Random Ruminations: Books

Lovecraft

Posted Thu May 25, 2006 in Books

My Young Son found this at the library and had to check it out. I found it lying on the living-room table and picked it up. It’s a graphic novel done in a wonderful style that reminds me of water colors. The artwork is not as stark as for most graphic novels, but is quite good and very graphic.

Lovecraft’s work still give me the willies after nearly 40 years. This story is not about Lovecraft’s worlds as much as how he might have fit in between his fantasy worlds and reality. It is a story that breaks down the distinction between reality in fantasy in the way that some of my favorite stories do, such that one is never quite sure what is in the character’s head and what is real.

I enjoyed this book. If you enjoy Lovecraft’s work (or haven’t discovered it yet), this will be a fun read, even if it’s a graphic novel.

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Cure for the Common Life

Posted Sun Mar 19, 2006 in Books

Wife brought Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado home from the local public library for me. I’ve been struggling with my work life for awhile, and she recognized the struggle. And, while it’s too long a story to post here (I won’t bore you), it’s been a time of significant introspection.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Lucado. However, he has an excellent reputation in Christian circles, so I approached the book with an open mind. I’m nearly through the workbook component at the end as I write.

Cure for the Common Life is a good piece of work. In it, Lucado outlines how to discover and work toward finding your sweet spot in life. He defines the sweet spot as a place in life where all of your unique abilities are focused on your favorite topics under your optimal conditions with the right people in such a way that you will say “Yes!” I can recommend the book heartily to those looking for the sweet spot in their lives. Let me tell you why.

Lucado approaches the problem from two perspectives, internal and external. To find the sweet spot, one must understand that one fits into a larger context and has unique talents to bring to others. This external position is necessary to understand and accept. While Lucado approaches the external context from a Christian perspective, his statements are consistent with other worldviews.

The internal context requires the individual to do a lot of introspection to discover those things, situations, and actions that make work uplifting. Lucado provides instructions and a set of tools to assist the process. The tools are simple, easy to apply, and work. Some time is required, but the investment is worthwhile.

In the end, you will find yourself with a substantial amount of motivational material from the Bible, plus a list of strengths and a context for those strengths, all in a concise package that is short and sweet. You will have your S.T.O.R.Y.—your “Strengths, Topics, Optimal Conditions, Relationships, and Yes!” put together in one short bit of writing. It will be up to you to decide how to implement what you learn, but Lucado offers some suggestions for actions to help get you moving.

Did my analysis teach me anything I didn’t already know about myself? My honest answer is “a bit.” I had a fair grasp of my strengths and skills, some knowledge of the context in which I prefer to apply those abilities, and some understanding of my leadership interests. However, I now have all of those facts in a concise, complete package. I also gained a substantial amount of encouragement from Lucado’s writing.

I can strongly recommend this book for those individuals seeking to find the sweet spot in their work life. The book will work for non-Christians who are tolerant of a Christian worldview. It would also make a good gift to another who is facing those kind of life-struggles, perhaps with an offer for some mentoring. There’s also a section on working with your children to help them find their sweet spot in life.

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The Thing

Posted Mon Dec 19, 2005 in Books

I wrote about John Carpenter’s The Thing some time ago. Carpenter’s movie has to be one of the scariest I’ve ever seen, much superior to the original from 1951.

I also tracked down the title of the book in which the original story still lives. The original story was entitled Who Goes There? and is from 1938, by the amazing John W. Campbell, Jr. (Yes, I know the pun—Campbell edited Amazing Stories for many, many years.) In the book, The Antarktos Cycle, published by Chaosium, the story is renamed and called The Thing from Another World.

I ordered a copy from Amazon and it arrived last week. I read The Thing from Another World, and the creep factor is definitely there. I won’t spoil the story for those who might want to track it down, but will say the Carpenter movie is closer to the story than the original movie.

It’s an excellent story and I’m looking forward to reading the remainder of the stories in The Antarktos Cycle.

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Sourdough Jack

Posted Wed Dec 14, 2005 in Stories

Sourdough Jack Mabee wrote a couple of books about using sourdough to make bread. He also has a lot of western recipes in his books. My copy is copyrighted 1970. I have no idea where we got it, or when. I just know that it contains some excellent cooking wisdom and some damned-fine stories to boot.

Last night, while talking to Daughter, the subject of sourdough bread came up. She made beef stew, on the stove not in the crockpot, and bought a loaf of sourdough to complement the meal. Our conversation reminded me of Jack’s book, so I carried the phone with me, walked into the kitchen, and pulled it from the shelf.

We laughed about how I used to make sourdough from scratch each week. That would have been in 1983 or 1984. I made a starter and baked once each week, usually starting out on Friday evenings. I’d get the starter out of the fridge, make my sponge, and set the large stainless-steel bowl on top of the fridge to age overnight.

On Saturday morning I would split my sponge, set aside enough for two or three loaves of bread, and then use the remainder to make sourdough hotcakes. It was a thin batter and I made dollar-sized cakes. The griddle had to be HOT and it only took a few seconds for the batter to rise and brown. It was a fast operation to make the cakes.

The kids gobbled them down as fast as they came from the griddle. I always sampled a few, right from the griddle, without butter or syrup — cook’s prerogative. Their melty-tart taste had enough flavor without anything extra.

After breakfast, I made my dough and then set it back up on top of the fridge to rise. After a couple of hours, I’d punch it back down and knead it gently, then let it re-rise.

The rest of the afternoon was marvelous, with smells of baking sourdough bread and the promise of fresh bread from the oven. On cool days we’d have a fire in the stove, adding its bit of smoky smell to the mix. We usually ate about a whole loaf right from the oven, barely letting it cool enough to cut, sometimes just pulling chunks off to eat with a little butter or just plain.

I used to love baking bread. There isn’t much of anything better than fresh-baked bread, especially sourdough bread.

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The Traveler's Gift

Posted Thu Nov 24, 2005 in Books

I finished two books this week. The first was Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies and the second was Andy Andrews The Traveler’s Gift. I’d like to spend a little time writing about both books.

Traveling Mercies is a series of stories by Lamott about her personal history and her reflections on life, filtered through her beliefs. She’s brutally honest about where she’s been. Her life was not an easy life. There was plenty of booze, drugs, and sex, and not in any reasonable context.

Somewhere along the way, she found she believed in God. There was no blinding flash of light in which the heavens opened and thunder proclaimed His existence. It was a series of small things, each of which was common enough, but the way that they happened to her made her question the staunch atheism of her father. Eventually she came to faith.

Her faith isn’t an easy faith. No, it’s full of questions and doubts and a kind of bumpiness that many will find uncomfortable because it isn’t tidy the way faith is in the mainstream Christian community. No, Lamott’s faith is not dress-up Sunday faith; it’s the real thing, born of sweat and heartache and a real desire to do the right thing, even when it’s hard to do. I admire that.

Lamott and Atkinson would make an interesting pair to hang out with in a coffeeshop or local bar. I would love to be in a conversation with both of them at the same time.

Right after I finished Traveling Mercies, I picked up my copy of The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews. It’s odd how sometimes God puts books together for me. I didn’t know this, but Andrews is more mainstream Christian than my other current reads. He’s well known on the lecture/motivational speaker circuit, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just very different than the hard looks at faith that Lamott and Atkinson bring.

I read The Traveler’s Gift in two sittings. It went very fast because it’s a much lighter book. While the story of the protagonist is difficult, and I certainly relate to the despair that David Ponder feels, Andrews has a few points to make with his story of a man’s change of circumstances which he does with a story about Ponder’s interaction with seven historical figures at critical points in their own lives.

I loved these vignettes from history. I loved how Andrews puts flesh on the old bones of these characters and brings some wisdom from each as they are at some pivotal point in their respective lives. The seven decisions that are Andrews’ thesis are important and they are good thoughts.

Like many important principles, the seven decisions are not intellectually difficult. In the same fashion, my students know the principles of conservation of mass, conservation of energy, and conservation of momentum, too, but that does not make those principles easy to apply. Neither are the seven decisions easy to apply. They require a change of thinking and that change may be the most difficult thing any of us, including me, attempts to do.

So I have a copy of the seven decisions in my journal. In fact, I’m going to print out a copy and put them in the pocket of my paper journal so I have a “parchment” of my own to refer to. I think they are that good.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned about my depression is this: I can’t change my past. Those things are all over now. What I did and what others did to me are done and over with. But I don’t have to believe the future will be the same. I don’t have to let the things of my past have power over me. I can effect a different future, should I choose to. That choice is mine to make. While God might already know what choice I will make, the free will he gave me means it’s my choice; he did not make me his puppet. So, if I change my thinking I can change my future. I think this is what Andrews is trying to say.

These are both good books. They are very different, though, but still very good. It was an interesting juxtaposition to read them so closely together. I’m glad I did.

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Traveling Mercies

Posted Mon Nov 7, 2005 in Books

I finished reading RealLivePreacher.com for the second time yesterday morning. During the quiet part of the morning, I sat in my computer chair, listening to music, reading, and drinking coffee. (Speaking of coffee, mine should be nearly ready now.) The Preacher’s book held up well on the second read and I picked up a couple things I missed the first time through. I believe the work is sufficiently solid to stand another reading, at least. While there are some hard stories in RealLivePreacher.com, there is also a larger sense of hope, and then faith that things will turn out OK. And if things don’t turn out as hoped, then the faith is there that such will turn out for the better in the bigger picture. That is, the bigger picture that we, as finite humans, cannot see¹.

A few weeks ago (months?), Wife snagged a copy of Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies from the public library, read it, and recommended it to me. I know a little of Lamott’s writing, having been told that Bird-by-bird is an excellent book. I wanted to read it, but couldn’t at the time.

Digression: I sometimes have trouble reading. I cannot muster the mental energy required to invest myself in the process. I think that struggle for mental/emotional energy is part of my depression. I’ve learned that it comes and goes, though, and that during the better times I can read.

A few weeks ago we found a copy of Traveling Mercies at the used book store and bought it. I love used book stores and can spend hours browsing in them, reading bits and pieces of books I pick up from the shelf, and then just basking in the feel, the sight, and the smell of all those words.

I started reading Traveling Mercies yesterday and read off and on a good part of the day, drinking coffee and listening to music, sitting in my computer chair. Anne Lamott is an honest writer and the truth she tells of her life experience is blunt to the point of brutality. I am an empath² and felt her pain and her struggle as she dealt with some hard times in her early life. The first part of the book is hard, but it’s also honest.

I found a quote that I like. Lamott (Traveling Mercies, p. 43) asks a preacher, “What does it mean to be saved?”

I guess it’s like discovering you’re on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, “I’ll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.”

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book. While real life doesn’t always turn out tidy like made-up stories do (or at least can), I think she’s leading the reader to a better place, a place she’s found where many of her demons are put behind her. I’m looking forward to learning how she discovers that place and where it is, for her.

¹I believe there is a bigger picture.

²Empath: noun (chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual. Hmm… I’m not an empath in the paranormal sense of the word. No, I think I just pay attention and relate emotionally to those around me.

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Fighter Combat

Posted Sun Oct 23, 2005 in Books

In context of my recent posts about the massively multiplayer online game, Aces High, I thought I’d post a bit about a very interesting book. The book is Fighter Combat by Robert L. Shaw. It is a seminal work on air-to-air combat and deals with basic aerial maneuvers as well as guns and missile combat.

We (the U.S.) learned in Viet Nam that combat aircraft require guns regardless of missile capability. At least one model of the F4 Phantom did not have guns and that was something that the enemy pilots learned to take advantage of. Whenever they could they would close to inside missile range and engage friendly aircraft. As long as they could stay inside minimum missile range, they could harass the American pilots at will.

A particularly harrowing encounter is documented in Fighter Jets (one of the Time-Life books). In the story, a Phantom pilot relates a combat with a MiG wherein the MiG has guns and the Phantom does not. The two pilots were nearly an even match and the MiG pilot knew that the Phantom had no guns and kept close accordingly. It’s a riveting story and what probably saved the Phantom pilot’s life is that the MiG ran low of fuel and attempted to exit the fight.

I’ve started reading Fighter Combat again. The writing is good, the illustrations interesting, and the vignette stories fascinating. It’s a good read.

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