NielsenGW's Dewey Challenge - Part II

Here we go, folks! I'm keeping the overall stats here, then more granular stats below.

Overall reading breadth:
Sections: 494 / 904 (54.65%) {! = 212 => +23.23%}
Divisions: 99 / 99 - COMPLETE!

(!) = I have a book in this Dewey section, but haven't read it yet.

(Note: The listing below reflects almost exactly my full copy of the DDC 22, and therefore, may be different from other members' section listings.)

Quick jumps:

000s: General Knowledge
100s: Philosophy and Psychology
200s: Religion
300s: Social Science
400s: Language
500s: Pure Science
600s: Applied Science (Technology)
700s: Fine Arts
800s: Literature
900s: History and Geography

000s: Computer science, information & general works: (30/84) {! = 13}

000 Computer science, information, general works (5/7)
  000 Computer science, knowledge and general works (!)
  001 Knowledge – Atlantis and the Silver City
  002 The book (i.e. Meta writings about books) – Outwitting History
  003 Systems – Complexity and the Arrow of Time
  004 Data processing and computer science – The App Generation
  005 Computer programming, programs and data (!)
  006 Special computer methods – Numbersense
  007 Unassigned
  008 Unassigned
  009 Unassigned

010 Bibliography (3/9)
  010 Bibliography (!)
  011 Bibliographies – The List of Books
  012 Bibliographies and catalogs of individuals (!)
  013 Unassigned (Relocated to 011.8)
  014 Bibliographies of anonymous and pseudonymous works
  015 Bibliographies and catalogs of works from specific places
  016 Bibliographies and catalogs of works on specific subjects or in specific disciplines – Bizarre Books
  017 General subject catalogs
  018 Catalogs arranged by author, date, etc. – Confessions of a Literary Archaeologist
  019 Dictionary catalogs

020 Library and information sciences (5/8)
  020 Library and information sciences – Foundations of Library and Information Science
  021 Relationships of libraries, archives, information centers (!)
  022 Administration of physical plant – The Book on the Bookshelf
  023 Personnel management (Human resource management) (!)
  024 Unassigned
  025 Operations of libraries, archives, information centers – Essential Classification
  026 Libraries, archives, information centers devoted to specific subjects and disciplines (!)
  027 General libraries, archives, information centers – Main Street Public Library
  028 Reading and use of other information media – 12 Books That Changed the World
  029 Unassigned

030 Encyclopedias & books of facts (3/10)
  030 General encyclopedic works (!)
  031 General encyclopedic works in American English – mental_floss presents Forbidden Knowledge
  032 General encyclopedic works in English – Guinness World Records 2014
  033 General encyclopedic works in other Germanic languages
  034 General encyclopedic works in French, Occitan and Catalan (!)
  035 General encyclopedic works in Italian, Sardinian, Dalmatian, Romanian, or Rhaeto-Romanic languages
  036 General encyclopedic works in Spanish and Portuguese
  037 General encyclopedic works in Slavic languages
  038 General encyclopedic works in Scandinavian languages
  039 General encyclopedic works in Italic, Hellenic, or other languages – Too Much to Know

040s All unassigned (formerly Collected essays by language)

050 Magazines, journals and serials (2/10)
  050 General serial publications
  051 General serial publications in American English – Good Days and MAD
  052 General serial publications in English
  053 General serial publications in other Germanic languages
  054 General serial publications in French, Occitan, or Catalan
  055 General serial publications in Italian, Sardinian, Dalmatian, Romanian, or Rhaeto-Romanic languages
  056 General serial publications in Spanish and Portuguese
  057 General serial publications in Slavic languages
  058 General serial publications in Scandinavian languages
  059 General serial publications in Italic, Hellenic, or other languages – The Women's Awakening in Egypt

060 Associations, organizations and museums (2/10)
  060 General organizations and museology – Robert's Rules of Order
  061 General organizations in North America
  062 General organizations in British Isles; in England
  063 General organizations in central Europe; in Germany
  064 General organizations in France and Monaco
  065 General organizations in Italy and adjacent territories
  066 General organizations in Iberian Peninsula and adjacent islands; in Spain
  067 General organizations in eastern Europe; in Russia
  068 General organizations in other geographic areas
  069 Museology (Museum science) – The Stranger and the Statesman

070 News media, journalism and publishing (5/10)
  070 Documentary media, educational media, news media; journalism; publishing – The Dead Beat
  071 Journalism and newspapers in North America (!)
  072 Journalism and newspapers in British Isles; in England (!)
  073 Journalism and newspapers in central Europe; in Germany – The Captive Press in the Third Reich
  074 Journalism and newspapers in France and Monaco; in France – Paris Herald
  075 Journalism and newspapers in Italy and adjacent islands; in Italy
  076 Journalism and newspapers in Iberian Peninsula and adjacent islands; in Spain – The Spanish Press
  077 Journalism and newspapers in eastern Europe; in Russia
  078 Journalism and newspapers in Scandinavia
  079 Journalism and newspapers in other geographic areas – Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911.

080 General collections (3/10)
  080 General collections
  081 General collections in American English (!)
  082 General collections in English (!)
  083 General collections in other Germanic languages – The Words of Albert Schweitzer
  084 General collections in French, Occitan, or Catalan
  085 General collections in Italian, Sardinian, Dalmatian, Romanian, or Rhaeto-Romanic languages
  086 General collections in Spanish and Portuguese
  087 General collections in Slavic languages
  088 General collections in Scandinavian languages – As Others See Us
  089 General collections in Italic, Hellenic, or other languages – Best-Loved Chinese Proverbs

090 Manuscripts & rare books (2/10)
  090 Manuscripts, rare books, or other rare printed materials
  091 Manuscripts – The Friar and the Cipher
  092 Block books
  093 Incunabula
  094 Printed books
  095 Books notable for bindings
  096 Books notable for illustrations and materials
  097 Books notable for ownership or origin
  098 Prohibited works, forgeries and hoaxes – Great Forgers and Famous Fakes
  099 Books notable for format

100s – Philosophy and psychology: (49/89) {! = 21}

100 Philosophy (4/9)
  100 General works on philosophy – The Big Questions
  101 Theory of philosophy – Wittgenstein's Beetle
  102 Miscellany of philosophy – Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar
  103 Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and concordances of philosophy (!)
  104 Unassigned
  105 Serial publications of philosophy
  106 Organizations and management of philosophy
  107 Education, research, and related topics of philosophy – Experimental Philosophy
  108 History and description of philosophy with respect to kinds of persons
  109 Historical and collected persons treatment of philosophy

110 Metaphysics (6/9)
  110 Metaphysics (!)
  111 Ontology – The Infinite Book
  112 Unassigned
  113 Cosmology (Philosophy of nature) – The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos
  114 Space (!)
  115 Time – Time (Hoffman)
  116 Change – The Emergence of Everything
  117 Structure – Complexity and Postmodernism
  118 Force and energy – The Force of Reason and the Logic of Force
  119 Number and quantity (!)

120 Epistemology (5/9)
  120 Epistemology, causation, and humankind
  121 Epistemology (Theory of knowledge) (!)
  122 Causation – The Why of Things
  123 Determinism and indeterminism – As Luck Would Have It
  124 Teleology (!)
  125 Unassigned
  126 The self – The Mind's I
  127 The unconscious and the subconscious
  128 Humankind – Death and the Afterlife
  129 Origin and destiny of individual souls – Spook

130 Parapsychology and occultism (3/7)
  130 Parapsychology and occultism – Occult America
  131 Parapsychological and occult methods for achieving well-being, happiness, success – The Outline of Psychoanalysis
  132 Unassigned
  133 Specific topics in parapsychology and occultism – America Bewitched
  134 Unassigned
  135 Dreams and mysteries (!)
  136 Unassigned
  137 Divinatory graphology
  138 Physiognomy
  139 Phrenology

140 Philosophical schools of thought (5/10)
  140 Specific philosophical schools and viewpoints – The Universe Next Door
  141 Idealism and related systems and doctrines – From Kant to Davidson
  142 Critical philosophy (!)
  143 Bergsonism and intuitionism
  144 Humanism and related systems and doctrines (!)
  145 Sensationalism
  146 Naturalism and related systems and doctrines – Darwin's Dangerous Idea
  147 Pantheism and related systems and doctrines
  148 Dogmatism, eclecticism, liberalism, syncretism, and traditionalism – First Principles (Foy)
  149 Other philosophical systems and doctrines – The Rationalists

150 Psychology (5/7)
  150 Psychology – Freud for Beginners
  151 Unassigned
  152 Perception, movement, emotions, and physiological drives – The Joy of Pain
  153 Conscious mental processes and intelligence – Consciousness and the Social Brain
  154 Subconscious and altered states and processes (!)
  155 Differential and developmental psychology – Designing the Creative Child
  156 Comparative psychology (!)
  157 Unassigned
  158 Applied psychology – Why Men Don't Listen
  159 Unassigned

160 Logic (3/8)
  160 Logic – Crimes Against Logic
  161 Induction
  162 Deduction
  163 Unassigned
  164 Unassigned
  165 Fallacies and sources of error (!)
  166 Syllogisms
  167 Hypotheses
  168 Argument and persuasion – The Art of Deception
  169 Analogy – Surfaces and Essences

170 Ethics (Moral philosophy) (5/10)
  170 Ethics (Moral philosophy) – On the Genealogy of Morals
  171 Ethical systems (!)
  172 Political ethics (!)
  173 Ethics of family relationships
  174 Occupational ethics – Doing Nothing
  175 Ethics of recreation, leisure, public performances, and communication
  176 Ethics of sex and reproduction (!)
  177 Ethics of social relations – True Enough
  178 Ethics of consumption – The Complete Book of Greed
  179 Other ethical norms – Stay (Hecht)

180 Ancient, medieval, and eastern philosophy (7/10)
  180 Ancient, medieval, and eastern philosophy (!)
  181 Eastern philosophy – The Analects
  182 Pre-Socratic Greek philosophies – The Music of Pythagoras
  183 Sophistic, Socratic, and related Greek philosophies (!)
  184 Platonic philosophy – Symposium
  185 Aristotelian philosophy – Aristotle For Everybody
  186 Skeptic and Neoplatonic philosophies – Pyrrhonism
  187 Epicurean philosophy – Travels with Epicurus
  188 Stoic philosophy – Meditations
  189 Medieval western philosophy (!)

190 Modern western philosophy (19th-century, 20th-century) (6/10)
  190 Modern western and other non-eastern philosophy
  191 Modern western philosophy of the United States and Canada – The Philosophy of George Santayana
  192 Modern western philosophy of the British Isles (!)
  193 Modern western philosophy of Germany and Austria (!)
  194 Modern western philosophy of France – The First and Second Discourses
  195 Modern western philosophy of Italy (!)
  196 Modern western philosophy of Spain and Portugal – Three Spanish Philosophers
  197 Modern western philosophy of the former Soviet Union – Gurdjieff Unveiled
  198 Modern western philosophy of Scandinavia and Finland – Kierkegaard Within Your Grasp
  199 Modern western philosophy in other geographic areas – The Invention of Africa

200s: Religion (52/88) {! = 22}

200 Religion (5/10)
  200 General works on religion – The Future of an Illusion
  201 Religious mythology, general classes of religion, interreligious relations and attitudes, social theology – Ecology and Religion
  202 Doctrines – Armageddon Now
  203 Public worship and other practices (!)
  204 Religious experience, life, practice (!)
  205 Religious ethics (!)
  206 Leaders and organization – Pillars of Faith
  207 Missions and religious education
  208 Sources – The Voice, the Word, the Books
  209 Sects and reform movements

210 Natural theology (5/7)
  210 Philosophy and theory of religion – God and the Reach of Reason
  211 Concepts of God (!)
  212 Existence, ways of knowing, and attributes of God – The Proof of God
  213 Creation – God, the Devil, and Darwin
  214 Theodicy (!)
  215 Science and religion – Reinventing the Sacred
  216 Unassigned
  217 Unassigned
  218 Humankind – Self, God, and Immortality
  219 Unassigned

220 Bible (7/10)
  220 The Bible (General) – God's Secretaries
  221 Old Testament (Tanakh) (!)
  222 Historical books of Old Testament (!)
  223 Poetic books of Old Testament – Job for Everyone
  224 Prophetic books of Old Testament (!)
  225 New Testament – Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene
  226 Gospels & Acts – Mark by the Book
  227 Epistles – How to Like Paul Again
  228 Revelation (Apocalypse) – A History of the End of the World
  229 Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and intertestamental works – Reading Judas

230 Christian theology (6/9)
  230 Christianity and Christian theology – When Donkeys Talk
  231 God – God: A Biography
  232 Jesus Christ and his family; Christology – Zealot
  233 Humankind – God, Desire, and a Theology of Human Sexuality
  234 Salvation (Soteriology) & grace – One with Christ
  235 Spiritual beings (!)
  236 Eschatology (!)
  237 Unassigned
  238 Creeds, confessions of faith, covenants, and catechisms
  239 Apologetics and polemics – The Culting of America

240 Christian moral and devotional theology (4/8)
  240 Christian moral and devotional theology
  241 Christian ethics – The Decalogue through the Centuries
  242 Devotional literature – Majestic and Wild
  243 Evangelistic writings for individuals and families
  244 Unassigned
  245 Unassigned
  246 Use of art in Christianity (!)
  247 Church furnishings and related articles
  248 Christian experience, practice, life – Silence: A Christian History
  249 Christian observances in family life – The Praying Family

250 Christian orders & local church (3/7)
  250 Local Christian church and Christian religious orders
  251 Preaching (Homiletics) (!)
  252 Texts of sermons (!)
  253 Pastoral office and work (Pastoral theology) – The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good
  254 Parish administration – Forbidden Fruit Creates Many Jams
  255 Religious congregations and orders – The Calling
  256 Unassigned
  257 Unassigned
  258 Unassigned
  259 Pastoral care of families, of specific kinds of persons

260 Christian social theology (6/10)
  260 Christian social and ecclesiastical theory – A Gathering of Memories
  261 Social theology and interreligious relations and attitudes – Hope After Faith
  262 Ecclesiology – The Legend of Pope Joan
  263 Days, times, places of religious observance – Journey Into the Heart of God
  264 Public worship (!)
  265 Sacraments, other rites and acts
  266 Missions – By the Rivers of Water
  267 Associations for religious work (!)
  268 Religious education
  269 Spiritual renewal – A Shopkeeper's Millennium

270 Christian church history (5/10)
  270 Historical and geographic treatment of Christianity and Christian persons; Church history – Why Cities Matter
  271 Religious congregations and orders in church history – Chasing Francis
  272 Persecutions in general church history (!)
  273 Doctrinal controversies and heresies in general church history – Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe
  274 Christianity and the Christian church in Europe (!)
  275 Christianity and the Christian church in Asia
  276 Christianity and the Christian church in Africa (!)
  277 Christianity and the Christian church in North America – Meetinghouse Hill, 1630-1783
  278 Christianity and the Christian church in South America – On Earth as It Is in Heaven
  279 Christianity and the Christian church in other parts of the world

280 Christian denominations & sects (6/9)
  280 Denominations and sect of Christian church – The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline
  281 Early church and Eastern churches
  282 Roman Catholic Church – The Vatican
  283 Anglican churches (!)
  284 Protestants denominations of Continental origin and related bodies – Letters to Lutheran Pastors
  285 Presbyterian churches, Reformed churches centered in America, Congregational churches, Puritanism – Presbyterians and American Culture
  286 Baptist, Disciples of Christ, Adventist churches – Signs, Wonders, and a Baptist Preacher
  287 Methodist and related churches – William and Catherine
  288 Unassigned
  289 Other denominations and sects (!)

290 Other & comparative religions (5/8)
  290 Other religions (!)
  291 Unassigned (Relocated to 200)
  292 Classical (Greek & Roman) religion
  293 Germanic religion – Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic
  294 Religions of Indic origin – The Easy Path
  295 Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism, Parseeism) (!)
  296 Judaism – Hanukkah in America
  297 Islam, Bábism & Bahá'í Faith – The Koran: Selected Suras
  298 Permanently unassigned
  299 Other religions – The EarthKeeper

300s: Social sciences (57/90) {! = 25}

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology (6/8)
  300 Social sciences – How to Conduct Surveys
  301 Sociology and anthropology (!)
  302 Social interaction (!)
  303 Social processes – Social Acceleration
  304 Factors affecting social behavior – Exodus (Collier)
  305 Social groups – It is Well with My Soul
  306 Culture and institutions – The Call of the Mall
  307 Communities – The Company Town
  308 Unassigned
  309 Unassigned

310 General statistics (3/7)
  310 General collections of statistics
  311 Unassigned
  312 Unassigned
  313 Unassigned
  314 General statistics of Europe – On An Average Day in The Soviet Union
  315 General statistics of Asia – On an Average Day in Japan
  316 General statistics of Africa (!)
  317 General statistics of North America – Datapedia of the United States
  318 General statistics of South America
  319 General statistics of other parts of the world; of Pacific Ocean islands

320 Political science (6/9)
  320 Political science (Politics and government) – Thomas Paine
  321 Systems of governments and states (!)
  322 Relation of state to organized groups and their members – On Dissent
  323 Civil and political rights – We Shall Not Be Moved
  324 The political process – 1912
  325 International migration and colonization (!)
  326 Slavery and emancipation (!)
  327 International relations – Her Majesty's Spymaster
  328 The legislative process – The American Senate
  329 Unassigned

330 Economics (8/10)
  330 Economics – Tropic of Hopes
  331 Labor economics – Behind the Kitchen Door
  332 Financial economics – Building Home
  333 Economics of land and energy – Cod
  334 Cooperatives – Food Co-ops in America
  335 Socialism and related systems (!)
  336 Public finance – Austerity
  337 International economics (!)
  338 Production – Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
  339 Macroeconomics and related topics – Scroogenomics

340 Law (6/10)
  340 Law – Rebels at the Bar
  341 Law of nations – Capital of the World
  342 Constitutional and administrative law – Though the Heavens May Fall
  343 Military, defense, public property, public finance, tax, commerce and trade, and industrial law (!)
  344 Labor, social service, education, and cultural law (!)
  345 Criminal law (!)
  346 Private law – The Democracy of Sound
  347 Civil procedure and courts – Out of Order
  348 Laws, regulations, cases
  349 Law of specific jurisdictions, areas, socioeconomic regions, and regional intergovernmental organizations – You Can Get Arrested For That

350 Public administration (6/10)
  350 Public administration and military science – Three Victorian Women Who Changed Their World
  351 Public administration – Great Government Goofs
  352 General considerations of public administration – Ask Not
  353 Specific fields of public administration (!)
  354 Public administration of economy and environment
  355 Military science – The Art of War
  356 Foot forces and warfare – To Dare and To Conquer
  357 Mounted forces and warfare – Chariot
  358 Air and other specialized forces and warfare; engineering and related service (!)
  359 Sea (Naval) forces and warfare (!)

360 Social services; association (5/10)
  360 Social problems and services; associations
  361 Social problems and social welfare in general – Chasing Chaos
  362 Social welfare problems and services – Madness and Civilization
  363 Other social problems and services – Puppetmaster
  364 Criminology – Skull in the Ashes
  365 Penal and related institutions (!)
  366 Associations – The Hiram Key
  367 General clubs
  368 Insurance (!)
  369 Miscellaneous kinds of associations (!)

370 Education (6/8)
  370 Education – Youth, Education, and Marginality
  371 School and their activities; special education – Three Cups of Tea
  372 Elementary education (!)
  373 Secondary education (!)
  374 Adult education – Reading with Oprah
  375 Curricula – The Struggle for the American Curriculum: 1893-1958
  376 Unassigned
  377 Unassigned
  378 Higher education – Tuesdays with Morrie
  379 Public policy issues in education – Turn Away Thy Son

380 Commerce, communications, transport (7/10)
  380 Commerce, communications, and transportation (!)
  381 Commerce (Trade) – Store Wars
  382 International commerce (Foreign trade) (!)
  383 Postal communication – Orphans Preferred
  384 Communications; Telecommunication – The Phone Book
  385 Railroad transportation – Nothing Like It In the World
  386 Inland waterway and ferry transportation – Wedding of the Waters
  387 Water, air, space transportation – Tales of the Seven Seas
  388 Transportation; Ground transportation – London Underground’s Strangest Tales
  389 Metrology and standardization (!)

390 Customs, etiquette, folklore (4/8)
  390 Customs, etiquette, folklore – All the Time in the World
  391 Costume and personal appearance (!)
  392 Customs of life cycle and domestic life (!)
  393 Death customs – American Afterlife
  394 General customs – A History of the World in 6 Glasses
  395 Etiquette (Manners)
  396 Unassigned
  397 Unassigned
  398 Folklore – The Rotinonshonni
  399 Customs of war and diplomacy (!)

400s: Language (35/85) {! = 16}

400 Language (4/10)
  400 Language – Verbatim
  401 Philosophy and theory – Real Presences
  402 Miscellany – The Toils of Language
  403 Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and concordances
  404 Special topics or language (!)
  405 Serial publications
  406 Organizations and management
  407 Education, research, related topics
  408 Treatment of language with respect to kinds of persons (!)
  409 Geographical and persons treatment – Philology

410 Linguistics (5/9)
  410 Linguistics (!)
  411 Writing systems of standard forms of languages (!)
  412 Etymology of standard forms of languages (!)
  413 Dictionaries of standard forms of languages – The Man Who Made Lists
  414 Phonology and phonetic of standard forms of languages – The Music of Everyday Speech
  415 Grammar and syntax of standard forms of languages (!)
  416 Unassigned
  417 Dialectology and historical linguistics – Holy Sh*t
  418 Standard usage; Applied linguistics – After Babel
  419 Sign languages – Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language

420 English & Old English (5/8)
  420 English and Old English – The Prodigal Tongue
  421 Writing system, phonology, phonetics of standard English (!)
  422 Etymology of standard English – The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two
  423 Dictionaries of standard English – The Professor and the Madman
  424 Unassigned
  425 Grammar and syntax of standard English (!)
  426 Unassigned
  427 Historical, geographic, and modern nongeographic variations of standard English – Wicked Good Words
  428 Standard English usage; Applied linguistics – Dimboxes, Epopts, and Other Quidams
  429 Old English (Anglo-Saxon) (!)

430 Germanic languages; German (3/8)
  430 German and Germanic languages – German: Biography of a Language
  431 Writing system, phonology, phonetics of standard German – Elements of German
  432 Etymology of standard German
  433 Dictionaries of standard German
  434 Unassigned
  435 Grammar and syntax of standard German
  436 Unassigned
  437 Historical, geographic, and modern nongeographic variations of standard German (!)
  438 Standard German usage
  439 Other Germanic languages – Born to Kvetch

440 Romance languages; French (2/8)
  440 French and Romance languages – The Story of French
  441 Writing systems, phonology, phonetics of standard French
  442 Etymology of standard French
  443 Dictionaries of standard French
  444 Unassigned
  445 Grammar and syntax of standard French – Grammaire Francaise (Bruce)
  446 Unassigned
  447 Historical, geographic, and modern nongeographic variations of standard French
  448 Standard French usage
  449 Occitan, Catalan, and Franco-Provençal

450 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic (2/8)
  450 Italian, Sardinian, Dalmatian, Romanian, and Rhaeto-Romanic languages – La Bella Lingua
  451 Writing systems, phonology, phonetics of standard Italian
  452 Etymology of standard Italian
  453 Dictionaries of standard Italian
  454 Unassigned
  455 Grammar and syntax of standard Italian
  456 Unassigned
  457 Historical, geographic, and modern nongeographic variations of standard Italian – The Higher Functional Field
  458 Standard Italian usage
  459 Romanian and Rhaeto-Romanic (!)

460 Spanish and Portuguese languages (3/8)
  460 Spanish and Portuguese languages – A Brief History of the Spanish Language
  461 Writing systems, phonology, phonetics of standard Spanish
  462 Etymology of standard Spanish
  463 Dictionaries of standard Spanish
  464 Unassigned
  465 Grammar and syntax of standard Spanish – The Evolution of Spanish
  466 Unassigned
  467 Historical, geographic, and modern nongeographic variations of standard Spanish
  468 Standard Spanish usage – 1001 Pitfalls in Spanish
  469 Portuguese (!)

470 Italic languages; Latin (5/8)
  470 Italic and Latin languages – Latin Alive
  471 Writing systems, phonology, phonetics of classical Latin – ABC Et Cetera
  472 Etymology of classical Latin
  473 Dictionaries of classical Latin
  474 Unassigned
  475 Grammar and syntax of classical Latin – Essentials of Latin Grammar
  476 Unassigned
  477 Old, Postclassical, Vulgar Latin – Ad Infinitum
  478 Classical Latin usage – Learn Latin
  479 Other Italic languages

480 Hellenic languages; Classical Greek (2/8)
  480 Classical Greek and Hellenic languages
  481 Writing systems, phonology, phonetics of classical Greek – Alpha to Omega
  482 Etymology of classical Greek
  483 Dictionaries of classical Greek
  484 Unassigned
  485 Grammar and syntax of classical Greek
  486 Unassigned
  487 Preclassical and postclassical Greek – The Man Who Deciphered Linear B
  488 Classical Greek usage
  489 Other Hellenic languages

490 Other languages (5/10)
  490 Other languages (!)
  491 East Indo-European and Celtic languages
  492 Afro-Asiatic languages; Semitic (!)
  493 Non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic languages – The Linguist and the Emperor
  494 Altaic, Uralic, Hyperborean, and Dravidian languages – Passions of the Tongue
  495 Languages of East and Southeast Asia; Sino-Tibetan languages – A Cultural History of the Chinese Language
  496 African languages – Language and Colonial Power
  497 North American native languages (!)
  498 South American native languages
  499 Non-Austronesian languages of Oceania; Austronesian languages, miscellaneous languages – In the Land of Invented Languages

500s: Science (57/93) {! = 24}

500 Sciences (6/9)
  500 Natural sciences and mathematics – Cosmic Apprentice
  501 Philosophy and theory – The Invisible Century
  502 Miscellany – The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself
  503 Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and concordances (!)
  504 Unassigned
  505 Serial publications
  506 Organizations and management (!)
  507 Education, research, related topics – Preparing Literature Reviews
  508 Natural history – Dry Storeroom No. 1
  509 Historical, geographic, persons treatment – Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer

510 Mathematics (7/9)
  510 General works on mathematics – Number Freak
  511 General principles of mathematics – Mathematical Fallacies and Paradoxes
  512 Algebra – A History of Pi
  513 Arithmetic (!)
  514 Topology – The Colours of Infinity
  515 Analysis (!)
  516 Geometry – Beautiful Geometry
  517 Unassigned
  518 Numerical analysis – Principles of Numerical Analysis
  519 Probabilities and applied mathematics – The Unfinished Game

520 Astronomy and allied sciences (5/9)
  520 Astronomy and allied sciences – The Story of Astronomy
  521 Celestial mechanics (!)
  522 Techniques, procedures, apparatus, equipment, materials – Miss Leavitt’s Stars
  523 Specific celestial bodies and phenomena – The Pluto Files
  524 Unassigned
  525 Earth (Astronomical geography) (!)
  526 Mathematical geography – Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor
  527 Celestial navigation
  528 Ephemerides
  529 Chronology – Calendar

530 Physics (6/10)
  530 General works on physics – Time Reborn
  531 Classical mechanics; Solid mechanics – The Lightness of Being
  532 Fluid mechanics; Liquid mechanics (!)
  533 Pneumatics (Gas mechanics) (!)
  534 Sound and related vibrations
  535 Light and infrared and ultraviolet phenomena (!)
  536 Heat – Four Laws that Drive the Universe
  537 Electricity and electronics – The Path of No Resistance
  538 Magnetism – Fatal Attraction
  539 Modern physics – Cracking the Quantum Code of the Universe

540 Chemistry and allied sciences (4/8)
  540 General works on chemistry – The Invention of Air
  541 Physical chemistry – The Periodic Kingdom
  542 Techniques, procedures, apparatus, equipment, materials
  543 Analytical chemistry (!)
  544 Unassigned
  545 Unassigned
  546 Inorganic chemistry – The Disappearing Spoon
  547 Organic chemistry – The Double Helix
  548 Crystallography (!)
  549 Mineralogy

550 Earth sciences (6/10)
  550 General works on earth sciences – The Map that Changed the World
  551 Geology, hydrology, meteorology – Defining the Wind
  552 Petrology
  553 Economic geology (!)
  554 Earth sciences of Europe
  555 Earth sciences of Asia – Colliding Continents
  556 Earth sciences of Africa – Fieldwork
  557 Earth sciences of North America – Geologic History of Florida
  558 Earth sciences of South America (!)
  559 Earth sciences of other parts of the worlds and of extraterrestrial worlds – To a Rocky Moon

560 Paleontology; Paleozoology (6/10)
  560 Paleontology and paleozoology – The Burgess Shale
  561 Paleobotany; Fossil microorganisms – Plant Fossils
  562 Fossil invertebrates
  563 Miscellaneous fossil marine and seashore invertebrates – The Star-Crossed Stone
  564 Fossil Mollusca and Molluscoidea (!)
  565 Fossil Arthropoda – Trilobite!
  566 Fossil Chordata (!)
  567 Fossil cold-blooded vertebrates; Fossil Pisces – How to Build a Dinosaur
  568 Fossil Aves (Fossil birds) (!)
  569 Fossil Mammalia – The Jesuit and the Skull

570 Life sciences (6/9)
  570 General works on life sciences – Signs of Life
  571 Physiology and related subjects (!)
  572 Biochemistry – Brave Genius
  573 Specific physiological systems in animals, regional histology and physiology in animals – Unraveling Piltdown
  574 Unassigned
  575 Specific parts and physiological systems in plants – The Panda's Thumb
  576 Genetics and evolution – Evidence of Evolution
  577 Ecology – The Tapir’s Morning Bath
  578 Natural history of organisms and related subjects (!)
  579 Microorganisms, fungi, algae (!)

580 Plants (4/9)
  580 General works on plants – A Rum Affair
  581 Specific topics in natural history of plants – The Drunken Botanist
  582 Plants noted for specific vegetative characteristics and flowers – Florida Wildflowers
  583 Magnoliopsida (Dicotyledons) – Wild Cactus
  584 Liliopsida (Monocotyledons) (!)
  585 Pinophyta (Gymnosperms); Coniferales (Conifers)
  586 Cryptogamia (Seedless plants)
  587 Pteridophyta – Oaxaca Journal
  588 Bryophyta (!)
  589 Unassigned

590 Zoological sciences/Animals (6/10)
  590 General works on animals – The Search for the Last Undiscovered Animals
  591 Specific topics in natural history of animals – Dark Banquet
  592 Invertebrates (!)
  593 Miscellaneous marine and seashore invertebrates
  594 Mollusca and Molluscoidea (!)
  595 Arthropoda (!)
  596 Chordata – The Kingdom of Rarities
  597 Cold-blooded vertebrates, fishes – American Alligator
  598 Aves (Birds) – Imperial Dreams
  599 Mammalia (Mammals) – Rats

600s: Technology (53/93) {! = 22}

600 Technology (Applied sciences) (3/10)
  600 Technology (Applied sciences) (!)
  601 Philosophy and theory – An Engineer's Alphabet
  602 Miscellany (!)
  603 Dictionaries, encyclopedias, concordances
  604 Technical drawing, hazardous materials technology, history and description with respect to kinds of persons
  605 Serial publications
  606 Organizations
  607 Education, research, related topics – The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices
  608 Invention and patents – Victorian Inventions
  609 Historical, geographic, persons treatment – The Nearly Men

610 Medical sciences; Medicine (8/9)
  610 Medicine and health – One Doctor: Close Calls
  611 Human anatomy, cytology, histology – Stiff
  612 Human physiology (!)
  613 Personal health and safety – Wilderness Secrets Revealed
  614 Forensic medicine; incidence of injuries, wounds, disease; public preventive medicine – The Ghost Map
  615 Pharmacology and therapeutics – Charlatan
  616 Diseases – Feeding Eden
  617 Miscellaneous branches of medicine; surgery – The Knife Man
  618 Other branches of medicine; gynecology and obstetrics – Lamaze
  619 Unassigned

620 Engineering and allied operations (6/9)
  620 Engineering and allied operations (!)
  621 Applied physics – Tesla: Man Out of Time
  622 Mining and related operations – Lost Mountain
  623 Military and nautical engineering – Airship
  624 Civil engineering – Engineers of Dreams
  625 Engineering of railroads and roads (!)
  626 Unassigned
  627 Hydraulic engineering – Colossus
  628 Sanitary and municipal engineering; Environmental protection engineering (!)
  629 Other branches of engineering – How to Build an Android

630 Agriculture (7/10)
  630 Agriculture and related technologies – One-Woman Farm
  631 Specific techniques, apparatus, equipment, materials (!)
  632 Plant injuries, diseases, pests (!)
  633 Field and plantation crops (!)
  634 Orchards, fruits, forestry – Banana
  635 Garden crops (Horticulture) – American Green
  636 Animal husbandry – The Medici Giraffe
  637 Processing dairy and related products – The Science of Cheese
  638 Insect culture – Robbing the Bees
  639 Hunting, fishing, conservation, related technologies – Introduction to Restoration Ecology

640 Home economics & family living (5/10)
  640 Home and family management – Pigs in Clover
  641 Food and drink – The Man Who Ate Everything
  642 Meals and table service (!)
  643 Housing and household equipment – At Home
  644 Household utilities
  645 Household furnishings
  646 Sewing, clothing, management of personal and family life – The Best Time to Do Everything
  647 Management of public households – Life at the Marmont
  648 Housekeeping (!)
  649 Child rearing; home care of persons with disabilities and illnesses (!)

650 Management and auxiliary services (5/7)
  650 Management and auxiliary services (!)
  651 Office services – Cubed
  652 Processes of written communication (!)
  653 Shorthand – Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified
  654 Unassigned
  655 Unassigned
  656 Unassigned
  657 Accounting – More Than a Numbers Game
  658 General management – Why We Buy
  659 Advertising and public relations – Adland

660 Chemical engineering (6/10)
  660 Chemical engineering and related technologies – Shrinking the Cat
  661 Technology of industrial chemicals
  662 Technology of explosives, fuels, related products (!)
  663 Beverage technology – Fizz
  664 Food technology – JELL-O
  665 Technology of industrial oils, fats, waxes, gases (!)
  666 Ceramic and allied technologies – Glass: A World History
  667 Cleaning, color, coating, related technologies – Mauve
  668 Technology of other organic products (!)
  669 Metallurgy – The Arsenic Century

670 Manufacturing (5/10)
  670 Manufacturing – Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years
  671 Metalworking and primary metal products
  672 Iron, steel, other iron alloys
  673 Nonferrous metals (!)
  674 Lumber processing, wood products, cork – The Pencil
  675 Leather and fur processing (!)
  676 Pulp and paper technology – Papermaking
  677 Textiles – String (Adam)
  678 Elastomers & elastomer products
  679 Other products of specific kinds of materials – The Good Cigar

680 Manufacture for specific uses (4/9)
  680 Manufacture of products for specific uses
  681 Precision instruments and other devices (!)
  682 Small forge work (Blacksmithing)
  683 Hardware and household appliances (!)
  684 Furnishings and home workshops – Measure Twice, Cut Once
  685 Leather and fur goods, related products
  686 Printing and related activities – Gutenberg
  687 Clothing and accessories – Jeans
  688 Other final products and packaging technology – LEGO: A Love Story
  689 Unassigned

690 Buildings (3/9)
  690 Buildings – Collapse
  691 Building materials
  692 Auxiliary construction practices – Hiring Contractors Without Going Through Hell
  693 Construction in specific types of materials and for specific purposes
  694 Wood construction; Carpentry
  695 Roof covering
  696 Utilities – Flushed
  697 Heating, ventilating, air-conditioning engineering (!)
  698 Detail finishing
  699 Unassigned

700s: Arts (48/94) {! = 21}

700 Arts (5/10)
  700 The Arts; fine and decorative arts – Other Entertainment
  701 Philosophy and theory of fine and decorative arts (!)
  702 Miscellany of fine and decorative arts – The Art Detective
  703 Dictionaries, encyclopedias, concordances of fine and decorative arts (!)
  704 Special topics in fine and decorative arts (!)
  705 Serial publications of fine and decorative arts
  706 Organizations and management of fine and decorative arts
  707 Education, research, related topics of fine and decorative arts – A World Art History and Its Objects
  708 Galleries, museums, private collections of fine and decorative arts – Art and Its Publics
  709 Historical, areas, persons treatment of fine and decorative arts – The Rape of Europa

710 Civic & landscape art (5/10)
  710 Civic and landscape art – Subnature
  711 Area planning (Civic art) (!)
  712 Landscape architecture and design – The Hermit in the Garden
  713 Landscape architecture of trafficways
  714 Water features in landscape architecture
  715 Woody plants in landscape architecture – Landscape Plants
  716 Herbaceous plants in landscape architecture
  717 Structures in landscape architecture (!)
  718 Landscape design of cemeteries – Last Landscapes
  719 Natural landscapes – The English Park

720 Architecture (5/10)
  720 Architecture – Gaudi
  721 Architectural structure (!)
  722 Architecture from earliest times to ca. 300
  723 Architecture from ca. 300 to 1399
  724 Architecture from 1400 (!)
  725 Public structures ndash; The Architecture of Madness
  726 Buildings for religious and related purposes – Brunelleschi's Dome
  727 Buildings for education and research purposes – The Flower of Empire
  728 Residential and related buildings – The Not So Big House
  729 Design and decoration of structures and accessories

730 Plastic arts; Sculpture (6/10)
  730 Plastic arts and sculpture – The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis
  731 Processes, forms, subjects of sculpture (!)
  732 Sculpture from earliest times to ca. 500; sculpture of nonliterate peoples
  733 Greek, Etruscan, Roman sculpture – The Elgin Affair
  734 Sculpture from ca. 500 to 1399 – Set in Stone
  735 Sculpture from 1400 – Contemporary Public Sculpture
  736 Carving and carvings (!)
  737 Numismatics and sigillography (!)
  738 Ceramic arts – The Arcanum
  739 Art metalwork – Faberge's Eggs

740 Drawing and decorative arts (4/9)
  740 Drawing and decorative arts – The Civil War and American Art
  741 Drawing and drawings – Watchmen
  742 Perspective in drawing
  743 Drawing and drawings by subject
  744 Unassigned
  745 Decorative arts (!)
  746 Textile arts – The Improbable Return of Coco Chanel
  747 Interior decoration – House Thinking
  748 Glass
  749 Furniture and accessories (!)

750 Painting and paintings (4/9)
  750 Painting and paintings – The Louvre: Paintings
  751 Techniques, procedures, apparatus, equipment, materials, forms – The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti
  752 Color
  753 Symbolism, allegory, mythology, legend
  754 Genre paintings
  755 Religion and religious symbolism – The Mystery of Love
  756 Unassigned
  757 Human figures (!)
  758 Other subjects (!)
  759 Geographical, historical, areas, persons treatment – The Judgment of Paris

760 Graphic arts; Printmaking and prints (2/8)
  760 Graphic arts; Printmaking and prints – Toulouse-Latrec
  761 Relief processes (Block printing) (!)
  762 Unassigned
  763 Lithographic (Planographic) processes
  764 Chromolithography and serigraphy
  765 Metal engraving
  766 Mezzotinting, aquatinting, and related processes
  767 Etching and drypoint
  768 Unassigned
  769 Prints – The Error World

770 Photography & photographs (4/9)
  770 Photography, photographs, and computer art – Exposed: Confessions of a Wedding Photographer
  771 Techniques, procedures, apparatus, equipment, materials – Vermeer's Camera
  772 Metallic salt processes
  773 Pigment processes of printing
  774 Holography
  775 Digital photography
  776 Computer art – Metacreation
  777 Unassigned
  778 Special fields and special kinds of photography; cinematography and related activities – Hidden Beauty
  779 Photographs (!)

780 Music (7/9)
  780 Music – Mozart: A Life
  781 General principles and musical forms – Killing Yourself to Live
  782 Vocal music – God Bless America
  783 Music for single voices; The voice
  784 Instruments and instrumental ensembles and their music (!)
  785 Ensembles with only one instrument per part – Roll With It
  786 Keyboard, mechanical, electrophonic, percussion instruments – The Amazing Jimmi Mayes
  787 Regular and bowed stringed instruments (Chordophones) – One Woman in a Hundred
  788 Wind instruments (Aerophones) – Beyond a Love Supreme
  789 Unassigned (Use 781 - 788)

790 Recreational and performing arts (6/10)
  790 Recreational and performing arts – Mongo
  791 Public performances – Marilyn
  792 Stage presentations – The Shakespeare Riots
  793 Indoor games and amusements – Of Dice and Men
  794 Indoor games of skill – The Turk
  795 Games of chance (!)
  796 Athletic and outdoor sports and games – The Ghost Runner
  797 Aquatic and air sports (!)
  798 Equestrian sports and animal racing (!)
  799 Fishing, hunting, shooting (!)

800s: Literature (53/98) {! = 22}

800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism (4/9)
  800 Literature & rhetoric
  801 Philosophy and theory – On Moral Fiction
  802 Miscellany – Literature Lover's Book of Lists
  803 Dictionaries, encyclopedias, concordances
  804 Unassigned
  805 Serial publications
  806 Organizations and management
  807 Education, research, related topics (!)
  808 Rhetoric and collections of literary texts from more than two literatures – The Triggering Town
  809 History, description, critical appraisal of more than two literatures – This Craft of Verse

810 American literature in English (8/9)
  810 American literature in English – Ornithologies of Desire
  811 American poetry in English – The Book of Nightmares
  812 American drama in English – Wit: A Play
  813 American fiction in English – The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet
  814 American essays in English – Cleavage
  815 American speeches in English (!)
  816 American letters in English – Letters From a Nut
  817 American humor and satire in English – Dave Barry Slept Here
  818 American miscellaneous writings in English – My Planet
  819 Unassigned (Prefer 810 - 818)

820 English and Old English literatures (7/10)
  820 English and Old English literatures – Sacred Tears
  821 English poetry – Very Bad Poetry
  822 English drama – Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life
  823 English fiction – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
  824 English essays – Thomas Carlyle
  825 English speeches
  826 English letters (!)
  827 English humor and satire – The Foolish Dictionary
  828 English miscellaneous writings (!)
  829 Old English (Anglo-Saxon) literature – Beowulf

830 German and related literatures (5/10)
  830 Literatures of Germanic languages – German Literature: A Very Short Introduction
  831 German poetry (!)
  832 German drama
  833 German fiction – The Reader
  834 German essays – If the War Goes On
  835 German speeches
  836 German letters – Letters to a Young Poet
  837 German humor and satire
  838 German miscellaneous writings – Peeling the Onion
  839 Other Germanic literatures (!)

840 Literatures of Romance languages (4/10)
  840 Literatures of Romance languages – French Literature Before 1800
  841 French poetry – Leaves of Hypnos
  842 French drama – No Exit
  843 French fiction – Candide
  844 French essays (!)
  845 French speeches
  846 French letters
  847 French humor and satire
  848 French miscellaneous writings (!)
  849 Occitan, Catalan, Franco-Provencal literatures (!)

850 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic (5/10)
  850 Literatures of Italian, Sardinian, Dalmatian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic languages
  851 Italian poetry – Between the Blast Furnaces and the Dizziness
  852 Italian drama (!)
  853 Italian fiction – If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
  854 Italian essays – How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays
  855 Italian speeches – Italy's Foreign and Colonial Policy
  856 Italian letters – Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985
  857 Italian humor and satire (!)
  858 Italian miscellaneous writings
  859 Romanian and Rhaeto-Romanic literatures (!)

860 Spanish and Portuguese literatures (5/10)
  860 Literatures of Spanish and Portuguese languages – The Literature of Jealousy in the Age of Cervantes
  861 Spanish poetry – The Infinite Loop
  862 Spanish drama (!)
  863 Spanish fiction – Don Quixote
  864 Spanish essays (!)
  865 Spanish speeches – In Search of the Present
  866 Spanish letters
  867 Spanish humor and satire
  868 Spanish miscellaneous writings – Labyrinths
  869 Portuguese literature – Death with Interruptions

870 Italic literatures; Latin literature (6/10)
  870 Literatures of Italic and Latin languages – Roman Classics
  871 Latin poetry (!)
  872 Latin dramatic poetry and drama (!)
  873 Latin epic poetry and fiction – The Metamorphoses of Ovid
  874 Latin lyric poetry – The Poems
  875 Latin speeches (!)
  876 Latin letters (!)
  877 Latin humor and satire – The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire
  878 Latin miscellaneous writings – Plutarch's Lives
  879 Literatures of other Italic languages – The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century

880 Hellenic literatures; Classical Greek (3/10)
  880 Literatures of Hellenic and Classical Greek languages – Greek Classics
  881 Classical Greek poetry (!)
  882 Classical Greek dramatic poetry and drama (!)
  883 Classical Greek epic poetry and fiction – The Iliad
  884 Classical Greek lyric poetry
  885 Classical Greek speeches
  886 Classical Greek letters
  887 Classical Greek humor and satire
  888 Classical Greek miscellaneous writings
  889 Modern Greek literature – The Few Things I Know About Glafkos Thrassakis

890 Literatures of other languages (3/10)
  890 Literatures of other specific languages and language families
  891 East Indo-European & Celtic literatures – A Treatise on Poetry
  892 Afro-Asiatic and Semitic literatures – All Whom I Have Loved
  893 Non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic literatures
  894 Altaic, Uralic, Hyperborean, Dravidian literatures – Snow
  895 Literatures of East and Southeast Asia; Sino-Tibetan literatures (!)
  896 African literatures (!)
  897 Literatures of North American native languages – Earth's Mind: Essays in Native Literature
  898 Literatures of South American native languages
  899 Literatures of non-Austronesian languages of Oceania, of Austronesian languages, or miscellaneous languages – This Earth of Mankind

900s: History, geography, (& biography) (59/90) {! = 25}

900 History (4/10)
  900 History, geography, and auxiliary disciplines (!)
  901 Philosophy and theory of history – Questioning the Millennium
  902 Miscellany of history – Encyclopedia Idiotica
  903 Dictionaries, encyclopedias, concordances of history
  904 Collected accounts of events (!)
  905 Serial publications of history
  906 Organizations and management of history
  907 Education, research, related topics of history – Eiffel's Tower
  908 History with respect to kinds of persons (!)
  909 World history – The Arabs

910 Geography & travel (7/10)
  910 Geography and travel – Explorers House
  911 Historical geography – A History of the World in Twelve Maps
  912 Graphic representations of surface of earth and of extraterrestrial worlds (!)
  913 Geography of and travel in the ancient world (!)
  914 Geography of and travel in Europe – In Turkey I Am Beautiful
  915 Geography of and travel in Asia – Brian on the Brahmaputra
  916 Geography of and travel in Africa (!)
  917 Geography of and travel in North America – Canada's Road
  918 Geography of and travel in South America – Darwin Slept Here
  919 Geography of and travel in other parts of the world (including Pacific Ocean Islands) and of extraterrestrial words – The Ice Museum

920 Biography, genealogy, insignia (1/2)
  920 Biography, genealogy, insignia – Banvard's Folly
  921 Unused
  922 Unused
  923 Unused
  924 Unused
  925 Unused
  926 Unused
  927 Unused
  928 Unused
  929 Genealogy, names, insignia (!)

930 History of ancient world (to ca. 499) (6/10)
  930 History of the ancient world to ca. 499 (!)
  931 History of China to 420 (!)
  932 History of Egypt to 640 – The Shadow King
  933 History of Palestine to 70 – The Life and Times of Herod the Great
  934 History of India to 647
  935 History of Mesopotamia & Iranian Plateau to 637 (!)
  936 History of Europe north & west of Italian Peninsula to ca. 499 – Attila
  937 History of Italian Peninsula and adjacent territories to 476 – Cicero
  938 History of Greece to 323 – A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities
  939 History of pther parts of ancient world to ca. 640 – The Road to Ubar

940 General history of Europe (8/10)
  940 History of Europe and Western Europe (as a whole) – Between Silk and Cyanide
  941 History of British Isles – The Land that Never Was
  942 History of England and Wales – Faith and Treason
  943 History of Central Europe–Germany – Burning the Reichstag
  944 History of Europe–France and Monaco – Blood Royal
  945 History of Italy, Italian Peninsula, and adjacent islands – The Borgias
  946 History of Spain, Iberian Peninsula, and adjacent islands – The Last Day
  947 History of Eastern Europe–Russia (!)
  948 History of Scandinavia (!)
  949 History of other parts of Europe – Justinian’s Flea

950 General history of Asia; Far East (7/10)
  950 History of Asia, the Orient, and the Far East – Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
  951 History of China and adjacent areas – Wealth and Power
  952 History of Japan – Samurai William
  953 History of the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent areas – Qatar
  954 History of South Asia and India – Curzon
  955 History of Iran – Revolutionary Iran
  956 History of the Middle East (Near East) – Contested Land, Contested Memory
  957 History of Siberia (Asiatic Russia) (!)
  958 History of Central Asia (!)
  959 History of Southeast Asia (!)

960 General history of Africa (6/10)
  960 History of Africa (as a whole) – The Fate of Africa
  961 History of Tunisia and Libya (!)
  962 History of Egypt and Sudan (!)
  963 History of Ethiopia and Eritrea – Chameleon Days
  964 History of Northwest African coast, Morocco, and Canary Islands (!)
  965 History of Algeria – A Savage War of Peace
  966 History of West Africa and offshore islands – Timbuktu
  967 History of Central Africa and offshore islands – Facing the Lion
  968 History of Southern Africa, and the Republic of South Africa – Portrait with Keys
  969 History of the South Indian Ocean islands (!)

970 General history of North America (9/10)
  970 History of North America – The Inconvenient Indian
  971 History of Canada – The Nature of Empires and the Empires of Nature
  972 History of Middle America and Mexico – Cities of the Maya in Seven Epochs
  973 History of the United States – Ten Tea Parties
  974 History of the Northeastern United States – The Island at the Center of the World
  975 History of the Southeastern United States – A Year at Monticello
  976 History of South central United States and Gulf Coast states – William F. Winter and the New Mississippi
  977 History of North central United States and Lake states (!)
  978 History of the Western United States – The Heart of Everything That Is
  979 History of the Pacific Coast states, and the Great Basin & Pacific Slope regions of the United States – Junipero Serra

980 General history of South America (6/10)
  980 History of South America – Che on My Mind
  981 History of Brazil – The Mapmaker's Wife
  982 History of Argentina – A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century
  983 History of Chile – The Dictator's Shadow
  984 History of Bolivia (!)
  985 History of Peru – Turn Right at Machu Picchu
  986 History of Colombia and Ecuador – Even Silence Has an End
  987 History of Venezuela (!)
  988 History of Guiana (!)
  989 History of Paraguay and Uruguay

990 General history of other areas (5/8)
  990 History of the Pacific Ocean Island, other parts of the world, and extraterrestrial worlds
  991 Unassigned
  992 Unassigned
  993 History of New Zealand (!)
  994 History of Australia (!)
  995 History of Melanesia and New Guinea – The White Headhunter
  996 History of Polynesia and other parts of the Pacific – The Bounty
  997 History of Atlantic Ocean islands – The Falklands War 1982
  998 History of Arctic islands and Antarctica – At the Ends of the Earth
  999 History of extraterrestrial worlds – Other Worlds

148 Dogmatism, eclecticism, liberalism, syncretism, and traditionalism



148: Foy, Donald. First Principles: A Return to Humanity’s Shared Traditions. (153 p.; finished 2 Jan 2014)

I honestly have no idea where to start with this one. Perhaps, just simply this: Don Foy’s The First Principles is a philosophical and moral look at both traditionalism and liberalism. It would be a simple book if that’s all it was. But Foy decides to ride the train way off the rails and take the reader into a thicket of personal animosity towards the state of many current institutions. He bases his invectives on C.S. Lewis’s List of First Principles, sprinkles in a little turn-of-the-century heathen-bashing from G.K. Chesterton, and runs amok all over aspects of the postmodern world. Sounds like fun, right?

First off, here are the First Principles:

• Obey the spirit of Truth
• Do good and be helpful to others
• Provide for and cherish parents, elders, and ancestors
• Provide for and children and their posterity
• Take special care of family and friends
• Be just and trustworthy in private and public life
• Be brave for the Good
• Restrain appetites and desires for the sake of the Good

But the wheels fall off the wagon very early in this one. He believes that the current tenets of Big Business and free market enterprise are unjust and untrustworthy when their decisions cause cities to lose their employment base. He argues that same-sex marriage corrupts the idea of a family by not allowing for the mother/child and mother/father bonding apparently required to raise proper humans (this constitutes not taking special care of family). I guess one of the good things I can say about this book is that Foy splits his tirades among both the Left and the Right. He makes them two sides of the same progressive coin, then melts down the coin, and pours it down the philosophical drain.

Foy’s basic message that we need to get away from some of the slippery slopes that he feels we’re on and get back to traditional value systems and community structures. This would be a valid opinion to write book on if he weren’t so curmudgeonly about the whole thing. Not only does he rail against the social ills of greed and expanded marriage rights, he also doesn’t like the prevalence of divorce, new education programs, and personal choice. The whole thing just seems like the boisterous, innocuous rambling of an old man trying desperately to be heard. The First Principles (which aren’t fully revealed until you get 90% through the book) are for the most part altruistic and morally praiseworthy. It’s just Foy’s interpretation that makes things heady and combative. I don’t recommend this one unless your looking to raise your blood pressure.

Yeah, sounds like right proper curmudgeon.

But is it as well-crafted rhetorically as Chesterton?

14> Indeed, it was

15> No, it wasn't. :)

14>

That's far too kind. I know plenty of people who manage to be curmudgeonly without being bigots.

17> Well I nearly wrote "right proper bastard". You're right though, I don't know why I held back.

Woo hoo gonna be a fun year!

182 Pre-Socratic Greek philosophies



182.2: Ferguson, Kitty. The Music of Pythagoras: How an Ancient Brotherhood Cracked the Code of the Universe and Lit the Path from Antiquity to Outer Space. (328 p.; finished 4 Jan 2014)

All that is left of him is an equation: a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared. Every person going through basic geometry hears it. And yet for its ubiquity and almost-infinite proofs, there is very little known of the man who first discovered it in the Western world (there were earlier proofs in Babylon and India). Pythagoras (ca. 570 BCE – ca. 495 BCE) is a man surrounded by mystery. He formed a philosophical cult, but forbade anyone to write anything down, and yet his theorem survived. Kitty Ferguson’s The Music of Pythagoras attempts to separate fact from fiction on behalf of this ancient Greek thinker.

The lack of credible, contemporaneous sources make any biography of Pythagoras tricky at best. While his contributions to mathematics are indispensable, it is his philosophy that Ferguson is after. Greek historians and biographers (writing centuries after his death) described the cult of Pythagoras as an odd one. They were strict vegetarians, believed in the transmigration of souls, and that the Earth, Sun, and all other celestial bodies revolved around a Central Fire. Also central to their system was that numbers could explain the true nature of the universe.

Ferguson does her best to compile a good biography but falls at times into the same traps as others, conjecturing when the evidence is scant. After she goes through the life of Pythagoras, she posits an intellectual heritage that extends from his time through to the present day, going from Ptolemy to Kepler to Bertrand Russell. The writing is good but not stellar. On the plus side, you really learn a lot about ancient Greek philosophy. If you want a book about a mathematician that isn’t all about the math, then this one will do just fine.

196 Modern western philosophy of Spain and Portugal



196.1: Ferrater Mora, Jose. Three Spanish Philosophers: Unamuno, Ortega, Ferrater Mora. (252 pp.; finished 8 Jan 2014)

Jose Ferrater Mora’s Three Spanish Philosophers is a look into the current philosophical work being done by Spanish thinkers. Mora, a philosopher in his own right, tries to interpret, blend, and comment on the works of Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) and Josa Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). These two analyses form a sort of prelude to his own work, which is presented as the third part of the book. It’s a rather odd situation for this work. Mora died in 1991, and this edition came out in 2003. His widow Priscilla Cohn and fellow philosopher Prof. Josep-Maria Terricabras have curated and updated this edition. Each chapter is from a separate work he wrote, but here they are combined to show a progression in Spanish thought from the beginning of the 20th century to the end.

Starting with Unamuno, he sees a contrarian stance that he attributes to years of political repression. But it wasn’t contrary for contrary’s sake. It was agitate the spirits of the nation, to rattle the cage, so to speak. Unamuno believed that to be, you must first be against one’s self. To be Spanish, to be a member of country that created the Quixote, you had to rail against the windmills of reality to truly understand it. Ortega, following a few decades later, wove Spanish philosophy into discussions on art, music, life, culture, history, and every else he encountered. As he matured as a thinker, he progressed from objectivism to perspectivism to ratio-vitalism (I’m still fuzzy on the distinctions between these, however). Teachings culminate in the belief that human life is the basic reality because all other realities are perceived from within it. While Unamuno pressed for the edges of and the antidotes to reality, Ortega tried to find its core. Mora’s philosophy, coming in the latter half of the 20th century, seeks to integrate the others. His investigations into the philosophies of life and death incorporate ideas of what makes the reality of life and existence a reality at all.

Suffice to say, it’s all pretty heady stuff, but Mora’s compilation isn’t terribly difficult to understand. You just can’t let yourself get distracted by other things while reading. This one takes some time, but there are some genuine insights here. There’s also a fair amount of modern Spanish history that helps to explain some of the contexts that each philosopher lived in. If you like reading philosophy, then this one would not be a bad one to add to your shelves. A thick but interesting read.

842 French drama



842.914: Sartre, Jean-Paul. “No Exit”. In No Exit and Three Other Plays. (46 p.; finished 8 Jan 2014)

Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” is an interesting look at human interactions when nothing else can distract them. The play involves three people, valeted into a room in Hell one at a time, and then coming to grips with what exactly Hell means. Sartre’s famous quote—“Hell is other people”—is the culmination of their interations. There’s Garcin, the serial philanderer who deserted the army and was executed by firing squad, Inez, the postal clerk whose affair with a woman led that woman to kill her husband, and Estelle, the aristocrat whose affair bore a child that she subsequently killed. Each firmly belongs where they are, but they squabble with other over petty things. The room they are in has no mirror, so each person must trust the other’s perception of how they look.

Sartre sets up the frenzied dialogue as a human analogue to the three-body problem in mechanical physics. If there were just two, they co-habitate amiably or destroy each other fully. The addition of a third, however, creates chaotic opinions and reactions whenever a new story is told or character is revealed. They are cruel, loving, tender, and distrusting all at the same time. I would actually like to see a production of this play, and watch how each actor relays the facial expressions lined out in the script. When it came out, the New Republic wrote that “It should be seen whether you like it or not.” I agree with them. If you get a chance, see it. If only for a little while, it may change the way you interact and perceive others around you.

460 Spanish and Portuguese languages



460.9: Pharies, David A. A Brief History of the Spanish Language. (237 p.; finished 12 Jan 2014)

Anyone who speaks a language understands that they have a history. Words, phrases, and pronunciations have changed over time, bringing with them new constructions, new ideas, and new ways of expressing ourselves. David A. Pharies’s Brief History of the Spanish Language sets out to show how all that happened for a single language: Spanish. Starting with a refresher on the concepts of sociolinguistics, phonology, and morphology, he takes the reader through the last two millennia, from Latin to Castilian to Modern Spanish. He stops along the way to take a look a few pieces of the language in more depth, such as the noticeably lisped sounds in Castilian Spanish and the way that modern Spanish is taking on a decidedly more English air.

While the individual pieces of information are interesting to encounter, it’s still a textbook at heart, with questions at the each chapter and everything. Of the books I’ve now read on linguistic history now, this one is better and more interesting than Antonsen’s Elements of German but not as good as Ostler’s Ad Infinitum. A more robust speaker of Spanish will gain a fair deal of insight from this text and may even find ways to shape their fluency, but in the end, it was only ho-hum for me.

118 Force and energy (Philosophy)



118: Lee, Richard A., Jr. The Force of Reason and the Logic of Force. (114 p.; finished 14 Jan 2014)

Richard A. Lee’s The Force of Reason and the Logic of Force is a complex foray into how the concept of force, depicted here as the basis for violence and power, interweaves itself into our realities, thoughts, and cosmologies. At least that’s what I’m pretty sure it’s about. Lee hits fast and hard with complex philosophical arguments right off the bat and never really lets up. It’s a short book, but requires a lot of energy to get through. He examines the history of the concept of force from the ancient Greeks through Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas and then on to Pierre d’Ailly and Thomas Hobbes. He also looks as force from both a human and a natural perspective. Human force gets linked to power and violence pretty easily, but force in nature is linked to simple movement.

Folks with a decent level of philosophical know-how will get a deeper dive with this one. As for me, I was just struggling to keep up, but you can’t encounter this much philosophy without some of it sticking. Maybe someday, way in the future, I’ll be able to conjure up some of Lee’s arguments and amaze myself, but for now, I’ll leave these texts for far better thinkers than me. My head is still spinning, thank you very much.

074 Journalism and newspapers in France and Monaco



074: Laney, Al. Paris Herald: The Incredible Newspaper. (330 p.; finished 17 Jan 2014)

James Gordon Bennett, Jr. had lost a duel and couldn’t bare the shame of living in New York any more. He was a rich socialite who had had several brushes with public and personal shame and so decided to sail his yacht to Europe. He was already the publisher of the New York Herald and when he got to Paris, he launched a newspaper in Paris for expatriates in 1887. He was a man of extreme whim and wild ambition. He had a habit of firing reporters and copyreaders and then forgetting about it the next day. In the end, his paper helped to transform the Paris reporting scene and bring new life to Americans living abroad.

Al Laney’s Paris Herald primarily focuses on the period when Laney was working for the paper (1924 to 1930), but he does some digging to get the early history of the little paper that could. The newspaper’s headquarters on the Rue de Louvre was a bastion of merriment, torturously long nights, beer-fueled column writing, and all-around alacrity. Pieces would be written on the fly and many a reporter found themselves under pressure to get the news out before anyone else. Ralph Barnes, who became a brilliant war correspondent after he left Paris, got his first major stories covering Ederle’s historic English Channel swim and interviewing Charles Lindbergh after he completed his iconic flight across the Atlantic. Sparrow Robertson covered the sports scene, but his column often included large sections of him touring the bars in the city and relaying social news about his “Old Pals”.

Laney’s history of the paper is clearly colored by his experience there and he offers no footnotes or bibliography to back up some of his claims. In some ways, that lends itself to the charm of the book. It feels like you’re at his place and he’s just telling you stories of the old days, when men scrambled amidst a drunken crowd to get out the results of the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney boxing match of 1926 or when, on a hunch, they surmised before anyone else that Alfred Loewenstein (a titan of Belgian banking) had disappeared from his plane over the English Channel. The stories are fun but also a little bit sad. You can tell that all Laney wants back are the good old days of reporting and repartee. He understands that journalism is a business, but the camaraderie amongst the writers is anything but businesslike. If you get a chance, you should read this one. It’s a lot of fun and well worth the time.

840 Literatures of Romance (French) languages

840.8: Michell, Robert Bell and Robert Foster Bradley, eds. French Literature Before 1800. (493 p.; finished 19 Jan 2014)

The history of French literature can trace its roots back to the Chansons de Roland about the brave and chivalrous life of Roland, knight of the court of Charlemagne. From there, poetry, drama, and novels evolved to showcase the philosophy of their respective eras. Classical forms gave way to more modern and progressive ways for expressing the human condition. Robert Michell and Robert Bradley’s French Literature Before 1800 is a volume intended to give the reader a major overview of the lives, techniques, themes, and philosophies of those who shaped the landscape of French up to the 19th century.

The authors’s present selection of every major (and even some minor) writer in the original French. That made it almost impossible for me to read this in its entirety. But, their descriptions of each author and epoch proved incredibly rich in giving writers I have heard a lot about a more solid context than before. Voltaire is a man who, while writing ingenious satires lampooning society, did not favor rampant revolutionism. The earlier thinker Pascal never published his Pensees during his lifetime. The 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in France were ones of upheaval, action, and reaction.

Each group of society, be they the Jansenites, the court aristocrats, the mathematical philosophers, or those in between, was trying to carve out their space in the culture. What remained was an marvelously diverse pool of writers who challenged each other to produce interesting and innovative art. Sometimes it amazed the populace and other times, it fell flat, but contributed in their own way. Michell and Bradley take the reader from the Roland writer all the way to Andre Chenier, picking up Rabelais, Le Rochefoucauld, Balzac, Madame de Sevigne, Moliere, and Diderot (among many others) along the way. If you’re looking for a decent overview of early French literature, then this is the place. I’m now better prepared for any French writing I’ll come across in the future.

419 Sign languages



419.705: Liddell, Scott K. Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language. (362 p.; finished 23 Jan 2014)

Until the 1950s, the signing language that deaf Americans used to communicate with each other was even considered a real language at all. William Stokoe, teaching at Gallaudet University (a school for the deaf), after taking a crash course in signing and watching his students, came to realize that was a full-fledged language. There are a finite number of hand shape, but when combined with position, motion, and facial expression, users can communicate an almost infinite variety of words and concepts. Scott Liddell’s Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language is a veritable crash for us all and a window into a world seldom explored until absolutely necessary.

While Liddell’s book reads much like a textbook, you will find yourself hard-pressed to not practice the examples of the signs he writes about. Starting with Stokoe’s work on the classification of American Sign Language, he illustrates the complexity of signs and how grammar works without sound. For as much as English requires our aural attention when spoken, ASL requires your absolute visual attention. The physical space in front of the signer from the top of their head to their waist and extended out to the length of their arms is the 3-D space where language is represented. Sign combination and directionality can completely change the meaning of a sentence, so once must be vigilant. Liddell’s exploration of the grammar of ASL is detailed almost to the point of being overwhelming, but is interesting nonetheless. This would make a good companion for anyone who is learning the language to get a deeper understanding of the both the construction and the context of some of the signs used.

You are reading some really fascinating stuff! Are you considering learning any languages alongside reading about them?

I may have mentioned this before, but Joel Hoffman is really good if you want to read about linguistics and Hebrew.

I might, but I don't have any absolute plans to do so. Sadly, I just don't have the time. I feel like I'm absorbing some bits of language through the reading, and maybe I could survive well enough in Europe.

I'm in awe of your progress, and enjoying the glimpses into all the fascinating books you're reading.

Thanks, Zoë! I'm fully committed to seeing this challenge to its end. I own 2/3 of the Dewey and already have tabs on which books I need for the rest.

And another note! On the book about Spanish philosophers. It strikes me that since the Renaissance many great philosophers have come out of England, Germany, and France, while very few out of Spain and Italy. Does the author give any explanation why Spain didn't produce as much of a philosophical tradition? The three thinkers he writes on are important, but I have also not seen them taught much in philosophy departments.

618 Other branches of medicine; gynecology and obstetrics



618.4509: Michaels, Paula A. Lamaze: An International History. (138 p.; finished 25 Jan 2014)

In the early twentieth century, women faced one of two certainties when giving birth: either be awake during the labor and experience all the pain that comes with it or be placed under general anesthesia and have the baby delivered with forceps. Neither one of these scenarios were particularly enjoyable. And on top of all that, doctors and fathers were more likely to make the decisions before the mother would. But around the 1940s, the two interests of hypnosis and natural living combined to form a new practice in medicine. Paula Michaels’s Lamaze looks into the interesting amalgamation that became psychoprophylaxis, more commonly known as the Lamaze Method.

Dr. Fernand Lamaze, a French obstetrician visiting the Soviet Union in 1951, witnessed a curious birthing technique. Dr. I.Z. Velvovskii trained his patients to disregard the pain associated with childbirth by focusing energy on breathing and conditioned responses to contractions. It is curious that Lamaze was both a) able to observe medical practices in the Soviet Union during the beginning of the Cold War and b) allowed to report his findings to the world. The techniques which were born (pardon the pun) in the most stoic of nations led to a movement that allowed women to be both part of the process and control (or at least attempt to control) their own bodies at the same time.

Michaels’s historical investigation of the Lamaze method is as interesting as it is straightforward. It’s a small book (under 140 pages), but covers everything you need to know about the subject. I would have never guessed that Lamaze learned the method from Russian doctors. Also, Michaels places the medical practice in a broader social context, one that grew from the women’s liberation movements of the 1920s and 1930 and includes many letters from women of the time. If you’re at all interested in medical history, then this one will be a good one for you.

944 History of Europe–France and Monaco



944.026092: Jager, Eric. Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris. (336 p.; finished 26 Jan 2013)

In the 1660s, a magnificent scroll was discovered. At thirty feet long and dated to 1407, it contained the original investigations of the provost of Paris, a Monsieur Guillaume de Tigonville. He was tasked with an unenviable crime to solve: the death of Louis of Orleans. The death of a noble man was already enough stress to deal with, but Louis was a famous relative: his brother was the King of France. Charles VI, sometimes labeled the Beloved and other times called the Mad, periodically left the country under Louis’s rule when he wasn’t feeling well. And now the surrogate monarch had been murdered. Eric Jager’s Blood Royal sifts through the historical records to bring us a tale of treason, aristocratic intrigue, and medieval forensic techniques.

Tigonville’s investigation of the matter (which I won’t spoil here) is the first part of this book. He deposes many interesting (and many rather mundane) folks to get to the truth of the matter. The details provided in the scroll are both riveting and numerous. Once Tigonville’s involvement ends, the book takes on a more academic flavor, describing the machinations of the various dukes of France after Louis’s death. Jager’s research is thorough and exciting and does its best to balance the salacious with the simple. I really this history of both Paris and police work in the 15th century. If it weren’t a real historical document, you’d swear this was a work of fiction. A pleasant and engaging read.

357 Mounted forces and warfare



357.1: Cotterell, Arthur. Chariot: From Chariot to Tank, The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine. (298 p.; finished 31 Jan 2014)

There are two great inventions in the early history of humanity: writing and wheels. While writing helped transmit information from place to place faster, the wheel actually got people from place to place faster. Attach newly domesticated horses to the front of a basket with wheel and you have yourself a chariot. Early chariots were invented in Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE and they are seen in mosaic reliefs dated to five hundred years after that. They served as parade vehicles, battle taxis for archers, and used in races for public spectacle. For a while, they were the greatest weapons used in large-scale warfare, but strategists and inventors found ways around them. Forcing the battle onto uneven terrain or immobilizing the horses left the chariots unable to effectively take the field. Arthur’s Cotterell’s Chariot is a spectacular look into the history of, uses for, and stories about the first great war machine.

Cotterell’s history moves around the globe in search of new and inventive source material about chariots. He follows its use from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Europe proper, and then to India and China. While there are great stories and illustrations of chariots, there is no full definitive timeline included. Nor is there a good bibliography, and he even goes so far as to use Homer’s works and the Bible as source material. I would have liked a slightly better scholarly approach to the subject, but the history was interesting nonetheless. Any history buff or military history enthusiast should give this one a look-see.

107 Education, research, and related topics of philosophy



107.2: Knobe, Joshua and Shaun Nichols, eds. Experimental Philosophy. (239 p.; finished 2 Feb 2014)

Experimental philosophy is defined as a field of inquiry that uses data gathered through surveys to inform research on philosophical questions. The philosophy we all know and love has traditionally been done behind closed doors: one person puzzling through the questions of the universe and existence. Experimental philosophy uses traditional thought experiments to understand the intents, motivations, consciousness, and origins of certain concepts, but then tries to see if the analysis done by the thinker matches that of the population being studied. In this way, it more closely resembles psychology or sociology. In Experimental Philosophy, Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols bring together eleven different philosophical experiments to show how we can better understand ourselves by asking more people important questions.

Since philosophy goes after the big ideas, the surveys given to study participants try to do the same. Many of the studies offer people vignettes about a particular set of circumstances, motivations, and outcomes and records the reactions to and thoughts about them. These reactions and thoughts can be gathered from people of differing backgrounds, ethnicities, incomes, and religions to find out how different philosophical upbringings affect a person’s understanding of the world. The experiments in this book range from simple and straightforward to those that are bogged down in intricate statistical analysis of the findings (which, to be frank, I did not understand). But it’s the questions that are asked that are the most important. Does knowing the motivation behind a murder change your assessment of it, and how? Do you have to know a thing exists to believe in it? What moral processes go into jury deliberations? These are truly interesting questions, and I’m glad to have thought about them, if only for a short time. A thick but insightful book.

718 Landscape design of cemeteries



718: Worpole, Ken. Last Landscapes: The Architecture of the Cemetery in the West. (199 p.; finished 4 Feb 2014)

“Architecture in Western Europe begins with tombs,” Ken Worpole tells us. His Last Landscapes is a prescient look into the proliferation and metamorphosis of graveyards, cemeteries, churchyards, and burial sites over the last two millennia. From the simple burial mounds of England’s early inhabitants to the ornate sculptures of Victorian graves, Worpole’s discussion of Western cemeteries is complex, nuanced, and beautiful. To understand places like these, you have to see them, and there are plenty of photographs of modern and classical graveyards and mausoleums included in this book. The author writes about death, burial, and landscapes from many angles—cultural, social, artistic, and personal. While his travels to various cemeteries are centered around England, he goes to the Netherlands, North America, and Italy to look at burial architecture in a more global light. Journeying into Eastern architecture would have made this volume a great deal larger, but I think that contrast would have made the book that much richer. All in all, though, this was quite an interesting book.

088 General collections in Scandinavian languages

088.7: Palm, Goran. As Others See Us. (242 p.; finished 7 Feb 2014)

Goran Palm may not be known to a lot of reader in the United States, but in Sweden, he has been ranked highly over the last four decades. He has won the Samfunder De Nio Grand Prize (1985), the Selma Lagerlof Prize (1998), and the Stig Dagerman Prize (2005) (just to name a few). His writings in Sweden have championed the causes of society equality, free speech, and literary activism. In As Others See Us, he forces the reader to view other countries at their level, almost taping your eyes open as a lowlight reel of social ills is projected in front of you.

It is important to understand that this book was written in the 1960s, against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and from the perspective of a peace-mongering Swede. He is quick to point that human civilization begin well before Western civilization did, but somehow Westernism is the measuring stick used for the majority modern achievement. The world was quick becoming a more interconnected place and foreign correspondence made the world just a little bit closer to your television set. He urges the public, through this collection of essays, to become a more global individual, to understand the origin and plight of your fellow man and treat him as you would your family. There are many moments when it seems as if all Palm has is his rage and despair, but for all his didacticism, Palm is still hopeful. He ends the collection: “Perhaps there is no hope. We just hope anyhow.” It’s an obscure book, but if you can find it, it’s well worth your time.

996 History of Polynesia and other parts of the Pacific



996.18: Alexander, Caroline. The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. (410 p.; finished 15 Feb 2014)

In December of 1787, the HMS Bounty, under the leadership of commanding lieutenant William Bligh, set out for the island of Tahiti to obtain breadfruit plants to grow in the West Indies. It was a routine trade mission. But Bligh’s return trip to England was far from routine. On the morning of April 28, 1789, ship’s mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny against Bligh and took the ship. Bligh and 14 crewmen were placed on a small 23-foot launch and sent to go back home while the mutineers steered towards Tahiti. Without charts or a chronometer, Bligh still made it over 4,000 miles to Australian shores and eventually got home. The story of the infamous mutiny and aftermath are the subject for Caroline Alexander’s The Bounty, a complex and nuanced tale of leadership, loyalty, and love.

While the details about the mutiny are still unclear, the core issue was that many among the crew wanted to stay on Tahiti with those whom they were enamored, and Commander Bligh ordered them back to the ship. The mission was a moderate success—over 1,000 plants had been secured for transport—and the crew had spent a wonderful five months on the island. It was quite possibly the easiest mission there could be. But, several men of the Bounty, including the master’s mate grew attached to local women and didn’t want to leave. Bligh, being a man of dogmatic intensity and fierce devotion to his job, ordered them back or face severe consequences.

Alexander’s history tries to give a less heavy-handed version of the events than previous writers. Bligh is traditionally seen as a taskmaster with no real heart or humanity. Fletcher is the idealized image of every person finding happiness in a far-off land. But, the historical documents at hand tell a slightly different tale. True, there was a mutiny and, true, the men did disobey orders. Bligh was the only real officer on board and had to be the sole administrator of discipline and justice, but the extent to which his orders become tyrannical is up for debate. The author does an interesting job of countermanding previous assumptions and laying out a more balanced view of the story. A lively and entertaining book.

213 Creation



213: Shanks, Niall. God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory. (246 p.; finished 22 Feb 2014)

It is almost impossible to mention evolutionary theory without hearing echoes of the creationist ideology. In a country where opinions and ideas are tragically polarized, so too are theories on the creation on the universe and the beginnings of the human race. The interesting middle ground of the evolutionary debate is the rise of the idea of intelligent design. The central tenet of intelligent design is that the existence of Earth, its inhabitants, and the universe around it are best explained by the presence of some intelligent creator or cause. Traditional science holds that life emerged from an interesting, fortuitous, and random combination of proteins in the primordial soup of Earth around a billion years ago which then developed over the ages into the variety we see all around us. Intelligent design does not hold to the randomness of evolutionists, but rather to ascribes the origin of life to a guiding hand. Niall Shanks’s God, the Devil, and Darwin takes a look at the arguments of those who support intelligent design and argues for a different interpretation of their beliefs.

The one thing Shanks does very well is to thoroughly lay out all the arguments and beliefs of the supporters of intelligent design. Because his ultimate goal is to show through rational dialogue and measured arguments where the hypothesis of intelligent design is flawed, he gives intelligent design its fair day in court. Each argument of the proponents of intelligent design, unfortunately, simply does not hold up when set against actual experimentation and evidentiary exploration. In the end, intelligent design’s base argument that some molecular structures and biological events are too complex to be completely natural does not hold water. Shanks accomplishes a two-pronged feat: a fair and complete rebuttal of proposed pseudoscience AND manages to keep a level head while doing it. An interesting and detailed read.

720 Architecture



720.92: Cirlot, Juan-Eduardo. Gaudi: An Introduction to His Architecture (210 p.; finished 24 Feb 2014)

Antoni Gaudi i Cornet (1852 – 1926) was perhaps one of the most inventive architects of all time. His works were Seussian before Seuss was Seussian. The building he conceived, drafted, and had built have to be seen to be believed. From the Neo-gothic windows on the Palacio Episcopal de Astorga to the bulbous terraces on the Casa Mila, his innovations and additions to the field gave people a new interest in how buildings were made. His most significant work, the Basilica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, won’t be finished for another 12 to 14 years. Juan-Eduardo Cirlot’s Gaudi is a splendid look at the life, philosophy, and leaps of intuition that Gaudi experienced as one of the foremost designers of his time.

One of the most impressive things about Gaudi was his simplistic view of a complicated field. Man is a creature of nature, so his buildings must surround him in natural shapes. He was skilled in so many disciplines that he designed not only the main look of each of his buildings, but also created wrought-iron sculptures to surround them, the stained glass to adorn them, and the ceramic tiling to cover them. The illustrations in this volume are full color and absolutely incredible. It’s a short book, and the biography is a little thin, but the overall impression of his life and work are good enough to keep your interest. You’ll come for the facts and stay for the photos. A quick and delightful book.

836 German letters



836.912: Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Translated by M.D. Herter Morton. (100 p.; finished 25 Feb 2014)

In 1902, 19-year-old cadet Franz Kappus wrote to Rainer Maria Rilke for his thoughts on some poems he had written. Rilke was known for a few acclaimed books of poetry and was beginning to really hone his craft. Kappus wanted genuine criticism and was trying to decide between a career in the army or a life as a writer. The ten letters he saved and subsequently published as Letters to a Young Poet are some of the most genuine and honest assessments of the field of poetry and the duty of the poet.

Morton’s translation of Rilke letters is all at once succinct, plain, and gorgeous. Rilke needs few words to impart to Kappus the importance of poetry and how one should go about writing it. “Nobody can advise you and help you,” he says, “nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself.” Rilke decries the professional critic, the editor, and even the friend who seeks to help the poet. All poetry must come from a place free of outside judgment. Rilke also helps Kappus through a series of crises, including ones of sexuality, intimacy, and professionalism. Rilke takes a little longer to respond to each letter, almost trying to wean Kappus off using him as a critical crutch. In ten simple letters, Rilke gives a very good master class in poetry. If you’re a writer or a lover of poetry, this one will make for a grand and quick read.

315.7: Heymann, Tom. On An Average Day in Japan. (206 p.; finished 27 Feb 2014)

This is another one of Tom Heymann’s collections of demographic statistics. Only a few special writers have ever made statistics/demographics interesting. Tom Heymann isn’t one of them. On An Average Day in Japan is a dated collection of demographics about the Japanese people and what happens on the average day. Each page has a quick set of stats on consumerism, medical behavior, births and deaths, addiction, news media, etc. Most of the figures given are then contrasted with the same general measure for the American population. Read it if you have to; skip it of you don’t.

Only a few special writers have ever made statistics/demographics interesting. Tom Heymann isn’t one of them.

Got any recommendations for someone who has? (I'm referring here to the sort of 'statistics' that get put in 31x, which is almost exclusively demographics, not to the more mathematical approaches that go in 519; I've got plenty of the latter.)

Sadly no -- I've got the Datapedia of the United States for 317 and Mali: A Handbook of Historical Statistics for 316, but neither one seems particularly interesting. Just gotta muscle through I guess...

963 History of Ethiopia and Eritrea



963.06092: Bascom, Tom. Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia. (236 p.; finished 2 Mar 2014)

In 1964, the Bascom family moved from Kansas to Ethiopia. Tom Bascom’s father was a doctor and a religious man, and so, felt a calling to help struggling folks in Africa with both medicine and faith. At the time, little Tommy was just three years old and had to adjust to a completely new set of circumstances. Bascom’s Chameleon Days is a grand look at the both the small scale details of living in Ethiopia as a American and the social and religious landscape of the country under Haile Selassie.

Everything here is filtered through both the experiences of Tom the young child and Tom the narrator. The years at the Soddo missionary camp and his experiences at the local boarding school leave Bascom at an interesting crossroads of personal reflection, world history, and social responsibility. There are noticeable collisions of faith all around him as folks refuse to go to the missionary hospital for fear of the Christians. The good thing about this book is that it isn’t all preachy, and Bascom’s writing is about as genuine as one would expect from someone who grew up in this environment.

Throughout the larger narrative, it’s the microscopic details that are the best—the changes in the chameleon he keep as a pet, the construction of a weaver bird’s nest, the smell of the red earth. This is where Bascom is at his best. I grew up in Europe as a military dependent and the experiences of a child who has to learn a new culture resonated well with me. A great many people can find a footing here, not just evangelicals or memoir enthusiasts. It’s a decent book, with a very interesting tale to tell.

676 Pulp and paper technology



676: Hunter, Dard. Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft. (584 p.; finished 8 Mar 2014)

Dard Hunter’s Papermaking is the landmark text on the practice and history of turning wood pulp into a woven, writable surface. He traces the history of paper from its invention by the Chinese eunuch Ts’ai Lun in 105 CE to the current industry of worldwide production and consumption. Hunter is probably the only person to make a career out of hunting every available source on the history of paper and this book represents the culmination of all that research. He covers the science of choosing the right plant material, the history of printing presses and their use of paper materials, and the progression of industrial machines used in the making of paper products. Also included is the history of paper watermarking and its role in company identification, forgeries, and counterfeiting. While the text can be a little dry and tedious, there are plenty of illustrations to move the reader through the history. If you ever had a question about the world history of papermaking, this book will answer them without fail.

Hi Gerard - Just catching up and enjoying your reviews as usual.

215 Science and religion



215: Kauffman, Stuart A. Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. (288 p.; finished 11 Mar 2014)

For those people who say that the evidence for God is in nature, Stuart Kauffman is a good way to bridge the gap between a godless universe and one where spirituality pervades the fabric of existence. After reading Niall Shanks’s God, the Devil, and Darwin, I got an understanding of the differing theories of complexity and how they sometimes form the basis for creationist thought. Kauffman’s analysis of nature and molecular complexity goes even deeper than that, however. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman plunges into a scientific universe of systemic breakdowns and synthesis to rechristen what we think of spontaneous, divine, and even religious.

I will confess to having to run to the Internet many times while reading this one to get more context for his concepts and phrases. Things like “the adjacent possible” and “autocatalytic sets” took me a minute to wrap my head around, but in the end, his thorough reading of the universe leads him take God out of the heavens and put him in the helix of DNA. Kauffman’s spirituality lies in the magnificence of molecular spontaneity and the emergence of the human consciousness. I think this is a better way of thinking about the universe. There are still dark places where science cannot yet shed light, and while we shouldn’t immediately ascribe their beginnings to God, we can hold them in a place of wonder until understanding comes. This book takes some effort to get through, but the best conclusions usually come after a bit of struggle. A dense but rewarding book.

140 Specific philosophical schools and viewpoints



140: Sire, James W. The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog. (200 p.; finished 13 Mar 2014)

James Sire caught me with my proverbial pants down (so to say) with his Universe Next Door. Ostensibly, it goes through the six to ten (depending on how you count and group them) major philosophical schools and examines each one for strengths and flaws. He indeed covers the whole spectrum, from theism to nihilism to naturalism to existentialism to postmodernism. And his dutiful explanations of each school are decent; I’ll give him that. But sadly, it’s the last chapter that wallops you on the side of the head. After a competent exploration of the world of philosophy, he dumps all but one into a bucket labelled “Not Worth Your Time.” The conclusion he brings the book to is to that to live a “well-examined” life, one must be a Christian theist. That left a sour taste in my mouth. That is not to say that Christian theism isn’t a worthy worldview for some people. But simply dismissing billions of people as not living a good life is both insulting and deflating. If you must read this one, stop just before the end—trust me, you’ll feel a lot better about it.

011 Bibliographies



011: Raphael, Frederic and Kenneth McLeish. The List of Books. (154 p.; finished 14 Mar 2014)

Let us say you are building a private library. Let us also say that you want to read in a large variety of subjects but suffer from a crippling inability to either do a lot of research or make wise decisions. Well, Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish, with their List of Books, can come to your rescue. In this slim volume, they collect what they believe to be the best and key books in various fields, summarize them briefly, and organize them for your collecting pleasure. With over 3,000 books in 35 different fields, you would be hard-pressed not to find something here that didn’t pique your interest.

The List of Books is organized, curated, and marked rather well. There are symbols telling you if the book is a major work by the author, if it’s a little dense but worth the effort, if the book is good for beginners in the field, or if the book may just change the way you think. There are also symbols denoting good illustrations or a good bibliography. The lists here are seemingly thorough without being overwrought. The book is a little dated, that’s for sure, but the books listed here, I believe, can stand the test of time. Happy collecting!

363 Other social problems and services



363.25092: Hack, Richard. Puppetmaster: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. (407 p.; finished 18 Mar 2014)

There are about as many myths about J. Edgar Hoover as there are truths. While head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1935 to 1972, there were stories of homosexual trysts with his assistant director Clyde Tolson and that he routinely wore women’s clothing. While these are rumors just the same, they linger in the national psyche. Richard Hack’s Puppetmaster tries to get a more complete picture of the man behind one of the nation’s largest investigative groups.

While most of the information presented in Puppetmaster is good and interesting, the writing is simple and clunky. Hack goes off on too many tangents and includes too many minors details for the history to matter. To be fair, he has gathered a great deal of information about the life of J. Edgar Hoover and how he came to lead the nation’s police force for the better part of five decades. He dispels many of the popular rumors as meager and unsubstantiated, and tries to get to the meat of the story. Unfortunately, he misses the mark. This is a good starter biography, but I’m sure there are other better ones out there.

907 Education, research, related topics of history



907.44361: Jonnes, Jill. Eiffel’s Tower: The Thrilling Story Behind Paris’s Beloved Monument and the Extraordinary World’s Fair that Introduced It. (311 p.; finished 21 Mar 2014)

There is only one true Eiffel Tower. There may be copies in China or Las Vegas, but the Tower only has its sense of power and sheer gravitas amidst the Parisian landscape. While it is not viewable from every window in Paris (contrary to its depiction in movies), it is an iconic and uniquely noticeable landmark. Originally conceived and drafted in 1884 by Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier—engineers under the employ of Gustave Eiffel—, it received the go-ahead for construction in 1887 to be ready for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Jill Jonnes Eiffel’s Tower is quite an illuminating look into the history of, reaction to, and culture surrounding France’s steel pyramid.

Sadly, the construction of the Tower is hardly dramatic. Each piece was painstakingly measured and assembled in a factory, then carted out to the work site for placement. Eiffel and his team of engineers thought of many things to get ahead of possible problems: there were hydraulic jacks in each of the “feet” to help re-align them in case the joining levels were off-center and stringent safety protocols meant that only one person died during its construction. What makes for more fun reading is the social landscape during the lead up to and culmination of the Exposition. Annie Oakley, Thomas Edison, Vincent van Gogh, and even the future Csar Nicholas II of Russia attended the fair, each bringing an interesting perspective to this global event. Thankfully, their stories help to spice up the rather tidy and bland history of the tower itself. All in all, it was a fun read that ends just when it needs to.

576 Genetics and evolution



576.8: Hannibal, Mary Ellen. Evidence of Evolution. (117 p.; finished 22 Mar 2014)

In a word, Evidence of Evolution is exquisite. Mary Ellen Hannibal’s discussion of evolution and genetics pairs wonderfully with Susan Middleton’s crisp photographs of collected specimens from the California Academy of Science. Hannibal goes through a brief history of Darwin’s expedition to the Galapagos Islands and highlight the basic lines of thought leading up to the theory of evolution. From there are dual treatises on the processes and patterns in evolution in the natural world.

But the text is really just a backdrop for the main attraction: the pictures. If ever there was to be a coffee table book highlighting both the case for evolution and the sheer beauty of the natural world, this would be it. Specimen examples cover a wide range of the tree of life, from insects and sea creatures to birds, turtles, and primates. Sample images from the book can be viewed at the CAS’s website. This is a great book for any lover of the natural sciences or natural photography.

889 Modern Greek literature



889.334: Vassilikos, Vassilis. The Few Things I Know About Glafkos Thrassakis. (Approx. 350 p.; finished 29 Mar 2014)

Known for his landmark 1967 novel Z, Vassilis Vassilikos is one of Greece’s foremost literary talents. The Few Things I Know About Glafkos Thrassakis functions on many different levels. It is a meditation on the act of research and writing; it is an autobiography written about someone else; it creates a person out of the literary ether from someone who is real. Ostensibly, the book covers the travails of the narrator trying to find out the truth about the fictional writer Glafkos Thrassakis. Thrassakis is supposed to have been killed at the hands of New Guinea cannibals, but this story quickly falls apart. After discovering new manuscripts, he gains different picture of his elusive prey, but never fully captures him.

Thrassakis, we find out, is really a pseudonym for Lazarus Laziridis, a political dissident, and here’s where the dance between distance and intimacy start. Each layer is really just another façade for the author, but he keeps the reader caring about all three people. While the novel tends towards the Borgesian with its stories within stories, the feeling is delightfully European. There are times when Vassilikos becomes very cheeky and knows full well what he’s doing, and there are other times when his poetry cannot contain itself and creates remarkable passages, but overall, this book is both bewildering and satisfying.

776 Computer art



776: Whitelaw, Mitchell. Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life. (237 p.; finished 30 Mar 2014)

When a computer generates an image, is it art? Can the image be random pixels, or must there be human guidance of what the computer generates? In Metacreation, Mitchell Whitelaw looks at the history of computer-generated and computer-related art from the perspective of both an art curator and a historian. Whitelaw’s first concern is introducing the reader to the field of artificial life art, or “a-life art.” In this case, artificial life is the creation of biological processes in a technological environment, or having a computer simulate complex natural interactions using code and rule sets. Then, using the simulated processes, the artists create works that show how the worlds of technology and biology interact.

There’s one glaring issue with this book: a lot of the works of art aren’t very good, or even thought-provoking. Whitelaw does his best to explain the place of each work in the history of the medium, but the pieces collected are just underwhelming. A lot of it has to do with the performance capacity of the computers used in the early days of a-life art (think graphics from the original Tron or Lawnmower Man movies). Some of the best pieces are the technological sculptures of Yves Amu Klein which present a world of crisp, futuristic biology. Much of newer a-life art relies on chaos theory and fractal equations to show how the equations that pervade everyday life result in interesting works of art. With some time, this field can grow and rival traditional pieces of brush and bronze, but for now, I think there is still some work to be done. An interesting but ultimately uninspired book.

440 French and Romance languages



440.9: Nadeau, Jean-Benoit and Julie Barlow. The Story of French. (450 p.; finished 4 Apr 2014)

Currently, French is the fifth-most spoken language in the world. In the Middle Ages, it was the gateway to the aristocratic lifestyle and the lingua franca of the Western world. While it has been eschewed to the milieu of wine drinkers, film buffs, and expatriates, French is still as dynamic and contentious as it has ever been. There is even a group of people—the Academie Francaise—that presides over the language and sets the guidelines on new words and phrases that enter. Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, in The Story of French, try to do what many other linguists have done before them: make the early history and morphology of a language interesting and relevant to modern readers.

In the early days of the French language (the 11th and 12th centuries), the land of the Franks was littered with languages. There was Breton, Angevin, Gascon, Savoyard, Limousin, and even Picard French. Early French evolved from the combination of the Langues d’oil (in Northern France) and the Langues d’oc (in the South). The Crusade sent many Frenchmen to the holy lands in the Middle East, and men from all over France had to communicate with each other and their leaders had to relay messages from the monarch to the men. This combined with the creation of the Kingdom of France in 1204 spawned a unified nation that needed a unified language. The 1634 creation of the Academie arose amid a need to preserve the culture and language of the French against incursions from other nations.

Apart from the history of the language, Nadeau and Barlow also look at the spread of French across the globe, either through natural expansion or through colonial means. French is spoken not just throughout Europe, but also in the US, Brazil, Madagascar, Djibouti, and Vietnam (and many, many other countries). In many respects, the cultural aspects of the French language are far more interesting than its linguistic history. How French and French-speaking peoples are depicted is equally engaging. For the most, the authors keep the topics relevant, well-paced, and scholarly. There are moments of digression into minutia, but there are neither intrusive nor incompatible with the rest of the text. Overall, this was a decent and not too thick read.

>57 NielsenGW:

I was sorta shocked to hear you say French was the fifth most spoken language in the world. But after doing some digging it doesn't bear out.

Wikipedia puts it at 18th. This one bumps it up to 13 taking non-native speakers into account. With languages like Chinese, Arabic, English, Hindi and Spanish dominating the top spaces there is just no way French could be the fifth most spoken. Where did you get that number?

>58 fundevogel:: You know what -- you're absolutely right. I guess it's just one of those "facts" that crawled in my head and I can't honestly remember where it came from. I do appreciate you keeping me honest, though.

58,59>

I'm glad to hear that that error wasn't actually in the book - I have their follow-up The Story of Spanish on my TBR stack (I speak a little Spanish and no French) and was concerned about the quality of their research. Count me as relieved!

Ah, one of those. Annoying little buggers.

690 Buildings



690: Wearne, Phillip. Collapse: When Buildings Fall Down. (244 p.; finished 6 Apr 2014)

Buildings are supposed to stand forever. It’s a pretty simple assumption. You build something, and it should stay there. Rarely are things so simple in life, however. Phillip Wearne’s Collapse catalogs eleven of the worst structural engineering failures of the past century and show how simple human miscalculation, incompetence, and even greed led to their downfall. From the Hartford Coliseum roof collapse to the 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse to the crippling bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Wearne’s detailed analysis of each failure helps those thinking about getting into the field of engineering. Each fall prevents the next (we hope). The writing here is dutiful and mildly interesting. Wearne takes official reports into account along with eyewitness interviews in an effort to paint a complete picture of each event. While the book’s design and cover look like something from a B-movie, Wearne takes his subject matter very seriously and it shows. All in all, it was a perfectly competent book.

206 Leaders and organization (Religion)



206.50973: Ammerman, Nancy Tatom. Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and Their Partners. (277 p.; finished 9 Apr 2014)

Nancy T. Ammerman’s Pillars of Faith covers the seven main religious traditions from an interesting light—to see how the their congregations have evolved over time and how those evolutions relate to American society as a whole. What are the traditions covered, you may ask? In order of size, they are Conservative Protestantism, Mainline Protestantism, African-American Protestantism, Catholic and Orthodox traditions, “Other” religions, Sectarian groups, and Judaism. Each of these groups brings something different to the proverbial melting pot, and each is shaped and influenced by the other.

Ammerman’s analysis of each congregational history is interesting and complex. The base groups themselves are formed by looking at congregational practices and are borne more from their similarities and not their differences. She takes a look at how each congregation was built, how it engages with its members, and how their organization and practices intersect with the others. She argues that organized religion is thriving and even necessary for the growth of the nation. Now, that being said, this is not a book you can pick up on a lazy Saturday afternoon and just stroll through. But if you’re genuinely interested in the intersection of American religion and American sociology, you’ll find a great deal here. This book is as much about American history as it is about American religion. While this book is not raucous or fun, it is well-researched and measured in its tone, and for those reasons, I found it intriguing enough to finish.

381 Commerce (Trade)



381.10971: Monod, David. Store Wars: Shopkeepers and the Culture of Mass Marketing, 1890-1939. (350 p.; finished 13 Apr 2014)

Between the close of the 19th century and the Second World War, the commercial landscape of Canada underwent a massive transformation. Corporate conglomerations emerged and the era of big box versus independent merchants began. There is this interesting and clichéd historical narrative that creeps into everyone’s minds that the birth of large, faceless companies leads to immediate hostilities from smaller ones. But the truth is never that simple. David Monod’s Store Wars tries desperately to set the records straight on how exactly the growth of the capitalist culture in Canada impacted the social and economic landscape.

One of the main problems with this book, other than the fact that it’s a book on foreign commercial history, is that the author tries too hard to let you know that he’s deliberately usurping assertions of previous historians. He constantly harps on years of the simplistic research, and rather than letting it go and moving forward with his subject matter, he keeps poking at other authors and highlighting their “mistakes.” Canada’s economic history is, like all other subjects, nuanced, complicated, and interesting. Monod’s main thesis is that the supposed merchant class that existed in Canada (which didn’t really exist at all) cannot be seen as one homogenous group of people with a united agenda and an equal antagonistic attitude toward the new corporations. Different shopkeepers responded differently to changing economic trends and retail atmospheres. But Monod does all he can to aggrandize his research and not his subject matter. The topic is dry enough without compounding it with veiled vitriol. For all its faults, though, this is still a decently researched book on a niche topic that scholars should still consult, if only to inspire them to write more about it. It’s heavy-handed, sure, but still a competent look into another country’s history.

997 History of Atlantic Ocean islands



997.11024: Anderson, Duncan. The Falklands War 1982. (92 p.; finished 14 Apr 2014)

In the spring of 1982, Argentine military leaders decided to invade the South Georgia and Falkland Islands, which had been under British control for 150 years, and reclaim their former territory. Not wishing to seem too hesitant, British Prime Minister Thatcher immediately sent a retaliatory naval and ground force to re-occupy the Falklands. After 74 days of fighting, the British emerged victorious and British troops held a celebratory march through London for the first time since the Second World War. Duncan Anderson’s The Falklands War 1982 is a whirlwind tour through the background, battles, and history of the quick entanglement.

Anderson’s volume is a slim, but it covers everything rather well. There are plenty of illustrations, photographs, and maps to show how all the events took place. His descriptions and analyses are decidedly biased toward the British; however, the facts are still presented in a straightforward manner. The bibliography is rather sparse, but it was still recent history at the time of publication. To be fair as well, the war was a bit more nuanced than an invasion and a quick counterstrike, and Anderson’s history does at least take a look at both side of the fighting. If you’re looking an introductory, non-academic piece on the Falklands War, then this one will do fairly well.

518 Numerical analysis



518: Householder, Alston S. Principles of Numerical Analysis (246 p.; finished 16 Apr 2014)

Before I earned a degree in library science, and before became a major in English literature, I wanted to be a mathematician. I was even decently proficient at it. Integrals, differentials, infinite sets—these were all a lot of fun for me. So, for me, Alston Householder’s Principle of Numerical Analysis was a trip down memory lane. Here, he discusses the use and derivation of calculation errors, linear and nonlinear equations, matrix and vector mathematics, and yes, integrals and differentials.

Two years ago, I read a treatise on functional fields in Italian dialectical construction. This book was much like that one. For a fair amount of the time, I could understand the words being used, but at other times, it went way over my head. It turns out I’ve lost a fair amount of my former mathematical prowess. Interestingly enough, however, the author starts with a discussion in mathematical error and how to calculate it. Most of the time, this is reserved for after the main points have been discussed. There’s a wonderful line in that section: “Blunders results from fallibility, errors from finitude. Blunders will not be considered here to any extent.” It’s a wonderful no-nonsense approach to what can be a very heady subject. To those that read this one, I tip my hat to them, for they are better equipped than I. A dense and formulaic book.

Why the heck are the Falklands in 99x with Australia and Oceania rather than in 98x with South America?

Also, I'm reading a 518 myself at the moment, When Computers Were Human - slow going but it's an actual book rather than something intended as a textbook or reference.

Might be because those islands have a delicate history and the DDC authors didn't want to lump them in with South America, thereby sparking another "incident." Other than that, it the reason eludes me.

113 Cosmology (Philosophy of nature)



113: Swimme, Brian. The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story. (112 p.; finished 17 Apr 2014)

Brian Swimme’s The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos is one of the weirdest books I’ve read in a long time. In one fell swoop, he declares capitalism the new cult of our age and urges parents to replace evangelist doctrine with teachings of astronomy, science, and cosmology. His main invective is against the constant barrage of advertisements, product placement, and consumer behavior that gets ingrained into children, thereby teaching them that the meaning of life is in things and not ideas. While this is not an entirely crazy notion, his hippy-dippy awe of the universe sometime gets in the way of his message.

Swimme truly believes science has better lessons to teach than anything else. It has rules, champions rationality, and gives understanding (when it can). He believes that if people truly understood the workings of nature and the universe around them, then they would devote more of their lives to understanding more. He does a pretty good job of illustrating how earlier scientific revolutions played a large part in bettering society and how a new revolution is just what we need, but the purple prose surrounding the awe and majesty of the universe can be a little much. It’s a quick read, but it will leave your head swimming (sorry about the pun) in an odd philosophical fog.

865 Spanish speeches



865: Paz, Octavio. In Search of the Present: 1990 Nobel Lecture. (68 p.; finished 18 Apr 2014)

When the Nobel Committee announced Octavio Paz as the laureate in literature in 1990, it was the first time a Mexican writer had been elevated to the position. The committee cited his “impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.” Every year, if the recipient can, each laureate is invited to Oslo to give a speech to both accept the award and share a little bit of their vision of the world. Paz’s speech, In Search of the Present, is a quiet reflection on his history as a writer, as a reader, and as a lifelong pursuer of the “modern.”

Paz’s talk centers on the rise of modernity in our culture. He reminisces about his boyhood and reading in a small home library, going on adventures with Cervantes and other great writers. He talks about the disconnect between the “present” of a story and our collective “present,” and how poetry (or at least poetic writing) intermingles the two. “Poetry,” he says, “in love with the instant, seeks to relive it in the poem, thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present.” To Paz, the literatures of the world are seeking a new present in which to connect to the reader. Each literature seeks this present while continually hunting the “modern.” This is the inner turmoil of literature. Earlier in his career, he said that “there can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes the two terms seek to break apart. They cannot.” The speech is endearing, lofty, poetic, and insightful and definitely worth a read if you can spare a moment.

715 Woody plants in landscape architecture



715: Bridwell, Ferrell M. Landscape Plants: Their Identification, Culture and Use. (525 p.; finished 23 Apr 2014)

Ferrell Bridwell’s Landscape Plants is exactly what it advertises. Bridwell catalog all the plants that can be used in outdoor landscaping, plain and simple. While the book is essentially a catalog of plants, there is a fair amount of discussion on which plants are more commonly used than others, how to arrange materials to create an appealing landscape, and which plants grow better in different geographic locales. The book focuses more on the decorative appearance and care necessary for the plants, so don’t expect too deep a discussion of plant biology and morphology. There are, however, sections on each plant dealing with pest control, growth rates, and many other maintenance subjects. If you’re looking to landscape your own property or need some answers to questions you have about your foliage, this is a very good book to turn to. It’s not a page turner, but rather a fairly decent reference tool.

684 Furnishings and home workshops



684: Abram, Norm. Measure Twice, Cut Once: Lessons from a Master Carpenter. (194 p.; finished 25 Apr 2014)

If you’re anything like me and you’ve ever watched an episode of This Old House, you will find it both mesmerizing and engaging. Master carpenter Norm Abram would spend each episode guiding the viewer through a woodworking construction project, giving helpful tips and tricks for doing the job correctly the first time. Measure Twice, Cut Once, a collection of his short essays, is much the same way. He talks about growing up in a carpentry family (his father and grandfather each built their own homes), his relationship with the craft, and his impressions on different tools and techniques. This short book covers a lot of basics, from which tools work better in different situations to how past jobs have led to current techniques when on a project. This book actually got me thinking of which tools I have in my toolbox and how to best use them. Luckily, Abram stays away from the sappy and lands this collection squarely in the realm of the sentimental. For anyone looking for casual information about classic carpentry or a quick jolt of folksy-ish memoir, this one should not disappoint.

465 Grammar and syntax of standard Spanish



465: Lathrop, Thomas A. The Evolution of Spanish. (194 p.; finished 27 Apr 2014)

One of the more interesting parts of a language is how individual words form over the years. In English, some words were formed from the fusing together of two existing words or from the spontaneous creation of a word that fills a gap in our collective description. Most of the time, however, words just evolve. Starting with one spelling and meaning, they slowly morph into new forms and new contexts. The same process happens in nearly every language in the world. Thomas Lathrop’s Evolution of Spanish is a look into the roots of the language, and from these roots, he hopes new understanding can grow.

Lathrop’s history of the Spanish language starts with a look at Vulgar Latin. Because Spain and Italy are so proximal and Spanish is Latinate in origin, it stands to reason that an understanding of Latin is necessary for an understanding of modern Spanish. While a lot of this may not be exciting, it is actually the only real expository section of the book. After this is page after page of pairs of word lists and verb conjugations. These lists show the evolution of the one word to the next, starting with simple vowel shifts and then moving to various grammatical forms. For linguistic historians, this is a nice compilation and a basis for a more in-depth comparative analysis, but for a casual reader, it is bone dry. Thankfully, it wasn’t too terribly long.

356 Foot forces and warfare



356.1609: Leebaert, Derek. To Dare and To Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, From Achilles to Al Qaeda. (596 p.; finished 3 May 2014)

Almost everyone in the Western hemisphere knows the story of the Trojan horse. A small band of fighters hid inside a giant wooden horse left at the gates of Troy while the Greeks pretend to sail away. Once brought inside, the men crawl out of the horse and wreak havoc on the sleeping city. Throughout history, there are many stories of elite groups of soldiers outwitting, outfighting, or outflanking a much larger army. Whether through perfect subterfuge or simply engaging the enemy with better tactics, special operations forces often change the course of a battle, a war, and even history itself. Derek Leebaert’s To Dare and To Conquer is a voluminous catalogue of such forces and how their stories intertwine with both their culture and their history.

There are a lot of histories in this history. At more than 600 pages, Leebaert suffers from a bit of information overkill. After discussing the Trojan War, he moves through Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire then the Middle Ages, Spanish conquistadors, pirate tactics, colonial Revolutionary espionage, the French Revolution, the two world wars, the Bay of Pigs, and missions to the Middle East. Then after all that, there is a discussion of politics and the use of special forces. While the histories themselves are the most interesting part, there are inconsistencies and complacent writing. Most noticeable is the clichéd discussion of the Spanish forces in the Amazon. I’m not entirely sure these can be classified as special forces, but rather an invading brigade. Also, Leebaert tends to be a little overdramatic, wordy, and politically biased (especially when discussing the CIA). However, the bibliography is immense and can point the reader towards more focused sources. It’s a very thick book and requires some gumption to get through, but there are some rewarding historical tidbits if you stick it out.

032 General encyclopedic works in English



032: Guinness World Records 2014 (615 p.; finished 6 May 2014)

I remember when I was a kid and first read the Guinness Book of World Records. Seeing pictures of the person with the world’s longest fingernails and the largest dog and the oldest person on Earth was astounding. Here catalogued was the extremity of humanity. Back then, there were very few “zany” categories, but now people seem destined to hold records in very niche areas. In the 2014 edition, there are records for the fastest assembly a seven-layer chicken bucket pyramid (35.72 seconds), fastest downing of 200 mL of mustard (20.8 seconds), and most Rubik’s cubes solved while running a marathon (100).

While most of the book is jammed with useless (but still fun) trivia, there are interesting tidbits to discover. For instance, researchers are experimenting with the feasibility of zero-gravity surgery, performing the first one on September 27, 2006. Also, in 1803, Joseph Samuel survived three separate hanging due to equipment failure. Further back in history, Pliny the Younger gave the earliest known description of a volcanic eruption (Vesuvius in 79 CE). Slogging through the entries in the Guinness Book of World Records is all at once wondrous, insane, and revelatory. It’s basic a book of lists, so the writing is inherently monotone, but if you’ve got a free afternoon, give it a whirl. I guarantee you’ll find something fun.

983 History of Chile



983.065: Munoz, Heraldo. The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet. (314 p.; finished 9 May 2014)

Following a US-backed coup d’etat to overthrow Salvador Allende in 1973, Commander-in-Chief of the Army Augusto Pinochet became the totalitarian leader of the country of Chile. He ruled with an iron fist for the next seventeen years, rounding up political opponents and dissidents, until he opened the country to democracy and was defeated in an election in 1990. Heraldo Munoz, former Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations and survivor of both the Allende and Pinochet governments, brings to light the day-to-day struggle during the country’s period of military rule in The Dictator’s Shadow.

You can tell Munoz is working through a lot of issues in this book. He recalls mass executions of political dissidents and diligently tries to tie their deaths directly back to Pinochet. While Pinochet died in 2006 and the country has been more or less democratic for the last 25 years, there is still a lot of healing to do in Chile. On its face, it’s a political memoir and Munoz tries to place the history of Chile in a greater global context, but each detail, each event, and each vote cast brings it back to the personal. This book is decidedly biased, but Munoz gets to tell his tale just like everyone else. Supporters of Pinochet will scoff and flail while modern citizens enjoy the new Chile. An interesting and eye-opening book.

228 Revelation (Apocalypse)



228.06: Kirsch, Jonathan. A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization. (256 p.; finished 12 May 2014)

After vexillology (the study of flags and their designs) and ichthyology (the study of fishes), my third favorite “ology” is eschatology: the study of the end of times. It is simultaneously incredibly easy and infinitely impossible to posit what the future will hold, and even more so when talking about the end of the future. How will humanity live out its final days? Will we relocate to a new planet? Will we succumb to our own destructive forces? Or will a grand creator revisit their creation and judge those left on the last day? Jonathan Kirsch’s A History of the End of the World looks at the Biblical writing concerning the end of days and finds that a lot of the prophecies influenced culture, history, and even civilization itself.

The Book of Revelation is the last book in the Bible, purportedly the product of the visions of John (either John the Apostle or John of Patmos) and written sometime between 60 and 95 CE. These visions are jam-packed with images, symbols, numbers, and scenes that are to occur as both a warning and a part of the end times. Kirsch’s history looks at how people at different times have interpreted these writings to structure their lives. People saw signs from the Book of Revelation in the Fall of Rome, the Black Death, the Inquisition, and every 20th century war. Like the visions of Nostradamus, the human imagination is capable of gleaning symbolism from almost any pattern of events. And much like those odd visions, the end times of Revelation fail to come to fruition (at least so far). Kirsch’s tone is equal parts scholarly, arrogant, and slightly condescending, and makes for a more interesting reading of both the Bible and Western history. All in all, a very intriguing book.

537 Electricity and electronics



537.623: Schechter, Bruce. The Path of No Resistance: The Story of the Revolution in Superconductivity. (200 p.; finished 14 May 2014)

Alright, first a primer on superconductivity: When electricity flows down a wire, some of the flow is lost due to the resistance of the material. The opposite of resistance is conductance. Superconductivity occurs when a material is cooled to such a ridiculously low temperature that the near-absence of heat allows electricity to flow without loss. The temperature at which this happens is called the critical temperature. High-temperature superconductivity physics seeks to find materials that allows for superconductivity at a critical temperature above 77 kelvins. Everybody with me so far? Good. Here we go.

Bruce Schechter, in The Path of No Resistance, documents the early pioneers in the field of high-temperature superconductivity. Regular superconductivity was discovered as a property of matter in 1911. For 75 years, no one had come up with a material that superconducted above 23K. Then, in 1986, Bednorz and Mueller induced superconductivity in lanthanum barium copper oxide at 35K (trust me, the 12K difference was earth-shattering news). They were immediately awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics the next year. (By the way, for those that care, the current record (as of 2014) is mercury barium calcium copper oxide at 133 kelvins.)

Then, things really got fun. Research teams from across the world theorized a new frontier of superconductive ceramics where electricity could flow and maglev trains could travel across countries without energy loss. The problem was that all this was very pie in the sky talk. The only samples that could produce such effects were small and fragile at best. Schechter’s interviews with scientists a few years after the fact show just how scientific thought changes from year to year and what happens when the media gets a hold of scientific discoveries before the techniques are properly vetted. It’s an interesting book, albeit slightly dated, but fun nonetheless.

Incidentally, the reason 77 Kelvin is the defining temperature for high-temperature superconductivity is that it is the temperature of liquid nitrogen, allowing for anything superconducting at warmer than that temperature to very easily be cooled to below its critical temperature. To cool something farther, you need liquid helium. Liquid helium is very expensive, and liquid nitrogen is very cheap. (How cheap? When making liquid nitrogen ice cream, a standard party trick for grad students in sciences that use the stuff, the LN2 is cheaper than the milk, liter for liter. Liquid helium is something like $30 a liter.)

>79 lorax:: I've often wondered about the whole LN2 thing, since I'm seeing a lot of chefs use it for molecular gastronomy. I would think it has something to do with rarity and effort. Nitrogen is in the air, but helium not so much. It doesn't seem like something you can get from your local supplier, however.

191 Modern western philosophy of the United States and Canada



191: Santayana, George. The Philosophy of George Santayana. (595 p.; finished 20 May 2014)

Let’s start with the basics: George Santayana was born in Madrid in 1863, but was reared in the United States. He was educated at Harvard and eventually taught there. Among his students were the writers T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Gertrude Stein. The great American poet Wallace Stevens counted Santayana among his friends. Much of Santayana’s philosophy pervades modern culture in the form of aphorisms and quick bon-mots. The Philosophy of George Santayana is a dense book filled to the brim with the life’s work of one of the twentieth century’s most prodigious thinkers.

First, a few excerpts:
• Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
• When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.
• Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge.

It would neither befit the breadth and scope of Santayana’s work to try and sum it all up here. His writing flows well and goes into the philosophies of religion, war, art, beauty, fashion, society, and love. He did not adhere to any particular religion, but generally considered it to be a benign entity (it was the deeds of the believers that caused him consternation). His philosophical stances take pieces from but still question the pragmatic, the metaphysical, and the epiphenomenal. This, quite frankly, is what I believe should be the proper stance of philosophy—to synthesize, to grow, and to ask. Santayana does all these things particularly well. I don’t recommend reading this one straight through like I did. It’s best for small consumption over a long period of time. A heady but enlightening book.

843 French fiction



843.5: Voltaire. Candide, or Optimism. (144 p.; finished 21 May 2014)

If you’re looking for one of the most satirical, rollicking, odd, philosophical, and whimsical novels in history, then you needn’t go any further than Voltaire’s Candide. Voltaire’s canonical 1759 work examines the conflict between optimism and realism, between Old World and New World experiences, and between upper class and lower class conditions. But even these dichotomies are too simple for this work. The title character’s adventures begin when he kisses Cunegonde, a relative of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh and is expelled from the estate with his mentor Pangloss. And then the real fun starts.

Candide’s adventures through the great earthquake of Lisbon, the New World, and Asia Minor to be reunited with Cunegonde reflects just how sheltered he was raised. Pangloss, ever the optimist, explains that even though there is pain and suffering and loss in the world, we are living in the “best of all possible worlds.” Candide never stops being about things: it’s about first impressions, love, loss, culture, philosophy, foreign relations, religions, etc. Voltaire clearly has a lot to say, but luckily, this novella is just long enough to pack them all in without being too overbearing. Candide finally gives up on optimism, but the funny thing is, he never says what his new philosophy will be. That’s left for the reader to figure out. Much like Animal Farm and 1984, society as a whole is Voltaire’s fodder—he laughs at us all. And we all could use a good laugh. A delightful and witty book.

733 Greek, Etruscan, Roman sculpture



733.309385: Vrettos, Theodore. The Elgin Affair: The True Story of the Greatest Theft in History. (212 p.; finished 23 May 2014)

From 1801 to 1812, the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, acquired some of the greatest sculptures in the Western world. His agents loaded priceless pieces of art onto barges and boats so that he could sell them to the British Museum for safekeeping. By 1812, he had removed 17 statues, 15 metope panels, 247 feet of frieze, and several other pieces of the Parthenon from Greece. Needless to say, this was all highly suspect and entirely illegal. Theodore Vrettos’s The Elgin Affair chronicles the history of the displacement and how the selfishness of a single 19th century official can lead to strained relations two hundred years later.

Vrettos’s history starts with Napoleon at the close of the 18th century and follows the life of Lord Elgin as through his youth, his ambassadorship, his rocky marriage, and his underhanded acquisitions. Very few can argue that Elgin’s transfer of the pieces from Greece to England was legal, and the intricate and shady methods he employed hammers the point home. None of his documentation had original signatures, and he basically forced the British Parliament to buy the pieces for the Museum. Lord Byron himself protested to the acquisition. But since interest in classical Greece was picking up just around this time, the marbles found a ready audience in the British public, and thus they have stayed in the British Museum to this day.

This book doesn’t go through the nuanced legal arguments that some make to prove whether the pieces truly belonged to the Ottoman Empire or whether Great Britain had any right to purchase them at all. It is more about the machinations of the theft itself, the sheer audacity of Lord Elgin to remove them in the first place. The story is interesting and the detail rich. Most people who know anything about Greek sculpture know about the Elgin Marbles, but this book places them in a deeper historical context. If you’re a fan of art history, then this will entertain you for a short time. An enjoyable read.

366 Associations



366.1: Knight, Christopher and Robert Lomas. The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons, and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus. (356 p.; finished 27 May 2014)

Christopher Knight’s and Robert Lomas’s The Hiram Key is a laughable “history” of secret societies, the Freemasons, Judeo-Christian historical figures, and Egyptian Gnosticism. Therein lies the problem with writing about secret societies. Not much can either be proven or disproven. Their very clandestine nature requires that they do not leave a lot of historical documentation in their wake. Lomas and Knight try unflaggingly to connect small clues in artifacts and letters together to illustrate an alternate reading of history. They include the classic story of Jesus’s hidden family and the Rosslyn Chapel conspiracy along with evidence of an Egyptian influence on Judaism and the existence of secret scrolls that tell the true story of Freemasonry.

This book is laced with conspiracies, conjecture, and confusion. Luckily, each chapter has a handy-dandy conclusion section that you can skip to when you get too overwhelmed by the writers’ avalanche of secret knowledge. The whole book is basically a call to arms to dig up a church so that they can “prove” some of the more outlandish theories that they propose. There is little here by way of a bibliography or even footnotes, so tracing their scholarship is nearly impossible. You just have to sit back and enjoy the ride they take you on. And trust me: it is quite a wild ride.

960 History of Africa (as a whole)



960.32: Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence. (688 p.; finished 3 Jun 2014)

In the late 19th century, European powers went to work dividing up the continent of Africa among themselves. Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, and Italy each took a piece in hope of increasing their own economies and their own power. By the 1950s, however, African population groups began to declare independence from their European overseers. One by one, countries emerged to form a modern Africa, but then, one by one, those same countries began to crumble under their own problems. Rampant cronyism, unmitigated illness, poor education, and a severe lack of infrastructure have led the continent of Africa to the state it’s in now. Martin Meredith’s The Fate of Africa is an unflinching look at the people and processes that have formed Africa as we know it today.

Each chapter of Meredith’s enormous treatise is a case study in poor governmental choices. Dictator after dictator emerges, corruption plagues the populace, and proper services cannot reach those that need them. Meredith makes no apologies for his views, but neither does he offer solutions. The problems are too complex for easy, book-length answers. It is true that the global community is still sending aid to Africa, but improper oversight of that aid means that it oftentimes ends up in the wrong areas or the wrong hands. Meredith’s history is replete with sadness, misery, and pain, but we as readers should not look away. In some cases, it is the only time we do look. A heavy but eye-opening book.

You've been quiet lately - for us mortals going a month between Dewey reads is a fast clip, but you're usually a lot more prolific. I hope you're all right!

I am, Lorax. Three new projects at work along with countless summer outings on the weekends leave me with little time to review all the reading I've been doing. I've got about 20 books backed up here on my desk and finally a (mostly) free weekend to get to them. Hopefully the deluge I'm about to release won't be overwhelming.

608 Invention and patents



608.7: de Vries, Leonard. Victorian Inventions. (192 pp; finished 5 Jun 2014)

If you’ve ever stayed up too late watching television, you’ve probably seen all manner of infomercials for interesting, crazy, outlandish, unnecessary, and even usable products. The thing is, someone had to invent all those items. From new bacon microwave racks to foot mops to gyroscopically-stabilized snack bowls, each one required thought, design, and materialization. This phenomenon is by no means a recent one. Folks have been coming up with new products and devices for hundreds of years. Leonard de Vries’s Victorian Inventions highlights one such era of imagination to show that we are not as removed from our past as we think.

De Vries’s stories come from three sources—Scientific American, De Natuur, and La Nature—and are divided into five major categories: transport, electricity, optics, telephony, and of course, miscellaneous. They span many areas of daily life from 1865 to 1900. Right off the bat, there is the Pedespeed, a pair of small side wheels one attaches to one’s shoes to skedaddle faster through the city. Then, there are devices to mechanically deliver food to one’s table, to bore tunnels through solid rock, to project advertisements into the night sky, to simultaneously play the cello and piano, and so on and so on.

This coffee table book offers a varied glimpse into the past. From the photographic rifle to the theatrophones, each invention brought something of the amazing into people’s lives. Much like today’s technology, each item seems slightly weird but useful in the right environment. De Vries’s writing is many time secondary to the large illustrations, but interesting nonetheless. A fun and inviting book.

254 Parish administration



254.4: Compton, Mary Katherine and David Compton. Forbidden Fruit Creates Many Jams: Roadside Church Signs Across America. (134 p.; finished 6 Jun 2014)

Mary and David Compton’s Forbidden Fruit Creates Many Jams is probably as simple a book as one can conceive. Go around, collect witty saying from church signs, and present them in a compact volume to be consumed quickly without much fluff. I literally cannot say much more about it. Some are funny, some fall flat, some are judgmental, and some are uninspired. There’s no real originality or synthesis here, just two hundred or so pieces of text from signs.

For the sake of expedience, here are a few examples:
• A backbone is better than a wishbone.
• Many children are afraid of the dark. Many adults are afraid of the light.
• Don’t like the Devil’s fruit? Stay out of his orchard!

It’s a quick book. I blew through it in about twenty minutes. It’ll at least conjure up a chortle or two.

570 General works on life sciences



570: Sole, Ricard and Brian Goodwin. Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology. (303 p.; finished 9 Jun 2014)

If you’ve ever seen an array of beetles in a natural history museum or gone snorkeling, you have no doubt marveled at just how complex biology can be. There are millions upon millions of species on Earth, each following their own patterns. Those patterns encounter and interfere with other patterns to create the massive biosphere we have today. Ricard Sole and Brian Goodwin, in Signs of Life, try to parse out those patterns and how the science that occurs at the intersection of chaos, mathematics, and biology.

Sole and Goodwin’s investigation traverses almost the entire map of living creatures. From the patterns on mollusk shells to the swarm maps of invading ant populations to mutation rates in viruses to neural pathways, complexity is a large part of biological study. They even expand their research into stock market fluctuations and urban sprawl. This book is heavy in both illustrations and mathematical formulae, but you don’t have to be versed in the math to understand the concepts at hand. This book at what I would consider an advanced introductory level. The science is attainable, but the writing gets a little technical at times. All in all, a very intriguing book.

494 Altaic, Uralic, Hyperborean, and Dravidian languages



494.8110954: Ramaswamy, Sumathi. Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970. (258 p.; finished 12 Jun 2014)

In the 1960s, men began to sacrifice themselves in the name of the Tamil language. Steadfastness to the Tamil language by inhabitants of Southern India was tantamount to a religion. But what lead to these beliefs? And what can be learned from both history and language when we view through the lens of language devotion? Sumathi Ramaswamy, in Passions of the Tongue, proposes a very new and interesting kind of linguistic study, and along the way, shows how both a people and a language evolved.

Language devotion is a new subject in the study of linguistics. When viewed in the culture of South India, the Tamil language became to its speakers a kind of goddess. At the turn of the 20th century, Tamil became a life-force for those who spoke it, and when the language itself was threatened by Hindi and other sources, purity movements and self-immolations began. Because Tamil was anthropomorphized as a female deity, the rise of Tamil speakers was paralleled by a rise in motherly metaphors in both the language and the culture. While India was trying to become its own country, Tamil was trying to secure its own power in the culture. Tamil purists could be likened to the Academie Francaise in that any change or adjustment to the language was ardently vetted.

You would be hard pressed to find a book on Tamil more thoroughly researched than this one. Ramaswamy doesn’t get into the morphology of the language so much as the culture of the speaker, which is good because the history is far more interesting. If you’re looking for an intermediate level book on South Indian languages and history, then this one is the book for you. A rich and interesting book.

188 Stoic philosophy



188: Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. (132 p.; finished 14 Jun 2014)

Marcus Aurelius was Emperor of the Roman Empire from 161 to 180 CE. Considered the last of the Five Good Emperors, he oversaw his empire with stoicism and equality. In his Meditations, written while on a military campaign in the last decade of his life, he sets forth a series of aphorisms, letters, and principles that he tried to live by. As a stoic, he thought that powerful emotions were the cause of errors in life and so sought to live a life of a more moral and intellectual manner.

The Meditations aren’t really written for an audience, and this translation is a little stilted. But what you can tell is that Marcus Aurelius is trying to reflect upon a rather interesting life. There are times when he is contented in good memories and times when the ennui of his stoic life gets to him. But the overall message is to live a good life (“Death hangs over you: while you live, and while you may, be good”) and try not to be too overly swayed by things outside of one’s control. “It is not right to vex ourselves at things,” he says, “for they care not about it.”

In the end, Marcus Aurelius’s message is both honorable and interesting. The writing takes a little getting used to, so it would behoove readers to find a good translation. It is, however, a rather good beginning look into stoicism and its effectiveness in the proper hands. Marcus Aurelius, when set against the likes of Nero and Domitian, rules in the vein of a philosopher king and tries desperately to do right by his people. All in all, a refreshing and intellectual book.

855 Italian speeches



855: Italy’s Foreign and Colonial Policy: A Selection from the Speeches Delivered in the Italian Parliament by the Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Tommaso Tittoni During His Six Years In Office (1903-1909). (323 p.; finished 17 Jun 2014)

Right off the bat, I feel I need to warn readers of this book. It’s a book of speeches given by a middlingly important government official to members of his country’s parliament. These are not remarks given on the world stage or by anyone that a majority of people have even heard of. Tommaso Tittoni was the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1903 to 1909, then again in 1919. He served a small stint as the Acting Prime Minister for 17 days in March 1905. He worked in various capacities for the Italian government for the majority of his life and as such became familiar with the ins and outs of world politics. The speeches collected in Italy’s Foreign and Colonial Policy show just how intertwined the world was at the turn of the 20th century.

Tittoni’s speeches are grouped into three major categories: foreign policy, immigration, and colonial proceedings. These thirty-four speeches, while confined to the arena of foreign affairs, still show how varied and political the purview of his office of Foreign Affairs Minister was. He has to worry about economic compensation, agricultural tariffs, negotiating existing treaties and agreements, and even the internal workings of other countries. One speech in particular expounds upon a case before the United States Supreme Court about social legislation and insurance laws. The nation of Italy was only just cobbled together not even fifty years before Tittoni’s tenure in office, so their relation to the rest of the world has to be established tenuously and judiciously.

I can’t say that I derived a great amount of pleasure from reading this book, but every once in a while, a snippet would pique my interest. Those moments, however, are few and far between. The inner dialogues of the Italian government during the 1900’s isn’t nearly as exciting as one would think. If you’re a scholar of political history or Italian government, then here’s a book for you. If not, move on.

375 Curricula (Education)



375.00973: Kliebard, Herbert M. The Struggle for the American Curriculum: 1893-1958. (252 p.; finished 20 Jun 2014)

If you’ve ever heard a parents talking about their child’s education, then you have at least encountered one person who thinks there is a better way to teach children. Trying to implement a curriculum that will have better and lasting effects on so many students is perhaps one of the hardest tasks there is. Teachers have to deal with countless varied personalities and an ever-increasing knowledge pool. From the 1890s onward in America, educators, philosophers, and legislators have tried to steer the course of education, and Herbert Kliebard’s Struggle for the American Curriculum traces each school of thought to see how they fared.

Kliebard starts with the state of the American education system in the late-19th century: textbooks and readers were becoming regular and nationalized, widespread newspapers were encouraging people to read regularly, and the last vestiges of the British model of teaching were being phased out of schoolrooms. The influx of immigrant children, financial panics, and new philosophies all came together to upheave American teaching. Almost every figure in the history of education is presented, including The Committee of Ten, Charles Eliot, and John Dewey. From curriculum theory to social meliorism to social efficiency, we see many different perspectives on what exactly a school curriculum should do. Should it be designed to find the best and the brightest or to make everyone socially competent? Or should it be engineering to make people better? These are heady, interesting, and complex questions, and Kliebard does a very good job of exploring the answers.

The writing here is neither incredibly technical nor needlessly scholarly, but don’t expect this to be a quick read. Education history is a rather intriguing lens through which to view a society, and there’s always a news story every year which places the education level of Americans against that of other countries. How we got to our current “progressive” education system is quite a winding tale indeed, but on the whole, Kliebard’s book is rife with important details. A rather informative book.

The Ramaswamy book looks really interesting!

>95 JDHomrighausen: You might get a kick out of it -- I was legitimately surprised at how interesting it was. I was prepared for it to be dry and lackluster.

902 Miscellany of history



902: Weir, Stephen. Encyclopedia Idiotica: History’s Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them. (252 p.; finished 23 Jun 2014)

Imagine only being remembered for the worst or most unintelligent thing you’ve ever done. Your history, rather than a subtle continuum of up and downs, is seen as the outcome of a single, unflattering moment. Stephen Weir’s Encyclopedia Idiotica does just that. From Menelaus’s war all in the name of a runaway wife to King Leopold’s grab for power in Central Africa to the Enron Scandal, Weir’s assessment of history is bleak indeed. While the writing is mildly satirical and meant to showcase some rather insidious blunders, it begins to wear thin after a dozen or so chapters. The fifty events collated here are mostly focused on 20th century Western history.

There were some interesting tidbits, however. For example, in 1991, Gerald Ratner, chief executive of the jewelry company Ratners Group, jokingly called some of his company’s products “crap” and almost immediately devalued his company by around $700 million. Also, the Icelandic colonization of Greenland in the 10th and 11th centuries was more extensive that I realized (until disease and pirate raids forced its abandonment). Weir’s collection, while interesting, is more sad than satisfying. He harps on a few people a little more than most and the writing is a bit more sarcastic than I would have liked, but for a bathroom or a nightstand reader, it works well in small bites.

059 General serial publications in Italic, Hellenic, or other languages



059.927082: Baron, Beth. The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press. (194 p.; finished 26 Jun 2014)

In the decades leading up to the 1919 Egyptian revolution, stirrings were taking place. Publications after publication were being churned out advocating for a voice from an often silent population: women. One after another, each one sought out a larger place in society for Egyptian women. Beth Baron’s The Women’s Awakening in Egypt shines a light on this unremembered and culturally rich movement. Her study shows that it was not just the men who were fighting for independence, and that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

This is a history in two parts: the first lays out the history and the consumption of these new publications, and the second looks to analyze their integration into the culture of early 20th century Egypt. These were journals written by women for women, and while each one didn’t last for very long, there was always another one to takes it place. From 1892 to 1920, these journals were a way for Egyptian women to interact with both each other and the culture at large. The spread of “new” ideas, such as companionate marriages and social reform, is seen here as a sort of revolution within a revolution.

Baron’s writing is scholarly and slightly dense, but there is a wealth of Egyptian social, cultural, and political history here. If you are already versed, then you get a little more depth; if not, then you get a whole lot of information. This perspective of the Egyptian revolution bears reading, if only to reinforce that historical events often have a multitude of perspectives. A deep and interesting book.

769 Prints



769.56092: Garfield, Simon. The Error World: An Affair with Stamps. (245 p.; finished 28 Jun 2014)

We are all of us collectors. Be it books, baseballs cards, or Barbie dolls, what we gather into our lives defines us in some way. Simon Garfield’s life seems to be one of not only collecting, but of crisis and loss. From his first experience with stamp collecting, he was hooked, but his pseudo-obsession with philately would cost him more than money. In his The Error World, he looks at the history of both stamp-making and stamp collecting as well as the trajectory of his own life in relation to his hobby.

Stamps began in Britain in 1840 and from there began a worldwide obsession with acquiring newer and interesting pieces. The 1840 Penny Black started the whole thing. Stamps are now printed in every country and include an almost infinite variety of subject matters. There are those that just collect British monarch stamps or island airmail stamps or stamps from a certain decade. Garfield concerns himself with errors. At various points in the printing process, ink can be misapplied or entire figures can be missing from the stamp. Errors, because they are inherently rarer than the stamps themselves, are a bit more valuable and have more character. Garfield details the history of famous collectors and the prizes they sought after, counting himself among their number.

Garfield’s collection of stamps is counterpointed with his collection of experiences. His father died early in his life and then his mother, and he can’t quite ever keep his relationships or his collections whole. He cheats on his wife and has to sell his collection to pay for the divorce. Garfield’s life is unfortunately underwhelming when set against the field of philately (which is saying quite a lot, I believe), but the stories he tells are genuine. In the end, the book reads fast and has a good amount of information about stamps, so it’ll fit nicely in a free afternoon.

653 Shorthand



653.42: Gregg. John Robert. Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified. (315 p.; finished 1 Jul 2014)

One of the things that has always fascinated me about newspaper reporters is their ability to take handwritten notes of a meeting or an interview in real time, without interfering the flow of the conversation, and then reproduce it word for word in print. You can’t just write down the whole thing verbatim and expect to keep up. Turns out, they use a stenographic method called shorthand, and Gregg shorthand is one of the most used styles in the world.

Gregg shorthand breaks down vocal language into groups of sounds and then seeks to reproduce those sounds by using different elliptical pen strokes. Words are compressed, abbreviated, and mashed together to form a version of text-speak on acid written by a doctor. This manual, written in 1956, is basically a how-to guide on Gregg’s style of stenography (as opposed to the Pitman method which uses more angular strokes and ink thickness to differentiate sounds).

While I didn’t spend a lot of time trying out the lessons taught in the book, I found it more interesting how the author broke down spoken English into its phonemes and tries to capture those sounds in something other than letters. It brings English back to a form of pictographic language. The book takes the user through a multitude of common words and how to construct larger words from the individual pieces. Much of it is geared towards business or newspaper writing, so the more poetic words are left out. However, the book does well in achieving its only goal: to function as an introductory manual to this style of writing. Other than that, there’s not much else here.

99 in the totally not a non fiction book category you might be interested in The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon takes mail carrying to some dark, transgressive places.

>101 fundevogel: Every time I hear mention of Pynchon, I flinch a little. He's one of the many, many, many fiction writers I'm going to read in my next project.

Ha. Does he make you flinch more or less than Mark Danielewski? I didn't really know if I should be afraid heading into Pynchon and I've only read the one so far, but I found it more engaging than difficult. And a bit anarchic.

>103 fundevogel: Danielewski only shows up on my list once with Only Revolutions, but I don't have an impression of him either way. There are a few authors I feel I'm going to have to brace myself for, though: Pynchon, Faulkner, Malamud, and Nabokov (to name a few).

So what is this fiction project you're planning?

For my next project, I've decided to tackle all the award-winning fiction I've been avoiding over the years. Since I'm a completist, I can't just read some of the winners and not the others, so I've devised a project to keep me busy until I can no longer read. I've chosen ten book awards and will read all books that either won or were nominated/shortlisted for the award. The awards I've chosen are:

* The Man Booker Prize
* The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
* The Whitbread Best Novel Award (now the Costa Novel Award)
* The National Book Critic's Circle Award for Fiction
* The National Book Award for Fiction
* The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
* The Orange/Women's Prize for Fiction (now the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction)
* The Faulkner/PEN Award for Fiction
* The Scotiabank Giller Prize
* The James Tait Black Memorial Prize

There are probably better or more diverse awards out there, but I had to make a cutoff somewhere. These ten awards comprise 1,467 unique titles to date, so I have to start gathering them now when I see them at sales and such (I have about a hundred or so right now). As each prize is awarded, I have to keep adding new titles to the list. Given my reading pace, I should "catch up" in 30 or so years. It should be a lot of fun.

>104 NielsenGW: Ha. The rest of us think Dewey will keep us busy til we're dead.

I haven't read any of Faulkner's novels, but I read a short story collection of his and didn't have any problem with it. I particularly liked Red Leaves and the Turnabout.

For all in the Dewey Challenge: I've finally found a new book that can be read quasi-leisurely AND covers an obscure section!

For DDC 697 -- Heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning engineering, there's a new book coming out by Fordham University Press entitled "Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything" by Salvatore Basile. It's available for ARC request at NetGalley if you're really eager to get your hands on it.

202 Doctrines (Religion)



202.3: Willis, Jim and Barbara Willis. Armageddon Now: The End of the World from A to Z (426 p.; finished 5 Jul 2014)

While the Book of Revelation covers the intricate and symbolic end of the Christian world, Jim and Barbara Willis are interested in every possible postulated apocalypse. In Armageddon Now, they gather together (alphabetically) every conjectured end of the world. From the Abomination of Desolation to Zoroastrianism, they cover Armageddon from an interesting and removed perspective. All of these can’t possibly be true, but each one is given equal weight and description. There are even sections on catastrophic world collapse due to global warming, alien invasion, meteors, and even doomsday cults.

While the writing is good enough, the flow of the book is a little choppy. Because it’s just an alphabetical arrangement of topics, there are no real transitions from one section another. It works well as a bathroom reader or a nightstand book, but reading it straight through is a bit jarring. That said, there are myriad interesting tidbits buried throughout this book and it makes for a decent sideways attempt at comparative religious studies in regards to this one topic.

556 Earth sciences of Africa



556.883: Scholz, Christopher. Fieldwork: A Geologist’s Memoir of the Kalahari. (190 p.; finished 7 Jul 2014)

In 1974, Dr. Christopher Scholz, a newly-minted professor of geology at Columbia University, received a rather interesting and unexpected phone call. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization called to ask him if he would want to serve as an earthquake consultant in Botswana. The U.N. was trying to run an agricultural project in the Okavango Delta and wanted to know what, if any, threat was posed by earthquakes changing the way that the delta flows and drains. A simple enough project, everyone thought. As Scholz writes in Fieldwork, “Africa is a continent like no other.” And his work there would be like no other as well.

Trying to record earthquakes in a desert is just about as hard as eating soup with a fork. The seismometers have to be planted in solid rock in order to capture the waves that are propagated by micro-earthquakes. Much of Scholz’s time is spent looking for suitable areas to place the equipment all while avoiding hazards such as camp thieves, bureaucratic bungling, and funding mishaps. More often than not, it’s the African wildlife that becomes a hazard. He soon learns that it’s the elephants, and not the lions, that actually rule the landscape, and a thundering herd can easy cause for a panic at camp.

This book was entertaining and interesting in a way that you don’t books on geology to be. The only thing missing from this book are more maps and illustrations. It’s part travelogue, part scientific nonfiction, part adventure novel. I learned far more about rift systems in Africa than I ever thought possible. Scholz’s passion and glee for his field bleeds through the writing. He would make for a rather splendid professor if you ever got to chance to study with him. Through all his adventures in the Kalahari Desert, he still manages to gather data that bolster his theory about the East Africa Rift System. All in all, an engaging and fun read.

386 Inland waterway and ferry transportation



386.4809747: Bernstein, Peter L. Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation. (381 p.; finished 11 Jul 2014)

At the beginning of the 19th century, the United States was just getting its feet wet as a nation. One of the many problems in governing the country was simply its size. Getting news and goods from one side of the colonies to another could take an inordinately long time. At the time, water-based travel was the fastest, but boats could get to only so many cities. But in 1807, an interesting idea came along to cut a waterway from New York all the way across the state to Lake Erie. Barges could travel from the eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes. From there goods to be delivered to inland cities or even taken to the Mississippi River system. Peter Bernstein’s Wedding of the Waters tells the story of the planning, politics, and piloting of the Erie Canal.

Bernstein focuses more on the political and economic context of the Erie Canal than on actual efforts that went into its construction, but even those are interesting. The sheer amount of cooperation requires to literally dig a trench through an entire state is mind-boggling and the machinations of such an effort are captured well here. One of the most amazing things to remember is that at this time in the U.S., there were no civil engineers. Sure, there were folks who apprenticed with surveying equipment, but the concept of civil engineering was not yet formed.

Still, once ground was broken in 1817, it only took eight years to finish the project. Once completed, numerous town formed at lock sites and boat travel along the route more than tripled. The War of 1812 rocked the American economy, but commerce along the Erie Canal helped at least in some way to repair the damage. The historical context and the engineering problems posed make for interesting reading. As always, I would have liked more maps and diagrams to show both the project’s path and the machines used. Other than that, though, the book was interesting, and in places, fun to read.

986 History of Colombia and Ecuador



986.10634092: Betancourt, Ingrid. Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle. (528 p.; finished 16 Jul 2014)

Without a doubt, Ingrid Betancourt’s Even Silence Has an End is one of the most heart-breaking, gut-wrenching memoirs I’ve read in a long time. In 2002, Betancourt was campaigning to become President of Colombia as a Green Party member. At a traffic checkpoint in Colombia’s DMZ, she was kidnapped by a member of the revolutionary FARC, and then held for more than six years. She was kept with many other captured people from around the world. She found herself among a mix of nationalities, social statuses, and walks of life. Her story is one of hope and loss, of freedom and failure.

Betancourt’s imprisonment caught the attention of the world. As a dual Colombian-French citizen-diplomat, several world governments tried to engage the Colombians for her release. Each year she was captured, at least one rescue attempt or negotiation was started, but it wasn’t until 2008 that she was freed from captivity. Her experiences in the jungle prison are both harrowing and enlightening. While there are some to dismiss her retelling of the events as either politically motivated or self-serving, they are still true. While imprisoned, she endured not only physical torture, but also news of her father’s death. Through all this, she still find ways to connect with those around her and not fall too deeply into despair. It is a long tale, told with excruciating detail, and very much demands your attentions. A lengthy but ultimately necessary book.

878 Latin miscellaneous writings



878: Plutarch. Plutarch’s Lives. (389 p.; 20 Jul 2014)

Note: This edition of Plutarch’s Lives, published as part of the Harvard Classics, is not the complete set written by Plutarch. The original collection consisted of 23 pairs of biographies, each containing a Greek and Roman figure, and four unpaired biographies. My version covers Themistocles, Pericles, Aristides, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Demosthenes, Cicero, Julius Caesar, and Antony. Alcibiades and Coriolanus are paired together as well as Demosthenes and Cicero.

If you want a pretty decent picture of both the everyday lives of Greeks and Roman as well as an overview of ancient, you’d be hard pressed to do better than Plutarch. Writing in the late 1st century, Plutarch is about as close to a contemporary source as one could want. In the Harvard Classics collection of Plutarch’s Lives, we get a cross section of historical figures:

• Themistocles: Athenian general who saved Greece from the Persians in the 5th century BCE
• Pericles: Successor to Themistocles who instilled democracy into Athenian politics
• Alcibiades: Athenian statesman and general
• Coriolanus: Exiled Roman general who teamed with the Volsci to invade Rome
• Demosthenes: Greek orator who opposed Macedonian expansion
• Cicero: Roman politician and orator who revered Demosthenes
• Julius Caesar: Roman emperor who conquered most of Europe
• Antony: Roman consul who succeeded Caesar

Each of these men lived interested, entangled, and boisterous lives. At a time when Western civilization was emerging from the crucible of the Fertile Crescent, each of these subjects sought to direct the future of their worlds. Whether through words or wars, they put in a lot of effort to live lives that they thought were full of dignity, valor, and righteousness.

Plutarch tries to explore the character of each of his subjects, to search for both the good and bad qualities which help to put their actions in some context for the reader. Unfortunately, the writing in this edition is a bit stilted. It’s a 1969 reprint of a 1859 revision of an 1683 translation, so there’s not exactly a lot of modern narrative construction here. All in all, though, the material is very educational and will get you quickly versed in ancient history.

100 General works on philosophy



100. Landsburg, Steven E. The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics. (248 p.; finished 22 Jul 2014)

I’m going to be open-minded here. I will be. First, I will address the book on its style, its writing, and the information presented. Then, there will be a rant and I do not apologize for that.

Steven E. Landsburg’s The Big Questions is an intriguing foray into the use of non-typical sciences to look at macroscopic philosophical questions. The questions in questions range from why is there something rather than nothing, is there a God, is logical disagreement a sign of inherent meaninglessness, can we really know everything, and so on. These are indeed interesting and challenging questions. Looking into philosophy using physics and economics is kind of fun and gets one thinking laterally and not directly, which on the whole is a good skill to have.

Landsburg’s tackling of these questions is in many ways logical and rich. There are indeed mathematical bases for following both morality and human perception of color (as well as other things in the universe). His main premise is that once you have math, everything else follows. One of the very mind-boggling assertions me makes is that almost no one is deeply religious because crimes are committed on a fairly regular basis and acts of martyrdom are not. That part makes for fun reading. And for the most part, Landsburg’s theories are engaging, flow well, and get you to think a little more critically about the larger picture.

Now for the rant: The whammy comes near the end of the book. Landsburg unequivocally advocates for the near dismissal of English departments in education. He starts with the basis that reading is a leisure activity and is not a serious use of educational time. He argues that one could get just about as much educational content from a night spent watching The Simpsons. To completely dismiss an entire branch of study as useless when you just spent an entire book using disparate fields to look at philosophical questions seems to me both self-defeating and insulting. You never know where the next great piece of information or idea will come from, but apparently according to Dr. Landsburg, literature will never contain it. Boo, Mr. Landsburg, boo to you, sir.

I always learn so much from your reviews. I'm a classics major, but have only read a little Plutarch, his biography of Alexander (more of a hagiography, really!).

He argues that one could get just about as much educational content from a night spent watching The Simpsons. To completely dismiss an entire branch of study as useless when you just spent an entire book using disparate fields to look at philosophical questions seems to me both self-defeating and insulting. You never know where the next great piece of information or idea will come from, but apparently according to Dr. Landsburg, literature will never contain it.

Is that a dismissal of reading, or an endorsement of The Simpsons? After all, the Simpsons have had episodes centered on the existence of the soul ("Bart Sells His Soul") and the relationship between religious belief and moral behavior ("Homer the Heretic"). Not to mention all the geeky jokes ("Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!").

(Tongue firmly in cheek.)

541 Physical chemistry



541.24: Atkins, P. W. The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey into the Land of the Chemical Elements. (149 p.; finished 23 Jul 2014)

I’ve yet to read a book on science that was one giant metaphor. Normally, authors want to just educate the reader on a concept, flesh it out with rich histories and context, and then move on to the next thing. P.W. Atkins’s The Periodic Kingdom is a completely different beast altogether. He imagines the periodic table, on display in classrooms and science labs around the world, as a geographic map. The eastern borders house the nobility and the western shores are home to the most explosive elements. In between are the Metallic Desert, the southern island (transuranic elements), and the Eastern Rectangle (gaseous elements). And Atkins takes it upon himself to be the tour guide of this strange but rather organized kingdom.

The conceit of the book works until he gets to his real aim, which is to explain the atomic structure and explanation for how certain elements react with certain others. By giving the elements a context in this “kingdom,” he hopes to better educate the reader on chemical processes. The problem comes when he gets to electron orbits and energy states. While the orbital configurations are part of the organizational scheme of the periodic table, viewing it as a geographic region makes little sense at that point. The metaphor only works to a point, and then it becomes a standard science textbook. That being said, though, viewing the elements through Atkins’s lens is novel and worth a read. Chemistry amateurs will find new knowledge and veterans can maybe see their world with fresh eyes. All in all, a decent and interesting read.

409 Historical, geographical, and persons treatment of language



409: Turner, James. Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities. (386 p.; finished 27 Jul 2014)

In Philology, James Turner makes a fun and rather interesting assertion: all studies in the humanities lead back to philology, the study of languages and their history. In order to engage in the studia humanitatis, you need history. In order to read history in its proper context, you have to read it in its original language. For that you need an understanding of languages, their structure and their history, hence philology. To understand art and architecture requires context, and the urge to understand it as its contemporaries did. This requires chronicles, journals, letters, and yes, philology. Turner traces the grand study of philology through history to show its roots and how it can be again reborn as a proper tool for understanding both our current circumstances and our collective history.

Starting with ancient Chinese and Sanskrit manuals on language organization and construction, he guides the reader through eras in philological study. Early in its day, it was the go-to field for those writing about history, philosophy, or theology. All through Western history and even into 19th century America, philology is found to form the basis for any “complete” education. He moves the narrative between poets, educators, philosophers, artists, and even mathematicians to show how the field of philology both informs and is informed by everything else. Language forms in many ways the common bond between human beings, and so philology seeks to understand those bonds from the inside out.

Turner’s research on this topic is immense and rich. Even though he hedges in his introduction that this book comes up short and his understanding of ancient languages is paltry at best, he still gets across a ton of information and history. The writing is a little stuffy, but so is the subject matter. Philology is by necessity a very minutiae-driven field, so some of the sections tend to feel a bit pedantic. Trust me, if you stick it out, you get a better understanding of what we call the humanities. He laments the fact that a generalist in the humanities could not exist in today’s educational atmosphere of specialization, and in many ways I feel much the same way. Reading this will awaken the polymath in all of us, and hopefully a brave few will make a go of it as a career. All in all, a very interesting read.

317 General statistics of North America



317.3: Kurian, George Thomas, Ed. Datapedia of the United States 1790-2005: America Year By Year. (557 p.; finished 2 Aug 2014)

If there’s anything that’s sure to flock readers to your book, it’s five hundred pages of data tables. George Kurian’s Datapedia of the United States is a monumental undertaking. He has curated data from hundreds of sources and collated them into different tables and graphs to show how the United States has changed statistically over the past 215 years. He organizes this information into 25 different major groups, ranging from general stats to agriculture to manufacturing to government. If there’s a statistic you’re looking for, it’s probably in here. Each section starts off with an array of interesting factoids, and then he dives headfirst into the data. Here’s just a sample:

• Up until 1830, deaf, blind, and mute people were not counted on the census.
• The US passed the $1 trillion GDP mark in 1970.
• Nearly 25% percent of the US is federal land.
• The first major highway was built from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois from 1806 to 1840.
• In 1880, only 2,076 new books were published in the US. By 1998, it has increased to 56,129 new books or new editions; 7,096 of those were general fiction.

On and on, it goes for over 550 pages. If you want to how much money was spent on advertising in 1937 or how many cows were kept on farms during the 1970s or the exact vote count cast by party by state for the last 160 years, it’s all here. If you’re going to trot some odd statistic for a report or a talk, you best come here first. It’s one-stop shopping for data wonks. That being said, do not under any circumstances try to read this like a book. The only things to sink your teeth into are the section heading factoids. After that, it’s page after page of data tables. Pages and pages and pages and pages…good luck.

587 Pteridophyta (Botany)



587.097274: Sacks, Oliver. Oaxaca Journal. (159 p.; finished 4 Aug 2014)

First of all, this book is about ferns. It’s about people from all walks of life, all educational backgrounds, and all nationalities who love ferns. Oliver Sacks, noted neuroscientist and author, counts himself among their number. He is a legitimate card-carrying member of the American Fern Society. Ferns don’t get a lot of love from supposed plant lovers and botanists. They belong to the plant group Pteridophyta, reproduce by spores, and don’t have flowers. But Sacks loves them all. Some time back, he got to go on a “fern foray” to Oaxaca, Mexico with some fellow enthusiasts from the AFS. Oaxaca Journal takes us with him.

After reading this one, I wish I could have gone with him on his trip. His description of the people, landscape, and flora of Mexico is delightful and rich. Even if you are bored to death by the thought of a botany book, this one is interesting nonetheless, with bits about anthropology, food, and culture to help space out the plant science. He captures some of the glee of being an amateur scientist. He doesn’t have a research paper to write, or a lab to get back to, or even an agenda at all. He just wants to explore a new place that has a lot of the plants he loves to see and talk about. Being surrounded by others who revel in ferns doesn’t hurt either. It’s a short book for a short trip, and makes for a wonderful afternoon of reading. A quick and enthusiastic read.

229 Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and intertestamental works



229.8: Pagels, Elaine and Karen L. King. Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. (165 p.; finished 6 Aug 2014)

In Christian history, Jesus Christ gathered twelve people to his side to be his apostles and spread his beliefs throughout the world. According to The Bible, Judas Iscariot accepts payment of thirty silver coins from the Sanhedrin priests and agrees to point out Jesus to the local authorities so that he can be captured and tried for purporting to be the Son of God. Judas’s betrayal results in the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection as depicted later in the Gospels. The traditional telling of this matter is done by the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--, but what if Judas himself got a say in the matter? In the 1970s, a papyrus codex was discovered near Beni Masah, Egypt which appears to be from Judas’s point of view. In Reading Judas, Elaine Pagels and Karen King tackle the new text to see if it can shed new light on old mythology.

There are a lot of things to learn from a shredded piece of paper from 1,700 years ago. First, Christianity was, is, and will always be an infinitely nuanced and an infinitely personal set of beliefs. Each iteration of the religion in each person begets a new system. In the Bible, each voice has a different Christianity, and in this new text, we hear the voice of the oft-reviled Judas Iscariot. The text is short, but packed with historical details, research, and annotations to the original document. It is a Coptic translation of a 2nd century Greek text, so things can definitely get lost through the years. Judas’s act, seen through Gnostic eyes, is one of love and loyalty, setting in motion the inevitable resurrection of his friend and the salvation of mankind.

Pagels’s and King’s text is nice and tight. They know that not everyone will be pleased to read about the “good” deeds of Judas Iscariot. Traditionalists will see this as a deliberate blurring of the lines between good and evil, but the codex is still a legitimate piece of history. Scholars can debate among themselves about the literal meanings of certain words and phrases, but they are more qualified than I in this matter. Overall, this was a very interesting book that illuminates a rather shady character in the Bible.

660 Chemical engineering and related technologies



660.65: Hubbell, Sue. Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes. (160 p.; finished 8 Aug 2014)

Every living thing on the planet has been genetically modified. Each generation forces changes on the next. Most of the time, this modification is natural and inevitable, but sometimes a helping hand intervenes. Ever since humans learned how to grow food, they have been selectively breeding crops that begat more and more resources. In Shrinking the Cat, Sue Hubbell looks at the history of genetic engineering through four species—the corn plant, the silkworm, the cat, and the apple—to get a better sense of the ethics and benefits of human tinkering.

Hubbell’s dubs the human race homo mutabilis: human that changes things. We cannot help but modify our environment to suit our needs, but so does every other animal (although not nearly on the scale that we have). Each living thing has found a way, at least for now, to sustain itself, grow, and proliferate. But human intelligence has allowed us to change more than just the environment; we can change the core of things. Hubbell’s look at a few modified organisms gives us a chance to step back and assess how those changes have affected the present. The hybridization and genetic modification of corn has led to disease-resistant strains and high-yield crops, but basically inaugurated the age of corn syrup. Breeding silkworms to produce a good amount of fiber kick-started trade between Asia and Europe.

Genetic engineering has been around for ages, but only now are we doing it more precisely and more deliberately. Those who oppose genetically-modified organisms will be hard-pressed to find something that isn’t modified in some way, but do have valid concerns about the possible side effects of said modifications. Hubbell’s book tries to create a more balanced picture of genetic modification by giving a deeper historical context and interesting connections to sociology, art, and anthropology. This book is short enough to keep your attention, but does well not to become a sermon on the “good of science.” All in all, quick and enlightening read.

790 Recreational and performing arts



790.132: Botha, Ted. Mongo: Adventures in Trash. (242 p.; finished 10 Aug 2014)

If you’ve ever seen an object on the side of the road or fished something from a dumpster or a trash pile, then you’ve engaged in mongo. In the traditional sense, mongo is any object that been discarded but now retrieved. Mongo can either be for profit or pleasure (or sometimes both). Mongo culture comes with many different subdivisions: people mongo for food, books, furniture, car parts, antiques, or just for decoration. For some, mongo is their only way of surviving, and for others, it’s a side project. Ted Botha’s Mongo is look into this often-invisible subculture.

Botha covers pretty much all areas of mongo in New York City. There are the freegans, those who forage for food thrown away but that is still edible. There are book hunters who scour alleyways and stoops for piles of material that can be resold for a few bucks. There are those who dig up backyards to find hidden treasures from the 19th century. And then there are those can’t bear to see anything thrown away and keep trinkets for themselves. These variations on a theme give New York an even richer character than previously seen.

I found this book immensely intriguing. My mother used to scour European junkyards and flea markets for pieces for our house and many times, she came back with large, grungy items only to restore them to a perfectly respectable state. Treasures can be found in another person’s trash, but one must be judicious and patient. Botha’s interpretation of mongo culture is with a sympathetic eye as he is a collector himself. His prose clips along nicely and is all at once funny, interesting, descriptive, and kind. After reading this one, you’ll never look at trash in the same way again.

073 Journalism and newspapers in central Europe; in Germany



073: Hale, Oron J. The Captive Press in the Third Reich. (323 p.; finished 13 Aug 2014)

One of the best ways to make sure everybody’s on the same page, is to make sure thtey’re all reading the same pages. Part of the Nazi propoganda machine was to fully subvert German newspaper companies and publishing houses. Through an intricate weaving of interviews, business documents, and military records, Oron Hale details this process in The Captive Press in the Third Reich. This book goes through how the Nazi party outright bought some newspapers, put members in key positions at others, and then choked out any opposing viewpoints in the remaining news media, thus ensuring universal saturation of their message and mandates.

Hale’s account of this media sublimation is about as comprehensive as it can get. The vast majority of the book covers the pre-war machinations of the Nazi party, showing how simple, slow maneuvers quickly added up to a populace quietly surrounding by the Nazi message. The Captive Press is not really a casual read, but contains a immense amount of information about German publishing and journalism leading up to World War II. A dense but interesting read.

936 History of Europe north & west of Italian Peninsula to ca. 499



936.03092: Man, John. Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome. (311 p.; finished 16 Aug 2013)

We learn from early history classes in school that Attila the Hun was a brutish, savage leader, bent on beating down the mighty Roman empire. Attila sprang from the dark recesses of northern Europe to lay siege to the civilized people of the Mediterranean. But this story is decidedly one-sided and lacking in nuance. In John Man’s Attila, he tries to gives flesh and blood to the skeleton of the tale. Man attempts to give this historical ghost a context and finds much more than we expected.

While Attila’s birthdate is unknown, by about 434 CE he had become the leader of the Huns and an empire that stretched from the Ural Sea to the Baltic, and from the Rhine River to the Danube. Man’s history gives a fair amount of space to the pre-Attila relationships between the Roman Empire, the Goths, and the Huns. This is necessary because of the intricate and delicate political bonds throughout Europe at the time. From then until his death in 453, Attila cements his place in history by gaining the loyalty of millions and repeatedly challenging the might of the Roman Empire. Apparently, the only thing that could stop Attila was his rather anti-climactic death (from possibly a peptic ulcer that drowned his lungs in blood).

Man relies heavily on Mierow’s 1915 translation of Jordanes’ 6th century History of the Goths. He couples this with both the histories of Procopius and the contemporaneous writings of Priscus. These works have their flaws and biases, but it’s really all we have to work with. New archaeological finds and secondary sources also help to flesh out the tale. I did find the lack of direct footnotes a bit worrying, but the biography is about as detailed and intriguing as it can get. While scholars will look elsewhere, the casual enthusiast of ancient European history or the Roman Empire will find a lot to enjoy here. A rich and adventurous read.

379 Public policy issues in education



379.2630976773: Jacoway, Elizabeth. Turn Away Thy Son: Little Rock, the Crisis that Shocked the Nation. (362 p.; finished 20 Aug 2014)

In September 1957, nine students attended their first day at Little Rock Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Normally, this wouldn’t have made for national news, but these nine students were African-American and they were the first ones to ever attend this school. They were surrounded by a military escort and news cameras. Elizabeth Jacoway’s Turn Away Thy Son is an in-depth look at the political and social atmosphere that pervaded the decision to desegregate Arkansas schools.

Jacoway’s tries to get as comprehensive a picture of the struggle at Little Rock Central High as possible, including a look into the lives of the Little Rock Nine today. The story of filled with politics, social rhetoric, and heartache. From our modern perspective, it seems almost unheard of that just sixty years ago students were railed against for the color of their skin. From the Brown v. Board Education decision in 1954 to superintendent Virgil Blossom’s careful plan to desegregate Arkansas schools to that fateful day in 1957, we get an enthralling picture of Civil Rights-era America.

At times, this book is a little hard to read. Some of the stories of outright racism, bullying, and political grandstanding make one cringe at just how hurtful people can be. The account of the Little Rock Nine is immensely important, if for the only reason that we are perpetually cautioned against its recurrence. Jacoway’s writing is fluid, filled with detail, and well-researched. An excellent read.

894 Altaic, Uralic, Hyperborean, Dravidian literatures



894.3533: Pamuk, Orhan. Snow. (426 p.; finished 25 Aug 2014)

In Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, a man comes home. As always, the context is excruciatingly important. Ka, a Turkish poet, who has lived for a while in Germany, returns to his home country to investigate a series of young suicides in the town of Kars. It’s a small town, and religious tensions run high. Ka doesn’t write much poetry any more, but the folks in Kars, when not dodging political subterfuge or looking for angles, give him more credit than he deserves for his writing. In the town of Kars lives Ipek, a woman recently separated from her political candidate husband, a woman who reminds Ka of better days, a woman who he thinks can save him and his poetry. In the dead of winter, Ka soon learns, however, just how heavy and silent the snow can be.

Pamuk’s work comes from a country scarred by centuries of religious debate. While the government still desperately clings to idea that it can be secular and separate from the fight, those who run for office or speak out against those in power do so from the perspective of their faith. Ka’s business in Kars is constantly bombarded by people with questions about his faith. Does he believe in God? Did he leave Turkey because he no longer has faith? Does he think the suicides in town are due to the head-scarf debate? All Ka really wants is an answer to a single question: Will Ipek marry him? His indifference to all else leads him on a journey into the weird Orwellian political underbelly of Turkish culture. He meets with rebel leaders and local police on equal footing so long as it gets him in Ipek’s good graces.

Snow presents itself as a gathered story. The narrator has found Ka’s journals, newspaper clippings, video tapes, and official documents and tries to piece together Ka’s story as the suicides unfold. Presumably, Ka keeps very extensive notes. The glaring exception here is that all of Ka’s poems are missing. He is even asked to recite a poem on local television, but he never gets the chance. All we get are snippets and environments, but never the finished products. In short, we keep seeing the inspirations, but never what was inspired. Even though Snow is about a foreign culture and debate, I never felt completely removed from the tale. Pamuk’s words are rich, haunting, detailed, and dripping with commentary. If I ever get a chance, I will definitely read more by him.

>127 NielsenGW:

You're in luck; My Name is Red (which was my read for an 894) won one of the awards on your list in >106 NielsenGW:. So you'll get more Pamuk eventually even if you stick with your plans!

>128 lorax: Yeah, I was a little sad I couldn't kill two birds with one stone, but reading more Pamuk definitely can't be a bad thing.

149 Other philosophical systems and doctrines



149.7: The Rationalists. (471 p.; finished 30 Aug 2014)

The Rationalists is a collection of philosophical treatises by Rene Descartes, Benedict de Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz. You get Descartes’s Discourse on Method and Meditations, Spinoza’s Ethics, and Leibniz’s Monadology and Discourse on Metaphysics. By the middle of the 17th century, philosophy was finding its way out of the tired debates on religion and started to become a bit more scientific. The natural philosophers of the Renaissance started to place more importance on observable phenomena and experimentation rather than dictated dogma. The three philosophers collected here show how the school of rationalism started, matured, and culminated in an entirely different way of thinking.

Descartes’s writing tries to strip away all the nonessential from philosophy. If it isn’t absolute and eternal, then it isn’t true knowledge. Using reason alone, one can understand the universe. Even sense experiences aren’t absolute. His famous “cogito ergo sum” is a corollary showing that self-recognition isn’t something that is sensed, but rather reasoned, and being is absolutely true. Spinoza carries the rational baton a little further and tries to combine mathematical axioms and geometrical theorems into both philosophy and psychology. While Spinoza is often times dense and even purposefully obtuse, his propositions on emotions and human thinking are an interesting look at a proto-psychological science. Lastly, Leibniz’s works tries to both fundamentally break down human thought and the physical universe.

These three philosophers, separated from us by hundreds of years, give us an interesting look at humanity entering a new era of thought. They tried to desperately to understand their world and wanted to start from scratch. For those wondering, Descartes is most approachable of the three, and Spinoza’s work can be impenetrable at times, so you have to muscle through it. All in all, these works are intriguing and shed a little light on our philosophical heritage as modern thinkers. A deep and intellectual read.

575 Specific parts and physiological systems in plants



575.0162: Gould, Stephen Jay. The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History. (323 p.; finished 2 Sep 2014)

Stephen Jay Gould’s Panda’s Thumb is a collection of thirty-one essays all looking at how the natural world has adapted to its circumstances and how we as humans perceive, interpret, and understand those adaptations. Gould’s work on evolution helps to show that sometimes scientists get it wrong, and other times, scientists get it very wrong. Even the science of evolution is evolving, which is the overall premise of this collection. We see how the early investigations of those with Down Syndrome changed the way people viewed doctors and men of science, how Mickey Mouse’s changes over the years mirror the growth of human beings, and how history of organisms on this planet is not a steady affair.

While Gould can be at times caustic, his passion for science and scientific thought is clearly evident. He understands that science has made major mistakes in the past, but that should keep people from searching for answers. Everything can be questioned, even science itself. By refining our observations and theories, we come to deeper, more nuanced explanations of the natural world. If you stick with Gould long enough, you will become enamored with science and not frightened by it. These essays are all at once delightful, educational, prophetic, and brilliant. A diverse and enlightening read.

273 Doctrinal controversies and heresies in general church history



273.6: Peters, Edward, ed. Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe: Documents in Translation. (307 p.; finished 5 Sep 2014)

Every person is a unique entity. Because there are billions of people, there are billions of individual perspectives and beliefs. This creates a problem for any organization whose lifeblood is that everybody thinks along the same lines. Almost from the beginning, Christianity has had its share of splinter groups, in-fighting, and outright civil wars. Edward Peters, in Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, traces the path of Christian writers who focus their treatises on heretics, sects, and orthodoxy. From Tertullian to John of Brevicoxa, we get nearly one thousand years of church voices on those who seek to disagree.

For some, even believing that you had a choice in the matter branded you a heretic. You either accepted church dogma or you were damned for eternity. People believed that around every corner was someone who could lead your thinking astray, so hyper-vigilance on the matter of church law was par for the course. The separate spreads of Manichaeism, the Cathars, and the Waldensians lead to continuous proclamations of what exactly was orthodox and what wasn’t. Each edict, each papal bull, and each sermon lead to different church philosophies and laws that had to be parsed through, understood, and protected from heretical thought.

Peters’s collection of church writings is an intense look at church history on a single subject. This isn’t a casual read, but sheds a ton of light on a different struggle within the Christian Church. Here, we get not only founding treatises, but also side documents, backstories, and quick histories on many heretical sects. If you’re at all interested in church history, then this one will have a ton of history and original information. Peters tries not comment too much on the treatises, but rather presents them for the reader to digest. A rich and enlightening book.

Fascinating reviews, as always.

677 Textiles



677.71: Hart-Davis, Adam. String: Unraveling the History of a Twisted Piece of Twine. (187 p.; finished 7 Sep 2014)

Somebody has written a book on the manufacture and uses of string and twine throughout history. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and so it has. Adam Hart-Davis’s String looks at not only the history of string and twine, but the intricate ways that humanity has engineered it to fit its needs. From the oldest cotton strings to modern polymerized nylon, string exists in our collective history as a largely unrecognized product, but Hart-Davis does his best to bring it to the light.

Unfortunately, the downfall of such a book is that the history of string manufacture is incredibly short, so much of the book falls into the “uses of string” side. Egyptians used string tools to align the pyramids, the Polynesians used rope to move and place the Easter Island statues, and the Incas used knotted rope necklaces to keep accounts of various cities. Nowadays, string and rope is involved in toy-making, carpentry, cooking, gardening, boating, and fashion accessories. This book also devotes a fair amount of space to knot-making, as different knots can aid in different applications. From there, we see string used in musical instruments, sailing, science, sports, farming, and folklore.

This book is about as long as a book on string needs to be. I truly feel that there is not much else to say on the matter. Hart-Davis scours history for all the uses of twine products and leaves no stone unturned. If you’re looking for a quick diversion after some particularly heady reading, this one will do. At least one string related fact will stick in your mind when you’re done. A quick and easy book.

475 Grammar and syntax of classical Latin



475: Wilson, W. Michael. Essentials of Latin Grammar: A Practical Guide to the Mastery of Latin. (119 p.; finished 8 Sep 2014)

If you really want to get down to the nuts and bolts, the nitty-gritty, and the no-nonsense study of Latin, then this one is the way to go. W. Michael Wilson’s Essentials of Latin Grammar takes a spectacular page from Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and omits needless words almost to a fault. There is a two-page preface and then it’s off to the races. One hundred forty-one rules later, you should emerge with a head full of Latin.

Because of its brevity, you will need a side reference on grammatical terms to get through Wilson’s teachings. Trust me, when you’re wading through the weeds of the gerundive case, you’ll be glad for it. Wilson’s lessons are terse but still useful. If you know Latin and want to brush up on the syntax, or even if you’re just starting out, this is an incredibly rich guide to the structure of the language. A short but educational book.

771 Techniques, procedures, apparatus, equipment, materials (Photography)



771: Steadman, Philip. Vermeer’s Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces. (165 p.; finished 10 Sep 2014)

There have been many times I’ve looked at a piece of art and wondered how they created it. From Escher’s mind-blowing drawings to Calder’s amazingly delicate mobiles, how artists engineer their art is almost as interesting as the art itself. In Vermeer’s Camera, Philip Steadman painstakingly details the use of the camera obscura in Vermeer’s paintings. His investigations not only gives us a peek at the artist’s technique and practical knowledge, but also illuminate the very intriguing intersection of science and art.

Steadman’s history of Vermeer’s works start with the invention of the camera obscura, a room or a box which focuses light from a scene onto a wall or canvas for the artist to trace and paint against. Many of Vermeer’s paintings are set in the corner of the same room and different scenes are depicted. Officer and Laughing Girl, The Concert, The Music Lesson, The Geographer, and Lady Standing at the Virginals all seem to show the same room, but from slightly different angles. Steadman first traces the exact building Vermeer used through historical maps and tax documents, then geometrically analyzes the works to derive exactly where Vermeer would have set up his camera. The science and research presented are astounding (but I would not expect anything less from the Oxford University Press).

In the end, Steadman work finds a way to put the reader more into the paintings than the paintings themselves do. The writing is technical but still readable. The history of the camera obscura was actually more lengthy than I though it would be. Vermeer’s work now seems a bit more masterful after reading this, and puts him in the class of the American painter Thomas Eakins, who used both still and moving pictures to aid in his art. If you’re at all interested in classical Dutch painting, this one is a very good book. A classy and enlightening read.

998 History of Arctic islands and Antarctica



998: Mulvaney, Kieran. At the Ends of the Earth: A History of the Polar Regions. (245 p.; finished 12 Sep 2014)

The bulk of history is told through the lens of important events. The narrative of that history focuses on the decisions and people that lead to those events. But what happens afterward? While modern historiography looks at the effects of the historical events on people after any given event, not much attention is spared when people aren’t affected. Kieran Mulvaney’s At the Ends of the Earth takes a different approach to history. His focus is on the effect of man’s presence on the geography, climate, and landscape of the polar regions. Both Arctic Ocean and Antarctica have been changed by the presence of human explorers and researchers and Mulvaney details the history and extent of that change.

The Arctic Ocean and Antarctica were treated in the past as vast wastelands of ice and tragedy. In the beginning, the only question was could a person get to the North or South Pole. Then exploration led to exploitation. Oil drilling in the Arctic, sea hunting, and tourism have changed the nature of the polar regions. These activities create secondary issues as well. Oil needs to the transported by boats which sometimes fail, and ecosystems are thrown off-balance when species are hunted to near extinction. Mulvaney’s look into the historical and ongoing causes of that change are compelling and rich.

This book is equal parts history and social invective. Mulvaney does not hide the fact that he is alarmed by climate change, political deals to divide natural resources, and folks whose actions can forever change the landscape of the polar regions. The large stores of ice at the poles is a key component of world climate and the more we disturb that, the more we invite systemic changes that are hard to reverse. Mulvaney’s work is eye-opening and well-researched. An interesting read.

350 Public administration and military science



350.420922: Boyd, Nancy. Three Victorian Women Who Changed Their World: Josephine Butler, Octavia Hill, Florence Nightingale. (251 p.; 15 Sep 2014)

Somehow in all my reading across myriad subjects, I seem to have never come across the fact that Florence Nightingale was British. In fact, she was born to British parents in Florence (hence her name). Nightingale, along with Octavia Hill and Josephine Butler, were instrumental in rise of feminism in Victorian England. Nancy Boyd’s Three Victorian Women Who Changed Their World chronicles the lives, efforts, and legacy of these three to show that Victorian England was not as backward and stodgy and folks tend to think.

While Nightingale’s efforts as a war nurse and a health reformer are well-known, Hill and Butler are a bit more obscured. Octavia Hill, with the backing of prominent British thinkers, established the National Trust and the Charity Organisation Society. She championed for the rehabilitation of Britain’s urban homeless while simultaneously creating London’s many open green spaces, including Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields. Josephine Butler, on the other hand, helped to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16 and repeal the vile Contagious Diseases Acts. These laws allowed British police officers to imprison female prostitutes accused of allegedly spreading venereal disease and subject them to forced bodily examinations.

Boyd’s biographical triad is a bit dated but still well researched. Nightingale’s work as a health statistician blew my mind—so much so, that I’m now on a hunt for a proper biography. If you poke around history enough, you’ll find many such stories of social, political, and health reform by those much less fortunate than Boyd’s subjects. The more their efforts are celebrated and championed, the better the world can become. An interesting and enlightening book.

563 Miscellaneous fossil marine and seashore invertebrates



563.95: McNamara, Kenneth J. The Star-Crossed Stone: The Secret Life, Myths, and History of a Fascinating Fossil. (231 p.; finished 17 Sep 2014)

In March 1887, a grave was discovered in England. It was an old grave, the interred had been there for thousands of years. But the two occupants weren’t the only creatures there: they had been buried with hundreds of fossilized sea urchins. Historians and archaeologists were puzzled. Why were these fossils buried with the ancient humans? What was their significance? Kenneth McNamara’s The Star-Crossed Stone looks into the discovery, history, and folklore surrounding fossil urchins.

Like many other historical objects, once you go looking for them, they show up everywhere and in the most unlikely of places. Fossilized urchins look much like modern sand dollars, but embedded in stone. They show up in ancient gravesites, church decorations, medieval engravings, and even Egyptian hieroglyphics. Local cottage owners placed them around doorways and windowsills as good luck charms. They were used as fertility charms and used by Vikings as “thunder-stones” to connect them to their mythology. These seemingly ordinary rock formations have been known as shepherd’s crowns, button stones, and fairy loaves.

McNamara’s intricate weaving of paleontology and anthropology is both learned and lucid. Since there weren’t any creatures around that looked like the fossils, ancient peoples thought they were remnants of a time long before, of myth and mysticism. McNamara paints this cachet as more charming than provincial. To this day, there are still cottages and outbuildings that incorporate these fossils into their designs. The five-pointed skeletons of these ancient creatures lend themselves well to decoration (once you get past the fact that you are using an actual skeleton as decor in the first place). A delightful and engaging read.

802 Miscellany (Literature)



802: Strouf, Judie L.H. Literature Lover’s Book of Lists: Serious Trivia for the Bibliophile. (391 p.; finished 21 Sep 2014)

Judie Strouf’s Literature Lover’s Book of Lists is a simple exercise that gather a lot of information. It bills itself as a “compendium of useful, whimsical, and necessary information for people…who love to read.” The 198 compiled lists try to order, categorize, and codify the entirety of literature for those crave such information. It has every Pulitzer Prize winner and their works, poem types and literary devices with examples, landmark books and speeches from every major Western period, lists of literary genres, and so on and so on.

Aside from its very evident Western bias and dated information, I only have one quibble with this volume. In the section on poetic forms, she includes personal compositions for the couplet, sestina, pantoum, and cinquain, as if no there are other classic or seminal examples of these forms. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to stay out of the sonnets. Other than that, you’ll find a wealth of information here. I don’t, however, suggest you read it straight through. It’s a bit of a slog, but as a bathroom reader it works rather well.

212 Existence, ways of knowing, and attributes of God



212: Witham, Larry. The Proof of God: The Debate that Shaped Modern Belief. (195 p.; finished 23 Sep 2014)

In the late 1070s CE, Anselm, a Benedictine monk at the abbey of Bec hit upon a wondrous proof of the existence of God. Being a monk, it was rather in his best interest to ensure that one could not think away God’s being, but the argument he devised has guided religious logic for nearly 1,000 years. The Ontological Argument, as it has since been named has influenced the writings of Ockham, Descartes, and Bertrand Russell. On the other side, Anselm has garnered Thomas Aquinas, Kant, and David Hume as detractors. Larry Witham’s The Proof of God is a chronicle of the life of Anselm, and how his work and politics shaped modern religion.

Anselm was caught between the Church of Rome and the English monarch at a time when the relationship was tenuous at best. His rise from novice monk to Abbot of Bec, then to the Archbishop of Canterbury was not without its problems. Twice during his career he was exile from his post. Rather than a politician or a diplomat, Anselm was a religious man and philosophical man through and through. His proof of God is interesting in its simplicity:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

This tight circle is understandably an a posteriori construction and not inductive at all, but philosophers have been stewing over it since the 11th century. Witham’s summary of the proof and the lives of those it affected is very well done and nicely researched. Philosophy and religion buffs alike will find something to chew on here and it really helps the reader navigate the ontological argument cleanly. A very interesting read.

123 Determinism and indeterminism



123.3: Piven, Joshua. As Luck Would Have It: Incredible Stories, from Lottery Wins to Lightning Strikes. (181 p.; finished 25 Sep 2014)

In As Luck Would Have It, Joshua Piven investigates nine chance occurrences and how they inform our view of the world and the circumstances of our lives. It’s a quick little book, to say the least. It covers the following stories:

• “Steve Roberts” and his $363 million lottery win in 2000.
• The search for Bennet Zelner during a January 1995 snowstorm at Alpine Meadows.
• Gary Dahl’s “invention” and wildfire success of the Pet Rock in 1975.
• The runaway success of Tommy Tutone’s hit “867-5309/Jenny” in 1981.
• The airplane crash of Amy Knowlton and three other researchers off the coast of Georgia in 1987.
• Josh Smith’s 1999 discovery of the first titanosaur in Egypt
• Keith Gallagher’s crash landing of his A-6 plane on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln
• Al Kahn’s marketing of the Cabbage Patch Dolls in 1983 and ensuing hysteria
• The 1969 lightning strike of Steve Marshburn that led to new discoveries in medicine.

Piven’s tales of coincidental luck, heroic luck, and even horrible luck are interesting but not really compelling. The circumstances of and the reactions to the events are often times trivial at best. The good parts of this book come when Piven goes into background history for details. The rise of Tommy Tutone and the career of Al Kahn offer a better view of history than a single event. In many cases, it gives insight into how to act if you’re ever lost in a snowstorm or in a crashed plane. Other than that, most of the info is rather blasé. If you’ve got an afternoon for something not too taxing, then this one could work for you.

687 Clothing and accessories



687.1: Sullivan, James. Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon. (265 p.; finished 28 Sep 2014)

Despite how advertisers keep treating as a new and exciting clothing, jeans, and the denim they are made from, have been around for hundreds of years. Blue jeans are named after their place of first import, Genoa, Italy, and denim comes from the material serge de Nimes, a cotton blend from Nimes, France. Materials for jeans arrived in the America almost right after the Pilgrims did. Denim jeans have been part of the social and manufacturing landscape for so long that they seem almost ineffable. James Sullivan’s Jeans, however, goes a little deeper into the history of jeans to find a chronicle of rebellion and globalization.

Sullivan looks at denim jeans in their cultural context, seeing jeans as a symbol for other stories and feelings. From Levi Strauss’s initial pair of jeans in 1853 to help manual laborers in San Francisco to Brigham Young’s denunciation of jean-wearers to the youth rebellions of the 1950s, jeans seemed to exist in the past to show one’s ideals. Lately, not so much. While a fair amount of the book is devoted to Strauss’s company and each generation’s use of jeans, there are far more interesting tidbits sprinkled throughout. Sullivan looks at blue dye manufacturing in Nigeria (even the ink in the book is blue) and the specific advertisement of jeans. All in all, it’s a good book that provides an interesting perspective on an often-overlooked object.

939 History of other parts of ancient world to ca. 640



939.49: Clapp, Nicholas. The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands. (274 p.; finished 1 Oct 2014)

The ancient city of Ubar is clouded in myth. It controlled the frankincense trade for the Arabian Peninsula and became quite a wealthy oasis. Then, as told in the Koran, it was smote from the Earth for favoring wealth over worship. The city of Ubar was gone forever. Nicholas Clapp’s The Road to Ubar weaves together history, archaeology, technology, and even a little luck to rediscover the history of the Arabian Peninsula. With the help of an archaeologist, a geologist, and a real-life adventurer, he travels through the vast Arabian Desert to take back what the desert hid for so long.

Clapp’s methodology here is quite fun. Many historical figures had traveled through this area of the Arabian Peninsula searching for archaeological insight, and Clapp uses both their insights and new technology to pinpoint the location of a buried city in the sands at Shisr in Oman. Unfortunately, a sinkhole has swallowed a fair chunk of the ruins, but much of the wall remained intact and his team dutifully catalogs the whole experience. After its discovery, he places the city in as much historical and mythical context as he can provide. Clapp’s team’s journey is fairly interesting and also provides a good deal of history on the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula. A very fun read.

Some familiar-looking titles! Jeans has been on my TBR list for years (I think our copy has gone missing, actually), and I read The Road to Ubar a couple years ago. I'm glad you liked it; I wasn't terribly impressed. (The technological part was fascinating, as was the historical context. I found the details of Clapp's journey quite dull - I didn't really need to know how they decided who got what MRE for dinner.)

130 Parapsychology and occultism



130: Horowitz, Mitch. Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation. (258 pp. finished 4 Oct 2014)

Dewey Breakdown:
• 100: Philosophy and Psychology
• 130: Parapsychology and occultism

In 1774, Mother Ann Lee emigrated from England to New York and started a small but important movement in America: the Shakers. Their belief in a more mystical Christian God led to accusations of heresy from mainline believers. From this small band of radical believers sprang pockets on mysticism throughout America over the last 250 years. Mitch Horowitz’s Occult America takes a slightly off-center look at American history through the lens of those who believed, prayed, practiced, and lived a little differently from the rest of us.

One of the many sticky areas that this book stays away from is conspiracy theories. While many nutters use the symbols on various national icons to point towards a nefarious underbelly of our nation, Horowitz chooses to focus on broader religious history in America. There are tons of minor religious figures here to explore and the author tries desperately to take their work and beliefs at face value. They are a few times where falls into the judgment trap when it comes to some of the more fringe belief systems, but on the whole, Horowitz tends to favor sympathy over cynicism. He finds and explores leaders of fringe movements, including Henry Steel Olcott of the Theosophical Society and Christian Science’s Mary Baker Eddy, and gives them all equal footing.

Overall, there is a lot of interesting history here but at times seems like a mish-mash of people, dates, events, and stories. Because many of these movements were largely temporary and centered on their initial leader, there is no real story to connect them all except the broad theme under which they all fall. Horowitz’s writing clips along, but never makes any grand gestures. It’s amusing, sure, but in trying to capture more than 200 years of American religious history, there is only so much here. Each figure could probably merit their own biography. In the end, though, this book has a fair amount of research behind it to be useful to many readers.

>145 lorax: I actually picked the book for this section from your list. I agree that Clapp is a little too detail-oriented, but it got me into the story a little more.

060 General organizations and museology



060.42: Robert, Henry M. Robert’s Rules of Order Revised for Deliberative Assemblies. (307 p.; finished 7 Oct 2014)

If you’re running even a halfway-serious meeting, assembly, or convention, you need some way of bringing order to the proceedings. Without common rules, deliberative assemblies devolve into chaos. First devised in 1876 by U.S. Army Colonel Henry Martyn Robert, these rules help to allow groups of peoples to understand what happens when, when people can speak, when and how motions can be voted on, and how to decide on many complicated matters.

Robert’s Rules of Order are now in their 11th edition and still going strong. My version—the 1943 5th edition—are mainly for consulting and not straight reading. The funny thing is, once you go through them, watch C-SPAN. Many more things make sense. This little book teaches you what each position in the chamber entails, how committees are supposed to work, and how to maintain a meaningful flow of discourse in a debate. If you’re looking for a career in politics and haven’t read them, you should get very familiar with Robert’s Rules.

351 Public administration



351.0207: Gregory, Leland H. Great Government Goofs: Over 350 Loopy Laws, Hilarious Screwups, and Act-Idents of Congress. (259 pp; finished 10 Oct 2014)

Over the course of American history, thousands of people have been a part of its governance. Given that number of people over that long of a time, and you’re bound to encounter some strange incidents. Add state, county, and local governments and you have a sample size ripe for the picking. Leland H. Gregory’s Great Government Goofs packages a large assortment of these odd governmental occurrences for our quick amusement.

For the record, many of the blurbs recorded are worth a chuckle or two (such as the congressman who got arrested and tried under the bill he helped pass or the jail that was built with the bars so far apart that people could just slip right through). Many times, I found myself sypathizing with the agencies that spent money on odd ideas or projects. Sure the Illinois Department of Conservation spent $180,000 studying owl vomit, but perhaps a key piece of ecological informationm can be found there. What are they eating and how does that impact the surrounding environment? Half the time, the author just likes belittling people or organizations for investigating areas where there is a knowledge vacuum.

On the whole, the book does what it intends to do. It directs the reader’s attention toward local and national governmental and ask them to think about the activities going on there. While there may some outlandish laws and statements made, government is still a place where people ideas come together ostensibly for the common good. Whether that actually happens, it still up for debate. A quirky and quick read.

When you get a moment -- a link to the 2015 reading thread?

150> Sorry, but no Club Read for me this year. I'm cutting back on the groups to which I post to give me a little more breathing room in other areas. This year, I'm just going with the DDC Challenge and the 75 Books in 2015 group.

679 Other products of specific kinds of materials (Manufacturing)



679.72: Jeffers, H. Paul. The Good Cigar: A Celebration of the Art of Cigar Smoking. (193 p.; finished 12 Oct 2014)

The cigar is almost as old as Columbus’s landing in the Americas. Indigenous peoples would smoke the dried leaves of the tobacco plant in clay pipes and every European explorer to reach the Americas brought some back with them. Modern cigars have been around since the early 19th century and come in many different varieties, shapes, and qualities. H. Paul Jeffers’s The Good Cigar is an ode to the cigar aficionado that explores the history, manufacture, and personalities surrounding the classic cigar.

First off, there’s a great deal more information here than I expected. Cigars from all over the world are categorized and subcategorized by many different factors. The outer wrapper (where most of the flavor comes from) determines the taste and the market. Then, there’s the type of filler (long versus short), the shapes, and the dimensions. For each cigar company, there are subtle differences in each of these areas used to make their offerings different from other companies. And for the cigar enthusiast, these differences mean the world.

Jeffers’s history covers a lot of the different companies and how they measure up against each other. But beyond that, he looks at the individuals throughout history that brandished a cigar and tried to popularize them. From Winston Churchill to Groucho Marx to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeffers presents a virtual who’s who of famous cigar smokers. On the whole, there’s a lot of information here, but the catalog of famous cigar smokers was a bit tedious. I’d appreciate more history and less paparazzi. An interesting read.

728 Residential and related buildings



728.37: Susanka, Sarah. The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live. (194 p.; finished 14 Oct 2014)

For a while there, people wanted large houses—big kitchens, big vaults, big bedrooms. But now, with a greater social awareness and rapid population comes the thought that there might be a limit to how much living space a person actually needs. Sarah Susanka’s The Not So Big House takes a look at how living spaces can be modified or built to accommodate a whole range of needs without becoming sprawling ranch houses.

When square footage is limited, details are important. The setup and flow of each room must maximize their utility. Susanka’s tour of dozens of houses and floorplans shows the reader how to conceptualize their space and build accordingly. What is most stunning about this is the hundreds of photos throughout. Floorplans are nice, but actually seeing a space is necessary when talking about it. There are few famous houses here, including Wright’s Goetsch-Winkler House and a few by Le Corbusier.

All in all, this is a handy guide for building a new house or remodeling an existing space that discourages lavishness. Instead, Susanka asks the reader to really think about how they live and what rooms mean the most to them. After that, it’s the details that make a house a home. I got a great deal of ideas from this book, and I suspect other readers may as well. An engaging and vibrant book.

478 Classical Latin usage



478.2421: Jones, Peter. Learn Latin: A Lively Introduction to Reading the Language. (169 p.; finished 16 Oct 2014)

Latin is by default an odd language. No speaks it anymore, but knowing it is considered a sign of erudition, and the countless books for learning Latin out there speak to a demand for learning the language. One of the many problems with Latin is that it is incredibly compact and nuanced. Changing the order of the words, the endings of verbs, or even missing a single letter changes the entire meaning of what is being said. Peter Jones’s Learn Latin is a rather interesting approach to learning the language that deserves a closer look.

First off, Jones understands the mild insanity that learning Latin entails, and to that end, he takes a more humorous approach than most textbooks. He presents twenty lessons that the reader is supposed to work through over the course of twenty weeks. Each week covers a different aspect of the language. From basic conjugation to parts of speech to different tense and cases, this book covers the fundamentals of learning Latin. With that in mind, don’t read it straight through in two days like I did. For something that requires as much attention to details like Latin, a crash course will do nothing for long-term retention.

Jones’s lessons are interesting, illustrated well, and intended for those who know a little bit about the fundamentals of other languages. He makes interesting connections between Latin and modern English, French, and Spanish. This guide helps the reader make their way through some basic texts and understand the reach of Latin into the modern day. If you’re at all interested in learning Latin, then this book will do fine for you. Just take your time with it, and it will come. A very fun book.

511 General principles of mathematics



511.3: Bunch, Bryan. Mathematical Fallacies and Paradoxes. (210 p.; finished 18 Oct 2014)

About every month or so, diagrams go around social media proving various paradoxes. From proving 2 = 3, or that certain infinite series converge to -1/12, these proofs often use fallacious logic or hidden steps to achieve their ends. Bryan Bunch’s Mathematical Fallacies and Paradoxes collects eight such examples to help broaden our understanding of both logic and math. Be wary, though, this is not for the faint heart.

Bunch’s paradoxical exploration looks at simple divide-by-zero proofs, then looks at linguistic and philosophical paradoxes, and on to geometrical oddities and ancient paradoxes (including Zeno’s paradox). Each one is a step up from the previous so as to ease the reader to the math involved. Bunch does, however, assume some level of mathematical literary on the part of the reader. Back in the day, I entertained the idea of becoming a mathematician, but my love of literature and language got the better of me. So, for me, Bunch’s collection was a little nostalgic, dusting off a few unused areas of my brain. All in all, it’s a perplexing book, but in a good way.

The "sum of all the positive integers is -1/12" one isn't wrong, it just palms a card with the term "sum" - it relies on a particular definition of "summation" in this case - of a non-converging infinite series - that isn't what most people associate with the term.

>156 lorax: Actually, after reading this, I binge-watched the Numberphile videos on YouTube and saw the one on the -1/12 trick. Each of the videos is oddly satisfying -- check them out if you have the time or inclination.

239 Apologetics and polemics (Religion)



239.9: Rhodes, Ron. The Culting of America. (224 p.; finished 20 Oct 2014)

For more than 2,000 years, Christianity has been shaped and reshaped by both its believers and its leaders. Sometimes, change happens in reaction to other faiths and sometimes, that change comes from within. Much like the other major world religions, Christianity and Christians can be categorized and subcategorized based on how they interpret their holy text or texts. There are Baptists, Adventists, Calvinists, Jesuits, and so on. Ron Rhodes’s The Culting of America is a polemical look at differing new sects of religion and how they can either shape or threaten modern Christianity.

All things aside, this book reads like propaganda, but all books are propaganda to one degree or another. Rhodes’s concern with the demise of traditional Christianity at the main thrust of the book. He scours American culture for examples of how non-traditional thinking is inculcating mainstream society. Anything trying to rear its little head into his faith is called out and itemized.

Rhodes’s gaze is both wide and meticulous. He chides Hollywood for both not forcefully upholding Christianity and allowing other religious tenets to pervade its movies (including Zen Buddhism in Star Wars and various “New Age” actors and messages). He devotes an entire chapter to the New World Translation of the Bible purportedly done by incompetent scholars and evangelists. After a while, his gentle ranting gets a little tiresome and repetitive. The good thing here is that the text read fairly and after two days I was glad to put it down. An uninspired book.

834 German essays



834.912: Hesse, Hermann. If the War Goes On...: Reflections on War and Politics. (186 p.; finished 22 Oct 2014

The two World Wars of the 20th century were unfathomably polarizing. There were those who believed war was necessary to defeat either national or global enemies, and those who believed acts of aggression and war were counter to our enlightened place in history. Hermann Hesse, in If the War Goes On, is vehemently against war. In this collection of 27 essays, Hesse explores his own feelings about war and also the experiences of living through both great calamities.

Hermann Hesse’s writing won him the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature for pieces that “exemplify the classical human ideals,” and those ideals are on display in his nonfiction. While most of the pieces are reactions to World War I, we see his vivid pacifism grow when the World War II starts thirty years later. One strange facet of the writing, however, is that he very seldom condemns the Nazis for their actions. Much of his focus is on the larger idea of war itself and how that turns innocuous feelings of nationalism into a deadly frenzy. Hesse calls on those fighting to examine what they are doing and what that means not only for their future, but also future generations.

I rather enjoyed this collection. While the book itself is a little dated, the feelings aren’t. The translation is very crisp and tries to capture a lot of Hesse’s original energy. This is one of those books I would come back every five years or so for a bit grounding or perspective. This collection comes from a great era of anti-war writing and shouldn’t be passed up. An invigorating read.

982 History of Argentina



982.06: Romero, Luis Alberto. A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century. (349 p.; finished 25 Oct 2014)

In his History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century, Luis Romero tries to write a different kind of history. He has "attempted to reconstruct the history—complex, contradictory, and unique—of a society that unquestionably has experienced better moment and that finds itself currently at one of the lowest points in its history but whose future is not, I trust, definitively sealed.” This is remarkable for two reasons. First, he is not out to champion is country, and second, he owns up to the fact that history is sometimes contradictory and unfun.

Romero’s history of his country is both approachable and personal. Even at a hefty 350 or so pages, it still feels like a breezy tale. That is not to say that is in any way happy-go-lucky. There are indeed harrowing moments (just as there are in any other country’s history). But Romero makes the reader feel like they are your moments. Each presidential election, each change in the balance of power, each crisis feels like a turning point in a novel. Granted, true history scholars will have to look elsewhere for in-depth analysis of events, but this makes for a very good primer on Argentinian history. If you’re even a little bit interested, it’s worth the price of admission.

115 Time (Philosophy)



115: Hoffman, Eva. Time. (189 p.; finished 27 Oct 2014)

Time is all at once the most universal, the most intangible, and the most misunderstood concept. We make time, take time, keep time, lose time, waste time, borrow time, but never really understand it. Eva Hoffman’s Time takes a look at time from four different vantage points: physiologically, psychologically, culturally, and contemporaneously. And in each perspective, we see time in a whole new light.

Hoffman manages to steer clear of the marriage of space and time and instead tries to get a more clear, personal look at time. All animals, human included have an understanding of biological time. Cicadas, swallows, and even bacteria have internal clocks, guiding their lives into certain patterns. Sunrise and sunset govern a lot of biological processes. From the broadly scientific, Hoffman then progresses to the individual’s perception of time and then the culture’s use of time. Some cultures don’t view time as a single linear thread from one event to the next, but rather as several overlapping cycles that help to describe the moment or the season. Lastly, she investigates how modern history has changed how we interact with time.

All throughout this book, there were moments when I had to go over her arguments, but overall, it was quite an intriguing read. We hardly think about time as a construct in both our lives and our society. Hoffman’s writing flows well, which is good for a book on such a heady topic. Those who enjoy a healthy amount of reflection will be right at home here. A delightful read.

You've been quiet for a while - I hope you're okay!

383.1430973: Corbett, Christopher. Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express. (255 p.; finished 9 Jul 2015)

We know this much is true: In 1860, the business trio of Russell, Majors, & Waddell set about to revolutionize overland mail delivery in the United States. Backed by a congressional blessing (but not by congressional money), they sought to deliver mail to the citizens of California faster than ever before. Normally, mail took anywhere from one to six months to go from the East Coast to the West Coast, but the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company strove to cut that down to ten days. From the moment the first rider struck from St. Joseph, Missouri, the Pony Express became steep in folklore and American myth. Christopher Corbett’s Orphans Preferred tries to wrangle truth from the mouth of history to get to the most accurate picture of the Express he can.

One of the problems of undertaking this history, as Corbett immediately points out, is that it is nearly impossible to get true historical data on the Express. None of the business’s accounting papers have been found and the most reliable histories of the express were written 50 to 75 years after the Pony Express stopped operations in 1861. The route comprised 184 stations where wiry young men would quickly dismount and remount a new horse, transferring the mail satchel with them. After a few horses, a new rider was entrusted the mail and off he went. For eighteen months, this was the fastest way to message to folks out in California. Once the transcontinental telegraph and railroads were completed, there was no need for the Pony Express.

All in all, this book was informative, catchy, and fun. Corbett readily accepts the burden of fleshing out a thin historical narrative, and so interweaves stories from Buffalo Bill Cody (an early rider for the Express), Mark Twain, and Sir Richard Burton to give a better picture of how life in the Wild West was. There are lot of times he simply states that there is no real answer for the questions he is asking, and that’s just fine. In an era filled with romantic stories and tall tales of daring-do, it’s probably best that there’s also a little mystery to the men who raced against technological progress. A rich and entertaining book.

Sorry I've been gone so long, but I'm back and ready to finish this thing!

692.8: Levinson, Ellis. Hiring Contractors Without Going Through Hell: How to Find, Hire, Supervise, and Pay professional Help for Home Renovations and Repairs. (127 pp.)

When you’re a homeowner, there are few things more daunting than the prospect of remodeling or house repairs. You can either go it yourself and invest a lot of time in YouTube videos and gumption, or you can rely on the services of contractors. Ellis Levinson’s Hiring Contractors Without Going Through Hell deals with the reality, and sometimes the surreality, of dealing with the latter situation. He uses humor and sometimes a fatherly hand to help guide the reader through a bevy of contractor-related scenarios.

Levinson’s advice is as thorough as it can get for an early-1990s help guide. You have to look past the dated references to writing to various local, state, and national bureaus for advice as well as directives to consult the Yellow Pages for phone numbers, and instead focus on how he advises the reader to deal with contractors in person. From little jobs to complete remodels, his advice on questions to ask, paperwork to gather, and angles to consider seems very spot on. I will add a note here that I have never been a homeowner, but am now renting my first house. Many things can and will breakdown in a house over time and having someone who can deal with contracting work well seems invaluable.

Granted, reading this book wouldn’t be my first move if I was ever considering hiring contractors, but it’s a very good resource to have in your back pocket for when you need it. An interesting and entertaining read.

Welcome back!

750: Laclotte, Michel and Jean-Pierre Cuzin. The Louvre: Paintings. (284 pp.)

On August 10, 1793, a wondrous building was made open to the public. Exactly one year before, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the monarchy felled. The National Assembly urged that the works of art hoarded by Louis and previous kings be collected and displayed so that they could preserve the national memory. At it’s opening, The Louvre showcased 537 paintings and 184 other objects of art. From there started an interesting and sometimes sordid history. Michel Laclotte and Jean-Pierre Cuzin’s The Louvre gives a history of each of the museum’s major collection, but more importantly, displays a wide variety of the museum’s pieces in glorious color plates.

The book is pretty straightforward. There is a cursory history of the collection and the building, and then each collection is given a sizable chunk of the book. Half the book is given over to French painting and other half to other European works of art. The authors discuss how each period’s works started in the collection and then gives a fair amount of detail on how they’ve progressed over the years. One of the more interesting bits of information that the text sometimes glosses over is that people used to pay estate or other taxes by handing over works of art to the museum. While each collection’s history is plenty intriguing, it’s the full color plates of works that make the book worth thumbing through. It will never replace actually going to the museum, but centuries’ worth of art is contained in this book, and that is worth at least the price of admission.

507.2: Pan, M. Ling. Preparing Literature Reviews: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. (190 pp.)

M. Ling Pan’s Preparing Literature Reviews is a book with a clear goal and purpose: help the reader write literature review. A literature review is a synthesis of available written or published material on a topic. For scientific articles, this is usually the first section of the article. Pan’s many guidelines, examples, and full models contain a wealth of information on the topic and if you are writing a literature review for the first time, pick this book up. After reading this one, I feel that if someone asked me to write a review tomorrow, I would be amply prepared for the task at hand. Burgeoning scholars needs to have this one in their arsenal of reference material. A very informative book.

854.912: Eco, Umberto. How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays. (252 pp.; finished 27 May 2017)

Umberto Eco’s How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays is quite an apropos book to have with you while on vacation. He singles out particular occurrences in both American and Italian culture for close, humorous inspection. Eco dissects traveling by train in the US, getting a new driver’s license in Italy, writing an introduction to art books, and much more. There are times when the Eco’s annoyance is just pedantic, but others are universal situations.

The humor here is a bit stilted, but that may be the translation. It is definitely better than your standard American hyperbole and so becomes more like good satire than simple pastiche, almost as if it was the source material for the TV show Frasier. In any case, many of the essays are chuckle-worthy and it makes for a good bathroom or bedtime reader. A light and entertaining book.

Welcome back!

Thanks, lorax! Between buying a house and starting a business, it's been a long road back to the Dewey, but now I think I'm in a good place to eventually finish this thing.

708: McClellan, Andrew, ed. Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millennium. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 200 pp.

Art and Its Publics collects essays from various museum studies professionals to engage the reader to think about museums and art galleries and other exhibition spaces and how the public thinks and acts in them. It’s quite a heady subject as each person has differing agendas when going to a museum. The editor’s essay on the types of publics reveals that throughout history there has always been a discussion about who goes to museum and why, and if knowing those reasons attracts or detracts more visitors.

Other essays looks at private museums, public art exhibitions, how the public evaluates what is art in the first place, and how exhibition layouts and signage play into patron bias. Each essay is insightful (or at the very least informative) in its own right, and all throughout reading, I felt compelled to go to a museum to see how various tidbits from the book were present, so it does get the reader thinking about museums.

Is it a fun read? Decidedly not. But, if you are at all interesting in how museum directors and curators make decisions about their collections and exhibitions, then there are probably far worse books you could read. All in all, it was worth the time I put into it.

856.914: Calvino, Italo. Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985. NJ: Princeton, University Press, 2013. 534 pp.

Italo Calvino was a man of many opinions. From his days in the Italian Communist Party after World War II to his tenure in the Oulipo writing group, Calvino had a lot to say and used his many friends, agents, and even enemies around Europe to say it. The letters translated here by Martin McLaughlin represent the tapestry of threads he wove throughout his life.

The first impression one gets of Calvino is that of a man who needs the company of friends to enrich his life. He constantly wants his pen pals to visit him wherever he is, or send books and articles, or recount news of local politics. But beyond that, there is a hunger. He relishes in all the philosophical complexities of literary fiction, even going so far as to dissect his own work.

Calvino is at times belligerent, compassionate, churlish, and joyous, but never boring. That being said, it helps to be acquainted with at least some of Calvino’s writing before diving into the 600 letters in this book. All in all, however, this was an entertaining albeit lengthy read.

739.2092: Faber, Tony. Faberge’s Eggs: The Extraordinary Story of the Masterpieces That Outlived an Empire. New York: Random House, 2008. 241 pp.

Eggs are very plain things. But when Russian jeweler Carl Gustavovitch Faberge realized a design around them, they turned into the most sought-after pieces in modern art history. Tony Faber’s Faberge’s Eggs is not only a look into the history of the bejeweled eggs, but also a history of Russia proper. From Czar Nicholas II’s coronation in 1894 to his abdication in 1917, the eggs chronicle the czar’s relationships with his mother, his wife, his children, and his country.

Faberge’s workshop, over the course of its lifetime in Moscow, produced 69 beautifully jeweled eggs, but only 50 are considered imperial eggs. These are the pieces ordered by the czar to be given at first from Czar Alexander II to his wife Maria Fedorovna each Easter. Upon Alexander’s death, Nicholas continued the tradition, first giving them just to his mother and then to both his mother and his wife. Each egg presented had special meaning and a special name, starting with the Jeweled Hen Egg (1885) and ending with the sadly unfinished and unpresented Constellation Egg (1917). Faber not only follows the creation and presentation of each egg, but also the saga of their respective ownerships to the present day.

There are times when Faber’s writing gets bogged down with names, places, dates, and politics, but they are few and far between. Luckily, several helpful appendices are added on, including an extended royal family tree, a condensed chronology of the eggs, and a basic Russian term glossary. A few lovely color pictures in the middle of the book highlight the beauty of the eggs, and overall, this was a very pleasant read.

198.9: O’Hara, Shelley. Kierkegaard Within Your Grasp: The First Step to Understanding Kierkegaard. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004. 75 pp.

This is simple is its aim and execution: to help the reader into the writings of Swedish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. In less than a hundred pages, we are introduced to Kierkegaard’s life, works, and thinking. The author goes through each major work well and legitimately synthesizes the salient theses into the thinking of the period. In many variations, Kierkegaardian philosophy struggles with choice, faith, and the individual, trying to make sense of both the existence of the self and the existence of God. This is indeed a good introduction to Kierkegaard’s work, but it is just a first step.

Danish

863.3: Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote of the Mancha. Translated by Thomas Shelton. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1969. 516 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 800: Literature and Rhetoric
• 860: Spanish and Portuguese literatures
• 863: Spanish fiction
• 863.3: Golden Age, 1516—1699

Cervantes’s Don Quixote is one of the granddaddies of Western literature. First published in 1605, it follows the whimsical adventures of Alonso Quixano and his friend Sancho Panza as they travel across the Spanish countryside looking for adventure and knightly acclaim. The main conceit of the novel is that Quixano has become addled by age and has read way too many novels about chivalry and knights-errant. Slowly but surely, he convinces himself that he is also a great man worthy of the adulations of those in his novels. He styles himself Don Quixote de la Mancha and strong arms a local farmer Sancho Panza into going out and righting the many wrongs he sees.

In addition to deluding himself, he also re-imagines the world around him through the lens of chivalry. Regular windmills become frightful giants, herds of sheep become warring sides of classic knights, lowly inns become great castles, and so on. The adventures are both humorous and sad. At each turn, our two heroes are beaten and bruised, or at the very least, made fools of. I admired Sancho’s resolve to stick by his hidalgo even though he could have fled at almost every moment and left Don Quixote to fend for himself. In trying to show the ridiculousness of the old ways, the book shows that some of them are worth preserving.

The chapters are episodic, so the story moves along at a predictable pace, but there is no real story here—just a string of tales to regale the reader. That being said, there is a lot to unpack in this novel. It predates almost everything else, so many of the tricks of the trade find their home here, including modern pastiche, metafiction, and social critique. My translation was just a lightly edited version of the original 1620 Thomas Shelton work, so the writing for me was very stilted. I have looked at a few pages of other translations, and if you can get the Edith Grossman or the Tom Lathrop, you will have a better time than I had. All in all, it is a tremendous work worthy of the time required.

Welcome back!

I read one translation or another back in high school, when I was doing independent study for Spanish IV; I have the Grossman but never finished it. I should give it another go.

Thanks. It's good to be back.

After dipping into a more modern translations, I wish I had gone with one of them. The book probably wouldn't have taken so long to read. I've been working through it off and on for the last three months.

669.75094109034: Whorton, James C. The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010. 359 pp

Dewey Breakdown:
• 600: Technology
• 660: Chemical engineering and related technologies
• 669: Metallurgy
• 669.7: Other nonferrous metals
• 669.75: Antimony, arsenic, and bismuth
• +0941: Great Britain and United Kingdom
• +09034: 19th Century

It’s an absolute wonder that as many people survived 19th century England did. There was arsenic in everything—in the food, in the paint, on the wallpaper, in wine barrels, in beer, in medicine, in wrapping papers, in clothing, in makeup, in everything. Once arsenic trioxide (a byproduct from purifying gold or copper minerals) was found to be highly marketable to dye and chemical manufacturers, the race was on to cut it into everything imaginable to lower costs and increase profits. James Whorton’s The Arsenic Century looks at the toll arsenic took on 19th century England, and how that shaped current legislation and health science.

Arsenic poisoning was nearly a health epidemic in Victorian England, and because many of the symptoms mirrored those of cholera, it was hard at first to prove death by arsenic. This was a boon for would-be poisoners. Then, began the arms race for chemical tests. Starting with the Marsh test touted by famous chemist Mathieu Orfila and evolving into more and more precise reactions, many British chemists were employed in the pursuit of making sure that arsenic did not slip into too many products, but that did not stop cutthroat merchants and manufacturers. In many cases of arsenic poisoning, each side would blame the other of tampering so no one could be proved at fault. Meanwhile, hundreds of consumers lay at home with gut-wrenching pains, slowly dying by the hand of shady dealers.

The book, while not a rip-roaring read, is a very interesting one. I was generally aware of nefarious manufacturers trying to reduce their costs by using inferior products, but the prevalence of arsenical compounds throughout Victorian England was just mind-boggling. Moreover, the tedious pace by which the government acted to prohibit arsenic use was just laughable. Anybody interested in both history and chemistry should have a good time with this one.

707.22: Carrier, David. A World Art History and Its Objects. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2008. 154 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 700: Fine Art and Recreation
• 707: Education, research, and related topics of fine and decorative arts
• 707.22: Collected treatment

David Carrier’s A World Art History and Its Objects is a weird one. On one hand, it compels the reader to look at art and its history from a few broad perspectives. There are several art traditions around the world that developed independent from one another until naval travel became more frequent and more effective. This led to many conversations between traditions and the mixing of styles, philosophies, and artifacts in and through each other cultures.

On the other hand, for all its attempts to discuss art and history on a global and complete scale, this book not once mentions African art styles and their history. This becomes more and more salient every time Carrier writes about Chinese, Indian, and Islamic traditions when also discussing Western European styles. Each time the triplet is invoked, my brain was screaming, “You missed one!” And each time, I became a little more disenchanted with the author’s aims.

Granted, this is a very complex and nuanced field that deserves some attention, but at only 154 pages, surely there was room for more. I am left to assume that the author simply did not have the capacity, the courage, or the compassion to include such a long and storied arena of arts and artists. That said, there are nuggets of interest to be found here, but they are heavily dressed in a bitter sauce that left me wanting.

185: Adler, Mortimer J. Aristotle For Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy. New York: Collier, 1978. 192 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 100: Philosophy, parapsychology and occultism, and psychology
• 180: Ancient, Medieval, and Eastern Philosophy
• 185: Aristotelian philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy is no joke. From the early thinkers such as Thales of Miletus and Xenophanes of the Ionian school all the way through to the Neoplatonists of the Hellenistic period, there was no shortage of deep thinkers trying to parse the meaning of everything we see and understand. One of the more famous names of this group was the 4th century BC philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle was taught by Plato and went on to teach and advise Alexander the Great. Mortimer Adler's Aristotle for Everybody is an attempt to distill a lifetime of high thought into a short book on one way to think about the universe.

Throughout this book, there is heavy emphasis on Aristotle's use of classification--form vs thought, potentiality vs actuality, plants vs animals vs humans, etc. The impetus here is that once you can classify different types of things, be they living things or causes or intentions, then you can more properly think through them and how they fit into the whole of the universe. At the high end of all of Aristotle's musing is a single question: How does one live the best life? From that question, infinite more arise: What is the purpose of life? What is a good life? What is good? This rabbit hole of questions means you have to parse through all the vagaries of existence to find the best outcome.

Even at a slim 200 pages, this text is still not an easy one. Adler does well to simplify Aristotle's philosophy, but even he runs into the problem that our words don't mean the same thing as Aristotle's. Many of the chapters start with an outlining of the vocabulary to come so that the author and the reader are hopefully on the same metaphorical page. All in all, it did help me to get a little deeper into ancient philosophy and come out asking better questions in the end. A dense but worthwhile read.

874: Propertius. The Poems. Trans. W.G. Shepherd. New York: Penguin, 1985. 158 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 800: Literature and Rhetoric
• 870: Literature of Italic languages, Latin literature
• 874: Latin lyric poetry

Latin lyric poetry is decidedly not my thing. Propertius’s poems are thick with allusion, dripping with melodrama, and riddled with possible translation errors. Betty Radice’s excellent introduction to Shepherd’s translation lays the groundwork for what the reader is to experience: a collection of 92 poems with a sketchy past all too frequently re-edited with each publication.

The best dates we have for the life of Propertius are from 45ish BCE to 15 BCE. His flame apparently burned bright, and he left a mark on scribes well enough into the 12th century CE for them to produce a manuscript. Many of the subsequent manuscripts re-arrange poems in the collection, and sometimes re-arrange lines within poems themselves. Each new editor has to dig through the past very carefully to find some semblance of order.

That said, the poems themselves are very representative of the elegiac form, with Propertius literally feeling all the feels for his love Cynthia. He is all at once racked by joy, hate, anger, jealousy, suspicion—everything. Reading all the poems in one go can be rather laborious, so I took them a few at a time, and found that reading them aloud helped me to understand them better. Also, make sure you have an annotated version, as there are numerous references to Roman history, mythology, and daily life that will just whizz past you if you aren’t careful. This one is a dense read.

607.27444: Moss, Frank. The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives. Crown: New York, 2011. 243 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 600: Technology
• 607: Education, research, and related topics
• 607.2: Research and statistical methods
• +7444: Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA

Every day, innovators are pushing the limits of what we think is possible. From sleek exoskeletons helping paralyzed people walk to in-home robotic companions that help you understand and reach health goals, the ways in which technology can enrich and prolong our lives seems nearly endless. For Frank Moss, director of the MIT Media Lab, the joy is doubly compounded. He gets to watch as new researchers intermingle with people from disparate fields to create these amazing technologies from nothing. The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices is his attempt to document the magic of that process.

The MIT Media Lab is a foundation that allows researchers and candidates for doctoral degrees to come together and innovate as fast as ideas can sprout. The turnaround times for projects are fast, and the improvements made to their projects are even faster. By getting people from many types of backgrounds together, each person on a team can inform a project better than a single inventor could. Moss takes the readers through the history of the lab and how the current crop of technologies are planning to help people all around the world. Some of the more fun projects are the plans for a three-wheeled, electric folding car that can help to alleviate congestion and pollution; a customizable set of body gear to help people with disabilities compose music; and a comprehensive suite of monitors and analytics where a doctor and patient can sit side-by-side and make health decisions together in real time

Let’s be fair, this book is no piece of great literature, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s a window into the workings of a fast-paced technology laboratory that helps the reader see what is possible if the right people get together to solve complex problems. I hope Moss comes out with a follow-up to this book to say how the different inventions were integrated into society, or how new problems were discovered and mitigated. Overall, it’s an interesting and insightful read.

076: Schulte, Henry F. The Spanish Press, 1470 - 1966: Print, Power, and Politics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1968. 247 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 000: Computer science, information, and general works
• 070: Documentary media, education media, news media, journalism, and publishing
• 076: Journalism and newspapers in the Iberian peninsula and Spain

The breadth of Henry Schulte’s The Spanish Press is a little daunting. Trying to take in nearly 600 years of a country’s journalistic history is exhausting. That said, there are nice bits of information here about the formation and iteration of free press laws in a country as it moves (sluggishly) from a pure monarchy to a constitutional monarchy to a democracy.

Many of the country’s early newspapers were periodic collections of events from around the country and the continent packaged in a few different gazettes by Fabro Bresmundan in the late 1400s. Over time, these transformed into more editorial style newspapers, and thus begins the cycle of governmental pressure versus free press. Each new regime, in either a show of power or benevolence, tweaks the press laws to suit their own position. Throughout it all, though, a few figures rise above the torrent of everyday journalism. After Bresmundan, comes Francisco Nipho in the mid-1700s. His singular goal of educating and moralizing create the modern Spanish newspaper.

All in all, this book was just okay. Written in 1968, there is not so much an emphasis on popular history as there is on getting the facts in front of the reader. If you want a basic primer on the history and politics of journalism in Spain of the last 600 years, this would be a good place to start.

734: Little, Charles T., ed. Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. 197 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 700: Fine arts and recreation
• 730: Plastic arts and sculpture
• 734: Sculpture from 500 to 1399

During the 2006/2007 winter season, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held an exhibition of sculpted heads from the late Roman Empire to the European Middle Ages. Editor Charles Little oversees the exhibition catalog and takes the reader on a virtual walk through the museum. All 81 heads are captured here, and with each, comes an in-depth description of the history and findings gleaned there-from.

Peppered throughout the catalog are short essays on various facets of art history, from scientific sculpture dating to the intersection of politics and art to the use of certain motifs and techniques. Each of these palate cleansers offers a new way of looking at medieval sculpture and creates an additional lens for each of the catalogued pieces. The pieces were once a part of either cathedral facades or interior decoration, but for a number of reasons became dislodged from their original places. A lot of the writing focuses on trying to find the sources of the broken heads, and through a combination of technique and limestone analysis, there are quite a few homes found.

Oddly enough, I have been to a few of the source museums listed with the pieces, but have never really thought about them in these ways (one of the myriad reasons I am not an art historian). I hope now, when I return to them, I’ll give them more than the slow shuffled steps that we all do in museums. Overall, this was an interesting look into medieval sculpture.

197: Ginsburg, Seymour B. Gurdjieff Unveiled: An Overview and Introduction to the Teaching. Lighthouse Editions, 2005. 158 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 100: Philosophy, Parapsychology, Occultism, and Psychology
• 190: Modern Western and other non-Eastern Philosophy
• 197: Former Soviet Union

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was an early 20th century mystic and philosopher who pioneered an ideology called The Work based on elements of eastern Christianity, dervish mysticism, yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, and parts of Zoroastrianism. It relies on inward reflection and the principle that one needs to “wake up” and see past the veils of modern society. Seymour Ginsburg, a member of the Gurdjieff Foundation, distills his teaching into a slim volume to help the reader through the bulk of The Work.

Truthfully, I had a hard time getting through this mumbo-jumbo. I was with it when Ginsburg talks about understanding your inner self and walking the reader through some guided meditation lessons. But once they get into renaming things, such as the obligolnian strivings, the martfotai, and the tetartocosmos, I’m out. If you can’t use the existing words at our disposal (there’s over a million to choose from), then “the masses” aren’t going to come into your fold.

Most of this book reads like a catalogue of mystical philosophy. There are the seven brains, the seven worlds each with an order of laws, the aforementioned strivings, the sacred forces (or triamazikamno), so on and so forth. It’s all a big mess. I’m sure there are quite a few people practicing this system, and to them I say, carry on. I won’t get in your way. Just don’t make me read this book again.

627: Hydraulic engineering



627.820979313: Hiltzik, Michael. Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century. New York: Free Press, 2010. 407 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 600: Technology
• 620: Engineering and allied operations
• 627: Hydraulic engineering
• 627.8: Dams and reservoirs
• 627.82: Masonry dams
• +0979313: Clark County, Nevada, United States

Hoover Dam (or Boulder Dam, whichever you prefer) is indeed an engineering marvel. To get a complete history of the structure, you need to know about machinery—the machinery built to construct the dam, the political machinery involved in getting it funded, and the internal machinery of the men and women who risked their lives at the site itself. Michael Hiltzik’s Colossus is an attempt to chronicle both the construction and the consequences of Hoover Dam.

First off, if you’re going to write about engineering problems or tactics, it’s helpful to have diagrams or schematics for the reader to reference. The plates in the middle are paltry and mostly portraits, and for all the praise that Reclamation photographer Ben Glaha got early in the book, there is only a middling effort to show off his work at the site. I would have really liked more illustrations, particularly of the technical issues and their solutions.

Aside from that, the book was thoroughly informative, if a little biased against corporate officers and President Hoover himself. From the first expeditions to the site to the last crisis of the dam, you get a sense of the history and grandeur involved. The amount of references and endnotes are worthy of a history of this magnitude. All in all, I found myself wanting to finish it faster than expected. At over 400 pages, this isn’t an afternoon read, but it is a good read.

I have Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century on my shelf--glad to see you enjoyed it!

899.2212: Toer, Pramoedya Ananta. This Earth of Mankind. Translated by Max Lane. London: Penguin, 1996. 359 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 800: Literature
• 890: Literature of other specific languages and language families
• 899: Literature of Oceania, Austronesia, and of miscellaneous languages
• 899.2: Literature of Austronesian languages
• 899.22: Literature of Indonesian and Chamic languages
• 899.221: Indonesian literature
• +2: 1900-1999

Pramoedya Toer’s This Earth of Mankind is all at once about too many things and tells us too little. Dictated from the Buru Island Prison Camp in 1973, and then written down in 1975, this is the first of Toer’s Buru Quartet. After publication, it was translated by a staff member of the Australian Embassy into English and was subsequently banned by the Indonesian government for leftist leanings.

Toer’s novel covers race, colonialism, love, philosophy, human rights, and socioeconomic systems just to start, but grounds the story in the early life of Minke, a far descendant of Javanese royalty trying to get a thorough European education and falling for the beautiful Annelies, the daughter of a Dutch business owner.

At first, the dialogue and social references are a bit of a slog to get through, but halfway through, the book picks up steam and hums along. I won’t spoil anything here, but I can say that the book is equal parts satisfying and frustrating. If you’re looking for something outside the typical Western lit wheelhouse, this would not be a bad place to start.

710: Gissen. David. Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. 214 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 700: Fine Art and Recreation
• 710: Civic and landscape art

{Note: this book is officially classified under 710.47, but I could find absolutely no rationale for that call number. It's on the CIP, but since neither my DDC nor the online catalog give any explanation for anything inside the 710 section, I classed it broadly in 710 and will leave it at that.}

This one was a weird one. David Gissen was invited to write an architectural theory book and realized that he had collected a lot of ideas and historical threads surrounding what he calls subnatures. These forms of nature are traditionally excluded from architectural design. When buildings are planned, most architects take into account sunlight, tree lines, green spaces, and human interactions between all of those.

But, Gissen invites the reader to go further. His subnatures are broken up into three main groups: atmospheres, matter, and life. Atmospheres looks at dankness, smoke, gas, and exhaust; matter takes into account dust, puddles, mud, and debris; and life talks about weeds, insects, pigeons, and crowds. All of these are a byproduct of the human engineering of natural spaces, and each in turn, is discussed from both a historical perspective and a modern possibility. How does one design a space that takes dust into account? Where is there a place for puddles in skyscrapers? These are weird questions, but valid ones nonetheless.

I found myself oddly drawn to this one once I was in the thick of it, and read it in about a 3 hour sitting. This is not the sort of book I would immediately recommend, but for someone with a quirky sensibility and who likes hypermodern architectural design, this might be an interesting one. It’s by no means a fun read, will definitely get the reader to think about the liminal parts of nature a little bit more.

965.046: Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954 – 1962. New York: New York Review of Books, 2006. 717 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 900: History, Geography, and Auxilliary Disciplines
• 960: History of Africa
• 965: Algeria
• 965.04: 1900-1962
• 965.046: Period of Revolution, 1954-1962

Alistair Horne’s Savage War of Peace chooses that adjective perfectly. It is savage in tone, savage in subject matter, and savage in length. Horne traces each thread of the Algerian War of Revolution, each governmental and counter-governmental organization, each politician’s trajectory, and each battle to give an almost comprehensive picture of Algeria’s struggle for independence. It commands the reader to remember the entities involved, from the FLN to the GPRA to the OAS and all the agencies in between. This is not a book for the meek or the casual student of history, but if you want to know what made Algeria Algerian, this is the place to start. Good luck.

141.3: Malpas, Jeff, ed. From Kant to Davidson: Philosophy and the Idea of the Transcendental. London: Routledge, 2003. 237 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 100: Philosophy, parapsychology and occultism, and psychology
• 140: Specific philosophical school and viewpoints
• 141: Idealism and related systems and doctrines
• 141.3: Transcendentalism

I can confirm that I read this book. Was it enjoyable? No. Did I learn anything new? A few things. Beyond that, the discussions here on the path that transcendental philosophy took after Kant, and who exactly was a transcendentalist and who was not got a little tedious. There were nuggets about perception and reason that were interesting, such as the role of logic in the sensual. Outside of that, this one has a stereo instructions vibe to it. I understood most of the words, but there is not lasting picture of the book for me. I am definitely not the intended audience here. This is more like a collection of essays that a graduate student would have to read for a seminar class. Approach with caution.

>193 NielsenGW: love your review! That's how I'm feeling about Logic, Metaphysics and the Natural Sociability of Mankind. I'm trying to intersperse more substantial books, as well as read my own tomes and broaden my DDC, with the light reading that's been the mainstay of my diet. I'm sure I will learn/ remember at least one thing by the time I'm done. Reading classic literature this year has also given me a greater desire for better written books.

079.56109041. Brummett, Palmira. Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000. 331 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 000: Computer Science, Information, and General Works
• 070: Documentary media, educational media, news media, journalism, and publishing
• 079: Journalism and newspapers in other geographic areas
• 079.561: Journalism and newspapers in Turkey
• 079.56109041: 1900-1919

On the surface, this shouldn’t be a good book. It covers the thematic history of political cartoons in Turkish newspapers and gazettes during the years of the revolution. BUT, it is indeed an informative and artistic dive into the medium. Brummet nicely divides the cartoons and illustrations into themes, all occurring parallel during the revolution. From feminism to global politics to new modes of transportation to even stray dogs, each cartoon gives a little insight into the beginning of the free press era in Turkey.

That being said, there are some slow sections. The author goes into a little bit too much detail going through some of the titles, their editors, their publication schedules, and prices, but those can be overlooked in anticipation of each cadre of cartoons. It reads like an academic book, but it’s a very solid look into a niche subject.

218: Fontinell, Eugene. Self, God, and Immortality: A Jamesian Investigation. Fordham UP: New York, 2000. 232 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 200: Religion
• 210: Philosophy and theory of religion
• 218: Humankind

Interestingly, this book doesn’t read as though it were written right at the start of the 21st century. It feels mired in the 1950s (even though there are excerpts from books written in the 70s and 80s). There’s a weird dustiness here as Fontinell wrestles with the philosophy, psychology, and personal contradictions of William James. For each inch of argument, Fontinell crawls through the thick muck of thought, logic, and philosophical history.

Fontinell tries to work his way to whether there is merit to believing in immortality and how that interacts with his philosophical understanding of the divine. It’s definitely a winding path, and some chapters are more sloggy than others. The book is dense – no one is going to stumble into it by accident. If you’re interested in thoughtfully parsing what it means to be devout or the divine, go for it. That is all.

It was my birthday recently, so I picked up seven new books for this challenge. While there are a great deal left to get on my list, I decided to get only those that were available digitally (my shelves are at capacity at the moment).

487: The Man Who Deciphered Linear B by Andrew Robinson
497: Reading the Maya Glyphs by Michael Coe
548: Dorothy Hodgkin by Georgina Ferry
584: Tequila: A Natural and Cultural History by Ana G. Valenzuela-Zapata
588: Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Side note: she was on an episode of the podcast Ologies and was absolutely delightful -- I highly recommend that show)
652: The Code Book by Simon Singh
896: Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

It's the first time in quite a while I've bought stuff specifically for this project, and now I have to go re-jigger the stats...

My wife and I were in Minneapolis last week for a conference of hers, so I spent the days hanging out at the Hennepin County Library downtown rightfully tallying three more for this challenge:

560: The Burgess Shale by Harry B. Whittington
664: JELL-O by Carolyn Wyman
897: Earth's Mind by Roger Dunsmore

Reviews coming up below...

560.172309711: Whittington, Harry B. The Burgess Shale. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1985. 132 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 500: Natural Sciences and Mathematics
• 560: Paleontology and Paleozoology
• 560.17: Stratigraphic paleontology
• 560.1723: Cambrian Period
• 560.172309711: British Columbia

Fossilized bones are relatively easy to find; fossilized full body parts, not so much. So, when in 1909, Charles Walcott got word of fossils to be found in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, the paleontology world changed forever. Sandwiched in-between dozens of layers of shale were thousands of specimens from the Cambrian Period, dated to around 500 million years ago. Walcott’s team found flattened mollusks, worms, trilobites, and sea sponges, among other types. Fossil digs at the Burgess Shale continued through 1924, brining back 60,000 specimens. Whittington and his team went back in the 1970s and found even more, allowing for a better investigation into Cambrian organisms.

Whittington’s account of both Walcott’s expeditions and his own is not a barn burner but is still interesting. Learning how fossils were found, collected, preserved, organized, and scrutinized was at least informative. Whittington is not whimsical but is indeed an inveterate scientist. There are a ton of plates at the end of the book that show off the finds and those are decidedly more pleasing than the descriptions of each grouping of specimen found.

664.26: Wyman, Carolyn. JELL-O: A Biography. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 2001. 136 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 600: Technology
• 660: Chemical engineering and related technologies
• 664: Food technology
• 664.2: Starches and jellying agents
• 664.26: Gelatins

This is a simple recounting of the patenting, manufacturing, and history of JELL-O. While other gelatins were around before JELL-O, this was one of the first to be flavored and designed for home use. Started in 1897 by P.B. Wait, then sold to Orator Woodward in 1899, then part of Postum, and then General Foods, and now Kraft Heinz. Wyman goes through all the iterations, all the spin-offs, all the craze, all the uses, and all (well, not all) the recipes. It’s a quick read, with a bunch of asides into the lives of collectors, marketers, spokespeople, enthusiasts, and side characters in the development and marketing of JELL-O. It’s not high scholarship, but a quick and fun read nonetheless.

897: Dunsmore, Roger. Earth’s Mind: Essays in Native Literature. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. 213 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 800: Literature and Rhetoric
• 890: Literature of other specific language and language families
• 897: Literature of North American native languages

This one is a bit of a weird one. Rather than just read a novel by a North American native language writer, I stumbled on a free copy of Earth’s Mind by Roger Dunsmore. He was a professor at the University of Montana teaching liberal studies. His works covers comparative philosophy, literature, and culture, and being exposed to native peoples for over 30 years has helped to better inform his connection to other cultures and literatures.

The essays in Earth’s Mind are exactly what I would expect from collection on literature, but the underpinnings are very different from my usual Western comp-lit mindset. That made the book much more worth it for me. You get a sense that Dunsmore has legitimately internalized some of the philosophy and culture pervading native literature, and each essay leads the reader toward a more cohesive whole when some other books of this type.

If you’re at all interested in North American native writers, this would be a good place to start. Before each essay, just go off and read the book in question, then come back for a well-intentioned critique. I wish I had had that kind of time; each book sounded quite fun.

561: Cleal, Christopher J. and Barry A. Thomas. Plant Fossils: The History of Land Vegetation. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 1999. 137 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 500: Science
• 560: Paleontology and Paleozoology
• 561: Paleobotany and fossil microorganisms

This is the most straightforward look at the evolution and composition of plant fossil as well as a history of paleobotanical research techniques. It is not a quick read, and it is not an introductory read, but there are quite a few nuggets on how ancient plants functioned, grew, and eventually became fossilized for later study. Cleal and Thomas are as clear as they can be, but the audience here is definitely those who have a good background in botany and paleontology. I can honestly say that I will not look at modern plants in the same way.

430: Sanders, Ruth H. German: Biography of a Language. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. 215 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 400: Language
• 430: Germanic languages
• 430.9: History of Germanic languages

Every language has a history and—with the exception of a very few—no language exists in a bubble. Ruth Sanders’ German is a quick run through the history of the idea of Germany itself, the country as it formed, its long thread of cultural events, and how ALL of that shaped the language that we know as German today. Each of the six chapters covers a chunk of German history and how those events shaped the lives and the language of the German people. There’s only so much time, so much of the history is surface level. From Proto-Indo-European to Modern German, we get a decent overview of how history impacts culture, and how culture impacts language. Even now, there is a push and pull in the German language on new words, much like there are same forces in the culture at large. An interesting book.

968: Vladislavic, Ivan. Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009. 183 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 900: History and Geography
• 960: History of Africa
• 968: Southern Africa and Republic of South Africa
• 968.2: Gauteng, North-West, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and the former homelands of the Republic of South Africa
• 968.22: Gauteng
• 968.221: Johannesburg district

Ivan Vladislavic’s Portrait with Keys is all once beautiful, sad, infuriating, marvelous, and quiet. This is a book of fragments – pieces of a city – which are inspected, sometimes connected to other parts. But there are many areas that are unreachable, locked behind doors, walls, and gates that only open for the right people. Each of the 138 pieces are indeed a portrait of a city, but only the parts that Vladislavic has access to. Through the book, there is a theme of history and art being created and destroyed that haunts the writing. I encourage anyone with a free afternoon to read this one.

583: Houk, Rose. Wild Cactus. New York: Workman Publishing, 1996. 121 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 500: Natural Sciences and Mathematics
• 580: Plants
• 583: Magnoliopsida
• 583.5: Caryophyllidae
• 583.56: Cactales

Rose Houk’s Wild Cactus is a delightful coffee table book illustrating some of the cactus species of the Southwest United States and Northern Mexico. George H.H. Huey’s photographs are luscious and clean, with good attention being paid to the wider landscapes in which cacti grow. There is some good information on cactus identification and care, but mostly this is a book where you just fall into the pictures and attempt to escape the rat race of daily life. A decent book, but it was over too quickly.

830.9: Boyle, Nicholas. German Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. 160 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 800: Literature and Rhetoric
• 830: Literature of Germanic languages
• 830.9: General History

Nicholas Boyle’s survey of German literature is as no-fuss as you can get. He starts with a quick explanation on what exactly will be covered, a fairly condensed history of the region starting at The Reformation, then walks the reader through major German writers and works in each time period. He adequately situates each work and writer in their age, looking at cultural influences on the writing as well as how larger global changes interact with local idiosyncrasies. If you want a quick reading list to get you started in German literature, I recommend this book.

651.09: Saval, Nikil. Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace. New York: Anchor, 2015. 312 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 600: Technology
• 650: Management and auxiliary services
• 651: Office services
• 651.09: General history

There is a sadness here, a sadness so thoroughly ingrained that hope makes it seem all the sadder. Nikil Saval’s Cubed is a look into how Western capitalism naturally evolved to sequester a large proportion of its participants into smaller and smaller cages. In looking at the history of the office, we see the history of work in general and the history of America’s relation to that work and the people that do it. Starting with bookkeepers and clerks in the early 19th century and going through present day tech serfs, Saval’s look into both office work and office philosophy are constantly in a state of tension. No one is ever 100% happy with their office furniture and life, and so there are infinite variations on ways to make that life easier. Designers think that if the office setup was perfectly suited to the worker, they would do it with vim and vigor, but the history of management eschews comfort for control, always trying to get the most work out of the worker for the least pay. Saval’s book is both infuriating and illuminating – definitely a good read.

725.520973: Yanni, Carla. The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. 158 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 700: Fine Arts and Recreation
• 720: Architecture
• 725: Public structures
• 725.5: Welfare and health buildings
• 725.52: Psychiatric hospital buildings
• +0973: United States

The definition of insanity is building the same structure over and over again hoping for different results. Carla Yanni’s Architecture of Madness is a history of how a few medical minds tried to cure the world of insanity through certain architectural principles. Many thought that with the right combination of airflow, room placement, and natural environment, the thoughts that plagued a troubled mind would be washed away. Yanni’s look at the timeline of asylum and hospital construction from the mid-1800’s through the mid-1900’s is as interesting as it is infuriating. Very little credence was paid by medical “professionals” on actually looking inward; only grandeur was considered. This led to ever-expanding buildings on ever-expanding tracts of land, but no real results. If you’re into niche architectural trends, this one is a good read; if not, there’s not much else for you here.

186.1: Kuzminski, Adrian. Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. 142 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 100: Philosophy and Psychology
• 180: Ancient, medieval, and Eastern Philosophy
• 186: Skeptic and Neoplatonic philosophies
• 186.1: Pyrrhonic philosophy

Like almost any book on ancient philosophy, there are parts that are truly interesting and parts that will put you to sleep. One of the great revelations in this one is the cultural osmosis that is recorded and occurred between thinkers of ancient India and ancient Greece. Weirdly, it never really dawned on me that such cross-pollination happened. Some of the same mind-clearing contentedness that shows up on Buddhism found its way into some Greek schools of thought, most notably the Skeptics. This was distilled into the school of thought now known as Pyrrhonism and is explored fully here. If you’re a philosopher, go for it; otherwise, I don’t think I recommend this one to anyone else.

487.1: Robinson, Andrew. The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013. 168 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 400: Language
• 480: Hellenic and Classical Greek languages
• 487: Preclassical and Postclassical Greek
• 487.1: Preclassical Greek

Andrew Robinson has put together a beautiful, tragic, tight biography of a weird man who managed to tease out the first translations of Linear B, a language found on dozens of tablets throughout Greece and the Mediterranean. Michael Ventris was, by all accounts, a verified eccentric. A lover of both architecture and world languages, he found joy in solving problems. How to correctly orient a Swedish office building, exactly what each pictogram on a clay tablet means, and so on. More remarkable than that is that he enlisted the help of anyone he could find around the world. In an era of hiding innovation from your competition, he simply wanted answers. This one is a fun little book on a niche subject. Give it a go.

293: Blain, Jenny. Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in European Paganism. London: Routledge, 2004. 159 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 200: Religion
• 290: Other religions
• 293: German religions

This book is a weird one. Weird in that Jenny Blain actually makes the usual hippie-dippie world of shamans, soothsayers, and spiritual guides worth listening to. Am I going to become an adherent of the shamanistic ways? No, but I won’t dismiss them outright either. Blain’s text is very well-sourced and her interviews with practitioners around the world are legitimately refreshing. A fair amount of disbelief has to be suspended here, but I found it pleasant nonetheless.

995.937: Randell, Nigel. The White Headhunter: The Story of a 19th-Century Sailor Who Survived a South Seas Heart of Darkness. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003. 280 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 900: Geography and History
• 990: History of Pacific Ocean Island, other parts of the world, and extraterrestrial worlds
• 995: Melanesia and New Guinea
• 995.9: Other parts of Melanesia
• 995.93: Solomon Islands
• 995.937: Malaita Province

In 1868, Jack Renton deserted the American ship Renard. He and his fellow deserters floated out into the Pacific Ocean for 2,000 miles before landing on Maana’oba, a small island off the coast of Malaita. For eight years, he lived, loved, and fought alongside the indigenous peoples. I won’t spoil the rest of the story, but sufficed to say, there is honor, heartbreak, and horror.

Randall does an exceptional job of collecting Renton’s history through oral narratives pieced together from those who have been charged to keep the nation’s history. This combined with contemporary documents leads to a nice and complete picture of Renton’s time on the island. Randall treats all the people in this saga with respect, and that is all I wanted. All in all, a very interesting read.

559.91: Wilhelms, Don E. To a Rocky Moon: A Geologist’s History of Lunar Exploration. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, 1993. 357 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 500: Natural Sciences and Mathematics
• 550: Earth sciences
• 559: Earth sciences of Pacific Ocean Islands, other parts of the world, and of extraterrestrial worlds
• 559.9: Earth sciences of extraterrestrial worlds
• 559.91: Earth sciences of Earth’s Moon

Don Wilhelms’s To a Rocky Moon is a very thorough, very detailed look at how geologists interpreted data and evidence from both observing and visiting the moon’s surface to arrive at a theory of how the moon was formed. It covers just about every major researcher in the field and spans findings and arguments from 1892 to 1984. There are 60 pages of endnotes and citations. If you wanted a comprehensive look at lunar geology, you’d be hard pressed to find a better entry point. Is it interesting? That depends. Arguably, the high point is the first human moon landing and the observations made on the surface. Then, the second half of the book follows. I kept with it and found it satisfying if a little thin and dusty at times. All in all, a pretty good book.

634.772: Koeppel, Dan. Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2008. 242 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 600: Technology
• 630: Agriculture and related technologies
• 634: Orchards, fruits, and forestry
• 634.7: Berries and herbaceous tropical and subtropical fruits
• 634.77: Herbaceous tropical and subtropical fruits
• 634.772: Bananas

Dan Koeppel’s Banana feels weirdly shallow and informative. The history of banana cultivation stretches back 7,000 years, but most of our understanding of the banana has happened in the last hundred. There are hundreds of species of banana, but the world mostly just eats one at a time – the Cavendish. Many times in the past, viruses or fungal infections have threatened to wipe out the world’s supply, but work is being done by many researchers to keep them at bay. There’s so much going on in the history of the banana as a fruit, as a tool of global politics, and as a savior of communities. It’s a pretty good book, but should be a stepping stone to more in-depth research.

861.7: Gonzalez, Oneyda. The Infinite Loop. Trans. Eduardo Aparicio. Brooklyn, NY: Akashic Books, 2023. 151 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:
• 800: Literature and Rhetoric
• 860: Literature of Spanish and Portuguese languages
• 861: Spanish poetry
• 861.7: 2000--

Gonzalez's poetry and Aparicio's translations are thick and juicy -- exactly what I want from poetry. The writing is wistful and languid, but at the same time dense with the gentle pauses of life. There is a great amount of pain here -- as to be expected from the events of almost any Hispanic woman's life -- but the tender pointedness of her lines really grabbed me in a way I did not expect. Definitely give this one a read if you can.