have that back under control.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 20, 2009

Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God

Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God

by Gregory A. Boyd

Wow.

And again I say: Wow.

The last couple of years, God has been working to improve my understanding of Sin – not the specific actions which we should and should not do; but the principle that is at the core of our broken relationship with God. Last December, I did a couple of posts on the subject but as I noted then: while I had an intuitive understanding of what God was showing me, I wasn’t yet able to articulate it.

Greg Boyd has no such difficultly.

This book is essentially what I had been thinking for the last year and couldn’t find the right words to express. Boyd in turn acknowledges that he is building on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a German Theologian who was killed by the Nazis for his religious opposition to the state (probably the most famous 20th Century martyr) and his analysis of the metaphor of the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” whose fruit Adam and Eve ate, precipitating the fall of humanity.

While no summary can do justice to Greg Boyd’s analysis, the high points are:
- God made humanity to join in the loving union of the Trinity
- The right to judge each other was reserved for God because without complete understanding of a person’s situation (God’s omniscience), it is impossible to understand why people do the things they do
- Humanity’s job was then to love God unconditionally and sacrificially and love each other unconditionally and sacrificially. This was to be done without judgment, considering everyone to have equal and unsurpassable intrinsic value.
- The fall came about when humanity usurped God’s prerogative of judgment (eating of
“The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”). As we began to judge each other, we could no longer love each other unconditionally and sacrificially and our ability to participate in the loving union of the Trinity was broken.
- All sin then comes from our drive to assign and establish value for ourselves, others and God instead of trusting God’s judgments.
- Christianity then is a means to be set free from this judgmental worldview and from the sins which result from it.
- The Church then is meant to be a place of unconditional love and acceptance and not a place of judgment.

Greg Boyd takes these points (and other related ones) and examines them in great detail and with thoroughness. There were many points while reading that I found myself thinking “But what about…”; but every one of these questions was address by the end of the book, and with one exception I was completely satisfied with his answers (one I need to think about more). He spends time talking about specific verses that seem to contradict this view, including 1 Corinthians 5, which I have struggled with understanding.

I also found myself near tears at points reading the book, seeing how badly The Church has failed. While there is nothing in this book that I didn’t already believe, seeing it there in clear, unambiguous prose was depressing and drove me to repentance of my own judgmental nature.

This is now officially on my list of books that I think EVERY Christian should read.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

April 17, 2009

McLuhan and Church

This past week I read "Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith" by Shane Hipps this week. The book is essentially an application of Marshall McLuhan's ideas from "Understanding Media" and "Laws of Media" to Christianity, asking questions like: If "the medium is the message", can we use new media to communicate the gospel without changing the message?"

Overall I found the book interesting; but unfulfilling. The author brings up a lot of interesting ideas; but never explores them very deeply and I found myself wanting more. For instance he raises the theory that Christianity's focus on doctrinal correctness over the last few centuries can be attributed to the dominance of printed material as the primary media of the culture – that something like Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion." (a groundbreaking treatise on Christian Doctrine from the 16th century) would never exist in a culture that primarily used oral or handwritten media; but books lead people into rational, linear thinking which leads to an intellectual understanding of the faith. A good point; but there is so much more than could be explored here.

The best part of the book for me was when he raised this rather intriguing question: The "medium" through which God has chosen to communicate His message today is The Church – a community of imperfect people. If "the medium is the message", what message is God communicating by His decision to use our flawed lives as a community to communicate? A great question, but once again one the author only provides a cursory response. I however am going to be thinking about that a lot (expect to see a future blog post grown from that seed).

Another application of McLuhan's theories to Christianity that wasn't in the book but I thought of is related to the whole "Institutional Church" vs. "Home Church" question. Essentially you can view the structure of church meetings as medium and ask: regardless of what is actually said, what does your typical church service communicate by its structure? What about a house church meeting? I was in a conversation last night that at one point turned to the problem of pastors getting "put up on a pedestal" causing problems when they fail in some way, and the struggle of more humble pastors to stay off the pedestal.

Now here's my observation: your typical church service has a small group of people (including the pastor) up on a stage with everyone else in the audience. A large part of the meeting is taken up with the pastor speaking from that stage, explaining things related to the faith to the passive audience who quietly listen. So, if "the medium is the message" – what does that structure communicate? I think it naturally communicates that the person on the stage is more knowledgeable and in some way superior to those below them in the audience. Pastors have to struggle against being put on a pedestal because the structure of the church meetings conspires to put them there.

I will however note that to follow McLuhan's theories, one should not talk about a medium (church meeting style) being good or bad. There was a tendency in the 70's to misquote McLuhan and use his words to show how "bad" TV was; but that misses his point. Yes, TV is different from Print and the effect it has on society is different; but Print was different from Manuscripts and Manuscripts from Oral tradition. At each stage there is always something that is lost and it is easy to look at that loss as "bad"; but there is also always something gained in the transition. McLuhan encouraged people to understand these changes and to work with them.

So, here's what I am going to be thinking about: If the "medium" of the church meetings has changed over the centuries from "First Century Church" to "Liturgical Church" to what is now considered the "Traditional Protestant Church" to whatever comes next (perhaps House Churches), then what are the answers to McLuhan's four questions:

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) enhance?

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) cause us to lose?

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) bring back that was lost earlier?

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) do that's bad when it is pushed to extremes?

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

March 18, 2009

The Sandman

The Sandman, Volumes 1-10

by Neil Gaiman

Whenever people talk about great graphic novels, the three works they tend to point to as archetypical examples are Moore’s “Watchmen”, Spiegelman’s “Maus” and Gaiman’s “Sandman”. Last week I (finally) finished reading all 10 volumes (over 2000 pages) of Sandman and can report that the praise is well disserved.

Sandman can best be described as a literary graphic novel, and one which probably takes advantage of the medium even more than Watchman (and is therefore even less “filmable”). Gaiman is extremely well read over diverse areas of interest, particularly world mythology; and that feed well into Sandman which is a kind of meta-mythology which incorporates characters from Christian, African, Greek, Roman, Indian, Persian, Russian, and Norse mythology, and does so with fidelity to the original material (he received praise from Norwegians for his depiction of Odin and Thor who match they way they are described in legend as opposed to the more American way they are typically shown).

While "Watchman" is clearly a single story told in a consistent style, "Sandman" is a collection of stories told in a variety of literary and visual styles (from dark horror to light fantasy to historical drama to a modern road trip) and deals with a variety of themes. Yet there is, threading its way through all of the stories, a single larger arc – a bigger story of which all of the smaller stories are a part. The degree to which Gaiman has managed to accomplish this only become apparent when you get to volumes 8 and 9 when all of the separate threads come together and you can see where it is headed. I feel sorry for people who had to read this as a serialized story over 6+ years, who are likely to have forgotten some of the earlier details that make up the bigger picture. Just as there are some TV series that are better watched on DVD, this is a comic title that is best read in its collected form.

I have repeated the observation before that "Fiction is stories where the characters are unaffected by what occurs, while Literature are stories where the characters are changed by events". I'll not argue whether that is in fact true; but simply say that by that definition, Sandman is very much literature. The big overall story is explicitly about how the character Dream (a.k.a. Morpheus, King of Dreams, King of Stories, Lord Shaper, etc.) is affected by the events of the first issue, and eventually becomes someone quite different. In the process of exploring Dream's transformation, the collection explores a variety of themes – identity, meaning, change, destiny, death, desire, destruction, despair, and delirium (the latter 6 being the names of Dream's siblings but are also topics heavily discussed in the series). There were many times I paused in my reading to consider some of the profound observations made in the series.

An impressive work, and one I would recommend even more highly than Watchman.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 16, 2009

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

by Rob Bell

Another “been waiting until I had a Kindle to buy it” book that has proven to be worth the wait.

Rob Bell is pastor of the Mars Hill church in Michigan, and is in my opinion one of the best poets in Christianity today – not that he writes poetry (that I know of); but he has a poet’s eye and heart for metaphor and uses that skill in his prose to explain Christianity in new terms that are both fresh and accurate. Where Christianity too often gets bogged down in traditional language which has lost its meaning because it has in fact acquired so many diverse meanings over the years, Bell comes up with new ways to explain the faith that are clear and compelling.

Bell also brings Christianity back to its roots - discussing how the Jews viewed scripture as an inspiration for how we Christians should view the Bible; or a long explanation of how rabbi’s operated in Roman occupied Palestine and how that illuminates certain aspects of Jesus’ ministry. I have often said that the starting point for understanding the Bible must be to understand what it would have meant to the original hearers/readers in their culture and language. Bell consistently follows that dictum while providing modern language to describe the same ideas for contemporary readers.

I have previously read his collaboration with Don Golden “Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile” which explores how the church in America has gone off track; and I certainly plan to look into his other works..

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

March 04, 2009

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God

by Dallas Willard

As noted in my previous post, I have been holding off purchasing any books that were available for the Amazon Kindle for over a year now, so the initial books I purchased were ones I have been very anxious to get to read. The first one certainly did not disappoint.

This book is the latest addition to my list of books that I think EVERY Christian should read.

I have written before on this blog that I believe a normal part of Christian life is God communicating personally and individually with each Christian on a fairly regular basis. When I speak of Christianity as being a “relationship with God”, I mean a real two-way relationship where both parties are active and involved.

Dallas Willard’s book “Hearing God” is a fairly comprehensive examination of this truth.

He first justifies the claim that this should be an expected part of every Christian’s normal life – that we are all meant to each be receiving communication from God and recognizing it for what it is. He then goes on to explain the role of this communication in the context of the larger purposes of God. And finally, he talks about how to learn to recognize how God communicates with you and how to avoid being misled in the process.

Not only do I agree with his analysis; but I also find myself agreeing with many of his side comments about the faith and the misunderstandings that some Christians have been led into. I am definitely going to look for other books by Dallas Willard to pick up in the future. And will be purchasing a paper copy of this book so I can lend it to people.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 02, 2009

The Kindle 2

For those who do not know, the Kindle (now the Kindle 2) is Amazon’s eBook reader – a device that allows you to download files that contain the text and images from a book and read them on a screen that mimics the behavior of paper (unlike computer or cell phone screens, it doesn’t “glow”; but rather reflects light in shades of gray like a printed page – making it much easier on the eyes).

Various eBook readers have been around for years (including some nice models made by Sony); but they have always lacked one important feature – books. Their advertisements might talk about having “over a million books” available; but the catch is that 99% of those books are public domain works. Now I like to read the occasional classic; but most of the books I am interested in have been published more recently and still have active copyrights. When you look at the books available for most of the eBook readers out there, recent books are significantly underrepresented. The fact is that while Sony might have relationships with companies that produce music and movies, they clearly lack relationships with the print industry (and other eBook developers fair even worse).

That all changed when Amazon decided to get into the market. Clearly Amazon had relationships with almost every book publisher and distributor out there, including fairly small printing houses; and they have managed at last count to get the rights to sell nearly a quarter of a million recent books (you can also download and read those million+ public domain books to a kindle; but Amazon doesn’t bother counting those). I was already using my “wish list” at Amazon to track the books I was interested in, and currently almost 40% of the books I plan to buy are available on the Kindle (compared to 2% at the Sony store that has been around much longer).

So, when Amazon announced the Kindle in November 2007, I was instantly interested. Unfortunately, as readers of the blog know, that was also about the time I had made the decision that my collection of paper books I had purchased but not yet read was out of control and that I needed to spend at least a year focused on clearing out that backlog. Clearly buying a Kindle would be counterproductive to my reading my existing collection of paper books. So I made a deal with myself – I set specific goals for the size of my to-be-read collection and I would allow myself to buy a Kindle as soon as those goals were reached. What’s more (in a move that helped me keep my new book buying in check) I also committed myself to not buy any new books over the year that were available on Kindle. When I did reach my book-backlog goals this past December, rumors of a new model of Kindle were already floating around the industry and I decided to wait to see how they panned out (and to keep working on my existing books until then).

Thus I ended up buying the new Kindle 2 the day it was announced and it arrived last Thursday. I have now finished reading my first book on it (more on that in my next post). The verdict on the Kindle 2– Thumbs very much up!

The bottom line on any eBook reader (beyond the availability of books) is the quality of the screen. I am quite satisfied with the Kindle 2’s. It is very much like reading something that was printed on a very light grey paper. The contrast is good and the fonts are clear. What’s more, you can adjust the font size as you read. Normally, I use the smallest size, which puts about as much text on the screen as a normal 4x6.75 paperback page; but a couple of times when the lighting was poor or my eyes were tired, I switched to a larger font. I hadn’t considered that advantage when I bought the device; but it really gives an advantage over printed books. The pictures in the books are also quite clear since the technology Amazon used does 16 shades of grey per pixel (color e-Ink is still a few years off).

A few other key features of the Kindle – it includes a wireless connection using 3G cell phone technology, so you can access the Amazon store from anyplace you could make a cell phone call. What’s more, you can Email eBooks and documents to the device (so if I wanted a public domain book, all I need to do is find it online and Email it to my Kindle). The Kindle also includes a primitive web browser – not something I would want to use for my everyday surfing; but useful when I want to look something up because of something I read in the book. The Kindle also allows you to set up bookmarks and write notes on passages in the books, and those annotations are backed up to Amazon’s servers, so if your Kindle ever breaks down or is lost, you can recover all of that data from them on a new device.

Is the Kindle2 perfect? No. The user interface would be much nicer with a touch screen (you use a small joystick to navigate menus and to select parts of the text). The biggest weakness is that while it comes with enough storage to hold “1500 books” in the device, the tools they provide to organize the content on your Kindle2 are almost non-existent. You can simply list (at 10 books per page) all of your books sorted by Title, Author, or how recently you access it – the latter being useful to find the few books you most recently looked at. No “folders” or other organization tools. So with 1500 books, you might have to run though 150 pages to find some book in your collection. This has to be fixed.

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February 02, 2009

Location or Trajectory

I’ve written about this before; but God has been working in my life to transform these beliefs into practice so I thought it was time to revisit them in the blog. The point is that many Christians (including myself in years past) define what it means to be a “good Christian” as a bounded set – A good Christian is someone who believes certain things, does certain things, avoids certain things. There is a well defined boundary, and you are either on one side of the line or the other.

The problem with that is that Jesus never seems to operate that way. He was far more pleased with thoroughly messed up people who were at least trying to get closer to God than with people who may have technically been closer to what God wanted but had become satisfied with their level of closeness. His idea of a “good Christian” seems more to be a “centered set” focused on God where what mattered was not where you were but what direction you were moving.

While I have believed this was true for a while, there is often a distance between what we believe and how we react, and God has been working in my life to make this not just a belief but a part of my character.

This all was brought to home recently as I read some of Anne Lamott’s books (“Traveling Merices”, “Plan B”, etc). Anne is a successful Christian author from the San Francisco Bay area (she grew up and lives across the Golden Gate Bridge from the city). Her books are quite popular these days with the new generation of Christians (even though she is actually of the same generation as my wife (also Anne) and I).

And here’s the thing – 20 years ago I would probably have not considered her a Christian at all, and certainly not a “good” one. In her books she refers to God as “He or She” (or sometimes even just “She”), She practices Buddhist meditation, and does other assorted things that I would have said “Christians, at least good ones, don’t do”.

But not now. Now, I can now read her books and see myself in them – a struggling, humble Christian seeking to get closer to God. I can look past the doctrinal issues and can see in her words someone who has experienced God’s hand in her life just the way I experience it in mine – gentle, firm pressure to “get past myself” and focused on God and others. The occasional nudge here, a word there, an experience that highlights the need for Him. The kinds of things Anne talks about are so familiar from my own life that I have no doubt that God is working in her just as He is working in me. So if God is willing to invest in her life, who am I to judge her otherwise?

Now Anne started her journey towards God from a very different place than I did (a place which she documents in frightening detail in “Traveling Mercies”); and being a different person from me, she has resisted God in her journey in different ways that I have, but we have both struggled with things God has demanded of us. As a result, we are today in two very different places relative to where God wants us to be. There are perhaps things I have “gotten right” which is still ahead of her on her path; but there are also things which God has managed to teach her which I am still working through. What matters though is that we are both struggling to allow God to bring us closer to Him.

That’s not to say the things she has wrong don’t matter – I believe they do, just as the things I still have wrong matter. What I am however learning is to give room for God to work in other people’s lives according to His plan, not mine. It is not for me to decide what issues any other Christian needs to focus on now. It isn’t even for me to decide what issues I should be working on in my own life (to claim otherwise is to usurp God’s lordship in my life). We all stand before God and submit to His will for us, and are judged by Him (and not each other) based on how well we follow the path that God has set before us, not how well we follow someone else’s path.

I suspect, living in San Francisco, it is going to be very important to not just believe this is true; but for it to be second nature to me to act based on it being true, so God is driving the point home in my life. Thank you Anne Lamott.

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January 26, 2009

Reconsidering McLaren

Brian D. McLaren is one of the most influential (and in many circles, the most polarizing) Christian authors around these days. He is one of the original leaders of the “emergent church” movement and his statements are why other people have distanced themselves from that cause (or at least that name). Everyone seemed to have an opinion on him, and those opinions vary greatly.

With that as background, last year I decided to make up my own mind, and so read McLaren’s trilogy of novels “A New Kind of Christian”, “The Story We Find Ourselves In”, and “The Last Word and the Word after That”. These “novels” are essentially a collection of dialogs between fictional characters about the real meaning of Christianity with just enough plot thrown in to keep it interesting. The main character is a pastor who is going through a bit of a crisis who meets a High School teacher with some very different views on the faith.

Having read the books, I could see what all of the fuss was about. The books raise questions about almost every aspect of Christianity. While McLaren was clearly trying to present a kind of post-modern deconstruction of the faith, there is a line between “deconstruction” and “destruction” and it was not always obvious to me which side McLaren was walking on. While some of the questions he raised struck me as appropriate and necessary (I’m revisiting a couple of ideas in my own theology after reading the books); as a total package I came away thinking that McLaren went too far and that people could be left adrift after having their firm anchors cut by his “deconstruction”.

Yet, I kept running into people I respect who said good things about McLaren. People who would not agree that some of the things I saw questioned in his novels were up for debate.

So I decided to give McLaren another shot, and read this past weekend his “A Generous Orthodoxy”, which gives a fairly clear outline of what he actually believes (as opposed to what he questions). Based on that book, I can at least see why people like him; and in fact there are only a few things he says that I disagree with. Most of the book is an analysis of various Christian traditions (the subtitle of the book is “Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished”). For each tradition, he comments on the good things he has learned from each while making brief acknowledgement of their failings. The net effect is a kind of piecemeal Christianity made up of the best aspects of all traditions.

And for all except a couple of chapters, the resulting picture is not unlike what I believe. Even when I disagree, I acknowledge that it might just be that I disagree with the way he describes what he believes, and not actually with what he believes (or perhaps not). The only place that seriously concerned me was the couple of pages he spent explaining why he will not explain what he believes in one point of doctrine. I came away from that section thinking “he doth protest too much”.

So, what’s my view of McLaren now? I would still not recommend to novels to anyone; but I certainly would recommend “A Generous Orthodoxy” to any mature Christian, and I will likely read more of his non-fiction books myself.

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December 10, 2008

Jesus and us losers

This post is in large part a reaction to reading Yaconelli’s “Messy Spirituality” – a short, must-read book which managed to get me crying on several occasions. But rather than do a book review, I thought I’d do my own short exploration of the same theme.

Christianity has in too many ways embraced the drive for excellence from the surrounding culture. Church has become a place where seemingly perfect people come into seemingly perfect buildings and hear seemingly perfect musical performances and seemingly perfect lectures on seemingly perfect doctrine. God is perfect and holy, and so we should all be perfect and holy when we come unto His presence. Those who aren’t perfect (or at least can’t fake it well enough) should wait outside until they get their act together.

I remember being admonished at one church to think about how I would dress and behave if I was ushered into the presence of President of the United States or the Queen of England, and that I should look at coming to church like that because I was coming into God’s presence. In theory it sounds rational.

The good news is that Christianity, at least Real Christianity, is messy. We should know that from looking as Jesus’ life. He was a devout Jew who hung out with Roman collaborators, prostitutes and notorious sinners. When it came to picking the “inner circle” of those who followed him he picked salty fishermen, terrorists, and shady businessmen – most of whom never really understood what Jesus was saying until after He died. What a bunch of losers – but that’s who Jesus liked to surround Himself with.

The people who “had their act together” never cared much for the Jesus, and Jesus only paid attention to them when they got in between God and the messed up people God loved.

It was the messed up people who understood their need, and in that understanding were interested what Jesus was saying about getting closer to God. Their trajectories then became towards God. Some had quite a distance to go; but that never seemed to bother Jesus as long as they were headed in the right direction. Those who “had their act together” were quite content to orbit God, going in circles – perhaps close circles - but never ever getting any closer to Him.

That is much of what is wrong with the church these days. It has become a place for people to pretend to be good, while it should be a place for messed up people to draw closer to God and to each other. That’s why I liked Yaconelli’s book – it is largely a collection of stories about losers who understood that what matters is showing God’s love to the world in whatever imperfect way they can manage. Like I said, I cried though parts of it.

I read another “messy” book recently, Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess”. In it he talked about how Christianity in its quest for “right doctrine” has dissected our faith, putting all of the pieces in nicely labeled jars of formaldehyde. The only problem is that dissected bodies are dead. Real living bodies are messy and move around too much to understand in that way. He argues in part that we need to learn to be a little less concerned about getting all our doctrines right and more about bringing people into relationship with God. The result is a rather “messy” form of Christianity; but it is one that is alive.

Let’s hear it for God’s losers!
Let’s get messy for Jesus!

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December 05, 2008

Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians

Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians

by Don Willliams

This book is essentially an attempt at a summary answer to the question “So I’m ‘saved’, now what?” This is actually a question that most churches answer very poorly – usually all a new Christian gets is a quick answer like “Be good, go to church, read your Bible, pray, tell others” and then is left to figure out the details on their own. And as an answer to that question, the book is actually quite good. If I was a pastor I might keep a stack of these in stock to give out (although I would also hope I would do a good job of mentoring people without the book).

The author is also a long time associate of the Vineyard movement, and the book is heavily influenced by that point of view. So while I am almost 40 years past the “So I’m saved, now what?” stage, I enjoyed large portions of the book as a quick summary of what I have learn in the last 10 years as part of Vineyard churches (which is a lot). This may prove useful since on face value it seems unlikely I will continue to be involved with the Vineyard movement much longer (there are no Vineyard churches in San Francisco, and I believe God wanted Anne and I up here to be involved in the city).

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November 26, 2008

A Year of Book Posts

A Year of Book Posts

As noted Monday, this week marks the 52ns and final weekly book post on this blog. It was an interesting experiment (and certainly one I benefited by); but as there seems little interest in it from my meager readership, I will pass on it for the future.

A quick summary of the year:

I started with 167 books waiting for me on my “to be read” shelves. Actually the situation could better be described as their “overflowing from my too be read shelves”, hence my intent to discipline myself on purchasing new books this year and see how far I could drive that number down.

Over the last year I have:
- read 110 books
- punted 11 books
- purchased 25 books
- borrowed 2 books

Leaving me with a count of 73 remaining (and yes, in the last few weeks I did consider making a final push to get that down to 67 so I would have reduced my initial number by an even hundred; but there were too many other things I also wanted to do).

So, what now?

First, as stated, I will discontinue the weekly posts. I will still post reviews of particularly significant books; but no longer list all of the books I have read. However, since I have found the collection of posts quite useful for me at times (being able to go back and figure out what book it was that had something I was remembering), I will maintain on my computer my own little diary of books read, including the running count of my backlog.

I had considered replacing the weekly book posts with a shortened diary post, simply listing books read, TV watched, movies seen, games played, etc.; and may in fact implement that at some point; but my current plan is to not do so immediately.

As to my smaller but still not small backlog of books, my goal remains to get it down to a single row of books on a single shelf (roughly 20-25 books). On the other hand, there are clearly books available now that I am far more interested in reading than the ones I currently have pending. My solution then is that until that goal is reached I will limit myself to purchasing in any month a number of books equal to half the number I read in the previous month. Thus on aggregate, half of the books I will be reading will be newly purchased and half will be from my backlog. At that rate, I should reach my goal sometime late next year.

I had also intended at this point to purchase an Amazon Kindle E-book reader for myself. I still want to buy a kindle; but plan to wait until after the new year to do so.

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November 24, 2008

Books 2008/11/24

Current count of books pending to be read: 73
Read two, purchased two

This is then the 52nd (and therefore final) weekly book post. I’ll give a brief recap Wednesday.

Books finished this week:

Cat and Dog Theology: Rethinking Our Relationship With Our Master

by Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison

Short version – excellent book to remind Christians who is the servant and who is the Master.

Long version – see my previous review.

The Jesus I Never Knew

by Philip Yancey

Another book I had picked up, set aside, and now wish I had read it earlier.

The author sets about to cut through the “tame” Jesus that most Christians believe in – one that is a mix of cultural filters and hindsight – to examine Jesus as he is actually described in the gospels and how He would have been perceived at the time. In the process Yancey describes his own struggles with things like the Sermon on the Mount and the Ascension. The version of Jesus described here is much more like the one I have come to know than the one I see discussed from most pulpits.

Computer Games Played: Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria expansion
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: TBD

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November 21, 2008

Cat and Dog Theology

Cat and Dog Theology: Rethinking Our Relationship With Our Master

by Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison

Anne as I saw the author of this book speak a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it enough that I bought one of his books. This is an “Every Christain should read it” book.

To quote from the book:

There’s a joke about cats and dogs that conveys their differences perfectly-

A dog says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, you must be god!”

A cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be god!”

The books is about how some Christians are like Cats – they act as if Christianity is about them and what God can do for them, while what God is looking for are Christians who are more like dogs who realize that Christianity is about God and how glorious He is. God is not our servant who exists to meet our needs. We are His servants who exist to bring glory to Him. Sometimes God is glorified by blessing people and sometimes God is glorified by people suffering and dying as martyrs and frequently God is glorified by situations in between the two extremes. What matters though is if God is glorified, not how comfortable we are.

This is a lesson I learned a while back – I exist to serve God in whatever way brings Him glory. This book however is one of the best presentations of the idea I have seen.

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November 17, 2008

Books 2008/11/17

Current count of books pending to be read: 73
Read two, purchased none

Books finished this week:

The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God

by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge

I have written before about John Eldredge’s book “Epic” (and the excellent video that was made of him “performing” it). Epic provides an excellent study in the “greater story” we are all a part of in this world. “The Sacred Romance” is essentially a longer and more complete version of the same idea with more attention paid to why we often lose sight of God’s perspective on things.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English

by John McWhorter

John McWhorter is one of the linguistic writers that I consistently enjoy reading. He is both an entertaining writer (I started to annoy Anne with the number of times I started laughing while reading this book); and he has an interesting perspective on the English Language. He is also one of the linguists who believe a language is what is spoken and understood, not what the rules say it should be.

This book in specific is an examination of three key historical influences that made English Grammar (not vocabulary) what it is today. In the process of making his case for the grammatical influences of the Welsh, the Vikings, and (he believes) the Phoenicians on English, he also managed to grind a few axes he has with fellow linguists and their unwillingness to ask the question “Why?” Another great book.

Computer Games Played: Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: TBD

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November 10, 2008

Books 2008/11/10

Current count of books pending to be read: 75
Read two, purchased one

Books finished this week:

Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces

by Frank Wilczek

An interesting physics book by a Nobel Prize winner. The book is yet another survey of the current state of theoretical physics (I have read many of these); but takes a sufficiently different approach that it stays interesting and educational. The essential question of the book is – what is the origin of the property of matter known as “mass”? (Hence the pun of the book’s title.) While most physics books assume matter has mass (simply defining it as an essential property), this book asks the question “why?” and uses the examination of why matter behaves in the ways we associate with having mass to explore the current state of physics and to propose the author’s own approach to creating a grand unified theory. I very much appreciated the different perspective presented by the book, and it did allow me to see “the same old equations” in a new light.

The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All

edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson

I’ve read several books from the “Popular Culture and Philosophy” series, and have almost universally enjoyed then. While they tend to be far more focused on philosophy and less on the popular culture (some of the essays barely use the popular culture material as an excuse to present philosophical ideas), they do to tend to be educational, and occasionally have been my first exposure to some of the minor historical philosophers. This book is no exception. Some of the essays are deep examinations of the philosophical questions raised by Tolkien’s works, while others use minor points in the stories as launching pads for philosophical digression. Either way, the points made are interesting and enjoyable.

Computer Games Played: Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: TBD

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November 03, 2008

Books 2008/11/03

Current count of books pending to be read: 76
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

by Francis S. Collins

Excellent book.

Francis Collins is a geneticist who invented the “positional cloning” technique for finding genes which allowed his team to discover the genes responsible for several diseases. These discoveries led him to be appointed director of the Human Genome Project from 1993 until this year (taking over from James Watson who started it in 1990).

Francis Collins is also a Christian.

This book is essentially his answer to the question “How can someone as smart as you believe in God?” It explains how he came to his faith and how he reconciles it and his equal belief in science (including evolution). It is well written, and his arguments are clearly presented. I strongly recommend this book.

Computer Games Played: Spore, Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: The Lightness of Being

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October 27, 2008

Books 2008/10/27

Current count of books pending to be read: 77
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Company

by Max Barry

Ahhh. No one does corporate satire like Max Barry. Think what the Dilbert comic strip would be like if done as a novel by Douglas (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Adams. That’s what Max Barry’s novel’s are like. I particularly enjoyed his “Jennifer Government”, set in a dystopian future where companies can get away with just about anything to increase sales. “Company” is in some respects a scarier stories since it is set in a plausible present day. I won’t spoil the details here.

Computer Games Played: Civ 4: Colonization
DVDs Watched: Iron Man (film and extras)

Next Book: TBD

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October 20, 2008

Books 2008/10/20

Current count of books pending to be read: 78
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary

by Lee Strobel

I generally have liked Lee Strobel’s books in the past; but I find myself with somewhat mixed feelings on this one. His analysis of why so many people who are not in a relationship with Jesus stay away from churches is quite good; but his solutions, seeker-friendly churches like his home (mega) church Willow Creek Community Church, seem too focused on one narrow approach. Or perhaps I am just no longer certain that getting people to go to institutional churches at all a worthy goal in unto itself. Stobel seems to take the position that the key to getting people “saved” is to get them into church, while I believe in a more missional approach where the church goes out and meets people where they are.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Company

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October 13, 2008

Books 2008/10/12

Current count of books pending to be read: 79
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World

by John Howard Yoder

Very interesting book. I’m going to have to look into some of Yoder’s other works.

The book is a short examination of 5 practices of the church (confession, baptism, communion, roles, and meetings) and proposes what they would have meant to the first century church; which, as one might expect, is quite different from what they mean to the modern institutional churches. As an example, Yoder believe that what we now think of as “Communion” (“the Lord’s Supper”, “the Eucharist”) was originally a full shared meal, and that the idea that believers ate together regularly was as important as remembering Jesus’ sacrifice. He reasoning is that the common meal was a means to establish the egalitarian nature of the church – everyone ate together: slave and free, rich and poor, Jew and gentile; and that we have lost that meaning by consuming thimblefuls of grape juice and tiny crackers. Yoder does a similar analysis of the other topics, and has certainly challenged my thinking in certain areas.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Inside of the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary

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October 06, 2008

Books 2008/10/06

Current count of books pending to be read: 80
Read two, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Anathem

by Neal Stephenson

Not Stephenson’s best book; but given the quality of his last six, that still leaves it better than most fiction I have read. The story and world in which it is set are quite interesting, and as with all of Stephenson’s works there are some interesting ideas to ponder. I’m just not sure it needed to be 900 pages this time.

As with all of his books, Anathem is full of little digressions that account for its size. However, while I found the digressions in his previous books to be as compelling as the main story (which is quite an accomplishment for Stephenson since on face value many are on what seem to be boring subjects), in Anathem the excursions rarely grabbed me. Perhaps the world is just too different from ours to lead me to care about those details, while previous books are clearly meant to be some version of our earth, so the digressions seemed more relevant.

When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better And/Or Worse

by Ben Yagoda

A series of entertaining essays on the parts of speech, talking about their history, use and miss-use.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: TBD

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September 15, 2008

Books 2008/09/15

Current count of books pending to be read: 82
Read one, purchased one, punted nine

Well, my books (read and to be read) are all packed up for the move in a week. In the process, I did however cull out those books I didn’t expect to get around to reading (those for which I expect I’ll always have other books I’d rather read more).

Books finished this week:

So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State

by Forrest Church

An excellent history book covering the relationship between church and state during the terms of the first five Presidents of the United States (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe). A great example of the adage “the more things change, the more they remain the same”. I want to write a whole essay on this after the move, so I’ll hold off saying more.


Computer Games Played: Spore!!!!
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Anathem by Neal Stephenson!!!!

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September 05, 2008

A Year in Books

The following picture shows all of the books I read in the past 12 months - starting 3 months before I began logging all of my reading to this blog, so you may not recognize some of the titles from my posts. Actually I read 8 more than can be seen here; but 6 are already on loan to other people and 2 were returned to their owners who had lent them to me.

The three stacks represent the three dispositions of the books. The books in the left stack are those that will be staying on my shelf at home, ready to lend (as some already have been) or for me to refer to. Those in the middle stack will be headed to storage to read again later (or to be punted when I have a bit more distance from them - only about half the books I send to storage stay there past the next culling). Those in the right stack will be donated to the library.

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August 25, 2008

Books 2008/08/25

Current count of books pending to be read: 91
Read three, purchased one

Books finished this week:

Post-Charismatic?

by Rob McAlpine

The Pentecostal/Charismatic branch of Christianity has over the years (particularly recent years) has fallen into certain excesses in their pursuit of God. There was the superiority complex of the “Latter Rain” movement, the domineering attitudes of the “Shepherding” movement, the outright greed (and no little sense of superiority) of the “Word of Faith” movement, and the weirdness of things like the “Toronto Blessing”. If you don’t recognize these terms, be happy. These excesses have driven many from the churches that have embraced them. This books is two-thirds historical study of where the church has gone wrong and one third a contemplation of what do to as a result. It is well written and certainly recommended to anyone who has been turned off from the Charismatic movement (or Christianity itself) by these teachings.

I’ll also note that the author has not been able to find a US distributer for this book, and so it is only available in North America through Amazon Canada.

Johnny Depp: A Kind of Illusion

by Denis Meikle

While I have a great respect for the acting profession (another of my own roads not taken), I rarely read actor biographies, contenting myself instead with watching “Inside the Actor’s Studio”. Johnny Depp is however someone with whom I was willing to make an exception – his choices of roles he has taken as well as his choices in how he performs those roles has always fascinated me; and this book did manage to fill in a few of the details I was missing.

Psychoshop

by Alfred Bester and Roger Zelazny

Alfred Bester was one of the most innovative Science Fiction authors of his generation, with a very distinctive style of writing. When he died in 1987, he left behind an incomplete manuscript for a final novel. Roger Zelazny was one of the most innovative Science Fiction authors of the next generation, who also had a distinctive (and occasionally parodied) style, and was offered (and accepted) the opportunity to finish Bester’s final novel. Psychoshop is the result of this posthumous collaboration. An interesting story about a pawn shop that deals in human (and otherworldly) attributes. You can sell your ability to play the violin and purchase some else’s discarded precognition. Of course the story is about more than that; but saying more would spoil things.

An interesting book, and generally fairly seamless between the two authors (despite their individual styles). The descriptions of the two fights are clearly Zelazny’s hand (he was an expert in various martial arts and always describes any combat in great detail); and the pace of the opening sequence was pure Bester; but otherwise it is hard to tell who did what.

Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book:

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August 18, 2008

Books 2008/08/18

Current count of books pending to be read: 93
Read two, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos

by Seth Lloyd

Fascinating book. It has long been known that entropy (disorder) can be expressed as information (bits). The entropy of a system is proportional (via a simple formula) to the number of bits required to describe its state. The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing, and so therefore is the amount of information needed to express it. So the universe is constantly creating information.

The author of this book is one of the world’s experts on quantum computing - using quantum mechanics to create a new kind of computer that take advantage of the “superposition of states” common to quantum systems. You don’t just have 1’s and 0’s; but bits that are simultaneously 1 and 0. Sounds useless; but property programmed, they can (in theory) do certain calculations millions of times faster than the common digital computer.

The book is essentially a cross between the two previous paragraphs – exploring how looking at the universe as one enormous quantum computer producing information in the form of entrpy can be useful for finding solutions to problems in physics and computation.

101 Ways to Reach Your Community

by Steve Sjogren

A follow up to Sjogren’s “Conspiracy of Kindness” that I read a couple weeks ago (I had picked up both books at the same time). This is more practical how-to information following the same concept of showing God’s love to people as a way to point them to Jesus.

Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Post-Charismatic

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August 13, 2008

Seeing the Bottom of the Barrel

So, having read 70 books off of my to-be-read shelf over the last few months, certain patterns have started to emerge - certain books keep getting put back to be read “later”. A couple I have put off because they are huge and I haven’t wanted to start on them right now; but there are clearly others for which my original interest has waned. There are no books I can see (more on that in a moment) that I have no interest in; but there clearly are quite a few for which I have titles pending on my Amazon wish list that are far more interesting to me. I have to be honest with myself, were I not being disciplined in my book purchases and therefore had a constant stream of new books coming into the house, I would probably never get around to reading them.

Which leaves me at a quandary – should I discipline myself to read them (given that I have already paid for them), or should I acknowledge that there are things I’d rather be reading and simply punt them now. Fortunately, I have a bit of time to make that decision – there are still a number of books that I am very much interesting in reading; but the bottom of the barrel is quickly becoming visible.

While I am writing about books, two other points of note.

First, I have now read enough books off my shelves that they are no longer cluttered and I have been able to arrange things so that all of them are visible. This is significant progress since all three of the shelves were two-deep when I started.

Second, on September 9, “Anathem” the latest book by Neal Stephenson (my favorite fiction author) comes out. While it is 950 pages, I plan to buy it and read it immediately.

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August 11, 2008

Books 2008/08/11

Current count of books pending to be read: 95
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Interface Culture

by Steven A. Johnson

A set of musing on the art of user interface design and the interactions between it and culture. This is one of those books that many people refer to and which I probably should have read back in the late 90’s when it first came out, but never got around to. Intelligently written and quite quotable. One of the things the author points out is how often people have guessed wrong when predicting things regarding the interactions of technology and culture. Ten years on, it is interesting to see where Johnson got it right and where he missed the boat.

Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: TBD

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August 04, 2008

Books 2008/08/04

Current count of books pending to be read: 96
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Conspiracy of Kindness: A Refreshing Approach to Sharing the Love of Jesus With Others

by Steve Sjogren

This is “the” book on what has become known as “servant evangelism” or “kindness evangelism”. The basic idea is that the starting point for reaching the world with the message of Christianity is to show God’s love to our communities. Based on that, Sjogren has organized his church to start serving their community in “no strings attached” ways. As examples, they give out free coffee at bus stops or offer to clean the bathrooms shops and restaurants, or mow people’s lawns for them. In answer to the inevitable question of why they make these offers, they respond “We are doing this community service project to show Jesus’ love to people in a practical way”. They never take money (even though many people try hard to give them something) and they don’t preach beyond answering any direct question people have. The point is not to tell people about Jesus but rather to show them what Jesus is like. I’m a firm believer in the principle (and have participated in a couple of projects like this), although I don’t like using the term “evangelism” to describe it. I’ll have more to say on this in later posts.

Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: BtVS S6D2

Next Book: Interface Culture

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July 28, 2008

Books 2008/07/28

Current count of books pending to be read: 97
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind

by Erwin Raphael McManus

Hmmm. Not sure what to say about this book. The book in an encouragement to Christian Leaders to start looking at the church in a new way. The problem is that I passed this point a few years back, so the book didn’t really say anything to me. The better question is if it might be a good book for someone else who is following the same path I am on; but even there I think “Organic Church” and “Shaping of Things to Come” might actually be better books that provide a more complete picture. Still, I agree with everything the author says, so I hate to give it a bad review; but for me it was more of an “I remember when I was just realizing that” experience.

Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: BtVS S6D1

Next Book: Conspiracy of Kindness

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July 21, 2008

Books 2008/07/21

Current count of books pending to be read: 98
Read one, purchased none

Books finished this week:

Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation

by Chris Turner

The premise of this book is to accept that the TV show “The Simpsons” is primarily a work of satire and to examine exactly what it is saying about America – what are the characteristics of our society that the show consistently satirizes? What is the image of America that is behind the funhouse mirror distortions of the show? For about 100 pages the book does an excellent job of doing just that. Unfortunately the book is nearly 450 pages long, and much of the remainder is a collection of minutia, trivia, and outright digressions (for instance, a multi-page sequence recounting the history of punk rock which could have been reduced to a single page and still made the same point). If it had started the way it ended, it would have been a punt; but given the good start I kept hoping it would return to the initial quality – which it did for about 10 of the final 30 pages. Sigh.

Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: AtS S2 D6

Next Book: An Unstoppable Force

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July 14, 2008

Books 2008/07/14

Current count of books pending to be read: 99
Read one, purchased one

Yes, this is my Monday post – I am throttling back postings for reasons to be explained Wednesday.

Yes, I made no progress this week for many of the same reasons.

Books finished this week:

The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church

by Gregory A. Boyd

See previous review

Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: AtS S2 D4-5

Next Book: Planet Simpsons

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July 06, 2008

Books 2008/07/07

Current count of books pending to be read: 99
Read four, punted one, purchased none, borrowed one

Yipee! The count of books to be read is down to double digits!

Books finished this week:

Little Brother

by Cory Doctorow

A political statement in novel form. In addition to being a Science Fiction writer, Cory Doctorow is also a cyber-rights (and more generally human-rights) activist as can be seen in his contributions to the excellent blog Boing Boing. He has spoken often against the Patriot Act and how the free flow of information on the internet world-wide is a key guard against tyranny. This book is essentially a synthesis of his two occupations.

The story is about a high school computer hacker who gets picked (with 3 friends, one of which is injured) up in a Department of Homeland Security sweep after a terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. After being “aggressively interrogated” he is released; but his injured friend has disappeared (the DHS do not acknowledge that they ever had him). So the main character decides to make war on the DHS – and in the process shows the futility of several real-world techniques to find terrorists. While Cory’s own opinion is obvious, he does take time to let his characters explain other points of view as well.

The book is a great read as just a novel. As a political tract, it succeed in both warning against the inevitable abuse of power that comes with many kinds of “security” legislation and showing how it is easy to waste the governments money on techniques that can be spoofed by real terrorists with minimal effort.

Great Giveaway, The: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies

by David E. Fitch

The book is about how the Modern Church has yielded much of its historical responsibilities to society at large. I liked his description of the problem very much, although I am less convinced by his solutions. As an example – I agree that much of what passes for “worship” in church is really secular entertainment with Christian words; but I do not agree (at the moment at least) that the solution is to return to liturgical forms of worship. Worth reading if for no other reason than to clarify where you stand on the issues the author raises.

The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

by Brian Fagan

In the years 800-1200 (roughly) there was a well documented increase in global mean temperatures. This book is a survey of the consequences of those warm years on civilizations around the world – with implications on what kinds of things might happen is our current trend of increased temperatures continues. The book struck me as well researched and presented.

The English Languages

by Tom McArthur

A survey of all of the various forms of “English” spoken around the world and a discussion of where English as a language (or a family of languages) might be headed. Well written.

Physics as Metaphor

by Roger S. Jones

This book was strongly recommended by another book I read and liked, so I really wanted to give it a chance; but I got though about a third of it and skimmed the rest. It is essentially a Zen Buddhist view of Physics. If the world is a product of our minds, then the laws of physics are just metaphors scientists have created to explain ourselves. Yet another attempt to use the idea of an “observer” from the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics to justify metaphysics.

The one point in the book that I did appreciate is the author’s observation that Science does so well at explaining things because it chooses to describe those things that Science is good at describing. By selecting behaviors that are inherently measurable and ignoring those that are not, Science stacks the deck for its own success. But, the book argues, we should not then assume that Science is good at explaining everything.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: AtS S2 D1-3

Next Book: The Myth of a Christian Nation

Posted by Steven at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 29, 2008

Books 2008/06/30

Current count of books pending to be read: 103
Read three, purchased none

Books finished this week:

How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth: A Guide to Understanding and Using Bible Versions

by Gordon D. Fee and Mark L. Strauss

Another excellent book from the author of “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” which I have recommended previously on this blog. This book is focused entirely on the challenges of translating scriptures into English and how various translations have approached that process. The authors do not recommend any specific translation as “best”; but rather try to provide information to allow the readers to make a better choice for themselves. Well worth it for any Christian, not just in terms of helping to pick translations to read; but to also understand the limitations of any translation they choose.

Prayer and Temperament: Different Prayer Forms for Different Personality Types

by Chester P. Michael and Marie C. Norrisey

An odd book, and not one I really recommend. The book takes a look at various traditional Christian prayer and meditation techniques and examines them in terms of Meyers-Briggs personality types (MBTI), suggesting who is likely to get the most out of them. According to the book I, as an INTJ, would get the most out of the style of prayer developed by the Dominican Friars, particularly Tomas Aquinas. The problem I have with the book is the whole idea that prayer is based on a methodology at all and not simply talking to God. The authors provide a very Roman/Catholic perspective on relating to God which, while interesting, I did not find very helpful.

Where Does the Money Go?: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis

by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson

I have said before in the blog, my number one political issue is the national debt and deficit. This book is an excellent layman’s guide to what the problem is, why it matters, why fixing it will be hard, and what is likely to happen if we don’t do something about it soon. Obviously I am already a convert to the author’s cause, although the book provided many details that even I was unaware of. If you have any doubt about the important of this issue that gets very little air-time either from the campaigns or from the new media, read this book.

Computer Games Played: Spore Creature Creator
DVDs Watched: TekWar series d3

Next Book: Little Brother

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June 23, 2008

In Praise of Donald Miller

There are a lot of one-hit wonders in every field of endeavor. People who have one bright idea but never manage to repeat their success. Donald Miller is most definitely not one of those. I have now read two books by him ("Blue Like Jazz" and now "Searching for God Knows What") and both were brilliant expressions Christianity. Not only does his description of Christianity match what I have learned over the last 38 years, but he is also an excellent writer that communicates those ideas with beauty, clarity and humor.

There are many things I like about how he writes: the lack of pretense (he talks about epiphanies he had about God while drinking beer and watching basketball on TV), the honesty (he describes in embarrassing detail his failures and misunderstandings along his journey to know God), the beauty (some passages compare well with Steinbeck's novels). He doesn't talk about doctrines, lists, rules, programs. He simply talks about getting to know God, and that is what Christianity is all about. The author is also clearly well read, mentioning books on physics, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and poetry along the way. Too many Christian authors keep their head buried in the Christian book store, and have no idea what it happening in the rest of the world.

What’s more, as I mentioned above, it is very clear that the Christianity he had learned is the same as the Christianity I have come to know, which is quite different from the Christianity that is practiced in most churches in America. It is a Christianity of relationships and not rules. It is a Christianity of compassion and not politics. It is a Christianity of honesty and humility and not self centered pride. It is, I believe, the Christianity of Jesus.

Most of all, his books are perfect examples of the kinds of conversations I long to engage in when I get together with other Christians. Not talking about doctrines, sins, etc; but simply talking about what we have experienced along The Way.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that Christians, non-Christians, and those who are not sure what camp they belong in read his books.

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June 22, 2008

Books 2008/06/23

Current count of books pending to be read: 106
Read three, punted one, purchased four

It was bound to happen eventually – I started reading a book and decided to punt on it. In this case I don’t feel bad at all since Anne tells me it was a book I got as a gift, so it wasn’t one I had purchased for myself (although I do occasionally punt on those).

I’ll also not it has been a hot week here, which means I spent less time on my BTU generating computer and therefore more time reading.

Books finished this week:

The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten

Paul McKechnie

A collection of archaic English words. While some entries were mildly interesting, after a few pages it all blurred together. This is the book I punted on.

The First Christian Centuries: Perspectives on the Early Church

by Paul McKechnie

An excellent survey of church history up through the year 313. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a perspective on the early years of the church. What I particularly liked about this book is that it did not focus only on the “mainstream” church; but gave fair coverage to the various splinter groups that arose in that time. Yet at the same time he maintains a high level of scholarship – disregarding “evidence” that was clearly produced well after the fact. The key is that he is as critical of mainstream church writers (pointing out clear errors in the accounts of some early church histories) as he is of modern pseudo-gnostics. The result is probably as clear of a picture of the early church as we are likely to get.

Searching for God Knows What

by Donald Miller

I talk in this blog about how “Christianity is not about religion but instead is about relationship”. This book (by the author of the previously praised “Blue Like Jazz”) is the first book that I have seen that really captures what I mean by that. The book is all about how the doctrine, rule, list oriented descriptions of Christianity fail because you can’t capture a relationship into a formula. He also has one of the best descriptions of what it means to live in a fallen world and why we need God. There’s just so many things in the book that he does well that I can’t put them all in this short review. READ THIS BOOK.

Uncovering Alias: An Unofficial Guide to the Show

by Nikki Stafford and Robyn Burnett

A survey of the first three seasons of the TV show Alias (I gave up watching in the middle of the third season). This is not an academic book that does any analysis on the show, simply a description of the crew, actors, characters and episodes.

Computer Games Played: Spore Creature creator
DVDs Watched: TekWar series d1, d2

Next Book: TBD

Posted by Steven at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 15, 2008

Books 2008/06/16

Current count of books pending to be read: 106
Read two, purchased none

Books finished this week:

The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega--the Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

by John D. Barrow

Another excellent book by Barrow who wrote last week’s “New Theories of Everything”. Once again, it is as much a books of philosophy as one of physics, although less explicitly so than “New Theories. . .” The topic of this book is the constants of nature – the speed of light, the gravitational constant, Planck’s constant, etc. The book surveys both historical and current thinking about why these factors have the particular values they do (and in fact if they are actually constant). Well written and interesting.

The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel Has Worn You Out

by Dan Stone and David Gregory

An excellent book that will end up on my ready-access bookshelf so I can easily lend it out. Far too many Christians find themselves struggling with the impossible task of “being a good Christian” when in fact God had never intended us to be Good Christians! This issue is not that we are not to be good; but that it is not supposed to be us that does it. Only Jesus can successfully be a good Christian. As Paul writes in Galatians 2:20 “nevertheless I live, yet not I; but Christ lives in me”. This is the deep truth of the gospel, and this book is one of the clearly and most complete presentation of that truth I have found.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: TBD

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June 09, 2008

Books 2008/06/09

Current count of books pending to be read: 108
Read three, purchased none, borrowed one

Had to think about how to record this week since one of the books I read was not in my “to be read list” (it was lent to me by someone who wanted my opinion on it).

Books finished this week:

New Theories of Everything

by John D. Barrow

What a pleasant surprise. I no longer remember buying this book or what drew my attention to it; but what I was expecting when I picked it up this week was yet another physics book on current grand unified theories. While the book does provide a summary of those ideas, it is really a book of philosophy that is as likely to quote Augustine and Nietzsche as Newton and Einstein. It poses questions like what is the relationship between the “Laws of Nature” and “The Universe”? (Are they the same? Is the universe a subset of the laws? Or the other way around?) Or what does the way we study physics tell us about who we are, and what does who we are tell us about the universe we live in? Do we see the universe the way it is only because if it was different, we wouldn’t be here to see it?

The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada

by Jerome R. Corsi

The author proposes that there is a vast conspiracy to undermine the sovereignty of the United States in favor of a “North American Union” in the pattern of the European Union. I agree that there certainly are individuals working towards such a goal (his evidence of that as well as some independent research on the web support it). However, having established such a conspiracy it is easy to associate things with it that may well be unrelated and motivated by other interests. As a result, there are places in the book that I think the author applies a form of guilt by association, and I remain unconvinced that the conspiracy is quite as vast as he proposes. What engaged me the most (largely because I was already concerned about it) were his descriptions at the start and end of the book of the true economic situation in the US and its likely consequences. Metaphorically, the United States has all of its credit cards maxed, has taken out a second mortgage on its house, and is completely dependent on the good will of its creditors. In light of that, a move to unify with Canada and Mexico is the least of the challenges to our sovereignty.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BFI TV Classics)

by Anne Billson

This is the British Film Institute’s book on Buffy, and is quite well written, intermixing summaries of all seven season with analysis of the themes and characters. The author is a fan of the show; but not so much of a fanatic as to hold back necessary criticism (she ravages season 4). A well done introduction to the show.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Constants of Nature

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June 02, 2008

Books 2008/06/02

Current count of books pending to be read: 110
Read one, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind

by Marvin Minsky

This is essentially an updated version of professor Minsky’s theory of intelligence (human or artificial) which he originally elaborated in “Society of Mind”. It is still a complex theory, using many different kinds of elements playing against each other, and one which I would not consider “elegant”; although Minsky addresses this point directly in the book, claiming that while it may be possible at some point to simplify the theory (presumably be merging certain concepts), he believe it is premature to try to do so since the multiplicity of idea provides freedom in their application. I’m still not sure. What I will say is that the version of the theory here is certainly clearer and more comprehensive than the earlier version in “Society of Mind”

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: New Theories of Everything

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 26, 2008

Books 2008/05/26

Current count of books pending to be read: 111
Read three, purchased none.

This week is an interesting milestone in the project to reduce my backlog of books to be read. First, I have been doing this for 6 months as of this week. Second, I have also managed this week to reduce the number of books waiting to be read on my shelf by one third – definite progress.

Stepping back, in the last 6 months I have read a total of 71 books and purchased 15. What’s interesting is that with the exception of the Christmas break when I made a deliberate effort to clear out all of the “quick reads” on my shelf, this progress has not be a matter of my reading more books than normal; but rather has purely been a matter of discipline in not buying (many) books. Looking at the details and at how my Amazon wish list has grown, I expect in a “normal” year I would probably have read about 55-60 books by now; but would have purchased about 70-75.

This is useful information for me. I’ve always known I read a lot; but I never had a clear idea of how much. That will be necessary information when I finally get my backlog under control and try to keep my reading list at a steady state – it means that I should budget to buy around 9 books a month.

OK, enough with the prologue:

Books finished this week:

What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible

by Ben Witherington

Interesting book. The author’s intent was to respond to the variety of theories about alternative or “suppressed” versions of Christianity that have been talked about recently. What makes the book interesting is the methodology – taking a biographical look at those who were close to Jesus (people like Peter, Mary Magdalene, etc.), based only on first century records (discounting those works that seem to have been written later) and trying to discern what Jesus was like and what He taught based on their identity and behavior. Frankly, I’m not sure how valid the approach is; but the result is certainly a different point of view which I am glad that I read – even if I do not agree with all of his analysis (amongst other things, he has some odd ideas as to who the real author of the gospel of John is). His bottom line is that the evidence indicates that first century Christianity was fairly orthodox in its doctrines with the only real debate being about how to view the Jewish law. All of the various alternative Christianities came about later (in the second and third centuries), did not reflect what Jesus taught, and were therefore rightly dismissed.

The Prostitute in the Family Tree: Discovering Humor and Irony in the Bible

by Douglas Adams

Not, alas, “the” Douglas Adams (which I suspect would have done a much better job on the same subject). It is said that if you have to explain a joke, it isn’t funny - this book is proof of that. To some extent the book seems to be an attempt to teach people how to make sermons and lessons more interesting by bringing out the natural humor in the Bible; but it all fell quite flat for me. I have a feeling the author has had to resort to such things because he may not have anything interesting to say to begin with. While I do believe that God has a great sense of humor and there is a lot of humor in the Bible if you have sufficient cultural context to see it, this is NOT the book to read to understand that.

Tales of the Slayer, Volume 4

by assorted

Part of the mythology behind the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is that Buffy is just the latest in a very long line of young women who have been called to battle of the forces of darkness. The “Tales of the Slayers” series of books are collections of short stories about some of the other “Slayers” through history. It’s actually quite a rich set-up for a lot of different kinds of stories, and the books have done it justice. I actually read the first three volumes in rapid succession a few years ago and burned out before I got to the fourth, so this has been sitting on my shelf for a while. The fourth book is a little different from the others – another part of the mythology of the series is that (assuming they live that long) when a slayer reaches the age of eighteen, they are put through a test by the watchers (their mentors). All of the stories in this book relate to how other slayers came through that test (or not).

Computer Games Played: Age of Conan (AoC) and LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: The Emotion Machine

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 19, 2008

Books 2008/05/19

Current count of books pending to be read: 114
Read three, purchased none.

Sorry this is a bit late getting up – got distracted and forgot that I hadn’t prepared it.

Books finished this week:

The Complete Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi

I saw the movie that was made of this book and enjoyed it so much that wanted to read the original. Given the author’s involvement in the film, it is no surprise how similar they are in both voice and visual style, with the only difference being that some of the more tangential side stories had to be omitted in the movie. I’m still amazed at the humility of the author in showing just what a brat she was as a child.

Stardust

Neil Gaiman

Another book made into a movie (I hadn’t noticed that until I was almost done with it). This time the differences were more significant, including some of my favorite parts of the movie not being in the book at all. Still, Gaiman is one of my favorite authors and I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable read as a kind of post-modern fantasy story.

11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without

Leonard Sweet

An interesting thesis – that all of us are in need eleven specific kinds of relationships in our lives. As examples – we all need someone who will tell us when we are wrong, we all need someone to mentor, we all need someone who can get us moving when we have stalled, etc. On the one hand, I think the author pushed things too far to get eleven (I’m not convinced we all need a relationship with a misfit). On the other hand, I do lack some of the relationships he describes and can see how I am the poorer for it.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: What have they done with Jesus?

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 14, 2008

Blue Like Jazz

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Donald Miller

Did I mention I liked this book?

Last year I was curious about the whole “Emergent/Emerging Church” movement and picked up a number of books that people associated with it. Once I had read enough to understand what was going on, I back-burnered the rest of them. Unfortunately for me, “Blue Like Jazz” got caught in the backwash. I wish I had read it sooner.

This book is a collection of extremely well written musing on authentic Christianity – with the emphasis on “authentic”. It is a man telling his experiences learning what it means to be a Christian, warts and all; and is one of the most refreshing books on faith that I have read in a long time. Unlike most Christian literature, it is not a book about how things should be by someone who claims to have the answers. It is instead a book about learning how things are from someone who still doesn’t have it all figured out.

The author talks candidly about his struggles to accept God’s love, to love others, and to love himself. It explores the times when his faith wavered, when his sanity wavered, and when his humility wavered. But most of all it chronicles the author’s journey from an institutional, religious form of Christianity to a faith that is simply about having a relationship with Jesus and thereby having a better relationship with other people.

I didn’t realize at first; but Don Miller was part of the small group that started the Imago Dei Community – an unconventional church in Portland, OR. I have heard stories both about how committed they are to the idea of the church being a community and how committed they are to expressing God’s love to people by serving them with no strings attached (you don’t help those in need to entice them to become Christians; you help them because God loves them). Don’s comments about his time with Imago Dei support the stories I have heard.

Back when I was pondering Melissa’s questions about books I thought everyone should read, one direction I explored was thinking about books people in certain categories of people should read. What books should every software engineer read? What books should every Christian read? Were I now to make such a list of books that every non-Christian should read, I think “Blue Like Jazz” might well be at the top of the list. This truth is that most people who object to Christianity are objecting to the instructional religion that bears that name today; but that is not the Christianity I know and experience. The book “Blue Like Jazz” is probably the most honest presentation of the difference I have yet read.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 12, 2008

Books 2008/05/12

Current count of books pending to be read: 117
Read two, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind: Access to a Life of Miracles

Bill Johnson

Bill Johnson is a popular author in Vineyard Church circles; but I hadn’t actually read any of his books until now. This book fits perfectly into that awkward middle ground of my life – I already knew everything the author says; but there is much of it I do not put into practice. That is often the case with me reading Christian books – I already know far more about what following Jesus is supposed to be like than I have managed to incorporate into how I am actually following Him. Sometimes I despair that reading more books on my faith is pointless since it will likely take the rest of my life to be transformed into someone who does what I already know I should be doing. On the other hand, there are the occasional books that says things in a way that provides just that smack on the side of my head that I needed to allow God to make the necessary changes in my life. This was not one of those books for me; but it could well be such a book for someone else.

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Donald Miller

Wow. It’s not often a book grabs me on the first page and doesn’t let me go. It has certainly been a few months since I finished a book the same day I started; but despite having other plans for the day, I just couldn’t put this one down. I am going to give this book a blog post of its own, so I won’t say a lot now other than: Wow.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Persepolis

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May 05, 2008

Books 2008/05/05

Current count of books pending to be read: 119
Read one, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern Girl

Aisha Tyler

A series of essays by a young African-American woman about beauty, dating, and the meaning of life. Yeah. A rather unlikely book for me to read. The author was guest reviewer on “At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper” and I found her perspective on cinema interesting so I picked up the book out of curiosity. I’m definitely not the target audience (which may have contributed to it taking two weeks for me to find enough reading time to finish it); but I did find it interesting. She is a “liberated” woman, not in the old Women’s Lib sense of the word; but in a new postmodern sense of knowing who she is and what she wants. Seeing her perspective on things laid out with such good humor was worth the effort.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind

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April 30, 2008

Books and wish-lists

Thinking more about my progress on my reading list (or last week, the lack of progress). As is often the case with these things, I'm really just changing the problem to a different one. In the 22 weeks I have pushed my purchased-but-not-read list down from 167 to 120, my Amazon wish-list has grown from (as I recall) 102 to 169. At least the books on my wish-list haven't cost me any money (yet). As the saying goes: "So many books, so little time."

Also, I don't always purchase everything on my wish list. In fact, keeping them on that list longer tends to give me time to reconsider purchases. Sometimes I see an interview with someone who wrote a book and I'm all excited to get it; but 6 months later is doesn’t sounds quite as interesting. Then there are the occasions when, by the time I end up purchasing the book, a cheaper trade-paperback is available.

I tend to keep a fairly low bar when it comes to adding something to my Amazon wish list (since the incremental cost is only about 10 seconds). When I actually place an order with Amazon, I tend to scan the list for others to purchase (at least enough so that the order qualifies for free shipping), and remove those that don't sound quite so interesting any more.

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April 28, 2008

Books 2008/04/28

Current count of books pending to be read: 120
Read none, purchased two.

Yeah, this was a bad week. While I read some, I didn’t actually finish a book. On top of that I took Anne to a book store and couldn’t resist picking up a couple myself.

An interesting thing in this process is that I have no idea if my slowdown in reading is “normal”. Since this is the first time I have ever tracked my reading I don’t know if I always have followed cycles or not. So, even if I am not making progress, at least I am learning something from the process.

Books finished this week:

Nada

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Swerve

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April 21, 2008

Books 2008/04/21

Current count of books pending to be read: 118
Read one, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

The Normal Christian Life

Watchman Nee

I had forgotten how much I like Nee’s writing. I read his magnum opus “The Spiritual Man” when I was 12, and was impressed with both the logic and spiritual/intellectual insight expressed in those three volumes. Nee’s analysis provided the foundations of my own theology for many years (although are parts I would later gain improved understanding on).

“The Normal Christian Life” is an excellent summary of what it means to live as a Christian, and as I have matured as a Christian I find I have come to agree more and more with what Nee says in this book. In fact, were I to compile a list of 5 books every Christian should read (other than the Bible), this book would certainly make the list, and given the number of Christian books I read, that I quite high praise.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book:

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April 14, 2008

Books 2008/04/14

Current count of books pending to be read: 119
Read two, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

Out of This World: Colliding Universes, Branes, Strings, and Other Wild Ideas of Modern Physics

Stephen Webb

An excellent survey of the current state of physics. The first half of the book is a quick summary of the boundaries of what we know, and the second is a survey of the current competing theories to explain what we don’t know. I’m a bit disappointed that Quantum Loop Gravity (the theory which I hope turns out to be true) is only given about a page; but otherwise I found the book’s coverage to be excellent. If you read this together with “Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (by Smolin), you get a solid picture of where we are at just before they turn on the Large Hadron Collider.

Othersyde

J. Michael Straczynski

I have written previously about my respect for JMS’s work on TV (Babylon 5) and graphic novels (Midnight Nation). He has also written a couple of novels and a collection of short stories. I don’t consider these his best work, and from some comments he has made I suspect he agrees (he is too visual of a story teller to do well with only words). This is one of JMS’s novels – a horror story of sorts. While I enjoyed it, I think there was only about 200 pages of story in this 300 page novel.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: The Normal Christian Life

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April 11, 2008

Happy Birthday Locus Magazine

Locus Magazine has been published for 40 years this month. That probably doesn’t mean a lot to most people – Locus is mostly an “insider’s” rag.

Locus is to Science Fiction (and Fantasy) Publishing what Variety magazine is to Movies – the trade magazine of the business. It covers what is going on behind the scenes with respect to SciFi books and magazines (and a bit on TV and movies; but not a lot). Every issue has:

- Interviews with writers
- Notices of awards that have been won
- Lists of books sold, resold, delivered, published, etc.
- News about key life events involving people in the industry, particularly…
- Obituaries
- Statistics on publishing (how many of what kind of books were sold by what publishers in what countries)
- News about authors, agents, publishers, editors, distributors, book sellers, etc.
- Reviews of novels and short stories

Reading Locus is THE way the SciFi publishing industry keeps track of itself. At one of the first WorldCon’s I attended I was given the advice that if I was serious about becoming a Science Fiction or Fantasy writer, I should start reading Locus to learn how the industry works. I have been reading Locus ever since and can see the value of that advice (even though the goal of getting published myself has been set on the side for the moment).

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

April 07, 2008

Books 2008/04/07

Current count of books pending to be read: 121
Read two, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

Alias Assumed: Sex, Lies and SD-6

Kevin Weisman

There is a spectrum of books about TV shows that range from true academic books (like many that I read on Buffy) to pure fan books (collections of essays that express “see how cool this show is” in various ways). This book is closer to the latter than the former, and so I will not refer to it as a “TV Studies” book, although I admit 2-3 of the essays could have made it into an academic journal.

The TV show “Alias” was one of my favorites when it first came out; but lost my interest after a couple a years. Just as eating the same food at every meal can become borring, regardless of how good that dish is. In the same way Alias provided the same kind of excitement week after week and eventually became monotonous. This book however did serve to remind me of why I originally liked the show.

Do You Speak American?

Robert MacNeil and William Cran

A sequel of sorts to “The Story of English” which takes a closer look at various regional and ethnic dialects in American – where they came from, where they are going, what effect they have. I’m not sure it added much to my understanding over what I already knew.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Out of This World

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March 31, 2008

Books 2008/03/31

Current count of books pending to be read: 123
Read one, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

Permission Granted to Do Church Differently in the 21st Century

Graham Cooke and Gary Goodell

A good book (I’m recommending it to my pastor). The authors are among those who have felt called to “do church differently” in the organic/simple church model, the book does not really focus on that; but rather on the process of becoming a different kind of church regardless of the vision God has given you - how to seek God, what kinds of problem you are likely to encounter, etc.. While many other books talked about “this is what church should be like”, this is the first I have seen that talks about “and this is how to get there.” I’m not sure there was anything in the book I didn’t already know; but seeing a clear and considered presentation of it was quite useful.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Sex, Lies, and SD-6

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March 24, 2008

Books 2008/03/24

Current count of books pending to be read: 124
Read one, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics

by Michael Shermer

An interesting book; but it was ultimately unsatisfying. The book was promoted as a presentation of evolutionary psychology and how it affects human behavior with respect to markets and economics; but what came across was a collection of facts and studies without much to tie it all together. The individual observations were in fact interesting; but they seem to be rather isolated from each other; but I kept looking for some clear “because of A then B” type theses and was disappointed that the individual observation never seemed to get assembled into any conclusion.

The author was very clear about his belief that a free market economy (with democracy) was the best possible system (a sentiment I happen to share). Furthermore, he comments several times how evolution left mankind ill suited for such a system (which I found a very interesting claim); but from what I saw he never seemed to close the loop to prove that point. I think he presented the raw data which he intended to support that point; but never followed through with the proof.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: Enchanted (extras), Battlestar Galactica Season 3 (extras and select episodes)

Next Book: Permission Granted

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March 17, 2008

Books 2008/03/17

Current count of books pending to be read: 125
Read four, received three that I had ordered a while back.

Books finished this week:

Perdido Street Station

by China Mieville

Just to prove I take my own advice; Meiville’s last three books have all been nominated for Hugo awards, so I thought I should check him out. I’m very glad I did.

The story itself is a kind of strange mix of Fantasy, steam-punk SciFi and Horror, set in a world where there are steam powered robots, and different fields of magic are treated as scientific disciplines (a bio-thaumaturge can manipulate living flesh, etc.). The forces of elemental chaos occasionally sweep through the world creating new species, often chimerical combinations of previous creatures – sentient, mobile, man-shaped cacti; a race of women whose heads are beetles; human-frog hybrids; and the like.

The author starts slowly to provide a chance to understand the world (although the travelogue is never boring); but once the action starts it keeps moving quickly and I had trouble putting the book down. The main plot is about several parties trying to put a stop to a set of creatures that eat dreams/minds (and excrete nightmares) who are inadvertently released into a populated area.

The main character however is the city in which the action takes place – New Crobuzon, which is kind of like a Victorian London with magic and advanced steam technology. The city is ruthlessly ruled by the mayor through his secret police. Crimes are punished by the criminals being “remade” – transformed by magic into a new form. Perhaps they are given the body of a dog, or have steam-power claws magically grafted on to replace their hands.

I enjoyed the book a lot, and as soon as my reading list gets reduced a bit more, I want to read his two sequels in the same world – Scar and Iron Council.

Going to Church in the First Century

by Robert Banks

A short narrative of what it might have been like to “go to church” in the first century, as told from the point of view of a Roman who was invited to join the group. The book is well researched, although there clearly is some level of speculation. It is well written by a Simple/Home church advocate. I certainly recommend the book and expect to share it with people I know. I certainly would be quite happy to attend a meeting like the one described.

This Little Church Stayed Home

by Gary E. Gilley

I recommend that people always seek out opposing points of view to help clarify their own opinions, and it is in that spirit that I purchased and read this book. It is a sequel to “This Little Church Went to Market” in which the author provides criticism to the seeker-friendly and mega-church movements, accusing them of trading in the gospel for entertainment and slick marketing.

In this book he examines the impact of postmodernism on the Christian church and provides specific criticism to Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” movement (or at least Warren’s poor use of scripture), Christian Mysticism (particularly Foster’s “A Celebration of Disciple”), the Emerging/Emergent church movement (particularly McLaren and Sweet) and a short epilog on Barna and the Simple/Church movement (although this was clearly added late in the development of the book and not a thorough treatment of the subject).

While the book did not change my mind on any specific points (I already disagreed with McLaren and was suspicious of modern Christian Mysticism), it did provide me some things to look out for - channel markers to use to know if I am sliding outside the main flow of Christianity. There are several points on which I disagree with Gilley (for example, he seems to take the position that anything said by a Catholic is automatically wrong); but I still found hearing his point of view useful.

Creating Your World: The Official Guide to Advanced Content Creation for Second Life

by Aimee Weber, Kimberly Rufer-Bach, and Richard Platel

I have been meaning to try out Second Life for a couple years now, and at one point I even bought a couple of books on the subject. This is the more programming-oriented one (I already read the more user-oriented one). Having still not tried the service, I can’t speak to how complete it is; but it certainly seemed useful. Perhaps when I get finished with this book-reading project I’ll allocate some time to try out Second life.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: The Mind of the Market

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March 10, 2008

Books 2008/03/10

Current count of books pending to be read: 126
Read one, purchased three. Urban vacations can be hard on this list. I tend to be too busy to read much but have access to a lot of new book stores. Road trips aren’t as bad since you tend to have long evenings in hotel rooms to read.

Books finished this week:

Freeware

by Rudy Rucker

What a disappointment. While I enjoyed Software and Wetware, this sequel was a real mess. There were a lot of half baked ideas thrown together but almost nothing was carried through to any kind of payoff. The “freeware” of the title doesn’t even show up until nearly the end of the book. I get the sense that Rucker might be setting up some further sequels; but you have to provide a good story with your set-up and this wasn’t one.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Perdido Street Station (already half way through; but the book is 600 pages).

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March 03, 2008

Books 2008/03/03

Current count of books pending to be read: 124
Read two, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

Software

by Rudy Rucker

Wetware

by Rudy Rucker

I am reading Rucker’s ‘ware trilogy this week (not quite finished with Freeware). Interesting. All three books are about what it means to be “human”. If you reproduce a human consciousness in a computer program, is it still a human being? If you create a human body and program the brain with an artificial intelligence, is it still human? In the end, does it matter?

The ideas in the book are excellent; the quality of the writing however was variable. I’m glad I read them; but I’m not sure I am as excited about the series as other folks seem to be.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Freeware

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February 29, 2008

Desert Island Media (Books)

This is the continuation of my response to a suggestion for posts from Melissa. Essentially if I had to go a long period of time with access to only a small set of movies, books, TV, games, which would I choose? I previously gave my list of movies here.

Books turns out to be an easier list since I already have a set of books that I tend to re-read periodically, so they are natural choices. The only question is what order to put them in. I will however note that my choices here are definitely influenced by the idea that I would be re-reading them many times. There are books (particularly non-fiction books) that I recommend more highly for reading once; but for books to re-read, this is my list.

The obvious first choice is, of course, the Bible. It is in fact so obvious as to be uninteresting, so I’ll focus on what books I would pick after that (and assume I have on my desert island, or spaceship, or whatever, a Bible). Although if I had a choice of what translation to take, I think I’d currently pick the New English Bible – a British translation.

So after that, here’s what I would pick:

1. "Godel, Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid" by Hofstadter

As I mentioned in a recent review, this is one of my favorite books of all time, and one I re-read regularly.

2. "Snow Crash" by Stephenson

One of my favorite SciFi books of all time. I re-read this periodically, both for the ideas in the book and for the author’s excellent use of language.

3. "Courtship Rite" by Kingsbury

Another of my all-time favorite novels.

If I could take a few more (perhaps trading in my movie allotment), I would grab:

4. "Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language" by Hofstadter

Hofstadter’s other masterpiece.

5. Cryptonomicon by Stephenson

Another of Stephenson’s books

6-8. The Baroque Cycle by Stephenson

Quicksilver

The Confusion

The System of the World

If I could take 8 books, the I would next add Stephenson’s entire Baroque Cycle. Otherwise I would pick:

6. or 9. "The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" by Stephenson

Another Stephenson book.

So yes, if I was able to grab 9 books, I would only have 3 authors represented.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

February 25, 2008

Books 2008/02/25

Current count of books pending to be read: 126
Read one, purchased none. Busy week.

Books finished this week:

Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan

by Lorna Jowett

I came to this second-generation Buffy-Studies book with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am very interested in ready any academic book on Buffy. On the other hand, my interest in post-feminist gender theory is indistinguishable from “none”. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised. The book is well written and actually made some observations about the show that I had not considered before. I don’t agree with all of the author’s opinions; but I have to acknowledge that they are well argued.

Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: BtVS S5.d5,d6, “Man from Earth” (film and special features)

Next Book: TBD (one of several novels, just haven’t picked which one)

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February 18, 2008

Books 2008/02/18

Current count of books pending to be read: 127
Read three, purchased none.

I am now down to 3/4 of my starting level and room in my “to be read” bookshelves is becoming manifest (My goal is to reduce this from three double-stuffed shelves to one in which I can see all of the titles without moving anything).

Books finished this week:

Society of Mind

by Marvin Minsky

While I was a student at MIT, worked for a while at and around the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, and saw Dr. Minsky periodically, I never actually got around to reading his classic book on how the human mind works until now. Actually – it may be because of those things that I never read it. The ideas in the book were part of the background of my life for a couple of years, so I felt I had already absorbed the contents without reading it. However, Minsky recently came out with another book (“The Emotion Machine), and when I purchased it I thought perhaps I should read his original work first. Now I have.

Truth is, the ideas in the books seem quite dated now, particularly having read “On Intelligence” which provides a simpler model that actually maps into the structure of the brain. In hindsight, Minsky’s model looks like a rather complex kludge – with additional mechanisms added every time he had another problem he couldn’t solve. Hawkins theory in “On Intelligence” has some missing pieces as well; but seems far more elegant. I’ll let you know when I read “The Emotion Machine” if I think Minsky would agree with that assessment.

The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone

by Kenneth W. Ford

I can’t recall why I purchased this; but the phrase “for everyone” in the subtitle should have warned me off. It was definitely well below my level and added nothing to my understanding. So far, no books have been punted from my pending list without having been read; but this came close. I’m not sure I would even recommend it to a novice – the book spends too much time covering the “standard model” of subatomic particles and doesn’t get into the meat of quantum theory until the final quarter.

The Church Comes Home

by Robert J. Banks and Julia Banks

Finally, a practical guide to being a part of a Simple/Organic Church (even if they call it a “Home Church”). I have read a lot of books on the movement; but most are focused on why it is a good thing. This is the first book I have read that is focused on the nuts and bolts of doing a simple/organic church. Not sure I agree with everything they say (to them, having a meal as part of the meeting is critical); but I have to acknowledge that they have incorporated input from a large number of sources into the book and so there is a lot of practical wisdom there. Going to hang on to this one.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: BtVS S5.d3,d4, “Across the Universe” (film and special features)

Next Book: Sex and the Slayer

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February 15, 2008

Pages Form Church History

oops! I thought I did the last of my reviews of last-year's books; but discovered I had written this one up and failed to post it.

----

Pages Form Church History: A Guided Tour of Christian Classics

by Stephen Nichols

This is a survey of twelve influential Christian writers: Polycarp, Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, John and Charles Wesley, William Carey, and Dietrich Bonheoffer. This small group was selected both for their influence and as examples of particular schools of thought within church history. Each author has a chapter, and each chapter follows the same format: a brief introduction, a description of the author’s life and times, a summary of the key points of the author’s theology and their writings, an examination of one of their works in more detail, and finally an exploration of their legacy. A benefit of the repeated format for each author that I had not expected was that it helped me put them into relation to each other in ways that more free-form biographies would not. I came away wishing there were more books done this way.

I would strongly recommend this book for anyone who has heard of these names; but really doesn’t know who they were or what they believed. I’ve done a fair amount of study of church history and I still learned things reading this book.

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February 11, 2008

Books 2008/02/11

Current count of books pending to be read: 130
Read two, purchased none.

Books finished this week:

The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History

by Howard Bloom

I’m going to have to think about this book.

A lot.

In fact I may do a full-post review once I have finished processing it. In essence this is a secular-humanist book about the nature and origins of evil. He makes a case (based on the principles of evolution and scientific observations) that human society is inherently evil and that we as members of that society are either perpetrators or victims of that evil. While the means by which he makes that case is secular in nature, his conclusions are completely in sync with the Christian perspective that “all have sinned” and that the world is inherently corrupt (a point he acknowledges in the title of the book.) Hmmm.

Training in Christianity

by Soren Kierkegaard, translated by Walter Lowrie

I am a fan of Kierkegaard’s Christian writing (and to a lesser extent of his purely philosophical works). This is a collect of four of his essays, each of which delves deeply into a single verse. As is common in Kierkegaard, he takes a verse and analyzes is great detail “Could this mean X? No, because… Could this mean Y? No, because…” and 60 pages later “Therefore it must mean Z. And if that is true, we must …” I am sympathetic to those who prefer books about Kierkegaard’s than his actual writing (it can get rather tedious after you start to see where he is headed); but I enjoy the details of his arguments.

It is also interesting to see how often, 100 years ago, he was making many of the same points as the organic/simple church movement.

Computer Games Played: LORTO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: The Society of Mind

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February 08, 2008

The Culture Code

This is the last of the book reviews from 2007 that I never got around to puttting on my blog.

The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do

by Clotaire Rapaille

Clotaire Rapaille is an accidental marketing expert who is on retainer with half of the Fortune 100 companies. Having read his book, I can now see his hand in numerous marketing campaigns I have been exposed to.

By training Rapaille is an anthropologist and psychologist and started his career studying autistic children. One of his papers described how normal people (but not individuals with autism) form emotional imprints for things at a very young age and that these imprints continue to subconsciously influence how we think about those things throughout our lives. Every word, concept, brand, idea can then have three potential meanings – its denotation (dictionary meaning), its connotation (its conscious cultural meaning), and its "code" (its subconscious emotional imprint).

This paper caught the attention of an international corporation who asked him to determine what the "code" was for their product in a particular country where they were having problems coming up with a successful marketing strategy. Rapaille developed a a series of very structured focus group sessions (lasting three hours each), and after doing several of these was able to advise the client on how to proceed. This caught the attention of other companies, and running these sessions and advising his clients on their results has become his career. From a marketing perspective, what he teaches is that the most successful marking campaigns are aligned with the "code" for the product in the given country. Either they confirm and support people's emotional imprint for the product or they go completely against it. Marketing campaigns that go in some other direction tend to fail.

As an example, the automaker Jeep hired him to look at their marking campaigns in the USA, France and Germany. In the US, he discovered that the "code" for Jeep was "Horse"; while in France and Germany it was "Liberator". This, he explained, was why Jeep's attempt to sell their new SUV's in the US based on comfort and amenities was failing – Horses don't have luxury appointments. Jeep switching to showing the vehicle climbing hills and going off-road and sales soared. Likewise in France and Germany they developed an ad campaign that focused on the freedom to go where you wanted and sales grew.

The book is full of "codes" for various things – not just products; but also abstractions. Many would seem trite or silly were I to repeat them here without his full analysis; but in almost all cases they ring true to me. The most interesting sections of the book are where he has been commissioned to look at the same concept in multiple cultures and to see how different the "codes" can be. Particularly telling are his analysis of the meaning of "seduction" in various cultures around the world. No wonder Americans are so up tight!

Some of his stories of product and marketing successes and failures are also quite good, for instance the differences between how Lego's are used between the USA and Germany. In the US, kids tend to ignore the instructions and just build things. After one thing is built, they take it apart and build something else. In Germany, kids carefully build exactly what is shown on the box cover and then put it on the shelf like a model, never to be taken apart. So in the USA, Lego tended to sell one box per family, while in Germany they sold several.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants a bit more insight into how cultures can differ.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 04, 2008

Books 2008/02/04

Current count of books pending to be read: 132
One book read, non purchased
This has been a busy week (work, Superbowl, etc.) and there just hasn’t been a lot of time to read. I even ended up working some on Saturday, which is usually my main day for curling up with good books.

Books finished this week:

A Tour of the Calculus

by David Berlinski

Sometimes you run across a writer who is so good at the craft of writing that they can make anything interesting – even, say, Calculus. “A Tour of the Calculus” is a parallel exposition on the history of calculus and an introduction to the mathematical discipline itself. What set this book far apart from any other on the subject is the nearly lyrical prose employed by the author to explain things. There are passages that rival Hemmingway in their imagery and all of the book is a joy to read. The author also segregates the more detailed work (proofs, etc.) to “appendices” between chapters which can be skipped by those not so mathematically inclined.

Computer Games Played: a little bit of LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Training in Christianity

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 31, 2008

The writings of Major W. Ian Thomas

The Saving Life of Christ

The Mystery of Godliness

And

The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me

by Major W. Ian Thomas

When I was 11 years old, having only started my personal relationship with God a year before, I attended a week of meetings at a nearby church that changed my whole perspective on Christianity. The meetings were lead by Major W. Ian Thomas. That I can still remember his name 36 years later is a tribute to how great an impact his teaching had on me.

This past year I discovered that Ian Thomas had published several books, and I managed to purchase and read of a three of them (two in one volume).

“The Indwelling Life of Christ” is a series of 50 short devotionals, many on the same themes he spoke on that week long ago. My copy is now packed with post-it bookmarks for passages I want to return to so as to remind myself of key truths. I strongly recommend this book to fellow Christians.

“The Saving Life of Christ” is about the difference between trusting God for salvation (going to heaven after you die) and trusting God for your life in the here and now. It explores the weakness and frustration that exists if you find yourself stuck with the one and not the other. I also learned some cool stuff about Amalak (one of the enemies of the Isrealites) from this.

“The Mystery of Godliness” is an examination of how God transforms us into His image. He goes into some fairly deep theology on _why_ Jesus was dependant on the Father, and _why_ we must be dependant on Jesus. There are definitely some connections with other verses that I had never seen before. The book starts out quite strong; but the latter parts go back to stuff that I think of as basics. Still, worth reading.

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January 28, 2008

Books 2008/01/28

Current count of books pending to be read: 133
read three, purchased none (actually I did get 2 books; but they were reference books - not books to be 'read')

Books finished this week:

Life After Church: God's Call to Disillusioned Christians

by Brian Sanders

An excellent book – I am tempted to devote a whole blog entry to a review. Certainly one I recommend to any Christian.

The book is by, about, and for those Christians who are absolutely devoted to their faith in Jesus; but who have become disillusioned and disenchanted with the institution of “church”. The book explores the phenomenon of “leavers” – Christians who stay Christian but leave churches. It examine why people leave, how to decide if one should leave or not, what to do if you stay, and what to do if you leave.

While I am not a “leaver” (at least not yet), I found the perspective this book refreshing. While the author clearly has issues with the institutional church, he (unlike Frank Viola) tries to keep the tone positive – talking about “what leavers are looking for in church” and not “what is wrong with churches”. What’s more, he has some real insights into the issues involved and has some excellent ways to express key points. I think the author’s view of what church should be like and mine are very similar, but he has some new ways to talk about it.

This is a must-read for any leaver (or potential leaver) but I would also recommend the book to all Christians as a source of a new perspective on church.

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Decent book on the whole concept of leveraging communities to do useful thing. The book has a lot of case studies, not just on free projects like Lunix and Wikipedia, but also of profitable businesses who are creating communities to improve their company.

Reading Deadwood: A Western to Swear By

edited by David Lavery

A very good “TV Studies” book – this one a collection of academic essays on the HBO drama “Deadwood”. This is definitely an academic book, and the quality of the essays is quite high (only one got a bit too academic for me).

The series (btw) is excellent, although one I am careful when recommending since it contains a lot of bad language, sex, and violence; but none of it is gratuitous. The show is about the evolution of law and order out of lawlessness and chaos and the dark side of life is necessary to make its point. The story is set in the town of Deadwood during the gold rush there and at least initially the existence of the town was against US policy and law (it was within territory owned by Native Americans according to treaty), so there literally was no law there. In the series, the two “leading citizens” of the town were brothel owners who eventually recognize the need for some kind of law (although in a form that would allow them to continue to make a good profit), and the series about that gradual evolution of a community – how laws are needed to allow people to live together in close quarters.

Computer Games Played:LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: A Tour of the Calculus

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January 25, 2008

Three Books by Douglas Hofstadter

Douglas R. Hofstadter is a computer scientist who has written several books, at least two of which I consider modern masterpieces which should be read by everyone who is sincerely curious about the world.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Hofstadter wrote GEB back in 1979, and (in my opinion) it is to non-fiction what the writing of Falkner and Joyce are to fiction – a masterpiece of the use of literary techniques to communicate ideas. The book was originally supposed to be a short pamphlet about Gödel’s incompleteness theorem; but as the author followed the connections that existed within his mind between Gödel’s theorem and everything else, the book ballooned up to over 700 pages. It gets into music, Zen, graphic arts, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and many other subjects. I used to describe GEB as a “core dump” of a young engineer’s brain. And “young” is a key word here. There are times reading the book feels like being dragged around by a 6 year old showing you his toy collection “And look at this”, “See what this does!”

The most amazing thing about the book is the use of word-play. From the unusual format of alternating chapters between prose and “dialogs” between fictional characters; to the use of things like acrostics in the text. There is even a chapter where the author attempts to translate a piece of music into a dialog (replacing musical themes with literary ones).

One thing GEB is not is personal. While the author writes himself as a character in the final dialog, he exposes very little of himself in the work beyond the web of connections that exist within his mind.

This book has a profound impact on me and my view of the world. Before I read GEB I often felt like a collection of disjoint interests; but Hofstadter put me on track to understand the “big picture” of my own identify (which is different from his; but seeing how he connected things in his life helped me connect things in mine.

Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language

This is (in my opinion) Hofstadter’s second masterpiece, written in 1998. The books is less playful than GEB (or at least more obvious when it gets into word-play) and certainly much more personal. The core of the book is the question of translation (and much of what he says also applies to Bible translation).

It, like GEB, has three threads intertwined: First, there is the story of how GEB was translated into a variety of languages. Given the amount of word-play in GEB, translating it in a way that preserved the magic of the original was quite a challenge. Second it takes a short poem in French (28 trisyllabic lines) and provides 72 different possible “translations” of the poem over the course of the book. In the process, Hofstadter examines the whole issue of “meaning”, particularly as it is applied to things like poetry. Third, the book is at least somewhat autobiographical, telling the author’s own story as GEB was being translated and his series of lectures on translation/meaning.

This book has changed how I view language and translation. I’ve always been interested in linguistics (I started to devise my own language when I was in High School); but this book gave me context for my interest.

I Am a Strange Loop

While not (in my opinion) the masterpiece that the other two books are, this is still a very interesting read. In many respects it is the same book as GEB, only written by an older, wiser, and wearier man. It lacks the work play and “look at this” tone of his first book; but actually presents the central themes of GEB in a clear and concise manner. It is also the most personal of his books – driven by the author’s need to come to terms with his wife’s death and to look back on his beliefs about identity and meaning. I also recommend this book, although not as a replacement for GEB.

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January 21, 2008

Books 2008/01/21

Current count of books pending to be read: 136
Read 3, purchased 3

Books finished this week:

Jumper: A Novel

by Steven Gould

Back at the last WorldCon I attended, one of the panels attend went on a tangent on who is writing “good” YA (young adult) novels these day. While there were the inevitable differences of opinions, all of the panelists agree that Gould’s novel “Jumper” fit into that category. I put it on my wish list and have now finally gotten around to reading it (in part because the movie version is due out next month). In brief, I have to agree with the opinions of the panel – an excellent book and I definitely plan on seeing what else Gould have written (there is at least a sequel to Jumper).

The story is about a teen (Davey) who grew up with an absent mother and abusive, alcoholic father who discovers one day (as his father is about to beat him) that he has the ability to teleport himself to any place he is familiar with. What makes the book a fascinating read is that while Davey is psychologically and emotionally immature and not a little paranoid; Gould manages to portray him with such honesty that the reader sympathizes with him. And what Davey is far from a “good person” at the end of the book, he is at least a better person then at the start.

A movie based on the ideas of the book is due out next month. I state that carefully because while Davey appears in the movie, the story is at least in part about a completely new character as well as some plot points from the sequel.

Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition

by Robert J. Banks

A somewhat academic analysis of what Paul wrote in the Bible about Christianity as community and how it related to other religions movements at the time. The book goes into details on the Greek words Paul chose to use and how often he used them; and even makes some assumptions about the order in which Paul’s epistles were written and how his thoughts on Christian community may have evolved over time. The book also looks at movements like the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Stoics, the Cynics, and the various eastern mystery cults that were active at the time to compare Paul’s view with what his audience might have understood.

The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from, and How You Can Choose

by Mark Halperin

A nice, non-partisan review of the major and minor candidates, giving their stance of key issues, biographical data, reason why people support them, reasons why people oppose them, etc. Only flaw is that it was published in October 2007, and as such Huckabee is listed as a minor candidate with an abbreviated review.

Computer Games Played: Democracy, Lord of the Rings Online
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Wikinomics

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January 18, 2008

The Scientists

The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors

by John Gribbin

I’ve enjoyed many of Gribbin’s other books (he is one of the better popular science authors) and this is perhaps his best so far. It is a survey of the history of Science as told through the lives of the men and women who made it. It covers all of the big names in all branches of science for the last 500 years and tells their stories – who they were, what they discovered, the environment in which they lived, why it was important, etc. Some people get whole chapters (Newton); but everyone gets a few pages. The result is a hefty 600+ page tome; but one that is very readable and well worth the time.

What I really appreciate is that this is a rather unvarnished treatment of these people, complete with their personal faults and professional mistakes. You get a sense from the book of how science actually happens, not the idealized history that can be found in other books. It is also fairly non-technical – it explains the science itself only enough to allow the reader to understand its significance, focusing more on the who and the how and less on the what. It is a book I am comfortable recommending to anyone.

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January 16, 2008

Pagan Christianity

Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices

by Frank Viola

Within every movement there is a radical fringe - people who embrace the principles of the movement, but who promote those ideas in such a confrontational way that those in the mainstream are often embarrassed by them. At least in my opinion, within the organic Church movement we have Frank Viola. I’ve read a few of his books over the last year, and think he is usually correct in his analysis; but the tone of his books tend to be so “in your face” that I hesitate recommending them.

A perfect example is his 2003 book “Pagan Christianity” in which he makes a case that a substantial part of how Christians “do church” is actually not Christian in origin; but are pagan practices that have been adopted into the church. In the book he examines:

- Having a church building to meet in
- The common features of a church building: the stained glass windows, pews, the platform at the front of the church, a rail in front of the platform, a table on the platform or in front of it, a pulpit, a steeple
- A standard order of worship: songs, offering, announcements, reading, sermon, prayer (or some variation thereof)
- Having a regular speech (a sermon) given as part of every weekly meeting
- Having a pastor who is in charge of a local church
- Dressing up for church
- Having the pastor wear distinct clothing.
- Having someone assigned to perform music on a weekly basis
- Paid local church leaders
- Having seminaries
- Having Sunday school
- Reading (and basing doctrines) on individual verses
- Sharing tiny pieces of bread and small cups of grape juice to commemorate the last supper

And for each of these he builds a well-researched case that they were not a part of first century church experience, exactly when and how each was adopted by the church, and why the inclusion of these things into the church is harmful. The research backing the book is extensive, with hundreds of foot notes in each chapter. Viola gives lip service to the idea that one can still do these things and have a good church experience; but the tone always seems to be "but you'd be wrong to do so".

In my blog I have tried to make many of the same points; but (I hope) starting from a more positive perspective. What I have tried to say is that if we are working to live up to the vision of the church described in the Bible, then many of these things are not helpful and should be discarded in favor of more interactive and less structured forms. I don’t think you need to say Christians are acting like a bunch of pagans to make that point (which is kind of what it feels like the 2003 book is saying).

The good news is that a new edition of the book has just been released, this time co-authored with George Barna who does seem to have moderated Viola's rhetoric a bit (although Barna's main contribution seem so be a Q&A section at the end of each chapter that handles the fairly obvious questions raised by Viola's points). The tone in this new edition is sufficiently improved that I feel comfortable recommending the book, although the publishing house (Tyndale Press – a fairly major Christian publisher) still felt the need to add a kind of apology page at the start of the book (We know this book is controversial; but we believe the ideas need to be discussed. . . ).

This new edition has become the "it" book among Christian blogs – with everyone wanting to share their take on it. One blog I read is even taking two weeks of posts to analyze it in detail. My own contributions have been delayed because I had trouble getting a copy – Amazon has sold out of the book within days of its release (this is most definitely an important book).

The bottom line is, as I said in Monday's post – if you find my ideas about church interesting; but are too comfortable with how church is normally done to be willing to make a change, then this is the book to read – it will almost certainly make you quite uncomfortable (one way or another).

PS: I found a blog that is tracking blog posts on this book

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January 14, 2008

Books 2008/01/14

Current count of books pending to be read: 136
Read four books, purchased one, and was given one to read

Books finished this week:

Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices

by Frank Viola

I am going to take a whole blog post to talk about this book; but in brief: If you find the ideas I have presented on how to do church interesting; but find yourself too comfortable with how things have “always been done” to embrace such a radical change READ THIS BOOK. Note this is a revised edition of a book that was originally written by Frank Viola alone and published in 2003. If you read it, make sure you read new version, published in 2008 with both Viola and Barna listed as authors (I’ll explain why in my post).

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot's Guide to the Land of Knitting

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

When Anne and I were dating, I had her read Steven Levy’s book “Hackers” to give her some sense of the computer software culture that is one of the influences on who I am. Anne has now returned the favor by having me read this book about knitting culture (which she has embraced over the last couple years). The author (know within the knitting community by her nickname “Yarn Harlot” is an entertaining writer and speaker and she managers to talk about what it is like to be a knitter with a lot of humor. While I think I already understood most of what was said by simply watching my wife, it is nonetheless a good presentation of the experience.

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

by Michael J. Behe

This is a book of evolution skepticism focused on the irreducible complicity of several biochemical systems as proof that modern evolution’s theories are not sufficient to explain the diversity of life. The author has no problems with evolution or that it explains the existence of many species, he just does not believe that it is sufficient to explain all species or even the existence of life in any form. In that sense, the author’s position is not far from my own.

I actually had read criticisms of this book before I purchased it – in fact I purchased it because I had seen such detailed rebuttals that I thought that any book that people take that much effort to object to might be worth reading. The science is excellent and the case he makes is compelling as far as it goes. The fundamental problem is that each of his arguments boils down to “there is no way anyone can identify to get from A to B using evolution”. These are true statements; but are fundamentally fragile – one scientific discovery and suddenly we might have such an explanation. In fact, the previous generation of evolution skeptics used to have long list of irreducibly systems at the intra-cellular level; but our greater understanding of how genes work have provided explanations of how they could have come about incrementally. So, the weight I put on this next generation of similar argument is limited.

Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time

by Michio Kaku

This is a mix of biography and science book that focuses on exactly how Einstein came up with his famous theories (and how he failed to come p with a grand unified theorem). I have read a few biographies of Einstein and many books that talk about the theories of relativity; but none that really talk about why and how Einstein was the one who managed to see what he saw. A rather interesting book.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: AtS S1D4-6, BtVS S5D1-2

Next Book: Jumper by Steven Gould

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January 07, 2008

Books 2008/01/07

Current count of books pending to be read: 138
Three boks read, none purchased (well, none delieverd. I did place an order at Amazon this week, so next week is likely tobe a "step back".

Books finished this week:

The Religion War

by Scott Adams

This is a sequel of sorts to Scott “Dibert” Adams first philosophy book “God’s Debris”, although more narrative and less dialog-based than the first book. Both books are entertaining, thought-provoking and worth reading. I don’t agree with Adams conclusions; but he himself acknowledges that there are flaws in his logic – but leaves it as a challenge to the reader to discover them.

Personally I enjoyed “God’s Debris” more. The use of a definite plot in “The Religion War”, while making the book more entertaining, distracted significantly from the philosophical points he was making in my opinion. The conclusion also seemed rather rushed.

iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It

by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith

Having worked in the personal computer industry for a fair chunk of my career (including 7 years at Apple), there aren’t many “Woz” stories I haven’t heard before; but the pleasure of reading his autobiography was how well his playful and curious personality comes through. It also served to remind me of some facts that are often forgotten (like the fact that Woz is actually more than 4 years older than Steve Jobs).

In War Times

by Kathleen Ann Goonan

The author of this Sci-Fi novel made some very interesting choices. For the first two-thirds of the book the Sci-Fi aspects of the story are relegated to a “B-Plot”. The bulk of book is the story of an American G.I. (based on the author’s father) during World War II and afterwards. The “device” that makes this novel Science Fiction is introduced in the first chapter; but it remains in the background of the story until near the end. Once it does come to the front, it ends up being a confusing mix of quantum mechanics and Zen philosophy which made it hard for me to suspend disbelief and ask the questions I think the author was posing.

Computer Games Played: World In Conflict
DVDs Watched: Blade Runner ("Final" cut and extras), BtVS S4D6, AtS S1D1-3

Next Book:Einstien's Cosmos

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December 30, 2007

Books 2007/12/30

Current count of books pending to be read: 141
I read 20 books this week - mostly fluff - and purchased none.

Books finished this week:

Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT

by Institute Historian T. F. Peterson

A survey of the “hacks” (practical jokes) played by MIT students, going back to the 1920’s. When I was a MIT student, I (together with “Sir Jon” and “Keshlam the Seer” – I was “The Wizard”) started a hacking team known as the “Order of Random Knights” (ORK for short). What I found most interesting from this book is that apparently the institution of ORK lived on after I left MIT as there are several hacks attributed to them through the 90’s. They even signed their work with “the randomide” – a symbol we developed back in the 70’s to identify our work.

The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance, and Addiction in the World of Warcraft

edited by Bill Fawcett

Smart Pop 2

By BenBella books

Star Wars on Trial: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time

edited by David Brin and Matthew Woodring Stover

Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles and the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek

edited by Robert J. Sawyer

The Unauthorized X-Men: SF and Comic Writers on Mutants, Prejudice, and Adamantium

edited by Len Wein

The Psychology of The Simpsons: D'oh!

edited by PhD, Alan Brown and Chris Logan

All of these books are part of BenBella Book’s “Smart Pop” series – books of essays about elements of popular culture (mostly TV shows). Not the best books of their kind I have read; but not the worst either. I particularly liked one essay in the book on X-Men that looked at how the central metaphor of the X-Men (being “the other”) has evolved through the years as society's sense of what “other” meant changed. The best of the bunch however was “Star Wars on Trial” a mock transcript of a trial in which the Star Wars series is accused of several crimes against humanity (or at least against Sci Fi). Well argued on both sides.

Heroes, Volume One (Hardcover Comic)

by Various

The first season of the TV show “Heroes” was accompanied by a web comic that filled in some background on the stories. This is a compilation of those comics.

Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction

by Christopher Harvie and H. C. G. Matthew

Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction

by Paul Langford

A couple of books Anne had picked up and read a while back and handed off to me. As introductions, I think they were actually quite poor; but as an overview for someone who already knew a bit of British history, they were great (these made it onto my quantity reading list since they are only about 100 pages long each)

It's Not Funny If I Have to Explain It: A Dilbert Treasury

by Scott Adams

Scott Adams’ favorite Dilbert strips from over the years.

Bullet Points TPB

by J. Michael Straczynski and Tommy Lee Edwards

Jack of Fables Vol. 1: The (Nearly) Great Escape

by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, and Andrew Pepoy

Serenity: Those Left Behind

by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, and Will Conrad

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

by Mike Carey, and Glenn Fabry

Five Fists Of Science

by Matt Fraction, and Steven Sanders

All of these are graphic novels of various sorts and vary greatly. The worst was “Five Fists of Science” that pits Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla and others against Thomas Edison and J. P. Morgan. The best is a tough call between Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” and Willingham’s “Jack of Fables”. Gaiman’s work is more meaningful and thought provoking; but Willingham’s more entertaining.

Dream Country (Sandman, Book 3)

by Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, and Charles Vess

Season of Mists (Sandman, Book 4)

by Neil Gaiman, and Kelley Jones

I am slowly working through Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” series of graphic novels (and had to really fight the urge to go out and buy volumes 5 and 6 this week). The series centers on the seven “Endless” – being who are personifications of certain concepts – and specifically on Morpheus, the personification of Dream and the development of his “humanity”.

Neil’s a great writer and includes challenging ideas in all of his works. As an example in Season of Mists, Lucifer decides to abandon hell, and gives the keys to hell to Morpheus. Various other beings then come to Morpheus asking for the keys (and thereby the right to reign in hell). The story is about Morpheus trying to decide to whom to give the keys to hell.

Rare Words and Ways to Master Their Meanings: 500 Arcane but Useful Words for Language Lovers

by Jan Leighton, and Hallie Leighton

A rather useless book in my opinion. I already have enough trouble being asked to explain words I use that I think are fairly common

Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels

by Scott Mccloud

Back in 1993, Scott McCloud wrote an excellent book “Understanding Comics” where he provided a very convincing case that “comics” (which he prefers to refer to as “Sequential Art”) is a powerful medium within which much can be done beyond just costumed superhero stories. The book is still probably the best book on the theory of comics and how to think of them as both an art form and as a medium of communication. McCloud follow that up with “Reinventing Comics” about the impact of the web on the medium, and now “Making Comics” that details some of the technical issues involved in doing a series of comics (or graphic novels).

While I am a big fan of the original “Understanding Comics” and recommend the book to everyone; “Making Comics” did little for me, although it could be argues that I am not the book’s target audience.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: The Religion War by Scott Adams

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December 27, 2007

The Journey Of Crazy Horse

The Journey Of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History

by Joseph M. Marshall III

Most folks who were educated in the US know about the defeat of General Custer at the battle of the Little Big Horn. Those who have read “Burry My heart at Wounded Knee” have some sense of what happened to the Lakota tribe of Native Americans afterwards. This book is essentially the “other side of the story” – a compilation of Lakota oral history (assembled into a well-written narrative) for the period in which the Lakota warrior known as “Crazy Horse” lived. The author is a Lakota himself and is honest with his own bias on the subject, yet there is a clear sense that this really is the story that the Lakota tell themselves about that time.

The book provides a good picture of Lakota culture (both highlights and lowlights) and how they interacted with other tribes before the European settlers came. It explains the many misunderstandings that took place as the Lakota started to interact with Europeans – neither side really understood the other. While the book never declines into indiscriminate “European bashing”, it certainly paints an unflattering picture of certain generals and political leaders (and the occasional Lakota leader as well).

But most of all, the book explains who Crazy Horse was, why he did what he did, and why so many Lakota followed him. As a work of fiction, this would be a great story in its own right and well worth reading. That it has truth to it makes the book doubly valuable. Even if that truth is told with bias, hearing the same story with a different bias from what you have heard before is always of value.

As a Christian, what I found most interesting was the religious aspect of Crazy Horse’s story. He was considered by the Lokota to be a “Thunder Dreamer” – one to whom the great thunder (God?) spoke; and as such he was called to live his life differently from other Lakota. As an example, while most Lakota warriors were expected to be boastful and full of pride and were expected to accumulate goods from those they defeated in battle; as a Thunder Dreamer, Crazy Horse was called to be humble (not telling stories about himself) and generous, giving away most of what he captured. What I found interesting is, most of the characteristics that the Lakota expected to be exhibited by someone to whom "the thunder" talks to are in fact the same virtues that Christianity expects. It says in the Bible that God’s truth is written in men’s hearts. The Lakota culture seemed to be full of examples of that being true.

Bottom line, this was both an enjoyable and informative read and I recommend it to anyone.

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December 23, 2007

Books 2007/12/23

Current count of books pending to be read: 161
Fourbooks down, none purchased

Books finished this week:

The Polysyllabic Spree

by Nick Hornby

I’m not sure “irony” is the right word, but it is certainly interesting to include in today’s post the fact that I read Nick Hornby’s “The Polysyllabic Spree” since the book is essentially a 14 month diary of the books that the author purchased and/or read over the period. As the subtitle says “A hilarious and true account of one man’s struggle with the monthly tide of the books he’s bought and the books he’s been meaning to read”. As the saying goes, I resemble that remark. While my taste varies some from his, Hornby’s passion for books is something I can completely sympathize with. What I find interesting are the subconscious themes he identified in why he read particular books in a given month.

Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling

by Chris Crawford

Chris Crawford is one of the "greats" in the field of computer game design. Not only did each of the games he designed in the early years of the industry break new ground; but he also founded the Journal of Computer Game Design and the annual Game Developer's Conference. Chris's aspiration was always to show what computer games could become, and his increasing disappointment with the direction the industry was heading (yet more mindless shoot-'em-ups) was evident to those who heard him speak.

In 1991, he left the computer games to work in a new direction – Interactive Story Telling. Not games, and not simple binary/hypertext decision systems (whose options could easily be graphed); but rather systems of interactive agents that tracked mood and attitudes of characters in response to the player's actions and created a good story that fit what they were doing. He tried a very simple version of this in his 1987 game "Trust and Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot" (one of Chris's few commercial failures) and he as been working on how to do it right since 1991.

This book captures what he has learned and the progress he made in producing a real system (the first version of which is due out next year). The book is a fairly good survey of the problem, and a description of the parts of it he thinks he has solved; and the parts that he thinks will take more research (and the hack solutions he plans to use for the first product). As always with Chris's work, the book is well thought out and entertaining, and he is not above making fun of himself in the process.

While a book of rather limited appeal , it is a must read for anyone interested in the subject.

Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House

by Valerie Plame Wilson

The memoirs of the woman whose story brought down Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff - "Scooter" Libby. As it turns out, there is not a whole lot of the story that she was allowed to tell (see below) that was not repeated regularly on the news, so reading this book proved to be rather redundant. The only interesting aspect was the story of the book itself. The CIA ruled that, while lengthy articles had been written about her life in many major newspapers, she herself was forbidden from talking about many aspects of he employment by the CIA prior to 2002 (even though everything she wanted to say was already in print). Having failed in court to win the right to say what everyone already knew, she and her publisher came up with a novel solution – publish the book unedited with all of the passages the CIA objected to blacked out. Some pages have a few words and phrases blacked out, while other times you have 4-5 pages in a row that are all grey boxes. Furthermore, the publisher added a lengthy "afterward", written by a journalist that essentially "fills in the blank". By reading the two sections in parallel, you can put together a fairly complete version of the story.

Feynman's Tips on Physics: A Problem-Solving Supplement to the Feynman Lectures on Physics

by Richard P. Feynman, Michael A. Gottlieb, and Ralph Leighton

In 1961-1963 the legendary (and Nobel-Prize winning) physicist Richard Feynman taught a two year introductory (Freshman/Sophomore) class in Physics at Cal Tech as part of an effort to re-think how the sciences were taught. That someone of his caliber would teach a freshman physics class was unheard of; and the results were legendary. Audio recordings of the lectures are available and the notes for the classes have been compiled into a 3 volume set.

"Tips on Physics" contains four "missing lectures". Actually, it contains the notes for one additional lecture and for a three session class he taught to prepare student for the final. Those three sessions taught no new physics; but rather focused on how to approach solving physics problems.

Feynman is one of my favorite authors, largely because he never let his success go to his head but always wanted to help people understand "the pleasure of finding things out". His non-physics books (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, What Do You Care What Other People Think?, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out) deal with things like the secret to picking up women in bars and how he learned to pick locks while working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. (I and recommend those books to everyone) He has been referred to as the "great explainer", and I can agree with that sentiment. "Tips on Physics" will have a more limited appeal; but I certainly enjoyed it.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: Stardust (Movie and extras), Lost Season 3 (Extras and episodes 8, 17, 20-23), BtVS Season 4 (disk 5)

Next Book: "Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels" by Scott Mccloud

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 16, 2007

Books 2007/12/16

Current count of books pending to be read: 165
Yeah! Progress! Two books down, none purchased.

Books finished this week:

Real Christianity

by William Wilberforce edited by Bob Beltz

In 1797 William Wilberforce published a book with the rather ungainly title “A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity”. Wilberforce is probably best known as the member of the British Parliament who led the fight to abolish the slave trade (as recently told in the movie “Amazing Grace”); but that fight was driven by his own convictions about what Christianity was supposed to be (as opposed to how it was typically practiced by others). His book was meant as a plea for people to turn away from “cultural Christianity” and to adopt “real Christianity”.

The book “Real Christianity” is a modern paraphrase of Wilberforce’s book by Bob Beltz. As I have never read Wilberforce’s original, I can’t speak to how much of this book is Wilberforce and how much is Beltz; but regardless, the result is excellent. So much of what I believe about Christianity is captured in this book, and often so eloquently. This is a must read for anyone who consider themselves to be a Christian, and for anyone who has become discouraged with what they see in Christianity in America Today. This is one of those few books I expect to get a second copy of so I have one to lend.

How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years

by Peter Strom Rudman

This is a book of mathematical archeology – looking at the historical evidence and trying to come up with theories on how mathematics evolved from simple counting to Greek mathematics. I purchased the book because a review described the effort the author spent talking about the various theories on how and why the Babylonians adopted their base-60 numbering system (which lives with us in the number of minutes in an hour and the number of degrees in a circle); but it covers much more than that. The author makes a great effort to keep what is essentially a dry topic interesting, and succeeds most of the time. A good book if you are interested in the topic; but not for general audiences.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: “Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling”

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 15, 2007

C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War

(so I am starting to get caught up on good books I read over the last year and didn't blog on)

C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War

by Justin Phillips

“Mere Christianity” by C. S. Lewis is a modern classic of the faith. A step by step presentation of the foundations of Christianity by a lay person written for other lay people. Multitudes of Christians have grown to appreciate this book. What many do not know is that the book was based on a series of radio programs that Lewis wrote and delivered for the BBC during World War II. “C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War” is the story behind those radio programs and how they eventually became “Mere Christianity”. It provides deep insight into both Lewis and into the workings of the BBC and also provides some background on WWII that many people would be unfamiliar with. The motivations behind certain talks (which became chapters in the book) are also explained. This is a must-read for any fan of Lewis’ non-fiction writing; but I would also recommend it to anyone interested in England during WWII.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 09, 2007

Books 2007/12/09

As I try to hammer down my list of books-I-purchased-but-haven’t-read, I thought I’d give weekly posts on my progress.

Today’s count is still 167. I read two books since last Monday, but also purchased two more (tsk tsk). The two I finished are:

Existential Joss Whedon: Evil And Human Freedom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly And Serenity

by J. Michael Richardson and J. Douglas Rabb

This is a critical/academic book analyzing the works of Joss Whedon. The authors’ thesis is that Joss’s presentation of good, evil and free will conforms to the existential philosophy of Sartre, particularly as it is presented in “Nausea” and “Being and Nothingness”. This is a second-generation “Buffy Studies” book in that the authors not only comment on the shows but also consider other academic papers on Buffy, noting agreement with some with trying to refute the thesis of others. Quite a good book and I think they make a good case for their position.

It’s Not Easy being Green: and Other Things to Consider

by Jim Henson, The Muppets and Friends

A short collection of quotes by and about Jim Henson and his characters. A loving tribute to a creative, kind, and driven man.

NEXT BOOK: "Real Chirstianity" by William Wilberborce

Posted by Steven at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 06, 2006

Whose Freedom

Whose Freedom?
By George Lakoff

Short Version: a "must read" for anyone who wants to engage in discourse on American politics.

Long Version:
In America, both blue-state folks ("Progressives", "Liberals") and red-state folks ("Conservatives") claims that their policies and actions serve to defend "Freedom". Further, as you hear them speak it becomes apparent that each side views the other side's claims of being "for freedom" as hypocritical at best and deliberately deceptive at worst.

Lakoff (a respected cognitive scientist and linguist) has written the book "Whose Freedom" to propose a somewhat different position – that they are both right. Both are staunch defenders of Freedom – as they understand the definition of "Freedom". The problem is that they are honestly and sincerely using two different definitions of Freedom, and that a lack of understanding of the complexities of what it means to be "free" underlies much of the miscommunication and rancor in American politics.

The first third of the book is a very thorough, rational, and unbiased analysis of why, while freedom seems like a simple an obvious concept, the application of freedom to society can result in many shades of meaning (not just the two most often represented in American politics; but many others as well). He starts with defining "Simple Freedom" – those core concepts everyone agrees on; but then shows how small differences in how people interpret individual words in those definitions can lead people to apply those common ideas differently to real world situations.

The second third of the book is a detailed analysis of the meanings of "Freedom" as the word is used by modern American progressives and conservatives. There are examples where the policies of each group appear to be inconsistent; but Lakoff proposes that each group is guided by a simple vision of the structure of society, and that their definitions of Freedom and the policies which come from it are all completely consistent and predictable in the context of that vision. I should note here that throughout the book, Lakoff is clear that he considers himself a progressive; but in these first two thirds of the book he tries to be unbiased in his presentation. In my opinion he is more successful in this regard in the first third than the second, where I noticed a half dozen times where the presentation demonstrated his personal bias. That however is a minority of the content - most of it remains unbiased.

The final section of the book is essentially Lakoff's (now quite biased) suggestions for what progressives need to do to get their vision of America understood and appreciated by the electorate, starting with an analysis of why conservatives have been so successful at communicating their idea of Freedom for the last thirty years. Much of this section draws upon Lakoff's expertise as a cognitive scientist – understanding how people receive and process information, understanding the role of "frames" and "metaphors" in communication. The proposals are well thought out and grounded in science.

For me, the middle part of the book was the most fascinating. I have long known that my own political views do not match those espoused by the major political parties here; but the book has both helped me understand why that is the true, and in some cases helped me clarify my own opinions and reasoning. Furthermore, it has provided a means for me to translate the political rhetoric of both parties into terms which I find easier to evaluate.

However, even for those of more orthodox political views – both progressives and conservatives, I strongly recommend this book. Too often these days political discourse is dominated by people talking past each other, largely because people don't actually understand the other side's point of view. This book is a good start at correcting those misunderstandings.

Posted by Steven at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 02, 2006

The Unfolding of Language

The Unfolding of Language
By Guy Deutcher

Almost all of the diversity of terrain in the world – all of the mountains, valleys, hills, dales, bays and peninsulas – owe their diverse forms to two principle forces: plate tectonics and erosion. Plate tectonics shoves the ground up into the sky, and wind and water erode it down again. There are patterns of terrain which reappear time and time again - for instance, river valleys tend to have certain common characteristics; but what strikes you as you travel the world is how varied the terrain is. Yet all that diversity can be explained by the interaction of just two forces. It is true that vegetation can affect the rate and pattern of erosion, but vegetation is also affected by the shape of the terrain, so it is not a principle factor. Likewise, the hardness of the rock effects erosion; but is itself a product of how the rock was formed which goes back to plate tectonics and erosion.

Which brings me to Guy Detcher's excellent book "The Unfolding of Language" in which he presents a quite comprehensive theory for how all of the diversity of languages in the world can be explained by three forces working on how people communicate with each other - a desire for clarity, a desire for ease (laziness), and a desire for order. Detcher shows how the interactions of these forces will inevitably produce those common elements we see in world languages and yet also explain the great diversity of languages which exist. I have read many linguistic books, and this is the first presentation of language evolution which I personally have found to be plausible. The book tackles some very hard problems - for instance verbal forms in Semitic languages which seem like something which could never have occurred naturally – and shows how the basic rules he presents could have created such forms.

I started with the geographical metaphor because there are significant parallels. Human laziness is like erosion – constantly trying to simplify those words and phrases we use often. This is not only a matter of obvious things like contractions but also changes in pronunciations to reduce how much we must move our tongues and mouths when we speak. Yet as we wear common words down into nubs, we find the need to add words to increase the clarity and forcefulness of our communication – building up more complex forms like plate tectonics drives the mountains higher, only to be worn down again. I love one example he analyzes from French – the phrase "au jour d'aujourd'hui" which apparently has become to be used recently as an emphatic form of "today", yet if you look at the linguistic history of that phrase, expanding all of the nubs that were worn down, it literally comes from "on the day of on-the-day-of-this-day".

The third force Detcher proposes has no geographical equivalent – the human desire and expectation of order which leads us to generalize rules to situations which don't apply. Given irregularities in languages (which often come about because common words and phrases are made easier to say while less common one retain their more complex forms) people then tend to generalize changes, even when they don't apply. An example presented in the book is the origin of the singular terms "pea" and "cherry". Historically, the singular form for these edibles were "pease" and "cherise"; but because people heard the "-s" sound at the end, they assumed those words were plurals and started to use the obvious singular forms "pea" and "cheri". This is however only a simple example, and the book provides other more complex ones where differences between languages with common ancestors often hinged on which of a set of irregular "rules" the people assumed was the dominant one and applied to other cases.

Finally, the book takes the story all the way back to what the author calls the "Me Tarzan" stage of language – where language consisted only of some words for things, some words for actions, and a couple of "pointing words" (the equivalent of "this" and "that" which would originally be accompanied with hand gestures). From that humble beginning, Detcher shows how the three forces he proposes could produce all of the complex forms of grammar, syntax and morphology found in modern languages around the world.

To me this book finally provided the "grand unified theory" for languages which I had been looking for. It also makes clear why all attempts to lock in one pattern of "correct speaking" will inevitably fail. Languages are living things, and change is inevitable.

Posted by Steven at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 21, 2006

The Da Vinci Code

I'll start by saying that as a work of entertaining fiction, I really enjoyed Dan Brown's book, "The Da Vinci Code". It reminded me in a lot of ways of one of my favorite films: "Raiders of the Lost Ark". A professor chasing clues to find some relic of the past, being chased in turn by murderous enemies who want the same relic for different reasons. It was a quite enjoyable story. The movie likewise was good, although not great. The story requires a great deal to be explained to make sense, and while you can hide that amount of exposition in a several hundred page novel, it tends to take some of the wind out of a movie. Ron Howard did an excellent job, probably as good as could be done with the material; but there have been many better movies made (some even by Howard).

So as a work of fiction, there is much to praise in this story. Unfortunately, it is having an effect on society beyond mere entertainment. Poll after poll by diverse groups have indicated that significant numbers of people are actually taking this story seriously. Answering "yes" to question like "Has 'The Da Vinci Code' influenced your religious beliefs" or even more directly "Do you now believe that Jesus was married?" To me, this quite astounding. If someone came out of watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and seriously said that they now believed that the Nazi's has recovered the Ark of the Covenant and that it was now held in a US Government warehouse, people would give them a wide birth; but there are people who accept the fictional premise of "The Da Vinci Code" as true and other people are treating this as normal.

Perhaps it is because I have in fact studied Christian Church history that I find this so strange. The claims of the story make no sense if you know a bit of history. I'll not expound here the many ways that the evidence presented in the book is flawed (but entertaining) - there are wonderful sources out there for anyone who is interested. Let me merely state three points which, for me personally, killed the believability of the premise long before needing to do the kind of serious textual or artistic analysis which can be found elsewhere.

First, a large percentage of the people who attended the council of Nicaea (where the book's conspiracy was supposed to originate) were the same leaders of the church world-wide who had survived the persecution under Emperor Diocletian which had ended only thirteen years earlier. Many had been imprisoned for their beliefs and had seen close friends and family killed for their faith. These were not people who would go along with any "change" to Christianity, and if the decisions at Nicaea did not represent what they understood to be true, they would have fought against it with the same energy with which they fought against Diocletian's persecution. A conspiracy to somehow change Christianity at Nicaea from what was a true consensus belief would have failed. No, what was made official at Nicaea was in fact what was the consensus belief of most (but I'll acknowledge, not all) Christians from long before 325AD.

Second, the Christian tradition (at least until 380AD) was to exclude "heretics" from the church; but otherwise to let them be. The idea was that people were given a choice by God. Those who followed The Way were a part of The Body. Those who weren't were lost and would pay the cost for their decision in due time. The result was that almost every doctrinal debate within the Church would result in some group of dissenters who would head off and "do their own thing." From the church's point of view, they were abandoned to their folly. The idea of trying to suppress these alternative ideas and otherwise persecute those who followed them did not become church policy until 380-381. The result is that there is a rich literature of alternative views of Christianity from the first three centuries which exists until today. Many of these ideas are far more problematic then the ideas presented in "The Da Vinci Code". This was actually one of largest surprises for me as I began to research church history on my own – how easy it was to find information about the "loosing side" on various doctrinal debates. The existence of all of this "heretical writing" (some quite divergent) leaves me disbelieving that any conspiracy to suppress any single doctrine would have occurred and left all of these other views out there.

Third, while the whole "Jesus was married and had a kid" part of the story is flashy, a key part of the book (which the movie dances around – using the words but never really explaining what they mean) is that "original" Christianity embraced the "sacred feminine". According to the book, suppressing the existence of Jesus' family was only a means to suppress the role of "sacred feminine" in the church. And what exactly is the recognition of the "sacred feminine"? Well, it essentially boils down to worshiping "the goddess", including having ritual sex. For those who have only seen the movie, this aspect is played down; but recall in detail what Sophie saw her "grandfather" doing which led to their estrangement (its only on screen a moment; but its there). If this is what first-century Christianity was about, I would first suspect that Rome would have had a lot less problem with the religion, and second, there would have been records – not just church records (which might have been suppressed); but personally letters, historical documents, etc. There were several sects within the Roman pantheon which included traditions like this, and those practices left echoes in the larger community which can be found by historians in places which would be difficult to eliminate perfectly. Yet there is no such record for Christianity anyplace in the world. Instead there are records of complaints about Christian's unwillingness to participate in such activities. The idea that the "sacred feminine" was ever a part of the early church is just not believable.

I have more to say about "The Da Vinci Code"; but that will have to wait for another day.

Posted by Steven at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

February 13, 2006

Crunch Time Again

I didn't post over the weekend as I was too busy recovering from a personal crunch at work last week. A lot of things on my plate happen to all line up in the next few weeks, so I am living in interesting times. I'll probably be fairly busy one way or another until March 13th, so posts may be a bit less frequent for the next few weeks. Given that, I thought I'd just make a few random comments while I wait for the caffeine to take effect.

- One reason I am upbeat despite the workload is that some of it relates to my being able to do some teaching. There's a week of training being given by my department, and I am teaching the whole first two days of classes. On top of that I am preaching at church on Sunday, March 12th. Color me very happy (just ask Anne).

- I continue to not be drawn to the Olympics. Anne and I watched our recording of the Opening Ceremonies last night – nothing to write home about; although I did enjoy the ski-jumper and the dove that were animated with people's bodies. I'm pleased they are giving good coverage to curling this year. I'm not big "into" the sport; but find it interesting and the lack of coverage in previous years had always bothered me. I have the same feeling about Rhythmic Gymnastics in the summer games.

- A couple years back I realized I had never read anything by the great SciFi author Alfred Bester, so I picked up a couple of his books, and am now finally getting around to reading his first novel – the Demolished Man (which holds the distinction of being the winner of the first-ever Hugo award). I am quite impressed so far. Some of his techniques are "old hat" now; but one must remember that this is the book in which they were invented (kind of like watching Citizen Kane).

- Grey's Anatomy remains one of the best written shows on television. While this and last week's two-part episode were clearly written as Sweeps Month ratings fodder, they clearly show what you get when you ask an already great show to do something outstanding. Both episodes were a fugue on the subjects "what really matters" and "how people handle stress". What's interesting (that I learned after watching it) was that the first episode (last week's) was deliberately written to show the "masculine" point of view; while this weeks was meant to show the "feminine" point of view. In hindsight I can see it. The point I wanted to make though is that this is a show that actually tries to do things like that. Also, the bookend "shower scene" motifs (at the start of the first part and end of the second) were perfectly done - showing the difference between masculine and feminine POV; but also commenting on what we think matters vs. what does really matter.

That's all for now.

Posted by Steven at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 01, 2006

January's books

This past month happened to be a slow month for TV, games, movies, DVDs, etc, so I spent a lot of time reading. Given that I don't blog on all of the books I read, I thought I'd at least post a complete list.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful
On Evolutionary Development (Evo-Devo)

Why Buffy Matters
Academic book on Buffy

Schrödinger's Kittens
Current understanding of Quantum Physics

TV Creators, Volume 1
TV Creators, Volume 2
Interviews with TV writers

Everything Bad is Good for you
The hidden benefits of modern media

A Place so Foreign
Collection of Short fiction by Cory Doctorow

Changing Church
A book on what's wrong with the American church (not recommended)

The Present Future
A book on what's wrong with the American church (recommended)

The First Five Pages
Book on Writing

Straczynski Unplugged
Collection of Short fiction by J Michael Straczynski

The Wisdom of the Crowds
Analysis of when, how, and why groups are sometimes "smarter" than individuals.

The Last Man Who Knew Everything
Biography of 19th century polymath, Thomas Young

The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience
A book by a Roman Catholic monk on what Christians should be learning from the cycle of the liturgical calendar. The author spoke at my previous (non-liturgical, very protestant) church, so I knew his heart towards God and was curious to hear what he had to say on this subject.

The Language of Life: How Cells Communicate in Health and Disease
Intercellular communication within organisms and colonies.

The Story of Christianity
I only read a few specific chapters in this (the book is more of a reference and I was looking for specific information.)

That's about 3250 pages of actual content (ignoring endnotes, indexes, etc.). Again, January was a rather light month for distractions, so I don't do this much every month.

Posted by Steven at 06:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

January 25, 2006

The Churching of America

The Churching of America
Winners And Losers In Our Religious Economy
by Roger Finke, Rodney Stark

I read this book several years ago; but the ideas in it have continued to influence my thinking. Since I recently recommended it in one of my comment replies I thought I should provide a more complete explanation of what it is.

In brief, Stark and Finke are secular sociologists (actually I know at least Stark is an active Christian; but his work as a sociologist is secular). Together, they developed an explanation of religious decisions based on the "rational choice" model of sociology (a fairly modern trend that uses the language and mechanics of economics to describe and explain non-economic sociological behavior – the idea being that all human interactions can be explained as being based on rational cost/benefit trade-offs). I'll not comment on the value of the "rational choice" model in general (I have seen it applied in ways which seem forced); but I think Stark and Finke's model of religious behavior is quite good. "The Churching of America" is then a very easy to read application of their theory to the denominational history of the Christian Church in America. By the way, if you want to see their theory in its pure form (and can deal with a fairly academic sociology text), they have published it in the book "Acts of Faith" which I also recommend.

I've tried a few times to give a brief write-up of their theory; but always ended up running into multiple pages and still did not do their model justice. So instead, I'll just comment on what their theory predicts if you create a "religious free market" as exists in the United States.

What they predict is a regular "sect to church" cycle. You start off with a "mainstream" denomination which is accepted by the community. The denomination does not expect much of its members and most participate at a minimal level; gaining minimal benefits from those few others who are willing to invest in the experience (the absence of God in this discussion is a reflection that their theory is secular). Within that denomination there will always be some small subset that seek a deeper experience and are willing to invest their energies to get it. To the extent to which that subset is also willing to come into conflict with their denomination and community, they will break away and form a new sect. Because that sect is initially populated by individuals who are all very committed to each other and to their new movement, the quality of the religious experience will be high and will attract others who also seek a deeper experience. Furthermore, as a break-away group with new ideas and an expectation of high commitment, the new sect will exist in tension with the community and that tension will serve as a barrier to others wishing to join.

However, because of the high quality of the experience, people will join, and not all of them will be as committed as the founders. Stark and Finke propose that the quality of the religious experience provided by a religious institution is proportion to the aggregate commitment of the members (whether because the members are producing the experience, or "god" is rewarding their commitment is not stipulated). This means that less committed people can join and gain nearly the same benefit as the more committed ones. The result is that as people join the sect, the commitment and religious experience tend to become gradually diluted by religious "freeloaders". Initially, the numbers of freeloaders will be small because the degree of tensions with the community tends to keep less committed people away; but as the community gets used to the new group and as it grows and therefore seems less unusual, the numbers of less committed people joining the group increases. This process continues, usually accelerating after the original founders die. As the freeloaders increase as a percent of the sect, they start to gain influence, and implicitly move the group in the direction of expecting less commitment. This further reduces the tension with the community (people don't have to be as "different"), which encourages even less committed people to join. This cycle continues until the sect becomes a new "mainstream" denomination, accepted by the community, not expecting much from its members, thus providing the launching pad for the next sect.

In Churching of America, Stark and Finke follow several religious movements in American history from when they were the "hot new thing" in rebellion against staid orthodoxy through to when they became the staid orthodoxy against which the next group rebelled. There is a whole lot of detail and analysis I am leaving out here for the sake of brevity. If this at all interests you, I would strongly recommend reading the book, or even reading "Acts of Faith" to get the whole story. "Acts of Faith", for instance, shows why women applying to be Catholic nuns dropped rapidly instead of increasing after Vatican II made it easier to be a nun (but remained high in those countries where Vatican II was ignored).

Now to be clear, this is NOT what I believe is the fundamental problem with the church in America. I think Stark and Finke's model shows what happens to religions under the influence of human nature in the absence of God. The real problem in America is what caused the Christian Church to become primarily a human institution governed by human nature and thus subject to this cycle.

Posted by Steven at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 24, 2006

In praise of JMS

I have mentioned here before that only one author, Orson Scott Card, has managed to get me to cry while reading his stories, and that Card has managed to accomplish feat using only his well-crafted words on several occasions. Well, I now have to modify at least the first part of that statement. I am reading "Straczynski Unplugged", a collection of short stories written by J Michael Straczynski, and JMS's ability to communicate pain, sadness, loss with language on the page has managed to bring me to tears a couple of times already.

For those who do not recognize the name, J Michael Straczynski is best known for his Television work – creating "Babylon 5" (including writing 92 of the 110 scripts) and its spins offs, writing and producing "Jeremiah" for Showtime, as well as writing 11 of the episodes of the 1985 (not 1959 or 2002) version of Twilight Zone.

JMS is also well known for his work in "graphic novels" (i.e. serious comic books). Anyone who doubts that "comics" can, in the hands of a real writer, reach the level of "literature" should read JMS's "Midnight Nation". All twelve issues have been collected into single book, and it is well worth reading. The sad irony of the end of issue 4 is up there with anything that Rod Serling ever did (its all about fear and taking responsibility – themes JMS returns to often), and the climax in issue 11 is the best presentation of what sacrifice really means that I have seen. Note, his more recent work for Marvel, while better than your average comics, is not in the same class as his independent/small-press work in this medium.

JMS has also done a small amount of work in traditional print media, including the collection I am reading now. He also has a couple of novels he wrote early in his career which I will eventually get around to (although I have heard other people comment that they are a bit rougher than his current work).

JMS's other great contribution has been his participation on the Internet. Long before there were "blogs", JMS was very active online using bulletin boards and newsgroups to give anyone who was interested a "behind the scenes" look at how television was made, telling stories about the writing and production of Babylon 5. His output to the web each week was so high you had to wonder when he found time to write the scripts. He also told many personal stories, so (to get back to where this post started), it is easy to understand where all of the pain, sadness, and loss in his writing comes from.

As a Christian, I find JMS to be a fascinating individual. While he professes to be an atheist, he has consistently provided the most sympathetic and realistic portrayals of "people of faith" I have seen on television. What other Science Fiction shows have had Catholic Monks, a Baptist Preacher, and a Rabbi as positive recurring characters? Or a character (Mr. Smith in Jeremiah) who "talks with god" but is taken seriously by the show. Even Midnight Nation can be read as a kind of Christian allegory, although I think JMS's point was more about "average" people being willing to make sacrifices for each other.

Posted by Steven at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 17, 2006

Everything Bad Is Good for You

Everything Bad Is Good for You:
How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
by Steven Johnson

Finished this book last night. The essential argument of the book is that videogames, television and the internet have significant (and different) beneficial effects on brain development. These benefits are different from those gained by reading books, and that many of the people who call these new media "bad for you" base their argument on the fact that video games, etc. do not do what books do. Steven Johnson agrees with that observation; but also points out that it is equally true that books do not benefit people in the ways that video games, etc. do.

Johnson evens goes so far as to propose that these new media are the reason behind the Flynn Effect (political scientist James R. Flynn's discovery that IQs have been increasing an average of 3% per decade in developing countries). He even uses more recent studies of the kinds of tests/questions that people have been doing better at over the last two decades and notes that the majority of the improvement has been in problem solving, pattern matching, and filling in missing information, which Johnson claims are exactly the kinds of skills that videogames increase. I'm not sure I personally buy this part of his argument; but his data is certainly interesting.

The most interesting part of the book for me, as someone who is very interested in television as a medium (for those who hadn't noticed), is Johnson analysis of the increasing complexity of TV shows over the last 40 years. He describes four metrics (parallel plotlines, frame breaking (having to go outside of an episode to understand the episode), complexity of character relationships, and implied information (not telling the audience things; but letting them figure them out)); and using shows from the 60's, 80's and 2000's shows how each metric has increased significantly over that time.

I have experienced this myself, although I couldn't articulate it. I've had the opportunity lately (either in re-runs or DVDs) to watch some older TV shows which I loved when originally aired, only to find them unsatisfying now. I was able to discount this effect for shows I watched as a child (I am, after all, an adult now); but even shows I watched as an adult have lost their luster. Having now read Johnson's book, I can see clearly the issue. The old shows typically had at most 2 plots, with only 4-8 switches between plots in an episode. There were a small number of characters with easily understood relationships. The shows almost never referenced things outside of the episode, and were explicit about telling me everything I needed to know to understand the story (with characters saying to each other "You know, this means…." just so it was clear). As someone who is now used to watching Lost and the new Battlestar Galactica, it was like watching children's programming.

Johnson's point in all this is: if television is responsible for the dumbing-down of America, you'd expect TV shows to be getting more simple not more complex. Instead, the trend indicates that there is increasing demand for more complex television, which he believes is tied to the brain's reward mechanisms. Letting the viewer figure things out triggers an "aha" mechanism which gives positive feedback through neurotransmitters, meaning people will tend to like more challenging TV as long as it isn't too challenging. Furthermore, Johnson observes with syndication and TV shows on DVD, shows that reward repeated viewings by hiding interesting but non-essential data also have an advantage (of which Lost would seem to be an ideal example – you almost have to watch each season twice).

I'm going to have to think more about his ideas before I decide if I agree; but this book certainly adds a lot to the debate about the value of the new media.

Posted by Steven at 06:02 PM | Permalink

January 07, 2006

The First Five Pages

The First Five Pages
A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile
By Noah Lukeman

Just finished this short book of advice to writers, written by a literary agent. It reminded me a great deal of a seminar I once went to that was taught by Kevin J. Anderson (co-author of the recent Dune books) and his wife Rebecca Moesta (also a successful author). The seminar was titled "Things we wish someone had told us when we were starting out writing".

The centerpiece of the talk (at least for me) was their description of the Saturday they were invited over to their publisher's house to help him with the weekly "sorting of the slush pile". An Editor's/Publisher's/Agent's slush pile is the stack of all of the unsolicited manuscripts they receive each week from unknown writers. Manuscripts that have been requested, or are written by recognized authors are automatically pulled for consideration; but the bulk that remain have to fight their way to make the first cut. In Kevin and Rebecca's example, they had over one hundred manuscripts that they and their publisher had to sort through in about five hours; from which they could select only three that the publisher would have time to actually read that week. Not to mention that only one every two or three weeks would actually be selected for publication from the slush pile.

The key lesson from that experience was that this first cut had absolutely nothing to do with finding good books to publish – it was entirely about finding quick excuses to reject a manuscript from consideration. Anything was fair game – from the kind of paper it was printed on, to using too many commas in the first sentence. When you have to run through 20-30 manuscripts an hour, you don't have time to consider artistic merit. The point is that not only do you need a great book to get published, but you also can't give any excuse whatsoever for the publisher not to read it.

The book "The First Five Pages" is very much about the same lesson. As an agent who spends 10-12 hours a day working to support the few manuscripts he has chosen to promote, but who gets hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts a week to consider; he too needs to be brutal in finding quick ways to cull his slush pile quickly. At most he reads the first five pages and five random pages from the middle of the book, and that only if he can not find quicker ways to eliminate the book (bad font, wrong margins). Most of what Lukeman talks about are things I have heard at WorldCon seminars I have attended; but for those who have not had that opportunity, I would certainly recommend the book.

Posted by Steven at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 07, 2005

Babylon 5 scripts.

Since it is likely that some of the people who read this blog are also fans of JMS (J, Michael Straczynski) in general and the TV series "Babylon 5" in specific, I thought I would point you at:

http://www.babylon5scripts.com/

I received my copy of "volume 1" today, and am definitely pleased. All through the production of B5, JMS was very active online, using the show as an opportunity to teach people on the net how TV shows are made. These books appear to be the final step in the process – not just sharing the scripts; but production notes, memos, photographs, stories, etc.

Also note that there will be a 15th volume published and made available (for free) only to those who already purchased the initial 14.

Posted by Steven at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 31, 2005

"Nobody's Son" by Sean Stewart

One of the panels I attended at the 2004 WorldCon was on the subject of "things we hope never to see again in any fantasy or science fiction story" – essentially what characters, plot elements, settings, etc. have been overdone. In the course of the conversation, the panelists not only talked about the tired motifs of fiction; but also mentioned a few books which they felt "got it right" – books which managed to breathe new life into old ideas. One of those that were mentioned more than once was "Nobody's Son" by Sean Stewart. It took me a while to find a copy (it had been out of print, and being labeled a "young adult" title, I didn't want to buy it without a chance to look inside first); and then it languished in my reading queue for a few months; but I finally got around to reading it this past week.

A classic form of fairy tale is: Some evil (dragon, giant, ghost, etc.) threatens a kingdom. The king puts out a decree that the individual who can defeat this threat will win some prize (the princess, half the kingdom, etc.). Many brave knights try and fail; but them some plucky commoner prevails using wit and common sense. The commoner wins the prize and, as the saying goes "lives happily ever after". This is essentially the story told in chapter one of "Nobody's Son", with the exception that the rest of the book is about how he did not in fact live "happily ever after". His princess/bride was not what he expected (among other thing, denying him access to her bed), the nobles scheme against him out of envy and pride, and as it turns out side effects of his victory may prove to be worse than the original problem.

What however surprised me was not how this book turned a classic pattern around, or that it was an entertaining book; but that it actually had something to say in the midst of the story. There's a definite theme there about the relationships between fathers and their children, particularly their sons. The title is not just a reference to how the king's court views the hero (son of a commoner, a "nobody"); but also to the fact that the hero's father had abandoned his family when the hero was a child, and so he had "nobody" as a father. While I wouldn't consider the insights in the book to be "deep"; that they were there at all was a pleasant surprise.

"Nobody's Son" isn't a "must read", but I can recommend it as "good read".

Posted by Steven at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 24, 2005

In praise of "Democracy in America"

For as far back as I can recall paying attention to politicians and pundits (which, alas, is quite a long time), I recall them quoting "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville. I had no idea what the book was; but the quotes sounded good and I thought I should eventually get around to reading it. A few years back (after 25 or so years of not getting around to it), I heard two different people, within the period of a day, quoting from the book to support their positions. What caught my attention was not the quotes (which were eloquent as usual); but that the positions being taken were in fact diametrically opposite positions on the same issue. That was the last straw that finally got me to buy and read the book – I had to know what it actually said as opposed to how people were quoting it.

I am so glad I did – my only regret was that I had not done so sooner.

My first surprise was to discover that the book from which I had heard so many quotes that were completely relevant to modern America, was in fact written by a Frenchman in the 1835 – nearly two hundred years ago. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat and lawyer who served as a minor judge under the constitutional monarchy that came into power in the "July Revolution". In 1831, he was given authorization to travel to America, officially to collect information on the America penal system; but based on de Tocqueville's assorted writing (including the journal he kept on his trip) this was really just a pretext. The real reason de Tocqueville wanted to tour America is that he and his parents had seen democracy fail the first few times it was tried and France, and he was determined to figure out why it seemed to be working in America.

The result of his eighteen months of research is a book which, 175 years on, is still (in my opinion at least) the most comprehensive and accurate description of what America is that has ever been written. I read a great many books on history, politics, sociology, and "Americanism"; many of which I recommend on a frequent basis; but not one book I have ever read comes close to "Democracy In America" for its insight into either democracy or America. There is a very short list of books I consider "must reads". This is one of those few.

The book describes what America is, why it became that way, and how it is likely to evolve in the (then) future. The two things that make the book special is first the care with which he delves into the root causes of many aspects of American Culture – trying to determine why we turned out the way we did. One outcome of this is that de Tocqueville's original reason for coming to America turned out to be a failure. His conclusion is that America's culture of democracy was a result of unique factors in the colonization of this nation, which would be impossible to reproduce in France and that if France was ever to establish a stable democracy, it would need to invent its own European democratic culture.

Second, while de Tocqueville clearly admired America, he was not at all blind to our faults, and spends a great deal of time in the book describing the issues which he expected to plague our society. It is the accuracy of these predictions that misled me into thinking that it was a more modern book. He predicted tabloid journalism, sound-bite politics. He predicted that in the end we would be ruled not by wise men; but by those who could best inflame our passions. Reading Democracy in America more often felt like reading the morning paper than a two hundred year old treatise. He also occasionally got things wrong; but even the things he did not foresee are interesting to note.

A few suggestions to those who I have convinced to read the book. First the original is written in French (and fairly advanced French at that), so I suspect most people who read my blog will have to resort to a translation. I read the Lawrence/Mayer edition and was pleased with it. Second, by all means make sure you get an unabridged copy. It may be 750 pages total; but from what I have seen, those who edit abridged copies almost always have some agenda to what parts they include and what they omit. If you are going to read it, read the whole thing.

Posted by Steven at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 25, 2005

Dune, Dune and More Dune

I just finished reading the last (?) of the Dune prequel novels and thought I'd comment on the set.

For those who are unfamiliar, "Dune", by Frank Herbert is one of the great classic novels of Science Fiction (its numerous sequels are also generally good reading; but not up to the original in my opinion). While the story has a SciFi setting, it is primarily a political thriller, with various noble houses and secretive organizations vying to gain, or at least not lose, power in a vast interstellar empire. The story is a Byzantine mix of plots within plots within plots which would make Machiavelli dizzy.

When Frank Herbert died, he left his son, Brian (who is also a writer), his notes on the universe of Dune including all of the back-stories that set up the original Novel. Over the past several years, Brian Herbert has been working with Kevin J. Anderson to produce two prequel trilogies which cover the events leading up to Dune, and I have just finished reading the last of them. For those who are Tolkien fans, these books are to Dune what the Silmarillian was to Tolkien's Rings novels.

The first prequel trillogy published was "House Atreides", "House Harkonnen" and "House Corrino". These books cover the events immediately prior to Dune and focus on putting the various characters from Dune in place for that story. We see Shaddam IV become emperor. We see the various retainers of House Atreides (Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halek, Dr. Yueh ) come into the employ of that family. We find out why the Baron Harkonnen is so fat. We see how the Lady Jessica was conceived and see Paul (the hero of Dune) born. There are also a number of tips to events which occur in the later sequels. The writing is excellent and the stories are up there with the best of the Dune sequels.

The second prequel trillogy published was "The Butlerian Jihad", "The Machine Crusade", and "The Battle of Corrin". These books cover the events of the distant past in the Dune universe, specifically the Butlerian Jihad, and focus on putting the various institutions from Dune in place. We see the establishment of the Empire, the Spacing Guild, and the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, the Suk Doctors, and the Swordmasters of Ginaz, The Fremen, etc. The writing again is excellent, and in most cases the stories are interesting and add to the original novels. While I originally thought it was too much of a coincidence for all of these institutions to come into being at the same time, the story actually fits them together so it makes perfect sense.

Only two things ended up bothering me, both in the last book. First, the origin of the Mentats is given short service. I got the feeling that Brian & Kevin got to the last book and suddenly realized "Ooops! We forgot the Mentats" and squeezed them in at the last minute. Then again, perhaps Herbert's notes were also thin on this subject. The other problem was a bit of a continuity challenge for them. In Dune it is established that the enmity between House Harkonnen and House Atreides is because of an act of cowardice by a Harkonnen ancestor at "The Bridge of Corrin" – a great battle that established the empire. The problem is one of scope – Corrin is a planet, and the scale of the battles was global. Finding a way for a "bridge" to take a significant role in such a conflict was a challenge, and in my opinion their solution was not satisfying.

However that being said, all six books were well worth reading, and must-reads for any real fan of Dune.

Posted by Steven at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 15, 2005

American Gods

American Gods
By Neil Gaiman

While I have read a couple of his shorter works, this is the first novel I have read by Neil Gaiman. My general reaction to Gaiman as an author is that he's a "thinking man's Roger Zelazny". What stands out in my mind about Zelazny's work is how he always mixed the mythic with the modern – most of his stories were based on historic mythology, but set in modern times. Gaiman's seems to follow suite; but brings even more depth and complexity to his stories.

As to American Gods in specific, I thoroughly enjoyed the book; although it went in a different direction than I initially hoped (the climax was completely different from what I expected). On face value the story is about the conflict between the "old gods" (creatures from various ancient mythologies – Odin, Horus, Kali, etc.) who are scraping by without worshipers in America vs. the "new gods" of Media, Internet, Government, etc. who are afraid that they too will become obsolete. At a deeper level it is about how America is "not a good country for gods" – that we are a fickle people who discard our heritage quickly.

In addition to an excellent story and theme, there are many other things to enjoy about the book. For instance - trying to figure out who the various characters are as most go by pseudonyms, although ones related to their identity (for instance Odin goes by the name "Mr. Wednesday"). It is also amusing to see what the various old gods do when they are no longer worshiped. Czernobog (Slavic god of death) ended up working as a "knocker" (the one who actually killed the animals) in a Chicago slaughterhouse before the slaughterhouse closed down. Anubis, Egyptian lord of the dead, works as an undertaker. Fertility goddesses ended up working as prostitutes, etc.

I also enjoyed the concept that there are "places of power" that people are inherently drawn to; but that the effect is different in modern America. While in other countries and times, people might have been drawn to build shrines or temples on these locations; in America, we tend to build roadside attractions. I loved the idea that places like "Wall Drugs" and "South of the Border" are Americans "shrines".

I will definitely read more of Neil Gaiman's works.

Posted by Steven at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 15, 2005

Soren Kierkegaard

I generally find reading philosophy to be rather unenlightening. A lot of effort is spent creating definitions of words that often bear no resemblance to everyday use, and then there are long passages using those words were you constantly have to perform complex substitutions based on the definitions to understand what the author intends. It always strikes me that there must be some way to say all this in much simpler terms.

My suspicion is that through the ages philosophy has been maintained as a kind of religion of hidden truths (like the ancient Gnostics) where the obscurity of the dialog is meant to keep out those who have not been invited into the secret mysteries. Either that, or it is an attempt to make it all sound harder than it is so people believe philosophers actually do hard work. (I consider myself a philosopher of sorts; but make no pretence that thinking about these things is hard – only time consuming).

Having said that, I believe I have found a philosopher that I not only enjoy; but I even agree with – The early 19th Century Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, a "proto-existentialist". He has a lot of humor in his writing (dry, ironic humor, but humor nonetheless), and his frequent use of stories to illustrate his points shows that he actually wants people to understand what he is saying. Even the titles of some of his works ("Concluding Unscientific Postscript") show that he does not take himself as seriously as other philosophers.

The sense you get reading his works is that he's a man who was driven to understand the world he lived in, and wrote about his thought as a means to clarify his own thinking, not to convince or impress other people. I suspect if he lived today, he would be a blogger.

As I said, I not only find him a good read; but I also find he and I have come to many of the same conclusions.

Kierkegaard was a Christian; but his focus was on an individual's relationship with God and not with the rules and rituals of the established church (which he viewed as corrupt – his most scathing attacks were on "Christendom" (vs. "Christianity" which he believed in)). He spent a lot of time considering the conflict between Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac as something which objectively was murder; but within Abraham's subjective relationship with God was the pinnacle of righteousness. I believe that Kierkegaard's solution – that in the end one is only responsible to your own relationship with God, not to what others think – is technically correct; but must be evaluated in a context of how one becomes certain of your own relationship with God, lest we justify people who go off and commit random acts of violence because "God told them to".

Furthermore, Kierkegaard is credited as having started the line of thought which under Sartre became known as "existential philosophy". For all my reading, I remain unclear on what existential philosophy is (beyond the useless "it's was Sartre taught"); but I have often accused of being an existentialist, and many of the works of writing and film I enjoy are also so categorized. I certainly understand the drive for meaning/significance that motivates these works, and have experienced the abject angst/dread they describe when one's place in the universe becomes unclear. To exist without meaning would to me be the highest horror one could experience. To Kierkegaard, this angst was the process by which one transcended the merely aesthetic to achieve an ethical life and eventually establish a relationship with God which he viewed as the true purpose of religion.

Posted by Steven at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 30, 2005

The Geography of Thought

The Geography of Thought
How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... and Why
By Richard E. Nisbett

I read this book a couple years ago; but have been thinking about it a lot recently (for reasons which may end up in my blog someday). The premise of the book is that "Eastern" and "Western" cultures leads people "thinking" differently. Most people have heard these kinds of statements before (Westerners are reductionistic, Easterners Holistic; Westerners require consistency, Easterners live with contradictions, Westerners focus on things, while Easterners focus on context). What makes this book interesting (as opposed to another collection of stereotypes) is that the author actually provides some hard evidence to both prove this is the case and at the same time clarifies the true nature of these differences.

As an example, he cites a series of tests done with the equivalent of Sesame Street's "one of these four is not like the others" game. People were presented sets of 4 pictures and ask to identify the one that isn't like the other three (for instance if presented with pictures of a tree, a flower, a tomato plant, and a dog, one might answer that the dog is the odd picture since the other three are plants and the dog is an animal). In the tests described in the book the pictures were more complex and had more than one factor which varied. The tests were conducted with people in Korea, Japan, China, the USA, and a couple of European countries. There were very clear and consistent differences in how the Asian participants answered vs. the American and Europeans, showing differences in what the different people considered significant. So shown a picture of a dog and a puppy, a horse and a colt, a bird and baby bird, and a pair of (adult) goats, the Westerners would pick the birds as the odd picture (the others are all animals), while the Easterners would pick the goats as the others are pictures of parent/child relationships.

The book is full of these kinds of tests, each of which backs up the traditional (stereotypical?) characterization. One of the most interesting ones to me (which refutes that this is somehow genetic or racial) is that one set of tests were gives to bilingual people in Hong Kong, with half the group being presented with the test in English and the other half in Chinese. The study showed that individuals asked the question in English tended to give more "Western" answers than those asked in Chinese.

What I most appreciated in the book was not the demographic information itself (who thought what); but rather the reminder that there is more than one way to view the world. We in the west are very focused on characterizing objects by characteristics. This is an X (which is a subtype of Y which is a subtype of Z) with characteristics A, B, and C. That view has led us to great insights in chemistry and physics; but I fear it has often led us astray in how we understand each other. We try to classify each other, give names to our conditions and behaviors and start to think we understand each others; but I am not sure we do.

Posted by Steven at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 25, 2005

Eastern Standard Tribe

Eastern Standard Tribe
by Cory Doctorow

Short review: "Tastes great, less filling"

This is the second of Cory's novels, and I very much like his "voice" – how he writes. It is entertaining and enjoyable. I will certainly read more of his books as I have an opportunity.

However, I found this book to be a bit short on "substance", and thinking back to "Down and out in the Magic Kingdom", it also was rather simple in its treatment. Each book had a few good ideas; but I come away feeling more like I had read a short story than a novel. The ideas are presented but are not explored in any real depth.

As to the ideas themselves: The basic concept of EST is that modern communication technology (internet, blackberry's, etc.) allow people to contact and form relationships with people they are not geographically near. The premise of the book is that we are starting to form "tribes" that bear no relationship to geography, and that our loyalty to our "tribe" will inevitably grow compared to our loyalty to other associations we may be a part of. The story is about an individual who gets into trouble because of his loyalty to his tribe.

As far as I have explained it, I agree with the premise. I have certainly formed tighter relationships with people I know over the net than with people in my local community, and I could imagine making decisions on that basis.

Where I start to disagree is that the "tribes" in the book are time-zone based. The protagonist has found he is most at home with others from the Eastern Standard time zone. This is problematical since through most of the book he lives in London, and skews his hours to maximize overlap with his "tribe". This bears no resemblance to my personal experience. First, my "tribe" tends to be defined by ideas, not geography. Furthermore, while there is a preponderance of people in the Eastern time zone in my tribe, I have never felt compels to skew my hours to contact them – that's what asynchronous tools like Email are for!

There is however one intriguing twist on this. The author of the book is from Toronto; but currently lives in London. Perhaps this is in fact his personal experience, if not mine.

Posted by Steven at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 17, 2005

The Watchmen

Watchmen (Paperback)
by Alan Moore (Author), Dave Gibbons (Artist)

In 1986/1987 Alan Moore created what is recognized as a masterpiece among "graphic novels" (high-end, comic book series created for adults instead of children). I however was not reading comic books at the time, so it passed me by.

A few years back, I started reading comics again when JMS (a TV writer whose work I enjoyed) started writing the Spiderman comics for Marvel and I was curious what he skills would produce in this different medium. I was pleased and surprised, and have since started reading a very limited number of "graphic novels" when I have time.

Now that I am paying attention to comics again (looking for those few I am willing to spend my time on), I've taken note of those titles people are still talking about 10-20 years after they were published, and "The Watchmen" is near the top of that list. I was finally able to borrow a copy from a friend and read it over the weekend.

The Watchmen disserves all of the praise it receives. It is an intelligent deconstruction of the American "comic book hero" myth. It tells the story of 2 generations of heroes (roughly matching the "golden age" and "silver age" of comics), and shows the complexity of their characters. A key subtext of the book is that in real life, anyone who would go around fighting crime in a costume has to be pretty mess up psychologically, and anyone who was born with "superpowers" would find it difficult to relate to the rest of humanity. Out of those conflicts comes a story that isn't pretty; but asks good questions about just what is "truth, justice, and the American way" as Superman used to say.

Not only are the characters and the story interesting; but Moore(and the artist, Dave Gibbons) manage to employ almost "cinematic" techniques in how they tell the story. Both the visual style and background action provide complexity to the presentation that I think many people would not expect.

By the way, the title comes from the roman aphorism: "Quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes?" – Who watches the watchmen, only mentioned in passing in the book; but serves as the foundation of the whole story

Posted by Steven at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 12, 2005

Epic

Epic : The Story God Is Telling and the Role That Is Yours to Play
by John Eldredge

A couple years back, I read the book The Cry for Myth by Rollo May (a noted Psychologist and Existential Philosopher). In it, May examines how people are drawn to myth and fictional stories as a means to understand the world around them, and how they invent stories when none of the existing ones seem to fit. May uses ancient myths, modern stories, and case studies of his patients to make his case that we are driven to understand ourselves as being part of a larger story.

Epic is a small book (only 104 under-sized pages – I read it in under 40 minutes) follows along a similar lines; but with a distinctly Christian flavor. Starting with Lord of the Rings, and using dozens of other stories – mostly movies like Star Wars, Titanic, Last of the Mohicans, The Matrix, Braveheart, Gladiator, etc. to say that we are all in fact characters in an epic story - a love story set amid a great battle between good and evil. He calls out parallels between the stories that become popular and the great story told in the Bible.

As a Christian who is also an unrepentant fan of popular culture, I found this to be an thoroughly enjoyable book – both in terms of its analysis of popular fiction, and the presentation of Christianity which I think draws nearer to the heart of the gospel than many sermons I have heard from the pulpit. Christianity is not about rules and threats – it is an love story which we are all invited to be a part of.

I consider his book is a must-read for any Christian who is a fan of modern fiction, and I would recommend it to non-Christians who are open to a new perspective on that faith.

Posted by Steven at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 10, 2005

On Intelligence

On Intelligence
by Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee

I have previously commented on my fascination with the transition between fields of study: how does biology arise from chemistry? How does sociology arise from psychology? How does mind arise from brain?

On the last subject I appear to have good company: Jeff Hawkins – the inventor of the Palm Pilot and founder of Palm Computing and Handspring. Mobile computing is his "day job"; but his real passion (and what he appears to spend a lot of his "spare time" thinking about) is the question of how does the brain work.

He discovered (as I have) that while there is a lot of understanding of how individual neurons work, and there are theories of psychology which explain the overall behavior, there are virtually no attempts out there to postulate how the brain works as a system. The few theories that exists relate to specific areas of the brain (for instance, how vision is processed) and generally have enormous gaps that make them less than compelling.

Given that, what is amazing is that someone who might be considered a dilettante in some circles has actually produced a rather comprehensive and compelling theory. Hawkins' book "On Intelligence" presents his theory that intelligence, creativity, and even "the mind" arises from the brain acting as an "associative memory-prediction mechanism". That in essence the neurons in the brain are organized to detect hierarchies of patterns, with matched patterns feeding up the hierarchy into higher and higher levels of abstraction and predictions of what patterns should be found next/nearby feeding down the hierarchy. With a single, simple model he shows how "inputs" like vision and sight and "outputs" like muscle control are all the same thing.

This book is not just an abstract theory either. He explains in some detail the physical structure of the neo-cortex and how the different kinds of cells in the six layers of that structure interact to make this occur. Furthermore he presents eleven predictions based on his model which can be scientifically tested to determine if his theory is correct.

Based on my own consideration of these questions, I am reasonably convinced that he is essentially correct in his understanding of how the neo-cortex works. I like the way his model explains how we fill in missing information and how we can recognize something as "the same" even when the details of the stimulus are quite different (someone's face in front of you vs. a picture of the same face at an angle on the edge of your vision). I also like how he explains how "outputs" are driven by prediction - at a high level, "reaching for the door knob" predicts patterns at lower and lower levels so that at the lowest level it "predicts" the firing of neurons that actually contract muscles.

Whether that is in fact sufficient to explain intelligence and creativity is another matter which I will have to think about more. I think what he describes is probably a key part of how the brain works; but I am unsure if his model is as complete as he claims. Nonetheless, this is a book well worth reading.

Posted by Steven at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 03, 2005

Freakonomics

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

In 2003, Steven D. Levitt won the John Bates Clark Medal, acknowledging him as the most promising young economist of 2002-2003. This is impressive since by even his own admission, Levitt isn't a very good economist. After reading his book, what I'd say is that he is one of the world's greatest "data miners" – someone skilled at analyzing vast amounts of data to discover hidden correlations, patterns, and when he is lucky, correctly identifying cause and effect relationships.

In this task, his nemesis is "conventional wisdom" – those truths that people believe because they find them comforting to believe: ideas and relationships, which confirm how people would like the world to work. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom is often false. Steven D. Levitt has found himself in the role of the knight errant, slaying the dragons of conventional wisdom, and Stephen J. Dubner (a journalist for the New York Time Magazine) has become his Boswell, Watson to Levitt's Holmes.

The book Freakonomics is a collection of observations by Levitt (as documented by Dubner) on a variety of topics, only related by the means of their discovery (statistical analysis) and that most people would be surprised by the answers. This book is a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a skeptic as it presents a fresh and rational view of the world. Among the subjects discussed:

- Why, when daycare centers start charging a penalty for picking children up late, do the number of late pickups increase?
- How did Superman actually help defeat the Ku Klux Klan; and what does that have to do with Enron?
- Are real estate agents really motivated to get you the best price on your home?
- What do sumo wrestlers and public school teachers have in common?

And then there's the discovery which made Levitt famous (or perhaps infamous). From the 1960s through the last 1980's, juvenile crime was increasing rapidly. There were dire predictions of what would happen as this trend moved into the 1990's; but those predictions didn't come true. In fact around 1990, juvenile crime started to drop, and drop fast. Levitt analyzed a large number of potential causes, and found most of them (like gun control, and an improving economy) had no statistically detectable effect. A few (more police, more people being kept in prison) has some effect; but combined could only statistically account for about a quarter of the drop. So what caused the majority of the sudden drop in juvenile crime?

Levitt discovered something that had perfect correlation. The more of this thing there was in a state, the more crime dropped in proportion. The sooner it occurred in a state, the sooner crime started dropping. The answer – inexpensive legal abortions. The nationwide drop in juvenile crime started 16 years after Roe v. Wade. In each state, the drop in crime vs. the predicted pattern was proportional the increasing number of abortions in that state, including mirroring variations in abortion rates that occurred for various reasons. Those states that legalized abortions before Roe v. Wade saw their juvenile crime rate drop exactly the right number of years/months earlier.

Needless to say, this was a hot potato that no one wanted to be seen supporting. The moral an ethical issues raised by this are enormous. The theory is that unwanted children (for whatever reason they are unwanted) are the most likely to become juvenile offenders; and by eliminating a majority of unwanted children, the number of offenders dropped. Levitt himself recognizes that this is a rather unpleasant idea; but he stands by the facts of his analysis without supporting any particular application of the observation. The only "lesson" he personally takes away from it is simply: statistically speaking, women appear to be pretty good judges of whether they are in a position to raise a child effectively.

Posted by Steven at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 29, 2005

Shadow of The Giant

Shadow of The Giant
by Orson Scott Card

Back sometime around '81 a friend of mine lent me his copy of "Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories", by Orson Scott Card. I had never such a strong emotional reaction to the written word as I had reading this collection of short stories. Tales like "Kingsmeat" and "The Porcelain Salamander" were about deep truths of the human condition; but rather than being expressed in intellectual terms (which I was used to from most science fiction and fantasy), the stories here were expressed in emotional terms. Card was immediately added to my list of favorite authors, and remains on the of the few authors I will buy hardback books of.

One of the best short stories in the collection was "Ender's Game" – a well written tale of lost childhood and the pressure adults place on children. Given my rather interesting youth, it resonated with me. In '85 I discovered that Card had expanded this short story into a novel, and I immediately purchased it. While the story was the same (and in fact none of the original content was removed, just new scenes added), I was amazed at how different the novel felt from the short story; and how, despite that difference, I also enjoyed the novel – just for different reasons. The novel added more themes without in any way diminishing the original ideas of the short story. Here was a case where a work was expanded without just adding "more of the same". I loved it.

Well, the novel "Ender's Game" begat a series of sequels: "Speaker for the Dead", "Xenocide", and "Children of the Mind". All except the last maintained the high standard I have grown to expect from Card. "Children of the Mind" had some great ideas and great moments; but in my opinion it didn't fit together into a satisfying whole. In addition, Card painted himself into a corner with that book (kind of like Niven with his Teela Brown gene) – at the climax of the story the characters invent what essentially is a wish fulfillment device. It is kind of hard to make an interesting story after that (any problem can be solved too easily).

So it was interesting that in '99, card returned to the "Enderverse" with a new book. However, rather than doing a sequel to "Children…" (which would have been difficult), he returned to the beginning and told the story of Enders Game again; but this time from the point of view of one of the other characters – Bean (the smallest of Ender's team-mates). "Ender's Shadow" was an amazing piece of writing – explaining what was happening "just around the corner" from key events in the original story, and in some cases explaining why things happened the way they did. Bean was a very different; but equally compelling character with his own rather sizable baggage placed on him by adults. Again card managed to create more depth to the original story without detracting anything form it.

"Ender's Shadow" again had begat a series of sequels, although I think in this case it was more premeditated (Card had planned for the sequels in the original work). So there came "Shadow of the Hegemon", "Shadow Puppets" and now "Shadow of the Giant". Each of these sequels explores what happened on Earth after the events of Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow. Essentially the leaders of Earth came up with a solution to one problem; but had not thought about what that solution would mean to the world once the problem was solved. The new Shadow series explores the consequences of such lack of foresight.

The latest book did not disappoint. My only question is – is this the last Shadow story? In some ways, Bean's personal saga seems to have been wrapped up. However, there is an enormous loose end left dangling out of the book which begs for some kind of sequel. I'm just not sure if Card means to follow that up with another Shadow book, or if the idea is to start a new series with other characters.

Posted by Steven at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

May 30, 2005

The Fourth Turning

The Fourth Turning By William Strauss and Neil Howe

I intentionally avoid books that propose to predict future trends as I have found them to be so useless as to be laughable. So I ignored the "The Fourth Turning", subtitled "An American Prophesy" when it was a best-seller in 1998. However, I recently had the book recommended to me, and I started reading it last night…. and I have been loath to put it down (I'm glad today was a holiday).

The bulk of the book (256 out of 333 pages), puts forth a thesis that history (and specifically Anglo-American history) is cyclical. That there are 4 kinds of generations that occur in a specific sequence (which the book refers to as Artists, Prophets, Nomads, and Heroes), and that there is a cycle of 4 periods of time (which the book refers to as High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis "Turnings") which correspond to each generation reaching a certain level of maturity: childhood, young adulthood, midlife, and elder. So, the Hero generation is born in an unraveling, serve as adults in a crisis, reach midlife in the high, and are elders in an awakening, and then die off just as the next hero generation is born in the subsequent unraveling, so the whole cycle last approximately a "human lifetime".

The authors provide extensive research on this model, showing first the long history of cyclical models of history, going back to the Etruscans in 800BC; showing is detail how their theory relates to previous ones. Then they demonstrate quite admirably how it applies to Anglo-American history from 1430's to now. They even do one thing that raised my admiration significantly – they admit that there is a glitch around the American Civil War – that the war started 10-15 years earlier than they would have predicted, and therefore only half the expected actors were actually "on stage" when it occurred. As part of this explanation they acknowledge that while this cyclic pattern represents a tidal force in history, it can be temporarily diverted by events.

I also appreciate their answer to the question "Do historical events cause these transitions, or do the transitions cause the historical events?" Their answer is that generational transitions set up an environment for change; but that a catalytic event is often required to make the transition. The same event at other times would have less significant consequence on the society, and a many kinds of events can catalyze the transitions. Still, they recognize, the need for a catalytic event is one thing that make it impossible to predict exact years when changes will occur.

The final quarter of the book is by far the most interesting (and is hinted at throughout to keep the reader's interest). According to the authors' theory, about the year 2004 America should enter a new Crisis Turning, when the Hero generation born after 1982 will be led by the Boomer generation in government through some crisis which will reshape American society and set the stage for a new High turning to start in 2025 or so.

Now, keeping in mind that this book was written in 1997, back before the 2000 elections even started. Given that, some comments from the book:

"[an example of a crisis catalyst might be] A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft. ... The US and allies launch a preemptive strike [to prevent the deployment of nuclear weapons by terrorists]. Congress declares war and authorized unlimited house-to-house searches. Opponents charge that the president concocted the emergency for political purposes."

Or

"What makes a crisis special is the public's willingness to let leaders lead even when they falter and let authorities be authoritative even when they make mistakes. Amid civic solidarity, mediocre leaders can gain immense popular followings; bad policies can be made to work (or at least be perceived to be working) and even a spectacular failure… does not undermine public support."

Or

" debates will commence on laws that radically shift the balance between individual rights and duties"

Or

"Soon after the catalyst, a national election will produce a sweeping political realignment as one faction capitalizes on a new public demand for decisive action."

Or

"Criminal Justice will become swift and rough, trampling on some innocents to protect an endangered and desperate society from those feared to be guilty"

It book also predicts in the crisis turning, an increase in censorship as society rebels against its own perceived immorality.

Sound familiar?

This book is being added to my "must read" recommendation list to all of my friends.

Posted by Steven at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 18, 2005

author Neal Stephenson

I have three categories into which I sort fiction authors: At the bottom are those great numbers of authors who I will only purchase if and when someone recommends a specific work. This is where all author's start, and where most stay. Above that are those authors who I have read and enjoyed, and am willing to purchase their books based only on the basis that they wrote them; but will do so only when those books are available in paperback. At the apex of my hierarchy are those select authors by whom I am willing to purchase hardback books – both based on my desire to read them as soon as I can, and based on the assumption that I am most likely to lend those books and want them to survive the inevitable mistreatment they will need to endure.

At various times in my life, there have been many different authors who have reached that top platform, although most have not stayed – either because they ceased to produce books I valued or because they simply cease to produce book (often because of their death). Currently there are only two authors who I purchase hardbacks by: Orson Scott Card, and Neal Stephenson. Perhaps someday I will comment on Orson Scott Card, but today I was thinking about Neal Stephenson.

I have grown to truly enjoy Neal Stephenson in large part because his books can be appreciated on so many levels.

First and foremost, they are "ripping yarns" – stories full of action and adventure that are sure to entertain. His last trilogy had pirates, harems, galley slaves, court intrigue, sword fights, assassinations, bombs, mad noblemen, hidden treasure, and so on. In terms of story, his works compare well to Alexandre Dumas (musketeers, et. al.)

Second, his is one of the finest pure wordsmiths working today. Most authors make art in the story they tell, in the characters they create, in the ideas they present; their words however only the means to present that art. They are clear and effective; but are not themselves to be admired beyond what they present. Stephenson however does all that and creates art with the words themselves. Some have compared him to Hemmingway, but Stephenson reminds me more of William Faulkner.

Third, I enjoy Stephenson for the volume of esoterica he manages to include in his novels. Whether it is the fine details of how public executions were conducted in the early 1700's in England, to how justice is served in a future earth when governments have all but disappeared. I'll note however in his historical novels, it is caveat lector – let the reader beware. While ninety percent of what he says is historically accurate, that ten percent which is pure fiction can be hard to sort out (particularly since the truth often is stranger than fiction). If you really want to know "did they really do that", I would suggest checking on the metaweb – a site dedicated to annotating Stephenson's books for what is real and what is fiction.

Finally, I enjoy Stephenson for his themes. Two examples:

"Snow Crash" is a Science Fiction novel which at a high level examines what would happen if the extreme elements of Libertarian Party got their way where government dissolved into the free market and everything was privatized and franchised (with, for instance, competing franchise jail companies competing to detain you when you got arrested). At a lower level it is about the question: is the human mind just a computer, and if so, what is its operating system like?

The Baroque Cycle: "Quicksilver" "The Confusion" and "The System of the World" is a trilogy of historical novels set around the start of the 18th century. These days it is common to talk about "atoms vs. bits". How the world of delivering atoms (things like books, CDs, etc.) is giving way to the world of delivering bits (things like the web, MP3 files, etc.). We may be nearing the end of that transition now, but The Baroque Cycle is about the age when that transition started. This is when "value" first started to become virtualized: when paper money started to replace gold and silver, when knowledge started to be recognized as being more valuable than property.

I would also recommend "The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" (a sequel of sorts to "Snow Crash") and "Cryptonomicon" (written before the Baroque cycle; but set in modern day with many of the decendants of the characters from the trilogy). I would, alas, not recommend "Zodiac" (one of his early books, written before "Snow Crash")

I've heard no rumor yet on what Stephenson's next project is; but I have every intention of buying it in hardback as soon as it comes out.

Posted by Steven at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 14, 2005

Courtship Rite

Most of the books I consider to be masterpieces of fantasy or science fiction – book like The Rings Trilogy, The Foundation Series, Dune, Fahrenheit 451, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Ringworld, Neuomancer, Ender's Game, etc. are well known and well appreciated. There is however one book I believe strongly is in the same categories as these but which seems to have slipped by the wayside, and in fact is currently out of print – "Courtship Rite", by Donald Kingsbury (published as "Geta" in the UK). It did get nominated for a Hugo Award, but lost to Azimov's Foundation's Edge, and seems to have been promptly forgotten despite all it has to offer.

The book starts out as a kind of fantasy story about primitive people who practice cannibalism and polygamy (which may in fact be why it has not done so well); but if you read past that you soon discover the story is more complicated and interesting, and a lot of what is going on is not as it seems at first.

What first attracted me to the story was that, despite being only about human beings, it presented one of the most alien societies I have ever seen depicted in fiction (certainly better than most "alien" societies shown is science fiction), and did so convincingly, providing by the end of the book a complete justification as to how this society came about.

This also provides a layer for mystery to the story - you quickly find yourself wondering how the author is going to explain a people who have not invented the wheel; but whose understanding of certain other sciences is superior to our own. (Hint: the characters use a lot of common words: god, priest, sacred, profane, etc.; but what they mean by them is a bit more involved then you might initially think).

But that's just the story. What has brought me back to re-read the book every 5-7 years are the ideas in it. If nothing else, it has some novel (and unfortunately impossible to implement in any society other than the one in the book) ideas about how to govern effectively. A representative government where a representative's voting strength is proportional to the number of people they represent, but a they can be called upon to recite the names of every one of their constituents from memory, and any they can not name are stricken from their tally. The chief executive is chosen by having the best record (carefully tracked) of accurately predicting the outcome of previous policy decisions. There's more; but I can't think of how to mention them without giving away plot points.

And then there is the books contribution to linguistics – the word "kalothi". When people talk about Darwinian evolution they talk about the "survival of the fittest". The book coins the word kalothi for the characteristic of fitness that makes one worthy of survival in that sense. To be of high kalothi is to say that society will benefit from your procreation, to be of low kalothi… well let just say we'd all be better off if people of low kalothi never had children (think of the annual Darwin Awards). I for one think kalothi is a rather useful word to have around.

By the way, Kingsbury is finally writing the sequel to Courtship Rite. Actually, the book he is writing now is the book he had wanted to write 25 years ago, and then decided to write the prequel - Courtship Rite - first instead.

Posted by Steven at 06:51 PM | Permalink

April 25, 2005

A World Without Time

"A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein"

By Palle Yourgrau

Kurt Gödel was a mathematician and logician, who is most well known for his "Incompleteness Theorem", which identified and defined limits on what can be proven by pure logic. This book is a short biography which attempts to bring recognition to his other contributions as a philosopher and most significantly as a physicist. It is clear that the author believes that Gödel has not been given a fair treatment by history and intends to correct that wrong, and does so with such force that I found myself wanting to read a different biography just to be sure they weren't overstating their case.

The book provides some excellent historical background on the man (he was, even by this loving author's account, an eccentric with a limited grasp on sanity – a grasp which was lost by the end of his life). It describes the "Incompleteness Theorem" and its significance; and then turns to focus on the friendship which developed between Einstein and Gödel while they both worked at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

The book then describes the "gift" Gödel gave Einstein for his 70th birthday – a paper which uses to Einstein' theory of relativity to prove that our perception that time is something which flows and passes is only a perception and does not correspond to physical reality. For those who have read Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s "Slaughterhouse Five", what Kurt Gödel essentially proved was that the Tralfamadorians were right – that human's ability to only perceive "now" was an anomaly. If one walks out of your house and down the street, you do not think of your house being any less real and current simply because you are no longer in front of it. Kurt Gödel showed that in relativity, time was "just another dimension" with no special characteristic, so our sense that the past is less current and real is an illusion. The book then decries how little impact this paper has had on physics.

The book also discusses how both the Incompleteness Theorem and his paper on the nature of time were driven by Gödel's deep philosophical opinions of how the universe should be viewed, and how he should also be respected as a philosopher. I found this discussion quite interesting; but again I found myself wondering how much of this was spin by a fan of the man and how much was an honest portrayal.

Posted by Steven at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

Finding Serenity: Anti Heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers

Finding Serenity: Anti Heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly.

Television is a writer's medium. That's not to say that acting and directing are unimportant, or that there aren't shows where those skills are what make the show succeed; but overall, if you are looking for news shows you might like, your best bet is to look for the writers you like. I regularly take note of who the producers are on shows I enjoy (in television land, producers are writers); and when a new TV season starts, I check if any of them are involved in new projects. Likewise, if I especially enjoy a particular episode of a show, I note who the writer was and see what other shows they write for. (Note, the Internet Movie Data Base is a good place for this kind of information).

Now for my personal tastes in television, what I am looking for are shows with depth, show that make me think, shows with subtext beyond the obvious story. Given my preferences, the writers who have made it to the top of my list include:

- Aaron Sorkin (Sports Night, West Wing)
- J Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Crusade, Jeremiah)
- Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls)
- JJ Abrams (Felicity, Alias, Lost)

But in terms of his ability to write TV that you can analyze and talk about for years, no one come close to the man at the top of my list: Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) – and the other writers who worked with him on those shows (people like Marti Noxon, Jane Espenson, David Fury, David Greenwalt, and Tim Minear) are on my watch list.

As evidence of the depth which Joss manages to bring to his shows – I submit two facts. First, despite the fact that Buffy went off the air 2 years ago – there are four new books of scholarly analysis due out this year on the show. This is on top of the five books previously published Again, these are not fan books talking about how cool the show was - there are also dozens of those. These are books by academics talking about gender roles, chosen families, morality, philosophy, etc. (If you really want to get some appreciation for the real depth of Buffy and Angel, check out "All Things Philosophical on Buffy... and Angel...". Ignore that rather horrid home page and cruise down into "Philosophies represented", "Moral Ambiguities", "Good and Evil", etc.).

Second, I submit the existence of the book "Finding Serenity: Anti Heroes….". Firefly was a very short-lived series created by Joss – only 11 episodes ever aired. Yet a book has now been published with 21 articles about the show. OK, 3-4 of the articles are fairly light; but as an example of the issues raised by the show, this book includes four articles on the feminist perspective of the show – two making the case that the show supported feminist principles and two making the case that it failed to do so. Yes, not all of the articles are favorable. The point of a good show is not that you agree; but that it gets you thinking about if you agree.

Posted by Steven at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 04, 2005

“The Introvert Advantage”

“The Introvert Advantage. How to Thrive in an Extrovert World”
by Dr. Marti Olsen Laney Psy.D.

"Hi, my name is Steven. I’m an Introvert”

“Hi, Steven.”

OK, the idea of Introverts Anonymous may seem like a redundancy to some people; but I can attest that the 1/3 of the population who are introverts are in desperate need of a support group in our extrovert-dominated society. Many introverts come to the conclusion that they are abnormal, broken, mentally or psychologically deficient given the expectations which are set by society; but being an introvert is normal, and in fact society needs functioning introverts. Being an introvert is not the same as being shy or socially inept – those are independent characteristics which can be experienced by both introverts and extroverts.

The difference between true introverts and true extroverts is in the machinery of the brain and what makes its engine run.

Extroverts are driven by external stimulus. They gain psychological energy by interacting with the outside world. Sitting alone with their own thoughts tends to be draining for extroverts; but being in a chaotic party with many people is invigorating. Physiologically, extrovert’s brains are dominated by the dopamine cycle, allowing them to be respond to the outside world quickly. Extroverts need some time each day interacting with rich sources of stimulus (usually other people).

Introverts are driven by internal thought. They gain psychological energy by contemplation - thinking through ideas in depth. Sitting alone with their own thoughts tends to invigorate them; but being in a chaotic party with many people is draining. Physiologically, extrovert’s brains are dominated by the acetylcholine cycle, allowing them to remember and process things at length. Extroverts need some time each day to be alone and think.

The consequences of these differences are manifold, and are often difficult on introverts who find modern society to be over stimulating – filling their input buffers while not allowing sufficient quiet time to process all of that data. Dr. Laney’s book is a quick guide for helping introverts first realize they are normal, and second develop strategies for being happy in the modern world.

Posted by Steven at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 28, 2005

"Down and Out in The Magic Kingdom"

"Down and Out in The Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow

I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of the Bitchun Society, to learn ten languages; to compose three symphonies; to realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World; to see the death of the workplace and of work.

I never thought I’d live to see the day when Keep A-Movin’ Dan would decide to deadhead until the heat death of the Universe....

Cool start to a cool book. Its strange, I have a hard time coming up with any idea in the story which I haven't seen someplace else before (OK, having a system to keep a numerical "score" for how well respected an individual is may be new); but the author weaves the ideas together with a style that reminds me of early Neal Stephenson (who I will read anything by) leaving me quite satisfied.

In many ways it reminds me of James P Hogan's "Voyage From Yesteryear". Hogan presents many of the same idea as Doctorow about the nature of government and economy if you take away the principles of scarcity.

One idea which is hinted at in this book which I would love to see pursued further by some author is: If energy and matter are essentially free, place remains valuable. Even if the food is free, a given restaurant will have only so many seats and will only be able to serve so many patrons a night. Same with theme parks. The right/ability to be "there" remains valuable even when goods no longer are. Both Hogan and Doctorow focus on the issue of how you generate value in a society of plenty, it would be nice to see someone look more closely at on what you would spend that value.

Posted by Steven at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)