These are the books I read between the end of exams last spring and the first day of classes last week. Enjoy:

1. Falling Man – Don DeLillo
2. Fallen Dragon – Peter F. Hamilton
3. In the Wake of the Plague – Norman F. Cantor
4. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
5. Old House of Fear – Russell Kirk
6. The Everlasting Man – G.K. Chesterton
7. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien
9. A Humane Economy – Wilhelm Roepke
10. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq – Thomas E. Ricks
11. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
12. Confessions – St. Augustine
13. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – J.K. Rowling
14. Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs – Chuck Klosterman
15. What’s Wrong With the World – G.K. Chesterton
16. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
17. IV – Chuck Klosterman
18. Children of the Mind – Orson Scott Card

Labels: Books

Posted by Ryan S. at 3:07 PM | Permalink | |

Alright. I admit it. I like Harry Potter. A lot. I started reading them in 1999 when the paperback of the first book came out. Being an avid reader, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I was immediately hooked.

Since then, I've read every book, though only once (I think). I've also seen three of the five movies. I saw the Sorceror's Stone in the theaters and hated it. I skipped the second one entirely, saw The Prisoner of Azkaban on DVD purely because the trailer for the Goblet of Fire movie looked so good. I have yet to see Order of the Pheonix movie, but I'll get around to it.

In the buildup to the last book, I had largely become ambivalent to the series as a whole. Though I was delighted by the GOF movie, the Half-Blood Prince had left me cold. I can't pin down why exactly, but it did. So the run up to this book felt almost like an obligation (I had the same feeling for Revenge of the Sith, but was pleasently surprised). I was going to read it because I owed it to the series to finish it. Fine.

Now however, I am just excited. I think one of the reasons that these books have enchanted readers is because they are told unpretentiously, and without an obvious moral lesson to the whole series. There are moral lessons throughout, but they aren't the end.

It captures the imagination because well, it is like Star Wars. Think about it! Young kid finds out he has mysterious powers and goes under the instruction of an accomplished old British actor to wage a battle between Good and Evil.

Even Barack Obama gets in on the act:

"The challenge will be scheduling Harry Potter reading time in between Iowa and New Hampshire and fundraising, but I guarantee you they will figure out a way to do it," Michelle Obama told the AP. "Harry Potter is huge in our house."

Anyway, it is good to read for enjoyment, and I shall do just that once I get my pre-ordered copy from Borders.

In case you were wondering:
Favorite Book/Movie: Prisoner of Azkaban
Favorite Characters: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Snape

Labels: Books, Movies

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:36 AM | Permalink | |

This is a book review, but I’m going to use it as a platform to discuss the main topic of the book, the American military adventure in Iraq. Within Fiasco, author Thomas E. Ricks paints a narrative of Operation Iraqi Freedom from before 9-11 until about a year ago. Unlike Woodward’s efforts, this is a very military focused narrative, which helps substantially once OIF gets underway.

I’ve read both Woodward’s Plan of Attack and Paul Bremer’s My Year in Iraq, but I feel that this book and the Iraq Study Group Report are the only two bits of essential reading on the subject, though Woodward and Bremer’s books help give this one perspective. The only area of conflict between Fiasco and Bremer’s account is in dealing with Order No. 1 (De-Baathification) but it isn’t a large enough to warrant discount either work, and Bremer does provide a lot more elaboration as to why were given the exaggerated numbers of trained Iraqis by the Administration (my review of Bremer’s book here).

If Ricks has a political agenda he’s pursuing in the book, I couldn’t find it. The book is very fair, and he seems about as neutral as anyone could be expected to be vis-à-vis the Bush Administration. He does not accuse the Administration of lying us into this war, but he doesn’t give them a pass on anything. What investigative journalism should be.

Ricks explores the relationship between Rumsfeld’s office (OSD) and the Army, which was strenuous at best. Going to war with a an Army and military bureaucracy mad at each other is a really bad idea.

One thing that stood out for me was the planning of Phase IV, i.e. “what happens when we get to Baghdad.” There was some planning done, no one was in charge of it, and the duty was shuffled back and forth between OSD and CENTCOMM for far too long.

However, Ricks gives a phrase to a concept that I haven’t come up with a better name for. To paraphrase, America fought the war it wanted to, not the war it faced. The main facet of this would be that the Army’s endgame seemed to be the fall of Baghdad, while ignoring other problems along the way.

There were major problems with the American attitude post-fall of Baghdad, including holing up in palaces rather than living among the people. By not being prepared for an insurgency, we neglected the beginnings of one, and squandered most, if not all of the goodwill we earned by toppling Saddam.

Then, after the insurgency was underway, the Army was fighting insurgents rather than fighting the insurgency. This lapse of thinking is a lesson we could have taken from the few bright spots in Iraq, Petraeus’ 101^st Airborne, Gen. Mattis of the 1^st Marine Division, and the Marine Corps on the whole, who were determined not to follow the Army into mistakes.

Given that Petraeus seems to understand the nature of the enemy we’re fighting better than any other commander in the US military, having him in charge is a big positive sign for the future of Iraq, assuming Washington doesn’t pull the plug.

In fact, this may be the case, as the BBC is concluding that the “surge” (and more importantly, the change in strategy and tactics that came with it) is working:

According to BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, the debate is moving so fast in Washington that Gen Petraeus's efforts, which might have saved the day for the Bush administration if they had been introduced three, or even two, years ago, may well have come too late.

Read the whole BBC article, which is largely an interview with Patraeus. Sadly, he has to play two to three years of catch up. I hope that this isn’t too little too late, and that those in Washington pay close attention to what is going on in Iraq.

Overall, I highly recommend Fiasco, and I will note that the paperback editioncomes out soon.

Labels: Book Review, Books, Iraq

Posted by Ryan S. at 8:00 PM | Permalink | |

Two days ago was the Heinlein Centennial, a major event across the Sci-Fi/Space portion of the Internet. Heinlein wasn't just a novelist, like many Sci-Fi writers, he was an idea man too, laying out a possible future that either prescribed what we should be striving for, or trying to avoid.

Heinlein had a lot to say about the future of spaceflight, and Glenn Reynolds has been keeping tabs on that.

John Scalzi, one of this blogger's favorite sci-fi authors, has some nice words to say about the official Centennial dinner he attended.

As for myself, I'd just like to say that Starship Troopers is an amazing work, and while it basically defines the sub-genre known as military sci-fi, the reason that it has been able to hold such high esteem is that the book is about more than a bunch of saps sent to foreign worlds to shoot bugs. It is about a society, and how members of that society handles the situation they're thrown into.

While some have derided the Troopers Earth as fascist, I think that is a gross mischaracterization. The society of Troopers is very free, as military service is completely voluntary, and it is contrasted to a sort of ultimate communism, the hive mind of the bugs.

To date, the only other Heinlein work I have read is The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which I also recommend highly. It depicts a libertarian revolution on the moon. It's a fascinating work, and getting adjusted to Loonie (people who live on the moon) slang that Heinlein uses throughout, but very rewarding. I now wonder frequently whether catapulting things from the moon to Earth would work (I have my suspicions it could).

And though I mentioned that it depicts a libertarian revolution, the theme is really that people matter much more than institutions, and that they deserve freedom. I think that's a sound message no matter your political persuasion.

Labels: Books, Scalzi, Sci-Fi

Posted by Ryan S. at 7:42 PM | Permalink | |

The album with that may have the longest name in rock history, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, is now a book. It is part of the "33 1/3" series, now comprising over 40 volumes, with more on the way. Each volume is about an album, with musical acts far ranging from The Band to The Beastie Boys. The series caught my eye in the bookstore recently because of the nice covers, and because Borders had a nice endcap in the music section featuring several of the books.

This particular volume, about the Ray Davies-led 1968 effort The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, is written by Andy Miller (many different authors have contributed to the series thus far). Seeing is how there wasn't one about Rush, I immediately picked up the one about The Kinks, one of the most underrated bands of the British Invasion.

TKATVGPS is a wonderful album, and being born almost 20 years after its initial release I was completely unaware is was a flop upon release. Miller's volume sheds light on the creation of the album, the recording sessions, and the relationship of the band to the album's material.

It tops out at 150 pages, and it's about six inches high, so it's a nice little volume. It doesn't, however, go into the meaning of the lyrics as much as I'd like, but I think that's a point of personal preference.

Overall, this volume of the 33 1/3 series is pretty well written, and a great gateway to understanding a great album. My only reservation is that the cover price on these is about $10. A couple dollars off of that and I'd be quick to buy several more.

If they have one about an album you're especially fond of, pick t up. This is a very cool series of books, and I hope it continues long into the future (or at least until they make one about Rush!).

Related:

• The 33 1/3 Blog
• Books #1-40
• Books #41+

Labels: Book Review, Books, Music

Posted by Ryan S. at 8:32 PM | Permalink | |

I reviewed Falling Man by Don DeLillo over at Amazon.com. I would have cross-posted it here, but I wrote it for a very specific audience, as it takes on a "what to expect..." tone.

If you're interested in hearing what I think about the book in more detail, especially in how accurate the portrayals of post-9/11 feelings are, comment and I can cook something up. There's a lot to say, but I'm not sure about how big of an audience there is for it.

UPDATE (9/1/2007) So I can find it again later, here is the full text of my review:

I enjoyed this book very much, having enjoyed some of Don DeLillo's other novels. A couple things to know about this book:
1. This is not mainstream fiction. DeLillo uses his own conventions and the conventions of postmodern fiction to great extent.
2. This novel is not primarily a retelling of the events of 9/11. Rather, it is an exploration of the mindset of New Yorkers (and one European) after 9/11, how this particular watershed event changed people's worldview.
3. This is not a political work. It does not seek to espouse any political point of view.

That being said, I very much liked this book. I found it very chilling at some points, and difficult to read. I found myself dealing with emotions I had not felt since the days just after 9/11 (deftly referred to in the novel as 'since the planes'), and an exploration much different from the film United 93.

I did feel some of the characters were hollow, but that is kind of typical of DeLillo's storytelling style. Characters in DeLillo works tend to be people to whom things happen, reactors as opposed to actors. I felt that this helped enhance the feelings of some of the characters in this work, accentuating the helplessness and fear I know I certainly felt in the wake of 9/11.

While the book does deal directly with the events of 9/11 (those were some of the most emotionally difficult to read), it is primarily an exploration of the 'post-9/11' world. In this, I feel it succeeds, and is a brilliant work.

Labels: Book Review, Books

Posted by Ryan S. at 5:24 PM | Permalink | |

Read the whole interview here. This is just an excerpt.

On global warming:

There has been so much disinformation about my position that I feel obliged to repeat what I said in my book. Yes, the globe is warming; the greenhouse effect is real; CO2 is a greenhouse gas; it is increasing from human activities; we would expect this increased CO2 to produce warming. All true.

But nothing in this sequence of statements implies that CO2 is the primary driver of the warming we are seeing. Not at all. It is one thing to say that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is therefore causing warming; it is quite another to say CO2 is causing ALL of the warming that we see. There is good evidence (and good physical theory) for the first statement, and weak evidence, primarily computer models, for the second.

In response to "What is the most serious threat facing our civilisation?"

Loss of classical liberal values in those western societies that embraced them.

England was the first modern state, the first superpower, the first nation to deal with moral issues around the world, and the first nation to install the benefits of what we might now loosely term a liberal society. I mean that in the 19th century sense of liberalism. That notion of liberalism was also present in America, but made it to the Continent only in a pale and limited form. It is a wonderful social conception that must be vigilantly guarded. It is not shared by other nations in the world. Nor is it shared by many citizens in English-speaking countries. Peculiarly, many of our most educated citizens are least sympathetic to classical liberal ideals. Indeed the term 'liberalism' in the modern day has come to imply a constellation of attitudes that John Stuart Mill would not recognize as liberal at all. Nor would, say, John F. Kennedy recognize them as liberal. Kennedy's conception of liberalism was simultaneously more tolerant and more tough-minded: tolerant about varieties of behavior within the society, and tough-minded toward threats to a tolerant society from without.

That's all gone, now. Today there is far too much sensitivity within societies, and too little hard-nosed recognition of threats from without. We are inclined to be intolerant of speech by our friends and neighbors, and tolerant of beheadings, rape, and homophobia in distant lands.

This makes no sense. But here we are.

Crichton is a guy who really gets it. I've been a fan of his books since I first discovered Jurassic Park, and over the past two years have come to have the utmost respect for his opinions.

Labels: Books, Climate Change, Western Civ

Posted by Ryan S. at 9:18 AM | Permalink | |