More Money than Brains - Laura Penny

Full title:  More Money than Brains - Why School Sucks, College is Crap and Idiots Think They're Right

A great, albeit depressing, read.  One of those books that hits the nail smack on the head.  She has done the scholarly research on many of the social and institutional shifts that I shake my head over and discuss when I can find someone else who is interested.
One of the great things about the book is that it cuts across partisan political lines.  She talks about how both the left and the right, both the new media and the old, both the young and the not so young, both industry and your average Joe Blow have all contributed to create the new Idiocracy, as she calls it.

This book ties in with the message in the documentaries by Adam Curtis that I have been watching:  All Watched Over by Loving Machines, and others.

Lots of great quotes.
Some great creative names for social trends and deformed social institutions.
Her writing style is also quite witty in general.
Tellingly, she offers no solution, no grand way out.

A book you should own.

Also a great source for further reading.

Reread January 2019

Mediterranean Waltz - Buket Uzuner

Story of a small group of families in Istanbul from the mid 20th C approx. to modern day.  Very popular in Turkey, but I did not find it such a great read.  Especially the ending chapter, which seems very slapdash to me.
I imagine it was popular in Turkey because of several of the themes:
- the destruction of the beautiful Istanbul of old, and nostalgia for that city
- the fragmentation of Turkish society based on money, and nostalgia for "the good old days"
- the politics and political extremes of recent decades
- a background of a seemingly ongoing military coup
- some challenging of sexual norms and gender roles

Poor People - William T. Vollman

Like his other book, Europe Central, a vast wandering book full of reflections, questions, observations, stories.
I find the central premise of the book brilliant.  You want to know about poverty, the causes and effects of poverty, go talk to poor people - around the world.  Rather than treating the whole issue as an abstract, detached problem or issue.  It also brings home the idea of how complicated human social issues are - ideologists simply things, create generic stereotypes, plan simplified solutions, and fail completely. (see other book on the elimination of poverty)
The other thing that Vollmann does is, not only turn his eye and critical mind on poor people, but also on our comfortable middle-class ideas and perceptions of the issue.
He touches on issues of aid, causes of poverty, the failure of top down change, the defining characteristics of poverty which have less to do with actual financial resources, and more to do with how life is experienced or viewed.
He brings humanity to the book and to the issue - which of course makes everything hugely complex, subtle and varied.  There is no "the poor", any more than there is "the solution to poverty".
Vollmann definitely has balls - he gets out there and immerses himself up close and intimate.  Face to face and personal.  At the back of the book, there is a collection of photos he has taken of many of the subjects mentioned in the book.
I wonder how he has so much time and energy to produce these huge, rambling books that he pumps out.  The guy must never sleep.

Here Is Where We Meet - John Berger

A collection of short stories, largely a conversation or remembrance of the dead.  Seven of the eight stories are framed as conversations with his dead mother in various cities around Europe.  The last is an extended memoir focused around a Polish friend.
I like the device of conversing with the dead as form of internal dialogue.  It is an interesting way to frame our relationship to the past.

A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing - Lawrence M. Krauss

A fascinating account of the gradual emergence of modern cosmology and theories of the origins of the universe.  Makes a great story - reading it at the same time as reading The Science Delusion by Curtis White - see my entry on that book regarding science and storytelling.   It's all language after all, and words are not the thing in itself.

After having looked at White's book, I am much more aware of the arrogance, prejudices and stereotypes at play in Krauss' book - so much for the objective delusion.  Rather like the Ayn Rand revealed in Part 1 of All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Tenderness, these hardcore materialists with their notion of reason and objective truth are not what they seem to be, nor who they see themselves to be.

It is so easy to see, and portray this obsession with scientific truth, reason and objectivity as a new form of religion, a new all-encompassing system, a new Answer - especially when you see what a mess, what wackjobs many of the leading modern figures have been.

The ideas themselves are intriguing and entertaining.

The Science Delusion - Curtis White

Interesting read.  An attack on scientific materialism.  I don't relate that much to Curtis' indignation, but then again I don't have to put up with the arrogance of scientists on a regular basis, not working at  a university.  I am currently reading one of the books he criticizes so sharply - Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing:  A Universe from Nothing.  I have realized I don't see scientific cosmology as a threat in itself (how it is used by politics and Big Business is another matter).  To me, current research and theories on cosmology, the nature and origin of the universe, life, etc. are fascinating stories (which is a bit of an insight in itself RE me and my attitudes...)  Other stories from other domaines can be just as fascinating - I am reminded of Italo Calvino's Cosmicomiche.

What this books has, though, is an amazing set of references to writers on ontological perspectives and speculators on the nature of reality.  A real mine to be explored.

The Orenda - Joseph Boyden

A fictional account of the first contact between Jesuits and Huron, and the destruction of the Huron tribe by disease and the Iroquois.  Boyden's main focus is to bring out the differences in ways of seeing life, the world, the Other and all aspects of being human between the European clergy and the Huron.  Opposite the figure of the main priest stand Bird, the warrior figure, and Gosling, the shaman.
The dance of ideas and feelings between these two camps is the heart of the novel.

Boyden also spins off many other themes. reflections and questions.  Some of the things that struck me:

The structure of Huron society with it's closed, close tribal group where sharing is the main ethos, and yet it's violence and sadism towards the other.  Reminiscent of the society build by Goebbels and Hitler in the mid-30s as discussed in a recent documentary I was watching, The Century of the Self, Part 1, by Adam Curtis.  In a larger sense, the question of the relationship to the Other, which is part of religion and philosophy.  What is interesting though, is that this relationship of cruelty and inflicted pain is ritualized as a contest of spirit between torturer and tortured, and the respect that is awarded those who suffer with strength.

I try to imagine a world where violence, killing, murder and sex are not overlaid with the moral taboo that comes with being part of a Christians society.  Not that Christian societies are without violence, murder and sex.  I suppose more that you might live with these parts of yourself without hypocrisy... Innocence in a Rousseau sense?  Child-like level of development?  Recognizing the need to express frustrations and repressions that come with living in a cohesive group where the group good always trumps the individual?

There is a point where Bird's adopted daughter cuts off his finger while he is sleeping as an act of revenge.  How is it seen?  As a sign of courage and strength in the girl, as an indication of her strong spirit.  What a different attitude towards children - our society primarily values compliance and see rebellion as something to be crushed.

I am also intrigued by Gosling and her shamanic powers.  I would like to read some accounts of people who have witnessed, or participated in, these experiences.  It is a persistent theme around native societies.  What is it about?  Not that far from the Catholic churches still current practice of exorcism, in certain ways.

Boyden also skillfully and light-handedly weaves in other themes around native-European history:  the disruptive role the fur trade played in intertribal relations; the role of disease in destroying their tribes and culture; the history of St. Marie Amongst the Huron; the history of French English rivalry in North America and how the native tribes got caught up in, and burned by, this conflict;  the early and repeated relationship of broken promises and exploitation;  the double-edged sword of contact and trade with the Europeans - threats to health and culture, but at the same time a source of unimaginably valuable technologies (which is also a larger theme within all societies on the planet - the wondrous but disruptive seductions of technology - do benefits and advantages outweigh negative effects? 'Progress' at what price?)

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - Adam Curtis

This is actually a series of three BBC documentaries.  It is actually a critical history of most, if not all, the important cultural, intellectual and social factors/powers/themes of the past 60 years.
Kind of disturbing, as I am personally familiar with most of what he examines...
The first one is called Love and Power, and looks at how computer logic coupled with the extreme rationalism (supposedly) of Ayn Rand's philosophy combine to distort our understanding of society, ourselves, and the world around us.  It traces the emergence of the model of the "machine" and how it has come to be applied to more and more areas of life.  The concept of systems and how it simplifies and distorts our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.
A fascinating but complex film - ties in Silicon Valley with Buckminster Fuller, the commune movement and the 60's counterculture, the rise of Wall Street, the demise of the political class, the ties between the Federal Reserve and Wall Street - Curtis just hits on everything, even Richard Brautigan!  The concept of decentralized social order based on direct communication and crowd sourcing of social evolution, as currently embodied in the internet, formerly in the idea of communes.  How the disenchantment with politics, coupled with the Ayn Rand extreme individualism and the concept of materialism applied to people and society, has empowered business elites and left most of us in a position of powerlessness.  Our refusal to deal with issues of politics and power (and class) in our social discourse - the issue that seems to have scuppered commune movement - you can only wonder who's interest it is in to make such discussion and analysis socially unacceptable...

All told with many great clips from the BBC archives.  As a film in itself, cry creatively executed.

Brings back lots of memories of Sue and her friends, and other hippy types I hung out with when I was 16, 17, 18.

This concept of systems - yes, the systems Curtis looks at are false, simplified.  They are not, nor can be, the truth.  In line with that saying, "The menu is not the meal."  But this goes back to the idea that all systems in the end are false.  They are constructs of our intellect, therefore limited by who and what we are, what we know (R.D. Lang - our understanding is limited by what we don't know, and because we don't know what we don't know, there's not much we can do about it.  Which leads to Robert Andon Wilson's "Maybe Logic".)  Maybe the problem is in the wanting to find a system that explains everything, in the need to develop the overarching theory, the desire to eliminate contradiction, opacity and inconsistency.  The desire to Understand with a capital U - Dr. Faust.   The desire for certainty.  Any system contains within itself its own seeds of destruction - the phenomena it can't contain. Worship of reason leading to a kind of hubris leading to what is essentially a tragedy - many of the scientists Curtis looks at were pretty weird fucks...  Science as the new religion in the sense that it promotes and produces all the same evils and negative effects that grow out of dogmatic religion.

Any Human Heart - William Boyd

Any Human Heart is a very entertaining read and an ambitious book.  The story follows the life of Logan Mountstuart, whose life spans most of the 20th century.  As a novelist, and later and art dealer, as a character he has access to many of the important literary and art figures and movements of the 20th century.  He lives at times in London, at times in Paris and for a while in New York.
This character and structure allows Boyd to use the book as an exploration of some of the major artistic movements of the 20th century as well as some of the changes in social conditions in England in particular, as well as in the U.S.  (there are some hilarious scenes with Logan as a senior living in poverty in Thatcher's England).  Mix in politics and the various wars of the 20th century, and you have a sprawling book.
It is not academic - I suspect Boyd chose to include his own favourite figures and artistic movements rather than go for an encyclopaedic approach.  Fortunately we have similar tastes.
Everything Boyd writes is both entertaining and dense.

Dark Age Ahead - Jane Jacobs

Jacobs is an interesting thinker in that she is writing about many of the key issues of the late 20th century, but not as an expert.  She writes as a knowledgeable, thinking person who is living and acting in the context of these issues:  family and social breakdown, the growing but dysfunctional urban environment more and more of us live in, perversion of public dialogue by self-seeking experts, domination of the social and political sphere by the interests of elites and the wealthy, the erosion of meaningful education.
The other think that makes her interesting is that she is writing within the context of Canada and Toronto, as well as the U.S.
While her style is at times a bit painful, the book is worth reading for its ideas.

The Literary Life of Cairo - Samia Mehrez ed.

This books is a collection of extracts from novels and stories of the 20th century.  Useful primarily as a source for Egyptian novelists and famous novels to try and dig up.

Maybe Logic - Robert Anton Wilson

A DVD by a very interesting character from the 60s who recently died.  A great look into some of the underlying philosophy and thinking from the more interesting fringes of the 60s.  The idea of "reality tunnels" and many other philosophical (ontological) speculations.  Worth watching again.

The Widow's Son - Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson is an interesting figure I recently discovered somehow.  His roots go back to that very seminal time of the 60s, a time who's threads seem to have largely evaporated.  I recently watched his DVD, Maybe Logic.  He is a figure I would like to explore more - he raises issues and questions about what was at the heart of that strange period of the 60s and 70s.  The easy explanation is that it was essentially the result of an unprecedented surge in demographics.  Maybe so, but that doesn't have anything to do with the validity of some of the ideas explored at the time - Barthes, Leary, R D Lang, Alan Watts and many others.  I feel an urge to go back and look at all of this, to look beneath the caricature and media hype that blew up around all of this like an obscuring dust storm.
The book itself, The Widow's Son, was not a great read.  One of those Idea oriented books, with tonnes of footnotes pulled from a rather peculiar early 20th century figure, de Selby (real person...)
I would rather read an open exploration of the ideas themselves.

October 1970 - Louis Hamelin

An excellent novelistic look at the October Crisis in Quebec.  Hamelin has spent a lot of time with the accounts and research material around this historical event.  He sees the novel as a hypothesis to explain certain holes, inconsistencies and lacunae in the historical record.  His version of the story is highly plausible when you consider some of the manipulative political shenanigans that were going on around the world at that time.  This book also links in with some of the other cultural figures from the 60s and 70s that I have been thinking about lately.  Very well-written.  Makes you want to go and look into that time period.
I wish I had read it in French - I tried to find it but the title is so unlike the English version:  La Constellation du lynx.  This title puts a completely different spin on the book.  The English title focuses on the historical side of the novel.  The French title puts the focus on a symbol, a metaphor, a trope that repeats throughout the book - the recurring presence of a lynx.
To reread in French later.

Dance Dance Dance - Haruki Murakami

Not sure where I picked up the reference to this author - wish I could, as the novel was quite quirky and a good read.  Murakami is a modern Japanese author who seems to have been strongly influenced stylistically and tonally by the noir genre of American detective novels.  While the main character is not a detective, he spends most of the book trying to unravel a mystery, or series of linked mysteries introduced into his life through some kind of paranormal experience.   There is something of the Paul Auster mysteries in this book, but it is more disturbing and unpredictable, less of a philosophical or existential exercise.

It's hard to say in any sense what the book is really about, either story-wise or theme-wise.  It hangs together though, partly as a look at some kind of life experience existing beneath or outside the normal surfaces of existence.  Almost like some kind of parallel universe.  I suspect I may have gotten the reference from Robert Anton Wilson, as there is something of the idea of reality tunnels at the heart of this book.

I would like to find more by this author to see if he carries through with this approach.

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America - George Packer

Another book on the decline of american, and by extension western, society.  What is different about Packer's approach is he does it through stories - not fiction, but the stories of real people's lives, gathered through hundreds of hours of interviewing.  The book is organized by decades, with each chapter starting with a collection of what looks like newspaper extracts highlighting some of the decade's key events and stories.  He tells the stories of some important figures like the founder of Walmart.  Three key characters, humble everyday people, he follows through several of the decades and we see how their life develops and changes shape against the backdrop of a changing society.

To be honest, I didn't read the whole book, but not because it wasn't worth reading.  I think it is a very humanized way to look at some of the current issues we face as societies, rather than seeing the issues as statistics and and argument of ideas.  No, I didn't read the whole thing because I'm starting to feel like I've read enough about what is going on, what is happening, how things are falling apart.  My interests are shifting to questions like what to do about it, where did it come from,  what are the deep forces behind this, what can we learn to help us move on.

The Big Disconnect - Giles Slade 2012

Slade sums up the focus of the book in the Introduction:  "What you will read in the coming pages is a description of how we progressively sacrificed the quality of human life for our economic well-being.  If, currently, your best friend is your iPhone or iPad, after reading this book you will understand why that is so, and also you will finally understand the real cost of numbing the pangs of human loneliness with human-mehanical neo-friendships."

In the course of the book, Slade traces the development of this condition of substituting technology for real human activity and interaction.  To my surprise, he traces it back to the introduction of the radio.  And already at that time, you see the clever marketing trick of audience ratiocination - the cosy image of the family huddled together around the radio apparently only lasted 3 or 4 years.  Radio manufacturers quickly saw their sales taper off as most families soon had a radio.  What to do? Create target audience specific programming, encourage tribal identities, so everyone in the family soon needs their own radio so they can confirm their new identity by listening to the shows targeted at them.  Brilliant marketing... not so brilliant social phenomenon, according to Slade.

Here is another quote he includes in the book from William Deresiewicz:  "We have given our hearts to machines, and now we are turning into machines."  Faux Friendships, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 2012  This is another interesting point, and I see it connect to that other elusive subject I am interested in - the essence or zeitgeist of the corporate structure/mindset/organizing principle.  You can see this trend from early on in the mass production revolution - humans become extensions or servicers of the machine.  Corporate hiring practices now are like this too.  Instead of submitting a carefully thought out, creative resume, you go through their on-line process, responding to a set collection of questions in categories.  The questions and categories are determined by the software, the algorithm, the computer process they use for screening applications.  You, the prospective employee, are no longer yourself, you are an extension of the machine.  Efficient, yes, but also completely dehumanizing.  This is maybe one of the key points of the corporate Way - everything is reduced to a cog of the larger machine, a process dictated by efficiency, profit (for a few), and technology.  This has been said before, and has been true for a while now, but this corporate ethos is invading more and more areas of our life.  (Which is what Rukhoff talks about in this book, Life Inc.)

Another point Slade brings up is the origin of a materialistic society in the U.S.  He place that origin right at the end of the second world war.  Social leaders were worried about the returning soldiers willingness to return to the narrow confines of the poor worker's life after experiencing their strength during the war, and making so many sacrifices in defence of "free" society.  The strategy that was hit upon was to increase availability of material goods and create the possibility of acquiring ever more bigger and better material goods.  (This increase in availability is also tied to the mass-production corporate structure itself.)  This is an interesting point worth exploring further.

Yet another area of interest is his discussion of trust in modern society.  In smaller, agrarian society trust is based on directly knowing people.  In large urban, industrial societies, you don't really know anyone -society is anonymous and distanced.  The need for trust was then extended to the "expert" and we see a growth in the importance and role of experts.  Unfortunately, these days even this trust in experts is waning, as it becomes more and more obvious that the main concern of experts is to protect their position and interests (or the interests of who is paying them).

An important book - a few sections are a bit of a slog, but well worth reading.  I wish he had included a bibliography.

The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty - Nina Munk

A brilliant take-down of the modern concept of expert.  The book portrays all the failings of our current expert-worship culture, and why, with their advice, we just keep digging ourselves deeper and deeper.  A list:  huge egotism, self-interest, dismissal of experience and ideas of the people actually living the situation, reliance on large amounts of money to accomplish goals, top-down flow of ideas and structures, insulation from the effects of their recommendations and ideas, refusal to take responsibility when things go wrong (just change focus), claim success but blame failure on externals and the stupidity of others, culture-centrism,  class-centrism, narrow focus of viewpoint.

I just keep coming back to the image of Sachs sitting in his 8 million dollar condo built for him by one of the Ivy League universities as he pontificates about the situation of dirt-poor africans living in mud huts...  Makes me fee queasy (and a bit hysterical...)

Well-written.  Interesting read.  Funny in a black humour (unintended) kind of way.

Refer back in particular to the comments on Nial Ferguson and his book, The Great Degeneration.

Arab Society and Culture - Samir and Roseanne Saad Khalaf ed. (TPL)

An interesting collection of short pieces on various aspects of Turkish and Arabic contemporary culture, some academic, some essay style and even some fiction extracts.  To find again when I have the time and focus.

The Brain Dead Megaphone - George Saunders 2007

A collection of essay/stories.
The title piece is a wonderfully sarcastic blow up of modern american media.  Bitingly hilarious.  The other pieces range over many ideas, but many of them share the same theme of laughing at/criticizing modern media in some way.  There is even an essay on Huck Finn.
Saunders has other moods besides sarcasm.   The Great Divider, which reads like a bizarre documentary essay on a group of militia spending a night watching for illegal immigrants in Texas, both manages to make fun of the mythology these men live by and at the same time express a gentle kind of acknowledgement of the event as, underneath it all, a bunch of guys hanging out doing stupid guy stuff like they always have.
There is also the story on his visit to Dubai, The New Mecca.  There is certainly irony in various points of the story, but there is also a complex awareness of his stereotypes and prejudices about the place, and how his experience and the people he meets don't always fit in so nicely to these preconceptions.  He has an honesty in his writing.
Saunders is more than a social critic - he also has some interesting things to say about world views, ways of thinking and perceiving, cultural issues and culturo-centrism.  One of the more sophisticated and human authors I have read lately.

A Most Wanted Man - John Le Carré

Another excellent novel by this great author - very hard to put down once you start.
Again, a focus on issues in modern behind-the-scenes international politics.  This time the plot is built around islamic terrorism and terrorist funding.
The real issue in the book is how misled we can be by being overly reliant, or exclusively reliant, on technology for our information and understanding of the world.  In a way it ties into a larger theme of how technology dehumanizes society and our relations with people.  How, without real human contact, without human sources (to use the spy analogy) it is much easier to fit the world into our preconceived notions of how things should be, into our stereotypes and self-serving, self-agrandizing and self-mythologizing narratives (hate that word).  And to trample others, miss opportunities, and lose all subtle shading.  Which ties into the theme of the other two books I have been reading lately, The Big Disconnect and Life Inc..  This is a theme that Ian Rankin has also begun to explore in some of his more recent work.

The Mission Song - John LeCarré

Another interesting example of how LeCarré had kept himself abreast of the challenges and issues of modern hidden government, or Deep State to borrow an expression from Turkish politics.
In this book he looks at the darker relationships between government and corporate security businesses like Haliburton and Blackhawk.  He explores the logic (business logic) of privatizing intelligence gathering and also secret mission work.  There is a terrible temptation there that capitalist enterprises cannot resist.  There is also no accountability, no one with even half an eye on the truth.  He points out how naive and vulnerable governments are in their interactions and negotiations with such firms.  Privatization as an exploration, as a meeting point,  of government vulnerability and business greed.  Government comes across as the dupes (just like in the current situation with government power contracts in Ontario).  This even touches the larger issue seemingly peculiar to our time - why leaders of both public and large corporate entities are so susceptible to the master bullshitters of the world; the people who are good at bullshit and little else (besides of course enriching themselves as much as possible at others' expense).
It also explores the vulnerability of the whistle-blower, the righteous citizen, the moral messenger, at the hands of large, corrupt government and big business.

As a book, not quite his usual gripping, compelling stuff, but still very readable and exploring some interesting ideas.

Cities Are Good For You - Leo Hollis

Cities Are Good For You - The Genius of the Metropolis

Not sure that this book lives up to its name.  In the beginning, from a historical perspective Hollis makes his point - cities are what drove the innovation and change starting with the Renaissance and moving up to modern times.  As he wanders through his other chapters though, it's not clear even from his own narrative that cities are still proving good for us.  In chapters looking at some of the modern metropolises, mostly located in the developing world, despite his positive spin,  some of the problems with infrastructure, services, pollution, overcrowding, social and economic exclusion,  and transportation start to look pretty overwhelming and not particularly good for you or anyone else.  It's not clear that we can actually get the better of many of these problems.

His chapter on Dharavi, the large slum in Mumbai, is interesting.  Some of the people he interviews suggest the problem is not the slum itself, but the fact that it doesn't conform to western notions of what a city is.  Interesting point.  The other perspective is to see the slum as the place where the growing problems of large metropolises have already fully manifested themselves.  I suppose you could redefine "slum" to make it a more positive or differentiated concept but if this is the future of the redefined city, I'm not sure it's one I'm interested in, or that I would define as "good for you."

The other topic Hollis seems to avoid is the effect of global corporate culture on cities and their decline. Where global corporate culture appears is in his discussion of Dharavi and the fact that it is wedged between a modern international airport and a new global corporate business development.  He does make the point that the corporate citizens can come in and out of Mumbai without ever having contact with the Dharavi India, but he doesn't explore the link between those two universes and how the one feeds of the other.  Another place he mentions corporate culture is in the Korean free trade zone developed on an island off their cost, a planned community built by and for large global corporations - his only critique is that he's not sure if this top down model of city design will really make people happy.

He does have some interesting sources to follow up on though:

Geoffrey West - complexity theory and its relation to cities
William H. Whyte - The Organization Man - the rise of corporate culture from the 50s on
                              - The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
                              - City:  Rediscovering the Centre
Robert Putnam - Bowling Alone
Henri Lefebvre - Existentialism (a philosopher who gave it up to become a cabby, but still wrote books)
                         - La Droit de la ville
Jane Jacobs - Dark Ages Ahead

The Great Degeneration - Niall Ferguson

This is an interesting read on several different levels.
Ferguson raises a number of interesting points about the west's current difficulties and changes in society and culture over the past 30 or 40 years.  He references a number of other important thinkers - Krugman, Stiglitz.  He brings up some important current ideas - rent-seeking, lack of democratic participation, the erosion of civil society and the public space, deregulation/bad regulation in the banking sector, lack of punishment or consequences for the fraudsters responsible for the banking collapse of 2007 - and has intelligent things to say about them.

In the first chapter, he looks at the emergence of rule of law and property rights as the basis for the successful development of western european leaders over the past 300 years.

The central thesis of his book is the decline of western economic leadership due to an erosion of these basic rules (rule of law, property rights) in the most recent decades.  He may have a point but somehow the whole book comes off as just a bit too glib.  When you finish the book, you come out thinking the US is well on its way in a slide to 3rd world status, based on the statistics he sights.  One study he relies heavily on is the World Economic Forums annual report on doing business in countries around the world, so it is worth a side trip to check out this study.

When you look at this WEF study, the US does in fact fair middlingly in many areas evaluated, and poorly in some others, BUT it still retains its overall place of 5th in the whole scheme of things, which does not make it a country or economy in crisis.  Turns out Ferguson cherry picks his stats, possibly to develop his attention-getting theses - he's a bit of a media player, turns out.

It's also worth checking him out on the web.  Turns out he was involved in a dispute with Krugman regarding the US post crisis monetary policy - the subsequent events have proved him wrong on all counts.  He also gave a controversial speech criticizing Obama, heavily analyzed but several columnists and big papers - turns out much of his supporting evidence for the critique was partial truth, cherry-picked bits of studies, misrepresented conclusions and outright fabrication.  This speech also sounds a lot like the work of an apologist for big business and the Republican party - which there are whiffs of in his book, The Great Degeneration, without actually coming out and making it obvious.

Ferguson would be an interesting study to look at how an academic can trade on his credentials in support of a particular ideology.  How facts and statistics can be bent and manipulated in support of an ideology (which would seem to be the opposite of the role of academics.)

*The one idea Ferguson brings up that I consider worth looking at is the idea that many of our social institutions  (education, health, politics etc.) have lost the focus of providing a public service and have become largely focused on catering to the needs of the people working within the institution, rather than the needs of the groups the service focuses on.  I have certainly seen this in the education field...

Other Colours: Essays and a Story - Orhan Pamuk

A collection of short essays on a wide variety of topics - his own work, writing as an act, musings on moments in his life, other writers and books, politics, modern culture.  An interesting book to flip through - he is a thoughtful and intelligent man.

Valencia 1952 - Robert Frank

An interesting collection of work from 1952.  Preceded his work for The Americans by three years.  You can already see his approach to photography, his sense of image, quite well-developed in this book.  Definitely a precursor to his more famous collection.  The Americans is more complex, but then the society and country were bigger and more complex too.

Photography After Frank - Philip Gefter

Didn't read the essays, just looked at the pictures.  What I found interesting is how the photographers in this collection generally seem to have focused on one aspect of the innovations that Frank brought to photography.  Some work with his more formal aspects relating to composition, placing of subjects, tonalities.  Some focus on his people as subjects, the slightly off-centre collection of people with an edge of the grotesque.  Some work with his landscape sense, the everyday, the small, the anti-monumental of people's lives and the landscape of americana.  Some focus on the slightly mysterious candid shot of people going about some private social activity, the candid moment, again slightly grotesque.  It isn't until I see all these different threads spread out amongst different photographers and their work that I realize how complex Frank's book, The Americans, really is.

Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

Apparently a forgotten rising star from the 50s early 60s.  Highly regarded by other american authors of the time, like Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes.  Again, somewhat in that american gothic tradition somehow - a certain element of darkness, of monstrous, of rot beneath a facade of elegance.  Having flipped through this very thick book and read a random selection of short stories, there are certain themes that seem to recur:  the vacuous life of the 50s housewife in isolated small town or suburban universes; fallen and depraved wealth.  Many, if not most, of the stories feature women as main characters and explore the subtle feelers of communication between women in world with men on the margin.  Not as dark as James Saunders but perhaps it is a question of different eras.  I suppose in the world of 'Leave it to Beaver" these stories would seem dark enough.

Occupy the Economy - Richard Wolff

A collection of interviews with David Barsamian.  You get a good sense of the thinking of Wolff around democratic and economic issues from the interviews, and in a language that is very readable.  The unfortunate thing is that it is framed around the Occupy movement, which makes the book seem a bit dated.  There is a very short "Manifesto for Economic Democracy and Ecological Sanity" at the end of the book.  This is an excellent guide to Wolff's ideas around alternatives to the current capitalist system.  It is a good starting point for further reading, including his  Facebook page at Economic Democracy Manifesto.

The Trouble with Islam Today - Irshad Manji

A powerful book.  I'm surprised she hasn't been assassinated yet.  A well-reasoned and well-sourced critic of mainstream, and fundamentalist, Islam's controversial positions on human rights, women, other religions, and the role of reason.  It brings up issues of contradictions in the Koran, of historical and social influence on the text, of literalism vs. interpretations.  She also looks at the idea of who controls the interpreting and how that will influence the message.
A good read for anyone who would like to engage in discussion of these issues, whatever religion's position you may want to look at.  Manji pillories the west's tolerance of repressive religious practices on the basis of multiculturalism or cultural sensitivity.
She also discusses the arab warrior tribal culture element in Islam and how it has impoverished several ancient cultural and pluralistic muslim civilizations, from Iran to Baghdad to Spain to Indonesia.
There is also an interesting section on her visit to Israel where she points out that the Israeli/Palestinian relations are not quite as black and white as you could sometimes think.  This in the context of countering the demonization of Israel and Jews in mainstream Islam.  She also makes the point that the leading middle eastern countries have exported their view of the Palestinian issue as part of the religion/culture context  ex. to Indonesia, where they have other social and cultural issues much closer to home.  It would be interesting to look at her position in detail.

Much of her critique of Islam is equally applicable to any other doctrinaire or fundamentalist ideology, whether religious, political, social or economic.


Some quotes:

discussing V. S. Naipaul - (he) "was soon to discover that no colonization has been so thorough as the colonization that had come with the Arab faith..."

"Why, over the past one thousand years, has the entire Arab world translated only as many books as Spain translates every year?  Is it be because the more people know about foreign notions, the more likely they'll be to examine their own?"

- from  Amin Malouf "Traditions deserve to be respected only in so far as they are respectable - that is, exactly in so far as they themselves respect the fundamental rights of men and women."

The 39 Steps - John Buchan 1915

I was reading an article recently about what the journalist considered to be one of Canada'a more successful Governor Generals, John Buchan.  Seems there is a new biography about him.  This caught me by surprise, as I remembered his name from a book I used to read years and years ago at my cousin's house, Greenmantle.  I checked him out on Wikpedia and, lo and behold, he is the author of a book called The 39 Steps, which is also the title of one of Hitchcock's well-known films.  Sure enough, the film is base on Buchan's novel.  What more, it turns out Buchan was a prolific author in his spare time.
Considering it was written in 1915, the book has held up well.  The story line is fast-paced and acceptably engaging.  The other side of the book that held my interest though, is the insight into the mind and way of looking at the world of a member of the British ruling class in the early 20th century.  I suppose what you see is the ideal of the British gentleman from the early 1900s - understated, brave, clever, determined, patriotic, but with the rough edge and "get it done" attitude of a colonial in Britain.
You can also see the prejudices and stereotypes of the time deeply ingrained in the book:  Jews, Germans, the rough but steady and dependable poor of the countryside (perhaps part of the colonial element, or left over romanticism of the 19th century).
I would like to reread Greenmantle and maybe a few of his other better known book.  Also his biography might be interesting - he seems to have led and interesting life.

Garden of the Brave in War - Terence O'Donnell

This is a wonderful book on so many levels.  Foremost, it fills me with nostalgia for a time when the world really was a different place, and travelling really meant experiencing a feeling of complete "dépaysement".  It must have been a wonderful time to travel.  What is amazing is that this other world managed to survive in Iran until the '70s outside of the big cities.  I suppose I experienced a bit of this world the first time I travelled to Turkey, and even those first one or two times a I went to France.  Sad that this is gone - at least in the countries I am interested in visiting.
The picture of Islam that emerges from O'Donnell's book is also fascinating.  It is such a different Islam from the one presented by the post revolution mullahs of Iran.  Tolerant, kind, wise, generous, forgiving, open to the joys and pleasures of the world, and the richness of human emotion.  In a way, this new hard-edged Islam is their version of the Protestant revolution.  I'm not sure it is an improvement.  There is something inhuman in that world view that links it to the new corporate social ethos that seems to be taking over our world - both are joyless, inhuman, impersonal and all about rules and regulations (that work to the institution's benefit.
The epilogue of the book also reveals the seed that has destroyed much of the richness of the world's cultures.  His wonderful traditional garden home is to be destroyed by the landlord to build a pseudo-western suburb for Iran's emerging middle class with cars.
The book is full of wonderful anecdotes with a collection of memorable characters.

Silent House - Orhan Pamuk

As usual, a very dense book.  Pamuk is very good a evoking in detail the lives and thoughts of his characters.  While this book purports to portray the 1980s leading up to the military coup, I don't get the feeling of another time, another place.  The one thing that marks this looking back is the politics between the nationalists and the communists.  But I think this schism between poor traditionalists and westernized elites still goes on (perhaps this is his point?)
The contrast of the character of Fatma Hanım in her dilapidated house on the Marmara with her visiting Istanbul grandchildren, Pamuk does create a sense of how much turkish society has changed in three or four generations, both materially and culturally.  It has been an enormous voyage.

Pamuk has included a wonderful apology for reading and writing in the last page of the book.  The thoughts of Fatma Hanım....
"You can't start out again in life, that's a carriage ride you only take once, but with a book in your hand, no matter how confusing and perplexing it might be, once you've finished it, you can always go back to the beginning; if you like, you can read it through again, in order to figure out what you couldn't understand before, in order to understand life, isn't that so, Fatma?"

Death by Design - Barbara Nadel

Another Ikmen detective mystery by Barbara Nadel, from 2010.  I enjoyed this book - it had some great details about Istanbul and also, as much of the action takes place in London, brings a different perspective to London.  Very topical, as many of her novels are - this time focusing on human trafficking, the fake goods industry, and terrorism.
The best part of this book is the strides she has taken as a writer.  Her style is much tighter and less awkward - there have been earlier books where I have sworn to not read her stuff any more.  She has obviously gotten more skilled as she has gone on.
Worth reading, just pick the more recent ones.

A Delicate Truth - John Le Carré

John Le Carré always manages to stay up to date in his exploring of the shady side of the states that govern us.  This book could be seen as his response to the Iraqi invasion, or the drone missile attacks, where the death of family members and bystanders is just seen as collateral damage.  He also looks at the dangers of handing over national security to private industry, and replacing national armed forces with contract security firms.  Intelligence will be manufactured, operations will go ahead in dubious circumstances - after all, there is money to be made, and it only happens when services are delivered, needed or not, justified or not.

On a larger scale, governments are such suckers for private sector exploitation - you see that in any kind of contract situation, from countries to cities to school boards.  You can say public service is wasteful and inefficient but I'm not sure it's any more expensive than being ripped off by shady public/private contract deals.  And with the public service, at least the wealth is spread around instead of just further adding to the wealth of the 1%, or even the 10%.

Yet again, I am reminded of a quote I read years ago that went something like, "When private business begins to use the public purse as a cash cow, democracy is finished."  

Empires and Barbarians: Migration Development and the Birth of Europe - Peter Heather

A very interesting topic, and the author is obviously an expert in his field.  Unfortunately, his writing style is impenetrable.  I find myself skipping down the page, running over sentences, looking for "the meat".  I keep muttering to myself, "Get to the point!"  Convoluted sentences, overly detailed digressions, very academic vocabulary and structures - unnecessary for the topic.  Too bad.

From the first chapter or so of the books, I came away with some important ideas:

1) the concept of wholesale tribal migration (men, women and children with their culture) has largely been supplanted in early history

2) if there was migration, it was probably of warriors who replaced existing elites in areas conquered, and then integrated with the local population in a two-way dance of mutual influence.  (this ties into a gender article I read recently - shortage of opportunity for males in most societies - warrior-adventurer as a solution to shortage of resources/women for a society's males) - this elite migration/integration concept is strongly supported by DNA studies in Asia Minor, where the population, though Turkish and central asian culturally, is basically genetically contiguous with Greece and the Balkans

3) cultures and people can mutate, change, develop without a change of population - innovative influence coming from outside

4) in prehistory and early history, the concept of culturo-linguistic (self-aware?) peoples/tribes/ethnic groups, is a projection of 19th and early 20th century european nationalism onto the past - if you examine the history of invading/migratory groups, you see shifting tribal/cultural identities, depending on circumstances, opportunities and political expediency - a useful tool for modern-day nationalistic politicians, but a complete fiction never-the-less

Too bad about the rest of the book.

The Gallery - John Horne Burns 1947

I came across reference to this book in the NYT.  John Horne Burns was considered an important new postwar writer when this book came out.  He was praised by other well-known american authors at different times (I remember the name of Gore Vidal, for example).  I can see why Gore Vidal and co. would have appreciated his style, as it has some of the hardness and informality of american writing immediately after the war.  Burns also was one of the first american writers to openly bring in homosexuality to his writing (so the article said).  Unfortunately, he was a one book wonder, never producing anything else of note.
I admit I didn't actually read the whole book, which is cut up into a concurrent series of vignettes.  The portrait vignettes I found a bit tedious - my usual impatience with neurotic characters.  The north African vignettes reveal all the prejudice and stereotypes of american and european views on arabs and their culture - interesting from a sociological point of view but not really enjoyable reading.  The vignettes I enjoyed are the ones about the city of Naples itself - they give you a sense of the jumble and vitality of life in the streets of Naples.  These passages reminded me of some of my favourite travel moments, and of why I love Istanbul.

Worth reading for the Naples vignettes.

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Like his other book, Antifragile:  Things that Gain from Disorder, this book is really too big and too complex to discuss in any kind of succinct way.  There are also far too many good quotes to even start transcribing them.  In fact, there are also too many leads to even note down.  Only thing to do is buy it, get a few highlighters, and then try to not just highlight the whole book...
As I digest his complex web of ideas, I'll try to add more here.

We So Seldom Look on Love - Barbara Goudy

This is an unusual little collection of short stories.    Her writing has the feel of other canadian women short story writers (Alice Munro, Carol Shields)  but the characters and plot lines are very "out there" in many of the stories.   For example:  the young female necrophiliac who works in a funeral home; the two headed man who commits murder by cutting off one of his heads.  There are also some rather gruesome gothic stories, like the one where the child's head is lacerated by an overhead fan.
What strikes me is that Goudy was both willing and able to let her imagination wander into these sometimes extreme, sometimes sordid, always way off centre lives and universes.

Find more?

Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe - Norman M. Naimark

A book with some points of interest.  Reviews the ethnic cleansings one would expect:  Armenians, Jews, Soviet deportations from the Caucasus, Yugoslav ethnic conflicts.  He does cover one ethnic cleansing I didn't know about - post WW II expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Notable also are some missing ones - Palestinians, Turkish speaking people from Balkans.

Looks at how ethnic cleansings come about - says pretty much what you would expect.

Some interesting ideas, though...

p. 141 discusses how the effects of the Ottoman conquest wars in the Balkans, and later the intraethnic strife when they withdrew, had little effect on modern Yugoslav conflicts.  He sees these earlier conflicts as significant only because of how they were used by nationalistic politicians and ideologues.  The concept of identity politics as a political tool.

p. 190 "One aspect of ethnic cleansing that links to "high modernism" and the ambitions of the modern state and its leaders is its totalistic quality.  In the European cases examined here, the goal is to remove every member of the targeted nation; very few exceptions to ethnic cleansing are allowed.  In premodern cases of assaults of one people on another, those attacked could give up, change sides, convert, pay tribute, or join the attackers.  Ethnic cleansing, driven by the ideology of integral nationalism and the military and technological power of the modern state, rarely forgives, makes exceptions, or allows people to slip through the cracks."

p. 192 "Ethnic cleansing involves not only the forced deportation of entire nations but the eradication of the memory of their presence.  The physical remnants of the nation are the first to be destroyed.

...

   In addition to levelling churches, houses, and graveyards, ethnic cleansers burn books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries... (RE Tatars and Chechen-Ingush deportations) In neither case was anyone allowed to talk about the fact that the respective peoples had been deported.  It was as if they had vanished into thin air, never really having existed in the first place.

In Persuasion Nation - George Saunders

A collection of short stories by the author of "Civil War Land in Bad Decline".
Saunders has apparently been called the new Vonnegut, which I didn't see at all in "Civil War..." - yes, a social satirist, but with a more gothic, less whimsical tone. In this book, "In Persuasion Nation"  I can now see why he has been called a new Vonnegut.  In this book, he has the same biting social satire as his previous book and Vonnegut's work too.  But in this book, there is something of the madhouse, absurdist, surreal elements of Vonnegut's work.  Saunders is funny, absurd - you laugh, but it is still a darker laughter than with  Vonnegut.
This book by Saunders focuses on a narrow aspect of American society - the culture of television, advertising, materialism corporate America.  A few of the stories have some different themes, but most of the book is absurdist extensions of American consumer culture.

Quote from an imaginary text, "Taskbook for the New Nation"
They will attempt to insinuate themselves into the very fabric of our emotional lives, demanding the dissolution of the distinction between beloved and enemy, friend and foe, neighbour and stranger.  The will, citing equality, deny our right to make critical moral distinctions.  Crying peace, they will deny our right to defend, in whatever manner most expedient, the beloved.  Under the guise of impariality, they will demand we disavow all notions of tradition, family, friends, tribe, and even nation.  But we are animals, forced to look blankly upon the rich variety of life, disallowed the privilege of making moral distinctions, dead to love, forbidden from preferring this to that?


From the story, "Brad Carrigan, American"
- after three corpses in the backyard had explained the complex shifting allegiances and economic forces between three tribal groups, which ultimately ended with their death and the extinction of one tribe...
"Wow," says Brad.  " That's so complicated."
"Not that complicated," says the corpse who died fending off blows.  
"It might seem complicated, if the person trying to understand it had lived in total plenty all of his life, ignoring the rest of the world," says the corpse missing an arm...
"I agree," says the corpse who died fending off blows.  "We know all about his country.  I know who Casey Stengel was.  I can quote at length from Thomas Paine."
"Who?" says Brad.

Waiting for the Barbarians - J. M. Coetzee

This book is an absolute must read.  Coetzee is a very interesting and subtle thinker and writer.  It is easy to see his writing in the context of his roots as a white man growing up in South Africa through the apartheid era.  But there is a lot more to him than that.  The apartheid experience may have been the catalyst to his thinking and world view but his reach extends far beyond that specific situation.  Coetzee is fundamentally a deep moral thinker, and a writer who explores the deep social structures, power relations and driving forces in modern western civilization.  
You can read him as an exploration of good and evil in the modern world.  You can read him as an exploration of empire, corporate culture and bureaucratic power structures and their effect of human relations and society' moral sense.  You can read him as an explorations of the clash or conflict between the modern western society's world view/values and other older cultures built on entirely different premises.  You can read him as an exploration of western social power structures and relations.  You can read him as an exploration of the dynamics of Empire  (and thus a history of the modern Western world).

The narrator's failed quest to truly understand the difference of the Other in the people that surround him is intriguing, and also quite possibly a critical look at the liberal left of Europe and North America.  There is a wonderful passage to the effect that he, the narrator, represents the face of Empire when times are good; the sadistic army officer, the face of Empire when times are bad.  Two faces, but the same Empire, the same dynamic, the same power structure.

A complex book worth rereading several times.

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi

This is a novel that is technically classified as science fiction, probably mostly because it takes place in the future.  I think it is actually more in the genre of social cataclysm/catastrophy - in the family of Surreal 3000, The Giver, 1984, the Hunger Games, etc.
He does a wonderful job of creating a world where global warming, agribusiness, energy shortage, religious fundamentalism, racism, famine and genetically modified disease have all worked to cause the collapse of society as we know it.  I suppose what makes it a bit "science fiction" is the role of genetically modified people, and rampant genetic tinkering.  The author also develops some very interesting ideas around how the society would find the energy to accomplish what little technology is still usable.  There is also the concept of the reduction of living beings, including humans,  to a calorie source to accomplish work  - how many calories in vs. how many calories out.

The basic underlying plot is american big agribusiness vs. humanism.


Find more books by author.

Cosmicomiche: vecchie et nuove - Italo Calvino

A great book by that most quirky of authors, Italo Calvino.  Social observations, philosophical ramblings, witty observations, all in the context of the Precambrian period.  The narrator is a fish newly emerged onto land, who describes, analyses and speculates on his relatives and the other early earth-based life forms he encounters.
A very enjoyable, thoughtful read.  An interesting take on the parable concept, though it isn't written in parable style.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain

An interesting read for anyone who is an introvert who hasn't figured out what it's all about yet.  A good look at the current cultural stereotypes around the most valued personality types.  The book also does a good job of highlighting the strengths and value of introverted personalities, mostly in the work place.

Happy Moscow - Andrey Platonov

Second attempt at a Platonov book.  Same reaction as last time - very ideologically based and so quite dry as a read.  A weird cross between a parable and a novel.  The pointed messaging of a parable, but with the detail of a novel.  Unfortunately, parables are more pointed as they are simplified, and novels are more engaging as the characters become life-like.
This may have been heady reading during the repressive days of Stalinism, but it seems to have lost a lot of its power (at least for me...).

Travels with a Tangerine - Tim Mackintosh-Smith

A writer sets out to follow in the footsteps of Ibn Battutah - this should be a very interesting book.  Unfortunately, I just can't seem to get into it. I keep asking myself why...  I think for me, there is too much of Mackintosh-Smith and not enough history, culture, flavour of the land.  The author recounts details, but I sense this filter of judgment, attitude, wry amusement.  The subtext is a bit offensive to me - a journey to distant lands to marvel that it is not like home and to poke gentle fun at the outlandish ways.  I will keep trying for a bit, but I don't think I'll be able to finish this one...

The Childhood of Jesus - J. M. Coetzee

A compelling read but very difficult to figure out the threads of the book.  It centres around the story of what seem to be two refugees arriving somewhere in a country that seems northern or Scandinavian in culture - a rather bloodless, unemotional but equitable society.  There is a thread of conflict between natural versus modern sanitized man; between the moral complaisance of bureaucratized social assistance and true human need.   There is another thread around the nature of work - the dock workers' view vs the new man's view.  There is the deconstruction of sex and sexual desire.  Centred around the child, there is a conflict of the development of the individual child vs socialization to societal norms.  Around the child there is even a certain deconstruction of the common language of reality when the man reflects on the child's unorthodox views of reality.  This nature of reality theme is also reflected in the discussion of the "new arrival's" state of being wiped clean, of starting anew, of the wiping of memory needed to accept and fit into the new society.  This could also be a reflection on the west's modern society of forgetting, of disappearance of history and the past.  All of this of course also ties to modern social issues around refugees, population displacement and cultural conflict, especially as seen in Europe.
Worth rereading at some future date.

To find:

Waiting for the Barbarians

The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin

Another great detective read. Malcolm Fox Complaints series.  Yet again, it keeps you hanging till the last two or three pages.  Less of a sense of critique of the modern world of bureaucracy, posers and ladder climbers but still a good read in itself.

The Bed of Procrustes - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

An entertaining and insightful collection of aphorisms.  Satirical, cutting but accurate - reminds me of The Devil's Dictionary.
A good combination with his other book, "Antifragility" - explores many of the same ideas but in a more succinct form, or in a form applied to different domains of life.

"An idea starts to be interesting when ou get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion."

Civil War Land in Bad Decline - George Saunders

A collection of shorter stories and a novella.  Fits into the genre of darker, gothic american literature.  Stories filled with sad cases lost in bizarre, improbable situations.  Undertones of politics of disenfranchisement, dystopia, the corporate behemoth, the social background of violence.  Satirical rather than pathetic.  Life, not at the bottom, but trapped low down on the social totem pole.
Some original ideas in his characters' situations and social universes.  Definitely worth a read.

To find:

In Persuasion Nation

Tenth of December: Stories

Soul - Andrey Platonov

I had recently come across a reference to Platonov as an interesting Russian writer from the period of the early revolution through to Stalinism.   So I decided to seek him out.
Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy reading the book Soul all that much.  It seems to be very much a novel of ideas, and fairly dry as far as stories go.  It's hard for me to know how much of early 20th centure central asia is actually reflected in the story line and characters, as I don't have the background knowledge.  I can also see how his writings might have created some scandal in that there seems to be some criticism of Soviet policy - centrality of the State, the concept of Nation, the role of the State as the great saviour.  Again unfortunately I don't have the background to evaluate this.  But, as a casual read, not too appealing, at least for me.
I am waiting for one more of his books, his best know one - Moscow.  We'll see...

Standing in Another Man's Grave - Ian Rankin

Another great story by Ian Rankin.  Well worth the read.
Like John le Carre, Ian Rankin has a subtext of philosophical/social musing running through his books. It is there in many of them as "the little guy (Rebus) against the powers that be".  This line of musings is getting deeper though - in this book it appears more as technocracy, bureaucracy and political correctness against the human (and the just) in all the rest of us.  In the character of Siobhan's captain, he has created a marvellous caricature of the ladder climbing young bureaucrat snuffling after every butt licking opportunity and publicity moment - a type anyone in a corporate or large bureaucratic organization should be more than familiar with...

From the Holy Mountain - William Dalrymple

An interesting look at an aspect of Middle Eastern history that is not discussed much - the history and state of Christianity in the Middle East.  The book is loosely structured as a travelogue built around an account of a journey by two monks it the 6th century.  Dalrymple sets out to follow their root and compare the churches, monasteries and Christian communities John Moschos and his companion visited 1400 years ago.
Dalrymple's travels and comments bring up a number of interesting points or threads.
1)  You get a strong sense of Christianity as essentially a middle eastern religion with historically a very strong presence in the region.  This is something ignored by European and American christian churches, as if they wanted to forget its essentially Arabic origins.  This also explains the indifference of western churches to the plight of Christian communities in Israel and Egypt (amongst other countries) where governments are working to eliminate Christianity from the country and its history.  You can include Turkey in this mix, but there the process of elimination is almost complete (and is strongly tied to ethnic issues also).  This indifference also I think points to the narrowness of the various Christian sects and their lack of acceptance of other branches of the faith; perhaps also to the strong historical link between nation states and organized religion.
2)  The strong link between Islam and Christianity - there are early orthodox sects that pray in the same way Muslims do, except they also cross themselves while genuflecting.
3)  Links between early church liturgy and Arabic/middle eastern culture.  The music of some of the Syrian orthodox sects sounds so much like Arabic vocal music - there's lots on Youtube.
4)  The fact that Syria has historically been a haven for middle-eastern Christians pushed out of other countries.  Unfortunately, due to their strong ties to the Assad family, with the Syrian revolution this may no longer be the case -we could be looking basically the end of Christian communities in the middle east.  Especially when you add in the current situation with the Copts in Egypt.
5)  Just the simple fact that large parts of the middle east were essentially Christian at one point in time.
6)  His travels and encounters in Israel and Jerusalem dovetail perfectly with Ilan Pappé's account of Israel's policies and actions in relation to Palestinians regardless of whether Christian or Muslim.  (You can also add Armenians to the list when considering Jerusalem.)  Dalrymple in fact reaches many of the same conclusions about the nature of Zionism.
7)  The Jews only controlled the area of Israel for about 600 years, which certainly doesn't grant much of a title to the land. (this fact to be verified)
8)  Archaeologically, the Muslim take over of Byzantine middle eastern lands does not seem to have created much of an archaeological, cultural or economic break in the historical record.  Any cultural and  population shifts  were very gradual - this was no barbarian horde wreaking havoc as they moved through.
9)  The strong relation between Syrian monks/monasteries and the church in England - one of the first Archbishops in Canterbury was Syrian.  There also seems to be a link between the illustrated manuscripts produced in Syrian monasteries and the early illumination work of Irish monks (now that's travelling...)
10)  There are some interesting bits about Urfa and Diyarbakır which would be worth noting if travelling in that area again.
11)  Lots of travel information for Syria, but I'm not sure at this point how much of it will remain after the current conflict is over.

Includes a decent bibliography

TO FIND:
John Moschos, The Spiritual Meadow
A History of the Arab Peoples, Albert Hourani
The Slaughterhouse Province, Leslie A. Davis (turkey?)
The Cradle of Mankind:  Life in Eastern Kurdistan,  W. A. Wigram (1914)

Caucasus: In the Wake of Warriors - Nicholas Griffin

Part travelogue, part history.  Not sure what the point of the travelogue is really - there are some interesting encounters but the travelling group dynamic parts don't really seem to add much.  Both aspects lack any kind of critical analysis or insight.
While there is a lot on Shamil, there are some anti-mythic or anti-hero facts and anecdotes included, which for me saves those sections.  There is also a tantalizing section on Shamil Basayev, though again not particularly deep or well-analyzed.
Overall, a bit incoherent, rather like the group he is travelling with, but with some interesting points or passages that set it apart from some of the other books on the topic.

Includes a small bibliography for further reading.

The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus - Charles King

I found this book to be a good overview of the history of the Caucasus as a whole.  He covers the early periods, the Russian conquest, and has a few chapters on the post-Soviet situations.  It is a good introduction to the topic, and I especially appreciate that he doesn't devote too much time to the whole Shamil story (which some books tend to overdo).
I found the chapter called "The Imaginary Caucasus" interesting.  He examines the whole mythology of the Caucasus in Russian and world culture.  These kinds of discussions of colonialism and its mentality are interesting.  He draws a parallel the the American mythology of the Native Indains.

It includes an extensive bibliography for further reading.

To find:
Klaproth, Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia - 1812
Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
Pushkin, Captive of the Caucasus
Tolstoy, The Wood-Felling (short story)
Tolstoy, The Cossaks (novella)
Freshfield, The Exploration of the Caucasus (1896)
Repentance (film) Tengiz Abuladze (Georgian)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (film), Sergei Paradjanov (Georgian)
The Color of Pomegranates (film), Sergei Paradjanov (Georgian) - life of Sayat Nova

Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know - Andrew Finkel

A good general introduction to modern Turkey.  Finkel touches on many current issues and trends, and gives historical background where necessary.  I would say it is a fairly balanced presentation, looking at strengths, issues and weaknesses.  For me, I would like to see a bit more depth but I think it functions well as an overview or introduction to the present state of Turkey.

The Forgotten Palestinians - Ilan Pappé

Subtitle:  A History of the Palestinians in Israel

A meticulous account of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the years immediately following the establishment of Israel in 1948.  Pappé is a meticulous historian who made use of recently released archival material (such as notes and journals of some of the main actors and leaders of the time) to determine the exact nature of the policy towards Palestinians and Palestinian villages post 1948, and also to catalogue forced removals, destruction of villages, massacres and rapes as noted in these sources.  It turns out these archival sources corroborate many of the actions and events Palestinians have claimed for decades.
His style is not hysterical or hostile; he maintains a historian's tone for most of the book.  There are occasional glimpses of he feeling and reactions as he discovers the truth behind the propaganda and myths he has been fed growing up in Israel and passing through the education system.
There are interesting quotes at the beginning of chapters mostly taken from statements, descriptions and international reactions to what went on in Bosnia - these stand in stark contrast to the west's and UN's statements and reactions to the events that occured in Palestine.  They also serve to back up his conclusion that the Palestinians were subjected to ethnic cleansing, given the similarities between the two conflicts.
A very important book because of who he is and his profession as a historian.  A difficult read, but not brutal - there are very few graphic details.  It's just the endless repetitive nature of the actions against the Palestinian villages over a period of years.

The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor

While a bit skewed towards business leadership, this book is still worth the read.  It makes some interesting points regarding achieving goals, being satisfied in life.  I particularly the idea of studying the outliers in successful, happy lives as opposed the norm of studying the outliers of unhappiness, disturbance and sickness.  This is part of a general movement in psychology referred to as the 'Positive Psychology' movement - it would be worth checking out their presence on the internet.

He has seven principles in creating the happiness advantage:

- happiness advantage:  retraining the brain to focus more on positive experiences in life

- fulcrum and lever:  adjusting expectations, way of looking at things to more positive, achievement        oriented set

- tetris effect:  changing the patterns we perceive in the world to focus on opportunities and possibilities

- falling up:  using failures, stressful situtions as learning opportunities

- zorro circle:  learning to divide large goals and difficult tasks into manageable bits that can be completed successfully one step at a time

- 20 second rule:  changing patterns and habits by making it as easy as possible to follow the new path you want to set for yourself - limit the amount of choice so it's easier to get started on the new habit or activity you want to set

- social investment:  the importance of establishing relationships and using them as support when experiencing difficulties

Each chapter has some techniques to help develop each mindset or skill, though many of them apply to a business environment more than a personal environment

Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang

- ran out of library time with this one - have to get it again

A Tranquil Star - Primo Levi

I love some of the quirky premises Levi builds his short stories on.  Entertaining and clever, absurd and biting, insightful and critical - also capable of great wonder.  His stories are built on politics, history, social observation, even cosmology...

The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond

This book is a very interesting read.  It looks at the great variety of human societies and how they deal with or conceive of some basic human activities.  The book is divided into areas of human endeavour and life.:  there are chapters looking at warfare and conflict resolution, child rearing, aging and the elderly, diet, dealing with strangers, danger and risk, languages, multilingualism and the disappearance of world languages.
Diamond frames his book as an attempt to see what is valuable in traditional societies and how we might benefit by adopting some of these elements in modern western society.  I don't see that though. For me, the most important or valuable element of the book is the sheer variety of ways of life, thinking and understanding that humans have developed over the millennia, in response to different environments, social conditions and simply just because.  It offers a huge shakeup to cultural  self-centredness and western-centric thinking.  The book underscores the sheer extent of possibility for us humans.
It offers background to understanding some of the cultural differences between different societies - for example the stronger family-focused element in Turkish society, which on the surface seems modern and western in many ways.  You could see it as a surviving element from an earlier culture where the state did not provide the kind of security and support that we are used to in western Europe and North America, and where family was the main source of security and safety when faced with economic or social difficulties.  Also, as a surviving element of village life when people's families remained close-by and provided a strong social network - true also for my mother and her generation (somehting which I observed but couldn't really be part of...)
His accounts of New Guinea are also in themselves very interesting.  It's hard to imagine how such a small space came to be inhabited by so many different cultures and languages (over 1000 distinct languages from different families and types) in such a density without somehow blending and losing their distinctness.  Reminds me a bit of the Caucasus, especially Azerbaijan.

Ancient Wine - P. E. McGovern

Not a particularly great read - too much arcane methodology discussion.

Some interesting facts, though:

- wine seems to have first appeared around 5500 BCE, which is remarkable; almost contemporaneous with the appearance of farming - wine and cheese, some of our earliest foods

- first records are in the Zagros mountains above the plains of Babylon - also along the highlands in Turkey above the Syrian plain and in the Caucasus - basically the edges of the fertile crescent where elevations created slightly cooler, wetter growing conditions

- the method of fermenting wine in clay containers buried in the ground is one of the earliest methods, and is still practised in Georgia

- flavoured wines were very common in early period - spices and other flavourings helped preserve the wine from turning to vinegar - retsina (or pine resin) is only one of the additives - frankincense myrrh, a selection of herbs and spices were also used - oaking wine is a very ancient practice; it is basically adding the flavour/chemical substance in oak to the wine by storing it in barrels, and served to preserve as well as mellow the wine by interacting with some of the chemicals in the wine

- Christianity is so deeply rooted in the preceding mythology and ancient culture of the middle east, not only in its Old Testament mythology and stories, but also in its cult of wine - wine has been an integral part of religious rites and offerings since its first appearance in the Middle East

- makes wine all the more fascinating and enjoyable...

Three Stations - Martin Cruz Smith

A mystery/detective novel.

Suitably grubby.  Suitably convoluted.  Suitably located in a foreign locale.  With a suitably socially challenged detective...
Read more...

Collapse - Jared Diamond

An excellent, if somewhat depressing, account of the many (he says 12 main) challenges facing us as 1st world society.  He begins with a very interesting examination of several societies from the past and how they failed - I found the Greenland account most interesting, and most reflective of our society, I suppose because we are both european societies in origin.
His discussion of our current situation is clear and each of the 12 problems is presented succinctly.  None of the problems are really news to anyone who has followed environmental issues over the past decade or two.

One idea that caught my attention was the idea that we in North America are not really wealthy - what we have been doing over the past 300 years is spending/depleting (devouring) the natural capital that was here in North America before colonization.  The equivalent of spending your financial capital - this is false wealth that leads to crisis and poverty.

Another thing I got from the book is a different perspective on the daily news of conflict from around the world.  It gives this news a different context, and environmental context.  You can see many of the current conflicts in the world as stemming from some of the environmental issues he mentions - shortage of resources equals conflict between countries and elements of society.

The chapter on China is also interesting - the news coverage of China does not portray the deep environmental hole they continue to dig themselves into.  Expenditure of natural capital on an unprecedented scale.

Highly recommened. With an extensive bibliography at the back if you want to depress yourself further...

His final comment - "cautious optimism", which I think is generous.

How Much is Enough - R & E Skidelsky

An attempt to build a moral argument against rampant materialism.  Some interesting ideas, but my attention kept wandering as the points or arguments were too wordy and long-winded.  It would probably make a good longish essay.  Your ideas lose power when you spin them out too long.  I am writing this a couple of weeks after finishing the book, and I can't remember much.
At the end of the book, there are some interesting ideas on how to address the expanding income gap and deal with income redistribution to reintroduce an element of choice into work. - that's all I remember.

The Book of Genesis - R. Crumb

Worth a look.  Some fabulous black and white drawings - the faces are wonderful.  Also less dry than reading just the words, which he has remained faithful to.

He has some interesting commentary at the back giving some background on the life and times and looks at some of the more confusing aspects of the genesis story, particularly the role of women in society in a pre-patriarchal society and how it might be showing up as last remnants in the Genesis story.

The Rediscovery of North America - Barry Lopez

I was wondering what Barry Lopez had been up too.   Seems he hasn't published much lately - I wonder how that happens to a writer?  Hit a dead end?  Mine the vein out?
A sad story of North America since the arrival of the europeans.  An optimism about possibilities in the future that was imaginable 15 or 20 years ago, but is now hard to hand onto.

The Green Man - Michael Bedard

To me he still stands as one of the great canadian writers - for children or adults.  He has such a classical way of building his stories.
This time I also enjoyed, yet again, seeing what is so obviously Toronto through his novelist's eyes.  It brings a different kind of magic to the streets that what I can find there.
I also appreciate his sense of the Toronto of the Beat era that is there in the background of the story and the bookstore in the story.
Makes me want to reread Redwork.

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot - Robert MacFarlane

An absolutely brilliant book.  Wakes up the desire to explore the world from up close and inside the landscape.
An interesting contrast to Barry Lopez's writing on nature as wilderness.  Inevitably with MacFarlane, when he writes about Spain or England, it is both about nature and the layer upon layer of traces of human habitation that lie buried in these landscapes.  North America is just too new and too raw (and places far too high a value on the privacy of private property...)

Many references:

-  Icknied Way by Edward Thomas
-  Edward Thomas' poetry
- MacFarlane's other books
- George Borrow, Lavengro/Wild Wales 19th c
- Robert Louis Stevenson,  Songs of Travel
- John Muir
- Henry Williamson, Tarka the Otter
- Sarn Helen (an old path in Wales)
- Tim Robinson - Stones of Aran
- Adam Nicolson - Sea Room:  An Island Life
- Nan Shepherd - The Grampian Quartet; The Living Mountain
- Raja Shehadeh - Palestinian Walks; A Rift in Time
- Christopher Tilley - The Phenomenology of Landscape
- Eric Ravilious - artist early 20th C
- Philip Gosse - Go to the Country
- Richard Holmes - Footsteps
- William Cobbet - Rural Rides