Jillbone's 75 Books in 2012

March

24. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
23. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
22. Straphanger by Taras Grescoe
21. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
20. The Information Diet by Clay A. Johnson
19. Snow by Orhan Pamuk
18. Flu by Gina Kolata
17. Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

February

16. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
15. The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
14. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

January

13. The Genius Factory by David Plotz
12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
11. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
9. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
7. Home by Marilynne Robinson
6. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
5. The Double by Jose Saramago
4. Neuromancer by William Gibson
3. The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
2. Ten Tea Parties by Joseph Cummins
1. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

1. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

My second novel set in India (the first being The White Tiger set in southern India). This book was set in Northern India and highlighted the poverty of the region as well as the effects of colonialism. I also enjoyed the dichotomy of Biju and Sai's paths in life -- from fortune to misfortune. Not a book I would read again, but I did enjoy it.

"At Cho Oyu, the judge and Sai sat out on the lawn. Mutt, catching sight of the shadow of her own tail, leapt and caught it, began to whizz around and around, confused as to whose tail it was. She would not let go, but her eyes expressed confusion and beseeching -- how could she stop? what should she do? -- she had caught a strange beast and didn't know it was herself. She went skittering helplessly about the garden."

2. Ten Tea Parties by Joseph Cummins

A good quick read into ten patriotic "tea parties" that people may or may not know about. While most people know about the Boston Tea Party, fewer people know about the burning of tea in Greenwich, New Jersey or the protest by women in Edenton, North Carolina. While the coverage of the lesser known tea parties is not in depth, it does whet the appetite for more information if you choose to research further.

"Later, after the protests and the bloodshed and the Revolutionary War, when people returned once again to drinking tea, it was on their own teams. And I suspect that those steaming cups of Bohea must have tasted pretty good."

3. The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

I absolutely love linguistics books. It must be the English major still hidden away inside me. Bryson offers a good overview of different ways the English language has changed from its inception til the present (or at least 1990 when the book was published). My only peeve with this book is that many of the colloquialisms that Bryson cites I have never heard of having grown up in the South. Other than that, I enjoyed Bryson's small trivia tidbits and easy language.

"Perhaps for our last words on the subject of usage we should turn to the last words of the venerable French grammarian Dominique Bonhours, who proved on his deathbed that a grammarian's work is never done when he turned to those gathered loyally around him and whispered: 'I am about to -- or I am going to -- die; either expression is used.'"

4. Neuromancer by William Gibson

I like science fiction novels. Evidently, however, I don't like all science fiction novels...even classics. I had a hard time following the plot of the book. I'm not very well-versed in computers (although you'd never know it from the amount of time I spend on my laptop) and the bits of technical language and jargon threw me. I did find the novel interesting and can see how it spawned a whole generation of cyberpunk followers.

"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...”

5. The Double by Jose Saramago

Although the first 30 pages or so left me wanting to shoot myself in the face rather than read another line, I quickly picked up Saramago's distinct writing style from that point on. As a grammarian, it was a hard read -- run-on sentences that lasted for paragraphs, paragraphs that lasted for pages and no clear lines of demarcation for his dialogue. The plot, however, was innovative and thought-provoking: what would you do if you discovered you had an exact double?

"We all know that each day that dawns is the first for some and will be the last for others, and that for most people it will be just another day. For the history teacher Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, this day in which we find ourselves, in which we continue to exist, since there is no reason to believe it will be our last, will not just be another day. One might say that it appeared in the world with the possiblity of being another first day, another beginning, and indicating, therefore, another destiny. Everything depends on what steps Tertuliano Maximo Afonso takes today. However, the procession, as people used to say in times gone by, is just about to leave the church. Let's follow it."

6. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

Dr. Paul Farmer may not call himself one, but he might be one of God's angels on earth. And I'm saying that as a self-professed agnostic. I don't think I've ever read about a man who gives so much to help others in places others fear to tread -- Haitian villages, Peruvian slums and Russian prisons. That's not to say Farmer is perfect, however. But that's kind of the point. If an average imperfect man can do so much in his lifetime, what are the rest of us waiting for?

"On one visit, in a new empolyee's office, I saw a sign taped to a wall which read, 'If Paul is the model, we're golden.' When you looked closely, though, you saw that the word golden was written on a strip of paper. Lift up the strip and you saw that the original read, 'If Paul is the model, we're fucked.' This was a direct quote from Jim, a characteristically emphatic phrase, which sounded harsher than it was. Jim meant it as a warning to the many young PIH-ers who imagined, as many had and many would, that the right thing to do with their lives was to imitate Paul...'Paul is a model of what should be done. He's not the model for how it has to be done. Let's celebrate him. Let's make sure people are inspired by him. But we can't say anybody should or could be just like him.' He added, 'Because if the poor have to wait for a lot of people like Paul to come along before they get good health care, they are totally fucked.'"

7. Home by Marilynne Robinson

I hate reading prize-winning books and ending with the feeling that I can't figure out what all the hullabaloo was about. It makes me feel like I've missed something in the reading. Unfortunately, this was one of those books for me. Although a good steady reimagining of the parable of the prodigal son, I just didn't get into it. The pacing of the novel was too slow and stilted for me (not a huge fan of novels as character studies, I prefer plots). But on another note, the mention of hymns throughout the book did have me singing to myself all evening.

"'It is an oddly patient beast, my carnal self. I call it Snowflake. For, you know, its intractable whiteness. Among other things. A certain lingering sentiment attaches to it. It reminds me of my youth.'"

8. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

I agree with most people who read this book: it is an important read about the Reconstruction from the perspective of a former African-American slave/now educated orator. While Washington's life story was interesting, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I found most of his sentiments about the men of his time period and the future of his race naively optimistic. That said, however, thos sentiments don't make this any less of a compelling snapshot of history.

"The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly. The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is. When a white boy undertakes a task, it is taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are usually surprised if the Negro boy does not fail. In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him."

9. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

About three pages into this book, I realized I had already read it in high school, but Fitzgerald's flowing lyricism easily convinced me to re-read it. Touted as an example of The Great American Novel, the novel about poor young man James Gatz transforming himself into millionaire man-about-town Jay Gatsby is a relatively quick read filled with vivid imagery that everyone should read.

"He smiled undestandingly -- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced -- or seemed to face -- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished -- and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care."

10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I say this knowing full well I may incur the wrath of more than a few people: I did not like this book. I had high hopes going into it because I'd heard so many great things, but I found the monster to be unsympathetic and whiny (and extremely chatty) and Frankenstein himself was a melodramatic depressed egomaniac.

"'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Cursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God in pity made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid from its very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.'"

11. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

I'm not a science person (I almost failed it twice in college), but this book is a must-read. I was originally going to say it was a must-read for those living with cancer or living on the periphery of cancer, but I think it's a must-read for everyone. Because whether we like it or not, we all live on the periphery of cancer these days. At once realistic and cautiously hopeful, Mukherjee's book is filled with the history of the living entity that is cancer. Throughout this history (a biography as he calls it), the different approcahes to cancer are laid out in simple, easy-to-understand terms. Reading this book leaves you optimistic about the future of cancer research, but with the frank knowledge that there is no "miracle cure" to be found.

"As Doll suggests, and as Atossa epitomizes, we might as well focus on prolonging life rather than eliminating death. This War on Cancer may best be 'won' by redefining victory."

12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

To say I loved this book is putting it mildly. As soon as I finished, I immediately wanted to pick it up and read it again. Huxley's vision of the future where stability is the watchword reminded me of one of my favorite Philip K. Dick short stories "Stability." Maybe that made me predisposed to enjoy his dystopic vision of a world where progress is not merely arrested, but actively discouraged. I greatly enjoyed how the book seemed to equally condemn the seemingly idyllic future of the Controllers and the savages of the reservations. Simply wonderful.

"No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty -- they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?"

13. The Genius Factory by David Plotz

This is one of those books I picked up because my partner and I have been thinking about starting our own family lately. As we research fertility clinics and sperm banks, our thoughts inevitably turn to what type of donor to pick. Will he be smart? Athletic? Artsy? The sad history of the Repository for Germinal Choice (the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank) makes me more wary than before. Although no actual Nobel Prize babies were born during its short history, the Repository did usher in a new age for sperm banks with more donor characteristic choices and stricter sample screening. Good to know that something positive came out of this failed eugenics experiment.

"Graham seduced his targets like a lover. He literally got crushes on them. (He wanted to have their babies.) He arranged meetings as if they were first dates. He dressed to the nines -- immaculate sport jacket, tie, pressed white shirt, black leather belt with a silver 'RKG' buckle. He took them to long dinners -- he was a famously slow eater -- where he flattered them with questions about their work, their life, their families. He studied up on his men -- not merely Nobelists, but even late donors whose achievements were meager -- reading their academic papers, memorizing details from their entry in Who's Who of Emerging Leaders. He didn't use first names; anyone who could conceivably be called 'Doctor,' he called 'Doctor.'"

14. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Although I enjoyed this novel, I found both Pip and Estella to be pretty repulsive characters. I found very few redeeming qualities in either of them despite their supposed "transformations" in the last few chapters. The character I enjoyed the most, however, is Mr. Jagger's clerk Wemmick. The self-styled survivalist (whose home could survive a seige) was warm and engaging throughout the novel. I particularly liked his relationship with his Aged P. which comes off as not only loving but almost bashfully doting.

"Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection."

15. The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

Despite a slow start (the first few chapters are a bit hard to slog through), this is an interesting take on linguistic theory. Arguing that language is a basic human instinct, Pinker illustrates how we are born with an innate capacity for language hardwired into our brains. Although he can become bogged down in linguistic terminology at times, Pinker's use of anecdotes and humorous examples makes the book an enjoyable read.

"As you are reading these words, you are taking part in one of the wonders of the natural world. For you and I belong to a species with a remarkable ability: we can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision. I am not referring to telepathy or mind control or the other obsessions of fringe science; even in the depictions of believers these are blunt instruments compared to an ability that is uncontroversially present in every one of us. That ability is language. Simply by making noises with our mouths, we can reliably cause precise new combinations of ideas to arise in each other's minds. The ability comes so naturally that we are apt to forget what a miracle it is."

16. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

This was my first Atwood novel and I can easily say it won't be my last. Told in short bursts of chapters, I was thoroughly engrossed in the tale of the Chase sisters interwoven with the novel-within-a-novel, The Blind Assassin. I enjoyed the way that the recollections of the elderly Iris didn't romanticize her past or gloss over the realities of her present.

"She writes like an angel, it says of Laura , on the back of one of the editions of The Blind Assassin. An American edition, as I recall, with gold scrollwork on the cover: they set a lot of store by angels in those parts. In point of fact, angels don't write much. They record sins and the names of the damned and the saved, or they appear as disembodied hands and scribble warnings on walls. Or they deliver messages, few of which are good news: God be with you is not an unmixed blessing.
Keeping all this in mind, yes: Laura wrote like an angel. In other words, not very much. But to the point."

17. Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

When I started this book, I considered myself an amateur history buff. I'd taken more than a few classes in college, I like reading books about American and European history, and I love historical films. As I made my way through the chapters, however, I realized how little I actually knew about the history of my own country. Loewen presents 10 chapters of American history that high school textbooks have distorted either by omission or by using a Eurocentric slant that excludes minorities. While his own bias shows through as some points (as a textbook writer who had to fight a court case for his book to be adopted by school systems), Loewen is correct that teaching history as it has always been taught does not engage today's high school student or prepare them for thinking about their own future in relation to our collective past. I can only hope that teachers and administrators read this book and see the changes that need to be made.

"Students will start learning history when they see the point of doing so, when it seems interesting and important to them, and when they believe history might relate to their lives and futures. Students will start finding history interesting when their teachers and textbooks stop lying to them."

Welcome!

18. Flu by Gina Kolata

I'll be honest. The only reason I had even heard about the influenza epidemic of 1918 was because it was featured on a recent episode of Downton Abbey. How could I have never heard of a pandemic that killed (by conservatiive estimates) at least 20 million people? Kolata presents a thoroughly researched and well-written account of scientists efforts to track and find the root of the deadly flu epidemic. Even for those us with no direct tie to the wave of deaths, it is a great read for those interested in epidemiology.

"Crosby calls the 1918 flu 'America's forgotten pandemic,' noting: 'The important and almost incomprehensible fact about the Spanish flu is that it killed millions upon millions of people in a year or less. Nothing else -- no infection, no war, no famine -- has ever killed so many in as short a period. And yet it has never inspired awe, not in 1918 and not since, not among the citizens of any particular land and not among the citizens of the United States.'"

19. Snow by Orhan Pamuk

I did not like this book. There was just something about the main character, Ka, that rubbed me the wrong way. I think maybe it was his naivete and selfishness in the midst of a revolution between militant secularists and zealous Islamists. His attitude completely negated any tension the author/narrator tried to set up. I know Pamuk won a Nobel Prize in Literature, but I really would not want to read another of his novels...especially if it's similar to this one.

"'There are two kinds of men,' said Ka, in a didactic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until he's seen how the girl eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she's angry at her father, and what sorts of stories people tell about her. The second type of man -- and I am in this category -- can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her.'"

20. The Information Diet by Clay A. Johnson

It may be my own prejudices showing, but I find it hard to trust facts in a book supported only by footnotes containing websites...especially in a book telling me that the Internet is full of bias information reporting. I'm also not so sure I trust some of the figures given. For example: "As of 2008, according to the UCSD, we were consuming 11.8 hours of information per day per person while we're not at work." Now assuming that the average person works between 7 to 8 hours per day and we are supposedly consuming another 11.8 hours of information independent of that, that leaves us approximately 4 or 5 hours to sleep. I'm just not sure those are accurate figures. It doesn't seem to add up to me. The book also contained several charts that were obviously meant to be rendered in color (although the book was not) which made the various shades of gray impossible to distinguish between.

"When we start looking at information consumption through the lens of a diet and take responsibility for the information we're consuming, things start to get really frightening. Poor information diets and poor filters are responsible for really atrocious things and have horrible social effects that are, as history suggests, as deadly as the worst of our diseases."

21. Foundation by Isaac Asimov

It's not really surprising to me that I loved this book. Science fiction has always been a passion of mine and Asmiov is one of the greats. The story is told in five parts (with a significant time lapse between the parts). Set at the ending of the great Empire that has reigned for 12,000 years, psychohistorian Hari Seldon manuevers to start his own society (under somewhat false pretenses) for the eventual rebuilding of a second Empire based on new ideals. As time passes and crises are faced, the Foundation (Seldon's society) changes its approach to situations with respect to knowledge, government, religion and commerce. Foundation's a must-read for sci-fi fans (along with its 2 sequels and 2 prequels).

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

22. Straphanger by Taras Grescoe

I've lived my entire life either in suburbs or in small towns. I've never felt the urge to move to the city...until now. Reading this book makes me want to move to Copenhagen where 37% of residents commute to work by bicycle. I want to move to Tokyo with its ultra-efficient trains (even if they are really crowded). I want to live in Moscow and spend time in the beautifully decorated underground stations. Or maybe I'll just stay where I am and try to make the U.S. a little better by giving up my car and finding alternate ways around. Whichever I choose, I know that I can look back on this book as my inspiration.

"Sometimes, the best way to get to a better place is to make the place you are in just a little bit better."

23. Kim by Rudyard Kipling

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I liked the first 2/3 where we get the story of Kim's childhood. I enjoyed the way Kipling showed how Kim was a boy of two worlds (white and Indian), but fully belonging to neither. I think Kipling resolved this issue well by having the boy straddle both worlds and utilizing all of his skills as a member of British Intelligence. What I did not enjoy was the ending. I found it quite contrived, but I guess that is kind of a sign of the times it was written in.

“'I have seen something of this world,' she said over the trays, 'and there are but two sorts of women in it-- those who take the strength out of a man, and those who put it back. Once I was that one, and now I am this.'”

24. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

This was a book my partner has been trying to get me to read for some time now. She received the book from her company's CEO who was trying to jumpstart his employees ways of thinking about their company. After reading this book, I can't help but think that Gladwell would appreciate how this book came into my hands. I found his ideas about how trends and epidemics start and spread fascinating. When I stopped to think about examples in my own life, it was eerie to me how easily they fit into the patterns he talks about. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand how and why some ideas spread and others don't.

"The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”