My Nerdy Friend

book 43 – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Every now and then you come across a book that you’ve never read but that is the foundation of a myriad of cultural references that you recognize and completely understand. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of those books that few people have read (like me!), but the plot of which shows up everywhere from bugs bunny (Hyde and Hare, 1955) to Star Trek (The Enemy Within, 1966).

As a short book, or more of a novella, it is, by necessity, tight. Robert Louis Stevenson invokes vivid imagery and interesting character development with few wasted words. To be able to write short stories is a skill I admire for this reason.

It was also fun just to have the actual Jekyll and Hyde story revealed! Similar to Dracula or Frankenstein, it’s a story we think we know because of its influence in pop culture, but in reality, we don’t.

When I first saw Casablanca, I was astounded by the number of quotes from the movie that have become common-place expressions in modern-day language. It was a complete surprise the impact that the movie has had on our current culture and language. This is not the same as Jekyll and Hyde, because we know the impact in advance and are looking to discover the original source, but the reading of the book reminded me of that first time watching of Casablanca.

Rating: Buy it. I think this is one you should have in your collection. (You should own a copy of Casablanca, too, by the way.)

book 41 – Station Eleven

I really, really enjoyed this book! The book kicks off with the on-stage death of a Shakespearean actor (heart attack), immediately followed by the outbreak of a pandemic that kills over 99% of the population. Aaaannnnnd … it’s 20 years later, and we are suddenly in a dystopian future world, following the exploits of a travelling theatre group who perform Shakespeare plays for communities of survivors. Then, unexpectedly, we are back in the past with the previously deceased actor. The book carries on this way, making unexpected, yet strangely elegant, jumps in time to tell different people’s stories. Eventually, connections start to reveal themselves and, by the end, you sort of get it, and it’s beautiful.

Throughout the book, despite some harrowing encounters and the death of most of the people on earth, there is an optimism that permeates throughout the survivor communities. Maybe because I’ve watched too much Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, I kept expecting the worst. But in the end, a beautiful peace and path to recovery seems to prevail. Simply put, this book made me happy.

Rating: Buy it.

book 40 – The Art of War

I absolutely read this book because it’s on Neil deGrasse Tyson’s list of 8 “must read” books (the rest are listed at the bottom of this post, if you are interested). I picked up a free copy on Amazon that was translated and annotated by Lionel Giles, and he, in turn, has summarized and analysed the annotations of an additional 11 commentators. I wasn’t intending to pick up an annotated copy, but as it turns out, Giles includes many examples of actual battles in ancient China to demonstrate a point of interpretation which provides this particular copy with some nice tidbits of Chinese history.

The book itself is a very short, 50-odd page treatise on the proper execution of war and advises the reader in various strategies around how to win. In fact, one key strategy for engaging in war is to only do so if you are certain you can win, and that you can do so in short order because a long, drawn-out war is too costly (and risky). Essentially, the book advises that the general understand in detail the terrain, weather patterns, emotions of the army, and goals and strategies of the enemy. Because of how the book provides a template for winning a war with minimal battle engagement, the book has also become a guideline for business tactics such as trial strategy, negotiating and corporate tactics. I’m not entirely convinced the extension of The Art of War into business and law is a great idea since at the end of the day it describes a zero-sum game, whereas I believe there are strategies to be considered where neither party has to necessarily “lose”. But it is interesting and enlightening to think that war strategies from 2500 years ago have developed into applications in use today.

Rating: Buy it. I mean, it’s basically free (totally free electronically, in fact). The hardest decision will be whether to pick up an annotated copy.

The book list from NdGT:

1. The Bible (public library; free ebook), to learn that it’s easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself
2. The System of the World (public library; free ebook) by Isaac Newton, to learn that the universe is a knowable place
3. On the Origin of Species (public library; free ebook) by Charles Darwin, to learn of our kinship with all other life on Earth
4. Gulliver’s Travels (public library; free ebook) by Jonathan Swift, to learn, among other satirical lessons, that most of the time humans are Yahoos
5. The Age of Reason (public library; free ebook) by Thomas Paine, to learn how the power of rational thought is the primary source of freedom in the world
6. The Wealth of Nations (public library; free ebook) by Adam Smith, to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself
7. The Art of War (public library; free ebook) by Sun Tzu, to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art
8. The Prince (public library; free ebook) by Machiavelli, to learn that people not in power will do all they can to acquire it, and people in power will do all they can to keep it

book 39 – Mr. Mercedes

I have no idea why I ever thought Stephen King was a good writer. Maybe he WAS good, in his early days, or maybe he was just novel (no pun intended!). Whatever the case, somewhere around The Tommyknockers he just stopped being good and started being lazy. (To be honest, this might actually have started around Firestarter, but I was a HUGE fan at one time and gave him tons of leeway for probably way too long.) His books have a certain mass-produced feel to them, which is not overly surprising considering he’s written over 50 of them. I was especially put off when he started self-indulgently writing books with lead characters who were writers (Misery is the exception, I did enjoy that one).

I have occasionally tried to connect with Stephen King books again, wishfully thinking I might find one that hearkens back to his early works, but I haven’t succeeded yet. This particular book attracted me because it’s a trilogy around a central character, a retired Detective named Bill Hodges and I do like police mysteries as a general rule. But I won’t be reading the next two books.

King’s bad writing and laziness runs rampant in Mr. Mercedes, so much so I just decided to list a few:

• The characters don’t talk like real people, they talk in weird colloquial ways that seem fake. In one case, describing how it would be impossible to forget to lock a car: “step three, close the door and push the button stamped with the padlock icon”. Padlock icon? Really?? Have these people been time-warped into 2009 from the 50’s?
• A 40-something woman who suffers from crippling depression and still lives with her mother, somehow becomes a computer genius after taking an on-line computer course on Skype. She is also come kind of expert on computer security as a result of this course.
• The computer genius trying to determine a password empties a wallet of everything, even credit cards, trying various number and letter combinations on the things she finds, but does not empty photos from a plastic accordion photo holder where, on the back of one of the pictures, is (surprise!) the password she has been searching for.

Normally I wouldn’t reference someone else’s review, but this one really sums up how I feel.

Rating: Skip it. If you feel a need to read Stephen King, read The Shining. Or The Stand.

book 38 – Montana 1948

A book club choice, Montana 1948 is short but captivating story about life in (you guessed it) Montana an 1948. When the beloved town doctor and war hero is accused of raping Indian women, his brother, the town sheriff must run the investigation. This pits the sheriff against his father, the family against the town, and the town against the Sioux community. All of this is told through the eyes of the 11 year old son of the sheriff as his family struggles to find a way to do the right thing.

The small town USA vibe reminds me a little of To Kill A Mockingbird and I wonder how many towns in the USA (and Canada for that matter) are still like this today. There’s a kind of resistance to change and mistrust of outsiders and “their ways” that I think forms the base of conservatism today.

Rating: Borrow it.

book 37 – f**k it Do What You Love

A confession: I am a few blog posts behind. A recovery plan: I am going to sit here, give myself a timeline of 30 mins per entry, and just get them done! This is a terrific lesson on managing procrastination that I first learned from Oliver Burkeman’s book, and read about once again in f**k it in a sub-chapter called “set unrealistic deadlines”.  The theory is that we can get a lot more  done that we think we can, if we just focus on doing it as quickly as possible.

So here we are. f**k it in 30 minutes (actually I only have about 20 minutes left). I enjoyed this book, but it’s possibly because I am exactly in this head space right now. I don’t like what I’m doing (or possibly where I’m doing it, or who I’d doing it for) and I need inspiration for change. The book is quite specific, walking you through how to figure out what you love, and how to make money actually doing it. Honestly, it seems fine for someone who doesn’t have many financial responsibilities such as mortgages and children and university tuition and planning for retirement but it strikes me as a little impractical for the rest of us who do. However, without actually taking the time to answer the questions or complete the exercises, I finished the book with a new plan for my life. It’s not exactly the radical approach of dropping everything I currently do and starting over as a quantum physicist, but it IS taking what I am good at and like doing and finding a way to do these things on my own terms.

So maybe the book provides just enough inspiration to start thinking about your life differently. And certainly, if you have the means/comfort/desire to go “all in”, then it seems to provide a very detailed and helpful roadmap for figuring out how to do what you love and earn a living doing it.

My criticism of this book seems to be common to all “self help” books, which is simply that they seem to run on in the last few chapters and either become repetitive (got to fill those 250 pages!), or lose focus (wait, here are 10 other things that I want to include but they just didn’t seem to fit in any other chapter). f**k it seems to be of the “lose focus” variety, suddenly trying to provide too much detail too quickly on ways to make a living doing what you love. It seems like the final chapter is the whole point of the book, but it’s a sharp contrast from the earlier chapters of taking the time to really figure out what it is that you love in the first place. I think it would have worked better as a series of focused appendices, or even a website supplement.

Still, I have a plan that I am very happy with, and I believe significant credit goes to this book for helping me get there.

Rating: Buy it if you are even the least bit unhappy with what you are doing. It might not change your life, but it might inspire you to at least spend more time doing things you love.

book 36 – looking for alaska

Looking for Alaska is a different kind of coming of age book, about teenagers away at boarding school who deal with the usual (rules, authority, grades, pushing boundaries) and the less usual (loss, grief, looking for meaning). John Green is a current favourite among teens, I suspect because he doesn’t shy away from the awkward topics that are on their minds and that parents struggle to discuss with them, and he isn’t afraid  to throw in a bit of tragedy and heartbreak to force his characters to face some of the bigger questions of life. This is possibly why Green has such appeal for boys as well as girls, given that at their core, his books (or at least the two I’ve now read) are romance stories.

He is a humorous and witty writer, which is particularly noticeable in The Fault In Our Stars where the teen characters are virtually prodigies of wit, and he seems to favour characters who are extraordinarily well read. His colloquial style of writing seems to add to his popularity and appeal. Certainly my son writes the same way and is possibly one reason he likes Green’s books.

Rating: Borrow it. Although if this is your first John Green book, I might be inclined to recommend Fault in Our Stars ahead of this one.

book 35 – Lamb

Christopher Moore is actually the first repeat author of my year-long book-a-week challenge, which is unexpected because several of the books I have read were the first of trilogies that I ultimately plan on finishing. It says something about how much I enjoyed Practical Demonkeeping that he’s the only author so far that I have gone back to. To be honest, it might also be due to the fact that P.D. was such a quick read and I assumed Lamb would be also (I mean, let’s be honest, I am trying to pack a lot of books in here, after all).

But the joke was on me, because Lamb was actually a very dense book that took *much* longer to read than I was expecting. It was still funny, although a much different kind of humour than Demonkeeping which had me laughing out loud. I don’t really know how to describe the humour in Lamb other than it made me think “ok, that was funny” but rarely made me LOL.

The story is a fictional account of the life of Jesus Christ (“Joshua”) during the first 30 years of his life, which is all but ignored by the gospels, as told by his best friend Levi “who is called Biff”. It’s actually a well-researched and semi-plausible account of Jesus’ life, in the form of Joshua and Biff’s (excellent) adventures, which is part of what gives it such density. It is also unexpectedly poignant, although it shouldn’t really come as a surprise, given that we all know the story ends. An actual surprise for me was how much I enjoyed the story given that I don’t typically tend to read interpretations of the story of Jesus. However, Moore very cleverly integrates some of Jesus’ key proclamations into his fictional events as Joshua and Biff round up the apostles, and  he sends the pair to the far east to gain insight from the teachings of Buddhism and Confucius, both inspired choices.

Coincidence of the day: There is a cameo by the demon Catch. Given that I somewhat randomly chose the books, I find it interesting that Catch appears in both. Unless, of course, he features in all of Moore’s books…

Rating: Buy it!

book 34 – The Seveneves

The book is actually divided up into three separate stories, each one book-sized in and of itself. The first is the story of a coming apocalypse and humanity’s two-year deadline to establish a genetically diverse human colony in space, capable of sustaining itself for at least 5,000 years. The second is the post-apocalyptic stage of settling the space colony into a collaborative and cooperative community despite divisive differences that threaten to destroy everything. The third takes place 5,000 years in the future and provides a look at what humanity has become as  the surviving races start to terraform and repopulate the earth.

Most interesting (to me) is that the book settles eventually on seven women who ultimately provide the genetic origins for the evolution of seven ‘new’ human races (the Seven Eves). This has parallels to the book The Seven Daughters of Eve, which traces the (known) genetic origins of all human life on earth back to seven original women, the “daughters of eve”. I would like to believe that this is cannot be a coincidence, but Stephenson doesn’t reference the book in his epilogue. (By the way, if you ever read seven daughers, don’t read the last 7 chapters where the author tries to “imagine” the lives of each of these seven daughters, even so far as how many children they each had and how long they lived. He kind of goes off the rails at that point).

My only complaint about Stephenson’s book is that he seems to rush the ending, which is unexpected after 900 pages. It’s unfortunate, because after setting up a climax (that you sort of do see coming if you are paying attention), he just kind of leaves things in a strange state that feels incomplete.

Rating: Borrow it if you know you like scifi and Neil Stephenson.