The Thin Red Line

Just in case $4.xx/gallon gas and the seemingly interminable and insurmountable problems in Junior’s Iraq weren’t causing you enough headaches,  Andrei Lankov– a professor of Korean history and politics at the Australian National University has written a distinctive and eye opening book about the realities of daily life in North Korea.    I have to confess that apart from occasionally shelving the Korean collection at the library and having once upon a time watched the television show M*A*S*H to the point of total immersion,   I know very little about either of the Koreas.    And precious little scholarship exists about current day North Korea,  despite the heavy coverage of Pyongyang’s nuclear arms program and the vague and ultimately empty threats from Washington.   So this 2007 trade paperback caught my eye at the circulation and I brought it home and learned a bit about North Korea.

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Starting off the new week with a Ron Review, one of my partner Ron’s occasional takes on a book I probably would not have selected.

Welcome to Your Brain by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang is a witty and well written tour through the human brain. They explore modern myths such as that we only use 10% of our brains, (we actually use it all). They also refute the myth that Alcohol and Pot kill brain cells.   The authors cover the basic anatomy of the brain. How and why it does what it does and that occasionally it will lie to you in order to do what you need to do during the day.

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Yikes.   How did I manage to let a whole week pass without doing a single blog post?   It’s certainly not that I didn’t read any noteworthy books this past week.   But somehow or other I let the whole week go by without posting so much as a book cover.    And everything about this first book is late.    I am late getting around to reading it,  the library branch where I work was a full year late getting around to offering this particular title and I had not previously read any of Christopher Buckley’s much-praised earlier works.

Boomsday is the story of Cassandra Devine,  the young Yale hopeful who learns that her father has invested her tuition money in a dot.com start-up and therefore must serve in the Army in order to earn her way to school,  is a comic delight.   As Cassandra’s brief stint in the service throws her into the arms of a lecherous Congressman who speeds Cassandra’s way into a power broker position at a hot K Street firm in Washington DC,  where Cassandra will go on to offer a ‘modest proposal’   that the Baby Boomer generation agree to "voluntarily discorporate" by age eighty in return for some eye-popping tax benefits.    Leading on a shadowy league of activists via her blog at cassandra.net  Cassandra and her Congress Critter actually get the darned thing passed,  though with so many typically Boomer perks thrown in (i.e.  tax exemptions for purchase of Sedgways) that the onerous burden Cassandra had hoped to lift from her own generation is as burdensome as ever.    Absolutely laugh-out-loud funny,  a Real Treat.  Not to be missed.  

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I had thought about doing another top ten droppers link love post this weekend, but given that I only have one book I consider at all suitable–  cool colors for modern living is another great color book that I unreservedly recommend to Aerten Art who is, I think my number Three dropper this week.     On the other hand, I do have 5 other great books,  none of which I would particularly want to "tag" to any of my other droppers, great though both the droppers and the books are.    These are all fairly controversial and so clearly fit the "interesting and unusual" portions of my tag line that I feel I just Have to blog about these books.

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It seems as though I have always been a fan of Lawrence Block’s mysteries,  discovering in high school his series of "Burglar Who"  books (such as The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling) featuring Bernie Rhodenbarr,  the memorable used book dealer who moonlighted as a professional thief.   And I have previously read a number of the later books featuring recovering alcoholic  private investigator Matthew Scudder.   So when I came upon this just recently released special twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the fifth Scudder novel, which was first published back in 1982  (the year I graduated High School, yikes).    As the author explains in an after word this novel is particularly important in that it is the first in the series where the character begins confronting his own problems with alcohol and stops drinking for the first time.

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And a Happy Wednesday to you!   It’s time for another Easy Picture Book roundup and I have some great ones for you today.    First off,  is Betsy Everitt’s Mean Soup.   A child is in a very bad mood until his mother puts a pot of water on to boil and together they stir all of their anger into the Mean Soup.    A cute suggestion on dealing with anger,  though the illustrations were not all they might be.   The book is beautifully colored and very striking.    Recommended.

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Happy Tuesday!   The first  book up today, I’m sorry to say is definitely Not a winner.   I only managed to read the introduction and part of the first chapter of Nancy DeVille’s Death By Supermarket and was more than turned-off enough by the very strident and accusative tone to simply dismiss it.   Ron, however, read most of it and said that many if not most of the academic studies DeVille cites have been dis-credited or dis-proven.  Clearly,  Nancy DeVille is a woman with a mission to demonize the supermarket and packaged foods industries.   While these industries may well deserve scrutiny and criticism,   this book is of little value to anyone.    Not Recommended.

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Happy Weekend!  For those of you who are off from work,  I thought I would pop in and post about the most interesting book that I came across at work yesterday.   Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz have written an un-apologetic rant against Christians they describe as  "very much like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day".   This new 2008 original trade paperback release caught my eye while shelving this afternoon and after just a quick glimpse I just knew I would have to  blog about it right away.

Bickel and Jantz who have written over 50 books together, many of then Christian themed have decided it’s time for real Christians to stand up and condemn the outrageous behavior of their more colorful Christian counterparts,  such as the Rev. Fred Phelps (the "Got Hates Fags" Folks) and others who clearly seem to lose sight of Jesus’ message of love and compassion for your fellor humans, rather than a humorousless doctrinaire existence of rigid, inflexible rules.    I’m Fine With God…It’s Christians I Can’t Stand comes Highly Recommended.   

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and I will be back in this space on Monday night to share more books that have recently crossed The Thin Red Line.

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Today’s architectural books are a far cry from my usual eye candy selections.  Both The Concrete House by Pieter A VanderWerf and The Rammed Earth House by David Easton are detailed and practical manuals for those interested in pursuing either of these very earth-friendly and efficient building types.   While the writing style of each book is a bit different with The Concrete House taking on a questions and answers style that definitely lends readability and provides answers to all sorts of questions.  

This "conversational" style works very effectively for VanderWerf who does a great job of selling "Insulating Concrete Forms" which are highly insulating foam bricks designed to have concrete pored into them, thus creating a highly energy efficient home which can be finished in almost any architectural style.  These homes are highly resistant to weather related disasters highly energy efficient.  The only drawback seems to be that it is somewhat more expensive than conventional building at this time  (though this may change if the construction method becomes more commonly used).    A useful and important book for anyone contemplating a new home building project.   Recommended.

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I fear my techie friends will be disappointed to learn that this post has Absolutely Nothing  Whatsoever  to do with Digital Subscriber Lines or my (somewhat) High(er) Speed Internet connection.   The parents of pre-schoolers among my readership will be thrilled to learn that I am finally getting around to posting another Easy Picture Books Roundup!

D is for dragon and is also for Carmen Agra Deedy, author of a delightful book titled The Library Dragon.   When Sunrise Elementary School seeks a "thick-skinned" new librarian,  just about everyone is shocked that the new hire turns out to be a real dragon.   But when a child who lost her glasses wanders into the library and begins reading a book out loud,  the children gather round for story time and Miss Lotta’s scales fall off revealing her to be a wonderful children’s librarian.    Highly Recommended.

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Pass the egg rolls!  Jennifer 8 Lee, a first generation Chinese American (her middle name, the numeral eight,  connotes prosperity in Chinese) has written a rollicking fun book about everyone’s favorite cuisine.   Starting with an odd Powerball drawing that saw a huge number of second place winners which turned out to have been selected from a fortune cookie Lee dives into the topic of American-style Chinese restaurants with gusto and explores a number of issues most diners probably never considered.

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First off today,  a sincerest Thank You to Cromley over at Cromley’s World who a few days ago bestowed on me my  very own Arte Y Pico award,  which as I understand it is intended to recognize bloggers who are an "inspiration to others" in terms of   "creativity, design, interesting content, and contributions to the larger blogging community".     Long-time readers of this blog will certainly recall my fuming against "memes"  and probably will not be surprised to learn that I have decidedly mixed feelings about this award.

While I don’t in any way doubt the sincerity with which it was given and would like to believe that in my own small way I have done my bit to bring creativity, design and interesting content to the larger blogging community,   I can’t quite shake the feeling that these awards are something of a distraction, and one intended by their creators to serve a number of purposes quite apart from promoting design, creativity et als.

It would seem that William McCamment over at the Dead Rooster blog would agree.    McCamment,  another recent recipient of the Arte Y Pico award did a bit of digging around and announced on his blog that over Sixty-Five Thousand  of these Arte Y Pico awards have already been given out,  and assuming that most recipients followed the instructions,   created over 65,000 incoming links to the original site,   which as it happens is in Spanish,  making it difficult for me to even know if it is a site I would want to be associated with.  So rather than follow the instructions and post a copy of the rules and tag five more lucky recipients  I decided instead to tag my long lost blogging buddy Saphrym  (who just recently did an amazing post in response to my  The Why We Want To Kill You For Not Understanding Iraq Meme) with the Dead Rooster Award For Diabolical Greatness.   Again,  my sincerest thanks to Cromley along with my sincerest hopes that the memes and awards will disppear again, at least for awhile.

And finally today,  the actual book review.   I have to confess that I have never seen Ed Begley Jr.’s  cable television show or come across his Begley’s Best all natural cleaning products so his recently released book Living Like Ed was in fact my first acquaintance with Begley as a spokesman for "Eco-Friendly" Living.   The book is well written and offers a range of things one can do to be more "eco-friendly",  from the easiest things like replacing light bulbs with compact florescents and participating in curb-side recycling programs.   Begley also goes into considerable detail about more intensive greening activities, like solar power and even organic clothing.     I can’t honestly say that the book made me rush out to start living greener,  but it does provide a lot of information and will at the very least provide food for thought and guidance towards greener choices as time goes by.   Recommended.

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Part of me feels guilty for posting about a second memoir by a second Los Angeles area librarian within less than three months, but Quiet Please   Dispatches from a Public Librarian was just barely too good to pass up.  Scott Douglas’ memoir of his career with the Anaheim library lacks some of the pizazz of Don Borchert’s Free For All  (reviewed here)  but the crisp writing and the creatively Dewey-numbered chapters go a long way with me, though to be perfectly honest at times I found this young man’s outlook and worldview a bit appalling.  

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Sometimes, it seems to me, Rita Mae Brown is simply out to taunt me.  It was if she had somehow heard (or perhaps read) my wish that she write again about the old Runnymeade gang, and give us a break from all those mysteries, which Brown has been cranking out exclusively of late.  So I was initially thrilled when I spotted Ms. Brown’s name in the New Fiction stacks.  But I was struck immediately at what a very small book it is, a mere 102  four by five inch pages.  A longish short story or a very brief novella,  the entire action takes place in a single August day in 1952.  Julia (Juts) and her sister Louise  (Wheezie) Hunesnemeir, the former’s daughter, Nicole (Nickel) and the latter’s orpahaned grandson, Leroy,  are the only characters.

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Chas Newkey-Burden’s Great Email Disasters is a UK trade paperback book about e-mails that have come embarrassingly to light, leaving their senders to look like real schmucks.   While reading titillating e-mails is fun I suppose,  the fact that I really didn’t Know who most any of these people Were detracted for the experience for me.    This one is mildly Recommended to folks in the UK.   (And maybe they can tell me what all the fuss was about

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I have to say right off, going in, that I really wanted to like Clifford A Wright’s Bake Until Bubbly– The Ultimate Casserole Cookbook.   But Wright in several ways made that very hard for me to do.    The first time in the early pages he decried using canned cream of whatever soups in favor of freshly prepared bechmael sauces.  All of what I would call the easy steps in casserole-preparation have been replaced with extremely labor-intensive recipes which seem as though designed to show just how much hard work is normally replaced by the use of canned soup in casseroles that by the end of the 450 page plus new 2008 release I was mainly seized by an imperative urge to hurl the bloody book across the room.   This one is Not Recommended.

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If you’ve ever hesitated to eat seafood due to concerns about mercury or other pollutants or concerns about sustainability OR if you’ve ever hesitated to try cooking some exotic variety of seafood or other out of ignorance,  Paul Johnson has written the perfect book for you.   Subtitled "the definitive guide to understanding, selecting and preparing healthy, delicious and enviornmentally sustaingable seafood", Johnson’s Fish Forever is an encyclopediac guide to edibles from the sea.

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Pack your bags and get ready for the ride of your life.  The Space Tourist’s Handbook  tells you all you need to know about vacationing in space.  Written by Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, this $16 book is part brochure for the range of trips offered by Space Adventures, part introduction to various aspects of space travel and 100% All out of this world.

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$3,000,000,000,000.00.  Or, if you prefer, three trillion dollars.  Any way you cut it, that’s A LOT of money.  And according to Joseph E Stiglitz and Linda J Blimes, that’s how much the United States’ war in Iraq has cost, estimating conservatively.  Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist takes a fascinating look at the cost of the Iraq war.   And the numbers are not pretty.

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I had thought that  I was burned out on reading about hurricane Katrina but when I happened upon Michael Tisserand’s Sugarcane Academy the other day I stayed up until after 2 a.m. reading it.    I found myself fascinated by the story of Paul Reynaud– a New Orleans first grade teacher who was the driving force behind the creation of Sugarcane Academy, a school for evacuee children that was created in New Iberia Louisiana in the weeks immediately following the storm and then continued in borrowed space at Loyola University in New Orleans once people were allowed back into the city.

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