Stuff I've been reading: My take on being Nick Hornby (if Mr Hornby did decide to provide some scientific commentary).

One of the monthly columns in The Believer, is written by none other than Nick Hornby, and is called "Stuff I've Been Reading: A Monthly Column." In it, he presents a list of books bought and a list of books read, and although I am nowhere near as voracious a reader, I thought it might be nice to follow suite (also some of my friends told me that that is what blogs are kind of for). Anyway, for clarity, here are the books I managed to get through these past two months.

"A Short History of Progress" by Ronald Wright (finished, reread actually - once a book club book)
"Saturday" by Ian McEwan (finished - current book club book)
"The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery (finished)
"An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore (flipping through - saw the talk)
"Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown (finished)
"The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup" by Various (started)
"Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood" by Marjane Satrapi (finished)

Three of the books mentioned here (Progress, Makers, and Truth) are primarily books that were chosen because of an educational project I'm partly spearheading at UBC. This project (called "Terry") has a paragraph description that is presented here. Essentially, it's a doozy, and very exciting.

In any event, I've been focusing a fair amount of attention on topics like climate change, poverty, sustainability, environment, and technology progress, in an attempt to continue that path towards being at least comfortable in these areas. An Inconvenient Truth I've spoken about previously, and I found the Weather Makers akin to a well written textbook. So in that respect, I'll focus on A Short History of Progress. Here, I found Ronald Wright's book does a great job of presenting an overall thesis of why taking note of global issues is important; one that basically causes us to question our own views of current progress through the examinination of patterns developed in previous episodes of human history. His book is actually based on his stint as the CBC Massey Lecturer for 2004, and you can actually hear him give the first talk (the first chapter) at a CBC website (click here). In not so many words, it seems to be clear that we keep screwing up, despite our "we're hot stuff" mentality (this, apparently, is an identical thesis to Dr. Jared Diamond's latest book, although for the record, Mr. Wright's book came out first by a significant margin). Mr. Wright, however, says it in a much more lyrical way, and if you like interesting metaphors and strong imagery via text, then this is a great read. If you're more the no-nonsense, just educate me type, his pose may get to be a little grating - consider the following passage:

" Our civilization, which subsumes most of its predecessors, is a great ship steaming at speed into the future. It travels faster, further, and more laden than any before. We may not be able to foresee every reef and hazard, but by reading her compass bearing and headway, by understanding her design, her safety record, and the abilities of her crew, we can, I think, plot a wise course between the narrows and bergs looming ahead.

And I believe we must do this without delay, because there are too many shipwrecks behind us. The vessel we are now aboard is not merely the biggest of all time; it is also the only one left. The future of everything we have accomplished since our intelligence evolved will depend on the wisdom of our actions over the next few years. Like all creatures, humans have made their way in the world so far by trial and error; unlike other creatures, we have a presence so colossal that error is a luxury we can no longer afford. The world has grown too small to forgive us any big mistakes."

And so on.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to meet and chat with him for a bit last summer, when he gave a keynote address at an event I was invited to. Which of course, made my book club mates nervous, because "I actually got to speak with the author, and therefore I must have something interesting to say about the book," which was partly true because I found out that it was being considered for production into a film documentary.

Speaking of book clubs, this time around the group had finished reading Saturday which I found really marvelous. Of course, it helps when you take delight in such deliberately designed language. Take this passage on evolution for instance, where the lead character focuses on a line ("There is grandeur in this view of life.")in one of Darwin's texts:

"To soften the message, he [Darwin] also summoned up a Creator in later editions, but his heart was never really in it. Those five hundred pages deserved only one conclusion: endless and beautiful forms of life, such as you see in a common hedgerow, including exalted beings like ourselves, arose from physical laws, from war of nature, famine and death. This is the grandeur. And a bracing kind of consolation in the brief privilege of consciousness"

Glorious, isn't it? Here's more:

"...evolution. What better creation myth? An unimaginable sweep of time, numberless generations spawning by infinitesimal steps complex living beauty out of inert matter, driven on by the blind furies of random mutation, natural selection and environmental change, with the tradegy of forms continually dying, and lately the wonder of minds emerging and with them morality, love, art, cities - and the unprecedented bonus of this story happening to be demonstrably true."

We haven't met yet to discuss the book, but to be honest I belong to the sort of book club that considers itself only a motivator of cuisine adventures, or a chatting session bent on deciding whether this or that book wins the title of "worst ever chosen." A title I happen to hold with authority, by several years ago picking Italo Calvinos If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. Anyhow, Saturday also appealed to me in that it actually had a section on Huntingtons and genetic testing - it was pretty cool to read in element in McEwan's tight prose.

But the coolest of all (and maybe even sacriligious among literary types) this last month or so, was digging into again a graphic novel. Yes, a graphic novel, which I'm sure to the casual poo-poo-er is just the same as a comic book, but really I ask you, what is wrong with that? People should read Art Speigelman's wonderful and heavy Maus series, if they need an answer (it won a Pulitzer by the way). Besides, graphic novels are an easy way to get that little lift that comes with finishing anything and, of course, it's quick way to pad your "books read" list.

Anyway, Persepolis. The Story of a Childhood is crafted in the same vein of thoughtfulness as "Maus," although in this case, the scenario tackled was the Islamic Revolution that occurred in Iran during the 80's and 90s, and through the eyes of a young girl (the author) no less. What's great about it is the immediate gratification that comes with storyboard art. And not only did I learn some stuff, more importantly, the visual narrative was effective in making me "feel" it as well.

I also learnt a lot of stuff reading Dan Brown's megahit of a novel, particularly about symbolism and why Leonard was a bit of a crackpot. Have to say that for all of the bad double talk on the book, it was quite pleasant to read - a definite page turner anyway. Maybe Mr. Brown will follow up with an expose on something like crop circles, or creationism, or whatever...

Currently, I'm very much enjoying The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, which attempts to provide essays that try to provide a cultural context for each of the contestants in this year's world cup. Not finished yet, so I won't say too much about it, except to say that it's a big reason why I was able to comment so cleverly on Africa's World Cup involvement, and to maybe to say "nicely done, so far, nicely done."