Books 4 Thoughts

"The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking

2012-02-02T16:11:00.000-08:00

I started reading several books at the same time (like 4) again, and the first one I finished was from the great Dr. Hawking. I wanted to read it ever since it came out, but only got around now to getting it on audio. I was expecting something revolutionary like the "Short history of time" but the book is actually more of a science popularizing kind than anything else. It is exposition of cosmological theories from the ancient Greeks to modern times. The last 1/4 of the book deals with Creationist arguments about the necessity of having intelligent designer because some of the physical constants are so finelly tuned, very small alterations would cause life never to appear, as if our universe was created with human beings in mind. Dr. Hawking, however proves that this universe HAD to exist, i.e. there was never an option of it not existing, regardless of any external influences, if we can even discuss 'external' in the cosmological sense.

It is fascinating how the good professor explains the most complicated facets in Physics like M-theory or string-theory and the "no-boundary condition" by building from the simplest blocks that everyone understands and makes these complicated physical concepts available for the lay reader. His dry humor comes through quite often and gives that special flavor to the presentation. Large tracts of the book are dedicated to how scientific thought developed through the ages, the fallacies that were popular but eventually rejected and the constant thread of scientific progress building on previous body of knowledge. Throughout the entire book one can feel Dr. Hawking's enormous love for humanity and for life itself. He and his fellow physicists are the modern priest, the shepherds of the ignorant flock of the human race, guiding it towards a better and glorious future of knowledge.

"Dance, Dance, Dance" by Haruki Murakami

2011-12-19T08:16:00.000-08:00

This book is Murakami's 6th novel and it should be kind of a sequel of 'Wild Sheep Chase', but not exactly. The unnamed narrator (Baku- I in Japanese) spent 4 years doing mostly nothing since he came back from Sapporo, Hokaido and the Dolphin Hotel, however he keeps feeling drawn back to it, and hears the girl who dissappeared there crying for him. Baku goes to Sapporo again, but the old Dolphin hotel is gone. There is a shiny-looking monstrosity instead. However the SheepMan is still there and so is a cute receptionist (Yumiyoshi is her name we learn at the end, how fascinating that many characters in Murakami's books have no names or symbolic names) which has also seen the dark 16th floor and 'is connected' in the SheepMan's switchboard (we learn later).
Baku goes back to Tokyo with an angst-filled teenager of 13 who is also psychic, in a way. Baku is lost in the world of his superstar actor-friend, the superstar parents of Yuki (famous writer and photographer, the writers name an anagram of Haruki Murakami). He becomes a baby sitter for the little Yuki and takes her to Hawaii with generous monetary help from her parents, who cannot be bothered, it seems with full-time parenting. In all that, the connections to the world of the SheepMan do not weaken, whether it is through a Thai hooker or a vision of Kiki that leads Baku to an apartment with six skeletons.
Back in Tokyo, and away from the police who gave Baku hell for a few days before because of the murder of a high-class call-girl Mai, his actor-friend turns out to have murdered Kiki, or maybe not? Maybe Kiki just disappeared from this world as if she never existed here. However dream and reality melds for Baku, as in most Murakami novels, and maybe that is how it should be. We all live in personal realities which are just individual reflections and bastardizations of the objective reality, which cannot be objectively perceived anyway, thanks to our human senses. Thus is everything is subjective why not push that subjectivity into directions which makes sense only to us and make only us happy instead of buying into the current consensus reality being pushed down our throats from every possible direction.
At the end, as all Murakami's books, this one is also about losing something, getting lost yourself, and then finding everything, after one passes through a myriad of trials and soul-searchings, some in the outside world and some in the inside one.

"Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman

2011-12-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

The entire book could probably be summarized in a few paragraphs, and I am being generous there. The problem with all these self-help books, even in the ruse of psychology textbooks-wannabes is that they all state the obvious: "don't get upset", "be more balanced", "don't feel bad", "take action" and similar blah, blah, which is obvious to any thinking person, but the problem is that we can't get ourselves to do what we know needs to be done because of emotional holdbacks. Of course the bully shouldn't bully the other children but work on his own emotional and family issues. But how to do it? What exactly to do? Step by step. The only thing that most self-help books seem to imply is that we all need to get a therapist. Which should be just fine if one can afford it, or have one's insurance pay for it, but most people out there cannot. Then you need good friends. Or a supportive and understanding family. Sure. But what if you can't get any of those or you don't have them readily available?

The book postulates that there is such a thing as emotional intelligence and that it is different from the regular, IQ intelligence. Then goes on to beat around the bush and quote stories and case studies from author's practice and his own life (how NOT tacky) where the principles of the so-called emotional intelligence are demonstrated and proved-by-anecdote. Overall a tedious reading, as most of these books are, and not much new knowledge to be obtained than what would one get by reading an average Wikipedia page on the issue.

"A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

2011-12-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

A second read of this classic. I saw the movie too, but I didn't like it too much; too stiff and dry, which is definitely not the book, if you understand it right. The first time I read it, it was in translation, and translation never does justice to the real thing. That's one of the reasons I am trying to learn as many languages as possible. Hemingway's English is a special language. It is simple, creeps up on you without you even noticing and grips you and won't let go, like that little animal from Jack London's stories. The language is simple, the words are simple, but it is in that simplicity that the most horrifying events and the deepest emotions, loss, love, in-love, out-of-love are described with more emotional effect than the most pompous 19th century prose.

Hemingway started out as a journalist, so his style started in journalistic factualism and brevity. He also fought in WWI, and in the the Italian Army, so the character in the book is largely himself, though, of course, poetic license allows for plenty of 'what could have happened' scenarios. The story is of an American volunteer in the Italian Army, driver of an ambulance and also a low-rank officer. He sees and talks about the real war. Not the patriotic BS that the masses are being fed in the cities, but the pointless, senseless killing and apathy and absence of any morale or will to fight, except among the dumb and the idiots and the ones profiteering from it. The only respite from the constant killing and attempts to escape the front on the smart ones part are the whorehouses, and the big event there is when the girls get changed.

Our hero drinks hard, talks hard and records even harder conversations of his fellow men, half of which despise him, especially the higher-up officers, and the other half are trying to get something from him. Just like real life. It is the realism of the novel that is most striking. It happens during WWI, but it could be any conflict, anywhere, anytime, from the Romans to Libya, human nature doesn't change. Homo homini lupus est. And it has to be that way, otherwise we wouldn't have evolved. And nowhere that is more evident than during time of war. There is a love story, of course, though it doesn't get fully developed until the end of the book, and it is better that way, as the infantile English nurse with her constant gibberish gets on one's nerves, and, no matter how awful it sounds, there is a smidgen of a relief when she doesn't survive the childbirth. The character goes back to his hotel, his wife and child dead. That is the last sentence of the novel.

The real pleasure in the novel is the language. The language flows and is natural and is interesting in ways and places one would not expect to have interest, especially for the reader in the second decade of the 21st century - not enough sex or graphic description of violence and suffering. Everything is understated and explained in regular, everyday language, which only makes it more authentic and genuine. One has a feeling that is actually there and knows that the author has been there.

"Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk

2011-09-02T15:33:00.001-07:00

This is the second book I read by Palahniuk, after I was amazed by Fight Club, both the book and the movie, so I looked for more of his work. This book is quite more specific and disturbing than Fight Club, but follows more or less the same topics, as all Palahniuk's books are. The main character is a sex addict who is also a son of a single mother who spent her entire life in jail for different acts of social terrorism and kidnapping. Palahniuk describes the sex addiction working groups and the people who come there in great detail, but with superfluous gory details which actually detract from the strength of the book. I prefer Murakami's subtle and metaphorical description of the greatest evils and deeds. Palahniuk actually succeeds in making even mundane actions, like flossing of teeth, into disgusting gore-fests, complete with description of rotten chunks of food and bleeding gums.
Victor Mancini, the main character, chokes on food in restaurants and has people save him; people who become his life-long sponsors because he gave them the pleasure and meaning of saving another person's life. He also works as an actor in a pioneer fortress nearby and describes the drug use and debauchery that goes on there. Eventually his mother dies and the doctor that was going to save her turns to be just another patient. Victor is arrested and his diaries of step 4 in SA are discovered, so all his dirtiest deeds are being read aloud in the police station. He tries to choke to die, but is saved again by the policemen. It becomes a metaphore for his entire life: choking, but unable to die.

"Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami

2011-08-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

This is, hands down, one of the most beautiful love stories ever written, in the history of humanity, rivaling Romeo and Juliet. The fantastic elements from other Murakami books are almost completely absent. Murakami said he wanted to write an "ordinary" story. It propelled him to a superstar in his native Japan upon publication and much to his surprise. A movie was made in 2010 with Kiko Daniel as Midori but a 39-year old actress was cast as Naoko? That makes no sense, though I haven't seen the movie yet. And I don't think I want to see it by myself. It would be too much to bear. The book ends sadly and happily, as most Murakami's books, but it is a tear-jerker, make no mistake.
The book depicts several years in the life of Toru Watanabe, an 18 year old student in Tokyo, who becomes almost 21 by the end of the book. The story contrasts the beautiful but so fragile, physically and emotionally, Naoko, and the vivacious, honest, down-to-earth and full of life Midori, the other love interest of Toru. Watanabe is a witness of the student protests in 1969 in Tokyo, as the book happens '69-'71. Toru is torn between Naoko, who is in mental assylum and the former girlfriend of his best friend Kizuke who killed himself at age 17, and Midori, his fellow student from drama class, who has been forced to grow up ahead of her years because of family disasters.
The emotional life of Toru is depicted with such honesty, emotion and depth, one cannot help but feel it deeply and identify with the character who seem to take a very philosophical view to all the terrible things he has to go through and all the decisions life forces him to make. Toru Watanabe is very alike a young Toru Okada from the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Toru's college friend is Kasagawa, who is very smart and learned, studying diplomacy, but has very little scruples left. Kasagawa brings Toru around Tokyo to hunt girls for one night stands, and Toru is initially excited but after 7-8 times, he gives up, feeling the loneliness only growing. he breaks all connections with Kasagawa when, several years after the book events, he is completely unemotional towards the suicide of his college girlfriend, who went through so much for him, and whom Toru was secretly liking.
An amazing, honest, human, real book, about real people and real emotions. No pretense, no attitude, no high-brow, just emotions and people, the way they really are.

"Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murakami

2011-07-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

On the heels of the 'Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' which, although starting slow, by the last few chapters it became my new top-favorite book, the "Wild Sheep Chase' is more organized, more 'ordinary' if that can be said about any Murakami's work, and definitely more accessible, although not as rewarding at the end. It is the third tome in the "The Rat Trilogy" and although "Dance, Dance, Dance" continues with the same characters, the plot is completely different.

Again, the book starts somewhere in the middle of the story, and then each chapter jumps around the past and future to slowly start forming the background story. The book start with the unnamed narrator being left by his wife of 4 years who had had an affair with his friend for the last year. Almost all the characters in the book are unnamed or referred by labels and nick names. The narrator is a partner in a small advertising agency in Tokyo, however all hell breaks loose when he publishes a picture of sheep that his friend "The Rat" sends him from Hokaido. He is contacted by a powerful right-wing political figure and set on a wild sheep chase, from which his life will be forever changed.

The narrator meets his new girlfriend few months after his divorce. She is a call-girls, a translator, an ear-model and also somewhat psychic, at least when relating to narrator's sheep chase. Like most female characters in Murakami's books, she is quirky, says strange things, lives life by strange principles and dissapears from the narrator's life unceremoniously before the end of the book, explained in only a couple of sentences. The narration is split between Tokyo and remote parts of Hokaido. At the end it ends in anti-climax, nothing really happens or gets resolved. The narrator goes back to his old life, the politician dies, the Rat dies (in a very weird, post-modern way), and everything goes on as if the sheep-chase never happened.

"Pigs Have Wings" by P.G. Wodehouse

2011-07-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

Recommended by many as a great intro to Wodehouse's work, this book is a classic example of English humor. Although Jeeves, Wodehouse's most famous creation, does not figure in the book, we have a close surrogate in the buttler Beech, but even more in the figure of Galahad Gully Treepwood , the brother of Lord Elmsworth, the pig-breeder and competitor of Baron Parslow. The plot is quite silly: two lesser British nobles are vying for the prize of the fattest pig, and when a few resourceful buttlers, siblings and servants get involved, along with a few romantic subplots, it becomes a chaos of miscommunication and misplanning.

The book uses lots of names in the beginning and it is somewhat difficult to follow all these British antiquated names, but by the middle of the book, one gets used to them. There is plenty of humor, but it is the British kind, tongue-in-cheek and dead-pan being ever-present. Overall an interesting book and a good introduction to Wodehouse's works, but a book about Jeeves would be a better way to get to know his opus.

"Foundation and Earth" by Isaac Asimov

2011-07-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

This is the last book of the foundation series, timeline-wise, although not the last one written, as Asimov wrote two prequels after this volume, which tie the Foundation series even more tightly into the Robot series, to the level that Hari Seldon's wife was a robot. It is basically a continuation of the same story from the previous book, where the exiled counsellor, Golan Trevize, is trying to figure out if he made the right decision when he gave his nod to Gaia and eventually to Galaxia (in the previous volume "Foundation's Edge"), and withdrew it from both the Foundation and the Second Foundation, leaving their leaders furious. Trevize now embarks on galaxy-wide search for Earth, the mythical 'origin' planet of the entire human race, now populating the entire galaxy. He finds that every reference to Earth is carefully deleted from any and all record keeping systems of the known universe, but then he discovers the "Spacer" worlds and coordinates for three of them.

In this way Asimov ties the Foundation series with his Robot series, which is in a much closer future alternate universe, and originally was unconnected. He further completes that tie when in the last chapter of the book reveals that the secretive 'man in the shadow' was no one else but Daneel Olivaw, the most famous protagonist of Asimov's 'Robot' stories. On the three Spacer world they visit, the crew is always exposed to danger which is usually only escaped by the 'deus-ex-machinae' device of 'Bliss' the representative of Gaia on the ship, who is also accidentally a very sexy woman, in a physical relationship with the third crew member J. Pelorath, a mythologist.

The book is less of a character-based novel than a barely-disguised scientific discourse in futurism of the highest sort, about the future of the entire human race, and it shows in cold logic that this is the only viable way of long-term (and long-term here meaning millions, even billions of years) survival for the entire race and life in general, in a case where the human race is the only sentient race in the galaxy, even in the universe, though the other galaxies are irrelevant in Asimov's fiction. At moments the book reads very slow, as the flow is adulterated by huge tracts of non-sequitur monologues, and there is not much of the character drama for which the atmosphere of the original Foundation Trilogy was famous. Both this and the previous volume won awards, don't get me wrong, but this might have been more like tribute to Asimov's universe, than to the readability of the tomes at hand. Ultimately, a great conclusion and tie-in with Asimov's other series, but definitely not for the beginner in Asimov's universe.

"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (ねじまき鳥クロニクル Nejimaki-dori Kuronikuru?)" by Haruki Murakami.

2011-06-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

If I died yesterday, I would not have been richer for the shattering experience (in a good way!) that is the reading of "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Mr. Murakami! Well, I am dramatizing, of course, as it took me almost three weeks to finish the audio book (with AMAZING voice acting by a SINGLE person, exactly the way I prefer it. It is an audio book, not radio-drama), but this book is becoming my new favorite book and that hasn't happened since "Cien Anos de Soledad" replaced Tolkien about 10 years ago, and Tolkien replaced "Against the Fall of Night" about 7 years before that.

This book is a masterpiece of modern literature, seamlessly fusing all previous genres, and jumping and combining genres in a seemingly unintelligible jumble, just to let the reader realize, in an emotion catharsis, that all that is really not important anyway, and art is somewhere beyond all that, beyond form, right into the middle of the "thing in itself" to paraphrase Kant. Without respect of linearity, whether of time or place, Mr. Murakami still weaves an irresistible web of characters and events that seem so real, one could almost swear one already knows them. Starting with such seemingly trivial passages like several pages on cooking noodles and making coffee, the life of the main protagonist, Toru Okada, an educated, intelligent, but lacking ambition, man in his 30s, becomes more and more weird with every passing page culminating in, well, do we dare say it, well, Mr. Okada saved the World in a way.

Mr. Okada's wife Kumiko dissapears, and the entire book is mainly concerned with Mr. Okada trying to find her and get her back. His brother-in-law Noboru Wataya is a powerful politician, who seems to have suddenly catapulted in power, but who hides a terrible dark family secret which threatens the very existence of his sister, Kumiko, just like driving their youngest sister into a suicide years ago. Throw in there clairvoyant characters named after Mediterranean islands, Malta and Creta Kano; fashion designers who "fit" something evil out of people and are named Nutmeg and Cinnamon Asakawa, mother and son, and finally the diabolical Mr. Ishikawa, a disturbing charicature of a man, queerly resembling a familiar from the medieval magical grimoires. Finally, the entire thread is held by an underaged teenage girl Mai Kasahara who through letters and personal visits, helps make sense of Mr.Wind-Up Bird's world, as she calls Mr. Okada.

This book is a masterpiece of world literature and true world heritage, the heritage of the entire human race. It is a privilege to enjoy Mr. Murakami's book and I wish that pleasure upon many people to come!

"Xenocide" by Orson Scott Card

2011-06-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

This is the third book in the "Ender Tetralogy", which was the original envisioning of the series (which got much expanded afterwards and pretty much turned into a franchise). The original envisioning was a trilogy actually, "Xenocide" and the following book "Children of the Mind" supposing to be one volume, but it became too lengthy for one book, so it got split into two. "Xenocide" is the only Ender Tetralogy book where the story doesn't end naturally on the last page, but actually ends in mid-action. "Xenocide" is a very ambitious book, almost like a space opera of the likes of Dan Simmons or Ron Hubbard. There are multiple settings (on two planets) stories, plots, twists, etc.

The Starway Congress fleet is advancing towards Lusitania with the MDD device on-board, while Ender is trying to get the piggies (pecaninos) and the hive queen off the planet before Jane is turned off for the most part. A genetically enhanced, but OCD_controlled humans on the planet called Path are much more intelligent than normal humans, and are used by Congress to advance their aims. Path is populated by Chinese, and lives in a very traditional, patriarchal, class society. Meanwhile on Lusitania, human scientists are trying to develop a form of the Descolada which will give Pecaninos their life processes, but will not be aggressive and harmless to humans. They call this new virus the "Recolada" but it only gets created during the first faster-than-light experimental trip.

Eventually Jane with the help of Ender, Grego and some insights from the Hive Queen finds a way how to travel faster than light and pretty much instantenously to anywhere in the universe. However, as a consequence of the first trip, Peter and Valentine, as they were in Ender's mind were created in flesh and blood. The book ends with Peter bringing a virus that will cure the people of Path of their OCD. The solution to all plots is in the next and final book of the "Ender Tetralogy" - "Children of the Mind".

"Goodbye, Columbus : And Five Short Stories" by Philip Roth

2011-05-11T01:44:00.000-07:00

Roth's freshman work, published when he was only 26. Roth has guaranteed his place in American literature, despite the claims that he is just a Hemingway imitator. The stories in this book, of which the title story is almost a novella, are concerned with the everyday lives of Jewish-Americans and how does being Jewish color the American experience without detracting from it, but quite on the contrary, adding and enriching it. The stories are wonderfully vibrant, full of real life and dialogue, and Roth manages to make the mundane details relevant and enticing. The title story is about a working class Jewish boy who falls in love with a girl from a rich Jewish family. Although initially their relationship is going well, eventually the differences in their class and world-views will lead to inevitable break-up, however it is the process of story telling which is so amazing in Roth, as he manages to convey the warmth, charm and authenticity of real life and real people, with all their mannerisms, shortcomings and occasional nastiness.

The second story, "The conversion of the Jews" is a powerful reflection on the Jewish identity and its place in the Christian-dominated North-America. Another masterful description of Jewish Sunday school, the proverbial Good Rabbi and the smothering Jewish mother. The third story "Defender of the Faith" about wartime observance of Jewish tradition and the conflict in the Jewish Corporal between following his secular job and giving due respect to his ancestral religion and compatriots. "Epstein" is probably my favorite story in the book: humorous, everyday, and yet deep and reflecting the deepest human urges and motivations. "You Can't tell a man by the song he sings" talks about Roth's high school experience in Newark, NJ, and an encounter with a bully who turns into a friend and then into a bully again. The final story "Eli, the Fanatic" follows a common story in Roth's writing about coming to terms with being jewish and all the baggage it comes with, and yet trying to 'fit in' and be like everybody else in the environment. Eli, a respected lawyer in a largely gentile, upper-class, suburb, is given the task to 'discipline' the newly settles Jewish orphanage, with kids orphaned from the Holocaust, and make them less conspicuous and intrusive to the wealthy suburbanites.

It is a hearth-warming book, full of human warmth and hope, a gem in modern literature.

"Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card

2011-04-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

This book was written before "Ender's Game" and the previous book was supposed to be just introduction to "Speaker for the Dead" while in reality ended up being more famous. The book is set 3000 years after the event in "Ender's Game". Humanity has settled the 100 worlds that the Buggers left behind and Ender's name is universally reviled as the Xenocider. Andrew Wiggin, traveling under his real name and as Speaker for the Dead, learns about Lusitania, the only planet where a new intelligent race was discovered, the Pecaninos, or the "piggies".

Since this planet has not been known during the Buggers, it is an enigma to the settlers, Brazilian Catholic community, who isolate themselves from the rest of the planet by the means of pain-inducing fence. Ender arrives on the planet after 22 years of space travel, as he has been called to speak the death of one of the Xenologists (Xanador in Portuguese) who was killed by the piggies. Ender brings the dormant Hive Queen as well, who chooses this planet as the future settlement site for the Buggers.

Eventually Ender brings all three communities together, even though provoking a harsh reaction from the other 100 worlds who see the piggies as a threat. It turns out piggies are half-animal/half-plant and they developed that way to adapt to the virus introduced on their planet which destroyed almost all species that couldn't switch to the plant/animal dichotomy. At the end of the book, the Hive Queen awakes and drinks water and eats while laying her first legs and enjoying being free.

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card

2011-02-28T22:09:00.001-08:00

One of the seminal books of science fiction and on everybody's top 10 list, this book captivates with the strength of characters described as well as by the fullness of the universe and the story within which it is set, painting the timeless human characteristics and dilemmas with a new brush. Card is a Mormon, and has done missionary works for the Church of the Latter Day Saints in Brazil, however the book is all but devoid of Mormon symbolism, which is uncharacteristic for Mormon writers, though Card lives in North Carolina. The book is a first volume in a series, as all modern authors try to exploit their creations by writing a series of books, recycling the same characters. However, the first volume in the series was initially written, per Card, only as a scene setting for his actual novel, "Speaker for the Dead" which became the second book in the series, with Ender as the main protagonist.

The story is about a 6 year old boy, Andrew or better known as Ender, a name he chose for himself, who is the product of eugenics, as are his older sister Valentine and oldest brother, Peter, a sadistic boy, who is perpetually envious at Ender, and only when Ender is removed from Earth, does he develop into an arguably positive character. Ender is a part of a military program, from the IF, the International Forces, military of the united earth (more or less), created to fight the insectoid alien race "The Buggers", who attacked Earth and the Solar System twice in the last 70 years. The Earthlings are not waiting for a third attack, the Buggers having multiple star systems at their disposal for resources, while the humans barely have explored the inner Solar System.

The most promising kids are collected from the entire planet and sent into a low-orbit staton where they play "The Game" in the Battle Room in zero gravity. Ender makes friends and enemies here, but comes on top at the end, not thanking to any help from the administration, who advance him rapidly only to put him in a more difficult position. After graduating Battle School, Ender is sent to Command School, which trains the future highest strategic commanders of the IF. Ender has shown better than any student in the history of both schools, but at the Command School he is isolated from the rest of the kids and only given access to a "Simulator" which simulates real space battles, which Ender commands, but does personally pilot any of the crafts. Eventually, Ender graduates from Command School and his graduation day is the brightest day for humanity, which turns into the saddest day for Ender some time after, when he discovers the truth about their enemy, which was not supposed to be an enemy at all.

Very refreshingly, Ender wins his final battle with about 50 pages of the book left. The real twist is in the last 20 pages, which set the scene for the next volume, "Speaker for the Dead". An amazing book that anyone should read, whether sci-fi fan or not!

"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac

2011-02-28T21:36:00.000-08:00

The manifesto of the Beat Generation, "On the Road" by the French Canadian Jack Kerouac is one amazing book. If you haven't read anything from the modern/post-modern genre, this would probably be a good book to start with. It describes four trips across the USA and Mexico taken by "Salvatore", the main protagonist, a surrogate for the author himself who based the book solely on his own personal experience and the voluminous notebooks which he always carried with him. Sal lives in NYC and his "life on the road" starts when Dean Moriarty enters his life. Dean is what would become the typical Anti-Hero of the age. He drinks, he smokes, he takes any drug he could get his hands on, he is unfaithful to his friends and lover, never kept a steady job and is in a constant flux.

Sal and Dean go to San Francisco, stopping at Denver, both of which cities would become their common starting and ending points. Eventually all trips finish back in NYC, where Sal lives permanently and Dean sometimes. Sal says that when spring arrives in NYC he gets the urge to go somewhere, and when Dean is around, there is always somewhere to go, even if it is nowhere. The second trip goes along the Midwest and includes driving a rich-man's car through the entire country up to Chicago. The third and fourth trips go all the way to Mexico city and many cities in Mexico, where Sal describes the bordellos, the hookers, the life of the people, the atmosphere, etc.

However, the main idea of the book is that true art is like Jazz, whether it is music or the written word. It is living, evolving, unclean, unfinished but always touching and beautiful. Kerouac stated that he tried to write his books as Jazz music is written, spontaneous, with lots of improvisation, and for the most part it works great, however some parts read like a very cursory travel reportage. Although I am not the greatest fan of this writing style, this cult-status book definitely deserves a reading and is refreshing and original.

"Stranger in a Strange Land' by Robert E. Heinlein

2011-02-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

A revolutionary book in 1962 when it was published (written through the previous 12 years) today Heinlein's masterpiece strikes as timid and naive. The 'free love' part doesn't come until the final third of the book, and even then it is not terribly provocative. Further more, to rise the ire of the modern readers, the work is written in the spirit of the 1950s, where black people were seen as inferior, women even more (Heinlein writes 9 out of 10 women who get raped had part of the blame), and there are direct references to homosexuality being an illness and unnatural. This makes this book just as difficult to read as are the Asimov's books from the 50s with all his 'atomics' and similar retro sci-fi.

The book is about Valentine Michael Smith, a 20 year old man who was raised on Mars by Martians who do not resemble us but have intelligence and a civilization. Smith was conceived on the ship of the first manned expedition to Mars (all of whom who died on landing). The second manned mission to Mars, after the "Lyle" drive was discovered, and World War 3 finished, brought back smith, who had no idea of the life on earth or humans, but possessed some abilities which, although seen as normal on Mars, would seem supernatural on Earth. Smith was also an owner of the planet Mars, and much other industry, through odd legal loopholes.

Eventually Smith gets out of the hospital, makes peace with the General Secretary of the UN and the World Government, and with the help of an aging intellectual, Jubal Harshaw, an investigative reporter, Ben Caxton, and a sexy nurse Gillian Broadmore, he sets on discovering the world, encountering and experiencing religion, especially in the powerful new sect, the "Fosterites", in whose churches whoring, drinking, gambling and general debauchery was encouraged. He tries to become a stage magician, but his magic is real, and he hasn't realized the secret of laughter yet, which comes to him later, understanding it to be a device for keeping pain at bay.

Smith organizes his own church, called "Church of All Worlds" where Martian language and telepathy are practiced. He builds a temple where his brethren practice nudism, communal living, free sex, paranormal abilities, etc. However, the Fosterites see him as threat and the masses are scared by the new religion and Messiah, so his temple gets burned (everyone teleports safely out) and then, after a long conversation with Jubal Harshaw, the patron saint of the new religion, Smith goes out in the crowd surrounding his hotel trying to pass his message to them, who promptly kill him and tear him to pieces, which he allows, and thus comes to an end all Messiahs come to.

It seems like Heinlein wanted to find his own religion and spirituality, and although was fully aware of the scientific truth which invalidates most of the major religions, he still created Smith, who's his 'Space Age Jesus' preserving the tenets of Christianity in which Heinlein was brought up and which he couldn't get himself to give up, but also mixing it with plenty of science and fiction to create the perfect religion for the modern times (at least the 60s) and embracing the full potential of the human beings. It is hinted at the end of the book that the Martian "Old Ones" (spirits of dead Martians who do all the science and research and governing on Mars) intend to destroy Earth because the humans are 'sick' and Smiths church with its curriculum is the only chance for the humanity to save itself from the faith of the fifth planet which the Martians destroyed eons ago, in which place there is now an asteroid belt (Faeton).

"Conan the Warrior" by Robert E. Howard

2011-01-31T09:59:00.001-08:00

Sometimes called the 'Volume 7' of the Conan collected stories (as Howard only wrote short stories), this book contains three interesting Conan stories from his later years (later 30s, early 40s).

The first story 'Red Nails' is quite good, some say among the best Conan stories written by Howard. It includes Valeria, the pirate, as well. It has to do with a forgotten city in the middle of nowhere with two warring tribes inside engaged in genocidal war. Conan and Valeria help one side, only to destroy all at the end.

The second story, "Jewels of Gwahlur" is more difficult to follow, but it is about stealing of the most valuable jewels in the world, which Conan achieves splendidly eventually, and to his own benefit mostly. The third story "Beyond the Black River" has to deal with Conan fighting the Picts, which in reality is another name for the Ancient Scots or Celts, but in Howard's story they are tropical savages with terrible cults.

A very entertaining book with three remarkable Conan stories (sometimes this volume is numbered 7 in the Conan collected stories), a recommended reading for every Conan fan or a casual reader looking for good adventure.

"Foundation's Edge" by Isaac Asimov

2010-12-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

This is the fourth book in the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, and the first after the original trilogy, published several decades later. The Foundation is in its 500th year of the Foundation Era, the Seldon plan is going great, the second foundation is destroyed, and a new empire is to rise in 500 years from the Terminus core. But is it all so great? Trevize, a councilor on Terminus thinks that the second foundation still exists and guides the Seldon plan, and exactly because the plan has been so successful, he shows it as a proof that the second foundation is influencing it. The mayor of Terminus exiles him to act as a bait for the second foundation, along with a historian searching for the mystical Earth, Janov Pelorat. At the same time on Trantor, the traditional seat of the very alive Second Foundation, Gendibal, the youngest but the most ambitious Speaker at the table shocks the council by saying that there is another force that makes sure that the Seldon plan goes as planned and maybe wants it for some own purpose. He shows a changed mind of a Hammish woman, Novi, which was beyond the skill of anyone in the Second Foundation.

Gendibal follows Trevize and Pelorat in their search for Earth, which they think is the planet Gaia, in the Seyshell sector. It turns out Seyshell sector was settled directly from Earth, by humans who hated robots, which were used in all the earlier extraterrestrial settlements. They formed a planet Gaia, by working on their telepathic abilities and becoming one conscious being, together with all the humans on the planet, all the animals, life forms and inanimate objects like the planet itself. Here Travize has to decide a stalemate among the first foundation, second foundation and Gaia, on which will depend who will rule the universe. Travize decides on Gaia, mostly because that was the only reversible choices, the other two including a destruction of Gaia. Towards the end Travize discovers that some of the humans on Gaia may actually be robots from the pre-imperial past of humanity, who, now thousands of years old, are still trying to guide humanity as helpers and teachers.

"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

2010-12-04T22:34:00.000-08:00

This is the first novel by Neal Stephenson, his second being "Diamond Age" which I already reviewed some time ago. "Snow Crash" does the same for virtual environments and language development as "Diamond Age" did for nano-technology and social identity. It is a very in-depth and ingenious follow through of current trends into a possible future. The book is centered around the hacker Hiro Protagonist, half african-american, half japanese, and his sidekick, skateboard courier, the 15 year old Y.T. (yours truly). The world of tomorrow is a world where nation states fell apart and the US government sold most of its property and army, and is only holding on to few buildings with ridiculous bureaucracy. The mafia is a franchise of Pizza parlors and pizza delivery is an extreme job. The world has its virtual meeting place, The Street, a VR world that Hiro helped create, in the center of which is the hacker pub the "Black Sun".

Hiro learns that one of the most powerful people on the planet, owning the main religious franchise is using Summerian technology from 8,000 years ago to give the people knowledge of the universal language that all people spoke, before Enki, Summerian god, created the language virus that created the many different languages in order for other language viruses which could be used to control people don't spread. Add to this surveillance-technology wearing "gargoyles" and an Aleutian native american with low urge control and a nuclear warhead in his motorbike whose fuse is connected to ECG signals from the Aleutian and you have a complex mess that is a pleasure to untangle. Oh, and don't forget the enormous "Raft" anchored by a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and consisting of thousands interwoven vessels transporting people from poor Asian countries to the US.

"Minority Report" by Philip K Dick

2010-12-04T22:19:00.000-08:00

This is more of a short story than a novel, but was still the base of the Tom Cruise movie. Luckily, the book is quite different from the movie, for the better. There is not emphasis on technology like in the movie, but instead Anderton is the top cop (Police Commissioner) in the city who came up with using deformed mutant pre-cogs to form the pre-crime unit, where crimes are seen before they happen. Anderton is extremely successful with the project, almost cleaning all crime in New York City (the movie is in Washington DC), where the action happens. He gets assigned a "helper" from the headquarters whom Anderton suspects is after his position. Soon Anderton receives a note from the pre-cogs that he is going to kill an army general that he never met.

Anderton tries to find the general, after escaping from his house, thinking his wife is in on the conspiracy. The "helper" becomes the Police Commissioner and there is a search organized to find Anderton. The general finds Anderton and persuades him that indeed there is a conspiracy against him. Anderton goes back to the police station and finds the minority reports on his future murder act, and realizes that all three reports differ. When escaping with a helicopter from the roof he realizes that the three reports are sequential, showing different potential future. He also finds out that the army general organized the whole thing trying to discredit the pre-crime and get more funding for the army.

Anderton goes to a public event for the general the next day and kills him, proving the original majority report right, and sacrificing himself to save pre-crime. He realizes the paradox, that he as a Police Commissioner had access to the future information and thus can modify his actions. This would not be valid for any other person and pre-crime could continue to function properly.

"The Game" by Neil Strauss

2010-10-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Very interesting book, claims to be pure documentary, directly from life, but it is more like "docutainment" as not everybody can meet Tom Cruise, Courtney Love and Britney Spears. It is the story of how story of how the lovable geek who never gets laid, Neil Strauss, transforms into the playboy and ladies' man "Style" which is his nicknam e in the "seduction community." Strauss goes undercover in the "community" to learn how to be a pick-up artist, that is to get women to like him and have sex with him (and threesomes, and what he calls MLTRs - Multiple Long Term Relationships). Apparently there is a body of knowledge, and with some effort and courage, every regular joe can learn the precisely scripted questions and answers and clear sequence of steps. The gurus of the seduction community claim that anyone can transform himself into mini Warren Beatty, or mini-whatever seduction guru is teaching the course.

Strauss tells us in the book about all the interesting and flawed characters who become pick-up gurus from "Average Frustrated Chumps" (AFC) in the lingo of the community. Mystery always wants to be the center of attention, TylerDurden seeks power, Papa wants to prove himself to his father, etc. The first 50 pages of the book are almost like a manual for the first steps of pickup, as Strauss learns them, and is probably the best written part, because it draws the regular reader in, because it seems that it is written for him, but later when all kinds of celebrities start to pop in and even live with Strauss (Courtney Love). Also the Holliwood Lifestyle (literally) with a mansion off Sunset Boulevard, while dedicating yourself full-time to bettering oneself and picking up women (or trying to) all the time, is not really possible for people who have to work for a living.

The actual community still exists online albeit less vivacious than when Strauss was there in 2003, but all the forums and the PUAs are still there. The book continues for a way too long though, and becomes overindulgent at certain times . It shows a lot of drama in the PUA community and Strauss concentrates on the colorful characters of the PUAs, and especially the mPUAs (master pick-up artist, or guru). The book is organized in the steps of the Mystery method, created by Mystery, one of the original mPUAs, and follows his theory of how groups interact or "social dynamics". And PUAs and mPUAs are not exempt from in-fighting and competing amongst each other, stealing girlfriends and badmouthing each other in the the online forums when it comes to get students as pick-up and teaching pick-up becomes a profitable business as well.

"The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexander Dumas

2010-10-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

This book was a required reading in my middle school (abridged version). I have also read it as several comic books, a couple of movies and other media, but I've never before read the UN-abridged version, all 1400 pages of it, and I didn't even know what I was missing! Most of the abridged versions concentrate on Dantes' years in prison, and omit most of the lengthy affairs and side stories from the later parts, which are the bulk of the book, the prison being about 100 pages in all. The later story is just like all the other Dumas novels, masterful description of high (haute) Parisian society, with love affairs, infidelities, illegitimate children, impostors, hidden agendas, histories, and many, many stories within stories which go on for dozens of pages at a time. A very arduous task for the modern reader who is used to short sentences, jumping right in the middle of the action, sensory and visual details and twists and turns at every junction. Victorian literature is definitely none of that, but for the patient and distinguishing connoisseur, the pleasure await!

I read this version as an audio book (as most books I read nowadays), from Books on Tape, and the quality of the narration is amazing! The voice changes and is consistent across different characters; narrators part is done perfectly, and the translation is amazing, using exotic 19 century English words and manner of speaking, which only adds to the authenticity. Dumas, as always, develops the story through dialogs, of which is an undisputed master. Some not-so-covered references to homosexuality and drug use are splendidly presented in the unabridged version, while moralistic editors have always removed them from the abridged versions, which are very confusing to say the least, because the book abounds with a humongous amount of characters, with multitude of long (french) names, which are very hard to keep track of even in the unabridged version, and totally impossible to sort out in the abridged ones.

One could argue that the main character, Edmond Dantes, is not developed fully, looks mostly as a caricature, first of a perfect young man, and later of a bitter old avenger, with not enough depth, psychological detail and motivation. That might be true, but many of the 'second tier' characters are developed marvelously and entice with their depth and uniqueness. As the mores of the time dictated, most of the book is about nobility, counts and barons and generals and marquises, however Dumas is still widely read today and recognized as a master because he tried to infiltrate the everyday Paris life and everyday people in his books. Dantes is a regular sailor before he becomes the Count. Mercedes is a weaver. Donglar is ship accountant. Catarouse is a tailor. There are bandits, shepherds, brigands, and wonderful little snippets of everyday Paris life in the 1840s.

Overall, an amazing reading experience for the patient and distinguishing readers!

"Starship Troopers" by R.A. Heinlein

2010-10-14T08:30:00.001-07:00

This is not a science fiction novel! Although Heinlein is one of the 'Great Three' SF writers, and has written many other excellent SF books (like 'Moon is a harsh mistress'), 'Starship Troopers' is more of a military, moral and ethical discourse, and that's what makes it amazing. You will find very little of the space ships, interstellar federations, amazing and imaginative technologies, but a lot of discussion on how democracy should be overhauled, who should have the rite to vote and why, how the judicial system should be working and how criminals should be punished, and mostly about the aim and meaning of the army, and being in the army, and becoming a man, a good man, through the training, suffering and service in the army. As you might have noticed so far, the book is completely different from the movie, which just took a few scrapes from the book and developed them into something completely different.

The book starts with Juan Rico's graduation from high school. His two friends Carmen (an occasional girlfriend) and Karl (a math genius) enlist in the military, and Rico does the same, despite his fathers cutting all communications with him because of this. Unlike the movie, Karl is never heard of again, until the end of the book when we learned he died in bombing of his base on Pluto, and Carmen is seen only once again for a short time, with her head shaved. There are no other female characters in the book.

Rico is sent to the north of the Midwest (Earth is united under the Terran Federation), where the boot camp is situated, below the Canadian Rockies. He goes through a grueling training, taxing both his body and his beliefs to the maximum, but eventually rebuilding him into a better person. He is in the 'Mobile Infantry' (probably a pun on the 'Mechanized Infantry' today) which consist of soldiers wearing Mech-suits, powered, armed, extremely mobile, which puts humans on the same fighting level with the 'Bugs' and the 'Skinnies', the other two races in the known universe humanity is at war with. Most of the book happens in the boot camp and describes, in painstaking detail, the life of the privates (everyone is a volunteer, as two years of military service grants 'citizenship', which in this universe is the right to vote and be voted for), their physical suffering and moral decisions, as well as the moral and law codes of the military and the reasons for them.

Here Heinlein discusses how our modern world can be improved, from social organization point of view. He says that democracy is flawed. Everybody should not have the right to vote, only volunteers who have been to the military and have been trained and impressed with putting the group before the individual should vote. He is proponent of physical punishment for crimes as deterrent; doesn't believe in 'reforming' criminals, but in deterring them from crime with violent punishment from the earliest age. He doesn't believe in 'juveniles' benefiting from being treated more softly than adults, and proposes their parents be physically punished (whipped) together with the delinquent children.

Rico eventually gets onto space, being shot onto planets in tight, one-man capsules, vulnerable to enemy fire. On the ground the power suit ('Marauder' for the regular MI soldier) gives enormous freedom and power of movement, coupled with amazing fire power and seamless integration with the natural musculature of the soldier. He eventually meets his father in one of the planet bases, who joined the army after his wife was killed by an asteroid directed to earth by the 'Bugs'. Here Heinlein goes into father-son relationships, military tradition and how it is related to the filial connections.

Rico excels in his tasks and eventually 'goes career', meaning signs a professional contract for 20 years (As opposed to 2 for privates), and goes through officer school which process is also described in detail. Eventually, towards the end of the book, he takes part in the raid of 'Planet P' where the 'Bugs' have a base, and helps capture a 'Brain Bug', the thinking caste of the 'Bugs' and bring the war closer to the end. At the end of the book he has been promoted to Captain. He is the 'old man' now, and his platoon is called 'Rico's Roughnecks', the same platoon he served in as a newly trained private.

The book is amazingly clear and strong presentation of the military view of the world, democracy, morals, ethics, justice, duty and honor. This is the only fiction book that is a required reading at West Point, and several US generals have stated (they have all read the book), that power suits like the 'Marauder' are the future of the US army.

"Second Foundation" by Isaac Asimov

2010-07-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

This is the third and last book in the original Foundation Trilogy, published in the 1950s. The book is divided into two parts, just like the previous one, the first detailing the search for the Second Foundation by 'The Mule' who became undisputed ruller of the Galaxy (Milky Way) in the previous book, and the second, after the downfall of the Mule, gives an account 50 years in the future about the search for the Second Foundation by a group of scientists from Terminus, the First Foundation. The book becomes slower and less exciting in the second part, as most of the plots and twists have happened already, and this was to serve as a conclusion of the Foundation saga (some 400 years into the 1000 years of barbarism predicted by Hari Seldon, before the second Galactic Empire rises).

The first part of the book details the search for the Second Foundation by Capt.Pritchard, now converted by the Mule into an unquestionably loyal soldier, and another rising star of the political scene at Kalgan, the seat of the 'First Citizen' of the Galaxy, the Mule. The Mule follows both of these people as he trusts no one. Pritchard's companion discovers what he thinks is the planet where the Second Foundation is, while they are doing research at the Imperial Library on Trantor, and they head off for 'the other end of the galaxy' as Hari Seldon described the place where the Second Foundation is to be found. Once there the Mule catches up with them, having them followed the entire time, and destroys the planet they were intending to explore and uncovers Pritchard's companion as a Second Foundationer.

However, the second foundation is on their tracks as well, and the 'First Speaker', the leader of the Second Foundation, converts the Mule to abandon his search and live the remaining few years of his life in peace. In the second part, we are now 50 years in the future, and the grand daughter of Beida who stopped the mule in the 'Foundation and Empire', Arcadia, is now 14 and her father is developing ways to discover the Second Foundation, one being sending one of his collaborators to Kalgan to look through the Mule's files in his palace. Arcadia catches a ride on the ship and gets introduced to the ruler of Kalgan, who also carries the title 'First Citizen' though he doesn't rule the galaxy, but a handful of planets around Kalgan and has grand plans of conquering the Foundation and the galaxy with his fleet. However his mistress is placed there by the Second Foundation and she gets Arcadia out of Kalgan on onto Terminus from where she sends a message to her father who figures out that the Second Foundation is on Terminus, and finds a traitor among his group who then confesses and about 50 second foundationers are rounded up.

All of this is an elaborate plan of the second foundation who have planned this since Arcadia was born 14 years ago and converted her to give those exact clues to her father, and sacrifice 50 people in order to hide the real location and purpose of the second foundation, to form the ruling class of the Second Empire which Hari Seldon expected to be the next step of the human evolution where humans develop a form of hive mind, being emphatically connected to everyone else. All in all, a good reading, but slower and not as exciting as the previous couple of books. Asimov wrote two more sequels to the trilogy, but then ran out of ideas for the future of the Foundation, so instead wrote several prequels to the trilogy, where Hari Seldon is the main character, partly autobiographically modeled on Asimov himself.

"Foundation and Empire" by Isaac Asimov

2010-04-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

This is the second book in the original Foundation trilogy. It is divided in two parts, the first titled 'Foundation and Empire' deals with the last remnants of the still powerful Galactic Empire, and its attempt to defeat the Foundation which ultimately fails and spells the final doom for the empire, which is going to be sacked (it's capital city-planter Trantor), and reduced to a mock-empire comprising of a dozen agricultural worlds ruled from the new imperial seat Neo-Trantor.

The second part is called 'The Mule' and deals with the rise of a powerful mutant whose mutant powers are unknown until the very end, but who conquers most of the know galaxy using them. The second part is weaker than the first, as you can see who is the mule (which should have been the last-page twist) in the first third of the story (there just way too many clues and pointers). This book as a whole in itself reads as somewhat weaker that the first one, maybe because the first one was actually five independent short stories (minus the first one, which was written especially for it), and each one of them had a twist at the end, more or less exciting and surprising (Asimov seems to like twists).

The first part "Foundation and Empire" starts describing the Galactic Empire in greater detail, although in its last days, still strong and glorious, with many of the functions intact, especially on the Core Worlds and Trantor. Descriptions of Trantor and the Galactic Fleet with their humongous, gigantic spaceships, huge armies, generals and the ensuing space battles are a pleasure to read. The end is a little bit of a letdown, since nothing really was 'done', history just adjusted itself by itself, because of the socio-economic-military conditions, and the strong general was defeated by his own strong emperor, the last one in line.

The second part was interesting conjecture, and an exercise in creative thinking on the part of Asimov, that a single individual with incredible powers could sway the course of history, or at least for a certain period, and derail the mathematical precision of succession prediction by even such advanced science as psychohistory. Hiding who the mule was until the very end was not really an effective plot device because there are too few characters, and the mule must be one of the main ones. Still entertaining though.

"I don't want to talk about it" by Terrence Real

2010-02-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

I read this book on a recommendation, and I found it very valuable, but not in the self-help paradigm which the title would suggest. The author is a Harvard-trained psychotherapist specializing in family therapy, and both his vast knowledge, clinical experience and a very bitter personal experience growing up as a boy and having to learn first-hand that 'boys don't cry' and 'a real man shows no pain' despite the circumstances. The main value of this book is in the fact that for the first time clearly and succinctly states that men are just as depressed and just as vulnerable and just as oppressed by the society growing up, as women are. Enough of the bullshit about 'the stronger sex', about men being somehow more able to control their feelings and less prone to being emotional, depressed or irrational. That is all baloney! Real cites studies that show during the first two years of development of babies, that is before they start understanding they are of one sex or another, male babies are actually more emotional, more sensitive and more vulnerable than female babies. It is only through the oppression of the societal stereotypes, often in the hands of well-meaning, but hopelessly ignorant, parents and relatives that the societal stereotypes for men and women are forced upon the children. The children are literally chiseled, with all the blood, gore and pain to accompany it, to fit into the societal stereotypes, and being forced to castrate entire segments of their personalities and sensitivities and their full self-expression, just because 'the society' has its own ideas of how exactly men should look like and act like.

This book is a great addition to the fledgling Men's movement, and goes a long way to show grizzled feminists that the man's side of the story is no fairy tale, and is just as full of pain, denial and oppression, albeit in a different manner, than the woman's side. Real goes on to show how socially 'adapted' men, who look great from a distance, and seem to have everything under control and going great for them, are actually internal wrecks, who medicate themselves with intoxicants, relationships, workaholism and abuse. The book shows how covert depression in men is much more dangerous than overt depression in men and women, as covertly depressed men numbed their senses to such an extent that they are not even aware that they are depressed, and would never admit to it in a million years.

The only critique of the book would be that, although it provides plenty of case studies and personal experiences of the author, it leaves little material to men/readers to work with. I guess it was never imagined to be a self-help book in the strictest sense of the word, but more of a 'realization' book, intended to make the male reader realize his problems, and then seek professional help. Recommended to all men, and the women who love them, out there.

"Foundation" by Isaac Asimov

2010-02-27T17:21:00.000-08:00

So, I finally got around to reading this seminal work (actually a trilogy) in science fiction, and literature in general. The vision of Asimov is breath-taking! Thousands of years, hundreds of parsecs, millions of light years, galactic empire (all human), psychohystory... what else could one ask for? The book has very interesting plot twists and surprises, but the vision itself is what is astounding. It consists of five shorts stories, all of which excepts the first have been published before. With the first story 'Psychohistorians' Asimov establishes the universe and the underlying theme of the entire series, and then adapts his previously published stories (already in a similar universe) to fit the Foundation timeline.

The idea of Psychohistory, that the future of large masses of population could be predicted with mathematical precision, is definitely original and thought-provoking. Hari Seldon, the founder of psychohistory figures as a living person only in part of the first story, his other appearances being in the form of hologram with messages left for the Foundation people after they've gone through one of the many 'Seldon Crises' he predicted. Using his own psychohistorical mathematchial methods, Seldon predicted with 98% probability that the Galactic Empire, in existence for 12,000 years, will come to an end in the next 500 years. With the same methods, Seldon discovered that 30,000 years of barbarism will ensue before another empire arises. To shorten this period down to 'only' 1,000 years of barbarism, Seldon organizes 'The Foundation', an organization that will catalog all available knowledge and publish it in the form of Encyclopedia Galactica, thus shortening the period of barbarism.

Unbeknown to all, Seldon did not care much about the encyclopedia, but wanted the 'Encyclopedists', the scientists and learned men that are going to write the encyclopedia, and their planet 'Terminus', to become the nucleus of the new galactic empire and thus shorten the interregnum of barbarism. This was to be presented to all on the 50th anniversary of the Foundation, when the first edition was supposed to be published, and also the time of the first 'Seldon Crisis' where the scientists and their families and support staff populating Terminus are faced with their first major independent decision and all-threatening situation.

The other stories in the book describe several more 'Seldon Crisis' or turning points where the very existence of the Foundation and the future of human civilization with that is in danger and also parallels major developments in the past of the human civilization, especially the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, which was inspiration for Asimov in writing this book. The first crisis emphasizes the importance of managing your enemies instead of trying to defeat them directly. The second crisis shows that it is always much easier to control people and entities through religion and spiritual means, than through direct force and confrontation. The third crisis shows that at a certain level of civilization development religious control becomes undesirable as most civilizations start to see through it and its real purposes. At this time control through trade, supply and demand, and simply - money, is to be introduced.

Different characters realize the different Seldon Crisis and they are always universally opposed by the old regime and the old timers who want to keep the status quo, however the changes cannot be stopped and are always implemented according to Seldon's original plan and psychohistorical predictions, ultimately for the greater good of a species, even if to the detriments of certain (powerful) individuals. Amazing book, and very captivating, even without ANY trace of sex, love or amorous interest and with great emphasis on non-violent resolution of conflicts (Seldon's favorite quote is "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent").

"Conan the Invincible" by Robert Jordan

2010-02-07T10:39:00.001-08:00

I wanted to read the original Conan books, the source of all the comics, graphic novels, games and movies I have thoroughly enjoyed as a teen and adult. Somehow I stumbled on the Conan books by Robert Jordan and decided to start my reading with them, wrongly assuming that he is the original Conan author. Only later I will learn that Robert E. Howard was the inventor of Conan, back in the 1930s, and he only wrote a set of short stories, never completing a real novel, before he killed himself. Then the Conan intellectual property was lent to many authors, who all tried to write Conan stories in Howard's style, never really succeeding completely. Jordan is probably the closest to Howard's style and vision of Conan the Cimmerian. Jordan wrote his Conan books in the early to mid '80s, before he started his magnum opus, The Wheel of Time series, which brought him worldwide fame.

Conan the Invincible is Jordan's first Conan book, also having as a side-main character the beautiful, violent, and scantily-clad (often naked) Karrella, the Red Hawk, brigand and leader of a gang of thieves, who appears in many other Jordan's stories. The book is very easy reading, entertaining, Conan-like, with the usual dose of evil wizards, demon-gods, snake-men, drinking, sex, debauchery, treasures and adventures. It is about the evil wizard Amanar, who learned a lot from the Wizard Circle, but chose to dabble in dark magic that even the other wizards (all wizards/sorcerers are evil in Conan Universe) were afraid to touch. Somehow his soul trapped in a jewel (for protection) was given to a king and he sends his snake-men, the Sitha, to retrieve it. Unbeknown to him, the Wizard Circle is angry that Amanar ran away with most of their knowledge, and have sent one of their own wizards to find Amanar's soul and destroy it, and to this effect this wizard hires Conan, the best known thief, far and wide, to do the actual work.

Things don't go as planned, and Conan goes on a trek around the desert, meeting Karella on the way and her gang, and ends up in Amanar's magical fortress in the middle of the desert where Amanar is toying with them for a while, but makes a big mistake underestimating Conan, which leads to his doom. Conan is not yet 19 in this book, so it takes place at a much younger age than Howard's stories, or the novels of other Conan authors where Conan is usually in his 30s, 40s, even 50s. An entertaining, though not overly engrossing reading (don't expect Harry Potter or DaVinci's Code experience), but great to see a good perspective on Conan lore from yet another talented author.

"Neuromancer" by William Gibson

2010-01-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

This is my second reading of this novel, this time as an audio book, the first being a .txt file printout when I was an undergrad. This is the seminal novel starting the 'cyberpunk' genre (which was already taking form at the time Gibson published it) and creating an entire subsection in literature. Let's be honest though, the book is hard to read. If you go on amazon, you will find dozens, if not hundreds, of negative comments complaining about jargon, density, unclear plot, unlovable characters, etc. etc. Newsflash: that's EXACTLY what the book was supposed to be. Some people even complain that the book is full of cliches. If they used their brains for anything else but mindless entertainment they would realize that this was the first book in the Cyberpunk genre (in 1984) and all of the things that are considered cliches today because they were repeated so many times over the past few decades were INVENTED by Gibson in this book. Saying this book is full of cliches is like saying 'The Lord of the Rings' is full of cliches.

This book invented terms and concepts we take for granted today, like cyberspace, jack-in, visual representation of computer networks and data, corporations ruling a technically advanced but morally and socially deteriorated world, also cloning, cryogenics, orbital resorts, black leather and chrome wardrobe were brought into the mainstream of science fiction after 'Neuromancer' became famous. The only problem is that we still today do not have enough special effects technology to make a movie out of it, though one attempt is scheduled for 2011, but may be shelved like many before it.

It is a very dense book. It is small, about 250 pages, while describing a whole new world, thus, by necessity, it is very dense. It is full of jargon which is not explained anywhere because Gibson invented it. The reader needs to be very careful, note all the references and new words and keep them in his mind at all time, as there are contextual clues later on where they become more clear. This is one of the beauties of this book, not for the feeble of mind and intelligence or imagination. There are no positive characters in the book. Everyone is an anti-hero, even the artificial intelligence Wintermute, which kills mercilessly and indiscriminately, including an 8 year-old boy in order to achieve its goal. There is very little to no moral fiber left in the world of the 'Neuromancer'; prostitution is almost a regular job (for both men and women), everyone is on some kind of narcotics, the world is polluted and dangerous and the rich are richer and more evil than ever.

The story follows the resurrection of a hacker, or 'cowboy', Case, who is saved from his last leg of life in Chiba City, coastal Tokyo suburb, and crime-capital of Gibson's Japan, by a brainwashed ex-special corps colonel Armitage, helped by a street-samurai, surgically-enhanced assassin Molly, with retractable razor-blades under her nails. Add to this a psychopathic performance artist who can materialize his thoughts holographically, a Rastafarian orbital space station, where the smell of ganja and the rhythm of Dub are the only constants, an illegal Artificial Intelligence with split personality disorder, cloned ninja assassins, and finally an alien artificial intelligence from the Alpha Centauri system which is only hinted at, and you get a milestone in science fiction and literature, a work which sole purpose is not entertainment, but expansion of the limits of the mind, something that all entertainment was supposed to do before the invention of reality television.

I am looking to read the second and third novel of Gibson's "The Sprawl Trilogy", the Sprawl being an unified metro area from Boston to Atlanta, which although do not mention Case again, and have a minor role for Molly, still happen in the wonderful, intricate and disturbing universe Gibson has created. A final note: although the book is a gem of literature, that cannot be said for the science part. Since the beginning of science fiction there have been two kinds of sci-fi writers: scientists and all the others. Scientists sci-fi writers, like Asimov and Clarke, take meticulous care to base their fiction on actual scientific theories, research, probabilities and possible directions. Their novels are based on hard science, their speculations could actually be true and possible one day, like the geocentric orbit for satellites which was first proposed ('invented') by Clarke. The other kind of sci-fi writers, to which Gibson belongs, do not care much about the scientific justification behind their work or speculations, but only use scientific concepts and facts as a jumping board into developing fantastic stories, characters and plots, which have little to no base in present or future reality or scientific research. Although many concepts and words from Gibson's novels became commonplace today (cyberspace, jack-in, etc.), most of his proposed concepts are unfeasible and unworkable, beginning from self-conscious Artificial Intelligence or machine in general, which is a favorite plot of non-scientist sci-fi authors, but has no basis in any scientific fact or theory. To put it simply, Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science concerned with studying function derivatives, and the probability of any kind of program, machine or construct achieving self-consciousness through this technology is equal to a big, round ZERO.

"Snow" by Orhan Pamuk

2010-01-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

It took me a long time to finish this book. One because I was studying for GMAT while I was reading it, and the GMAT practices took priority, but also because the book is quite slow itself, probably on purpose, like the slow falling of the snow in a quiet mountain meadow. The title of the book in Turkish is 'Kar', the city in which most of it happens is Kars, and the main protagonist nickname is Ka. Take note of that if you are interested in symbolism, as there is plenty of it throughout the book, not the least being mapping emotions and poems to the axis of a snowflake.

Pamuk has been accused of being overly intellectual, intentionally obscure, too philosophical, combining too many things into one novel, not paying attention to character or plot development; and while many of these things might prove themselves true in certain specific cases, "Snow" is a marvelously written book and righteously brought the author the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006. The book is about a poet returning from political exile in Germany, becoming a journalist for an Istanbul newspaper which sends him in the most remote northeast corner of turkey, the city of Kars, on the borders with Georgia, Armenia and Iran, it's glory days long gone and buried in the last century when it was one of the southernmost points of the Soviet (and before that the Russian) Empire.

The city boasts many architectural remains of a better past, but they, alike the current denizens, are out of maintenance, made into something else, hastily put together in a hope for semblance of something better, but failing miserably. Snow starts falling the day Ka arrives in Kars, and the entire books happens in the 3 days of a thick snowstorm when all the roads to Kars are blocked and the outside world is locked out. Pamuk has deep love of Turkey and the Turks, regardless of their origin, beliefs, status or social standing. We see marching through the book's pages people from the military with strict secularist views, Islamic fundamentalist which do not shy from murder in order to further their goals and the Glory of God, former Communists and present Socialists who are not really sure what political beliefs they hold currently, small-time merchants, business owners, Kurdish separatists, secret police spies, religious high school students and plenty of unemployed, bored, future-less, hopeless people who form the amorphous bulk of the citizenry of Kars.

Ka also has a romantic interest in Kars, his old love Ipek, who is more beautiful than ever. Her former socialist father, her Islamic fundamentalist sister, the enigmatic and charismatic Islamic terrorist Blue, his little cohort of followers and admiring women, the mayoral candidate of the Islamic party, the failed Ataturk actor and his fat wife, who turn to political and military coup to end his not-so-glorious acting career, make the cast of the novel motley and drawn from every corner of Turkish life. The novel is written from the point of the author, Pamuk, who finds the diaries of Ka and re-traces his story, both going to Kars and to Frankfurt, putting the pieces together as he discovers them, leading up to the murder of Ka in Frankfurt, and unsuccessfully trying to find Ka's notebook with the 19 poems he wrote while in Kars, the first writing he has done in many years, and his last before his death.

The book might not be the easiest read, and definitely not an easy-reading novel with Turkish setting, but for those willing to spend the time, it rewards the reader with deep insight into the complicated situation of being a Turk in Turkey, on the crossroads between east and west, the only secular Muslim country but with a strong religious Islamic movement, the remnants of an empire, still containing many peoples and elements from all the corners once that empire stretched to, trying to look to the west, but not willing or unable to leave behind its eastern past, unsure as of where it stands, but still chugging along the best it can. 'Snow' will be a rewarding adventure for any open-minded reader willing to give it a chance.

"The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson

2009-07-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

A post-cyberpunk book, meaning it has cyberpunk setting and elements, but those are not the primary focus of the book which can also be classified as 'SteamPunk' as much of the content deals with Neo-Victorian mores and morals. Very interesting vision of the future of nanotechnology and what would it cause if left unchecked and unregulated and completely within the domain of the corporations. Quite a bit of social critique thrown in, from classes in the society and different cultural norms and prerogatives, to the dissolution of nation-states and subsequent formation and grouping of individuals by beliefs, rather than genes.

The book follows the early life of a 'thete' a non-affiliated low-class girl who gets into a possession of a nanotech book, which is actually and educational and virtual reality supercomputer, made to instill values and train the owner to be independent thinker, empowered to tackle pretty much anything life throws at her, which is in stark contrast to the amorphous mass of pleasure-seeking, self-indulging, brain-atrophied mass of commoners and fiercely indoctrinated various 'phyle' members.

Extensive descriptions and explanations, of technology as well as of the social evolution/devolution and norms, take large runs of the book, and make it less dynamic and accessible than it should be, but add to the depth and breadth of the narrative. This is definitely not 'entertainment' sci-fi book, but closer to the intent and structure of books like 1984, although definitely not in the same class.

The story starts slow and the plot only fully develops by the middle of the book (around page 250), and new elements are added all the way to the end, while the conclusion of the book takes only the last 10-20 pages in which many storylines are left unfinished and the fate of many characters left hanging in limbo, unresolved, but this is part of the attractiveness of this book. While violent during the entire length, this violence reaches climax in the last 50 pages of the books with descriptions of rapes, mass murders, corporal dismemberment, etc.

The title of the book is a story in itself, having had the stone, bronze, iron, and the current, steel age, the author presupposes that the next age will be the diamond one, called by the predominant material used in society, as in the nanotechnological era, nanomachines and 'matter compilers' will be able to construct virtually any material directly from molecules and atoms, so producing large quantities of diamond walls, windows, pillars and other structures would be very cheap and commonplace.

The book presents an interesting and disturbing vision of the future of humanity as brought by new and uncontrollable technology, and is definitely a good read for people who also like to think while reading a book.

"Annals of the Heechee" by Frederik Pohl

2009-06-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

This is the fourth (and final?) installation of the Heechee saga, and by far the most mind-numbingly boring! I have no idea how and why I finished this book. I guess I wanted to learn more about the Heechee and 'The Foe' or 'The Assassins' but on a second thought I should have stopped at book 2.

90% of the book happens in the virtual reality of the memory banks of the 'gigabit space' and most of the protagonists are 'stored personalities' - digital equivalents of memories and consciousness of dead people, and their silly life which looks (and feels, apparently) as the outside world, with parties, drinks, sex, etc. etc. Ridiculous!

Much of the rest of the book is spent in conversations between the stored Robinnette Broadhead and his data retrieval system, Albert Einstein, who teaches him junior-college level science, and various other 'stored' personalities. The Heechees now live among the people and the Heechee kids go to school with human kids and even fall in love. There are a couple of old terrorists, one of them child molester who has his paws on a fragile Japanese 10 year old girl, and they get appropriately killed with knives in their throats/hearts.

At the end, the Heechee/Human alliance attacks the foe, but get a slap on the wrist instead and the big revelation that we all will one day become energy-based non-corporal consciousness like 'The Foe'.

That's it. That was the entire 400+ pages book. What a horrendous waste of time!

"Randevouz with the Heechee" by Frederik Pohl

2009-05-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

The third book in the Heechee saga, and I must admit the most uninteresting so far, which is why it took me so long to finish it. It seems that the quality of the Heechee saga steadily declines after the first, and best, book 'Gateway'. Some critiques argue that this is because after the first one the books have become more and more about explaining the mysteries and unsaid things from the first book, than concentrating on new plots, interesting twists or character development, and I largely agree with it.

In this book we find Robinette already quite old (close to 100) but still in good health (and able to have and enjoy frequent sex with his wife) brought by the money he has to purchase 'Full Medical +'. However, since most medical advances in this universe seem to consist of transplanting organs from healthy people, Broadhead feels very guilty that somebody else had to die or become handicapped so he can have his organ.

Also people have started to understand Heechee technology and constructed their first ships, almost completely man-made, from the knowledge learned from the Heechee machinery, and especially the ubiquitous 'prayer fans' which turn out to be the Heechee equivalents of books and any other data storage device. Heechee Heaven is owned by Broadhead and renamed 'S.Ya.Lavarovna' after his wife, with most machinery removed it is used to transport human colonist to 'Peggie's Planet' which is the only inhabitable planet (M-class in Star Trek speak) that has been found so far.

The book also follows a scouting expedition from the Heechee lair, a block hole in the middle of the galaxy, who discovers the terrifying fact that humans are running around the galaxy in their ships, and almost certainly have awoken 'the assassins', a pure-energy lifeform, which have destroyed all other matter-based intelligent lifeforms in the known universe, and because of which the Heechee went into hiding in the black hole.

We see Wan/One, now a grown up man with severe psychosis, running around the universe, poking into black holes in search of his father who disappeared on a Gateway prospecting trip. Wan seduces Dolly, the wife of an old friend of Robin's, and takes her around the universe in his ship, using her as a cook, cleaning lady, and sex object. Terrorist are also introduced, as earth is overpopulated and most people are poor, they turn to terrorism, now using the 'bed' from the Heechees to transmit the thoughts and feelings of a clinically insane girl.

Albert the AI, becomes more of an independent being, with emotions, feelings, and even upsets. Near the end, Robinnette dies (his transplanted gut fails) and he is transferred to the Heechee machinery, to be stored as an 'analogue' which seemed to preserve all the memories and most of the self-consciousness of a living being. Klara, Robinette's first love, is rescued from the black hole by Wan, and becomes his substitute for Dolly for a while, to be eventually captured by the Heechee scout ship, who uses her to communicate with the earth.

When the Heechee arrive near Earth, the first earthling reaction is to attack them and prepare for war, which is completely non-understandable to the Heechee, but eventually things get smoothed out, and the earthlings learn of the 'Assassins' which they call 'The Foe' and start to get evacuated from earth into the Black Hole where the Heechee were hiding.

The book is enjoyable enough, mainly through continuation of the old characters and story devices, but brings really nothing new or exciting, and can be a tedious reading at time. The insistence on Robinnette and S.Ya. having sex all the time (both 90+ years old) gives a pretty silly impression. Recommended reading as a continuation of the Heechee Saga, but otherwise largely uninspiring.

"Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" by Frederik Pohl

2009-04-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

This is the second book in the Heechee series. It is less tight and organized than the previous tome, as Robinette Broadhead doesn't play as big of a part until the very end of the book. It is even more concentrated on description of technology that a super-advanced intelligent race would have, and has even less action/character development than the first volume, if that is possible. Except for some discourses of human sexuality, especially around puberty, not much of human nature is discussed, but mostly astrophysics, artificial intelligence and general futurism.

I also read this book when i was a kid, and remember very well how the Heechee solved the problem of traveling faster than light. It is different than how other imaginary FTL travel species did it, usually through traveling in 'subspace' or 'hyperspace'. The problem with FTL travel is, by Einstein's equations, the mass of a body exponentially increases with its travel speed, and if/when it reaches the speed of light, its mass is going to become infinite. With infinite mass comes infinite gravity, and a body with infinite gravity is actually an infinitely strong black hole, which will suck all of the universe into itself and destroy it. The fact that the universe still exists proves that no one has achieved travel at the speed of light in this universe.

The Heechee, however, found a way to remove mass down to 0. So a body with mass 0 could reach any speed, including and surpassing the speed of light, and its mass is still going to be zero, as any number, including infinity, when multiplied by 0 - gives 0. In the second book humans have discovered a Heechee food factory which creates edible food from comet and asteroid chunks, a Godsend for the starving (mostly) Earth. A ship is sent over, with about 3.5 years travel time, as the factory is beyond Pluto, with a crew of an old man, his two daughters, one 13 the other 39 and the husband of the older woman.

They land on the factory and discover another human boy, around 15 years old, who is driving a heechee ship to and from another Heechee mother station, huge, 1km long artifact that is called Heechee Heaven by humans. Some of the crew goes there and marvels at Heechee technology until they are caught by a tribe of Australopithecus, human ancestor species, whom the Heechee tried to make evolve quicker, but failed miserably. Also there is a sentient robot, with the memory banks of a once-living person, as the Heechee would transfer persons after their death into a computer, to continue to operate and exist.

Unfortunately the robot thinks the modern humans are pests and tries to get away, but Robin Broadhead steals a Heechee ship and gets on the Heechee heaven and together with one crew member who didn't get caught by the Australopithecus, attack and disable the robot and learn how to navigate the heechee ships and the artifact and go back to earth where he becomes the richest man in the solar system.

The book ends with a chapter about the Heechee technology and their way of thinking and how it fits in the overall cosmology of the universe, with some teasers about what is going to be revealed in the next installment of the Heechee series.

"Gateway" by Frederik Pohl

2009-04-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

This was the first book that got Pohl a worldwide success, though he has been active in the SF community for several decades before, notably as the editor in chief of 'If' and "Galaxy'. Gateway is written in a hard boiled style, the main character Robinette Broadhead, although having quite effeminate name, is actually a tough talking hedonist, who would risk his life and all he has for a chance to become a millionaire. His character softens in the consequent books (the 'Heechee Series' consists of four novels, of which 'Gateway' is the first one).

The action is set not too far from our present time, a 100 years at most. The earth has not been destroyed in any kind of nuclear disaster, and the nations are pretty much like today, the major powers being USA, Russia, China and Brazil, but they are much more cooperative and friendly to each other than today, The biggest problem is overpopulation and the lack of food. The population of the Earth is 11 billion people, and they are so strapped for food that they stopped using oil for anything else but to grow fungi and other edible lichens. Obviously Pohl bought into the fear mongering of the day when he wrote the novel (mid 70s) which still persists today, although it is scientifically proven that our planet can sustain up to 1,000 billion people, and no food shortages will occur. Why no one is using the oceans to raise algae on Pohls Earth - is anyone guess.

I read this book and the subsequent one when I was quite young, and in Croatian translation, and was quite impressed by the depth and breadth of Pohl's imagination. This goes to say that I was very impressionable and inexperienced then, but the Pohls vision still captivates me today, although not to the same level as during my first reading many years ago.

So, the earth has developed enough technology (and motivation) to colonize the Moon and Venus (why not Mars is anyone's guess). On Venus, mysterious underground tunnels are found and lots of artifacts from an ancient alien race (Pohl says 500,000 years, although I am always doubtful of time spans beyond 1,000 years) which the humans give a name 'Heechee'. Many artifacts are found, most mysterious, but some close enough to our technology to provide for reverse engineering and huge leaps in human technology though uneven. But everything becomes more interesting when an entire Heechee star base is found on an asteroid called 'Gateway' with many operable ships, though only set to a predetermined course, with instrument panels which are mostly a mystery.

Thus brave 'prospectors' get into Heechee ships, and press the go button and hope that it takes them to another space base or planet base, and some do, but many never return, or return with dead prospectors inside. The Gateway corporation, which is setup by the four most powerful nations on earth, controls the incoming prospectors and their missions, and keeps the lion share from any industrial application of whatever artifact they find, but whatever is left is more than enough sometimes to make the prospectors millionaires for life, and this is what attracts them to risk their lives, including Broadhead.

Broadhead is very reluctant to go on trips, and even destroys one Heechee ship, but on his last trip he witnesses 'Event Horizon' which is the border area of a Black Hole, where his 9 team mates, including the love of his life remain trapped and only he escapes and becomes a millionaire, albeit with a guilty conscious, which he cures with the help of the psychoanalytical AI called 'Sigfried'. The book ends when Broadhead finally confronts his demons and forgives himself for leaving the other nine people, especially the girl of his life, in the event horizon.

"The Rich Jerk"

2009-02-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

No author! It is an ebook, one of the thousands 'get rich on the internet' ebooks, most of which are pure garbage, however this one came recommended by a friend, and it actually contains some valuable insights. This book won't bore you with the history of the internet, bunch of irrelevant statistics and general material you can find all over the web. This book is about the author's experience with making money off the internet, mostly through affiliate marketing schemes and promoting your own information product.

One of the strongest points the author makes is that the easiest thing to sell on the internet is information. You don't have to stock the product, manage inventory, returns, packaging, etc. Ebooks can be emailed, downloaded, and propagated at near zero cost. Another great point the author makes is how to construct an affiliate marketing web site by simultaneously using Google adsense and adwords at the same time, thus while investing some money, getting much bigger return on the investment.

Further the book explains how to create proxy search sites to drive traffic to your marketing site and how to avoid punishment from the search engines (read: Google) for doing that. There are plenty of good tips and insights into the psychology of the internet shopper, and best ways to maximize your sales and profits. It is obvious that the author is not very technical (if at all) and he recommends all kinds of software for creating your web site without any knowledge (even his own company offers such services), and no doubt he has profit sharing setup with all the sites and software makers he recommends, as he instructs people to do in his book.

Although it is hard to buy the claim that the author made millions with the methods he described in the book, it is conceivable that with large amount of time allotted and some luck and initial investment (nothing comes free!), a decent income can be obtained using the methods described in the book.

"The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck

2009-02-17T10:39:00.000-08:00

I had very high expectations for this book, and I kept postponing reading it for the time when I would have the 'enough free time to properly devote to it.' Similar cases in the past have ended with my being quite disappointed in the actual book, not that much because the book was so bad, but because my expectations were so built up, as if expecting a miracle. Well, in life, usually there are no miracles.

The book is quite good actually. There are four parts "Discipline", "Love", "Growth and Religion" and "Grace", and they decline in quality in that order. The "Discipline" part is probably the best and correctly points out that "Life is Difficult" and we have to be disciplined to cope with it, having control of our urges and vices and grooming ourselves to be the best human beings we can possibly be. The part about "Love" is less original, but peppered with many stories from Peck's patients which keep the attention of the reader and illustrate the points well. In "Growth and Religion" part things start becoming confusing. Though starting with a Buddhist thought, and encouraging the reader to explore paradigms outside of "the religion of your parents" this part sounds a lot like evangelical preaching about how Christianity is the best religion after all. The last part "Grace" is the most confusing, and consists much of exalting the psychotherapist as some kind of demigod, who is sacrificing his time and life only to help the humanity. Pretty megalomaniac.

The book was first published in 1978, but was virtually unknown until the mid 80s, so although it tries to reconcile the movements of the 70s with modern psychology and science, it mostly exemplifies the zeitgeist of the 80s, with its new approaches to the old things and all-encompassing optimism and hope for the present and the future. Much of what is said is neither new or groundbreaking today, but it must have been quite a shock to 1978. Some things are still shocking today, like Peck recommending (and even admitting) sexual relationships between the psychoanalyst and the (female) patients. This is allegedly the reason his wife of 40 years divorced him. Also it is a reason I always choose female psychotherapists :)

All in all, interesting motivational book, not much new to learn, but good style and attention-grabbing anecdotes, with lots to offer to Christians who want to wade a little outside the canonized christian paths. For everyone else - just skip it, nothing lost.

"The six pillars of Self-Esteem" by Nathaniel Branden

2009-01-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

I've read this book based on a recommendation in "Happier" by Tal Ben-Shahar, who calls it the most important book on self-esteem and especially praises it for Branden's method of 'sentence completion' as being one of the most helpful techniques for generating insights. Both of those are true. The book is very well written, full of practical advice and interspersed with Branden's personal experience from his own life.

Branden is quite famous for another thing: he was a long-time lover of the writer/philosopher Ayn Rand (born Alisa Zinovyeva in Petrograd, Russia), while they both were married to other people, and was, for a long period of time, second in command in the Objectivist movement that Rand started. Branden has written plenty on Objectivism, though he eventually left the movement, disillusioned with Rand and the personality cult around her. Rand subsequently excommunicated him from any Objectivist organization.

Branden then concentrated on psychotherapy and formulated his theory of Self-Esteem, which was the first time that term was used. He makes a great point that anyone's self-esteem can be raised, and we are not doomed with what we have been assigned at birth, or by the play of the circumstances. Another great point Branden raises is that self-esteem is not being omnipotent, or omniscient, or always being ready or have the right answer for anything, but a different level of feeling, on a much deeper level, that whatever comes along, we'll be able to handle it, regardless of the fact that at that moment we might have no idea how to do it. He also argues that one cannot have too much self-esteem, as arrogance is erroneously perceived as such, while arrogance, in fact, is a trade mark of too little self-esteem, not too much.

Branden further dedicates the main part of the book expounding what the six pillars or principles, of self-esteem:

1. Live Consciously
Being aware of each action that you do and it's consequences. Avoiding 'robotic' or 'sleepwalking behavior'. Not disowning or denying parts of you that you don't like.

2. Accept Yourself
Branden makes a point of saying unless we accept ourselves exactly the way we are, with all the flaws and imperfections, and even plain malice, there is no way to improve ourselves. Full and unconditional self-acceptance is the first step to improving ourselves.

3. Take Responsibility for Your Experiences
Do no deny part of you just because you don't like it. Do not deny your actions, or try to make someone else 'wrong' or 'guilty' just because it doesn't turn out the way you wanted it.

4. Assert Who You Are
Assertiveness is not aggressiveness. Assertiveness is being firmly grounded in who you are and not letting anyone remove you from that position. Not with aggressiveness or attack, but with refusal to budge, politely but firmly.

5. Live Purposefully
Do not settle because you are afraid to fail. Have a goal that inspires you, something bigger than yourself, something you can work your entire life on and still wonder if you will reach it.

6. Maintain Your Integrity
Be honest with yourself and others. It is very tempting to say a lie here and another there, since it seems like they don't hurt anyone. They do hurt you, your self-esteem knows about all of them. Being a person of integrity is much more fulfilling at the end.

The last two parts of the book are more like two essays, on self-esteem in parenting children, and self-esteem nurturing in managing companies. The first part is almost a standard now among modern families and teachers. The second part is not adopted as widely as it should be. There are still managers out there who pride themselves on their 'aggressive' techniques, which are just a front for them being completely incompetent and insecure, and are damaging the self-esteem and the well-being of the employees and the company in general with their mismanagement.

At the end of each chapter there are plenty of 'sentence completion' exercises which can fill up a better part of a year. This book is a basic manual on how the self-esteem mechanism within us works. It should be a required reading for every Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

"Killer in the Rain and other stories" by Raymond Chandler

2009-01-05T16:11:00.001-08:00

This book is a collection of four stories: Killer in the Rain, Fingerman, Goldfish and The Curtain. All of these stories were initially published in pulp fiction magazines, and later cannibalized to produce Chandler's first novels. 'Killer in the rain' is half 'The Big Sleep', 'Fingerman' being the other half. If you ever wondered why some elements seem to appear in 'The Big Sleep' once and then are never mentioned again, the short stories give the answer, as they are logical and all elements are well connected.

The plots in the stories are much tighter than in the novels where Chandler indulges in some of his favorite elements (like the hard-boiled dialogs, which I personally love). The detective in the first two stories is unnamed, and in the last two is Carmady, his original detective before inventing the unsurpassed Philip Marlowe.

This collection was published posthumously as Chandler did not allow these stories to be republished during his lifetime. Apparently the original book version has 8 stories in it, out of which the first, second and fourth Chandler's novels were written, but the audiobook version I read had only 4 stories on it.

The style is great and enjoyed reading these stories, however the best introduction to Chandler is reading 'The Big Sleep' and 'Murder, my sweet', and I would recommend those two novels to readers unacquainted with Chandler's work in order to really experience the shock, force and purity of his hard-boiled style.

"The word for the World is Forest" by Ursula Le Guin

2008-12-15T13:47:00.000-08:00

The next book in the Hainish cycle happens chronologically after 'The Dispossessed' and before all other books. The League of All Worlds has just been formed and the ansible is just starting to get produced. Earth has its own set of colonies where they are pretty heavy handed in exploitation of resources and subjugating or destroying the native races. The same thing happens on New Tahiti, and ocean planet, with mild weather and large islands completely covered in thick forests, something that is worth more than gold to the Terrans as Earth seems to have been completely stripped of any trees or other major vegetation. The Terrans show next to no respect for the natives on New Tahiti, which are 1m tall, covered in green fur and with big black eyes. The emissaries from Hain and Tau Ceti make it very clear that the natives come from the same Hainish stock as any other race in the known universe, and for some reason have evolved further from the base than most of other races on planets seeded by the ancient Hainish. This does not prevent the Terrans from treating them like animals, using them as slave labor, torturing them, killing them for sport, and raping their women which ends in their death. Davison, who is one of the terran officers on New Tahiti is especially brutal and unscurpulous, calling the natives 'Creechees' and propagating 'tough hand' approach for them. He is the stereotypical animal-like soldier that does not want or cannot understand anything beyond brute force, animal pleasure and power play, and reproduction instincts. Le Guin overdid his character somewhat as he is so one-sided, he seems like a caricature, and not a real person.

There is the leader of the colony, the Colonel, who is not as bad as Davison, but overlooks most of his misbehaving in the name of providing the maximum amount of exports to Earth. Here is Raj Lyubov as well, apparently a Russian-Indian (all the races have merged in the Earth's future, and everyone is of brownish color, whites have dissapeared) who is the HILFer, researchign the local people, learns their language and customs and discovers that they are very advanced race in terms of social order with top role of 'Lucid Dreaming' where some trained individuals can dream at will, merging the Dream World and the Real World, both of which have the same reality for the locals.

After some heinous atrocities, mostly lead by Davison, the natives rebel, and although murder and war was unknown to them before, they adopt these concepts from the Terran colonist and use them against them, destroying several camps until all of the human colonies are reduced to rubble and the remaining humans (no females were spared as for the Terrans not to reproduce) are gathered in one place waiting for the ship to come pick them up. When the League learns of all the atrocities committed, proclaims New Tahiti a quarantine zone and forbids any colonization or exploitation of the planet. The ship comes and picks up the remaining humans and the Hainish envoy asks the leader of the local rebellion would they forget the concepts of war and murder after every non-local has left the planet. Sam, as he is called by Terrans when he was their slave, says that they will try to go back to live as they did before the Terrans arrived, but they will never forget murder and war, and it might reoccur.

Le Guin shows her anthropological background in this story, and draws inspiration on many native cultures on our own planet that were destroyed when more advanced civilization, which considers the natives savages and their culture primitive and unworthy, have moved in to exploit resources and bring 'civilization' to the locals. Because of self-righteous individuals who take upon themselves to judge the value of other people and civilization by their own rules and ignorance, unmeasurable harm has been brought upon weaker natives through countless centuries. It is a valuable lesson shown in the book, but it becomes too didactic at times and the character are too cartoonish, so from story-telling perspective is not as enjoyable as some of her other books.

"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin

2008-12-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

This is chronologically the fourth book in the Hainish cycle and happens after the Shing are defeated (somehow) and the Ekumen of 83 worlds is formed. The book details the adventures, problems and successes of Genry Ai, a 'mobile' of the Ekumen, and an envoy to Gethen, to try persuade the governments to join the Ekumen. The gethenians are hermaphrodites which are sexually inactive for most of the lunar month, while only being activated for a few days each month, which period they call Kemmer, and when through hormonal negotiations of willing partners, one becomes female while the other male. Every person on Gethen has a womb and menstrual cycle, is able to both father children and bear them to birth.

Genly is amazed by the social consequences of not having sexes. One is that war is virtually unknown, which Genly thinks is because war comes out of male sexual frustration. Genly is black male from earth, as in the future the white race has disappeared, and the black and yellow races have merged into a brown-black one. He is considered a 'pervert' on Gethen because they cannot understand how can one be sexually capable all the time and still be normal. The Gethenians consider all the other planets and races perverts and don't want much to do with them, if they believe they exist at all. The situation is further complicated by the two main nations on Gethen, Karhaid and Orgoreyn, one being a kingdom and the other a communist-like oligarchy, are bitter enemies and both want the other to take the risk first to make contact with the alien federation. Both countries are on a technological level of approximately late 20 century Earth, but have arrived to that level not through industrial revolution, but through a very slow evolutionary path, as nobody hurries for anything on Gethen.

Genly becomes persona non grata after his main friend Estrevan, the prime minister of Karhaid, is exiled because of political power play, and goes to Orgoreyn, where at first he's accepted with great honors, just to be thrown in a labor camp in the north to die of exhaustion afterward. Estrevan, who escaped to Orgoreyn too, helps him escape and they hike over the huge northern glacier area to go back to Karhaid and form a very strong personal bond. Estrevan is killed when they arrive in Karhaid, but Genly is received by the king and Karhaid enters the Ekumen, which was the goal of Genly's mission.

The book is obviously feminist fiction and tries very hard to dissect the different ways women are subjugated in our own society, by exploring the different traits that Gethenians developed. This detracts from the enjoyment of the book, since at times seems too didactic, but provides for the very in-depth analysis of the Gethenian society and interpersonal relationships, and artifacts like 'shiftgrethor' which can be translated as personal prestige or personal shadow. The possibility and meaningfullnes of divination is also explored in the religion of karhaid and their rituals. Love between sexes, whether same, different or non-existent, is explored at depth and the reader is gently introduced to the concept that sexes are irrelevant for love, but only the human beings matter.

One very annoying and very unrealistic thing on which Le Guin obstinately insists, is that the Ekumen, or any very advanced civilization, will send its envoy(s) alone and completely unprotected, on the mercy of the primitive and sometimes very different occupants of the new planet. This is obviously an inheritance from Le Guin's father who was an antropoligist and vocal for protection of the less-developed peoples around the world whose societies are destroyed when the white men (usually) came and introduced their own society and technology. This she calls 'cultural embargo', however it is preposterous to think any self-respecting star-spanning culture would throw some of its own people (highly trained and intelligent) into the jaws of the lions with no protection, to be imprisoned, tortured, even murdered. That would be extremely unethical for the star society itself towards its own people (i.e. it would require some kind of benevolent kamikaze indoctrination), and although the natives definitely should be protected and introduced gradually to the new society, the first envoys will always be sent with enough power and protection to absolutely guarantee their life and well being - at the minimum.

On the whole, extremely well written book, emotional, intelligent and interesting read.

"CIty of Illusions" by Ursula K. Le Guin

2008-11-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

The third book in the Hainish cycle, and maybe the most ambitious one, many more characters, plots, subplots and even more unanswered questions left at the end. The book is very short, 160 pages, but intense. I wish she would write a part II to it.

The book starts when a naked human is found in the primordial forest of eastern united states in a very bleak future. The League of All Worlds is destroyed and the Earth ruled and the humans kept in perpetual savagery by the "Shing", an alien race from the depths of the Galaxy, far beyond the limits of the League. They have the ability to lie in MindSpeach, i.e. to mindlie, which is considered absolutely impossible by all the people of the League, which leads to their downfall as the Shing infiltrate them (they look similar to humans) and destroy them.

Falk (yellow), as the naked man is called by the forest people, has no memory of who he is or where he comes from (he's in his 20s) and the people living in the forest, in 'Houses' or individual settlements of about 5-50 people, take him in and teach him to speak Galaktika, and about the Earth and the Shing. Falk looks exactly like human except for his yellow eyes with huge black pupils and no iris. After 5 years the master of the house sends Falk to find his destiny as he hopes that Falk is emissary from another planet which can help the Earth humans free themselves from the Shing.

Falk travels west by foot, to find the city of Es-Toch, which is the only city remaining on earth, ruled by the Shing, and which is built on the edges of the Grand Canyon and across it. He goes through many misfortunes. Angry, scared people are everywhere and everybody is afraid of the Shing. Some have kept much of the technology of the League, while others have fallen into utter savagery like the Prarie nation of Basnasska, while others live in imaginary constructs like the King of Kansas. Falk is helped by a woman, Estrelle, who claims to be a wonderer, and leads him to Es-Toch. However once there she betrays him to the Shing.

The Shing want to give Falk his previous personality, which they themselves mind-razed together with all the crew of the Alterra space ship, because they want to know they coordinates of Alterra, either to destroy it or to persuade the Alterrans that they Shing are humans, who invented the story of the Enemy to unite the different humans who were engaged in interstellar civil war when the League was corrupted. This is the story they tell to Falk and tell him that the price of restoring his previous personality, Prince Ramarren, is that his current personality must be destroyed.

Falk mistrusts them, and senses they are lying, but goes through with it. Unbeknown to the Shing he keeps both personalities and eventually unites them. As Ramarren he has superior mental powers and can tell when the Shing are mindlying, which is probably why the Shing mindrazed all the crew on Alterra. The Alterrans have developed and perfected the techniques of mindguarding much above the League or even the Shing. Falk-Ramarren pretends everything is ok until at a good moment puts one of the three Shing on earth under mind-control and goes to the space ship prepared for his and Orri's travel (though he knows he is to be killed as soon as he gives the coordinates, and only Orri is to return to Altera with the story the Shing implanted in him).

On the ship his suspicions are confirmed. The controls and mathematics on the ship is not Cetian, which is the common math for all League worlds, but thoroughly alien. He finally succeeds and the ship takes off for Alterra, with him, Orri and the Shing Ken inside. Here the book ends abruptly and leaves you yearning for more, however Le Guin never explains what happened, and the Shing are never explained again in any further book beyond what is already mentioned in the 'City of Illusions'. Very unnerving! In the next book 'The left hand of Darkness' the 'Age of the Enemy' is 600 years behind, and the main character remembers it as a dark and cruel age, but no explanation is given as to how it ended, how were the Shing defeated and who or what the Shing were in the first place.

The book is very dynamic, becoming even more so towards the end and reads like thriller or adventure novel. Le Guin's theme of high technology being of not much help and very easy to lose or forget is present everywhere. Many of the humans remaining on earth have either digressed to savagery or intentionally limit the use of high technology to minimum. Savages with spears and axes regularly beat up and capture Falk though he has laser gun with him. The Shing make extensive use of high technology but it brings them no happiness or safety, they are constantly afraid of being exposed, overthrown or killed, which is their largest fear, from which they instituted their only law that life must not be destroyed. That's why they mindraze their enemies instead of killing them and leave them to die in the wilderness, and also eat only vegetarian food, well masked with complex spices.

"Rocannon's World" by Ursula Le Guin

2008-11-20T11:29:00.001-08:00

This is the second book in the 'Hainish Cycle' (or the first, as some people consider the 'Planet of Exile' the second one), and follows the later life (and eventual death) of Rocannon, an ethnologist for the League of All Worlds, originally from the planet Hain, of Hainish mother and Terran step-father, but stationed on the planet of New South Georgia before his departure for Fomehault 2, the unnamed planet that will eventually bear his name.

The story begins with a prologue "The Necklace" which is a short story previously published in 'Astounding Stories' and on top of which the entire novel is developed. The prologue tells us about the trip of Semley, a noble woman of the Angyar race from Fomehault 2, to recover a necklace that is kept at the ethnological museum on New South Georgia, where Rocannon works. She gets the necklace, but incurs 'time debt' on her way back (on a starship lent to the Gdemiyar, a race of underground, gnome-like beings with advanced technology, by the League) and her husband is dead and her daughter grown up, which drives her to madness.

Rocannon arrives at Fomehault 2 many years later, Semley's daughter is an old woman now, and ethnological expedition comes with him to explore the varied races of the planet, which was placed in 'exploration embargo' until then by Rocannon himself. However another race from the planet Farradey, who got technology from teh League to help in the fight of an extra-galactic enemy, but instead chose to use the weapons to conquer and subdue League worlds, are using Fomehault 2 for their secret launch base on other worlds, and kill many locals to keep them in fear, also including destroying Rocannon's ship and all his colleagues.

Rocannon is angry and makes it his sole purpose to find the Faradeyan base and send message to the league by 'ansible' and instant-communication device, despite of distance, so that the Faradeyans can be destroyed. On the way he is joined by an Angyar, grandson of Semley, a feya Kia, feya being little, happy fairy-like creatures, and several 'midmen' looking mostly like Terrans (the Angyar being 8 feet tall), riding on 'windsteeds' a kind of flying, carnivorous lions or griffins.

They meet many obstacles on the way, and the novel goes mostly in heroic, a la 'Lord Of the Rings', fashion for most of its length, and many of the members of the 'fellowship' die in the process. Finally Rocannon alone, after getting the gift of 'mindspeaking and mindlistening' gets to the Faradeyan base and sends the message. The base is evaporated few hours later, and Rocannon goes back to the Angyar settlement on the south continent where he dies in 8 years, just short of the 9 years needed for the League ship to arrive from the nearest League world. They call the planet Rocannon's world, or Rokanan, in his honor.

It is a beautifully written book, more in the Tolkien fashion, with heroes, and swords, and beasts, and many races, gnomes, fairies, 'tall' humans and ordinary humans and appeals to the same emotions as Tolkien's books, except for the first and last 10 pages, which is more science-fiction like. One very important thing to note is that Le Guin is much more interested in the sociological and anthropological aspects of the 'aliens' on the planet, than in their technology or science, which puts most of Le Guin's books in the genre of 'soft' science fiction. Another very important theme, both in this book and in 'Planet of Exile' is Le Guin's presentation and emphasis that advanced technology and science is futile when the people are disconnected from the advanced society, and left to themselves they quickly digress into a lower society. An example of this are the Farborn in 'Planet of Exile' who, although from a society that developed inter-stellar travel technology level, are brought down to pre-historic civilization level because they don't have the means to maintain their technology, they forgot their uses, and because of the 'cargo laws' which restricted the use of many technologies.

In Rocannon's world, after his ship is destroyed, and especially after the almost-drowning in the great channel, Rocannon is left only with his impervasuit, and for the rest he's pretty much lowered to a level of a bronze-age hero, with the means only available from the bronze-age period, until almost the very end of the book. Thus, Le Guin, insists and constantly emphasizes, that there is no permanent safety in high technology, and no reason to feel secure, important or even 'above' races with lower technology, as the technological advantage can be lost very quickly and permanently, and then a being is left only to its initial devices and whatever strengths of body and mind alone it possesses. This is very well depicted in the helpless rage of the Farborn in 'Planet of Exile' against the 'primitive' HILFs, a rage that is futile, as the Farborn are already degenerating into the same civilization level and find themselves much less adapted physically and mentally to such life, thus becoming and considered inferior and 'weaklings' by the HILFs who are still at hunter-gatherer level of civilization.

"Planet of Exile" by Ursula Le Guinn

2008-11-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

Usually taken to be the first book to be written in the 'Hainish Cycle' by Ursula Le Guinn, the action of the book happens towards the middle of the period covered by the eight (so far) novels within the cycle. Located on the third planet of the Gamma Draconis star, the book depicts the interaction and mutual characterization of two hominid groups on the planet. One group are the native High Intelligent Life Forms (HILFs), who have inhabited the planet for millenniums and are well adapted to the 60-earth-year orbit of the planet around the star with nomadic lifestyles and neolitic level of technology. The other group are the Alterrans, a mix-breed of Terrans from Earth and another species, which arrived on the planed 600 years ago (10 local years) to try to include the planet in the "League of Worlds".

However the League entered heightened state of war at the time of the Landing and the starship that brought them had to go back, tacking with it the 'ansible' and instantaneous communication device regardless of spatial parameters, and pretty much all advanced technology. The people that remained on the planet lost most of their advanced technology, some through 'cargo laws' and some through ignorance, and although living in real houses and cities, are lowered to the level of hunting with spears and knives, as the locals do.

The locals have some strange customs, like never looking directly in the face of another person, and consider the Alterrans and inferior breed, non-humans, which feeling is reciprocated by the Alterrans themselves, however they are much weakened numerically and because of their abandonment of their original superior technology. The Alterrans also have breeding problems; they have very few children and are slowly disappearing. This is exacerbated by the fact that the locals (Tevarans) and the colonists (Farborns) cannot interbreed, though they theoretically have a common ancestor in the people from Hain, which colonized most of the known universe with their own genetic code.

The Alterrans and the HILFs are forced to unite, just before the oncoming of the 15-year long winter, when a barbarian horde from the North comes and destroys the Tevaran city and tries to do the same with the Alterran one as well. The united people, or what is left of them, succeed in defending the new city and become more friendly towards each other, the leader of the Alterrans, Jacob, taking a HILF wife, Rolery. During the battles the Alterran doctor realizes that their bodies started to adapt to the local conditions to the point where they can be infected by local bacteria. This leads him to think that Alterran-HILF breeding would soon be possible and a new race will emerge.

Towards the end of the book, after successfully defending the city, Jacob realizes that they are no more on a planet of exile, but that the planet has become their home too.

"Poodle Springs" by Raymond Chandler and Robert Parker

2008-11-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, I know I said I won't be reading any more abridged Marlowe novels, but since this was the last (eighth) novel and Chandler wrote only the first four chapters, I thought I won't lose much by reading the abridged version. I was right, as after the beginning, which is Chandler's work, the rest is too mushy and presents Marlowe as too much of a softie, which he is, but never shows it in such obvious ways in Chandler's original novels. Parker brings a more modern feel to the novels but also a modern sensitivity and emphasis that should appeal to contemporary readers. This, however, is not a continuation of Chandler's style, and rings unauthentic.

Marlowe is married to Linda and they move to Poodle Springs, which is Chandler's sarcastic moniker for Palm Springs. Marlowe is backed by 200 million dollars from father-in-law and at least 10 million (of 1954 dollars) in his wife's personal wealth, but he insists on working and paying for his office only with his own money. He gets on a case for the local casino runner Lippshultz, who has an IOU from a guy for $100,000. On the way to finding the guy, Marlowe discovers two murders and gets in trouble with the police (again), for helping the guy, Les Valentine aka Larry Victor escape, because he has a soft spot for the young married couple. Another inauthentic detail here is when the tough riverside cop almost breaks Marlowe's knee with a blackjack in front of Bernie Ohls, Marlowe's old friend from D.A.'s office in LA. Although Ohls intervenes, it is doubtful that he would ever let the other cop come close to Marlowe in Chandlers original novels, as they are quite close.

At the end Marlowe's marriage falls apart, but in the last scene Linda comes to his new rented apartment in LA and proposes that they be lovers ... forever. Cheesy, if you ask me, coming in line with the sensibilities of the modern time which Parker aimed to satisfy, but I don't think Chandler would have approved. This book is a good reading, but definitely not on par with Chandler's best Marlowe work.

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Fridrich Nietzsche

2008-11-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

I've read this book for a third time now, and I am not sure I understand it more than when I read it for the first time at age 16 in high school, pretty much exactly 16 years ago. Nietzsche's Zarathustra walks around talking to dead men, animals, trees and other men and saints, exposing his beliefs of God, the Universe, the proper way of living, morality and, of course, Nietzsche's favorite topic - the eternal return.

This is the book where Nietzsche through Zarathustra's mouth proudly exclaims "God is dead!". I don't buy much into the bible verse style of writing though. I know other philosophers used it below, and it allowed Nietzsche to claim that it is the 'deepest book ever written' but it is arguable how much questionable depth you can put in piles of bad poetry. Just look at Aliester Croweley, and the piles of verse garbage he wrote, for which he claimed to contain the deepest secrets of magic.

I find other Nietzsche's books, like 'The Twilight of the Idols' and 'Beyond Good and Evil' much more accessible and valuable for getting acquainted with his thought, which was very new and very radical in his time. This book also got me in big trouble with the local librarian when I was 16, but that's another story :)

"Playback" by Raymond Chandler

2008-11-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

The sixth novel in the Marlowe series, set in Esmeralda, a city near San Diego, a moniker for La Jolla, where Chandler lived during the last years of his life. The novel is weaker than Chandler's other Marlowe works on the account of the simpler plot, no big twist at the end, and actually having some decent and positive characters in it, primarily from the police.

Marlowe is hired to follow a woman, without being given a reason. During the job he goes south to Esmeralda, where he meets a handful of colorful characters: Ex-gangster turned proprietor, a private eye from Kansas City, a few decent and honest cops, a Mexican-Chinese-black immigrant who likes smoking pot and hangs himself after injecting morphine and a gigolo who blackmails his charges for more money.

There are two subplots going on concurrently: one being Marlowe's following the girl, who is in turn blackmailed by the gigolo, and eventually falls for the ex-gangster for whatever reason. The other is the private eye from Kansas City and the gigolo blackmailing the ex-gangster (who's also from Kansas City) to reveal his past to the exclusive and very rich crowd living in Esmeralda.

The novel is adapted from a screenplay of the same name that Chandler wrote some years ago and was rejected by studios. The screenplay was published posthumously and people who've read both usually prefer the screenplay. Towards the end of the novel Marlowe gets a phone call from Linda from 'The Long Goodbye' who's now in Paris for over 1.5 years but still missing Marlowe and staying faithful to their one night they had together in his office. Marlowe tells her he didn't stay faithful to her, as in this book he sleeps with the lawyer's secretary who hired him and also with the woman he was following, Betty (yes, the panties go down fast as usual). Linda says she doesn't care and she loves him and she wants to marry him. Marlowe tells her to come to LA and they will talk. In the next novel 'Poodle Springs' which is Chandler's moniker for Palm Spring, Marlowe and Linda are married and living in Poodle Springs.

I've read this one in non-abridge version, and although indeed a bit weaker than the other Marlowe novels, it still brims with the hard-boiled dialogue, insightful descriptions and shrewd social observations about people and life in SoCal in the 1950s which is the main allure of Chandler's work today.

"The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler

2008-11-05T14:52:00.000-08:00

Another novel that I read abridged. I will definitely stop doing that from now on, since you don't get the real thing. It is hard to recognize them on torrent sites though. But the rule of thumb is that a 300 page novel, coded in speech quality mp3 format should be between 150MB and 250MB. The version I had for this was barely 60MB, and the quality was not insufferably low, thus the small size cannot be blamed on the low quality conversion.

This novel was written while Chandler was nursing his lover, 18-years his senior, who eventually died and was a huge blow for the writer who passed away himself some years later. It has some autobiographical elements, and that is one of the reasons why it should be read in its entirety, without any abridging, when some prof or self-styled expert decides which parts are important and which can be dropped.

The novel is about Marlowe's friendship with Terry Lennox, an alcoholic married to a promiscuous heiress of great fortunes. When she is brutally killed, Terry skips to Tijuana with Marlowe's help and later kills himself leaving a confession. Marlowe doesn't buy this and is roughed up several times by some tough guys who knew Lennox and his dark history from the times when his name was Paul Marston, a british commando in WWII, captured by the Gestapo in Norway.

Another character, an alcoholic writer, comes in the story, initially looking unrelated, but eventually turning out that his wife, who kills him, and also the lady in the beginning of the story, was Marston's first wife, who thought he died in Norway. At the end Lennox/Marston comes back to Marlowe's office as a mexican, after a face-job, but Marlowe sees through him. Lennox offers the peace branch, but Marlowe refuses, saying that he thought they were friends, and apparently he was wrong, and he doesn't want anything to do with him anymore.

The novel won Chandler the Edgar Award, and some critics consider it his best novel, while others say it is not up to the quality of the first two, which I find magnificent. At the end Marlowe has a short affair with the sister of Lennox' dead wife (as all women immediately drop their panties at the mere sight of him), but this time he feels for her something he hasn't felt for any other woman. She is one of the rare fully positive female characters in Chandler's works. She proposes they marry and go to Paris but he refuses. She is significant since Marlow apparently never forgets her, and talks to her again at the end of the next novel, 'Playback' which is next to last. And in the last novel 'Poodle Springs' of which Chandler finished only the first five chapters before he died, they marry.

"The High Window" by Raymond Chandler

2008-11-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

I read this book as an abridged BBC radio-drama that fits on two audio cassettes, which not only doesn't do justice to Chandler, but also denigrates the entire story, lowering it to the plot-only variety of the previous British detectives. I have a strong distaste for BBC dramas in general, as I believe they never catch the right feeling of the original novels, and cheat the reader/listener of the enjoyment of the original.

The plot is intricate enough, a rare dubloon stolen from a rich, old miserette's house, implying her son and daughter and law. A private secretary who seems to be tied to the family with something stronger than a salaried job, and a string of murders within the circle of the people that got into contact with the stolen doubloon.

Marlowe discovers the truth, which implicates the old lady and her son, but the detective does not surrender them to the cops, his private dick's ethics having a higher priority, but only deals his own sort of justice by giving freedom to the enslaved secretary living a lie.

The novel was filmed as a movie called 'Brasher Doubloon' which was the only movie with Philip Marlowe which I could not find available on any P2P network, which speaks volumes about its quality and by transference, the quality of the book, which seems to be considered among the lower quality Marlowe stories.

"Farewell, My Lovely" by Raymond Chandler

2008-11-05T14:17:00.001-08:00

The second book about Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler is equally impressive as his first one. The same hard-boiled style, a cynical and dark representation of Los Angeles in the 1940s which rings more real than most of the Hollywood's make-believe fairy tales. The story is just as complicated, if not more, than in the first book. The characters are just as negative, not even the cops managing to squeeze out much goodness and morals.

Marlowe does not really have a client this time, being at the wrong (right?) place at the wrong time he gets involved with ex-con Moose Malloy, a giant of man, who's looking for the love of his live, Velma Valente. The person who eventually hires Marlowe, as a bodyguard, turns, towards the end of the book, to want to kill him, because he was on track to discovering the identity of Velma, who's now married to a billionaire, and leads the decadent and spoiled life of a rich widow, while her husband still being alive, sleeping around profusely, and apparently wanting to include Marlowe in her collection as well.

One things that bothers me about Marlowe, as I read more and more books about him, is not his hard-boiled style, which at times makes it hard to be believable, but is very entertaining, neither is his apparent ability always to get the upper hand in conflicts, no matter how beaten up he gets, or what odds he's against, but that damn apparent charm, or charisma, or whatchamacallit, that makes every beautiful woman (and they are ALL beautiful in the books, apparently LA in 1940s was teeming with gorgeous ladies) drop down her panties (or desperately want to) as soon as she lays eyes on his 6'3'' frame or hears his hard-boiled voice. A bit over the top, but I understand that it was the fashion at the time.

This is a very enjoyable book. I especially enjoyed the hard-boiled dialogue between Marlowe and various tough guys, cops and tough girls. Some of Chandler's books are not available in audio unabridged (and I almost stopped reading books with my eyes, but only with my ears for years now), and that loses all the charm, since the most enjoyment is to be found in the scenes that are not essential for the plot, but are kind of outlet for Chandler to show off his hard-boiledness and perceptiveness in dialogue and witty and insightful descriptions.

"The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler

2008-10-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

I discovered Raymond Chandler when I was reading a review of Lovecraft, on of my favorite authors, and the review writer mentioned that 'what Lovecraft was for horror, Chandler was for detective fiction'. This tickled my imagination, and I got all the Chandler's novels and started to read them in their chronological order (just like I read the complete works of Lovecraft). The first novel, which was later made in a great movie with Humphrey Bogart, and even later into yet another great film with Robert Mitchum, this time, being 1979, the movie could be much more explicitly, as the novel has quite a few shocking parts (for the 1940s when it was released). The novel is complex, with many plots and subplots, characters with many layers, which change sides and opinions and allegiances often. Philip Marlowe is the stereotypical 'hard-boiled' detective, somewhat of an ideal for every private eye. The novel is devoid of positive characters, as everybody Marlowe encounters, no matter how likable at first, eventually show their rotten side. Marlowe, for his part, never pretends to be of high morals or ideals, but usually comes on top when compared to the rest of the menagerie.

The book starts with what looks like a pretty simple plot, a blackmail note for rich, old and paralyzed army general who has accrued great riches from oil and two young an beautiful daughters rotten beyond repair. However things evolve pretty fast, and soon we have powerful crime bosses, corrupt police officials, big money protectionism, hitmen and large swaths of areas in LA and the surroundings in the late 1930s. Marlowe is the proverbial tough guy with morals: cynical but with a soft spot, dark humored but going out of his way to help, womanizer but not sleeping around, street-talking but upholding the law more than the police. You can almost see black-and-white images while reading the book. It is told from first person point of view, Marlowe is the narrator and this gives us insight into his thoughts and motivations and makes him very real and almost likable, but definitely admirable.

The women in the book are (almost) all gorgeous, and always rotten, whether by their own choice or by destiny. The more innocent the look at the beginning, the more corrupted and sick they turn at the end, as is the case with Carmen, the general's 20 year old daughter. The style of the book is easy to follow, although the plots and characters might be numerous and complicated. Chandler was one of the first writers to use real, street-level, tough language which spares no insults, both social, moral and racial which is refreshing in today's PC-obsessed world. The plot is intriguing, there are twists and turns which keep you on the edge as a good mystery novel should, pretty much to the last page, but don't expect 'clues' as in Christie's novels that would help you 'find the murderer' itself. This is not that type of detective novel. This is gritty, realistic, down-in-the-gutter novel which is remarkable for its realistic appeal, 'telling it as it is', no english or belgian detectives who play the violin and hang out with the 'high class' here.

Marlowe is a seminal character, better developed than Spade and in much greater length, with more depth and believability. The other characters in the book are only jotted with some well chosen lines, but still ring true, though this mostly goes for the male characters. The female characters are less well drawn, and are mostly there to further the story and to emphasize the 'hard-boiledness'. It is amazing, for someone not familiar with the LA underground and related police business, to hear the words, the sentences, the bullying, the fear mind-games, to see how tough guys evaluate each other, what motivates them, how they relate to each other and other people. Chandler is a master in presenting this, dark but realistic, picture of everyday life in LA.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of the Marlowe novels, and watching the movies (each novel has at least one movie made according to it, some as much as three) and enjoying the no-fluff, spare-me-the-PC, gritty, rough around the edges but with more morals than the police chief, style of Phillip Marlowe.

"Cabal" by Clive Barker

2008-10-31T15:10:00.000-07:00

This was the book that really hooked me onto Barker's work for years. I was so impressed by it that I even had 'Cabal__' as my online handle for many years. I read it initially in university, after I read Barker's 'Books of Blood' which I like but wasn't head over hills about them. I was amazed by the world Barker created in this book. The idea that the monsters are the good guys, living in the mythical city of Midian, far in the remote and obscure Canadian north, the psychological background, the concept of 'knowing' you have to fulfill your destiny, that there is a plan, bigger and larger than you and your daily life, all that was immensely impressing for a college sophomore. I basked in the references to Baphometh, the androgynous idol of the Templars, which tied into my own strong interest in mysticism. Also the powers of the Nightbreed, their allure of power and aloofness, remoteness but assertiveness in the same time, was a very powerful metaphor for a young guy who tended more towards the anti-social side.

Alas, this lasted about 6-7 years, until I saw Barker's movie 'Nightbreed' (which is also the name of the novel in the US), which was at about the same time when I learned tha Barker is gay, and very vocal and active in defending gay rights. This is, of course, great, every thinking man knows that segregation and discrimination of people by their sexual orientation is not only wrong, but also deprives the society of large amounts of intellectual and creative potential. However, I am strongly against interweaving fantasy novels with the LGBT message and using them as vehicle for such messages unbeknown to the reader. The movie makes it completely obvious that 'Cabal' is about the plight of the LGBT community. They are the 'monsters' living in Midian's graveyard. They look and act different from the 'regular' people and the 'regulars' hate them for that and try to exterminate them by any means. The Nightbreed are thought of as 'abominations' which is a label frequently applied to the LGBT by the fundamentalist right. The psychologist is the unscrupulous politician, who will use the most negative feelings of the public, and amplify and direct them, to his own advantage and goals, never really having a strong opinion about the matter in reality. Boone is the 'savior' the Christos in the original meaning of the word, with feet in both worlds, and understanding both, and ultimately reconciling them.

That all is great, however the reader should be warned about it. I ended up feeling cheated and with bitter taste in my mouth after analyzing the book from the LGBT paradigm, as it made much more sense than the superficial fantasy/horror paradigm. Don't get me wrong, I still like the book; I actually re-read it recently, but now I 'see through' the elements of the book, and see them as metaphors for Barker's social views. This is something that I feel strongly about, but I would not read a fantasy book dedicated to espousing it, thinly wrapped in fantasy/horror themes. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone who is looking for exciting and powerful story, as long as you don't look too much below the surface. On the other hand, do yourself a favor and don't waste 2 hours watching 'Nightbreed' unless you are interested in the LGBT rights campaign in the early 90s.

"Weaveworld" by Clive Barker

2008-10-31T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've read this book early in University when I was discovering Clive Barker as a writer, and getting excited about his fantasy works, not that much about his early horror work. I've re-read it recently and was thinking that I was going to get disappointed by it as I got with 'Cabal' and 'Imajica' when I discovered that Barker is gay, and found so much LGBT stuff in his books that they looked more like pamphlets for gay rights than novels. Weaveworld though was a surprise. Yes, there were some references to 'gender-transcendental sexuality' but they were kept to a minimum, and most of the content is dedicated to the actual content.

It is a complicated book. It is original as well. Few fantasy authors would think of enclosing their world in a carpet, at least I haven't encountered any. The people Barker invented, The Seerkind, are a little less convincing, but still well thought out, unlike the Nightbreed in 'Cabal' which are an obvious LGBT community. The characters, which are usually the weakest part of Barker's books, are comparatively well-developed, especially Mooney, and to a lesser extent Susanna, Shadwell and Immacollatta, which are more two-dimensional The Scourge is especially badly developed, and it seems like it was forgotten for most of the book, just to reappear at the end, in a not very convincing series of events and make a spectacular, but irrelevant, exit near the end.

I liked that the thought life of Mooney is presented to some length, as Barker usually doesn't care much what his characters think, since he is using them primarily as a vehicle for the story. I felt things were left incomplete with Mooney's girlfriend. She appears several times, but we never learn her motivation, or get some insight into why she's acting the way she is. The let-down of Mr.Gluck when he is to understand that all UFO-related phenomena that he's been researched all of his life could be linked to the Seerking 'ruptures' is also forced, and unconvincing. The intensity of the story, especially after the first 50 pages is excellent and reminiscent of Barker's short stories. The chase and search for the carpet, all the comings and goings and the coincidences or the lack thereof is enjoyable and exciting reading.

Barker's exquisite imagination with minute attention to detail shows throughout the book and this is what makes 'The Fugue' believable, and to a lesser-extent, its inhabitants. It is notable that the main protagonist in most Barker's works is a man, developed to a lesser or greater extent, like Mooney in this book. I would recommend this book to any fantasy fan, or to anyone who's looking for a great entry into the work of Clive Barker.

"The Teachings of Don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda and his other books

2008-10-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

It is about 15 years since I first read "The Teachings of Don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda, when I was sophomore in High School. It was given to me by an uncle once removed, as something that might interest me, but he's suspicious of. I was, needless to say, totally blown away by the book. It had everything a daydreaming, new-agy high school sophomore could wish for: hallucinogenic plants, sorcery, powerful teacher, promise of power and immortality, exotic locations (for an European), spirits, supernatural forces, etc. etc.

I found it difficult at that time to find the rest of Castaneda's books (there were only 10 at the time), but after I went to college (at an american university)I found several more of his books and was immersed in the fascinating story and mythology. However, by this time the Internet was becoming a force to be reckoned with, and there was much more information available there than in any single library or other media. On the Internet I found that things were not as straight forward as 'Carlito' was describing them in his books.

I found out that Castaneda probably never met anyone like Don Juan, but he's amalgamate of his researches and his wishful thinking. I found that there are multiple contradictions and conflicting timelines in his books, like during the time he says he was at a peyote ritual in Sonora, Mexico, he was actually borrowing and reading books about other people's peyote ritual experiences in the library at UCLA. Most disturbingly though, I've found out that he has built a cult following around him, mostly of female students, with whom he had regular sexual intercourse under the pretense of spiritual instruction and whom he abused, lied to and treated in despicable manner in general. He was a kind of misguided, complexed and definitely less funny modern-day Gurdjieff.

At that time I abandoned his books in revolt, and his 'Cleargreen' company teaching supposed 'Magical Passes' for money (of which there are several claims that the passes were actually modified Chinese techniques taught to Castaneda in Mexico City) did not help at all. Lately, I've found audio versions of several of the Castaneda's books, including my favorite 'The Teachings of Don Juan'. After I read them I decided to do more research and make an informed decision. What I discovered startled and disgusted me.

I knew that Castaneda died in 1998 (of liver cancer), and that his death was kept secret for two months by his cronies 'Cleargreen', but I didn't know that his sex-slaves (or should I say students?) disappeared immediately after his death, never to be heard of again, until the body of one of them was positively identified in 2006 in the California Death Valley, dead of presumed suicide, which fate is presumed for the rest 4 women who disappeared. What kind of sick wacko forms a cult in which he has sex with every female that enters and makes them believe things that make them kill themselves after his death? What is the difference between him and the host of mentally ill cult leaders who make their followers take poison? I mean people have jumped off cliffs because Castaneda had written that shamans will burn their bodies from within with inner fire and will never reach the bottom of the cliff. Needless to say, none of those who jumped burned at all, but their corpses were perfectly whole at the bottom of the cliff.

One of the 'students', who had the good sense to leave while there was time, wrote a memoir of her apprenticeship with Carlos, most of which consisted of having sex with him at a time when she was 19 and he about 60. From the Time magazine article in 1973 and his own references scattered throughout his books, it can be seen that Castaneda had many unresolved issues with his parents and family, especially his father. His cousins and friends in Peru (where he was born and raised) remembered him as a "cheerful person, a big gambler, a big lier and obssesed with immigrating to the US".

I am deeply disappointed by the true nature and deeds of Carlos Castaneda, and I feel cheated and fooled into believing what I thought was a magical world in my teens. His books are a hodge-podge of bits and pieces Castaneda gathered from different sources, and the only wisdom in them is the one he borrowed from various great philosophers. I might still read his books as entertaining fiction, but I have lost all respect for the work and the man he claimed to be.

"Robert Anton Wilson explains Everything" by RA Wilson

2008-10-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to Robert Anton Wilson when I was interested in Peter Carroll and Chaos Magick in the mid-to-late 90s. RAW's books were recommended as essential for understanding the modern Magick paradigm. My good luck resulted in me reading 'Prometheus Rising' as my first RAW book and I was impressed. The book mainly details Leary's eight circuit model of consciousness, with which I was not acquainted at the time, and it appeared as a very lucid and intelligible model of what might be going on in people's heads. The second book I read from RAW was 'Quantum Psychology' (I actually purchased both of these books!), which was touted as second part of 'Prometheus Rising'. I was very disappointed with this book, which seemed to me a big pile of hodge-podge (not in the discordian way unfortunatey), lots of light prose, some repeats from the previous book, some perennial 'wisdoms' and common sensical things that you don't need to purchase a book to learn - and little else. I wrote a pretty bad review for it and almost forgot about RAW until last year when I got his notorious 'Illuminatus' as an audio book, and inflicted the, by no means small, pain upon myself of listening to the first 45 minutes. I could absolutely make no sense of anything. I never liked the 'stream of consciousness' books. I still haven't read Joyce. I didn't even know 'Illuminatus' was stream of consciousness book, and that RAW was such a great admirer of Joyce.

Anyway, the audio book titled above consists of 4 sessions where RAW talks to the editor of 'Sounds True', an audio book publishing house, plus 3 recordings from his lectures. The first part is much more entertaining, as I don't find RAW to be a great speaker, though I have read that he even did stand-up comedy. The interview with 'Sounds True' is very genuine, relaxed and informative. The reader/listener gets to hear RAW's stance on plenty of controversial topics popular today as well as reminiscences of people and events inhis illustrious past, and some comments about his own books. RAW never became rich from his books, which actually sold pretty well, but he could live comfortable. That is, he lived comfortable until the last year of his life, when his life-long fight with polio consequences was beginning to be lost. He appealed for funds to cover his medical expenses on his blog and posted a reply after receiving more than he expected about how touched he was that there were people who still cared about him. He passed away less than a week after the blog post.

This audio recording is very easy-listening and very entertaining, and can be seen as the best introduction to his overall work and positions on most issues he wrote and lectured about throughout his life. One of the sessions espouses Leary's eight circuit model of consciousness, to which RAW contributed, in a clear and intelligible knowledge. The lecture recordings that follow concentrate on particular topics in his writings, and there is an interesting question and answer period recorded. I didn't like the speeches as much as the previous conversation parts, but they definitely add value. Although I don't share the excitement about Robert Anton Wilson's writings that many people seem to hold, I do recognize his place in development of modern thought and exploration of fringe areas of science, and would recommend this audio book as a great introduction to the man and his work to everyone.

"Imajica" by Clive Barker

2008-10-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Haven't written for a while. That doesn't mean I wasn't reading, I actually finished 2 books and am currently reading another 3. The times were stressful, new job, new apartment, GMAT, summer, beach, etc. I hope I finish the review of both books I finished today, or otherwise it might be next week , as the weekend should be filled with activities. The first book I finished was 'Imajica' by Clive Barker.

I read 'Imajica' for the first time when I was an undergrad student. I was immensely impressed by Barker's books 'Cabal', 'Weaveworld', and the lovely 'The Thief of Always', although I initially started reading Barker because I was searching the annals of horror literature since Lovecraft, and I wanted to read all of the major modern authors, just as I read all the books I could Lovecraft mentioned in his essay 'The supernatural in the history of literature'. I liked 'The Books of Blood' and 'The Damnation Game' but it was his fantasy novels that really impressed me and put Barker on the shelf of my favorite authors. I can credit primarily Barker, actually, for my primary reading interest during undergrad shifting from horror and 'hard' science fiction to a more fantasy selection, though I have been a fan of Tolkien, Le Guinn, and others since early high school. When I compare what has Barker done with his fantasy novels relative to his horror work, I cannot fail to notice that his fantasy (or as he calls it 'dark fantasy') work is way above in style and creativity, and this fact made me notice that in literature in general, the purely horror works are usually of much 'pulpier' quality than fantasy works.

I remembered, from undergrad, the vast worlds, the many fantastic creatures, the nomenclature, the unknown, the suspense, the seemingly limitless imagination that Barker has invested in this novel. This, if any, should be called his seminal work. Here he presents his worldview, his view of afterlife, God, spirituality, relationships, transcending the customary accepted ones in our modern society, and going well beyond and above them. One thing that struck me as particularly strong, and this goes also for my second reading of my favorite novel by Barker 'Cabal', is his hardly veiled descriptions, apologetics, and actual exaltation, in a sense, of homosexual, transsexual and transgender lifestyles.

This revelation was the biggest shock to me when I re-read 'Cabal' some years ago, being about 5-6 years out of undergrad, and for the first time after I read that Barker is openly homosexual and activist in the community. I saw all the names, relationships and symbols in 'Cabal' completely different. They were not arbitrary gems of a great imagination, but most of them were symbolic of the homosexual society, and the oppression against them, the ways they had to hide in order to survive and what they had to invent to keep sane. The Nightbreed in 'Cabal' are the LBGT community, driven into hiding because of the very thing they are, and mercilessly chased and destroyed by the evil 'townspeople' just for being different, being 'freaks'. In this sense much of the dialogue, person's names and actions become much more obvious and sequential. Boone is maybe Barker himself, sent by Baphometh to free the Nightbreed, that is the LGBT community from the oppression of the fundamentalists, who themselves have much bigger problems, represented by Decker.

But this review is about 'Imajica'. Here too, the themes of transcending sexuality in both substance, as in not having it limited to union of a male and female, but in many other varieties, and in structure, as in the sexual manuscript with outlandish sexual postures, in one the lovers consuming each others bodies, are greatly elaborated and presented in favorable light. Pie-oh-pah is a mystiv, thus Gentle is both heterosexual and bisexual at the same time. Taylor and Clem are very important, very positive and very openly gay characters. Judith has many fantasies of making love with other women. The other creatures that populate the Imajica, they all have their own ways of having sex, and elaborate customs and reasons around them, and Barker intentionally presents all this variety in its wonder and beauty, so to point out to the ordinary reader that the male-female union is not the only one, not even the only valid one, and far from being the best one. I think that the book cannot be understood without understanding the homosexual and transsexual apology interwoven with the main theme.

'Imajica' is also a stage for Barker to show his distaste for the 'One God - and a patriarchal one at that' paradigm. He describes the goddesses and the matriarchal rites and religion in much more positive light than Hapexamendios (only God knows how he came up with that name), who is irrational, infantile, cruel and selfish. Even the fact that Barker named Imajica's supreme deity is a kind of rebellion against the dogma of the real name of God being unutterable in most major religions. Some parts of the novel read as a straight defense and praise of Wicca, goddess-based religions and feminism, to a point that it gets boring. The supreme love of Gentle, a male, toward Pie-oh-pah, a hermaphrodite, putting it above any love he felt for a woman, which is emphasized over and over again, is also in line of Barker's defense of love as a thing in itself (not in Kantian sense though), independent of artificial limits the society has imposed upon it.

There are several faults with the novel. First, it starts way too slow. Nothing really happens for the first 250 pages. Second, didacticism, in a sense of Barker's convictions about sex, love, relationships, God, spirituality, etc., is very present, taking large chunks of the chapters, and can be annoying and superfluous at times. These two flaws I see as major ones, and with some trimming of the said content, the book could lose about 300-400 pages, and be much more readable than in its present state. Another flaw, as I see it, and which appears in many other Barker's books is his treatment of Magic, whether he calls it 'fates', 'ruptures', or something else. All magic in Barker's novels seems to come from the body od the operator, breath, spit, blood, sperm, feces, etc. This is a very modernistic view of magical operations, similar to postulates of 'Chaos Magick' and other modern currents, however he does not give a sufficient context neither in the traditional, medieval pantheon, or in the modernistic currents. Magic seems for Barker to be an afterthought, and ornament, something to 'make pretty' his primary discourses of sex, sexuality, relationships and emotions, primarily in gay homosexual contexts.

This is definitely the greatest book Barker has ever penned. It has its flaws, and is definitely not an easy-reading. There are multiple layers of meanings and most things become obvious only when looked through an LBGT prism. Barker is still described as a 'Horror Writer' but that is only accurate of the very beginning of his career. He has long ago abandoned hardcore horror and has instead craeted fantastic imaginary universes worthy of Lord Dunsany.

"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond

2008-07-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

Mr.Diamond is a biologist by training and avid bird researcher. It is not surprising that the viewpoint he presents in this book rejects all theories that the moral, religious or social factors were decisive in establishing white man's hegemony over the world, and firmly establishes that geography and ecology were the crucial elements in civilization's rise to power, and if the black Africans were located in Europe or Asia, they would have developed just as advanced civilization and would rule the world. This might be a little of a stumbling stone to many white people who, even subconsciously, feel a little tickle of satisfaction when thinking about the superiority of the white race, but it is cold hard scientific fact, the whites just got lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

The basic tenet of Mr.Diamond's theory is that the advance of civilization was determined by the availability of domesticable crops and large mammals. The Eurasian continent had the largest number of crops that could be domesticated and the largest number of large mammals that could be domesticated. The Americas, Africa and Australia had way less suitable crops, and the large mammal species were extinct very early on, before the humans living there could figure out the advantages and procedures of domestication. This early domestication of crops and mammals allowed for abandonment of the nomadic hunter/gatherer life style. People started to group together, organize villages and cities. The population density increased, since farming could support much more people per squared mile than the very random success hunting/gathering. With large population, densely populated settlements, the precursors for complex social organizations were in place. The complex social organization allowed for specialization of the people in the settlement. Some could become only warriors, other would become scribes and learned man, there would be a chieftain and a set hierarchy. This alone provided for the spare time and resources to develop sciences, literature and advanced technologies. It is that simple. There is no racial, moral or religious reason. Everything is up to what crops are around, how good they are in providing nutrition and domestication and how many large mammals that could be domesticated were around. Bad news for racists of any kind.

Mr.Diamond further explains that most human diseases originated from animal diseases that jump onto humans at a certain point of their evolution. Humans who domesticated large animals early had been exposed to more animal diseases earlier, and after the plagues and epidemics passed, the remaining humans were left with natural resistance to the deadly diseases. Since 13 of the only 14 domestic mammals that were ever domesticated came from Eurasia, the people living in Europe and Asia were the ones most exposed to the deadly diseases and developed immunity to them early on. This proved to be crucial later on when the Europeans colonized the Americas and Australia, as the natives there had absolutely no immunity to the diseases that the Europeans were carrying and their populations were decimated.

The characteristics of Eurasia also had huge impact on developing advanced civilizations as it is narrow in height and wide in width, which allows for larger areas that share the same longitude and thus have similar climate and conditions. The civilization started in the Fertile Crescent, today's Tiger and Euphrates rivers, Lebanon, Israel and Sinai peninsula. When the soil was exhausted there, the population had plentiful of similar space to settle and spread, since the Fertile Crescent was in the middle of Eurasia, and from there spread to Europe to the west and to Persia, India and China to the east.

None of the domestic animals now so popular in Europe and North America are native to the lands. They have all come from the Fertile Crescent, just like most of the crops that Europeans have used for centuries like wheat and rye. The situation of the world today, the haves and the have-nots has primarily been decided by the geography of the originating peoples, but the hand nature dealt them, by pure chance, and not by any kind of imagined racial, genetic or religious differences.

"Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment" by Tal Ben-Shahar

2008-04-24T18:23:00.001-07:00

This book was recommended to my by my therapist whom I value, so I had very big expectations about it. The expectations were mostly correct! It will not automatically make you happier, but will give you insights into many mechanisms and patterns that most people are blindly repeating all of their lives. The author has drawn on Freud and Frankl for the theories of the primary motivation of man, stating that both 'pleasure' i.e. immediate gratification, and 'meaning' i.e. future gratification are necessary for a meaningful life. As an admirer of both greatest psychologists of our time, I think the author does a very good job in combining their teachings into one congruent whole.

As the author teaches the 'Positive Psychology' course at Harvard, the book is largely a primer of positive psychology, which is something that makes it even better and adds to its value. Unlike the regular psychology which deals with people with problems, anxieties, phobias, etc. positive psychology studies the virtues, happy, elevated mental states of people.

The author uses the hamburger principle to differentiate 4 different types of people: rat racers (sacrifices present happiness for future gratification - vegetarian hamburger), hedonists (sacrifices future happiness for present gratification - fatty hamburger), nihilist (stuck in the past, no present or future gratification expected - whatever hamburger) and happy people , the happy hamburger which gives both present and future gratification. It is a very catchy and memorable classification. Add to this the lasagna principle (author's favorite food) which says that although something might be the most favorite (lasagna) and important thing in the world to us, we still cannot do/think/be that the whole time, but we need a break and variety.

I found the metaphor of happiness as the 'ultimate currency' very insightful and true. We get stuck into pursuing material wealth and prestige and forget why we are doing all that - to be happy. If we start seeing happiness as the ultimate goal and not money or power or social standing then our priorities change and we become true to our core self. Also the author points out the difference between positive happiness, something that happened that made us genuinely happy, and negative happiness, when we are happy because some hardship is over, like in the case of the rat-racers achieving a hard-won goal or position.

The authors insight that self-discipline is extremely hard to do, and in order to change ourselves we need to introduce habits by ritualizing the things we want to adopt is eye-opening! If we start doing something because we know it is good for us, we cannot keep on doing it for long, like new years resolution as we fall back into our old habits, and there is nobody to blame for it, as it is human nature. No amount of will power and self discipline will help that. However if we introduce a new habit, by patiently ritualize a behavior, very specifically done at very specific time then the habit starts to change us from within. The author also attacks the myth of 'no pain - no gain' as completely untrue, hardship is not necessary for success and happiness, because we are most productive just bellow the level of hardship, and the statement that people work best under pressure is a myth.

The author also explains the concept of 'flow' when we are fully immersed in something that is interesting and gratifying that we lose concept of time. Being in 'flow' is the most gratifying state of mind for a human being. Whatever we do when in 'flow' is gratifying on both pleasure level for immediate gratification and meaning level for future gratification. He also emphasizes that having goals is a pre-requisite for experiencing 'flow' and those goals need to be 'self-concordant' to stem from our inner core and be meaningful to us. Flow is experienced much more at work than during leisure time, and the author speaks against the stigma of work which is mostly seen as a kind of punishment. The author differentiates amongst three types of employment: 1. a job, meaningless, only there for the money, can't wait for the weekend 2. a career, promotion and advance are primary motivators, not much pleasure in the job itself and 3. a calling, the work itself is a reward enough and pleasure, even without any additional rewards.

This book is one of the best self-help books I've ever read, and I've read many, many. It is short, to the point, replete with practical exercises and sound advice, and best of all, it is not an airy teaching of some eastern guru or new age quack, but solid science, psychology based on scientific research and peer-reviewed literature.

"Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth" by Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi

2008-04-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

I must preface this by saying that Gandhi is one of the three men that I respect more than anything in the world. The other two are Jung and Einstein. I believe these three men have given more to humanity than any living soul in the last 100 years. I am trying to educate and familiarize myself with every little detail of their lives, with their background, all the writings etc. just to be in a position to better understand their ideas and worldviews.

This book is very important for gleaning the real Gandhi. It is not an autobiography in the standard sense of that word, i.e. as a chronological presentation of events and people. Gandhi skips over large periods of his life, like the struggle in South Africa, and although he does present the events chronologically, it doesn't put equal emphasis on all of them. He talks in length about his veganism, the need to be without desires (brahmacharya) and not hurting any living being (ahimsa), and goes in depth about the different religious exploration and his final conclusion that the supreme God to which everything is subordinated is The Truth. One needs to spend one's life being completely truthful to oneself and to the others.

We learn a bit about Mahatma's early life, how he was married early, about his schooling in India and the subsequent trip to get a barrister (law) degree in England "because it is cheaper, easier, and takes less time." The accounts of his first trip to South Africa and about are very powerful, as he describes the inrooted racism and discrimination within the apartheid society, which sound even more striking when told by Mahatma's calm, compassionate and forgiving voice. He truly practiced what he preached and loved his enemies and felt sorry for them even though when he was physically abused and forced out of a first class compartment because he was a 'koolie' a colored person, and when he wasn't allowed inside a stage coach with the white passengers, but had to sit next to the coachman, outside.

Although there are much better books to learn about Mahatma's life and also the wonderful film, this is a very important book, written directly by The Great Soul himself and explaining the roots of his ideas and behaviors in his own words.

"Of Love and Other Demons" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2008-04-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if I can claim that I have read this book, but I have listened to the radio drama adaptation by BBC radio, and as this is the only book which Marquez has ever allowed to be adapted in such a way, my only guess is that it should be pretty truthful to the book itself.

Marquez is a master story teller, and this one is no exception, although shorter than his other novels at about 160 pages. The story starts with an excavation in a Latin American country to make way for a shopping mall build on top of an ancient monastery when bones of a young girl are discovered deep underground in one of the prison cells. Then one of the excavators recognizes the remains as that of which his grandmother told him of the beautiful and damned Maria Cierva. Cierva was a daughter of a spanish nobleman and half-indian woman, spent her childhood living with the black slaves and learned their language and ways. When she is bitten bya a rabid dog she is thought to be possesed by the devil, and a young, book-loving priest is sent to exorcise her. However the young priest falls in love with the beautiful girl and she falls in love with him, although less than half his age.

This love doesn't go undiscovered and unpunished by the Bishop and with the help of the strict monastery's chief nun. The young priest is send to a leper colony as a punishment and the bishop takes upon himself to perform the exorcism. However the priest finds secret tunnels by which he visits Cierva Maria every night and they profess their love until one day the chief nun finds the tunnel and closes it. Soon after Cierva Maria dies during the barbaric exorcism rites or from the torture in her cell, and the young priest spends the rest of his life in the leper colony.

A beautiful love story from a master story teller, and strong political activist, Gabo Garcia Marquez.

"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl

2008-04-02T16:27:00.000-07:00

I must say that I sabotaged my own experience of this book. I was so impressed by logotherapy as reading the other books of Dr.Frankl, I left this one for last, as his most famous book, in order to enjoy it more aided by the fire of expectation. The book was excellent. The part about the concentration camp was deep, moving, genuine and insightful. The detached and in the same time compassionate voice with which Dr.Frankl describes his sufferings, the sufferings of his fellow men, the sadistic behavior of the Kappos, and his psychological explanation of their reactions, his analysis of the guards, the desensitization and mechanisms of dominance and will to torture other human beings are fascinating.

There is much written about concentration camps, most of it forgotten in the 21st century, and much was written from the first person perspective, from the inmates, the lucky few who survived, but there is no other account written by one of the fathers of modern Psychology and the founder of the third school of Viennese psychotherapy, Dr.Viktor Frankl. He is able, if only for a few moments, to abstract himself from his daily torture, the numbing cold, the bone cracking forced labor, the few scraps of food, the cramped freezing quarters, the complete lack of means for personal hygiene, and to rise above it and observe the psychological mechanisms at work, some for coping, some for dying.

Dr. Frankl notices first hand that the will for life equates with the will to meaning. Whoever of the inmates had perceived their lives as having meaning, usually surviving to see a love one, or to perform a task after the war, no matter how mundane, those people would find strength to survive, to somehow extract yet another ounce of energy from their starved, beaten, bruised, wounded, skeleton-like bodies and go on. On the other hand the people who gave up were the people who could not see any meaning at all, nothing to live for, nothing to continue the torture for. These people could be recognized, Dr.Frankl says, because they were smoking their cigarettes, which in the camp were used only as currency for obtaining food or clothing, and only the Kappos and guards would smoke them.

It is from these experiences that Dr.Frankl solidifies his theory of logotherapy which he started to develop already before the war and it is here that he coins the main maxim of logotherapy that life has a meaning under ANY circumstances.

I was a bit dissapointed by the second part, since I was expecting a more in-depth explanation of logotherapy, but by the very nature of the essay it is short, concise and does not go into many issues and concepts in the necessary depth. It is a very good introduction to logotherapy, but having already read several full-length books on the subject by Dr.Frankl I did not extract too much value from it.

It is often mentioned that this book was ranked as one of the 10 most influential books of the XX century by the reader's survey of the Library of Congress. I was never able to obtain the survey and the ranking, so I don't know which are the other 9 books, but this book is definitely a required reading for every human being on this planet.

"Make Yourself Unforgettable: The Dale Carnegie Class-Act System" by The Dale Carnegie Organization

2008-04-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well, since I read the other two cornerstone Dale Carnegie books, I saw this one as also available in audio format and I thought I will read this one as well, as I have the habit to read everything I can get from an author I like. However this 'book' is not even written by Dale, but by his business legacy the DLO, and is basically a re-hash of his books. Not much new to be learned if you've already read the other books, but if you are lazy it summarizes the most practical and workable points on 6 CDs.

It is well organized and easily internalized for the first time reader of Dale's books. I've also heard that the DLO has a training course, aimed mostly at sales people, that follows this pattern. This CD set was first issued in 2006, so it includes all the new realities like the dot.com bust, the post 911 world, etc.

"How to Win Friends & Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

2008-04-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

So I read this 'bible' of self-help books, and I guess I was expecting too much but I wasn't too impressed. At least in the other book about conquering worry Dale talks about some novel concepts (to me) about surrendering your worries to higher powers, having long term perspective, etc. This book seems to me to be about stating common sense and obvious things and some things which are common knowledge, mixed with some sales techniques, which some people might find dubious, as they can be used even if the person using them is insincere.

I didn't like the numbering and groupings of concepts like "three techniques in handling people", "nine ways to change people" etc. I like the format, of stating a technique or principle, and then telling stories about how people have used them, though sometimes it takes an effort to relate them. It is obvious that many years of research and experience went into the book, and the groupings of principles probably came from Dale organizing his notes about different people's ways of doing a certain thing. I find it hard to believe that any of the people mentioned in the book uses ALL of the principles and techniques explained, a subset of them in the best case probably.

Many of the techniques could be derided as subtle (or not so subtle) forms of manipulation, like how to get people to think your idea is actually theirs, how to make them do what you want to without arousing resentment, how to take (or pretend to take?) genuine interest in their private lives and use that to put them at ease for whatever goal you have. Of course, these principles can be used by a well intentioned person, but also the way is free for them to be used by an unscrupulous manipulator. Honestly, to me many of the techniques looked like a bunch of hypocrisy, pretending and outright lying. Dale says it is not pretending if you genuinely mean it, but then again who genuinly likes and takes deep interest in ALL the people they meet?

I like the ideas of trying to see the situation from the other's person point of view and how everyone is always 100% sure they are right, and how one should avoid direct arguments, or contradicting people, even if they are blatantly wrong, but should always leave a door open for them to 'save face'. Also the idea that people mostly like to talk about the most important thing in the world to them - themselves, is useful, and one should be a good listener and let them talk.

I listened to this book in audio format and I wish the summaries of each section were separate files which one can re-listen to every once in a while, without needing to go through the whole book with all the stories and examples. All in all an interesting book, and gives you a good foundation, but I am of the opinion that there are many better books today for personal growth and people skills. However, this one was the first.

"How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie

2008-02-20T17:41:00.000-08:00

This is a classic read by a classic author. Although probably not as good as 'How to win friends and influence people' it is still a very useful book. The style of writing is a bit antiquated and it seems that 85% of the book are stories of different people, but the gist is there, and it is useful. The book is wonderfully organized, with chapter summaries and bullet points, which can be read in one breath when one wants to refresh his knowledge of the material.

I like Dales common sense advice, which might be obvious when read in a book, but it is very hard to remember when you are actually engrossed in worry. I also like very much his approach to religion and prayer, which he as a former atheist, doesn't see as a primarily religious duty and ritual, but more of a psychologically beneficial process where one can relinquish control over problems, in which case help often comes from the most unexpected places. Much of the moder worry habit comes from perfectionism and insistence on having control of all the circumstances in ones life, and constant pondering and worrying until one finds a solution, when the best way sometimes is to relinquish control, let go of the problem and admit that there is nothing one can do about it, and then, usually in a most amazing way, something comes along that helps the problem, solves it or makes it irrelevant. Whether this relinquishing of control should be done through belief in God and prayer, or through some other methods, is completely irrelevant, but the prayer has proven its positive psychological benefits for many centuries now.

The writing down of the worries might be an obvious thing to do today, and many psychologists recommend it as a way to organize the thoughts and separate the real concerns from the 'worry noise' in the head, but in the 1930s when Dale wrote this book must have been absolutely revolutionary. Recommendation for one hour nap in the afternoon of each day is probably one of the best ways to extend longevity, and has been long practiced on the Iberian peninsula under the name of Siesta. Not only the body and mind need rest mid-day, but by the very act of relaxing enough to fall asleep we reduce stress and induce a meditative state for stress relief and regeneration.

This is a wonderful book full of 'common sense' advice that is not common at all. The chapter summaries and bullet points should be re-read constantly and used to live by.

"Why Do I Love These People?" by Po Bronson

2008-02-20T17:33:00.001-08:00

Since I read his other book I thought I should give it another chance and read this one as well. It was more entertaining than the first, although most reviewers said the first one looks like pulitzer material compared to this one. I was mostly attracted by the story of the woman who has near death experience which changed her life and made her a better person. This story is an outlier compared to the other stories of the book, and although I was not offended by his preaching that everyone should procreate, nor I thought that he has no credentials to preach parenting after only a few years of having a child, but I really did not get the significance of most stories in the book. Don't get me wrong they are nice stories, and nicely written, very sweet and cozy and leave you with a good feeling, but I really did not get anything life changing out of it.

If anything I was immensely grateful that Po did not do the reading on the audio book like on his previous book 'What should I do with my life' because his voice doesn't have the quality for the audio book narration, and sounds squeaky, paltry and distracting.

"What Should I Do with My Life?" by Po Bronson

2008-02-20T16:57:00.000-08:00

I read this book an a recommendation of a friend who's opinion I value, however I was disappointed with its contents. The title is completely inappropriate for the book as it is more of a career change advice and examples than anything about the meaning of life itself. Many reviewers at amazon pointed out that the book is mostly concerned with over-privileged, over-educated, reasonably wealthy elite of the Bay Area and West Coast in general. I tend to somewhat agree with this opinion, although I don't want to downgrade their troubles, efforts and pains.

The book tells short bios of 55 people who have made more or less unconventional career change choices. I liked the story about the Harvard graduate turned catfish farmer. Most of the stories are fairly forgettable. I did not get much out of this book, both from advice and insight points of view. Many reviewers at amazon are right about saying that most of the people reviewed in the book never had any real troubles in life and did not have to take any big risks or make really hard choices.

The book is an entertaining read. The only distracting thing are Bronson's ramblings and musings about life, meaning, etc. where he overdoes it in driving some very obvious and common sense points home. One has to wonder about the quality of his spiritual and social life if such simple points impress him so much. Also I found the ever-present parallels he makes with his own life, and how things apply to him, distracting and plain annoying.

Other than that, a good, entertaining and forgettable book.

"Ocean of Theosophy" by William Quan Judge

2008-01-28T09:47:00.000-08:00

This book is usually presented as the best introduction to the overall teachings and principles of Theosophy. As such it has it's value, as it spares the reader hundreds of hours in reading the Theosophical bibles like 'The Secret Doctrine' and 'Isis Unveiled'. Judge, who was the president of the Theosophical Society after the death of Blavatsky, is known to write more clearly than HPB, but shares her contempt for science, and the assumed superiority, bordering on snobbery, which can be annoying to the reader.

The book explains Blavatsky's ideas in more clear language, and the chapters were originally articles Judge wrote as answers to questions from theosophists. As most theosophical work, it draws mainly on Hindu scriptures and tradition, with lots of 'original' work by Blavatsky. It is openly resentful to institutionalized religion, mostly Christianity and Judaisms, while Islam is not even mentioned except as not worthy of discussion. The phantasmagoric tales of the 'Ascended Adepts' and races and continents preceding ours, which are offered purely on fate, or for 'examination' by people who can see the Astral Light, are intermixed by constant warnings and cautions about doing anything practical, as the powers you (seemingly automatically) get by any kind of practical work will immediately corrupt one's soul and mind, turning one into a power-hungry, super villain reminiscent of the ones in Marvel comics.

Judge tries to joke about the limited reach of science and how it doesn't have explanation for many phenomena, for which Theosophists have perfectly good explanations coming from the 'highest' source, i.e. Ascended Adepts, through their earthly mediators like Blavatsky and other high ranking Theosophists. He explain gravity as a form of electricity, and thus making levitation possible by 'changing the polarity' of an object or a person. Although it might have been common in the late 1800 to speculate about the electrical nature of gravity, such thoughts have been disproved soon afterwards, and it makes such statements laughable today. Judge tries to poke fun at science in many similar cases, basking in his imagined superiority of Theosophical thought, but the joke is ultimately on him, and on Theosophy, which hasn't updated its views of the world and science significantly in the last 120 years, while science has leaped forward in advances and understanding to the point where the Theosophical allegations and explanations seem like a relic from the past.

While Theosophy has had significant positive social impact, especially under the guidance of Annie Besant, and includes such cosmopolitan ideas like universal brotherhood of all men, the teachings and theories on which it is based, and especially the methods by which Blavatsky and other high ranking Theosophists claim to have obtained such knowledge, casts very strong doubt on its credibility, even questioning the basis for its existence.

"Ultimate Book of Mind Maps" by Tony Bulzan

2008-01-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

This is a very interesting book. My only gripe with it is how did the author manage to spend 256 pages explaining a very simple idea? Apparently he has written 82 books on pretty much the same idea, which is astounding. I guess it only goes as a monument to the consumer mentality of the world today.

The ideas in this book are neither new, nor overly original. Although Mr. Bulzan claims copyright over the idea and method, mind maps in their earliest incarnations have been used by Porphyry of Tyros, who lived in 3rd century AD. Mind maps are very similar to cognitive maps or semantic networks, but with less rules and limitations.

Mind mapping is basically a visualization technique for organization of ideas, note taking or decision making. It basically starts from a central problem statement, usually represented as an image, and works radially from it attaching branches with ideas that stem from the previous points. Images and color are used extensively as this makes the map more attractive and interesting to the brain, and research has showed that retention is best when the mind is interested in what is being presented.

The book promotes the old fashioned, and now discredited idea, that people only use one half of the brain, business and engineering and general logical reasoning people using the left brain, while artists, musicians and general creative people using the right brain. The book builds on this by claiming that mind maps force you to use both sides of your brain, the words and concepts coming from the left, and colors and images coming from the right side of the brain. Modern research has shown that we used both sides of the brain simultaneously and in conjunction for accomplishing various tasks, and the increased retention of information using mind maps can be attributed to making the cognitive process more interesting and exciting.

The book is filled with success stories and examples, some of them pretty loosely connected to the main topic of mind mapping, like the full chapter on physical exercise. One gets a feeling that the author did a mind map about the content of the book, and he kind of went wild with the number of branches he considered good ideas. Mind mapping is an interesting idea which might have good use in note taking, and knowledge organization, and thus could be very useful in appropriate situations, but is definitely not a panacea.

"In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching" by P. D. Ouspensky

2007-12-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

I approached this book with skepticism, based on my previous knowledge and readings about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, their lives and their (pitiful) deaths. However, after the first few dozen pages, I started to get more and more interested and involved in the material. It was something that you obviously deviates from the standard 'New Age' teaching, both in form and in function, and it actually sounded like something that could be true. Of course, there was plenty of borrowings from Theosophy, especially about the cosmology of the world and the organization of the 'higher planes' for which I couldn't care less. Things like 'The Ray of Creation' , the 'Law of Octaves', the angels and archangels that govern each plane did not interest me the least, since their practical value in modifying my life and everyday experience was next to none. Nowadays I judge the teachings by their fruits, not by how elegant and elaborate they are, but by how do the improve the quality of my life.

The teachings about 'self-remembering', self-observation, intentional suffering, about the fact that humans are machines, always under the Law of Accident, that they cannot do anything of their own free will, because they have none, they are asleep, constantly in a lucid dream where they only think they are free, but in fact all they do is caused by external influences and accident; these teachings resonate strongly, almost as if becoming aware of The Matrix. Also here we must mention the teachings about the complete mechanicalness of the human-machine, and the fact that no one is born with higher bodies, and they have to be earned by hard work, and the right kind of work, otherwise nothing outlast the death of the physical body, the dust returns to the dust from which it was created and the machine disappears, with no trace or any kind of entity outliving it. This discouraging view resonates much more truthfully than the fairytale teachings of most New Age groups, and is almost the same as the teachings found within Peter Carroll's Chaos Magick, i.e. humans are not born with a soul, they have to work hard all their lives to create a soul, which might have a fleeting chance of eternal life or even only outliving the death of the physical body for a certain period of time.

The teachings of Gurdjieff also bear close semblance to the teachings of Castaneda's Don Juan, especially in the parts about self-remembering, and the lack of self-consciousness or self-awareness in humans. Don Juan says that the human consciousness is eaten by creatures from other planes, which Gurdjieff is saying that it is being sucked by the Moon, which uses it to become a planet itself, while reducing the meaning of human existence to yet another parasite whose by-product is useful to the wider world in general, much like the oceanic fito-plancton which produces oxygen. While these claims might be classified as outrageous or bombastic by people who like to believe in their own special and privileged place in the universe the ladder of living beings (as all major religions teach), it does infuse a refreshing perspective that is not egocentric and megalomaniac, and while the exact metaphors used might not be extremely accurate, the significance might be.

Further similarities between Gurdjieff's system and Castanedas 'Tensegrity' can be found in both teacher's insistence on use of moves for achieving higher states of consciousness. Castaneda has his 'Magical Passes' while Gurdjieff has the 'Sacred Dances' both being used for raising one's awareness and focusing attention. Similarities to Osho's system have been pointed as well, though Osho places much more emphasis on traditional systems like Yoga, Tantra and Buddhism. However, while Osho had no problem revealing and describing his system in great detail and with minute explanations, so that the greatest number of people can understand and practice it, neither Castaneda, and even less Gurdjieff did this, but quite the opposite. Gurdjieff was especially cryptic, and always let the students know that he is not telling them everything, which some people have equated with insincerity, even sadism, to complement many methods that Gurdjieff recommended to his students, which would look like masochism to an outside observer. Gurdjieff even goes further by saying that it is neither possible nor desirable to initiate many people in his system and thus increase their awareness, since then the initial purpose of the human beings of being parasitic converters of energy for the moon would be damaged. This goes in stark contrast to all major religions which claim salvation is for everyone and that spiritual evolution is the ultimate goal for all human beings.

Critics point out that after the demise of the teachers, both Castaneda's and Gurdjieff's teachings have not produced new enlightened followers and teachers, but have mostly fallen into obscurity, which is true and disturbing, as no matter how truthful and powerful one teaching sounds , if it is being unable to enlighten the students and bring them to the level of the teacher eventually, then it is useless, and becomes just another exciting fairytale. It is questionable that even Gurdjieff's best student, Jean De Saltzman, who died in 1990 at an age of 101, has achieved the permanent 'objective consciousness' which Gurdjieff pointed out is the goal of his teaching on individual level. It is a pity that Gurdjieff never wrote a clear and complete explanation of his teachings, both theoretical and practical, but left it to the students to record and publish scraps, bits and pieces, and supplemented that with convoluted, unreadable books like 'The Tales of Belzebub to his Grandson'. He pointed many times that the teachings are 'out there' and people either have no interest or capability to understand them, but in the same time never published a single clearly written book of his own teachings that would be 'out there' for the people to try to understand, but fall back into the errors of the teachers and teachings of the time past, wrapping it with allegories and metaphors for the 'initiated'.

It is a pity that even in the modern day people still fall back to methods of secrecy and allegories, as did the Pythagoreans and alchemists, the latter having good reason, fearing the persecution of the Church, while the former doing it from pure egotism and vanity, thus retarding mathematics for hundreds of years, and even resorting to murder like in the case of Hippasus of Metapontum. This insistence on secrecy and 'veiled knowledge' serves only to increase the egos and sense of exclusivity for those who think they have it, and is just as ridiculous as the Theosophist's paralyzing fear of developing 'powers' that can be used for evil. Secrecy and allegories are, and should be things of the past. All knowledge should be exposed clearly and comprehensively for the evaluation, acceptance or rejection by all of the human community, and until all self-appointed teachers and self-righteous students accept this, we will all continue to live in our own squalid little matrices.

"In the Line of Fire: A Memoir" by Pervez Musharraf

2007-12-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

This is a very interesting book to read right now (December 2007), although it was written more than a year ago, as Mr.Musharraf is all over the news again, having stepped down as a military dictator and holding the first democratic elections in Pakistan in years. Probably the single worst thing about the book is that most of it follows an apologetic tone, defending the actions of Musharraf and portraying them the best and only right ones to take at that moment, a statement with which many independent observers would thoroughly disagree. Another distracting thing is the style in which it is written. It is obvious that the book was dictated to a scribe, and not directly by Musharraf, as the sentences are simplistic and colloquial, with a very basic grammatical structure, and yet we find quite a few 'GRE' words scattered around, which stand out and distract the reader, being obviously placed there by the subsequent editors who wanted the book to sound more scholarly.

The book starts with Musharraf describing his family's escape from Delhi during the first Indo-Pakistani war, and reaching Karachi safely, which could not be said for many who were massacred right on the trains, both Indians and Muslims, going in both directions. He describes his early childhood in Karachi and after that in Turkey very vividly, and probably this is the best and least controversial part of the book. He describes himself as not particularly book-smart (an honor which was reserved for his brother), but street smart kid, who got into lots of fights, did lots of mischief, and was even a gang leader in Karachi.

After the return from Turkey Musharraf embarks on a military career, and progresses quickly through the ranks, mostly based on his physical strength, stamina, and comradeship with his soldiers. He is very emotional about the wars with India, and never misses a chance to point out how Pakistan beats India all the time, in all kinds of conflict, which gets kind of repetitive and boring after the first few time, regardless of if it is true or not. A very emotional and crucial formational moment for him is the separation of East Pakistan and it's independence as the state of Bangladesh, for which he rightfully blames the then Pakistani leader, but most of his rancor is directed towards India, and their role in the process. This very open hostility pervades the whole book, starting from cricket matches and ending with the Kashmir question, which Musharraf always refers to as the 'Kashmir's fight for freedom' and calls the Kashmir's mujahedeens, which the whole world sees as terrorists, "freedom fighters".

Musharraf had problems with authority and discipline and was expecting to retire as a Brigadier-General, if it wasn't for the last Pakistan's Prime Minister decision to make him Army Chief of Staff, in order to change and anger the previous Chief of Staff. However, the relations between the new chief of staff and prime minister did not develop well, and the Prime Minister tried to prevent the landing of Musharraf's plane, on a return from foreign visit, thus nearly killing him due to lack of fuel. This was used as a pretext for Musharraf and his supporters withing the army to execute a coup d'etait and take over power in Pakistan.

The further chapters of the book describe the self-proclaimed achievments that Mushrraf achieved since his coming to power, which include some less controversial ones like improving the economy and the corruption situation, but others that are highly disputed like another war with India that he lost according to all observers except himself, and shady dealings with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and its own religious extremists at home. This part of the book would probably be most burdensome to a western reader as it is written in openly bombastic and self-laudatory style that can hardly pass even for good Public Relations effort.

The War on Terror and Pakistan's role in it is another part which is very interesting to the western reader, and although there is much valuable information, lots of things are left unsaid or distorted, like the statement from the US saying that if Pakistan doesn't cooperate with the war they will 'bomb them back to the stone age' which some observers point out was formulated because of the Pakistani intelligence agency's involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Musharraf writes on in great detail about the hunt for suicide bombers networks in Pakistan, and attempts on his life, but glosses too lightly over the wider Muslim extremists elements in Pakistan which make the country such a fertile ground for wannabe martyrs.

The book concludes with an optimistic view of the future of Pakistan, of course, under Musharraf's leadership, and somewhat disparaging diatribe about democracy and why the western-style democracy is not applicable to Pakistan. Although an amusing read, this is not the best written book, or full of objective information, but it gives a curious window into the mindset and personal views of one of the last modern dictators.

"Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America" by Peter Washington

2007-11-15T12:28:00.001-08:00

Although this book tops 400 pages in a very small and dense typeset, it is a real pleasure to read and I persevered through it, though it took me a some time to finish it, besides being a quite fast reader. Mr. Washington is an extremely well read person, editor of the "Everyman's Library" series, and a professor of English Literature at Middlesex University, and his vocabulary is humongous, including Latin and French-derived dixums and expressions. If your normal reading consists of the regular mystery, adventure and romance fare on the New York Times bestsellers list, then this is probably not a book for you.

The book traces the origins of the modern New Age ideas and teachings back to their source, in the writings, lives and teachings of two Russian immigrants, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and Georgiy Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Although they never really met, and they supposedly derived their teachings from different sources, their pupils frequently alternated between the two teachers, and later their teachings were largely synthesized, and both can be found as the foundations or integral parts of most modern New Age teachings, the Theosophical part of Blavatsky being usually more prominent.

The title of the book refers to the stuffed baboon that Blavatsky had in her apartment in New York City, and which she used to make fun of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution and selection. Washington's playful style, open skepticism, sarcastic jabs and jibs is a refreshing change from the usual exalted and praising writings on the western 'gurus' described in the book. He describes them as real people, with multitude of character faults, whims and peculiarities, without the aura of prophets and holy men as they are frequently referred to in some contemporary writings. Going even further, Washington exposes the real motives behind the teachings, promulgated by the founders, but much more by the followers, which almost always are money, power, domination, sex, and not that infrequent barely covered criminal activities like pedophilia, abuse and theft.

Blavatsky is probably the most likable character of the lot. Chain-smoking, heavy drinking, overeating, abuse-spitting, obese woman with abundant imagination, she came to the US in the 1870s and initially set herself up as a medium, which was the fad at that time. She soon found a devoted follower in Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, a Civil War veteran, and after he got persuaded by Blavatsky of her 'supernatural' abilities and her communication with 'ascended adepts' they founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 in a two bedroom apartment in New York City with less than a dozen other people, among which William Quan Judge, who is to become a future leader of the American Section after the schisms in Theosophy following Blavatsky's death.

Since the likings of that time ran towards Ancient Egypt, because of recent discoveries, Blavatsky's first book 'Isis Unveiled' deals with ancient mystical knowledge from the Ancient Egyptian point of view, and supposedly transmitted from a secret brotherhood in Luxor, Egypt. However, soon after that the current 'spiritual' fad changed to liking everything Indian and Hindu-related, so Blavatsky promptly changed her style and sources, and her following books, including the cornerstone 'The Secret Doctrine' are all written withing the Hindu cosmology and transmitted from a secret brotherhood in the Himalayas. As Washington points out, Blavatsky's sister described the huge extent of her sister's imagination, and how she would invent lengthy and complicated stories as a child, which might serve as an indicator as to why most of the material in Blavatsky's mystical books does not appear in any other mystical tradition before that.

However Blavatsky's lifestyle had sever consequences on her health, and her obesity reached such levels, that she had to be hoisted by a crane to the ship to England on one of her last trips. Washington mentions that her favorite meal was fried eggs floating in butter. Despite her obvious manipulations, especially with 'materializing' letters from the 'secret masters' with which on many occasion she was caught red handed while writing them or trying to deliver them, she was a jolly person, of considerable sense of humor towards others and herself, and never took anything too seriously. This however cannot be said for her successors, as after her death, and Colonel Ollcott's death, a real power struggle emerged in the Theosophical society between the waring sections of Annie Bessant, Katherine Tingley, W.Q. Judge and Charles Webster Leadbeatter, with frequently changing sides and alliances, the spoils being not only the sizable property the society owned in Adyar, India, but also the very sizable endowment and bequests by rich members.

The Theosophy seems to have gone downhill since Blavatsky's death. Bessant turned it into a theatrical, pompous shell, with different outfits and choreographies for a multitude of invented rituals and silly off-shots like Co-Masonry, Order of the Rising Star, etc. Tingley barricaded herself in Ojai, California, and helped start California's notoriety as a mecca for new agers, mystics, charlatans, gurus and general wackos. Judge tried to promote 'source' Blavatsky ideas and writings and spent his life alternating loyalties. The most notorious Theosophist by far was Leadbeatter. A known and persecuted pedophile and pederast, he moved to US from England to avoid persecution, then, after some affairs with young children of other Theosophists in schools formed and led by Leadbeatter, he had to spend prolonged time in India, and at the end to settle in Australia, where he formed the Liberal Catholic Church, and off-shot of the Old Catholic Church of another pederast and pedophile, J.I. Wedgewood, where both proclaimed themselves 'Bishops'.

Between escaping persecution and writing volumes on his apparent insights into astral and other worlds, as he was a clairvoyant as well, Leadbeatter, along with Bessant managed to find a dirty little boy on the shores of the Indian Ocean, which Leadbeatter's precious prophetic gift unerringly told him would be the next Messiah. This boy was Krishnamurti, yet another great 'western guru' who spent his early life in a total loss and confusion as of what is he is expected to do, and his later life in great luxury, traveling extensively, always staying in best hotels, eating in best restaurants, enjoying company of beautiful women, both sexually and 'spiritually', while in the same time preaching detachment from the world, modesty, humility and chastity. He also led people to believe that he was a life-long celibate, while having sexual affairs with several women, and, on at least one occasion, siring an illegal child, which the woman was forced to abort.

Theosophy, however, did gain ground around the world, mostly because it was an open ended system in which pretty much anything could be incorporated. After a change in the constitution in the early 1900s, even the belief in the 'secret adepts' was not necessary for one to be a Theosophist. In Europe, the German branch under Rudolph Steiner split and formed it's own variant on Theosophy called Antroposophy, which was pretty much the same but spiced up with Steiner's love for Goethe, ecology, child education, and, of course, with multitude of new information obtained by Steiner's 'supernatural' powers.

The other major stream of New Age teachings came from Gurdjieff. He was born in Armenia, in the then Russian Empire, in an extensive family. Just like Blavatsky, pretty much nothing is know about his life until his 40s, except from his own writings in which he claims to have traveled all of Central Asia and Middle East, finding a secret brotherhood which taught him mystical secrets. He re-emerges in Moscow in the 1910s trying to stage a ballet, then during the Russian Revolution escapes through the Black Sea and Istanbul to ultimately settle in Paris, France. Here he founded his 'Institute of Harmonious Development of Man' where he teaches that man is basically in a form of sleep throughout his life and the only way to awaken is through hard physical labour, intentional suffering and changing thinking patterns. None of these applied to him, but instead he entertained himself with lavish dinners, huge houses and castles bought with the money of his followers which he abused constantly, both verbally and physically, demanded slavish obedience to his whims and contradictory instructions. He always brought his extended family with him wherever he went, and had sexual relations with many of his female students.

His followers were many, the most notable being Peter Ouspensky, which wrote the most commonsense overview of Gurdjieff's teachings in 'Fragments of an Unknown Teaching' , but was eventually driven to alcoholism by the constant flip-flopping of his master. Other followers like Alfred Richard Orage and John G. Bennett were driven on the brink of madness by Gurdjieff's contradictory demands and constant change of mind. In the case of Bennett, who in a way became a leader of the movement after Gurdjieff's death, the ending is tragic. After getting disillusioned with Ouspensky and then Gurdjieff, he desperately looked for other masters and teachings, travelling through the Middle East and Central Asia, getting in contact with various Sufi mystics, but to no avail. Back in England he gets in and out of various systems like Subud, Shivapuri Baba and even Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation, to finally lose most of hist property in the hands of the unscrupulous charlatan and self-proclaimed Sufi, Idries Shah. His life ends by falling from a bell tower of a church where the witnesses of his last moments say he saw Jesus Christ in the distance.

Washington's book is full of information, little known details and hidden facts from the lives of the mystics, misfits and self-proclaimed western gurus. It is a perfect reading for anyone who wants to know the background of the multitude of contemporary New Age movements, sects and cults. Some of them have lifted their cosmologies and pantheons directly from the convoluted writings of Blavatsky and Gurdjieff. At the end of the book, after covering a period from the 1870s to the mid 1980s, the lives, fortunes and miseries of multitude of teachers, students and wannabe mystics, Washington concludes that it is the laughter of the Madame Blavatsky's baboon that roars triumphantly through the corridors of time.

"The Symbolism of the Tarot" by P. D. Ouspensky

2007-09-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

This is a large format book, but quite thin, both on pages and on content. Most of the pages are with reproductions of the Great Arcana of the Waite Tarot Deck. Ouspensky was a student of Gurdjieff, a complicated and not always sincere man, who passed himself for a spiritual master most of his life, besides using methods that border on sadism and breaking his own principles countless of times. Ouspensky was his best student, though excommunicated and humiliated by his teacher number of times, and he published the most cohesive accounts of Gurdjieff's teachings, and molded them into something that might resemble a 'system'.

Ouspensky dabbles in other occult fields, as was the custom at that time, mostly in Theosophy, which in itself was a conglomeration of just about anything you wanted to put in, and wrote and lectured extensively on occult subjects, mostly in the United States, where there were enough people who were willing to pay for it.

This particular book falls short of the standards even of the time when it was writtent. It consists of a generic 'new age' essay on the many, many facets of tarot, followed by 22 musings on the meanings of the symbols of the 22 Great Arcana cards. To put it simply - you could have written this book yourself. There is nothing insightful or terribly original inside of it, pretty much consists of random thoughts on tarot in general and then on each card in particular without giving any new points of view for their use or interpretations.

I would label this book a waste of time. There are plenty of better Tarot books, and if you really want to delve into the symbolism of each card then get Crowley's 'Liber Thoth'.

"How to Be a Canadian" by Will and Ian Ferguson

2007-09-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

Well, since Canada is my new adopted homeland (2 years and going strong now :) this is a very appropriate book for me. Actually I got it as a present (thanks!) while I was ailing at home with my broken wrist and pretty stuffed up with painkillers, so it might have added to the already ingrained funniness of the book itself.

The authors say they got the idea for writing the book from Margaret Atwood at a cocktail party. They executed it splendidly, creating one of the funniest tongue-in-cheek books in Canadian literature. To be sure, this is not a manual for new immigrants, though they will find some good pointers here about the 'real' Canada, but old timers and 'born' Canadians will find the things they laughed about all of their lives gathered in one place.

The first chapter 'How to Find Canada on the Map' is one of the most hilarious ones, and is geared mostly towards non-Canadians (ahem, read: Americans). The next chapters takes a swing at each province and makes (good-humored) fun of their provincial and regional stereotypes. Then you will learn about how Canadians dress, eat, communicate, and the most important thing of all: what Canadians are not - Americans!

As the book progresses it feels a little like the authors are losing their steam, as if they spent all their best ideas in the first few chapters, but the last one, which is the 'Canadianness' quiz, saves the day being hilarious. The chapter about the government of Canada and political parties also stands out as being very funny, so at least we can laugh at them, even though we can't do much about them, really (think about the oxymorons: "Progressive Conservatives" and "Responsible Government").

Overall, a light and entertaining book that you can finish in one or at most two reads. It will not burden you with the problems of the world, nor will it enlighten you in some insightful way, but will give you plenty of fun with no strings attached.

"Jungian Dream Interpretation: A Handbook of Theory and Practice" by James A. Hall

2007-09-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

This book might seem small (only 120 pages), but it is written in a very condensed and specialized style, so that it can mostly be useful only to a dedicated professional who delves into such specialized writings on a daily basis. To be fair, the author does give an introductory chapter outlining the major Jungian concepts, and there is a glossary of Jungian terms at the end, but I've found this insufficient to internalize the book.

To progress further than the couple of initial chapters, the reader needs thorough understanding of Jungian concepts and terminology, and Jung being himself a notoriously convoluted and condensed writer, this narrows down the audience even further. It has been said that hte best way to dive into Jungian psychology is through neo-Jungian writings, as the founder's are so difficult even in their English translations, but Prof.Hall in this book definitely lives up to the density level, if not to the impenetrability of the originals.

The Potters I-VII

2007-08-22T14:59:00.001-07:00

It is not in order to write yet another review of the Harry Potter books, as they have been reviewed a thousand times, with opinions ranging wildly from absolute praise to accusations of satanism. As for me, I can say that I am a Potterhead (hehehe); I really liked the books.

I was upset when JK killed Dumbledore in the 'Half Blood Prince' but I forgave her when I read why in the 'Deathly Hallows.' I loved and hated Snape alternately, I eagerly awaited every next year at Hogwarts to find out what subjects are they studying now, I was impressed by the names and spells and creatures and fables coming out of the, seemingly, unlimited JK's imagination. Yes, I am a Potterhead, indeed.

I am happy and sad at the same time that the series is at its end. I am happy because if it wasn't to end now, it would stretch forever and become more and more dilluted, until it becomes unrecognizable, much like Herbert's 'Dune,' in which a reader should not go further than the 3rd book, or at most the 4th. I am sad because there won't be more Harry Potter adventures to keep me awake at night, in excitement and expectation of what is coming next, laughing and crying with the heroes, and having that satiated, happyending feeling at the end.

JK and Potter are here to stay, and I won't be surprised if one day they are taught in schools, as classics of World's literature, much like Carroll's 'Alice' is. The movies are also very entertaining, but it is my personal opinion that the quality is being degraded with each subsequent issue, the first one being the best. And what will they do for the next one, when the main characters are supposed to be 16, while all the cast is already over 17, nearing 18?

Anyway, the joy of re-reading, re-listening (as Jim Dale's voice acting is absolutely amazing) and, more rarely, re-watching, always remains!

"Dream Yoga and the practice of natural light" by Namkhai Norbu

2007-07-22T16:09:00.001-07:00

This is an interesting little book (only 128 pages). The main part of the book is Chapter 2 "The Practice of the Night" which seems to have been a transcribed talk given by Mr.Norbu. In this chapter the Dzogchen perspective on Dreaming and specifically Lucid Dreaming is given, which differs not only from the Western Perspective (presented well in LaBerge's books), but also from the Tantric and traditional Yogic perspective.

In the Dzogchen tradition the lucidity in the dreams is seen as a 'secondary' effect, and is more of a nuisance or a side-effect than a real goal. The real goal is continuing the "Practice of Natural Light" during the night, as well as during the day, and Mr.Norbu goes in great length warning the practitioner from being too involved into lucidity and dream play and being led astray from the only true purpose of consciousness in dreams, which is the practice of natural light, i.e. the Dzogchen system for enlightenment.

In this chapter Mr.Norbu also describes many of his dreams, and incidents of dream telepathy and communication with far-away people (namely his master in Tibet, while he being in Italy). He also elaborates on the different types of dreams, which are the main topic of Chapter 1 "The Nature and Classes of Dreams" emphasizing that dreams can be divided in two major groups: Karmic (which have to do with karma accumulated in previous or present life) and Clarity (which deal with lucidity, telepathy, spiritual instruction, clairvoyance, etc.).

The third chapter is a narrative of different dreams Norbu Rinpoche has on his pilgrimage to the Maratika monastery in Northern Nepal, while the fourth chapter is an interview with Norbu Rinpoche discussing material from the second chapter and further elaborating on it. The book ends with the final fifth chapter, which is a first English translation of a Dzogchen text discussing 'the true nature of mind'.

The book is very well introduced by the editor Michael Katz (who also conducts the interview in the fourth chapter) with a lenghty Introduction in which Mr.Katz discusses dreaming and lucid dreaming in literature and science, including the modern research of Stephen LaBerge, though from the content of the rest of the book the introduction seems a little bit misleading, since the rest of the book is concerned mostly with the view of the Dzogchen tradition. Overall, an interesting and different book compared to the classic lucid dreams and dream control fare we have become used to in the West.

Some light summer reading :)

2007-07-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

oh, well, I am re-discovering the joy of reading :)

"The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

2007-06-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Yann Martel gives us a refreshing new view of novelistic writing in ‘The Life of Pi’. You won’ t find any spies, international conspiracies, ER doctors or hotshot lawyers inside, but instead you will be treated to an exhaustive explanation of the life in an Indian zoo and a courageous and magical adventure of a young boy named after a swimming pool in Paris.

In the beginning of the book we are treated to a description of the life of a typical educated Indian family. Pi’s father decides to start a small business with a zoo and things are going pretty well for a while. Pi explains his life with the zoo animals, and his problems in school and his thirst for spirituality for which he becomes a member of all three major world religions, only to discover later, to his big surprise, that one cannot be a member of more than one religion at a time.

When the zoo business starts going downhill, Pi’s father decided to immigrate to Canada. They board on a cargo ship across the Pacific, with a load of animals from their former zoo that need to be delivered. About the middle of their journey, they are caught in a storm and he ship sinks, leaving only Pi, with a zebra, hyena, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger as the sole survivors in a life boat.

The rest of the book traces the many adventures of Pi and the Bengal tiger, who is called Richard Parker, drifting across the Pacific. They learn to respect each others territory, share the food and shelter, even converse during bouts of famine and exhaustion, when both are floating on the borderline between life and death. As the time passes by, Pi drifts more into an imaginary world and it is hard to separate the real events form the ones that exists only in his head.

Eventually Pi and Richard Parker reach the Mexican coast, where Pi is taken to a hospital, and Richard Parker escapes into the jungle. When the Japanese representatives of the cargo company that owned the ship Pi’s family traveled on arrive at Pi’s hospital in Mexico, we discover the terrible truth about the real events, which is mercifully given only as a possibility.

‘The Life of Pi’ is a book that is read in one standing (once you get past the comprehensive review of the life of zoo animals). Each alternate chapter is written from the point of view of the author in present day Toronto, then of Pi during his adventures, and gives an interesting contrast and provides a wider context for the storyline. I recommend this book as a rewarding reading experience for everyone.

"The Ultimate Mind ESP" by Jose Silva

2007-06-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

Probably older people remember the craze about the Silva Method in the 70s (I wasn't born yet :) and it seemed to be very popular then, spiking in popularity again in the late 80s and in the mid 90s. I was introduced to it when in high school in the mid 90s and I walked around for a long time with the three fingers clasped together. The Jose Silva foundation is still alive and kicking, publishing books, tapes, CDs and doing courses. Many trainers still make their living teaching the Silva Method.

I was impressed the first time I learned about it. The alpha state, the brainwaves, the mental screen, projections into almost anything, and all that with a scientific sounding to it was pretty impressive for an adolescent boy. I've learned better later on in life. I've seen other systems and techniques that were just as good if not better, like NLP, and seen systems that seemed like copied from Silva, without the name, or the other way around, but these new systems were much more expansive and strolled deeply into the realm of parapsychology.

With the background I have so far, I can say that the Silva Method is a combination of auto-hypnosis/auto-suggestion and creative visualization. As such, I give it credit, however for all the rest of the 'projection' stuff, as well as 'higher intelligence' and 'improve the life on earth', it just sounds very cliche and like cheap ministry. The stories about people 'tremendously' changing their lives only with the Silva techniques, and welfare mothers becoming wealthy career women, are pretty common among many other 'technologies' which require payment for their services, Scientology being one of the most dramatic ones. All of these success stories, of which this book/CD is full of, are to be taken with a grain (or a pound) of salt, all of the other methods have their share of success stories.

As for me, beyond the entering the alpha state, which is possible with the technique described in the Silva Method, and which technique forms the base for all the other techniques, I haven't found much use for the rest of Jose Silva's teachings. Alpha state is relaxing and all, but beyond being stress-relieving and adequate for visualizations, there are no miracles there. Many other teachings use this state, and different techniques for entering it, and do pretty much similar things as Silva. The rest of the stuff, remote viewing, higher intelligence, telepathy, astral and other projections I've never experienced; I guess I didn't work hard enough at it, or I didn't have imagination buoyant enough.

Jose Silva was a self-taught electronics repairman. He had to support his family from the age of 12 and never had the means to put himself through formal schooling, but he learned by himself, starting with a correspondence course in radio repair. Later he got interested in the brain, and the electric nature of brain's operation, and theoretized about lowering the impedance of the currents through the brain. Then he started developing his theories and techniques, using the Alpha frequency brain waves. He had contacts with the famous parapsychologist Dr.Rhine, and Silva's daughter was one of the subject Dr.Rhine tested and found to be a psychic, or so the story goes.

The book is a pretty good introduction to the theories and techniques of Jose Silva, from the '3 to 1' relaxation and Alpha-entering technique, the mental screen, contacts with higher intelligence(s), psychometry, dowsing, to finding one's purpose in life and getting everything you want. There are, however, large parts which consists mostly of people'ssuccess stories, which become boring and repetetive after the second one. There is one segment of live recording of Jose Silva himself, giving a lecture on sales and business success with his method. The book is a good introduction to the techniques and teachings of Jose Silva for all of those not having the pleasure yet to have made their acquaintance.

"When Panic Attacks" by David Burns

2007-06-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

David Burns was one of the first proponents of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and wrote about it in his previous books, "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" and "Feeling Good Handbook", but I got introduced to CBT through the book "Phobia and Anxiety Workbook" by Edmund Bourne, and I was extremely interested in it and how it applies to our everyday lives, and I thought Dr.Bourne's text is extremely well told and presented, so I am partial, but I've never felt that from the books of Dr.Burns. I've felt that Dr.Burns's books are more like sales material for his courses and therapy, and have some very aggressive and sales tactic feel to them and some high-school variety of humor that just didn't work with me.

I prefer Dr.Bourne's texts on CBT, but this book is also quite good in presenting all the different methods of CBT and illustrating them with great example cases. It is commendable that Dr.Burns is so thorough in his presentation of the CB techniques, but it doesn't seem like he is presenting different ones, but many variation to a similar one. Although it could be a good reminder of the CBT techniques, I'd rather recommend different books on CBT like Dr.Bourne's ones.

"The Unconscious God" by Viktor Frankl

2007-06-11T23:26:00.000-07:00

This book is divided in two parts: the first part consists of several lecture given to a small group of Austrian intellectual in the early 50s, as Frankl was just starting to develop his theory of 'logotherapy, or 'existential analysis' and the second part, written especially for the American edition of the book, explores the research and developments in logotherapy from the 50s until 1975, when the book was first published in the United States.

In the lecture part of the book Frankl explores the spiritual unconsciousness, the existential analysis of dreams and conscience, the transcendental quality of conscience, which forms the foundation of logotherapy, just as pleasure forms the foundation of Freud's psychoanalysis, and self-esteem and inferiority forms the foundation of Adler's individual psychology. Frankl criticizes both Freud's and Adler's approach to psychotherapy, exposing their errors and pointing where logotherapy has more advanced explanations, but he also takes a hit at Jung, and his theories of collective unconsciousness, archetypes, etc. accusing Jung that by collectivizing these phenomena he is excluding the 'human' in them, and dehumanizes them, thes precluding the individual subjects of psychotherapy from embracing them.

Frankl shows that logotherapy is very individual and human, and tries to find the motives of people's behaviors within the people themselves, and their need for spirituality, for personal religiousness, and not imposed on them from without by some genetic code, or some dispersonal, omnipresent collective unconsciousness. The last of the lectures concerns the relationship of logotherapy and theology, where Frankl presents a view that they not only do not have to be mutually exclusive, but can complement each other, and bring a holistic benefit to the patient and his worldview.

In the second part of the book Frankl presents all the research and results obtained in logotherapy in the score or so years between the original lectures and the publication of the American edition of the book. The text is ripe with quotations form scientific publications and can be difficult to read at times because of its technical nature. However the first part of the book presents a very concise and clear, if somewhat unfinished, exposition of the relationship between logotherapy and the spiritual.

"Recollections: An Autobiography" by Viktor Frankl

2007-06-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

This is more a collection of notes and snapshots of Frankl's life than a formal, biographical work, but nevertheless gives an insight into the life and inner workings of one of the greatest psychiatrists and thinkers of the XX century. Frankl wrote these snippets when he was in his mid 90s, and just a few years from his death.

The book starts with his retelling of his childhood, his patrician mother, and his bureaucrat father, who was a secretary to a minister in the Austrian government until he was deported to Auschwitz together with the rest of the family. Frankl describes his childhood and his growing interest in human problems, his choice to become a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. He already forms the basics of his 'logotherapy' in the mid 1930s, and applies the principles to a psychiatric ward for suicidal women, as well as to students in Vienna during the infamous 'matura' exams. Thanks to him and his teachings, no students suicides happened while his counseling program was in place, and the suicide rate in the women's psychiatric ward dropped to virtual zero.

Frankl describes his relationship with the other giants of psychology: Freud who encouraged young Frankl to publish articles on psychotherapy, but from whom Frankl later splits, and Adler, by whom Frankl was considered as one of the brightest, but with whom Frankl also splits, just like Adler split with Freud years earlier. About this time is the 'Auschluss' of Austria by Nazi Germany, and Frankl is forced to apply the principles of his own teachings to himself. He passes on a chance to escape Austria, because he wants to stay with his family, and later his father dies literally in his hands in a concentration camp, where eventually all of his family, including his young wife lose their lives.

After the war, and the publication of his book 'Men's search for meaning' , Frankl becomes a kind of celebrity in the psychotherapist circles in Vienna, and develops his logotherapy further. He meets his second wife, who becomes his main editor and helper with all of his writings until the end of his life. We also learn about Frankl's passion for mountain climbing, which he continued all the way through his mid-70s, when what he couldn't do with natural strength, he complemented with superior skill. He incorporates this in his logotherapy teachings, as yet another way of giving life an individualized meaning and getting pleasure and satisfaction from it.

Although the lack of structure is obvious, this is a warm and enlightening book about one of the greatest minds, and souls, of the XX century, who literally lived what he preached throughout his life.

"Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt

2007-06-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

Despite the sensationalist tittle, which, I am sure, is influence of the journalist co-author of the book, "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" is a thought-provoking book, succeeding in shedding some light on issues you would never think would succumb to economical analysis. Some of the issues Levitt discuses are: why crack-dealers live with their moms, how swimming pools are more dangerous than guns, how legalized abortion lead to crime decrease, what to KKK members have in common with real-estate agents, how a child's name may largely determine the child's future financial circumstances, and why children don't get higher grades if put in better schools.

Levitt has received numerous awards for his thinking and work in economics, have been called 'the freshest thinker in America', and has received numerous fellowships, among which one from Harvard University, and he currently teaches at Chicago University. This book lacks a unifying theme, and that's the point, Levitt says, quoting a conversation with bunch of other Harvard fellows where he concluded that at his age (he's only XXXX) he should not have a unifying theme and should be free to explore whatever topic interest him. But still there is a unifying theme throughout the articles, and that is the economical analysis approach to problems most people would not see fit for economical analysis.

One of his more controversial claims is that the reduction of the crime rate in the 90s has mostly to do with the legalizing of abourtion (Roe vs. Wade) about a score years earlier. This statement is sure to outrage both abortion camps, but the data supports Levitt's claims. Levitt explains this by pointing out that when women were allowed to have abortion there were much fewer unwanted children born (decrease by some 90%), and exactly these unwanted and uncared for children are at greatest risk of having abusive childhood and growing up to become criminals.

Another issue he analyzes is the earnings of crack-dealers, which is a very competitive business, and finds out that the 'foot soldiers' which are the lowest ranking members of the gang, selling crack on the street corners, actually earn about and average of $3.30/hr. However these earnings rise exponentially as the gangster climbs up the ranks, but the dangers rise too, including being shot to death. Levitt uses this and other cases to explain that a carefully designed system of incentives can make people do even obviously unproductive jobs, while wrong system of incentives has little or opposite effect on the planned outcome (like the one used for high-stakes standardized tests in the USA, where teachers would cheat and tell the students the answers only to keep the school better rated or get bonuses themselves).

Although some of the claims can be termed sensationalist and some of the data is open to further interpretation and maybe somewhat different conclusions, the book is a refreshing read and will stimulate every thinking reader's brain.

“The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom

2007-06-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

Mitch Albom is a self-made journalist who became famous with his previous, non-fiction book “Tuesdays with Morrie”. In “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” Albom tries to give a vision of what happens when a person dies and what “Heaven” could mean. The author buys into the age-old idea that life is a learning experience and that everything happens for a reason, even though we might not see it at the moment it happens, or … at any other moment during our lives, then why not recapitulate all the reasons and find all the answers after we die?

Although the book hardly rises above the commonplace clichés and “live a good life” mantra, it is written in clear, concise and emotional style. He says many things without using too many words, and the reader cannot help but identify with the main character Eddie, a grumpy but lovable old man of 83 who spent his life as a maintenance at an imaginary amusement park called “Ruby Pier.”

The book has three, almost parallel storylines: the last hour of Eddie’s life on earth and the subsequent cleaning of his apartment and the reactions of his friends; flashbacks to the main events in Eddies life, from his childhood to just before his death; and the final line that happens in Eddie’s heaven where he meets the five people. Flashbacks are commonly used literary device, and although some might think it difficult to use in a story like this, Albom pulls it off quite well and the story line flows uninterrupted.

The story is syrupy and tries to be a tearjerker at times, but even despite these obvious flaws it does rise above the usual preachiness at times and can be called a satisfying read on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

“The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman

2007-06-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

Thomas L. Friedman is a well-know foreign affairs reporter for the New York Times, and has gained world renown for his book on globalization “The Lexus and the olive tree” published in 1992. While his previous book was widely criticized for taking the stance of the US-based multinationals that globalization is the best alternative and that US-led globalization is the way it should be done, he deviates from his US-centric looks in “The World is Flat” and spends more time talking about the rising power of India and China.

Friedman come to this conclusion not based on their current economic might, but on their educational system, and he quotes and explores in detail Bill Gates’ words: " In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering."

The author is famous for his easy and conversational writing style, using information from his extensive travels and meetings with illustrious personalities around the globe. Although he has been often criticized that his books have arrogant and self-congratulatory tone, he manages to tell enough interesting anecdotes and draw original parallels to keep the reader interested. One of the statements from the book that sticks is when he talks about the emphasis that the government in China puts on educating young people in engineering in science and fostering and selecting the most intelligent and capable people, he says: “Even if you are one in a million, there are 1300 others just like you in China.”

The book has weak sides, since unlike his previous book, he tries to analyze globalization as a result of the technical innovations and capabilities, and it shows that his technical background is very limited. He tries to categorize and analyze the evolution of the globalization as a result of technical achievements, but because of lack of technical knowledge he spends too much time on obvious events and connections, while totally ignoring others, more fundamental and deserving.

This book would an interesting reading for anyone not coming from an overly high-tech background, but for someone who has been closely following all the technical achievements in the last 10-15 years, most parts of the book are pretty obvious and quite short of enlightening, but more trivial and repetitive.

Here we go again

2007-06-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

This is my fifth blog, not that I have posted all that much on the other four. I try to separate my different interests in different blogs. In this one I will post book reviews, and maybe some other thoughts, or writings, or random musing, if any come my way, and I am not too far from the computer, and if I feel like it. Yes, yes, I know...

I've read so much since I was a kid. I was a book worm. Still am, but now prefer audio books, since they don't tire my eyes. I am also a knowledge junky, I spend hours reading Wikipedia or random web sites. I have a good memory, but cannot possibly remember in minute detail all the things I've read or thought. Enter "Books and Thoughts" blog!

Anyway, today I am very bored at work and I don't want to work on the PERL project I set up for myself, and don't want to start my presentation for the french class tonight, so here I am, creating yet another blog to which I probably will write little if anything - ever.