Books: Blindspot

Some weeks ago, my supervisor at the college sent one of his “diversity moment” emails with a link to this article. Intrigued, I decided I needed to read Blindspot.

I was concerned that it might be a dull or dry read, but it is not. (I finished it in about a week.) I was fascinated from the first page when they show an optical illusion involving two table tops, as an example of how our minds cause us to see things in ways that don’t match reality.

A large portion of the book is devoted to the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a tool developed by the authors to uncover people’s hidden biases. Because these biases operate below the conscious level of our minds, we are not aware of them. If asked directly, people will often deny having such biases, and at the conscious level they do not.

Books: Ender’s World

Orson Scott Card is a prolific writer, and there are a number of his books that I haven’t read, but whenever I see another book related to Ender’s Game, I read it. First he wrote sequels, starting with Speaker for the Dead, then later he went back and wrote a parallel series in which the central character is Bean rather than Ender.

I don’t think any of them are as good as Ender’s Game, but I read all of them, because Card is a good writer and I’m interested in the characters and themes he explores in the series. So when I saw Ender’s World in the library, it was a given that I would read it, even before I knew what it was about.

Ender’s World is a book of essays, rather than fiction, and written by other people about Card’s classic novel (but edited by Card, who includes Q&A about how and why he wrote various aspects of the book the way he did). As one reader review at amazon.com says, it’s a bit like having a book club discussion about Ender’s Game. Everyone has a slightly different take on it.

Books: The Bookseller

I was attracted to this novel largely because of the word “book” in the title. I thought I vaguely remembered having read good reviews of The Bookseller, but I really knew nothing about it except what I could see on the cover. Books are involved somehow, and this is the first book about Hugo Marston, which implies there will be more. Good enough reasons to check it out from the library.

There really is less about books than I might have liked. The books that are discussed are prized more for their value as collectibles (or for other, mysterious reasons that may or may not be connected to a man’s death), rather than for the ideas expressed in them.

But it’s a well-written mystery. I was surprised to learn, after finishing the book, that it was Mark Pryor’s first novel. Hugo Marston is a likeable enough character, though it’s hard to know what to make of his friend Tom.

Books: The Fault in Our Stars

When I started reading The Fault in Our Stars, I thought for a while that I would probably have quit reading if it weren’t this month’s selection in our book club. But if I had quit, I would have missed out on a moving story.

There’s nothing objectionable in the first few chapters, there’s just not much that’s particularly thought-provoking either. Yes, it’s a shame these young people are dying of cancer, but that’s not enough of a reason to want to listen in on their lives as they hang out together and watch movies or play video games.

Perhaps it was when Hazel talked about An Imperial Affliction, a book that was like scripture to her, that I began to get more interested. I couldn’t understand her obsession with finding out what happened to the characters in the novel after it ended, but I was intrigued by the insights in the novel and their effect on her.

Books: Anvil of Stars

Anvil of Stars is the sequel to Greg Bear’s The Forge of God. While the previous novel dealt with human reactions to the impending end of the world, this book chronicles what follows: the journey of a small group of human survivors whose purpose is to find and destroy whatever race of beings is responsible for the destruction of Earth.

The larger part of the remnant of humanity – rescued by some other unknown alien group referred to only as the Benefactors – has been settled on New Mars, a newly terraformed version of the Red Planet. But the Benefactors require that a group of children from a destroyed planet set out on a Ship of the Law to bring the Killers to justice.

By the time the novel starts, they aren’t exactly “children” anymore – the youngest of them are teens, and their current leader is in his early twenties. But they continue to be referred to as “the children,” which I found somewhat discordant. Perhaps it emphasizes their sense of dependence on the “moms” – robots belonging to the Ship of the Law who have taught them the Law and trained them for war with the Killers.

Books: The Russian Donation

I enjoyed The Russian Donation largely because it was different from a lot of mystery novels I have read. To begin with, it is written by a German author for a German audience, and of course set in Germany (in the 1990′s). So it depicts life in Germany matter-of-factly, not like a book written for Americans and set in a foreign country to try to make it more interesting.

It could be termed a medical mystery, as the main character is a doctor, attending physician at a teaching hospital, and most of the characters and action are related in some way to the hospital. But the issues turn out to have a lot more to do with the business side of the hospital than the medical side.

It should be no surprise to most people, considering rising healthcare costs and the various efforts made to contain them, that healthcare is a business and decisions are made as much by business administrators as by doctors. But it’s interesting to see a physician’s point of view as he goes about his daily (and sometimes nightly) duties. (Author Christoph Spielberg is himself a practicing physician, so he knows what he’s writing about.)

Early in the novel, narrator Dr. Hoffmann, having just filled out a death certificate (for the patient whose death is surrounded by the mystery Dr. Hoffmann goes about trying to unravel), comments that “I had no idea that at that moment I was almost signing my own death certificate.” I kept waiting for someone to try to murder him. But for a book described by some reviews as a thriller, The Russian Donation struck me as surprisingly undramatic. I don’t say this as a criticism – in some ways it is a welcome change from thrillers where the tension is constantly at a fever pitch.

The cover says this is “Dr. Hoffmann’s first case.” That was one reason I picked it out (among new books at our library). It’s always nice to start a series at the beginning. I don’t know how soon the English translation of another of Spielberg’s Dr. Hoffmann books will appear, but I’ll keep out an eye for it.

Books: Surprised by Oxford

I came across Carolyn Weber’s blog when I was Googling “Maundy Thursday” and “liturgy.” I didn’t find any ideas for a Communion liturgy, but I found deeply thoughtful posts. I was so captivated by both the content and style of Carolyn’s writing that I promptly subscribed to her email newsletter.

I also read about her book Surprised by Oxford, and used our interlibrary loan program to request a copy. It came in right before I left on my business trip to Philadelphia, so I had wonderful reading material to occupy the hours I spent on the plane, in the airport, and evenings alone in my hotel room.

The book chronicles her year at Oxford University, a year of intellectual, personal, and spiritual growth. Carolyn is an excellent writer, and the book is fun to read simply to see the varied circumstances in which she finds herself, and how she deals with them. But the spiritual questions she grapples with make it far more than just good reading.

Books: The Forge of God

Having decided to read something else by Greg Bear (after reading Dinosaur Summer), I chose The Forge of God.  I’ve read a number of post-apocalyptic science fiction stories, usually where humans are the cause of worldwide destruction. This is the first I can think of that I’ve read – from a sci-fi perspective anyway – about the time period before the end of the world.

It’s not humans who threaten to cause their own doom; aliens from some unknown place in the universe are the villains here. They send out machines that destroy planets, presumably to re-make them in a form more suited to the aliens. The science behind the means of the expected destruction is explained in some detail, though my knowledge of those areas of science isn’t enough to know how convincing the scenarios are.

What is of more interest to me is how different people react to the prospect of not only their own death but the end of humanity. Some want to fight back, even if they can’t change the ultimate outcome. Some turn to religion, convinced that the aliens are acting as agents of God’s judgment. Some try to squeeze in all the enjoyable experiences they can have before the end. Others seem overwhelmed by anger, fear, and or despair.

Hardly anyone just goes on with life as usual. Parents keep their children home from school. Businesses fail to deliver products on their normal schedules so stores run out of fresh food.

I can’t say how I would react if I knew for certain that the end was coming in the near future. But it has always made sense to me that one should live in such a way that, if one were to find out that death was coming soon, there would be no need to start living differently. I’m not saying I succeed in living up to that ideal, but I can’t think of major changes I think I would make if I found out I were dying (in a sense other than the way we all are).

Books: Gone Girl

Gone Girl was this month’s selection at the book club at our local library. My reactions as I read were something like this:

• After the first few chapters: I don’t find this very interesting; if it weren’t for the book club I don’t know if I’d keep reading.
• About halfway through: It’s gotten interesting, but I feel sullied being inside the minds of these characters.
• Most of the way through: I have to keep reading just to find out if any kind of justice is done at the end.
• When I finished: I am glad this is just fiction. I would feel awful for those people and any other lives they affect if they were real.

The various reactions of other readers at the book club discussion this evening were interesting.  One woman simply stopped reading because she didn’t like the foul language. Language like that wasn’t allowed in her home and she wasn’t going to let it fill her mind. Others echoed her distaste for the language but had finished the book anyway.

Most agreed that there were no really likable characters in the book. (Some though Nick’s sister Go was fairly likable, even if she was pretty messed up. I agreed with another woman that Nick’s mother was likable, but she didn’t play a major role in the story.)

One woman said she liked it just for how well it was written. I have to say that it is very skillfully written, deftly trapping the reader in a maze of lies and half-truths so that it’s hard to figure out what really happened and who – if anyone – is telling the truth. It’s certainly a prime example of how people mask their true selves by making themselves appear differently to people around them.

But I have a problem with the idea of getting tangled in their lives and thoughts just for the sake of entertainment. One of the reviews on the back cover calls it “delightfully poisonous.” I don’t find anything delightful about poison.

Another review accurately calls it a “masterful dissection of marital breakdown.” In this it reminds me of the movie The War of the Roses (though the stories are otherwise quite different). I simply can’t see the entertainment value in people destroying one another (and themselves).

No doubt one can take away valuable lessons about the destruction power of deceit, even when it is by failing to tell the truth rather than saying an outright lie. But there are plenty of more wholesome books with similar lessons.

There are obviously plenty of people who enjoy this book, and I can’t say they’re wrong to enjoy it. But unlike some of the other women in the book club, I don’t plan to try Flynn’s other novels.

Books: The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag

I enjoyed the previous Flavia DeLuce book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, but The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag is even better. The mysteries (again, a sudden death, probably a murder, and a possible connection to another death a long time ago) are well-crafted. The circumstances surrounding the deaths, as well as the characters and possible motives involved, are quite believable – whereas those in the first book required more “suspension of disbelief” in my opinion

One reader review at amazon.com finds it incongruous that Flavia would know how to test for pregnancy and for marijuana in her chemistry lab, yet not know what it meant to have an affair. If the story took place today, such a criticism would be valid, but I don’t have any trouble believing that a girl growing up in 1950′s England, apparently self-taught (there is no mention of either school or tutoring), would have that particular area of ignorance.What little knowledge of affairs she does have comes from novels, and writers did not go into details about the sex act as they often do today.