15. South Sea Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson

Finally, a new entry. I haven't really sat still this past summer so I didn't get to read many books. I guess I did a medicore job in July, but August was just terrible (for reading).

This was a great book and I definitely recommend it.

There are five small stories and one longer story in the Tales. I absolutely loved the short tales, but I didn't care much for the longer. Actually, the end of the long story left me unsatisfied, but the action and suspense leading up to the last paragraph was great.

The first story was called "The Beach at Falesa" and concerns a British trade official who starts off his new assignment on the wrong foot with the locals. He winds up in a little battle with another trader, one who is in with the locals because they think he's capable of powerful magic.

Second is "The Bottle Imp" a great little story about greed, love, trickery, and magic. There is a magical bottle that will grant you wishes. You can own the bottle as long as you want, but if you die while you possess it you go straight to the Devil. You can't give it or throw it away, but you can sell it. The catch is that you have to sell it for a loss. So if you buy it for $10, you have to sell for at most $9.99. So the guy buys it so he can make himself rich and attract the attention of the Big Chief's daughter. He succeeds, they get engaged, and he sells the bottle. On his wedding night he discovers he's got leprosy. He manages to buy back the bottle and wishes his leprosy gone. He sells the bottle and then discovers he needs it again. And on and on until he owns the bottle, but can't sell because there isn't a lower currency. Oops! But then he confides in his wife and she tells him of lands where there are such things as currency lower than a dollar. They travel on, and the wife manages to get a proxy to buy the bottle from the husband, who she then buys it from. He figures out what she has done to save them and manages to get a proxy to buy the bottle from her and he buys it back. It's love. And I won't reveal the ending.

Next is "The Isle of Voices," another very cool story with some magic in it. On an island lives a very rich and powerful wizard. He has a very tough reputation and is not to be crossed. He also pays for everything in brand new gold coins. Where does he get the coins? His lazy-ass son-in-law is let in on the secret. Seems the wizard has a spell that takes him to a beach. They go and the son-in-law discovers that the shells of this beach turn to gold coins with the magic. So he tries to use the secret as leverage on the old man wizard who doesn't like it much. Wizard dumps him in the sea. Son-in-law is rescued by a passing merchant ship. He escapes the merchant ship and is abandoned on a small island, the same island the wizard visits. Mmmm intrigue. How will it turn out?

And the last real story is "The Ebb Tide" which is about some beachcombers who go on a very serious misadventure.

The book has two more very short little stories in it, which are more like fables than anything else. One is called "The Cart-Horses and the Saddle-Horses" about prejudging, and the other is "Something In It" which I am still thinking about. It's not a particularly deep story, or especially intriguing, it just seems so, I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it.

Anyway. I have read Treasure Island and Kidnapped and really liked both of them, so I guess that makes me some kind of Stevensonian.

14. The Good Shepherd by CS Forester

From the author of the Horatio Hornblower series comes this story of a destroyer captain coordinating the defense of a transatlantic convoy during WW2.

It was 188 pages, making it about 185 pages too long. Kind of boring. They get harassed by Uboats. A lot. Men die. Ships sink. The captain drinks a lot of coffee.

Speaking of coffee, Forester goes into a lot of detail about how the captain drinks it and how often it is brought to him etc. One of the junior officers that the captain dislikes gets a pot of coffee delivered to the bridge:

"Carling, would you have a cup of coffee?"
"I could use it, sir."
Carling had been on the chilly bridge for two whole hours. He poured himself a cup and added cream and sugar to reveal himself as the sort of man he was."

I picked up another Forester at the same time, but I think I might pass.

13. River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon

Thoreau he is not.

The book is about two guys who try to cross America by river. They get a boat capable of navigating strong currents, deep and shallow rivers, and keeping the crew comfortable.

I'm going to miss some of their itinerary exactly, but they start from NYC, go up the Hudson, across the Erie Canal, down the Ohio, I think, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Yellow Stone, the Salmon, and then the Columbia. They do allow for the big boat to be carried by truck around dams and shallows, but try to then canoe instead.

For the most part, this was a pretty boring book. The author wasn't trying to be Thoreau, and he stayed away from trite introspection. I stayed with it until the end because I wanted to see what they would encounter and how they would make it across the Rockies. It wasn't easy. They had to time their trip so they could catch the snow melt off the Rockies, but couldn't get too far ahead because the Salmon river isn't one that anyone can chuck a canoe into and do. They needed an experienced guide because it is so dangerous. I think H-M said that Lewis and Clark carried their canoes for 90 miles of it so they wouldn't get killed.

I found three parts of the narrative exciting. First, I really liked the little stories Heat-Moon told about Lewis and Clark, a guy named Ballantine, and some German prince who all made their way across the West before it was colonized.

The second was how H-M describes the effect of civilization on the river. This was especially interesting to me after reading Earth Abides. First many of the dams are coming to the end of thier lifespans. The dams are an outmoded method of producing energy, according to H-M, and not worth the money they need to keep going. He says they are about to die because many of them, the shallower ones and the older ones, are being silted in. To get all of the silt out will take billions.

The third is also about man's effect on the rivers. So many riverfront communities have built levees and protective walls against floods that the river can't flood where it wants to, where it is supposed to, and where it has for billions of years. As a result, the floods downstream are worse. The Missouri is basically one giant canal, the stream bed is still natural, but the banks of the river are concrete walls, and somethign called "wing-dikes." No idea what they are, but I'm going to find out. Anyway. The other consequence of not letting the river flood where it is supposed to is that it doesn't leave silt for the farmers. Consequently they need more agrobusiness supplies like fertilizer and pesticides to keep their crops going. Consequently the river gets F'ed because the runoff kills fish and vegetation. And so on, and so on. Humans are seriously mismanaging the rivers.

I'm glad there was very little introspection, but reading the logbook of the trip was kind of boring. Whereas reading Thoreau can be boring, at least he is teaching you, questioning you, and provoking you. Heat-Moon complains about not knowing how Lewis and Clark felt at certain junctures, but other than being tired or hungry, I have no idea how either of the people on this boat felt either.

12. Earth Abides by George Stewart

Great book. Got it from Crumbolst yesterday and stormed right through it. Reviews from Olman's Fifty, Mt Benson report, and Crumbolst

I realized, while finishing this book, that in addition to stories about animal societies (like Secret of Nimh or Charlotte's Web) that I also really like stories about the re-emergence/establishment of civilization - Lord of the Flies, the Rama series by Arthur Clarke, the first 7/8s of 28 Days Later, and this here book I just finished. I wonder if that is why, too, I like the DMing part of role-playing games so much. I get to experiment with my own societies and reasons for order and disorder.

The book is about how one man, Isherwood Williams survives after a strange fever wipes out (most of) humanity. He is away camping while the epidemic rages, and returns to the shell of civilization. He gets sick but doesn't die and has to make his way through the abandoned grocery stores and highways that are left behind.

I'd rather not give anything away, but will say that Stewart does a very good job making the assembly of survivors believable and giving amplifying detail (in the form of italicized omniscient narration) about the crumbling remains of American civilization. I hope that when it comes it's close to Stewart's description, I'll at least feel prepared.

The thing about this book though, is that while he does focus on the survivors, Stewart takes a lot of time to explain the consequences of the fall of man on the earth. It is about the people left behind, but more so how the earth reacts. I'm going to learn more about Stewart's ideas, but he does get into what happens when man is taken out of the environment-controlling and is removed as the top predator. Really so very interesting.

I've also wondered how I'd cope with some sort of apocalypse. I think I would do OK, but have wondered where I would go. East to LI? To the sailboat and be mobile on the water? Would I jump in the car and go south or west to more fertile places? I don't really have a plan, but I guess it would depend on the nature of the apocalypse.

I'm still digesting the book and will post again after I think a little more.

(I edited this post on 26 April 2008 to include the links to other reviews.)

11. Idiot's Guide to the Vietnam War

Man, that was a complicated war. Lots of reasons, lots of sides, and lots of mistakes and misassumptions.

I read the book because I am teaching it to my 7th graders as the last unit of the year. We let them vote on what they wanted to learn about most, giving a ballot with 5 topics we thought we could teach reasonably well, and they chose Vietnam. I knew nothing about it beyond there were lots of sides, lots of mistakes and misassumptions, lots of reasons we got involved, and that it was complicated. I had virtually no idea what happened when, beyond what I learned in the movie theatres.

I know a lot more now, but feel that I could read the book again, or that there should be a sequel, with more detail and more primary sources. I need more information (new market: sequels to the Idiot's and Dummies Guides) and more detail.

I only chose this one to read because another teacher had a copy of it. I supplemented my knowledge with two pbs websites and a college curriculum I found online, and stayed one year above the kids. We also showed them the documentary about the Weather Underground.

Anyway. The writing style kind of annoyed me. At least three times every chapter the writer used the catch-phrase "but they were wrong." Fo example, "The VC thought the US would supply the South Vietnamese and advise them for a few years. But they were wrong." Another example, "LBJ figured the war would last two years and all he needed was a WW2 effort. He was wrong." And on and on. By the end of the book I started laughing when I saw them.

I recommend the book if you want to know a brief, light look at the war and what happened. I may look to see if they have a "Short History of the Vietnam War." I read the WW1 and WW2 books and found them to be worthwhile. The WW2 one is written by a dude named Stokesbury. A good name.

10. In the Land of White Death by Valerian Albanov

Another book about the Arctic fell into my lap. It's the third book I've read about surviving in the cold and isolation of the North.

This was a good book. Albanov is the navigator on a seal and walrus hunting ship that sets out looking for new hunting grounds. The ship, the Saint Anna, gets locked into the ice and drifts along with the ice pack for the winter. This is normal, apparenlty, for hunting vessels to spend the winter trapped in the ice, and then get free and continue on their way in the summer. The Saint Anna though, gets locked in for the winter, doesn't get free in the summer and is looking forward to another ice-bound winter.

Albanov's relationship with the captain, Brusilov, deteriorates to the point where Albanov wants to leave and head for home. Brusilov gives him permission to build a kayak and a sled to help him get away. It takes him 90 days to go the 235 miles back to civilization. A bunch of the other sailors go with him, I think 9 in the party, but only Albanov and another make it back alive. No trace of the Saint Anna was ever found.

(Pretty much all of that info is on the dust cover, btw, so there weren't any spoilers.)

One thing that amazed me was that Albanov complains about the men in his party having apathy and laziness on their trip. He practically has to beat them to get them to collect firewood, go hunting, wake up in the morning, sit a polar bear watch, etc. Amazing that.

A second surprise was that Albanov hardly ever complains about the cold. In the Heimo Korth book (Last Frontiersman) cold is a constant predator that one has to guard against and plan for. Even in the Krakauer book (Into the Wild) he talks about the cold and desolation that comes with living in the tundra of Alaska. Only a few times does Albanov describe dangerous cold and that was usually during a gale or when someone falls through the ice. I wonder, were the men of the early 1900s hardier, or did Albanov skip talking about it because it was so obvious that it was cold he didn't have to spend pages and pages on it?

I recommend the book if you are into stories about adventure and pluck and real people figuring out how to get out of serious jams.

9. The Secret of Nimh by Robert O'Brien

I loved this book.

It's a short, fast read. A kids book. Winner of the Newberry Medal. Written in 1971.

The story is about Mrs Frisby, who is a mouse. She has a winter home in the garden on a farm. As the ground thaws she knows she must move her family to the summer home in the woods because the farmer is going to plow up the garden. The problem with just packing up and going is that her youngest, smartest kid is sick with pneumonia. This leads Mrs Frisby on a series of adventures to rescue her home and children from the plow.

She enlists the help of a crow named Jeremy, a wise old owl, and the rats of NIMH. These rats are special. They are the Flowers for Algernon rats without the decaying intelligence. They have set up their own community near the farm but are unsatisfiied with a life of dependence. It seems they steal their food, their electricity, and their running water from the farm. What they want is independence, a farm of their own.

I like books that have intelligent animals, books that have the theme of "there's so much going on right in front of the humans but they don't see it." The inevitable satires are okay, but what intrigues me most is how the authors portray the animal society and structure, but also how the animals perceive the humans.

Anyway.This was not the deepest book, but it was fun to read.

8. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A good book. It didn't grab me the way it grabbed the others, but it was good. Things came a little too full circle, though, a couple of times. Things that if I read them when I taught 9th grade Lit I would have crossed them out.

With that, I admit that there were gripping parts, by the last 100 pages I couldn't put it down. Some of it was shocking, and after a while I kept waiting to be surprised.

Anyway, read this book before the movie version comes out.

7. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

Finally, another book read. February was a tough month for reading (and for biking - I got about 20 miles, if that).

I'll say right from the start that Steinbeck is one of my favorite writers. One of my favorite books is "The Winter of Our Discontent." Probably in my top five. And the other Steinbeck books I have read I'bve enjoyed a lot. Not just for the style of writing, the dialog and description, but the ideas and things the characters make me think about.

This book is set in the 1930s and concerns a labor strike at an apple orchard. Jim and Mac are the main characters and they set off to organize the strike. They do so by talking to the workers about how lousy their living conditions are, how lousy their work supplies are, and how low their wages are. Mac is the more experienced leader and Jim is supposed to be his student, learning how to organize laborers into strikers. Jim constantly asked Mac to use him, that he wants to be used to further the cause, and man, does Mac come through.

The story made me a bit sad, seeing how the labor organizers manipulated the workers into strikers by explaining how the owners manipulate them into being animals. Is that what it comes down to? The most persuasive manipulators? Mac turns heartbreak into opportunity (an old Wobblie falls off a ladder and breaks his hip which Mac exploits to illuminate how crappy their tools are) and so on. Whenever the strike looks like it breaks down, Mac tries to push a few more buttons to get the mob worked up. And while the goal is a better wage for the apple pickers (and to show the cotton growers they can't cut wages in the Autumn either) the long term goal is to get the strike to last as long as possible and to put up as much a fight as possible. Like a general in a war who doesn't care about casualties, Mac keeps pushing and pushing, small scale consequences be damned.

Though having said that I am a sucker for characters who act rather than get acted upon.

Like "The Winter of Our Discontent" the ending is not fully explained and spelled out, leaving it to the reader to sort of create a last chapter on his/her own.

This was a good book.

6. Stiff by Mary Roach

This was an interesting book about a topic I hadn't really given a lot of thought to: what happens to you after you die? 300 pages, pretty informative, funny at times, and thought-provoking.

Each chapter explains a path that your body can take, or could have taken had we lived in a different age: anatomy lab, victim of grave robbery for some anatomist's experiments, organ donation, taken to a Tennessee university where they study body decay (they basically dump the bodies on the side of a hill and see what happens to them) for police departments, cremation, used in ballistic tests, car crash tests, airplane tests, cannibalized, and even used as compost.

The writing is funny at times (I almost said "lively."), and the author can't resist a few good (and a few bad) puns. Right up my alley.

While I was reading the book I was thinking about what I want for my dead body. Right at the end of the last chapter Roach talks to a funeral director who makes the pitch that the survivors should decide what is going to happen to the body because they are the ones who have to live with the consequences. Say I tell my wife and kids I want to be cremated and scattered, but they want to bury me and visit my grave - a conflict they are going to feel bad about forever, no matter what course they take. It's a good point, but I still want to have a say.

Donate my useful organs, cremate the rest, and scatter them in some large body of water. BUT, if that proves to painful for the survivors, then whatever. I just don't think getting buried, whole, in some gaudy, expensive box is a good use of time or real estate.

I recommend it if you need a nonfiction that will teach you something totally not normal.

5. Old School by Tobias Wolff

This was a pretty good book. Another fast read, again just under 200 pages.

The story is about a kid, an all boys boarding school, the craft of writing, and the teachers.

The writing was at times funny, descriptive without being laborious, and brisk. I got into the main character, though I kept making comparisons to Holden Caufield. I guess that that was inevitable. And I'm sure Wolff thought of it too.

Apparently, from the fake stamp on the cover of the book, it was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award. Fancy digs.

I wasn't moved though, and I wasn't surprised by anything that happened in the book. Whether that is from good characterization, or something else, I don't know. The two plots, on throughout the book, and the other sort of springing up in the last chapter/section, brought the theme together neatly. Almost too neatly. Wolff doesn't tell us, he shows us, but even what he is showing us is sort of, I don't know, not so brilliant and sparkling.

I've not seen the movie or read the book "This Boy's Life" (also written by Wolff) and I'm not that inspired to. I will read "In Pharoah's Army" about Wolff's days in Vietnam, though. Maybe it will be as good as Time O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." I like Wolff's style and will give it another go, just didn't fall in love with this book.