Wombats and cents

A Good Book Is a Bad Thing

I've alluded to this before.

Last night I finished One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.  I've read it before, but when a copy of it landed in my husband's hands (see Book Crossing for how that happened) I decided to read it again, since all I could remember from my high school reading of it was the ending.

But a good book is a bad thing.  Like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's main character, Randle McMurphy, a good book cajoles you into abandoning your sensible routine, keeping you awake way past the prudent hour you normally go to sleep, and incites you to shirk your responsibilities until your formerly well oiled machine barely functions.

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Some people don't care for economic expansion

I just finished reading Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger, which is the story of the five years he spent exploring Southern part of the Arabian Peninsula in the late 1940s.  On the surface, this is a book about an explorer traveling through the deserts of the Saudi Peninsula known as "The Empty Quarter" and is classified as a travel book.  But this book is significant because Thesiger was one of the first Westerners to travel the area, where he had the unique opportunity to live amongst Bedu and meet people from many of the tribes in the area.  Though he never learned to identify the tracks of his camel, he was a keen observer of the people he traveled with and among, and has documented the lifestyle and values of a people who are now almost extinct.

This post has moved.  Read the entire post at http://wombats-and-cents.blogspot.com/2006/03/some-people-don-care-for-economic.html

Writing lessons

I feel a little let down by my high school English curriculum.  For six years I read countless novels, short stories, and plays, I identified themes in spot quotes, and I wrote five to ten page essays purporting to explore the deeper meaning of these stories.  Despite all that reading and writing, I have not been able to shake the feeling that I missed the day when the teacher discussed how to write a good essay (I missed very few days, so it must have only taken one or two classes).

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Books that changed the way I see the world, part 3: The Control of Nature

Four months after it was hit, New Orleans is still cleaning up from Hurricane Katrina.  The population of the city is down and city officials are lobbying the federal government for funds to build new and improved levees, reconstruct housing, and trying to encourage former residents to return. 

Okay, I must admit that I probably didn't change many of my preconceptions about the world from reading The Control of Nature, but I still found it fascinating...

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Finishing fiction

I finished reading Life of Pi last night.  I stayed up way past my bedtime to do so, and after I put the book down I concluded that one should never finish a good book just before it's time to go to sleep.

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Children's Books

My son is about a year old.  Every night, as part of the bed time ritual prescribed by all of the child rearing "experts", we read him two or three books.  At this rate, one can go through a lot of books.

Now the first thing that I have to say about children's books is that they are absurdly expensive: "A dollar a word" as one friend and parent said to us.  Now, it's not really that bad.  They're probably closer to $0.20/word, and some of them may even go less than $0.04/word.  Still, can you imagine paying that rate for your typical novel?  I've mostly gotten over this.  If I find a really good children's book, I will simply ignore the price tag as I take it to the register and pay for it with my credit card so I don't ever have to acknowledge the actual cost.

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Couldn't put it down

I've just finished reading Or I'll Dress You In Mourning, the biography of Manuel Benítez, El Cordobés, the bullfighter I mentioned in a previous post.  It didn't take me long to read it (it has actually taken me longer to get around to writing the review).  Plainly said: this was one of the most compelling books I have ever read.  I could hardly put it down (only a year of sleepless nights with an infant was enough to get me to turn the light out each night).

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Books that changed the way I see the world, part 2: Under the Banner of Heaven

There are books that provide more detail to something you already knew or broaden your knowledge with something you knew nothing about.  Other books cause you to fundamentally shift your view of the world.  Under the Banner of Heaven is one of the latter.

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Books that changed how I see the world, part 1: Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice

I'm sure most people go through this when they start their blog, but when I was brainstorming what to write about, I couldn't help but think of my favorite books, not necessarily books that I would read over and over, but ones that really impacted me.  I'm always eager to share a good book with someone who's interested, so here's the first installment in my list of books that changed the way I view the world.  Needless to say, I highly recommend every one of the books that make it onto this list.

Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, by Mark Plotkin

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