Gavin's Book Log

Reading list for 2012!

2011-12-30T14:12:00.002-05:00

Believe it or not but I have been reading books in 2011. Mostly on my Kindle, but I did forget to update this blog. However I thought it would be good to record, in no certain order, the list of books that I am aiming to read in 2012. It begins:

The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution Through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions
Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Memoirs of a Cavalier
The Ship-Wrecked Men
Catch As Catch Can
Candide
All Around the Town
All the President's Men
The Ominvore's Dilemma
1812
The Gulag Archipelago, Vol. 1
The Gulag Archipelago, Vol. 2
The Gulag Archipelago, Vol. 3
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
You Only Live Twice
The Man with the Golden Gun
If A Pirate I Must Be - The True Story of Black Bart
A Short History of the World
Ten Great Religions
Famous Adventures and Prison Escapes of the Civil War
Buffalo Bill's Life Story
JFK
Auschwitz
History Buff's Guide to the Civil War
Salt: A World History
All Creatures Great & Small
Sufferings in Africa: The Incredible True Story of a Shipwreck
The World is Flat 3.0
Soccernomics
Soccer Men: Profiles of the Rogues, Geniuses, and Neurotics Who Dominate the World's Most Popular Sport
Unsolved Mysteries of America
The Penguin History of Latin America
The Penguin History of the United States of America
The Enemy
Slaughterhouse Five
Best Little Stories from the Civil War

The First World War

2011-01-15T13:27:00.000-05:00

This is not a book for those who want to read about individual battles et cetera. At its length there is no way this could be possible! Instead this book gives a balanced overview of the course of the war, not spending much time on any event but enabling the reader to come away with a decent account of the war. Of course this has made me hungry to actually read a blow-by-blow account of not only this war but the one which followed. In time...

The American

2010-12-18T13:49:00.003-05:00

I saw the movie adaption of this book when it came out in September, and I thought it was great. But after listening to the book, I have to say that I think the book was better than the adaption. There are a number of reasons why. The character is more interesting, he moralises his actions more and being able to listen to his thoughts about Spaniards or French Catholics (as per the priest) is very interesting. His friendship with the priest is also more developed. We don't know his nationality in the book, and it seems quite high odds on him being an actual American. I also found the ending to be better, more dramatic and less Hollywood. It was more personally affecting.

This is a great book, and I am curious to find out if any other Martin Booth books are similar as I would love to read more. Great for those who love drama and intrigue and thrillers. I want to listen again some day.

One Second After

2010-12-12T18:35:00.004-05:00

One Second After is a book that focuses upon the aftermath of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) strike that knocks out electricity for the United States and also renders impotent anything with electrical circuitry. It has freaked me out a little as to what I would do in an EMP strike, living in NYC with no farms around means it will not be easy to survive! Perhaps I will begin to stockpile ramen noodles and tinned foods. And a bicycle.

The story itself centers around an ex-Colonel in the US army who lives in a small town in the hills of North Carolina, and the attempts of his town to survive in this new world with no electricity and little food or tools for survival until help arrives. It makes you realise just how much we rely upon electricity for modern life, and the difference that it has made in the world. The story is also a pretty good drama, with intriguing story telling and characters who seem life like. I would recommend it to anyone to read. both as a story and the potential insight to a horrific world.

Aristotle and an Aardvark go to Washington

2010-10-26T20:23:00.002-04:00

Perhaps reflecting the fact that I am more interested in politics than philosophy, I found this book a bit more interesting (and probably retained a bit more too) than the authors earlier book explaining philosophy through jokes. This book however is the same premise, but tackles politics. It is a good introduction to the topic, and one is somewhat the wiser from reading it. We all know that politicians tell lies - but what type of lies? Now one can know for sure. Recommended for lazy rainy days when there is not much to do but read something interesting.

The Spy Who Loved Me

2010-10-14T22:05:00.003-04:00

This does not start as a normal Bond book. Indeed, it is after more than 80 pages that we get to meet Commander Bond. The book is told from a different perspective than the norm, from the point of view of one of the central characters, a young Canadian woman. This leads us to a different type of Bond tale - rather than being an entire movie, this could a long opening third to a movie. But it would be a great third, with some perfect bad guys and Bond just being Bond.

At first, I was impatient reading this as I wanted to read about James Bond! But once I got past this, I appreciated the bold experiment that Ian Fleming made. It's a 007 story, but not a 007 novel. But very enjoyable. I only wish there were more than 3 original books remaining for me to read.

The Fall

2010-10-06T20:50:00.003-04:00

I read the first part of this trilogy, The Strain, earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so it was with a little excitement that I picked up the second book. And it did not disappoint! The story picks off where the last one ended, and continues in its glorious cinematic vein. If it doesn't get made into a movie... well I don't know what to say given the state of most films these days. It is just calling out for it. But regardless of that, The Fall features all the old favourites from the first novel, nuclear power plants, lots of gore, abuse of the aged, some deaths and a lot of action. I would definitely recommend it (I read this in 5 days) but would suggest starting with the first book to get the most out of it.

This is a scatterbrained review, but I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the book and am interested in seeing how the third one ends. Triumph for the Master or will mankind pull it out of the bag?

The Grand Design

2010-09-18T07:48:00.003-04:00

The Grand Design puts across the latest theories on the beginning of the universe in an easy-to-follow fashion, all with the benefit of no equations whatsoever. I liked the fact that it covers many subjects with ease and accessibility, with no prior knowledge of mega-level physics necessary. It did teach me a few things (I was interested to learn that Quantum Physics really only affects things at the molecule level and not anything bigger), and is certainly worth a re-listen at some point, as I know that I missed several things.

There seems to be a lot of controversy over the fact that this book makes the statement that God is not necessary to have created the universe, and if you can get your head around there being multiple universes (and the fact that we will probably never be able to fully comprehend such things), it makes a lot of sense. I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in such things.

Animal Farm

2010-09-06T11:49:00.003-04:00

Having studied the beginnings of Soviet Russia for around 3 years at school, I found it very interesting to re-read Animal Farm for the first time since I read it in English class when I was 15. Incidentally, it is the only book that I can remember reading in school that I want to read again. But reading it and trying to place who was each animal (aside from the obvious two), which countries the two farms represented, what historical events each part of the book was based on... this all added to my enjoyment of this short novel. I think that it has to be one of the cleverest books ever written, and if many issues were boiled down in this way (think the Israel-Palestine conflict), it would add a level of perspective to many who are currently ignorant of the reasons behind them.

Quite simply, an excellent book that I look forward to reading again in 10 years or so.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar... Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

2010-09-06T11:41:00.004-04:00

I have never really cared much for philosophy, but this book appealed to me as a simplified presentation of the different schools of thought that exist. In that respect it works fine, I found it to be a very readable and great introduction to the world of philosophy. However, I don't feel like much of it has stuck with me - but on the other-hand, I would not be adverse to browsing through it again one day.

Perhaps that is a little cruel as I am more aware now of what Zen actually is, Existentialism etc so I do think it is a good introduction to the topic. I'm just not moved to read anything in-depth upon the topic.

1984

2010-09-03T19:33:00.003-04:00

1984 is a pretty sick book. Sick in the 'well good' sense, not the 'what the hell am I reading' sense. Most people will know of the novel itself, so I shan't go into details aside from it really is a great read and can be quite frightening, especially when you see aspects of the story already in real life. Really would recommend everyone to read this as it is just great.

Bits that I highlighted:

Here were produced rubbishy newspapers, containing almost nothing except sport, crime, and astrology. (Reminded me of The Sun).
"I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days," she said indistinctly. "All children are swine."
In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an airplane they had to make four.
All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became stupid or arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown, or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force, and once again were overthrown.

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds

2010-08-29T21:15:00.015-04:00

This is the kind of book that I love. Written in the mid-1800s about the follies of man, it's packed full of anecdotes that I think are awesome. For the most part, I loved this book, aside from the section on Alchemists, which was a bit too long for my liking (although probably full of amusing tales of madness). I've got a shitload of anecdotes to type up, so I will leave it at if you like things like this (and you'll know if you do) then read this book, it's worth it.

Money Mania - The Mississippi Scheme

They agreed that a man ought never to swear against his doing any one thing, and that there was no sort of extravagance of which even a wise man was not capable.

The Alchymists

All his life Jean de Meung had evinced a great animosity towards the priesthood, and his famous poem abounds with passages reflecting upon their avarice, cruelty, and immorality. At his death he left a large box, filled with some weighty material, which he bequeathed to the Cordeliers, as a peace-offering, for the abuse he had lavished upon them. As his practice of alchymy was well-known, it was thought the box was filled with gold and silver, and the Cordeliers congratulated each other on their rich acquisition. When it came to be opened, they found to their horror that it was filled only with slates, scratched with hieroglyphic and cabalistic characters.
The king's reason for granting the patent to find out the philosopher's stone and elixir to, amongst others, monks & mass-priests i.e. ecclesiastics was, that "they were such good artists in transubstantiating bread and wine in the eucharist, and therefore the more likely to be able to effect the transmutation of baser metals into better."
When Agrippa returned, a few days afterwards, he found his house beset with devils. Some of them were sitting on the chimney-pots, kicking up their legs in the air; while others were playing at leapfrog, on the very edge of the parapet. His study was so filled with them, that he found it difficult to make his way to his desk.

Fortune Telling

Any maiden who dreams of daffodils is warned by her good angel to avoid going into a wood with her lover, or into any dark or retired place where she might not be able to make people hear her if she cried out.
If a swarm of bees alight in your garden, some very high honour and great joys await you.

The Magnetisers

The wonderful influence of imagination in the cure of diseases is well known. A motion of the hand, or a glance of the eye, will throw a weak and credulous patient into a fit; and a pill made of bread, if taken with sufficient faith, will operate a cure better than all the drugs in the pharmacy.
The Spanish proverb, Hagase el milagro y hagalo Mahoma - Let the miracle be done it, though Mahomet do it.
The worn-out debauches, who had drained the cup of sensuality to its dregs, and who longed to see lovely women in convulsions, with the hope that they might gain some new emotions from the sight.
Some of these societies were a scandal to morality, being joined by profligate men of depraved appetites, who took a disgusting delight in witnessing young girls in convulsions.

Influence of Politics and Religion on the Hair and Beard

The famous declaration of St. Paul, "that long hair was a shame unto man".
Towards the end of the eleventh century, it was decreed by the pope, and zealously supported by the ecclesiastical authorities over Europe, that such persons as wore long hair should be excommunicated.
The famous St. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, was peculiarly indignant whenever he saw a man with long hair. He declaimed against the practice as one highly immoral, criminal, and beastly. He continually carried a small knife in his pocket, and whenever any body offending in this respect knelt before him to receive his blessing, he would whip it out slyly, and cut off a handful, and then, throwing it in his face, tell him to cut off all the rest, or he would go to hell.

The Crusades

Any maniac can kindle a conflagration, but it requires many wise men to put it out.
Richard the Lion Heart left a high reputation in Palestine. So much terror did his name occasion, that the women of Syria used it to frighten their children for ages afterwards. Every disobedient brat became still when told that King Richard was coming. Even men shared the panic that his name created; and a hundred years afterwards, whenever a horse shied at any object in the way, his rider would exclaim "What! dost thou think King Richard is in the bush?"

The Witch Mania

It was believed that the Devil endeavoured to trip people up, by laying his long invisible tail in their way, and giving it a sudden whisk when their legs were over it; that he used to get drunk, and swear like a trooper, and be so mischievous in his cups as to raise tempests and earthquakes; that he used to run invisible spits into people by way of amusing himself in the long winter evenings; that, disguised as a large drake, he used to lurk among the bulrushes and frighten the weary traveler out of his wits by his awful quack.
In the reign of Philippe le Bel, he appeared to a monk in the shape of a dark man, riding a tall black horse - then as a friar - afterwards as an ass, and finally as a coach-wheel.
When this ceremony was concluded, they were all amused by a dance of toads. Thousands of these creatures sprang out of the earth; and standing on their hind legs, danced, while the devil played the bagpipes or trumpet.
When the devil wished to be particularly amused, he made witches strip off their clothes and dance before him, each with a cat tied around her neck, and another dangling from her body in the form of a tail.
The devil re-baptized witches in their own blood by the names of "Able-and-Stout", "Over-the-dyke-with-it", "Raise-the-wind", "Pickle-nearest-the-wind", "Batter-them-down-Maggy", "Blow-Kale" and such like. The devil himself was not very particular what name they called him so that it was not "Black John". If any witch was unthinking enough to utter these words, he would rush upon her, and beat and buffet her unmercifully, or tear hear flesh with a wool-card.
Another man gave similar evidence, and swore that he had often seen a cat with Jane Wenham's face.
Some witches could turn the faces of their enemies upside down, or twist them round to their backs.
Shortly afterwards twelve black cats ascended out of the floor, and danced on their hind legs around the witch for the space of around half an hour.

Haunted Houses

It was generally believed in several parishes of Scotland that the devil had been seen in the act of hammering upon the house-top of Baldarroch. One old man asserted positively that, one night, after having been to see the strange gambols of the knives and mustard-pots, he met the phantom of a great black man, "who wheeled round his head with a whizzing noise, making a wind about his ears that almost blew his bonnet off," and that he was haunted by him in this manner for three miles.
It was said that when the goodwife put her potato-pot on the fire, each potato, as the water boiled, changed into a demon, and grinned horribly at her when she lifted the lid.

Popular Follies of Great Cities (This is a list of one-time popular sayings that came and went in London in the 1700s and 1800s)

Quoz!
What a shocking bad hat!
There he goes with his eye out!
Has your mother sold her mangle?
Flare up!
Does your mother know you're out?
Who are you?

Dead Certainties

2010-08-29T21:15:00.010-04:00

Dead Certainties is a curious book. The back cover proclaims it to be "a dazzling and supremely vital work of historical imagination". To be honest, this baffled the shit out of me when I started to read it as I couldn't work out the book's purpose. This is a bit worrying given that I'm in at least the top 10% of the world when it comes to intelligence.

I think I figured it out. Schama reconstructs two stories from history from different sources, and I believe the point is that no-one knows for sure. He used two stories, the death of General Wolfe and a murder in Boston. I think he should have just gone with the murder as a novel as the death of the General is less than a quarter of the book, and it seems strange to have such a short example followed up by a long one.

I did really enjoy the account of the murder and subsequent trial, it was a very interesting mystery drama - another reason why I think it should have just been this story in the book. I especially liked it as there is no way I would have known about this story any other way, so I'm glad I read the book.

I'm just still a little puzzled as to what the supremely vital part of it was.

Assholeology

2010-08-29T21:15:00.007-04:00

A decent but flawed book, Assholeogy has several interesting parts but ultimately falls flat. According to what it says, I am an asshole (at least in the making), and I'm not ashamed of that. For example, I've always had the trait of likeability which enables me to do things only to be dismissed because of who I am. But there are two reasons why I say this book falls flat. One is the advice for when you start a new job. To have a mental fit over a slight thing really doesn't seem right to me, for one thing most people are on probation periods and that might get you dropped.

The second is the length of the book. Of a tome consisting 197 pages excluding the index, it is annoying to find the appendix starting on P121 and mostly being complete drivel and/or unrelated topics, such as "know your asshole" or cocktail recipes. Perhaps an asshole move like that should have been expected after all.

But I found this book to have taught me an important lesson. It's all about how people perceive you that counts. I have tried to incorporate that into my being, and really, that is a very important lesson in life.

I'd say this book is worth a skim or a loan, but not really a purchase.

America (The Audiobook)

2010-07-28T20:38:00.003-04:00

America... is a very interesting listen, but nothing that you would not expect from the team of the Daily Show. It covers many topics to do with the make-up of the USA, and is quite thought provoking. For instance, why do people think they can read the minds of people from 200 years ago? Why do people treat the Patriots as if they were infallible? What do people understand by an Amendment? But it is not put together in the fashion of a lecture, instead it is very witty and quite brilliant.

I wasn't aware that this was abridged, but at under 4 hours, this is a great listen that teaches more interesting facts than most lectures - and also isn't afraid to point out inadequacies in the current system, something which is to be commended.

Predictably Irrational

2010-07-22T21:21:00.003-04:00

Predictably Irrational pretty much tells us that humans are extremely irrational beings. The book (or audiobook in my case) is littered with examples of pre-existing bias or assumption that we have gleaned from somewhere that alter our behavior to the irrational. There are also examples galore of people just being... irrational. Things like how the majority of people are swayed by the offer of something free, even if it is not the best deal. On this basis, this book isn't just interesting from a psychological standpoint but also an economic one. If I ever am in the position in a company to come up with marketing strategies, I am certainly revisiting this book to take advantage of the behavior of the majority.

Overall, I found this book to be very interesting and full of fascinating snippets. I even ordered a copy for my friend as a birthday present! On this basis, I would recommend to anyone interested in the strangeness of human nature, as you won't be disappointed.

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like

2010-07-04T20:02:00.002-04:00

How Pleasure Works is an interesting discourse upon pleasure. The interesting thing about pleasure is that the way we humans discern pleasure is uniquely human, attaching value to things that otherwise would be worthless. It all verges upon perception, and Paul Bloom gives many examples throughout. Some of my favourites include people being unable to distinguish between dog food and pate in a blind taste test, wine experts rating the same wine in two completely different ways solely because one had an expensive label on and the other didn't, and another wine expert example of serving white wine in a black glass (giving it the appearance of red), and having it described as "berry-flavours". Another thing I recall is how monkeys also respond to pornography and celebrity worship.

I got this as an audiobook, and it was a very interesting listen. The nature of pleasure, when you think about it, is very frivolous. But it is one of the things that we define our lives by, and so it may be useful understanding how it works. I come away from this book armed with interesting facts and almost of the mind that pleasure is a useless abstraction. But a world without pleasure would be awful (think Iraq or North Korea hahaha).

The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love

2010-06-30T21:40:00.003-04:00

The Eaten Heart was quite suprisingly witty. I wasn't expecting a book from the 1300s to be so funny, but there were several times that this collection of short stories had me chuckling away. It seems some of the points of our age were being made 700 years ago! I enjoyed this short collection (possibly as well as it was in modern English), and one day would like to read the larger collection of which this formed a part.

Notable quotations:
'Dear me!' said the other. 'Don't you realize that we have promised God to preserve our virginity?' 'Pah!' she said. 'We are constantly making Him promised that we never keep! What does it matter if we fail to keep this one? He can always find other girls to preserve their virginity for Him.'
She had no conception of the kind of horn that men do their butting with.
And so, despite the fact that eight separate men had made love to her on thousands of different occasions, she entered his bed as a virgin and convinced him it was really so. And for many years afterwards she lived a contented life as his queen. Hence the proverbial saying: 'A kissed mouth doesn't lose its freshness: like the moon it turns up new again.'

The Strain

2010-06-13T21:31:00.003-04:00

The Strain is an incredible book. I listened to the audiobook version, and the story and performance were both amazing. So much so that I am torn between reading the next installment myself when it comes out later this year, or seeing if Audible have another version ready.

The story is the first part of a trilogy concerning a vampire coming to New York and deliberately spreading his virus, and the efforts of a select few to contain and defeat this. It is clear that del Toro is a movie director as listening to scene after scene I could picture it clearly in my mind's eye and would imagine this making an excellent movie. Suspense, horror, intrigue... it's all here. And it certainly is worth reading, that is certain. The characters are extremely human and realistic, which is one of the strengths of the tale. I also enjoyed it being set in New York, being able to picture everywhere the events taking place.

So in summation: I really enjoyed this book, it was awesome and I can't wait for the next installment later this year!

Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas

2010-05-31T22:47:00.003-04:00

I've been a bit lazy writing up on this book, as I actually finished reading it at the end of April. In any case, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is great tale, one that purports itself to be true, but you find yourself hoping that it really isn't. I found it to be laugh out loud funny in places, not sure whether that is an indicator of my character or not.

I found it to be a great read, and one that I was looking forward to reading on the subway journeys to and from work. I also found myself reading it outside of these travels, another sign that this is a book that I really enjoyed. This is an adventure that I would love to have one day, possibly without quite all the drugs, but the experience seems to be exhilarating; I'm thinking particularly of the hotel maid tricked into thinking she could be a police informer, the reporter check-in at the poolside bar and the girl with the paintings.

It's quite hard to sum up, and I think almost fruitless to do so, given that most people have heard of this book and will be able to judge accordingly if they would want to read it or not. So I will content myself with saying that I would like to re-read it again one day, and reproduce two of my favourite passages below.

My attorney shook his fist at them. "We'll be back," he yelled. "One of these days I'll toss a fucking bomb into this place! I have your name on this sales slip! I'll find out where you live and burn your house down!"

"That'll give him something to think about," he muttered as we drove off. "That guy is a paranoid psychotic, anyway. They're easy to spot."

============================

About ten minutes later, when she brought the hamburgers, I saw my attorney hand her a napkin with something printed on it. He did it very casually, with no expression at all on his face. But I knew, from the vibes, that our peace was about to be shattered.

"What was that?" I asked him.

He shrugged, smiling vaguely at the waitress who was standing about ten feet away, at the end of the counter, keeping her back to us while she pondered the napkin. Finally she turned and stared... then she stepped resolutely forward and tossed the napkin at my attorney.

"What is this?" she snapped.

"A napkin," said my attorney.

There was a moment of nasty silence, then she began screaming: "Don't give me that bullshit! I know what it means! You goddamn fat pimp bastard!"

My attorney picked up the napkin, looked at what he'd written, then dropped it back on the counter. "That's the name of a horse I used to own," he said calmly. "What's wrong with you?"

"You sonofabitch!" she screamed. "I take a lot of shit in this place, but I sure as hell don't have to take it off a spic pimp!"

Jesus! I thought. What's happening? I was watching the woman's hands, hoping she wouldn't pick up anything sharp or heavy. I picked up the napkin and read what the bastard had printed on it, in careful red letters: "Back Door Beauty?" The question mark was emphasized.

The Next 100 Years

2010-04-21T21:41:00.005-04:00

The Next 100 Years is the attempt by a leading strategist to imagine the events of the next 100 years. To do so, he employs a method that most people seem intent to ignore, yet is the most realistic - that the things that seem most obvious, never happen. And when you look at history, this is very true.

So what does the future old? Greying baby boomers mean fewer jobs than available people, inflation, lower house prices once the boomers begin to die out and a change in immigration policy. On the global front, Russia will lose more influence, China will fragment, and Poland, Japan and Turkey will be regional, if not global, players.

This is a very well-reasoned and argued book, and it is refreshing to read something other than "China and India, China and India". Let's face it, in all honesty, India does not have the resources to be a global player and is over-populated. The argument against China too seems very well-thought, that the coast is getting rich whilst the country is poor, and that problems will most likely escalate. I also found that this book got less certain as time went on - what was being foretold for 2020 and 2040 seemed feasible, but the longer time goes on, the more variables can change, and I think this is reflected in this work.

It is not just refreshing opinions that this book offers, but also several passages that are worth quoting in polite company:

The United States responded by invading the Islamic world. But its goal wasn't victory. It wasn't even clear what victory would mean. Its goal was simply to disrupt the Islamic world and set it against itself, so that an Islamic empire could not emerge.
The United States doesn't need to win wars. It needs to simply disrupt things so the other side can't build up sufficient strength to challenge it.
It is the delight of all societies to belittle their political leaders, and leaders surely do make mistakes. But the mistakes they make, when carefully examined, are rarely stupid. Most likely, mistakes are forced upon them by circumstance.
Cultures live in one of three states. The first state is barbarism. Barbarians believe that the customs of their village are the laws of nature and that anyone who doesn't live the way they live is beneath contempt and requiring redemption or destruction. The third state is decadence. Decadents cynically believe that nothing is better than anything else. If they hold anyone in contempt, it is those who believe in anything. Nothing is worth fighting for.
Civilization is the second and most rare state. Civilized people are able to balance two contradictory thoughts in their minds. They believe that there are truths and that their cultures approximate those truths. At the same time, they hold open in their mind the possibility that they are in error. The combination of belief and skepticism is inherently unstable. Cultures pass through barbarism to civilization and then to decadence, as skepticism undermines self-certainty.

Brave New World Revisited

2010-04-07T21:45:00.004-04:00

Brave New World Revisited is Aldous Huxley's attempt, via a series of essays, of measuring the world up to the world that he imagined in Brave New World. He wrote this piece in the 1950s, and it is surprising how accurate some of his predictions for the world of today were. Of course, there are some where he was wrong - it made me smile to see the prediction for the death of motion pictures for instance. But on the whole, this is a very interesting, thought-provoking book that has provided me with a wealth of quotes and notable passages. If you want to challenge your thinking about the world and the nature of humanity, this is certainly a good book to read.

Notable quotes and passages:
Physically and mentally, each one of us is unique. Any culture which, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardize the human individual, commits an outrage against man's biological nature.
Biologically speaking, man is a moderately gregarious, not completely social animal - a creature more like a wolf, let us say, or an elephant, than like a bee or an ant. In their original form human societies bore no resemblance to the hive or the ant heap; they were merely packs. Civilisation is, among other things, the process by which primitive packs are`transformed into an analogue, crude and mechanical, of the social insects' organic communities... However hard they try, men cannot create a social organism, they can only create an organization. In the process of trying to create an organism they will merely create a totalitarian despotism.
Alas, higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue, or higher political wisdom.
The power to respond to reason and truth exists in all of us. But so, unfortunately, does the tendency to respond to unreason and falsehood - particularly in those cases where the falsehood evokes some enjoyable emotion, or where the appeal to unreason strikes some answering chord in the primitive, subhuman depths of our being.
The other world of religion is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly "not of this world." Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx's phrase, "the opium of the people" and so a threat to freedom.
"Hitler," wrote Hermann Rauschning in 1939, "has a deep respect for the Catholic church and the Jesuit order; not because of their Christian doctrine, but because of the 'machinery' they have elaborated and controlled, their hierarchical system, their extremely clever tactics, their knowledge of human nature and their wise use of human weaknesses in ruling over believers."
A man or woman makes direct contact with society in two way: as a member of some familial, professional or religious group, or as a member of a crowd. Groups are capable of being as moral and intelligent as the individuals who form them; a crowd is chaotic, as no purpose of its own, and its capable of anything except intelligent action and realistic thinking. Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point where they cease to have any judgement or will of their own. They become very excitable, they lose all sense of collective responsibility, they are subject to sudden accesses of rage, enthusiasm, and panic. In a word, man in crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant.
Unlike the masses, intellectual have a taste for rationality and facts. They critical habit of mind makes them resistant to the kind of propaganda that works so well in the majority. Intellectuals are the kind of people who demand evidence and are shocked my logical inconsistencies and fallacies. They regard oversimplification as the real sin of the mind and have no use for the slogans, unqualified assertion and sweeping generalizations which are the propagandist stock and trade.
Philosophy teaches us to feel uncertain about the things that seem to us self evident. Propaganda, on the other hand, teaches us to accept as self evident matters about which it will be reasonable to suspend our judgement and feel doubt.
The task of the commercial propagandist in a democracy is in some ways easier and in some ways more difficult that that of a political propagandist employed by an established dictator or dictator in the making. It is easier inasmuch as almost everyone starts out with a prejudice in favour of beer, cigarettes and iceboxes, whereas almost nobody starts out with a prejudice in favour of tyrants. It is more difficult inasmuch as the commercial propagandist is not permitted, by the rules of his particular game, to appeal to the more savage instincts of his public. The advertiser of dairy products would dearly love to tell his readers and listeners that all their troubles are caused by the machinations of a gang of godless international margarine manufacturers, and that it is their patriotic duty to march out and burn the oppressors' factories. This sort of thing, however, is ruled out, and he must be content with a milder approach. But the mild approach is less exciting than the approach through verbal and physical violence. In the long run, anger and hatred are self-defeating emotions. But in the short run they pay high dividends in the form of psychological and even (since they release large quantities of adrenalin and noradrenalin) physiological satisfaction. People may start out with an initial prejudice against tyrants; but when tyrants or would-be tyrants treat them to adrenalin-releasing propaganda about the wickedness of their enemies - particularly enemies weak enough to be persecuted - they are ready to follow him with enthusiasm.
Every man, like every dog, has his own individual limit of endurance. Most men reach their limit after about thirty days of more or less continuous stress under the conditions of modern combat. The more than averagely susceptible succumb in only fifteen days. The more than averagely tough can resist for forty-five or even fifty days. Strong or weak, in the long run all of them break down. All, that is to say, of those who are initially sane. For, ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics.
Hitler was quite right in maintaining that mass meetings at night were more effective than mass meetings in the daytime. During the day, he wrote, "man's will power revolts with highest energy against any attempt at being forced under another's will and another's opinion. In the evening, however, they succumb more easily to the dominating force of a stronger will."
Pavlov would have agreed with him; fatigue increases suggestibility. (That is why, among other reasons, the commercial sponsors of television programs prefer the evening hours and are ready to back their preference with hard cash.)

Illness is even more effective than fatigue as an intensifier of suggestibility. In the past, sickrooms were the scene of countless religious conversions.
Religion, Karl Marx declared, is the opium of the people. In the Brave New World this situation was reversed. Opium, or rather soma, was the people's religion. Like religion, the drug had the power to console and compensate, it called up visions of another, better world, it offered hope, strengthened faith and promoted charity. Beer, a poet has written, ...does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man.
Genetically, every human being is unique and in many ways unlike every other human being. The range of individual variation from the statistical norm is amazingly wide. And the statistical norm, let us remember, is useful only in actuarial calculations, not in real life. In real life there is no such person as the average man.
They were also much more religious, much more active in the affairs of their church and much more preoccupied, on a subconscious level, with their pelvic and abdominal organs.
The erroneous view that ours is a fully social species, that human infants are born uniform and that individuals are the product of conditioning by and within the collective environment. If these views were correct, if human beings were in fact the members of a truly social species, and if their individual differences were trifling and could be completely ironed out by appropriate conditioning, then, obviously, there would be no need for liberty and the State would be justified in persecuting the heretics who demanded it. For the individual termite, service to the termitary is perfect freedom. But human beings are not completely social; they are only moderately gregarious. Their societies are not organisms, like the hive or the anthill; they are organizations, in other words ad hoc machines for collective living.
Consider the backward societies that are now trying to industrialize. If they succeed, who is to prevent them, in their desperate efforts to catch up and keep up, from squandering the planet's irreplaceable resources as stupidly and wantonly as was done, and is still being done, by their forerunners in the race.

Lord of the Flies

2010-04-03T23:45:00.002-04:00

Stark. Grim. Disturbing. And yet, eerily, one could imagine the events portrayed in Lord of the Flies unfolding in real life. The real beauty of this book is that it can be read on many levels - damning the ease of which 'civilised' folk can lose their minds and become almost the same as savage beasts, the frailties of humanity, what one ought to expect of the British... this is certainly a book to re-read in the future.

In essence, this is a haunting story. I'm sad that in England, we never read this in school as this would have been a great thing to read during English class. Be so as it may, I'm glad that I saw this in Strand Bookstore and plumped for it, because it certainly is a very good book. The most haunting thing about it for me is that I could see what happened in this happening often in the world if circumstances permit - and indeed, they have and will do again. The ease of the break down of humanity is scary but perhaps quite what makes us human - at least we can recognise such things. Although it would seem that there are too few Ralph's in this world, and too many Jack's.

Thunderball

2010-03-30T20:56:00.003-04:00

Thunderball is one of the best Bond novels that I have read. It features an exciting, intriguing plot that unfolds naturally (sometimes the plots can feel a little unreal). The characters all come alive, and I found myself continually wishing that my subway journey was a little longer so I could read more. It's really everything that you expect from a Bond story: action, intrigue, romance... It also has one of the best starts as Bond gets sent to a health farm by M. I would thoroughly recommend this story, and it certainly is one that I would want to read again.

Women are meticulous and safe drivers, but they are very seldom first-class. In general Bond regarded them as a mild hazard and he always gave them plenty of road and was ready for the unpredictable. Four women in a car he regarded as the highest potential danger, and two women nearly as lethal. Women together cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each other's faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other person's expression, perhaps in order to read behind the other's words or to analyse the reaction to their own. So two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract each other's attention from the road and four women are more than doubly dangerous, for the driver not only has to hear, and see, what her companion is saying, but also, for women are like that, what the two behind are talking about.

What's the good of other people's opinions? Animals don't consult each other about other animals. They look and sniff and feel. In love and hate, and everything in between, those are the only tests that matter. But people are unsure of their own instincts. They want reassurance. So they ask someone else whether they should like a particular person or not. And as the world loves bad news, they nearly always get a bad answer - or at least a qualified one.

A Little History of the World

2010-03-30T20:35:00.002-04:00

A Little History of the World is exactly as it sounds, a history of the World. It was written for children originally, but it is an excellent read for adults too, anyone who wishes to read and learn about the different civilizations that have lived. Obviously a book such as this will only touch on things briefly, but written as it was by an Austrian, it has a view on Central European events that you may not find from a British or American book.

I found this book to be extremely interesting. It focuses on interesting stories, and would be something that I would love to read to my children one day (if I have some). I guess that means I am a geek! But the overview is great, and I came away feeling as if I had learnt some things, and revisited some other favourite tales from the past.

There was also one quote that caught my eye in the final chapter. I thought it rather poignant given the age that we live in. It reads as follows:

I know a wise old Buddhist monk who, in a speech to his fellow countrymen, once said he'd love to know why someone who boasts that he is the cleverest, the strongest, the bravest or the most gifted man on earth is thought ridiculous and embarrassing, whereas if, instead of 'I', he says, 'we are the most intelligent, the strongest, the bravest and the most gifted people on earth', his fellow countrymen applaud enthusiastically and call him a patriot. For there is nothing patriotic about it. One can be attached to one's own country without needing to insist that the rest of the world's inhabitants are worthless.