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In the first year I did a wildly unpopular column- and by unpopular I mean both of my admitted regular readers thought doing all somewhat educational books in the middle of summer was really annoying and somewhat counterintuitive- made me promise not to do it again. Well I have a lot of non-fiction that I would really like to get to as well a few classics. And one or two fun books that are disguised as educational books. I spared you the pain last year because I had plenty of geeky books. I still do. And I'm sure I'll get to them in the months to come. In the meantime please bear with me as I try to convince you to read books that might cause you to learn something.
First up comes a book well suited to teach you history and geography. It is a book that I have actually been reading quite steadily since January. However, during the part of the year where I was in school what little time I had for fun reading I didn't want to use it on something mind expanding since I was already trying to learn all that medical stuff for my Health Information Technology courses. Even if the non-fiction was on a totally different subject and by someone who I consider one of the greatest- if not the greatest- author who ever lived.
- Following the Equator By Mark Twain:
Samuel Clemens had a long history of doing great travelogues that are full of dry witticisms that make them worth reading more than a century after they were written. While the book is in the tradition of 'Roughin' It', 'Innocents Abroad' and 'A Tramp Abroad' this book focuses a lot less on fantastic, the implausible and the absurd. Not to say that these elements are not present. Mr. Clemens wouldn't be himself without including these elements somewhere. They were not the primary focus of the book. While the book started with some really funny stuff when he got to Australia in (including a hilarious story about their Mark Twain Fan Club), the origins of the 'Rumors of my death' quote and a story about the Australian train system circa 1897 that could easily be rewritten for the Washington D.C. Subway system in a more current age and dozens of other little amusing tales. The book took a much darker tone when he reached India. Sure, there was a (probably) fictitious tale about a month in the life of a member of the Cult of Thugee. Mr. Ckemens's use of language creates the feeling that you are not in the place but the place as you imagine it. Which again, in some case like the Taj Mahal, he even comments on this fact by more or less saying once you imagine it there is no purpose in going. While the Taj Mahal is truly a wonder to behold, it doesn't live up to what you think it should be. The humorous tone picked up again (to a certain extent) once he got to South Africa. Through the book I learned quite a bit about the cultures of the world and just how much The British Empire more or less destroyed them.
Now for a book that will meet the requirements of either you science class or your Television production elective.
- SMythbusters- The Explosive Truth Behind 30 of the Most Perplexing Urban Legends of All Time by Keith and Kent Zimmerman with Hyneman, Savage and Rees:
Mythbusters is a probably one of the few good shows to come out of the Reality TV movement. They teach science in a way that is entertaining. They utilize the reality tricks that make you unable to look away from the screen to make you think about physics. They take concepts like terminal velocity and wind pressure and not only make it easy to understand but turn it into amazing television. I'm a recent convert to the show. I didn't have cable until 2007, discovered accidentally in 2009 and didn't watch more regularly until 2011 or so. Part of what makes the show work is not only the science but how it is presented with action, humor, pointless competition and a look at how various members of the team approach a problem. Now the book itself is more or less recaps of the show. However the first three chapters are quite interesting. They focus on how Peter Rees first came up with the idea for the show. Then goes on to mini biographies of Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. These chapters are great. Most of the stuff about Jamie have been mentioned before but the book puts it all in order and makes it possible to determine which of Adam's jokes about Jamie's past and which of them are completely bustable myths. Then they go on to tell the tales of the past experiments. This is where the book drops the ball. While they do include a lot of details that got cut from the episode for various reasons- they also leave stuff out. Almost all of the humor that makes the show what it is is not brought to the page. Furthermore, the book covers myths from the first two and a half seasons however for whatever reason the photos and text try to make it look like Scottie, Tory and Kari don't exist. Maybe they wouldn't sign a release or maybe it just cost too much. The really sad thing is I also have (and have read) one of the two Mythbusters books for children. The ones that include instructions on how to do safe small scale version of many of their experiments at home. (The title even plays off the opening title sequence of the show: 'Don't Try Anything You Are About to Read At Home- Unless We tell you'.) That book does a much better job capturing the spirit of Mythbusters. Enough so that one of these days my niece and I are going to do some of them. I'll get a short haircut and some gag Coke Bottle glasses and I'll make her wear a beret along with a fake beard and mustache.
And now a little something for Art History Class
- The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu:
I have read many books about the history of comics and this is by far one of the better ones. Unlike many of the other best sellers on the subject (Les Daniels books on DC and Marvel along with Maria Reidelbach's Completely Mad) are more or less factual books but they seem extremely biased in favor of one of publisher or another. Hajdu attempts to tell the story of the rise and fall of the so called Golden Age of Comics. He does not paint a simplistic picture either. While he does lay quite a lot of blame on Fredric Wertham- much of it deserved- he doesn't make him the be all end all of the problem. He's not portrayed as the monomaniacal super villain other books ironically want him to be. He's not John Shea as Lex Luthor. Gene Hackman maybe- since Hajdu seems to portray him as doing sloppy research and may have actually been well intentioned at one point but quickly became an opportunist. It even spends at least a chapter on some of the good points of Wertham's career- particularly his work helping disadvantaged minority children. Some of the blame for the persecution of comic creators and readings is assigned to church groups, school teachers, the Boys and Girl Scouts and even politicians. While the book does praise many of the crusaders for comics, particularly Bill Gaines, it doesn't portray him as completely saintly. It talks about some of his mistakes. How his work schedule (at least for a time) drove him to an addiction stimulants. Of course it praises him for those things that may have been mistakes for him from a financial standpoint but when it came to taking a stand for freedom of expression were absolutely the right thing to do. Even if, up until the Comics Code was forced on publishers rather than face government sanctioned censorship, the right thing to do morally and the right thing to do in terms of the bottom line were one and the same. In short, if you ever needed to wonder why organizations like the ACLU or The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund must exist, this is a book you should read.
- The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of The Universe (Also published as The Cambridge Lectures: Lifeworks) by Stephen W. Hawking:
Stephen Hawking is one of the brightest minds in physics as well as one of the easiest authors for laypeople to understand. However I had a serious problem with this book. It billed itself as a new book by the best-selling author. However huge chunks of text- sometimes a line or two, sometimes a paragraph and in two instances half a chapter are lifted almost verbatim from Hawkings's best sellers 'A Brief History of Time' and 'Black Holes and Other Baby Universes'. Now, I know this book is supposed to be a compilation of his best lectures from his days of being a professor at Cambridge but it strikes me as being incredibly lazy writing technique. I came into the book expecting a deeper and better understanding of the concepts found in those books. I made the error of thinking he might have gone a little more in depth with his lecture for his doctorial course and was sadly very mistaken. It is almost like he saw the amount of money people were making doing Richard Feynman for Dummies and decided to cash in on it before someone else did the same thing to Brief History of Time. Only by actually putting his name on it might give this book a little more legitimacy. I'm so glad this was a used book store purchase. It was barely worth the two bucks I spent. There is some new material and some of it is a more up to date look at the theories he proposed before but it was nothing so radical as to really justify the existence of the book.
Up Next: More Star Trek-but you guys knew that.
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