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Dune

I needed some sci-fi. Just felt like it, I guess. I read this book about 15 years ago as one of my earliest forays into the genre, and I loved it. So I bought it again the other day with some Border’s bucks. The cover of the paperback reprint that I read refers to this book as “Science Fiction’s Supreme Masterpiece.” I gotta tell you, that’s an understatement.

I’m not very knowledgeable about sci-fi and the one or two books a year I read in this arena don’t give me much of insight into it. All I can do is tell you that I felt like I held a masterpiece in my hands as I was reading it. It was distinct.

I didn’t get that feeling with The Lord of the Rings or Foundation, both of which I consider in roughly the same genre. Dune just feels cooler, deeper, and more interesting. It’s tough to put my finger on it. It’s sci-fi without a bunch of really fast spaceships. It’s fantasy without a complicated mix of monster-like beings. It’s a different world with a history so detailed that you have to consult a glossary to understand some key points, yet this doesn’t impinge on it’s approachability.

The tale itself is not so groundbreaking. It’s about vengeance. The Atreides family finds itself stuck in some interplanetary politics, leading to their demise. The formula: father killed, mom and noble son left for dead on the planet that was their fiefdom (Arrakis), disenfranchised indigenous peoples team up with nobility to try and overthrow evil occupants.

So yeah, somewhat standard story, maybe even in 1965 when it was published. But that doesn’t detract from it’s coolness. Here why it’s cool:

There is an underlying theme of conservation. The story takes place on a desert planet where people wear special suits to capture bodily fluids for recycling so they don’t waste any moisture. The indigenous people, the Fremen, have a minimalistic approach to life:

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen” – which is, the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.
— From “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

The idea permeates the book. Evil is big, fat, and excessive; good is thin, conservative, and wily. Not sure how far ahead of his time Herbert was in discussing this.

The reader gets a big payoff from a little bit of work. The preceding quote is indicative of how the reader gets a lot of history and background information – each chapter begins with a quote from a sacred text. Additionally, Herbert will use terms that are simply not defined within the standard text, assuming that the reader will consult the glossary if needed. But it’s easy and doesn’t ever seem laborious, adding to the genius of it all.

We learn about the force, before there was the force. I couldn’t help but wonder how much George Lucas was influenced by the Bene Gesserit, an “ancient school of mental and physical training established primarily for female students after the Butlerian Jihad destroyed the so-called “thinking machines” and robots.” Which also makes me wonder how much James Cameron was influenced by the Butlerian Jihad when he conceived the Terminator series.

The desert landscape makes for an original, off-world experience. You have space, the ocean, and forests that are often depicted in sci-fi and fantasy settings, but when has a desert been so re-imagined? I can’t think of any, but help me out. Add to that the idea of sandworms roaming underneath the desert sand…attracted to surface disturbances…that can be ridden by hooking onto their back. That’s just a sampling of the imagination that went into this. I was blown away at times.

Dune is part of what was originally conceived as a trilogy by Herbert, but I think it eventually expanded into six books with even more offshoots by others (I’ll read at least the original trilogy over the next few years). There was a movie and a mini-series made of it, but I haven’t see either (I may put them on the list). Oh yeah, did I mention that Iron Maiden paid homage to it on Piece of Mind with a track called To Tame a Land (great tune).

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to proclaim that if you read only one sci-fi book in your life, make it Dune. But hey, that’s coming from someone who’s only reading about one or two per year in the genre, so take it with a grain of salt my friends.

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books

Rework

These guys seem to have their act together. They run this Chicago company called 37 Signals which is headquartered in my neighborhood. I use a few of their products, albeit sparingly, and they are truly excellent. In fact, after reading this book, I’m going to dig a little deeper into Basecamp and Highrise because maybe I should throw them in the mix with my other productivity tools.

They grabbed me early on with this simple truth that actually drives a chunk of my consulting business:

Technology that cost thousands is now just a few bucks or even free. One person can do the job of two or three or, in some cases, an entire department. Stuff that was impossible just a few years ago is simple today.

This is both exciting and frightening for me. There are some awesome tools out there to do financial analysis and because I’m slightly ahead of the curve I’ve been able to capitalize on their value. However, if this simplification continues, I’m going to have to continue to innovate or be oversimplified!

But enough about me. Let’s talk about this book. It’s a massive stack of quick hits (3-5 page chapters) on how to thrive in today’s competitive environment. What makes these dudes an authority on the subject? Well, they are thriving in today’s competitive environment and this gives an indication of the value system that has allowed them to do so.

I’m interested in what they say also because I agree with just about everything they say. Like this:

Small is not just a stepping-stone. Small is a great destination in itself.

How appropriate. I’m trying to get smaller as we speak. I’m stripping things down to the core.

Sure, they take a lot of heat for this. They got harangued by many in the media when they took Mint to task for selling out to Intuit. But I love it because they practice what they preach. They seem to live in a nice little zone of anti-hypocrisy.

Here is their take on the concept of less.

Ever seen the weapons prisoners make out of soap or a spoon? They make due with what they’ve got. …

or:

… And we always keep features to a minimum. Boxing ourselves in this way prevents us from creating bloated products.

and finally:

… Be a curator. Stick to what’s truly essential. Pare things down until you’re left with only the most important stuff. Then do it again. You can always add stuff back later if you need to.

Lotta stuff. Lotta stuff that I can live by. Lotta stuff on the alone zone and no meetings and visual prioritization and teaching and wabi-sabi and spending other peoples money. And it all has examples, either from their own company or other professions and firms.

The only question is how do I keep reminding myself of this stuff. I read it on the Kindle so I have the Kindle App on all of my devices; should I just read through the bookmarks I added for this book occasionally? Should I create a calendar item to repeat this every other month or something? How about posting quotes on my bathroom wall?

I’ll think of something.

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Life of Pi

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time folks. I grabbed it from my mom, oh, like 5 years ago or so. I remember a time when it seemed like everybody was reading this book. I would walk through airports and see people reading it all over the place. I grabbed it about 10 times in the last few years with the intent to read it, but it never took.

I finally started in earnest this month.

It’s been a rough reading month. I’m busy with work stuff, home stuff, and family stuff. I’m hoping to finish two books, but it will be tight. I started off this year at my 40 book pace but I’ve fallen off a little. I have some catching up to do huh?

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

I’ll tell you, it’s a cool book. I liked it but I never got sucked into it, so it was a slow read, but still cool. It’s a fantastical story about a boy who’s family owns a zoo in India. They decide to move the whole thing to Canada, but on the way the ship sinks and brings all of Pi’s family and most of the animals with it. Pi makes it to a lifeboat with an orangutan, zebra, hyena, and tiger. The tiger eats the animals but not Pi. The meat of the book is the story of how Pi survived the ordeal.

Then the ending throws a funny and thought-provoking curveball that is so chock full of symbolism that much of it was lost on me. After the fact, I’ve spent a fair amount of time sorting through the Amazon reviews of this book (there are like 2,000 of them) trying to uncover the things that I missed.

Here are the big questions that book could prompt some thought on:

  1. Did Pi just make up the story with the tiger?
  2. Is this book pro-religion or anti-religion, or does it matter?
  3. What does this book say about stories and human nature?

I wonder if I would have gotten more out of this had I gone into this endeavor more aware of the potential messages. Would I have enjoyed it more or less? I certainly would not want to have read any of the Amazon reviews because of the plot killers. But I think I would have liked to have known that there could be widely-varied interpretations. Maybe part of the problem is that I read so many books that are message-free (mysteries, thrillers, non-fiction) that I don’t go into them with an exploratory mind.

For instance, this is a thought-provoking passage (page 28 of the trade paperback):

I’ll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. Bet we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

This is Pi talking, actually.  It may have appeared, at this point, that we were in for a pro-religion ride. Pi is, after all, a practicing Christian, Muslim, and Hindu and this clearly uses Christ as a role model for the value of doubt. But when the book is finished, no clarity on religion is obtained, and I think Martel is very satisfied with that. As am I. I’m not interested in the implications for religion, atheism, or agnosticism really.

The top two Amazon reviews give the book 5 stars and 3 stars (out of 5). I suggest reading them after reading the book because they promote further contemplation. This idea of stories being so important to how we make sense of the world is the main take-away for me. Tyler Cowen mentioned a similar point about the value of stories in his book Create Your Own Economy but I didn’t write about it in my take (upon reflection, I’m disappointed in myself for that). Cowen seemed to say that stories, regardless of whether they come from books, TV, movies, friends, or the web, are important for general enjoyment in life.

I like stories, a whole bunch.

Another thing I want to mention – an item about the book that made it strange for me – was the trip to the mysterious island of vegetation that Pi and the tiger visited near the end of the ordeal. It felt oddly like The Ruins, which actually kind of ruined (no pun intended) this part of the book for me. I’m certainly not accusing Martel of ripping off another book, especially since Life of Pi was written before The Ruins. But for me, having read The Ruins first, it made the idea of vegetation being killers feel like I’ve already been there, in a horror book nonetheless.

Thanks Mr. Martel for a good read.

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books

Open

Agassi is one of my favorite athletes of all time. I’ve always pulled for him to beat Sampras, Courier, Edberg, Becker and Chang (who am I forgetting?). I think I held Agassi’s balance in high regard. The guy won on every surface and has a career Grand Slam, something that none of the others mentioned can claim. That’s a big deal in my estimation. So I grabbed his bio.

In retrospect, I haven’t read that many biographies. I read maybe only one or two a year.

What’s the definition of a biography? Webster says that it’s a “written history of a person’s life.” I’m taking that in the strictest sense and calling something a biography only if it relates to the person’s whole life, from birth to publication date. Books like River of Doubt (Theodore Roosevelt) or Called Out of Darkness (Anne Rice) have certain biographical aspects, but they don’t weight the person’s whole life as much as they do a certain time frame or theme; so they’re not biographies in my view. This Agassi book is a biography for sure. He starts with his childhood and goes into the scathing details of his life and the people connected to him up through the present day.

Speaking of the present day, did you see the little tiff that Agassi and Sampras got into the other day at that exhibition match? This book shines a little light on what’s going on there (Agassi tells a “Sampras is cheap” story). It’s understandable how some people can be disgusted or disturbed with Agassi’s book because he didn’t hesitate to throw anybody under the bus, including his dad, Sampras, Bollitieri, Chang, Courier, and Brooke. But it feels very honest, and that makes it acceptable to me and a boatload of fun. I loved this book and Agassi has separated himself even more as my favorite tennis player of all-time and probably one of my top five favorite sports stars of all-time. Here’s a list (on a whim, in no particular order) if you care:

  • Clark Kellogg
  • Andre Agassi
  • Barry Sanders
  • Tiger Woods (even now, I’ll explain later)
  • Jerry Pate/David Duval (tie)

I know, kind of obscure huh? I actually haven’t given this much thought and I’m treating this list as temporary. We’ll circle back on this when I read the next sports bio.

Agassi’s father pushed him into tennis at young age, which is why Agassi grew up hating tennis. His father was nuts. Agassi gives plenty of examples, like this:

For instance, he often reaches a thumb and forefinger inside his nostril and, bracing himself for the eye-watering pain, pulls out a thick bouquet of black nose hairs. This is how he grooms himself. In the same spirit, he shaves his face without soap or cream. He simply runs a disposable razor up and down his dry cheeks and jaw, shredding his skin, then letting the blood trickle down his face until it dries.

Not only did his father force him to practice insane hours, but he would also drag him around to clubs and hustle tennis games for Andre. Heck, when Andre was nine his dad actually challenged Jim Brown to a tennis match with Andre. Yeah, that Jim Brown. The way Andre tells it, his dad worked at a local club giving lessons or stringing rackets and overheard Jim Brown looking for a game, and even offered to wager his house or $10,000. It’s a good story, read the book to hear how it comes out.

His dad even tries to give him performance enhancing drugs of some sort. But Andre takes them only once and plays horribly, on purpose, to fool his dad into thinking they’re bad for his game. It works and his dad never tries again, but it’s a glimpse into how Andre doesn’t hesitate to rip even those he loves.

He rips Bollettieri pretty much, but also spent a big chunk of his early tennis career in a very close relationship with Bollettieri. Here is how Andre described the Bollettieri academy:

People like to call the Bollettieri Academy a boot camp, but it’s really a glorified prison camp. And not all that glorified. We eat gruel – beige meats and gelatinous stews and gray slop poured over rice – and sleep in rickety bunks that line the plywood walls of our military style barracks.

At times Agassi describes his relationship with Bollettieri as “harmonious.” But eventually it breaks down and Bollettieri quits and tells the press before he tells Agassi.

I remember watching tennis on TV a ton during the 90s and the cameras often panned on Bollettieri. Reading this book made me think that these could have been the glory days of American tennis. There were so many American stars. What I didn’t realize was that it was also a much bigger soap opera then I could have imagined. Andre does plenty of dishing on his competition, like Chang:

Once more I square off against Chang, who’s developed a bad habit since we last met. Every time he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God – credits God – for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels ludicrous and insulting, I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke.

Courier and Becker get dished on too. As does Connors and the aforementioned Sampras. He saves the praise and worship for his team, his entourage if you will. And one of his closest friends and confidantes is his trainer, Gil Reyes, who remains with him throughout his career. It’s one of the coolest parts of the story, this trainer-trainee relationship, which evolves into something much deeper.

Agassi walks into the UNLV gym one day and asks if he can use the facility to get in shape. At the time Gil is the strength and conditioning coach for UNLV After a few months of training there, they strike up a friendship and Agassi brings Gil on full time after the UNLV sports season ends.

Here what’s cool. Gil doesn’t have a gym so he fashions all of the training equipment with his bare hands. He tells Agassi:

I want to weld the metal, make the ropes and pulleys, with my own hands. I don’t want to leave anything to chance. I won’t have you injured. Not on my watch.

Gil has no experience with tennis but learns quickly, and works his ass off.

From the start, Gil keep a careful record of my workouts. He buys a brown ledger and marks down every rep, every set, every exercise – every day. He records my weight, my diet, my pulse, my travel. In the margins he draws diagrams and even pictures. He says he wants to chart my progress, compile a database he can refer to in the coming years.

Doesn’t this sound like Mickelson’s caddy Bones? Mickelson and his caddy have been together forever and supposedly Bones has a massive database of every shot that Phil has taken on every course. I love stories like these and think about how I need to start building the same database in Google Docs for myself. Is that strange?

Agassi and Gil become tight and Gil accompanies him everywhere and at times acts as his bodyguard, buddy, and therapist. Agassi’s cadre is made up of his brother Philly (tennis manager), his high school buddy Perry (business manager), Gil, and J.P. (spiritual-like adviser). He has a connection with this crew and they stay together for the bulk of his crew.

Soon, they start winning tournaments and Agassi wonders what the point of all this fame is (I call this his David Duval moment, but with less disillusion).

I find it surreal, then perfectly normal. I’m struck by how fast the surreal becomes the norm. I marvel at how unexciting it is to be famous, how mundane famous people are. They’re confused, uncertain, insecure, and often hate what they do. It’s something we always hear – like that old adage money can’t buy happiness – but we never believe it until we see it for ourselves. Seeing it in 1992 brings me a new measure of confidence.

I find this interesting because reacting with confidence isn’t what I expected, but it makes me like Agassi. It’s like yeah, this stuff really is stupid and meaningless, but let’s make the best of it, and use it to our advantage.

Then he hooks up with Brad Gilbert and wins more tournaments. Gilbert seems like quite a character and makes some tweaks to Agassi’s game. Gilbert puts it this way according to Agassi:

…You don’t need to assume so much risk. F*&% that. Just keep the ball moving. Back and forth. Nice and easy. Solid. Be like gravity man, like motherf*&%ing gravity. When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? Your chasing something that doesn’t exist.

At age 33, Agassi ends up being the oldest play ever ranked number one (Darren Cahill is his coach at this point). That is cool.

Then Agassi pulls out a wild card to jack up his cool cred with me. During the 2006 U.S. Open he cracks open J.R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar.

During my final U.S. Open in 2006, I spent all my free time reading J.R.’s staggering memoir, The Tender Bar. The book spoke to my heart. I loved it so much, in fact, that I found myself rationing it, limiting myself to a set number of pages each night.

J.R. ends up collaborating with him on the book but refuses to attach his name to it. Agassi finishes with this:

…I was late in discovering the magic of books. Of all my many mistakes that I want my children to avoid, I put that one near the top of the list.

How can you not like this dude? I’ve had a rough relationship with sports the last few years. At times I find myself, for the first time in my life, disinterested in being a sports fan. But stories like this bring be back, man. Beautiful stuff.

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S is for Silence

This is another edition of Grafton’s alphabet mystery series. I enjoy these books on so many different levels. First of all, each book stands alone as a solid mystery novel. Second, I like the main character a lot, mostly because she is so different from the characters in other stories I read. And finally, I really anticipate a fervor as we near the last few books.

I’m missing out on the Lost fervor (and any final episode fervor for that matter) because I don’t watch any “shows.” This series of books, for me at least, replaces that type of fun. Oh, it’s a little different I guess. I mean, the last episode in the life of Kinsey Millhone is still probably 5 years away. A year between episodes would probably blunt a lot of the fervor for most people. Which is probably why I don’t have anybody to discuss this with.

What do you do? I sort through it internally, better know as entertaining myself. But this anticipation stuff is only one aspect of the fun. Besides that, the mysteries are great. For this one, I’m making notes at the 60% point so I can document that I figured it out.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

I’m writing this just past half-way through the book. Here’s my prediction: I think the murder was a plot, amongst no less than four characters, to rid the world of the victim because she had dirt on everybody. I make this prediction because of the retrospective scene in the bar where at least two of them sparred with the soon-to-be victim and others involved were watching.

So there you have it. That ends the real-time aspect of this post.

But alas, I was wrong! However, my prediction added another dimension to the fun of this mystery and it really had me jamming through it this weekend.

Part of me wants to go out right now and buy “T” and “U” and blast through them. But what’s the rush? I’m betting that “V” won’t come out until end of year or early next so that’s the bottleneck. Hmmm…if I did press on right now, it would allow me to read the Amazon reviews and discussions in real time, which would be cool.

I’m not sure what my plan is. I’m not caught up in any of my series so maybe I need to get there with one of them at least. It’s quite a quandary, but I got bigger fish to fry right now. Plus, I have some good biographies and business books that I’m looking forward to cracking through. Maybe a break from fiction will do me good.

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Powerhouse Five

I mentioned this book a few months ago after reading a piece of teen fiction called The Hoopster. It was shortly after reading that book that I ordered this one from Abe Books (it’s out of print). This book has a lot of nostalgic value because it’s the first book of fiction I remember reading.

I said that it’s the first book I remember reading, not necessarily the first book I read. They could be the same, of course, I just don’t trust my memory. But suffice it to say, this book certainly had a big impact on my lifelong interest in reading. I’ve thought about it a lot during the last three decades of reading. And strangely, the name of one of the main characters, Studs Magruder, has been stuck in my skull forever. That’s about the only major detail I recalled from the book.

I didn’t remember any other characters, I didn’t remember much of the plot, and I didn’t remember any of the scenery. I just remembered that it was about an outsider hired to coach an industrial league basketball team. And upon finishing this second reading, NONE of it came flooding back.

I thought I would say, “Yeah, I remember that.” But I didn’t, which I’m taking as a sign of old age, and that’s okay.

The item I did remember, Studs Magruder, has been inaccurately recalled by me for the last three decades. I knew he was a villain, but I thought he was just a troublemaker on the same team. That was someone else, Studs was on an opposing team. He was the best player in the league on the best team – a dirty player who eventually gets his comeuppance on the last few pages.

And what an abrupt ending! It did not feel like a short story after I returned it to the Wilson Vance library (which I do remember, so it had to be 4th, 5th, or 6th grade that I read it). All in all, a great walk down memory name.

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Called Out of Darkness

For some reason, this book grabbed me. I’ve never read any Anne Rice nor seen an Anne Rice movie, and I’m completely unfamiliar with her biography. But the idea of a Catholic leaving the church for an extended period of time then finding her way back to the church late in life seemed interesting. Also, if you recall, one of my goals this year was to do more exploration into my faith (or lack thereof).

So here we are, exploring Catholicism. I can confidently say that my exploration will pale in comparison to Rice’s exploration, which she pursued doggedly beginning in 1998 when she came back to the church after being an atheist for most of her adult life.

Rice was born in 1941 in New Orleans and raised Catholic. Some time in her early college years (around 1960) she quit believing in God. She remained an atheist for the next 38 years until 1998 after moving back to New Orleans and reconnecting with the Catholic church. Today, at nearly 70, she remains a devout Catholic and has devoted her life to Christian literature.

It’s fascinating stuff man. Check out her website and her Facebook page, it’s interesting reading. She’s really active on Facebook and posts daily. She also does a bunch of Amazon reviews. The woman has a lot of stuff going on.

Let me give some highlights. In grade school and high school, Catholicism was the only world she knew. Here is how she put it:

An extremely important aspect of all my schooling was this: we lived and breathed our religion and our religion was interesting, and vast, and immensely satisfying, and we had an unshakable sense of the “goodness” of Catholic education, and we were also aware of something else. There was no better all-around education to be had in other schools. (Kindle loc. 934-936)

However, after only a short time in college, this wonderment with religion just stopped. I mean it just stopped, for 38 years. She walks through the transformation in detail, here are her thoughts after starting college:

I was around students who knew much more of contemporary literature than I did, and who discussed subjects I’d never thought to discuss. They were hungry for learning, and there was no barrier to their learning. And they were good and wholesome people. My faith began to crack apart. All around me I saw not only interesting people, but essentially good people, people with ethics, direction, goals, values—and these people weren’t Catholic. (Kindle loc. 1563-1567)

This prompts her to sort through things. She starts to question her faith and even seeks counseling from a local Catholic priest near her college in Texas. The actual day that she walked away from Catholicism occurs in a conversation with this priest while she is sorting through all of these questions. The priest says to her:

“Oh well, if you were brought up like that, Anne, you’ll never be happy outside the Catholic Church. You’ll find nothing but misery outside the Catholic Church. For a Catholic like you, there is no life outside the Catholic Church.” He meant well when he said this. He was speaking, I think, from his experience with people. The year was probably 1960. I was eighteen going on nineteen, and, well, it was understandable what he said. But when he said it, something in me revolted. I didn’t argue with him. But I was no longer a Catholic when I left the room. (Kindle loc. 1586-91)

So this event kicked off 38 years of atheism. Be sure, Rice did not go into this lightly and she wrestled with things until she was exhausted. The church was different in 1960 and I can certainly understand how an independent, rebellious young woman would question her church. Plus, her high school sweetheart was not even remotely religious.

Stan Rice, whom I married in 1961, was one of the most conscientious people I’d ever met. He was positively driven by conscience and thought in terms of harsh absolutes. His life was devoted to poetry and, later, to painting; art for him had replaced any religion that he ever had. He scoffed at the idea of a personal God, and scoffed at all religion in general. He did more than scoff. He felt it was stupid, vain, false, and possibly he thought it was evil. I’m not sure on that. (Kindle loc. 1668-71)

Stan Rice died of cancer in 2002.

Her 38 years of atheism are not the focus of this book. She talks about them some, but mostly to tie them into the exit from and re-entry into Catholicism.

I can’t recall why she moved back to New Orleans in the 1990s. But upon her return she was in an atmosphere with family and friends who were mostly Catholics. She notices this:

To my amazement, these churchgoing people completely embraced Stan and Christopher and me. They didn’t question my disconnection from Catholicism. They said nothing about the transgressive books I’d written. They simply welcomed us into their homes and into their arms.
This was as shocking as it was wonderful. The Catholics of my time had been bound to shun people who left the faith. Indeed one reason I stayed clear of all Catholics for three decades was that I expected to be rejected and shunned. (Kindle loc. 1996-2000)

So her belief in atheism starts to wain:

AS I’VE EXPLAINED EARLIER, my faith in atheism was cracking. I went through the motions of being a conscientious atheist, trying to live without religion, but in my heart of hearts, I was losing faith in the “nothingness,” losing faith in “the absurd.” Understand, we were living contentedly in New Orleans, among secular and Catholic friends and family. There was no pressure from anyone to do anything about this issue, this matter of faith. (Kindle loc. 2240-2244)

Then, one day in 1998, she goes back to church.

I remember vaguely that I was sitting at my desk in a dreadfully cluttered office, hemmed in on all sides by rows and stacks of books, and that I had little sense of anything but the desire to surrender to that overwhelming love. I knew that the German church of my childhood, St. Mary’s Assumption, was perhaps six blocks away from where I was sitting. And perhaps I remembered my mother’s words of decades ago. “He is on that altar. Get up and go.” I know now when I think of those moments in 1998, I hear her voice. I see her dimly, rousing us, telling us to get up and get dressed and “go to Mass.” What confounded me and silenced me in 1998 was that I believed that what she’d said so many years ago was precisely the truth. He was in that church. He was on that altar. And I wanted to go to Him, and the impelling emotion was love. (Kindle loc. 2363-70)

She still had a lot of work to do on the path back and she goes through this for the last third of the book, which I found most interesting. She enthusiastically throws herself back into studying her religion and engages in some serious Bible study.

What struck me most is how improbable it was that this woman would embrace Catholicism again. She just came off almost four decades of atheism living amongst academics and artists. The church is not very accepting of her gay son Christopher (at one point she asks, “How was I to become a card-carrying member of a church that condemned my gay son?” loc.2415). She married a man who never believed in God. And she strongly believes in secular humanist values. But the last third of the book explains it well, it’s very genuine and heartfelt and I understand better now.

So here she is, a Catholic. And she is committed to loving others and finding God in all people. Here is how she puts it:

I am a baby Christian when it comes to loving. I am just learning. So far were my daily thoughts from loving people that I have a lifelong vocation now before me in learning how to find Christ in every single person whom I meet. Again and again, I fail because of temper and pride. I fail because it is so easy to judge someone else rather than love that person. And I fail because I cannot execute the simplest operations—answering an angry e-mail, for instance—in pure love. (Kindle loc. 2912-2915)

Wow. That’s raising the bar. That’s something to shoot for.

There’s more in this book. These are just some excerpts that I found interesting. Anybody exploring their faith or digging into Christianity should grab this book. It has a lot more than just the Catholic perspective.

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A Morning for Flamingos

This is book four in the Dave Robicheaux series. Robicheaux is fifty plus and it’s early in the series, yet he’s already quit two police departments: New Orleans and New Iberia (where his home is). Now, early in this novel, he takes a leave from the New Iberia sheriff’s department after getting shot transporting a prisoner. There are still like 15 books left in this series but I’m not sure if there are enough law enforcement offices left for him to quit.

I’m joking a little. I love Burke’s writing, his main character, and this series – and going over the top is part of the deal. He puts the reader on the edge early and keeps them there throughout. His main character gets shot and punched a lot, and the love interests seem to come out of the woodwork (this time it’s Robicheaux’s high school sweetheart, whom we haven’t been introduced too yet). Throw in some really bizarre descriptions of drunk demons and sprinkle in an adopted daughter who the reader has good reason to fear for, and you have an all-out assault on your senses.

Here is a classic example of Robicheaux confronting his demons:

But to be honest, the real purpose in my physical regimen was to induce as much fatigue in my body as possible. Morpheus’ gifts used to come to me in bottles, Beam and black Jack Daniel’s, straight up with a frosted schooner of Jax on the side, while I watched the rain pour down in the neon glow outside the window of an all-night bar not far from the Huey Long Bridge. In a half hour I could kick open a furnace door and fling into the flames all the snakes and squeaking bats that lived inside of me. Except the next morning they would writhe with new life in the ashes and come back home, stinking and hungry. (page 55, paperback)

That should give you good feel of the darkness in these books. It’s clear that Robicheaux will be exorcising a lot of demons over the next 15 or so books. I’m looking forward to it.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Things were wrapped up a little too tidy this time around, which surprised me a little. His old partner Clete makes an appearance and I think they are going to be seeing each other a little more because Clete is now set up as a private detective in New Orleans. And, as I mentioned, his high school sweetheart also makes an appearance and ends up marrying Robicheaux. My guess is that some tragedy will befall her over the next few books because she’s already set up with lupus (although it’s under control).

He also saves a “gangster with a heart” by making it appear that he died so he could run off with his sick kid to Mexico. In the last few pages, Robicheaux receives a letter from the gangster who is safely set up and living the good life. Sure, it’s kind of formulaic, that’s fine. We’ll certainly see this guy again.

This book had a ton of New Orleans in it. Plenty of trips to Cafe Du Monde and even a side trip to a LSU vs Ole Miss football game. He even mentions the Irish Channel neighborhood in New Orleans, which is also mentioned by Anne Rice in a book I was reading at the same time. What a coincidence!

I made a note to buy the next one in the series, A Stained White Radiance. Looking forward to it.

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I bought this because the cover looked cool and it seemed to be receiving some critical acclaim. I’m a fool for the cool cover/rumors of critical acclaim combination. I’m pretty sure I saw a study last year that said cover design does matter even for electronic book purchases (I read the Kindle version). I can attest to that.

And you know what, I nailed it, because this book is absolutely insane. Call it dumb luck or whatever. It destroyed me for about 3 days; messed up my life man. When I read the last words I uttered, “frickin’ insane, man.” It just tugged at me in a million different ways.

This book was originally published posthumously in Swedish and is the first in a trilogy by Stieg Larsson. Needless to say, I’m fired up about reading the others. It’s a crime novel and a mystery novel, definitely not paced as quickly as a thriller.

It takes place in Sweden (mostly Stockholm and a fictional coastal community) around 2003 (seemed to be after Iraq war started, not sure though). It’s a complicated story so I won’t get too deep into the plot lines. There are really two main plot lines but they work well together.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

One plot line ends about 3/4 of the way through the book. It feels kind of strange because there is a clear build-up but you know it can’t be the only climax. However, the other plot line is solid so my interest didn’t wain in the slightest. And like the two plot lines, there are two main characters. One is a financial reporter who just botched a huge story but stumbles onto another, potentially larger story. The other is a tattooed hacker who eventually pitches in to help the reporter blow the story wide open. Despite their age difference, there is great chemistry between the two and I’m anticipating how their relationship changes in the next two books

It was pretty original, both the story and the characters. It felt fresh to me. I really liked the way Larsson switched between the two main characters (who don’t actually meet until about half way through the book) and loved the way he orchestrated their first meeting. There were a lot of memorable scenes that I’m still batting around.

Larsson also has a few quirks in his writing style. He clearly has some “brand” names that he loves and incorporates them into the narrative. He mentions, by name, the authors who the reporter reads for pleasure, dropping names like Elizabeth George and Sue Grafton. And he’s also an Apple fanboy, mentioning the iBook and the Powerbook extensively. Also, instead of describing an email simply as encrypted, he’ll say “PGP encrypted email.” Here’s an example, after the “tattooed hacker” loses her computer:

The loss of her computer was depressing but not disastrous. Salander had had an excellent relationship with it during the year she had owned it. She had backed up all her documents, and she had an older desktop Mac G3 at home, as well as a five-year-old Toshiba PC laptop that she could use. But she needed a fast, modern machine. Unsurprisingly she set her sights on the best available alternative: the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminium case with a PowerPC 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. It had BlueTooth and built-in CD and DVD burners.

Just seems oddly detailed. And here is a passage where Larsson discusses the tools used by the financial reporter to keep notes:

The family was so extensive that he was forced to create a database in his iBook. He used the NotePad programme (www.ibrium.se), one of those full-value products that two men at the Royal Technical College had created and distributed as shareware for a pittance on the Internet. Few programmes were as useful for an investigative journalist. Each family member was given his or her own document in the database.

He even puts the URL and everything in there. I checked it out, it’s for real. Being the dork that I am, I found these details oddly comforting.

I usually try to space trilogies out over two to three years, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that with this book. I’m going to grab a few series books (Burke, Grafton) over the next few weeks then probably catch up with Larsson’s number two this summer.

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The 50th Law

I’m not sure how I heard about this book. It may have been an Amazon suggestion. I do recall reading an article on it in the WSJ or Newsweek, it kind of grabbed me for some reason. The idea that Fifty (Curtis Jackson), if I may call him that, has some keen insights into building a business empire sounds pretty enticing to me. He teams up with a guy named Robert Greene on this book. It’s less a business book than it is a motivational book. And who better to do the motivating than Fifty?

Continue reading “The 50th Law”