Book 1: Freakonomics

Freakonomics
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Yes, yes, I'm alive and reading, if only just barely. I begin this year, my third blogging my books, with Freakonomics, and interesting anecdotal book that attempts to alter thinking about economics and the world in general. While it basically does accomplish this task, the whole idea of "Freakonomics" works much better in its popular blog format rather than in its original print incarnation. Because the book doesn't make an argument and is admittedly only a collection of interesting ideas and research, its scope is limited and it doesn't lend itself well to re-reading. The premise of Freakonomics is rather interesting, but the book itself becomes almost unbearable in parts with its self-aggrandizing sense of importance. Yes, rethinking the world in a very practical and sensible way is quite interesting and very well could change the world, but Freakonomics isn't an ideological savior or even a particularly novel approach- what it is is an economist's practicality mixed with an artist's curiosity and the down-to-Earth factual results that can emerge when mixing the two.

On this level, Freakonomics is wildly successful. The sections dispelling popular parenting myths were particularly interesting because they take our spoon-fed conventional wisdom and turn it right on its head, leading me to create my own thesis that if something is conventionally understood to be true, it stands a rather good chance of being just the opposite of what it appears to be. The accounts of different myths and hypothoses tested (though the book isn't devoted entirely to myth busting, it does its fair share) are compelling and fascinating and seem to be thoroughly researched. There are plenty of disclaimers and much pointed criticism of inaccurate data reports; though of course I cannot claim to test the claims made in this book, they were obviously constructed and tested through rigorous levels of skeptical thinking and rethinking.

On a more basic level, perhaps, the book is written fairly simply and doesn't overly condescend to those not familiar with economics. The book does, however, take a rather congratulatory stance on its headliner: each chapter begins with a glowing review of Levitt's work from the New York Times and the introduction is ridiculous at best. Though Freakonomics is not a run-of-the-mill dry economic treatise, it does work out especially well for Levitt and paints him and his theory in the best of lights, an approach that always needs to be treated with several large grains of salt, but at its core the book does seem to foster intelligent discussion and, above all, elaborate questioning of the familiar. Freakonomics is a worthwhile book, but definitely one to get from the library as its information is relatively straightforward. Even if you aren't initially intrigued by the book, a look at the blog will pique interest somehow and introduce liberal artsy people like me to the human side of mundane math.

Grade: A-

2007 Year in Review

Here are the 66 books I've read this year:

Michael Alexander Beowulf
Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms
Neil D. Isaacs Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front
H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds
Isaac Asimov I, Robot
Pat Barker Regeneration
Wolfgang Benz A Concise History of the Third Reich
Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles
Marion Zimmer Bradley The Mists of Avalon
Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything
Italo Calvino Cosmicomics
Karel --apek War with the Newts
J.L. Carr A Month in the Country
Arthur C. Clarke Childhood's End
George Coppard With a Machine Gun to Cambrai
Phillip K. Dick Ubik
Laura Esquivel Like Water for Chocolate
Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides The Virgin Suicides
Hans Fallada Little Man, What Now?
Susan Faludi Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
Peter Fritzsche Germans Into Nazis
Rupert Gethin The Foundations of Buddhism
Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
E.T.A. Hoffmann Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann
Michael Howard The First World War
Washington Irving The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle
P.D. James The Children of Men
Norton Juster The Phantom Tollbooth
Laurie R. King The Art of Detection
Ruth Kluger Still Alive
Ursula K. Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness
Jean-Yves Le Naour The Living Unknown Soldier
Stanislaw Lem The Futurological Congress
Vicki Mackenzie Why Buddhism? Westerners in Search of Wisdom
Gregory Maguire Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Frederic Manning Her Privates We
Ian McEwan Atonement
Ian McEwan Saturday
Walter M. Miller, Jr. A Canticle for Leibowitz
Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind
Alice Munro Open Secrets
Joyce Carol Oates I Am No One You Know
Marge Piercy Woman on the Edge of Time
Alain Robbe-Grillet The Erasers
J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
William Shakespeare Henry IV, Part One
Mary Shelley Frankenstein
Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene: Book One
Ellyn Spragins What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self
Olaf Stapledon Star Maker
Patrick Süskind Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Justin Taylor The Apocalypse Reader
J.R.R. Tolkien The Tolkien Reader
H.G. Wells The Invisible Man
H.G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau
H.G. Wells The Time Machine
Yevgeny Zamyatin We

Some of the best were The Martian Chronicles, The Mists of Avalon, Cosmicomics, War with the Newts, and The Phantom Tollbooth. A few were disappointing, but considering that I basically discovered science fiction this year, I'm very excited for the future.

Book 66: Saturday

Saturday
Ian McEwan

I had read about this book as an intricate study of the spectacular and mundane events that can be contained within a single day's time; unfortunately, I was also expecting a superb companion to Atonement, McEwan's masterpiece and literary meditation. While Saturday does have its merits and definitely displays a fascinating array of fine prose, it fails to live up to McEwan's other work and drags its feet far too much in the mundane to truly captivate readers. The premise itself is at once simple and complex; McEwan has carefully chosen his protagonist and draws him with astonishing clarity. Because the book possesses an extremely unsteady characterization-to-plot ratio, readers know Henry Perowne thoroughly before he actually does anything and, consequently, can guess at much of the plot and much of his revelations. It is here where the book begins to go slightly awry.

Perowne may be incessantly drawn out, with his thoughts exposed page in and page out, but he isn't particularly sympathetic. He is kind of a jerk, actually, and takes advantage of bourgeois medical training, compromising an already compromised man. Though he (rightfully) has doubts, his so-called concessions are slight and are condescending. Throughout the book, Henry (and McEwan) tries to mask the fact that he isn't particularly interesting, nor particularly kind or caring. Sure, he is an excellent family man, but he lacks basic sympathy. While he is not particularly vile and it is interesting to be exposed to a normal character, the depth with which Henry is presented isn't justified by Henry. He simply isn't that interesting, and the long, unnecessarily drawn out passages in which he gets lost in his daydreams are particularly uninspiring. Instead of presenting an interesting character study on the modern British everyman, McEwan settles for an absolute dullard, proving perhaps that life is boring and mundane but making for an uninteresting novel.

The plot, while contrived, is intriguing and comes in just in time to rescue the reader. I do not give up on books and I was damn determined to finish this one today, but I was lost in the quagmire and was about ready to give up when the climax came, about fifty pages too early. Instead of building suspence up to a palpable crescendo, McEwan introduces a twisting, terrifying plot element only to completely abandon it until it sneaks up on the reader again, after a midsection of utter malaise.

It isn't that McEwan is a bad, or even boring, writer. Atonement too had its long passages of reflection and suffered from a lack of concrete plot. What sets Saturday apart is its concentration on a subject that does not warrant the scope of a novel. Maybe the book does accurately detail a spectacular day in a mundane life; even when extraordinary things happen, they usually occupy only an hour or two at a time, at most. The problem is that McEwan's insights and daydreams, while vividly imagined in stunningly crafed prose, cannot alone sustain the book's 290 pages. McEwan is undoubtedly gifted, and enough of his talent shines through to make me want to read his other books, but, in the end, Saturday succeeds mostly as an argument for exaggeration and hyperbole in literature. As a meditation on the mundane, it is excellent, but that doesn't make it a particularly thrilling read.

Grade: B

Book 65: Woman on the Edge of Time

Woman on the Edge of Time
Marge Piercy

If I were pressed to describe Piercy as an author in only one word, few contenders would come even remotely close to "unapologetic". Woman on the Edge of Time is a pointed satirical utopian criticism of modern America. Written in the 1970s, what makes the book even more biting is the fact that little seems to have improved for those stuck in the same plight as Connie. Indeed, for some of the poor and some with mental disorders, society's inevitable need and desire to control everything has probably worsened things. The fact that Piercy can draw such fierce attention to these issues within the context of a highly readable (if not entirely enjoyable) novel without always being overly preachy is quite the accomplishment. The book has its moments when the feminist itch overwhelms the plot, but such steadfastness is appreciated within the all-or-nothing framework of the book. Connie is playing for the highest stakes, and Piercy makes it clear that her fight transcends her personal struggle and must be taken up by society.

The book itself is quite an interesting construction. Beginning in hard-set, grim reality, the first chapters will no doubt scare some readers with their bluntness and excessive violence. While this may be a drawback, the novel's grittiness is necessary for it to pull off its theme; Piercy holds nothing back at any point and crafts a strong novel with strong situations for her readers to react to. Piercy does this for a very distinct reason: when Connie begins time-traveling to the peaceful and completely communal Mattapoisett, the contrast between dirty modernity and utopian vision becomes even more pronounced and effective. Though it is uncertain whether Connie is indeed hallucinating or traveling to the future, the book seamlessly weaves visions of the future in with Connie's hospitalized present in various hospital wards. Mattapoisett is at first disorienting, but the quick jumps between times fit the novel thematically and contribute to an overall sense of potential achievability.

Piercy is a bit headstrong in her criticisms, and many times the reader screams, "Okay, I get it!" The book definitely does not revel in subtlety, but the alternate future(s) it creates have stunning vitality and are imagined with such force that they seem to be staring us down as we read the book. Piercy plays for all the marbles and, for the most part, wins, though her visions are a bit too utopian to ever seem a feasible future reality. The book's violent urgency thus acts as both an asset and defect; while it gives the story and Connie power, a little more restraint may have made the book more powerful and less of a rant. There are passages that seem more fit for DailyKos than for my fantastic literature class, but the book definitely has merit and its fire drives it along.

Connie herself is also vividly imagined and, crazy or not, immediately draws and demands the sympathy of the reader. She is the only aspect of the book that is faithfully exaggerated. Though she is a very strong and unique character, she is consistent and leaps off of the page into hard reality. By the book's end, we feel as though we know Connie far better than the doctors or other patients of the hospital wards. Sympathy for Connie's plight holds the book together during its flirtations with over-eagerness, and the novel hangs together through her consistency and the reader's resultant empathy.

Because of this vivid portrayal of a realistic woman, the book's final chapter (a detailed and "scientific" rundown of Connie's treatment, as seen by her doctors) really hits home and asks for change more than the most overt feminist calls to action. As the book closes, we see Connie as the doctors do and are forced to ask ourselves whether she is, in fact crazy. Doubting her, of course, opens the can of worms about mental illness and the way we treat women, ethnic minorities, and the poor in this country. Piercy seems at last to realize the virtue of subtlety and, in these final two or three pages, nails the message completely. Woman on the Edge of Time may be a very blunt object hitting you directly over the head with its radical ideology, but Marge Piercy carefully constructs a narrative that embodies the very need for her utopian vision, persuading the reader through careful fiction that there is merit in Mattapoisett.

Grade: A

Book 64: Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate
Laura Esquivel

Reading this book makes the movie make so much more sense! What at first seems to be nonsense and and unnecessary grandiose parade of circus-like events turns out to be a strong dose of realism and intense emotions in the original literary incarnation. Esquivel looks at life in a surprsingly new light: through food. Though my own family is connected through food in many ways, never had it occured to me that a novel could be told through recipes and their impact on the main characters. Esquivel has tapped into something very fundamental to human relations and excels in establishing and exploring the important impact that food and recipes have on lives. Forever tortured by her mother, Tita's only escape is the kitchen, and the fact that her story is told via food not only makes sense but is the cement that holds the otherwise overly-dramatic novel together.

Esquivel's decision to separate the book by months of the year, each with an accompanying recipe, does not make much sense and can distract from the story at large. Had she let the recipes do the talking, or aligned the chapters and the plot better (the first chapter, January, takes place in December), the book would have been much stronger and much more coherent. The recipes that are included are brilliantly intertwined with events in the book, with instructions coming between bouts of plot without disrupting the flow of the book. Like Water for Chocolate is definitely a structural achievement: easy to read and forcing the reader to reconsider a traditional form (the recipe book), this book takes thematic and structural integration to the next level.

Where Esquivel trips up a bit is in the plot. While the magical realism connected to food is appreciated and in fact enhances the book, other supernatural events seem tacky and distract from the overall theme of the novel. The appearances of the ghosts in the text could be presented more spiritually than realistically and still accomplish their intended function as reminders of years past. What the book does not do, however, is compromise for the mere sake of a happy ending. Tita's continual despair does take a toll on the reader, but is mitigated by the fact that she is perpetually weak and whiny, as is her lover. The book's dearth of positive characters takes a toll after a while and makes the reading experience quite depressing and somewhat grating; there is only one likable main character and they get completely screwed over. Esquivel offers what is perhaps a truer vision of life and circumstances, but it doesn't hurt to have sympathetic characters once in a while.

Like Water for Chocolate operates on two different levels. The writing is simple and clear, with a realistic storyline that digresses in one or two too many places to really resonate with the reader. The overall plot itself is not necessarily thematic, but the novel's deeper intention of revealing the importance of food to familial ties and human relations shines. It is here that the magical realism really comes through and does a great job of elucidating and providing theme. Esquivel taps into the deepest recesses of human nature and succeeds in presenting an argument for the importance of food, using fantastic elements in a carefully balanced manner. It is just unfortunate that the novel reaches a bit beyond Esquivel's abilities and tries to be universal on more than one level. The book is definitely worth reading (and I want to try some of its recipes), but don't be surprised if there are moments of frustration at Esquivel's excessive symbolism and complications.

Grade: B

Book 63: Henry IV, Part One

Henry IV, Part One
William Shakespeare

Ah, Shakespeare. We all knew I would get around to the Bard eventually, didn't we? Henry IV, Part One is a good example of why and how Shakespeare has achieved his mighty reputation. The play is enjoyable enough but displays a sense of epic self-consciousness that still resonates and, at times, clogs the narrative. As for the story itself, it is important to England's history and the preservation of its memory, but actual plot elements are few and far between. The very vague connection between Falstaff's scenes in various taverns (complete with lol-heavy slapstick fat jokes) and the important parts of the play is slightly annoying, as Falstaff comes across as unnecessary. Shakespeare does utilize a rather hilarious web of entanglement for his thieves, and his comic wit is sharp when dealing with Prince Hal's and Falstaff's role-playing, but this second story just doesn't seem to have a place in the grand histories of kings and rebellions.

Shakespeare definitely has a flair for the dramatic (ahem), but, as usual, this gets to be a little too much at times, as eloquent speech overwhelms the reader and clouds any sense of what is actually happening. I believe that Shakespeare is well-suited to his form, and that such diversions may work out well on the stage, but on paper alone they are less than fully satisfying. What Shakespeare has done, however, is created an interesting and vibrant picture of what could have been just another rebellion in the olde days of yore. His language is excessively elegent, but part of the play's difficulty lies in the fact that there is a huge gap between Shakespeare's English and our own. Henry IV, Part One seems remarkably modern at times, and as for the haughty language, we are dealing with kings of a bygone era. Henry IV, Part One isn't necessarily a book suitable for a trip to the beach or a vacation time-killer, but it is certainly interesting for the glimpses it offers us of the eras of its setting and composition.

Grade: B+

Book 62: Cosmicomics

Cosmicomics
Italo Calvino

Finally, a collection of short stories that is entirely cohesive and where one can help boost understanding of the others. Not quite a collection of disparate stories and not quite a composite novel, Cosmicomics masters the short story and sets an impeccable gold standard for collections of short fiction. The stories of Cosmicomics are not only linked together by a common narrator or by recurring themes (such as lost love), but by unquantifiable characteristics that, taken together, provide a view of the macro- and microcosms of the universe unparalleled by science or, almost certainly, by any work of fiction. Calvino seeks not to define the universe, but to make scientific facts come alive in the adventures and lives of vividly defined existential beings. In doing so, he brilliantly weaves together the vast infinity of space and the minute emotional twinges we humans feel.

Taking on the entire universe and grappling with such concepts as galactic recession and the Big Bang is no small feat, but Calvino suceeds in every conceivable manner. His narrator, Qfwfq, is vividly imagined and consistent even though he exists outside of space and time. At different points he is human, dinosaur, interstellar being, and microscopic atom; though he changes within stories, he is always himself somehow. Instead of creating a cop-out character who could be anything the author needs at a given moment, Calvino works with the fabric of the universe and makes believable a constant in the broadest sense of the term. Qfwfq's consistent resemblance to humanity throughout (and perhaps despite) his many forms brings the universe down to our level and makes the scientific facts preceding each story come alive. We are reassured that humanity has fundamental characteristics that permeate the entirety of time, making our short stay on Earth relevant and part of the vast plan of the cosmos.

Cosmicomics is far from a haughty sermon on human relevance and the insignificance of individual lives. Calvino takes the largest of distances and times and humanizes them with unparalleled skill and literary dexterity. The stories in this book are all gripping and all achieve exactly what they mean to. Some are a bit stronger than others, but all are miles ahead of their time. While drawing inspiration from the cutting edge of science, Calvino manages some astonishing predictions and observations that cut right into the computer age. His imagination of a world of relativity, comprised entirely of signs and marks of one's existence, comes thirty years before the Internet and forty before Second Life, which is all but described in "A Sign in Space". Despite Calvino's use of the science of the Sixties, the book is fresh and modern even decades after its publication.

Calvino masters both scope and depth in Cosmicomics, taking on everything with a distinctly human perspective and making science relevant and within the grasp of any ordinary reader. I also imagine that these stories would be well-received in the scientific community, adding an interesting and often humorous perspective on the often dry annals of science. Cosmicomics takes the mind-boggling and brings it down to size without losing any of its grand expanse. The stories each imagine a distinctly human universe that is comforting and familiar, insisting that we are important and part of something much, much bigger than ourselves. Even more astounding is that this is managed without a hint of pride, but rather with only the phenomenal reach of Italo Calvino's vivid imagination.

Grade: A

Book 61: The Apocalypse Reader

The Apocalypse Reader
Edited by Justin Taylor

The premise of apocalypse promises to create interesting, if not always excellent, stories, and this collection offers up quite a few worth the time. Taken together, however, the collection feels patchy in parts and has stories that vary from excellent to bizarre and annoyingly postmodern. While I understand Taylor's insistence on collecting stories that focus not only on the Apocalypse as we commonly think of it but also on minor apocalypses such as the loss of a child , I think that his collection suffers from a lack of coherency because of the variance of apocalypse in the stories. If they were grouped more thematically, it may have been easier to track the point of the more indecipherable stories, but the collection is as it stands and can become a bit confusing.

The stories themselves vary incredibly in their quality. There are some by new authors that are stunning and weave in new and fresh methods with stunning success. There are others, however, that seem to relish their art to the point where there really is no story and nothing to grasp onto. I cannot get a firm grasp on Taylor's criteria for inclusion; the stories are so wildly inconsistent that the book is really only useful for finding the gems, a feat that can be easily accomplished within the span of a library loan. Taylor has put together an interesting attempt, but ultimately the collection fails to hold together and captivate the reader the way apocalyptic literature should.

Grade: B

Book 60: The Faerie Queene, Book 1

The Faerie Queene, Book 1
Edmund Spenser

I am not an academic. I enjoy old literature and consider myself to have a fleeting but passable familiarization with Middle English as a language. I can more or less comfortably read Chaucer and, with some well-placed glosses and footnotes, can fully understand Shakespeare. Where I falter, however, is with Spenser's deliberately overworked poetry. Over-archaized verse that flaunts its superior morality while commiting hypocrisy at every turn, The Faerie Queene is not to be read by those outside of the know. In fact, even those studying it for a conceivable purpose would probably do better with more interesting and feasible works from the era. If this is England's national epic, I'll go to France or Germany- at least I can understand them in translation. Spenser's work is impossible to enjoy and can only be understood with the help of a personal tutor, extensive footnotes, and a doctorate-level understanding of Greek mythology and the history of England.

I hesitate to be so cruel toward Spenser, but I cannot imagine he was much easier to read in his own day. In fact, because we have the benefit of context and scholarship, it may be easier to read Spenser now. Spenser's use of Spenserian (oho!) verse does not propel the story forward or give it the gravity he intends; rather, it creates a forced metrical feel and an utterly painful rhyme scheme that screw up the syntax to a point where it is impossible to discern what is going on at any point in the story. Characters will start dialogues without being properly introduced, point of view will shift dramatically, and names change left and right without explanation. This story requires a map.

In itself, the tale is mainly flawed by its complexity. If Spenser spent more time creating interesting literature and less trying to fluff himself and his image I'm sure he would have created a worthwhile allegory. When the story is focused on itself and not on obscure Greek name-dropping it gets quite interesting. The caveat, of course, is the fact that the virtue of Holinesse can belong to both Catholics and Protestants throughout the story (it is supposed to settle on the latter) and that magic is either evil (Catholic) or good (Protestant) on Spenser's whim. He won't win over any converts with his hole-ridden plot, but he gives it a good whack anyway. Spenser does go a bit overboard by naming characters directly after each vice and virtue encountered, but this fits right in with his grandiose stylization and merely reinforces the reader's notion that Spenser is a man utterly full of himself.

The main fault of The Faerie Queene is that its author doesn't trust its message to speak for itself. Instead, Spenser employs far too much grandstanding for far too little actual substance. He undermines any argument he may have in the process and makes himself look silly instead of academic and/or intelligent. Reading this book is an excruciatingly bad experience that I would recommend avoiding if at all possible. I want to be well-read in English literature, but I don't like having my time blatantly wasted and, indeed, stolen by a hoard of academics who are willing to pry Spenser apart. There is no joy in Faery Lond for the common reader.

Grade: C

Book 59: The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth
Norman Juster

Call it children's literature, call it silly, call it what you want: this book is simply amazing, hands down. The Phantom Tollbooth may have primarily children in mind, and it is an excellent story for them, make no mistake, but any linguistically-minded adult can (and should) have a field day with this book. Packed cover to cover with clever puns and jokes that constantly poke fun at the silliness of idiomatic English. Sure, this book may be advertised for children, but it almost takes a full-blown English major to fully understand and appreciate Juster's neverending wit and powerful insights.

One of the reasons the book succeeds so brilliantly is that its main character, Milo, is stuck in the kind of malaise we all encounter at some point; all he wants to do is whatever, and he is able to discover the power of language to define and change the world around him. The book is didactic, but not overpowering in its morality, and its deepest levels of direction are only carefully pried apart deliberately. The book is far from a lesson in morality and instead attempts (successfully, I think) to immerse the reader in the magical world of words and numbers, the world of knowledge that continually opens doors and creates new paths in the midst of utmost boredom.

The book's way with words is nothing short of amazing. Every other sentence is a pun, but these are not the groan-inducing jokes you'd expect. The puns in this book all serve a purpose and all have mulitple levels of meaning that enhance both the text and our everyday language. We learn, as Milo does, that the power of language is the power to connect to unknown depths in our own minds. Norton Juster has created a hilarious romp through a world of seeming contradictions and dream-like creatures of fantasy and readers of all ages should be able to delight and revel in the joys of taking things literally. The Phantom Tollbooth is one exciting linguistic revelation after another that should prod serious thinking and pure enjoyment. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Grade: A