By the way, today's post is being made from Unagi, my brand-new install! I finally did the required reformat of my system, and it works like a dream. Still won't shutdown properly, and that will bite me in the ass later, but for now, my computer and I have acheived detente.
Junky
Those of you who have known me for over, oh, 5 years or so know that I used to be a little -- um -- strange about my books. (Tina: Used to be? Me: Shhhhhh!) Example: I never break the spines on my paperbacks. Ever. Apparently this is some kind of big amazing feat of derring-do to the rest of you, but I just never feel the need to grab both halves of a book and just CRANK 'em back there in order to read the text. So many of my books look unread to other people, and when I was growing up I would get upset if I loaned a book out to a friend and it came back looking, well, read. I got better. They say I'm doing very well now, ha ha. I also don't have as many reading friends as I used to, sadly.
Another example: I'm a sucker for a well-designed book. The design of the OBJECT is what we're talking about here, mind you; the typography, the binding, the color depth, etc. When I was working in bookstores, half the books I'd buy were books I wanted to read. The other half were books I wanted to read as well, but I also wanted to own them, I wanted them on my shelves because they were beautiful. I stopped buying this kind of book in college, with the occasional exception.
The fever is coming back. I've told you about the World War II journalism books I read recently? Well they're just part of a series of books from a small publisher called the Library of America. They're non-profit, endowed by a grant to keep the important documents of American political thought and history in print. And boy, do they deliver. They produce REAL HARDBOUND BOOKS, of a kind that I imagine used to be standard in the US, but has fallen by the wayside due to the cheaper (and still honorable) bookbinding methods now available. These are meant to last.
And the books themselves contain all the depth and background that I felt was missing from my history courses in school. History was a favorite subject of mine in high school, but I more or less abandoned it in college to make way for chemistry and literature courses. Now I can fill in the blanks.
Anyway, so I'm jonesing for these books, and I'm at a homebrew competition today, and I go for a walk after I'm finished judging the English Pale Ales, to sober up and clear out the cobwebs for an hour or so before I go home. I'm not too familiar with Culver City, so I just head to the nearest boulevard and mosey on down toward the beach. I wander into a used bookstore, and there I see a Library of America edition of the complete writings of Thomas Jefferson. Boxed in a slipcase, bound with fine cloth, endpapers a deep cerulean blue. Acid-free paper. Readable font at an information-dense typesize. Complete notes and timeline of Jefferson's life. A hefty volume filled with wonders.
I find Jefferson a very quotable president, his ideas on federalism are terrific, and he's our only non-Christian president so far. I must read this book. New, it's $35, a hefty sum in my current moderately-employed state. Here, it was $15. Snag! Feeling like a hophead with a new dime-bag, I headed back to the competition.
I've got to wean myself off of this before it goes too far. Get some help from the local Friends of the Library meetings.
Booklist 2002: An occasional look at the books I've just read.
Reporting World War II, Vols. 1 and 2: American Journalism
by the Library of America, 1995
A remarkable work from a unique and non-profit publisher. These two volumes gather contemporaneous news articles and radio transcripts from the years 1938-1946, including two full books, Up Front and Hiroshima. Hollywood has done a fair job of providing all of us with the bare bones of World War II history; these books help fill in the blanks.
Many comparisons are being drawn lately between World War II and the current "War" on terrorism: reading these books points out both the falsehoods and (surprisingly) the occasional stark truths of those comparisons. To those of us at home, our experiences pale in comparison to the loss, deprivations and general upheaval of American civilian life in the 1940s; to those on patrol in Afghanistan and elsewhere, I'm betting the differences are not as pronounced. The U.S. military's experiences while administering a ruined Italian government and populace seemed particularly poignant, and probably very similar to what's happening in Afghanistan right now.
The Xenogenesis Trilogy
by Octavia Butler, 1989
I don't read trilogies lightly. In most cases, they seem to be franchises, stretching out into three works what could be said in one. Nevertheless, I have read a few good trilogies in the last ten years or so. Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson's Orange County Trilogy, and now this, although it's the least of the three.
Aliens have rescued a shred of humanity from a bomb-devastated Earth and placed them in suspended animation. After 250 years, they begin to return humanity to a restored planet, but they accidentally and irrevocably turn humanity against them with two actions. First, the Oankali's lack of familiarity with our psychology results in humans' inadvertent torture and imprisonment. Second, and more profound, is the price they exact for their help; humanity will no longer exist as a distinct species, and must continue as a new offshoot of the three-sexed Oankali species. Resisters are sterilized before being returned to the planet.
The message is heavy-handed, but to Butler's credit, the Oankali are portrayed as a species that is honestly trying to do the right thing. The philosophical debate reaches a peak in the second volume, as the humans gain a powerful advocate.
At long last, I figured out how to make a decent cup of coffee this morning. It has been a years-long quest. I considered it such a shameful culinary failing of mine that I made it one of my 2001 annual projects. I wasn't able to pull it off that year. Finally, and at long last, I have the secret. My problem was that I kept trying to make just one cup. You can't do that, it extracts too many bitter alkaloids. You need the thicker filter bed that a quarter-cup of grounds provides. Make four six-ounce cups with that, and you'll get a tasty cup of joe.
Thanks to Alton Brown for the inspiration to try coffee brewing just one more time.
Happy Labor Day, everyone! How are you honoring labor today? Might I make a suggestion to my brethren in the high-tech industry? RESOLVE to work no more than 40 hours a week this month. Your ancestors fought, lobbied, suffered, and in some cases died in order to acheive a 40-hour work week standard in the United States. Don't let their sacrifice be in vain. It's easy to barbeque and not work on a national holiday, but working a 40-hour week for the month of September would do a lot more to honor the spirit of Labor Day. And hey, maybe some of you might want to make it an all-year commitment! Use the spare time to relax, be with your family, volunteer, or take up a hobby or two! Whatever it is, you'll be contributing to the national character by having a life outside of work. Just a suggestion.