"The Plague" By Albert Camus

Le Peste, written in 1947 by Albert Camus, largely as a metaphor for the suffering France and himself have gone through during the German occupation in World War II.  The book depicts the life of a 200,000 people medium-sized town in French Northern Africa, from before the striking of a plague epidemic to a little after the epidemic passed.  Camus describes the lives of the people before and during the plague, their behavior, their ways of coping, their relationships, thoughts, dreams.  Several characters are fundamental in the book like that of the main character Dr. Riueu who is different from the unnamed narrator of the book.

There is a criminal who is hiding in the city and how is probably a metaphor for the traitor Vichy regime in France.  There is a journalist who is trying to escape, but eventually joins the fight against the plague.  There is another doctor, Riueu's colleague who dies in the last paragraphs of the book after surviving the entire plague.  There is the man who has retired in his 40s and is happy everyday regardless of what is happening around him.  There are the separated lovers, the wives abroad, the children, the dogs, the cats and the rats, especially the rats.

Camus describes how Riueu takes a swim in the ocean one day while the plague is in full swing, just to be able to feel how normalcy used to feel before.  The underlying message of the book is that horrible, abnormal, heart-breaking things have happened, do happen and will continue to happen throughout human history, but humans have adapted to even the worst of conditions.  Humans have adapted to live under the terrible plague, hundreds dying each day, just like they adapted to live under a terrible Nazi regime which murdered people daily.  Eventually, the plague passes, and everything is back to normal. It has to be.  There is no other way to go forward, to survive. 

But the plague bacillus, just like war, never dies.  Only waits in hiding until the next opportunity.

"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle

I spent several months re-reading this book, since it is written in the form of questions and answers covering multitude of topics, including sub questions and detailed explanations.  It is a deep book.  Maybe one of the most original teachings of modern times.  It seems like sublimation of Zen Buddhism and Gurdjieff's system with some salt-and-pepper Christianity thrown in.

It is very difficult to review this book, as it is very dense and varied and it doesn't (really) follow any sequential structure. The history of Tolle is interesting too. Highly educated but also very depressed and seeing no meaning or exit in his life he became suicidal.  In the darkest hour he received enlightment, which is decribed as the Power of Now.  He spent a year as a homeless guy (he has a PhD and comes from a relatively wealthy background) sleeping on benches and eating whatever, but being constantly happy and present.  Then he felt a calling to spread what he learned to others.  He moved to Vancouver, wrote the book, tried to sell it to bookstores, but there were no takers.  He gave free lectures and seminars and after a while the fame started to spread.

The basic tenet of the book is that we spend way too much time begrudging the past and fearing the future which robs us of the only reality we actually have - the now, the present.  Tolle teaches that we need to withdraw from desire and connection with the material world as much as possible.  The past is irrelevant, the future has not come yet, so the now is all we have and we have to remind ourselves over and over again of that obvious fact and always pull our emotions and thoughts from the past and future, and focusing them on the now.

He mentions an interesting concept of the "Pain Body" which is the sum of all grudges, insults, hurts and resentments we still hold and which acts as a vampire, sucking our energies and sapping our will, leaving us empty an powerless.  He teaches bringing consciousness to the Pain Body and its elements, as unconscious things are resolved when brought to the light of consciousness without resistance and denial.  

Tolle wrote a second book "A New Earth" where he describes the evolution of the human race and the planet once we all 'awaken'.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote

An interesting short novel.  The language of Capote really comes through.  All the characters in the book sound very authentic and his observations are sometimes hilarious.  One can see that the author has spent plenty of time among the 'elite' of New York City at that time, the socialites, the bankers, the brokers, etc.  The main character of the story, Holly Golightly is doing quite well in the socialite circles of New York, finding one or another "sponsor" to pay her bills which can get pretty high as she likes to show that she has expensive tastes.  Her only source of income is the weekly visit to a Mafia boss in Sing-Sing to whom she 'talks' but what really happens is seen towards the end of the book.

Unfortunately things don't go well for Holly.  Her less-than-glorious past comes to light when her husband from Texas (whom she married at 14) comes to New York to look for her.  Then it turns out that the weekly conversations in Sing Sing were actually coded messages to the New York mafia.  Her current sugar daddy, who's baby she's carrying, Jose, abandons her, since he cannot have his name connected with the scandal. Holy is devastated as she was studying Portuguese and learning about Brazilian culture for months before than, despite Jose never telling her he wants to marry her. Her brother dies.  In the midst of all this she asks the author of the story for a list of the 50 richest men in Brazil.

Holly disappears, only to write from Brazil few months later, no baby anymore, that she met a delightful old gentleman who's loaded, but there is a small formality of his wife and seven children.  The author concludes that for women like Holly there will always be another hunting ground, but are women like that ever truly happy?

"Children of the Mind" by Orson Scott Card

This is the fourth and final (? not really) book in the Ender/Andrew Wiggin tetralogy. It took me much longer time to read it (besides busy schedule and a lay-off) because it is a difficult book to read.  There is very little action happening in the book, but most of it is philosophical conversations about different existential issues.  Issues covered overtly and covertly are the existence of a supreme out-of-this-concept-of-the-universe God (or Godhead would be more appropriate as the Gnostics called that entity), the relationship of this good with lesser entities, like angels (which could be Jane or the Queen formics), the role of free will in human's relationship with the supernatural, the concept of the soul and how could it fit within textbook physics, the role of marriage, sex inside (or outside) a marriage, the role of faith in the lives of people (humans and alien pecaninos), the role and duties of the priesthood class and finally Ender as a flawed Jesus Christ (in which case Jane might be the Holy Spirit).

The deep wish and urge of Card to explain his Mormon fate scientifically and universaly is painfully visible throughout the novel and is rather distracting. Auya is a soul, anyone can see that, but with the philotic postulations Card goes further to try to explain Auyas as must-haves, but then we get into discussing zombies (the new Peter and the new Valentine) who are alive but have no souls (Auyas), while the transfer of Auyas Card is describing reminds very closely of certain Voodoo rituals and possessions.

The book has some interesting concepts, but it is not based on a plot or a story, but rather Card's desire to rationally explain the irrational concepts his faith has imposed on him.  This effort, which is painfully obvious at times, detracts from the artistic side of the book and makes it of much lesser quality than the previous three ones.  I will not be reading any more Ender books (be they "Shadow" or otherwise).

"Eat Stop Eat" by Brad Pilon

This is a shortish e-book written by a body-builder and long time supplement industry insider.  It doesn't show anything that is not already known and present in other books and on the Net, but does a great job of effectively and succinctly summarizing all that knowledge in one organized presentation.  The main point of the book is that no diet will work long-term unless it restricts the calorie intake in an acceptable way.  Most diets work short term because of the calorie restriction effect, not some magic in them, and fail in the same way, because long-term the food restrictions imposed cannot be maintained effectively in the everyday life.

The Intermittent Fasting (IF) is different from the regular water fasting in that it only lasts for 24 hours in a sequence (although one can do two 24 hour periods per week, but no in sequence) and is repeated every week for the rest of one's life.  Water fasting usually last between 3 and 14 days, and is done once a season or once a year and require much greater preparations and arrangements for the regular employed full-time person.  The IF results in between 50 and 110 fasting days per year which cumulatively is more than most of the averages on water fasting.

The author also recommends combining the IF with 2-3 strength training sessions per week and recommends it for body building.  Body builders can reduce calories and increase health with IF without losing any muscle mass, which sometimes happens with longer water fasting.  Why nobody recommends fasting as often, the author asks? From his experience in the supplement industry he answers: because nobody can make money off it.  It has been the natural way of controlling weight and restoring health for thousands of years, but it cannot be made into a pill or capsule and cannot be sold.  That's why there's plenty of disinformation and no concerned effort to promote it.

Some myths about fasting are dispelled in the book.  It won't make you lose muscle mass.  The weight loss is not only water.  It won't influence your digestive health negatively (quite the opposite).  It won't make you dizzy or weak (that comes from your sugar addiction), etc. etc.   An amazing book for the people who haven't discovered fasting and the way it can improve health.

"Ringworld Engineers" by Larry Niven

This is the second book about the Ringworld, following 10 years after the first one.  The franchise has grown to four books apparently.  I read some reviews online about the first two books, and many reviewers like the second one over the first one, saying that nothing really happens in the first one except the description of the Ringworld.  Well, let me give you a news flash, THAT is all the first book was about, and was GREAT in doing that, explaining a new and original concept, a sliver of a Dyson sphere.  The rest of the narrative (except the three main characters, Louis Wu, a puppeteer and a K'zinth) is pretty much secondary and falls flat.  Well in the second book, the entire book falls flat, since there is nothing really new that could be discovered that could overshadow the Ringwold itself.  Yes, yes, we learn that Pak protectors built it and about many other facilities on the Ringworld, but that was to be guessed.  Nothing in the second volume would strike the reader as powerfully as the description of the Ringworld in the first volume.

Indeed, we meet a lot of new humanoid species, apparently all developed from Pak breeders that were originally there, but so what?  All these hominid species which seem like forced earth-animal paradigms on the hominid frame are actually making the book seem silly.  Their habits and ways are very predictable and silly.  They don't seem real, but seem like cartoonish characters from a children's book.  And they have sex all the time!! With everyone!! Come'on! I know our own society is largely very backward about sex and physical intimacy, but every hominid fucking every other (3m Grass Giants with 1.2m Hanging People???) is just ridiculous and silly.

Finally the story is tired.  A puppeteer (the Hindmost in this case, though Nessus was cuter) kidnaps Wu and Chmee (the new name for Speaker-to-Animals) and takes them to the Ringworld in order to find a large-scale transmutator machine which never really existed except in the wrong speculations in Louis Wu's head.  They find the Ringworld off-center and heading for a collision with it's sun, and run around trying to find out how they can save it, after Wu had sex with the locals (again) and this time Chmee also had sex with no less than six K'zinthi females, which could even talk! Silly.

Anyway, Niven never intended to write another Ringworld book, but because of the storm of fan mail he got, much of which from scientists and science students (MIT students chanted "The Ringworld is not stable" at the 1971 ComiCon in San Diego), exposing, in length, all the things why the Ringworld cannot exist, he decided to write a sequel and explain all the inconsistencies.  That's how we got the RamJets on the ring's perimeter, the sewage for the oceans, the sun-powered mega laser, etc. etc.  It was an attempt to close the holes in the first book, without introducing too many new ones.  However, there are still two more volumes, so one has to guess that there are more loose ends.  However, this reader is not curious any more.

"Ringworld" by Larry Niven

    "Ringworld" was written in 1970 and has won the "triple crown" of science fiction awards for that year.  Although Niven had published before this volume, and also the "Known Space" universe in which the action takes place has been created by Niven before and used in other stories, this novel has become the work by which Niven is identified in the wider reader community.  The main invention in the novel, a RingWorld, is a sub-case of the Dyson Sphere, which postulates that a sufficiently advanced civilization will outgrow planets as living spaces, as the planets with appropriate gravity (not too big, not too small) do not have enough space to house properly all the members of an expanding, technologically advanced, star-travelling civilizations.  Dyson proposed building of a humongous sphere that would enclose a sun/star at a distance which would be comfortable for the temperature requirements of the sentient species that builds the sphere.

     Dyson sphere has many problems.  It needs artificial gravity across the habitable surface.  It might be difficult to keep the sphere centered on the star in the middle.  And you can't see the stars.  Niven simplified the concept by imagining only a circular strip of the sphere, a ring, orbiting around the central sun.  Gravity would be provided by the centrifugal force and you can see the stars.  This was a great invention at the time, and Niven received many accolades.  However in 1971 MIT students and other readers pointed out that even though the ring is much simpler than a sphere, it is still a rigid structure, and as such does not actually orbit around the central sun, affected by its gravity and eventually will become un-centered and destroyed.  Niven made this a central plot of his next Ringworld novel, "Ringworld Engineers".  Afterwards, further simplifications have been proposed, such as having half-rings or partial rings, which would not be rigid structures and would actually orbit the central sun moved by its gravity.

   Niven is well-known for his vivid descriptions of alien races, and in this book he describes the K'zint, a feline-like, 8 foot tall creatures with internal genitalia, and Pierson Puppeteers, herbivores with two heads on long necks and a brain held in their main trunk, which are currently the most technically advanced species in the Know-Space.  The Puppeteers are genetically afraid, as they originate from herbivore, herd animals and are trying to eliminate every potential threat to their existence, no matter how trivial it might sound.  The fear of death and injury is their main motivator and the ones that do not have it to an extreme extent, like Nessus, are considered insane by the rest of the species.  They performed experiments on both the K'zind and humans, trying to breed the former for less aggression and the latter to develop a sort of "Psychic Luck."  These characterstics come handy when Nessus takes Luis Wu and Speaker-to-Animals with Teella Brown to the RingWorld, but eventually it turns out that even the Puppeteers' intelligence and technology could not predict all the consequences that ensued.

   The novel ends when Luis Wu, Speaker-to-animals and Nessus (who has been decapitated and is not known if he survived) leave the RingWorld while Teella Brown stays there for good with her new chosen mate, The Seeker.  Niven didn't intend to write sequels, but bowing to fan pressure, he wrote 3.  Each of them could be read as an independent work though, while connected to the rest.