Friday, December 26, 2008

17. Twilight

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) Twilight by Stephenie Meyer


My review


rating: 3 of 5 stars
The last 150 pages of this novel earned 4.5 stars, the first 300 pages were pretty 2 stars.



Every time the main character describes the MV, (main vamp) its some trite description of his beautiful alabaster face. Makes you want to hurl after the 113th time.



I wouldn't have gotten to the good part, but I was stuck in an airport.


View all my reviews.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

16. Parable of the Sower

Parable of the Sower Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler


My review


rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow, this novel gave me nightmares for a week. Bleak future. Should be required reading for anyone who fantasizes about the post-industrial collapse.


View all my reviews.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

15. Adventure Cycle-Touring Handbook: A Worldwide Cycling Route & Planning Guide



This was a fun and partially useful book, although it concentrates more on bicycle touring in remote places. The first half of the book concentrates on finding a good bike for riding around the world and also getting the gear for camping out anywhere from the Himalayas to the Sonora Desert. And of course everywhere in between. The second half of the book is filled with brief report backs from different bicycle adventurers. This section is both filled with practical advice and inspiring stories as well as a few scary stories as well such as the traveller who had just been dropped off by a truck that had given him a lift and was waving goodbye to them when to his horror they unknowing waved back and ran over his bike. Ouch. Watch for that. Fun good, but there may be more practical books for cyclists who plan to stay in the US.

Monday, September 15, 2008

14: The Essential Touring Cyclist: A Complete Guide for the Bicycle Traveler



This is a good book to introduce you to Bicycle Touring. It has a really good chapter on training, with advice on building up enough weekly miles to comfortably bike a century (100 miles in a day) or start off on tour.

Also another chapter discussed the different types of touring. The simplest type is supported tours: where all you have to carry is a few bottles of water, your bike tools and a rain coat, and the rest of your luggage (usually a extra large duffel bag) is carted ahead on a van. The next step up is "credit card" touring where you bike from one motel or B&B to the next, carrying all of your clothes with you, but do not need to carry a tent or food or cooking equipment. Then the big one: fully supported touring where you carry everything on your bike: tent, sleeping bag, water, extra clothes, food, camp stove and pots. The author points out its not as rigorous as backpacking however, because you really only need to carry a days supply of food at a time and since your on the road its easy to resupply water and food a few times a day.

Another chapter covers the dangers and pitfalls of touring: weather, auto traffic, flat tires, broken spokes. And the final chapter covers travelling to your tour starting point via plane, train, or bus. And there is even a handy appendix with supported week long tours in different states. I found three intense week-long tours here in colorado.

A good resource for bicyclists who want to try out touring.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

13. Ishmael



a person answers a personal in a newspaper:
Teacher seeks pupil
must earnestly want to save the world
apply in person

When he arrives at the office, he finds an overstuffed chair, a bookshelf full of books and a lowland gorilla behind a wall of glass. That can communicate telepathically.

Ishmael is a philosophcal novel, in the form of a dialogue, between the teacher-gorilla Ishmael and the protagonist-student. Their topic is human culture. Specifically two opposing cultures. In our cultures parlance these are called primitive and civilized cultures, or hunter-gatherers versus farmers. Or in the more neutral terminology of the novel "takers" and "leavers". These two opposing forces are traced through out our culture, through stories in genesis. The story of Adam's fall and the story of the conflict between Cain and Abel.

Abel was a herder, and Cain was the new revolutionary culture, the new culture of Farming. This story is turned on its head to illustrate the conflict between traditional semitic nomadic cultures and the new farming cultures that were beginning to emerge out of the fertile crescent. The farmers grew their own food, were ablo to store it against the risk of drougtht and famine, were able to grow an excess of food with intensive agriculture, this led to an exploding population, as the population grew it pushed at the borders and the caucasian tribes swallowed the lands around them, all of the tribes around them, the Leavers either abandoned their hunter-gatherer/hearder ways and were assimilated by the farmers or they were exterminated, because to the Taker culture there was only one way to live: their way, farming. Any competitor, whether it be hunter-gatherers or predators such as wolves or foxes or competitors to their crops such as other plants, forests, etc must be exterminated. They clear cut the forest and the plains and plowed the soil and planted their crops: wheat, barley, corn, rice. and pulled up any "weeds" that grew on their land.

The Taker world-view is: The world was made for man to govern. Before he evolved the world was in chaos, it needed Man to come and order things. The other view, the Leaver view is: Man was made for the world. Just like the birds and the trees and the foxes and the whales. All of life will continue evolving, Man isn't the final end of the world: the reason the world was created.

Wow, this novel's affected me alot, I nearly cried at the end, and it wasn't overly sad. The story does an amazing job, turning our cultural stories on their head as a warning about our Taker culture, by the previous Leavers cultures. Higly Recommended!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

12. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep





Book 3 in my 60s Philip K Dick binge.

11. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch





Book 2 of my Philip K Dick 60s novels binge. I'll have to write the full review of this book later, another mind-bending story involving hallucinogens, shifting realities, religious epiphanies.

In the future the United Nations is colonizing distant planets and the moon. Only life in this colonies is lonely and dull, so the colonists spend their time and money taking the hallucinogenic drug Can-D and staring at "Perky Pat" doll-houses until they transform into Perky Pat or her boyfriend, who live back on Earth, go to the beach and have sex. This past time becomes a full-blown religion to the colonists with arguments over transubstantiation of the body into the Perky Pat layout, it also becomes big business and the Perky Pat Layout company hires pre-cogs to predict which fashion accessories will sell well on Mars. This all works well until the mysterious billionaire entrepreneur Palmer Eldritch suddenly returns to Earth from the distant star Proxima Centauri. Does he have a new religion/drug? How will it compete with Can-D?

Monday, July 14, 2008

10. Ubik by Philip K. Dick



Glen Runciter runs Terra's most successful prudence organization, a category of business designed to prevent pre-cogs and telepaths from reading your thoughts and future and gaining a business edge with your secrets. But business is bad: all of Runciter's main adversaries' talents are disappearing somewhere off-world and he has no idea where. So at the beginning of the story Runciter visits his wife Ella, who lives suspended in half-life or cold-pak storage a sort of limited-time limbo between life and death.

Philip K Dick has a way of starting his novels off with both wild ideas of the future and bland characters and then after he shifts the reality a couple times the characters suddenly go from poster board cut-outs to characters you care about. At the beginning this novel, with its rich boss and bumbling ever-broke employee, Joe Chip, reminded me of George Jetson and Mr Spacely of The Jetsons. But as the ideas of the novel took hold and the concepts, the crazy possibilities sank in I became entranced and my views about this world and life and death were called into question. The future world (of 1992) that Dick creates is one part Jetsons, with its rocket travel to Zurich and the Moon, chutes that drop you from the roof of your building to your office chair and Mortuaries that keep loved ones in "half-life" or suspended cryonic animation for monthly one hour visits; and on the other hand the future is one part distopia with pre-cogs that can see the future and telepaths that can read your thoughts and the worse of all, everything in the future is coin-operated! Your coffee maker, your refrigerator, and even your front door.

This book, first published in 1969, perfectly straddles the early PKDs obsession with the hard core sf ideas and concepts like telepathy, precognition, rocket travel, paranoia, shifting alternative realities with his later themes: life, death, the afterlife, gnosticism, things falling apart. Its a great book to introduce oneself to the amazing, mind-altering substance called Philip K. Dick. Highly Recommended.

Friday, July 11, 2008

9. Software by Rudy Rucker



A classic of the cyberpunk movement. A story about immortality, consciousness, the human soul, what makes us human, what makes us unique, our thoughts? or our physical existence? This whole book was a metaphysical trip, a trippy conversation over pot cookies.

I like any story where the robots are as sympathetic as the human characters, like Blade Runner, like the new Battlestar Galactica, like Star Trek's Data, like Aliens' Bishop. The robots, the boppers from this series while less polished, are just as compelling, and far more believable.

This novel was one of the fore-runners of the cyberpunk movement and its easy to see why. While rough around the edges (the writing can be a tad misogynistic and there is one nasty homophobic phrase that stopped me cold and reminded me this was written during Reagan's reign of terror and hatred) if taken with a grain of salt its a great story that stands with the best robot/human tales. In fact its inspired me to dust off my old nanpwrimo novel and rewrite it with robots. Viva la Boppers!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

8. Eragon

I'm generally not one for dragon books, oh who am I kidding my last review was of a Star Trek novel, but I loved this book! One night I sat up and read entranced until I suddenly noticed the time when a roommate came home: it was 3 am. The story lines and short chapters kept me turning the pages and at the end of each chapter saying "just one more."

This is a beautiful fantasy novel, with an addictive plot and fun if a bit stockish characters. Yes, the dwarves and the elves feel lifted out of Lord of the Rings, but that can be said from most fantasy novels. The true junkie test is that I want to immediately jump into Eldest the next book of the series as opposed to the Golden Compass series, which I enjoyed but wanted to take a break from.

Monday, June 23, 2008

7. Star Trek, The Dominion War: Book One

I started reading this book as a lark. After looking for some other books in the boxes and boxes of books we have stowed away, I found Books 1-3 of this series. Since we've just started watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine from the beginning of the series, I pulled these books out. (The Dominion War was the climactic story line of the DS9 series.) Then one night, a couple days ago as a lark I started reading book one ... and I was hooked. It was very well paced and well-plotted. The story revolves around what the Enterprise crew was doing during the Dominion War. There are four plot strands that the story switches back and forth between and they are all interesting. Ensign Ro, Data and Riker are the highlights for me.

I recommend the book for any Star Trek nerds. At night I found myself annoyed when my roommates wanted me to put down the book and watch an episode of Star Trek--even when the book was written after the TV episode, the book, in this case, is still more satisfying.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

6. Little Brother


I just finished this great new novel written by Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing fame. Its a story about what might happen to a high school hacker living in SF if a terrorist attack blew up the Golden Gate Bridge and the Department of Homeland Security declared martial law in the city.

I enjoyed the story immensely, it kept me up late last night turning pages. The technology that Marcus, the main character and hacker of the story, used was almost as interesting as the plot itself, which says alot. Some of the technologies used were: TOR, a tool that allows users to surf the web and email each other anonymously, RFID chip neutralizers, gait analyzers, (ie motion detection analysis that could supposedly identify people by their gait--this was neutralized by putting some pebbles in ones shoe.) and ParanoidLinux, a free linux distro with an intense emphasis on personal privacy and security.

There are instructables of how to use all of these technologies here and the book is available for free download here

Monday, May 26, 2008

5. Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook




This book is a survival guide with fun, simple recipes in the margins. It has chapters on saving water, growing your food, storing food, managing your waste, creating your own energy, alternative transportation, being prepared for emergencies, imagining sustainability. All with a breezy, conversational style.

The parts I liked about the book, were its emphasis on communitarianism, after all in an emergency situation or in a world of less food and work, you are going to need good neighbors. That's your most important asset, not your gun stash or your EMRs.

I did have a slight problem with the change your ride chapter, in which he spends the entire chapter writing about potentially better gas mileage and bio-fuels. Biofuels are not sustainable, even if you look past the idea of burning food in a car in a starving world, there's the fact that you are taking nutrients out of the soil to grow the corn and then never returning the nutrient via compost as you can when the corn is used as food. Oh, yeah and one more annoyance was all of the powdered milk in the recipes.

But the chapter on Utopia which deals with eco-villages, developing consensus and talking to the gun-nut-wannabe-warlords with a reference to the Seven Samurai more than make up for the ethanol name dropping.

But overall, I heartily enjoyed the book and will try some of the recipes (without the powdered milk).

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

currently reading

In Defense of Food
the Color of Magic
Little Brother
A Country Year
Twelve Wild Swans
Post-petrol Survival Guide and Cookbook

you see how this goes!?

4. In Defense of Food



Okay, I haven't finished this one yet, but I had to jot down a couple of notes, because I love it so much. This book is an expanded article that Pollan wrote for the NYT review last year. I remember reading that article and being captivated. The advice begins simple and gets just a bit more involved and developed.


Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.


The premise behind the book is that American cuisine has become hijacked by Nutritionists who have clumbsily broken down food into its nutritional components: protein, carbs, fat, and taken all pleasure and real health out of eating. So when you see a loaf of bread the thing you see is "Low-Carb" or "Low-fat" or you look at the Nutritional breakdown. The nutritionists break down food into the "essentials" and then have this strange manichean view, where protein is "good" and fat is "bad". Eventhough we require fat to survive. Pollan gives an example where a group of people are asked what is healthier a diet with no fat or a diet with just a pinch of fat, and a third respond that the no fat diet is healthier.

More to come...

3. the Golden Compass



I really enjoyed this book and especially the idea of the avatars. That concept caught my imagination like the patronus in Harry Potter. I want to know what my avatar would look like. What a great idea, the avatar, a constant companion, a piece of your soul, a physical representation of the internal dialogue that we have in our heads.

I have to admit that I could probably do with re-reading this novel, I have a tendency to stop and start books and read 2 or 3 at a time, and the way the plot of the story unfolded, I kept thinking, oh that's what that was about and wanting to go back and re-read parts with the new knowledge. Every part of this novel was so beautifully described and thought out. I really loved it.

One of my qualms about the books was the portrayal of the rivalry of Iorek and Iofur. It seemed pretty much a pitting the patriarchal Iorek vs the Fey values of Iofur, in a bad guy=evil fey vs good guy=tough authentic patriarch. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

Other than that, I loved the witches flying around holding their twig of the magic tree, I also loved the urban legend-esque slang of the names for the "Gobblers".

2. Wyrd Sisters


I finished this book last week. It was a lot of fun. I loved the character of Esme Weatherwax, who was a mean old witch and unapologetic about it. And also her conflict with Gytha Ogg, who was the partying dirty-minded wise woman, and Greebo her evil cat. And Magrat, the young sterotypical new age witch, hit a little close to home. Great characters. The fool, and the fool bureaucracy that made being a court jester the most serious and gray flannel suited career imaginable. And the dwarf playwright. I loved the characters. A fun ride.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Booking Drifting

I guess its time I admit that I am more a book drifter than a book reader. What books have I drifted to recently? I'm reading the Golden Compass, which is fun, Getting Things Done which is more informative than fun, Evolutionary Witchcraft by T Thorn Coyle, which is good. Oh and a really good book: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology by David Graeber.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

1. The 5 Lessons: a millionaire taught me

I like this book, it had a few weaknesses, but made up for it with good simple rules to live by. What are the Five rules:

1. Decide to be wealthy... as in write this downon a piece of paper: "Today I decide to be wealthy", and read it to yourself when you wake up each morning. (Okay lame rule, but Evans says that if you follow rules 2-5 you automatically pass rule 1 and don't have to follow the daily affirmations.)

2. Take responsibilty for your money. This means know: A. what your net worth is, B. know how much money you have coming in. C. Know how much money is going out. D. Know what your money is doing. (keep personal track of your investments.)

3. Keep a portion of everything you earn. Pay yourself first. This means out of each paycheck put at least 10% of gross in to savings, or a mutual fund. The power of compound interest, he has many charts to show if you put 10-20% of your income away and it earns 10% interest you too can become a millionaire in 25 years. (Ah, but don't forget rule 5... coming up.)

4. Win in the Margins uhh, maybe I should reread this part, I'm sure it meant more than take side jobs.

5. Give back Evans is a strong proponent of tithing 10% of your income. Which wasn't one of the saving graces of the book.


My first officially finished book of 2008. It takes a couple hours to read and can give back all your life. I will definitely follow rules 2,3, and 5, lets hope that will at least improve the finances.

Friday, January 18, 2008

30 Books: a blog, a goal, a resolution

I've decided that, among other things, one of my goals for 2008 is to read AND review 30 books. So hear is the blog where I will post reviews and my progress. Whoo hoo!

currently reading:
Getting Things Done
the Te of Piglet (kind of annoyed with Hoff's anti-Eeyore rants)
the Last of the Wine (I've read this before a long time ago and loved it.)
Upgrading and Repairing PC's (my co-worker Jiah says this doesn't count cuz its a reference book.