Recommendations, and Thoughts on Being a Chucker

A few things to say.  First, recommendation from Another Matt:

* The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages by Norman Cohn

* Hyperion by Dan Simmons

* The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

* The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Second, I have decided to put Guns, Germs and Steel back on the shelf for a bit.  While I am enjoying it a lot more now, it's just taking me way too long, and as a result the blog is lying fallow.  Since Rule #1 of having a blog is: Post, stupid, I feel like I need to get going on some other books in the meantime.  I do fully intend to come back to Guns... in the not-too-distant, but right now I need something a bit more portable (much of my reading time occurs on buses and in random stolen moments).  I'm awaiting directions from J, and will let you know when she has assigned me something new.

In the meantime, here's what I would say about Guns...: it's an important book, and more people should read it.  There's a lot of great information in it that sheds light on human development around the world, and Diamond goes a long way toward his goal of beating the crap out of those my-people-won-because-we're-just-better arguments.  But the problem is that the book is pitched too high: the people who are able to get through it (and I don't just mean people who are able to comprehend the information, but people who would are devoted enough to read the entire thing) are almost certainly going to be the people who already agree with him and are looking to back up their own arguments.  Which isn't to suggest that the book is wasted, because Guns... is, as far as I know, the first book to collect all of the data and present it in one place, and that makes it very useful indeed.  But it's hard going, and I can't pretend otherwise.

So my verdict (for now) on Guns, Germs and Steel is this: Read it, by all means - it's certainly worth the effort - but expect to have to put some work in.  I would also advocate dipping into it over an extended period rather than trying to do it as I have.  It's too much information to take in all at once, for me at least, and trying to cram it all in over a short time just means that I'd have ended up missing important pieces of the puzzle.

XOXO

Nice one, Tamara.

So J just texted me asking if I could pick a new book for her to grab at lunchtime, as she's in for Jury Duty and has almost finished The Fran Lebowitz Reader.  I suggested Maximum City by Suketu Mehta or, if she couldn't find that one, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.  I haven't read either myself, so it was just luck of the draw.  We'll see what comes of it.

You'll note that I've changed our header per J's last post (LOVE).  I also want to note Anthony's remark about the need for 'a book club for sophisticated ladies of a certain disposition'.  I suspect that might find its way into the header at some point as well.

In other news, I'm enjoying Guns, Germs and Steel heaps more now that I'm into the section about human evolution and diseases and their contribution to the whole mess.  I like my life sciences, what can I say.  It's good, though, because I no longer despair of finishing the damn thing.  I will get there, and I'll even enjoy it.  More to follow.

XOXO

Interim Review: Guns, Germs and Steel

So.  This book has been much more of a struggle for me than I'd expected.  I enjoy science writing as a rule, and I don't need it to be especially pop-sciencey to enjoy it: I generally find that the facts are interesting enough on their own to sustain me without a lot of dressing-up.  But you still need to be able to tell a story if you want to keep my interest for 457 pages, or even 7 pages, and I'm not convinced that Diamond can do that.

Well, no, that's a bit too harsh.  I think he probably can tell a story, but in this book it feels more like he's tried to write a book-length journal submission.  I'm having trouble working out quite what doesn't work for me about his style: it's not that it's dry, exactly, nor is the density of it really a problem for me (though it is seriously dense); and it's bugging me, because I feel like I should like it more.  I'm certainly learning a lot, and about things that interest me, so why can't I get into it as much as I'd like?  (For those who don't know, it's an examination of why certain cultures ended up so much more technologically advanced than others, and the repercussions of that advancement on other aspects of human history.  It's comprehensive and honest, and goes a long way toward putting a nail in the coffin of those 'some races are just better' arguments that make me long to punch people squarely in the balls.)

That all having been said, I should note that I'm finding it much easier going now that I'm a good ways into it, but I shouldn't have to get almost halfway into a text like this before it grabs me.  Tim said that he'd started it a few times and never got far, and I now understand why; were I not reading it for Lit Girls, I suspect that I would have chucked it aside by now.  And that would have been a shame, because there is a lot worth reading in it: it's one of those books that answers questions you hadn't realised you wanted to ask by filling in blanks you hadn't realised were empty.  And Diamond has done most of his work (his 'real job' is as a biologist studying bird evolution) in the South Pacific, so he has a great deal of knowledge about the history of this part of the world, and that makes it more interesting to me: having grown up in the U.S., I didn't even get the tiny amount of education about this history that Australian students get.  But... I don't know, I still don't love it.  And the people I know who like it are really passionate about it, so I feel like I must be missing something.

Anyway.  I'll post again when I've finished it, and we'll see how I feel then.  Cross fingers it will continue to improve.

XOXO