50-book challenge: June.
Jul. 1st, 2007 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaBooks I read in June, excluding re-readings:
Overclocked, by Cory Doctorow.
I hesitate to admit this, but: I am tired of reading posthuman I-uploaded-my-consciousness-and-made-a-jillion-copies stories. That being the case, I didn't get much out of most of this anthology. But I enjoyed two stories very much: "Anda's Game" (available on Salon here) and the moving - and disturbing - "After the Siege" (available online here).
Sea of Glory, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
I devoured this fascinating book in just a couple of days. It tells the story of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), a Naval mission which accomplished dazzling scientific and navigational achievements: charting much of the South Seas, exploring and charting the mouth of the Columbia River (still one of the most dangerous river entrances in the world), confirming that Antarctica was a continent and mapping 1,500 miles of its coastline, proving Darwin's theory about the formation of coral atolls, conducting the first real linguistic study of Polynesian peoples, and collecting such a vast wealth of naturalistic and anthropological specimens that the U.S. had to found the Smithsonian Institution to house them.
What should've been one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of the age was very nearly destroyed by the man put in charge of the expedition, Charles Wilkes, who was - not to put too fine a point on it - completely crazy. Paranoid, arrogant, and unbelievably self-aggrandizing, he punished any officer whose competence or expertise threatened his own sense of self-worth; made his own laws (including awarding himself a spurious field promotion); and didn't know a damned thing about handling a ship. Instead of ending in triumph, the Exploring Expedition ended in disasters at sea and court-martials for everyone.
This was an exciting story and very well-written. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in naval or scientific history, and to all Patrick O'Brian fans.
Teach Your Own, by John Holt.
Long before homeschooling in the U.S. became the province of fundamentalist Christians retreating from the twin boogeymen of sex education and evolution, John Holt was encouraging liberals who were suspicious of the effects of institutional education to teach their kids at home. There have been several editions of this book; I read the original one, written at a time when homeschooling wasn't protected by U.S. state laws. Much of the book is given over to discussion of how to avoid prosecution for truancy - these sections are a fascinating historical curiosity, but obviously not relevant today, and I think they've been left out of later editions. The sections on homeschooling and educational philosophy are still very much to the point, though. I particularly appreciated Holt's willingness to engage seriously with questions about whether homeschooling is incompatible with liberal social and political values. In my experience, modern homeschooling books tend to libertarianishly roll their eyes at those concerns, rather than really addressing them.
What's So Funny? and Road to Ruin, by Donald Westlake.
Two Dortmunder novels. (For the uninitiated: a comic crime series about a career thief with brilliant planning skills and the world's worst luck.) What's So Funny? was on the new books display at the library, and when I read it I discovered that I'd missed a couple since the last one I read. Road to Ruin is one of the catch-up books I missed. That one was pretty good, although it felt awfully slight. I realized afterward that too much of the book is told from the vantage point of not-previously-seen-in-this-series characters interacting with other not-previously-seen-in-this-series characters, but it's not a bad book overall. What's So Funny was much less successful - a plot that never got exciting, and a structure and prose that left me suspecting that Westlake has grown too eminent to be edited.
The Black Moth, by Georgette Heyer.
I didn't believe a word of it.
Total for June: 6
Total for the year: 41
Overclocked, by Cory Doctorow.
I hesitate to admit this, but: I am tired of reading posthuman I-uploaded-my-consciousness-and-made-a-jillion-copies stories. That being the case, I didn't get much out of most of this anthology. But I enjoyed two stories very much: "Anda's Game" (available on Salon here) and the moving - and disturbing - "After the Siege" (available online here).
Sea of Glory, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
I devoured this fascinating book in just a couple of days. It tells the story of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), a Naval mission which accomplished dazzling scientific and navigational achievements: charting much of the South Seas, exploring and charting the mouth of the Columbia River (still one of the most dangerous river entrances in the world), confirming that Antarctica was a continent and mapping 1,500 miles of its coastline, proving Darwin's theory about the formation of coral atolls, conducting the first real linguistic study of Polynesian peoples, and collecting such a vast wealth of naturalistic and anthropological specimens that the U.S. had to found the Smithsonian Institution to house them.
What should've been one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of the age was very nearly destroyed by the man put in charge of the expedition, Charles Wilkes, who was - not to put too fine a point on it - completely crazy. Paranoid, arrogant, and unbelievably self-aggrandizing, he punished any officer whose competence or expertise threatened his own sense of self-worth; made his own laws (including awarding himself a spurious field promotion); and didn't know a damned thing about handling a ship. Instead of ending in triumph, the Exploring Expedition ended in disasters at sea and court-martials for everyone.
This was an exciting story and very well-written. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in naval or scientific history, and to all Patrick O'Brian fans.
Teach Your Own, by John Holt.
Long before homeschooling in the U.S. became the province of fundamentalist Christians retreating from the twin boogeymen of sex education and evolution, John Holt was encouraging liberals who were suspicious of the effects of institutional education to teach their kids at home. There have been several editions of this book; I read the original one, written at a time when homeschooling wasn't protected by U.S. state laws. Much of the book is given over to discussion of how to avoid prosecution for truancy - these sections are a fascinating historical curiosity, but obviously not relevant today, and I think they've been left out of later editions. The sections on homeschooling and educational philosophy are still very much to the point, though. I particularly appreciated Holt's willingness to engage seriously with questions about whether homeschooling is incompatible with liberal social and political values. In my experience, modern homeschooling books tend to libertarianishly roll their eyes at those concerns, rather than really addressing them.
What's So Funny? and Road to Ruin, by Donald Westlake.
Two Dortmunder novels. (For the uninitiated: a comic crime series about a career thief with brilliant planning skills and the world's worst luck.) What's So Funny? was on the new books display at the library, and when I read it I discovered that I'd missed a couple since the last one I read. Road to Ruin is one of the catch-up books I missed. That one was pretty good, although it felt awfully slight. I realized afterward that too much of the book is told from the vantage point of not-previously-seen-in-this-series characters interacting with other not-previously-seen-in-this-series characters, but it's not a bad book overall. What's So Funny was much less successful - a plot that never got exciting, and a structure and prose that left me suspecting that Westlake has grown too eminent to be edited.
The Black Moth, by Georgette Heyer.
I didn't believe a word of it.
Total for June: 6
Total for the year: 41
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 09:04 pm (UTC)The Black Moth is one, like The Masqueraders, I don't think worth my shelfspace.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-02 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-02 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-02 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 12:48 am (UTC)