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New books for January.
Last year I intended to do the 50-book challenge. (50 books that are new to me - re-reads don't count.) I posted about my books for January and February. Then in March I read a couple of Lauren Slater books that I couldn't bring myself to write up, and didn't post my March list. Or my April list, jotted down on scratch paper which I promptly lost. It all went to hell after that.
So I'm trying again this year, but from the outset I am giving myself permission to just note the title and author of a book, if I want, without any additional commentary.
Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement, by Mitchell Stevens.
Very interesting, even if it was written by a sociologist. (Sorry, that's just a little interdisciplinary snobbery.) Stevens followed a large number of American homeschoolers for ten years. This book is mostly about the two parallel and largely separate homeschooling movements that have developed in the U.S. - a fundamentalist Christian one, and a humanist one based on 1960s-style ideals of freedom in learning. He does a nice job of tracing how the two movements' fundamental differences in values create differences in everything from curricular philosophies to ways of organizing support groups, and explains how they have clashed at the level of state and national politics.
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, by Joel Best.
This was a slight book that probably would've been better suited as, say, a long-form essay in the New Yorker. Or maybe I just say that because I know statistics too well; none of Best's points were really new information for me. It was still an interesting read, though, because I was unfamiliar with several of his examples of "mutant statistics." I'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in social policy but not very comfortable with statistical reasoning.
Everything Bad is Good for You, by Steven Johnson.
Tremendously fun and interesting book. Johnson takes on the received wisdom that popular culture is dumb, getting dumber all the time, and carrying us all down with it in a race to the bottom. He argues that, instead, pop culture is getting smarter and more complex every day, requiring more intellectual activity and involvement from its consumers. For example: popular TV shows typically require viewers to be able to keep track of multiple layered plot threads (in an episode, and in season arcs) and complicated social networks. There are many fewer "flashing arrows" to point out what is important to the story than there were in shows popular 20 years ago. Similarly, Johnson analyzes the mental work required to play current popular video games - compared to the work required to play, say, Pacman. In the most provocative section of the book, he links the increased complexity of pop culture to the Flynn Effect - the massive and well-documented rise in IQ scores worldwide over the last couple of generations. I actually found that part of his argument more convincing than I expected to. Johnson has a long New York Times Magazine piece here that gives a good feeling for the core of his argument. I definitely recommend the article, but you should read the whole book too.
Grave Sight and Grave Surprise, by Charlaine Harris
The first two books of a new series by the author of the "Southern Vampire" books. The Southern Vampire books are sort of fun potato-chip-style reading, but the tone is uneven and it's hard for me to take them seriously. These books are better written and have a much clearer and more distinctive narrative voice. The premise is that the main character, Harper, was struck by lightning as a teenager and developed (along with a host of physical and psychological problems) the ability to find corpses and tell how they have died. She makes her living by renting out her talent, fascinating and repelling people by turns. The tone is darker and more melancholy - possibly because these books are less fantastical than the Southern Vampires. V. good if you like creepiness and alienation.
Hellspark, by Janet Kagan
Oooh, I loved this book. How could I have gone so long without reading it? Smart, believable science fiction with a ninja linguist heroine who has a self-aware computer as a sidekick. Some of the cross-cultural misunderstandings seemed kind of obvious to me (Why do you need an ultra-linguist to recognize what the problem is here?), but I suppose that they might not have twenty years ago, when Hellspark was written.
Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio
Simple, yet endlessly fascinating premise: the authors visited 30 families in 24 countries, stayed with each of them a week, talked with them about food, and photographed them cooking, shopping, and eating. Then they took one "Big Picture" of each family posing with an entire week's worth of food. The week's foods are listed completely (with prices given in local currency and U.S. dollars), and some nutritional, health, and economic statistics for each country are provided as well. I want to make a separate post about this book, because I couldn't stop thinking about it for more than a week. I have very strong positive and negative feelings about it, and I want to give them more space than this review post permits.
Midnighters #1: The Secret Hour and Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness, by Scott Westerfeld.
Sure, Scott hates Pluto. But he also writes good books. These are the first two books of a contemporary YA horror trilogy set in small-town Oklahoma. The premise is that there is a "secret hour" between midnight and 12:01:01, which only a few people experience. The good: they have special powers they can enjoy in the secret hour. The bad: they share the hour with ancient eldritch horrors. Westerfeld gets vast quantities of extra credit for writing a second book of a trilogy that doesn't feel like the second book of a trilogy: it has an intense climax and a satisfying resolution.
Total for January: 9
Total for the year: 9
So I'm trying again this year, but from the outset I am giving myself permission to just note the title and author of a book, if I want, without any additional commentary.
Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement, by Mitchell Stevens.
Very interesting, even if it was written by a sociologist. (Sorry, that's just a little interdisciplinary snobbery.) Stevens followed a large number of American homeschoolers for ten years. This book is mostly about the two parallel and largely separate homeschooling movements that have developed in the U.S. - a fundamentalist Christian one, and a humanist one based on 1960s-style ideals of freedom in learning. He does a nice job of tracing how the two movements' fundamental differences in values create differences in everything from curricular philosophies to ways of organizing support groups, and explains how they have clashed at the level of state and national politics.
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, by Joel Best.
This was a slight book that probably would've been better suited as, say, a long-form essay in the New Yorker. Or maybe I just say that because I know statistics too well; none of Best's points were really new information for me. It was still an interesting read, though, because I was unfamiliar with several of his examples of "mutant statistics." I'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in social policy but not very comfortable with statistical reasoning.
Everything Bad is Good for You, by Steven Johnson.
Tremendously fun and interesting book. Johnson takes on the received wisdom that popular culture is dumb, getting dumber all the time, and carrying us all down with it in a race to the bottom. He argues that, instead, pop culture is getting smarter and more complex every day, requiring more intellectual activity and involvement from its consumers. For example: popular TV shows typically require viewers to be able to keep track of multiple layered plot threads (in an episode, and in season arcs) and complicated social networks. There are many fewer "flashing arrows" to point out what is important to the story than there were in shows popular 20 years ago. Similarly, Johnson analyzes the mental work required to play current popular video games - compared to the work required to play, say, Pacman. In the most provocative section of the book, he links the increased complexity of pop culture to the Flynn Effect - the massive and well-documented rise in IQ scores worldwide over the last couple of generations. I actually found that part of his argument more convincing than I expected to. Johnson has a long New York Times Magazine piece here that gives a good feeling for the core of his argument. I definitely recommend the article, but you should read the whole book too.
Grave Sight and Grave Surprise, by Charlaine Harris
The first two books of a new series by the author of the "Southern Vampire" books. The Southern Vampire books are sort of fun potato-chip-style reading, but the tone is uneven and it's hard for me to take them seriously. These books are better written and have a much clearer and more distinctive narrative voice. The premise is that the main character, Harper, was struck by lightning as a teenager and developed (along with a host of physical and psychological problems) the ability to find corpses and tell how they have died. She makes her living by renting out her talent, fascinating and repelling people by turns. The tone is darker and more melancholy - possibly because these books are less fantastical than the Southern Vampires. V. good if you like creepiness and alienation.
Hellspark, by Janet Kagan
Oooh, I loved this book. How could I have gone so long without reading it? Smart, believable science fiction with a ninja linguist heroine who has a self-aware computer as a sidekick. Some of the cross-cultural misunderstandings seemed kind of obvious to me (Why do you need an ultra-linguist to recognize what the problem is here?), but I suppose that they might not have twenty years ago, when Hellspark was written.
Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio
Simple, yet endlessly fascinating premise: the authors visited 30 families in 24 countries, stayed with each of them a week, talked with them about food, and photographed them cooking, shopping, and eating. Then they took one "Big Picture" of each family posing with an entire week's worth of food. The week's foods are listed completely (with prices given in local currency and U.S. dollars), and some nutritional, health, and economic statistics for each country are provided as well. I want to make a separate post about this book, because I couldn't stop thinking about it for more than a week. I have very strong positive and negative feelings about it, and I want to give them more space than this review post permits.
Midnighters #1: The Secret Hour and Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness, by Scott Westerfeld.
Sure, Scott hates Pluto. But he also writes good books. These are the first two books of a contemporary YA horror trilogy set in small-town Oklahoma. The premise is that there is a "secret hour" between midnight and 12:01:01, which only a few people experience. The good: they have special powers they can enjoy in the secret hour. The bad: they share the hour with ancient eldritch horrors. Westerfeld gets vast quantities of extra credit for writing a second book of a trilogy that doesn't feel like the second book of a trilogy: it has an intense climax and a satisfying resolution.
Total for January: 9
Total for the year: 9
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(abbreviated rewritten comment)
Hellspark love!
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I'll have to look for the Johnson and the homeschooling one.
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-J
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Did the linguistics make reasonable sense, then? Because of course it's always easier to be impressed by SF based on a science you know very little about.
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-J
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MKK
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(I tend to bounce hard off of most historical mysteries, especially the ones in which a famous historical personage solves crimes. And nothing in Harris's other books led me to believe that she'd do a believable 16th century. Small town Arkansas? That I can believe she'd do well.)
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I shall look out for your post about Hungry Planet.
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Maybe I'll try the Charlaine Harris ones. I've heard so many bad things about the Southern Vampire books that I really am not going there but these books sound worth a try.