A Visit from the Goon Squad

#663
Title: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Author: Jennifer Egan
Publisher: Anchor Books
Year: 2010/2011
347 pages

Unlike some readers, I quite enjoyed the shifts in time and perspective, especially those that articulated characters' future outcomes as asides. Much of the novel might be characterized thematically as "rust never sleeps," though the other pole of that theme emerges as well: Some people move on, whatever form that may take and whatever pleasures or regrets this inspires. American rock is the symbolic ground, but it could as easily be sports, or beauty pageants, or politics. Are you stuck in your childhood/teen years/early adulthood, do you change, are you happy about the changes? These are the novel's big, underlying questions.

There is much reviewer discussion of  the chapter written in PowerPoint. I understood it as a use of that medium to show how cultures shift and change with the generations. What are the great pauses or breaks in each person's life? What makes it good? The questions are still the same.

Where the Hell is Matt? The Story Behind the Internet Dancing Sensation

#662
Title: Where the Hell is Matt? The Story Behind the Internet Dancing Sensation
Author: Matt Harding
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Year: 2009
144 pages

Read as a download from Amazon. 

A fun introduction to the idea of travel that moves from personal project to a more engaged or altruistic activity. As a travelogue it's snapshot-style; like Matt's dances, it gives a moment of person with backdrop or other people, then moves on. It could be useful for discussing how a fantasy, not fully thought out, about "going abroad" or "studying overseas" might evolve from self- to other-focused.

Delicious Iceland - Special Edition (Tales of Unique Northern Delicacies)

#661
Title: Delicious Iceland - Special Edition (Tales of Unique Northern Delicacies)
Author: Völundur Snær Völundarson
Illustrator: Hreinn Hreinsson
Editor: Haukur Ágústsson
Publisher: Salka
Year: 2007
157 pages


 I am delighted by Delicious Iceland, and relieved to know that my aspic of ram testicles, potatoes, and turnips is indeed authentic. I do prefer to cook with objects of the same general shape and size. (For discussion of related matters, see my comments on the Doctrine of Signatures at my review of Jacobs's The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment). I don't anticipate preparing rot-cured shark any time soon, but a person never knows when the urge will strike. Ale and smoked eel sounds like a reasonable compromise between Völundarson's gustatory proclivities and my gourmandish propensities. The illustrating photos are beautiful, many of the dishes seem edible, and the interspersed stories are fun. I confess myself surprised by the lack of cardamom, but perhaps it is a Swedish abomination.

Treasured and Delicious Icelandic Recipes

#660
Title: Treasured and Delicious Icelandic Recipes
Editor: Guðleif Fríður Sigurjónsdóttir
Publisher: Harpa/bokagerdin
Year: 2009
45 pages

Yes, I get a cheap thrill from adding books to Goodreads's database.

So my friend says she's excited because she's going to Iceland. And by the way, what do I want for my birthday. It should be obvious that the answer is "an Icelandic cookbook." Fascinating not only for its old photos, but also for its dearth of vegetables and fruits, Treasured and Delicious Icelandic Recipes inspires me to learn more about Icelandic vitamin deficiencies. My friend Mrs. Medscape helpfully instructs, "The term scurvy is derived from the Nordic word skyrbjugr, meaning swelling or edema. It has also been suggested that the term is derived from the Old Icelandic words skyrbugr, scarby, or skurvic." My other friend Mrs. Google shows me that "Olde World® Icelandic Cod Liver Oil" is available in "Lemon Mint Flavor," though judging by the recipes in this slim yet suicide-inducing cookbook, there is no such thing as lemon or mint, and you'll damn well take your cod liver oil unadorned, with a fish and a pancake, and you'll be glad for it. But enough about me. I could see making some of these recipes, though I might have to be quite hungry to appreciate them. On to Delicious Iceland - Special Edition. That's right, she sent me two cookbooks. My friend loves me more than your friend loves you. Onward to the singed sheep head.

Oaxaca Journal

#659
Title: Oaxaca Journal
Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: National Geographic
Year: 1999/2005
160 pages
Audiobook


I  know this wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it's absolutely to mine, because

1. I have great affection for shy, awkward men who are brimming with ideas and have few social skills.
2. I admire the scientific storytelling tradition that includes data, natural history, contextualizing narrative, and self-reflective commentary.
3. I have an amateur's fondness for taxonomy and categorization, and though ultimately I don't care what's being ordered or arranged, I have a preference for plants and animals.
4. I admire Sacks's associational tangle, and his ability to articulate it.

This small book exemplifies the style of not quite x, but not anything else, either that I so enjoy; in this way, it is genre-bending. No thought stands on its own; images, ideas, smells, aches, words, cultural referents, are all madeleines. This is true not just for Sacks, but for me as well. More than anything I've read recently, this journal of a fern-hunting trip to Oaxaca makes me wish I were engaged in conceptual mapping. One way to do this would be to have a copy of this text and be able to add hyperlinks to other texts, then display the links as a rotating, color-coded, 3-dimensional image. If this notion appeals to you, you may well like this molcajete--a little autobiography, a little pre-Columbian history, a little zocalo-watching, a little neurology, and a good handful of ferns and worts, though not as many as one would find in a book solely dedicated to the ferniness of the ferning. If you ever feel the almost painful sweetness of momentarily connecting with the hidden world of nerds who, though not quite the same as you, still understand you, pick up a copy of this charming account. 

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

#658
Title: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Author: Anthony Bourdain
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Year: 2010
304 pages
Audiobook

It's hard to know how much Bourdain used to be a schmuck, is still a schmuck, or likes presenting himself as a schmuck. He seems to have been a genuine schmuck at times, as compared to, say, the schmuck-like stylings of James Frey. There's a lot I like about Bourdain, though, including how he discusses his previous drug use in this volume, and the abiding and deep relationship he has to food, ideas about food and gastronomy, culinary and restaurant practices, and foods of many cultures. This is a collection of essays, not a sustained narrative. Get past the introductory chapter, which seems to be intended for shock value, then enjoy the rest. There are some homages, some screeds, some memoirs, and some travelogues. Think of it as a selection of amuse-bouche, some of which will disgust rather than delight.

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire #2)

#657

Title: A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire #2)

Author: George R. R. Martin

Publisher: Bantam

Year: 1999/2011

1,010 pages

This is the sort of statement that drives my partner crazy, but I thought the first 1,500 pages of the series were a little slow and hard to get through. It seemed to take Martin that long to get everyone in place and establish their motives (at least, those of their motives to which the reader is privy). Some reviewers have disliked the series because it's sad, and because characters die. While I would feel some loss if one of the interesting characters died (or, more typically for this series, was killed), I can't say that this would make me feel negative about this story unless the death seemed like a deus ex machina device, was too convenient or coincidental, or was evidence that the author didn't know what to do. The casual nature of the deaths and the muddled, self-serving brutality of even the good forces (though it's arguable who that might be) effectively capture the indifference of war. I'm glad that* Arya and Tyrion are still alive, and I'm enjoying poor Theon's ongoing failed attempts to gain power and respect.

*(Spoiler follows. Highlight to see text.)

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

#656

Title: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Author: James W. Gleick

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday

Year: 2011

527 pages

Audiobook

I enjoyed Gleick's Chaos: Making a New Science many years ago, and similarly enjoyed The Information, though, from the vantage of a certain age, I know more about more of the topics. Still, if I were 15 I'd be electrified by Gleick's account of the conceptual and technological progress of an idea and the accompanying paradigm shifts this engendered. Instead, I read most of it as a reunion with history and ideas that are old friends, brought together by Gleick to tell the story of the natural history of information. Recommended for nerds and geeks who like to see their various interests brought together.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

#655

Title: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Author: Barbara W. Tuchman

Publisher: Ballantine

Year: 1978/1996

704 pages

Audiobook

I moved this up in my queue as I worked my way through Martin's A Game of Thrones because I correctly surmised that it would help elucidate some of the beliefs and behaviors on which Martin's characters' actions are based. This was true, and A Distant Mirror was enjoyable in its own right. I found the broader historical chapters more compelling. Though Tuchman's structure relied on following a particular person, this strategy only variably kept my interest. Sometimes it personalized the generalities, while at others it seemed to bog down in details. Still, overall a compelling, readable history with occasional humorous and acerbic comments that kept Tuchman present in the narrative.

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1)

#654

Title: A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1)

Author: George R. R. Martin

Publisher: Bantam

Year: 1996/2011

835 pages

I have a strong preference for hard science fiction or heterotopias over fantasy, especially historical fantasy, which is what this essentially is. I find the construction of a plausible world more interesting than overlaying eurohistory with swords 'n' sorcery. Martin's dense, slow-moving epic has the virtue that the swords are often broken, their wielders cold and wet, and the sorcery is thus far restrained. To move myself along with a set of characters I didn't find especially sympathetic in a setting that isn't very interesting to me, I read Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century in order to provide context and higher engagement. This allowed me to appreciate Martin's historical reconstruction enough to develop an interest in the story. The Lannisters are effectively vile and most of the other characters, if not complex, are interestingly ambiguous in their motivations. We might think of this volume as "Things Fall Apart." Tyrion, Arya, Bran, and Jon are the characters I find most compelling. Whether Martin keeps them alive remains to be seen.