Book Review Club for October

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@Barrie Summy

Gotta love a man who buys you research books. This one was one of my birthday presents from Rob, who watched me struggling to read one physics book after another (okay, actually it was only two) over the summer. This one actually was fun. Who can argue with nanobots?

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Physics of the Future:
How Science Will Shape Our Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
By Michio Kaku
2011, Doubleday

Michio Kaku has an entertaining life. When he can spare time from being a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, he hosts a Science Channel show and two radio programs, as well as writing book after book after book trying to make the rest of us understand how modern science affects us and our future.

Researching this one, he traveled around having cool and useful experiences: Matching wits with a robot here, riding in a self-piloted sports car there. He interviewed some three hundred scientists.

The guy helped found string field theory, and yet he has the common touch. He built an atom smasher in his garage in high school, blowing out every fuse in the house whenever he turned it on. At the same time he credits Flash Gordon with awakening his interest in science and the world of the future. He quotes Einstein on one page and Data the Star Trek android on the next. He’s fun to read; one suspects he’d be even more fun as a dinner companion.

The best thing about this book is the way it’s organized. Eight chapters are devoted to individual “futures”: those of the computer, artificial intelligence, medicine, nanotechnology, energy, space travel, wealth, and humanity. Each chapter has a section on “the near future” (the present to 2030), mid-century (2030-2070), and the far future (2070-2100). This drives home the point that, in many disciplines, humanity has already planted the seeds for a Jetson-like future existence in which our houses respond to voice commands and we drive to work in self-piloted hover-cars.

It all seems so plausible. And, in places, unsettling. Take internet contact lenses, for example. Already, combat forces can train on base by putting on a helmet that projects battlefield images over the existing terrain. It’s not that much of a leap to contact lenses equipped with computer chips that would enable you to surf the net or turn on a movie just by blinking your eye.

As someone regularly called upon to swear at her computer, I can imagine nothing more unsettling. Imagine: At a business lunch with your boss, you have a glass of wine and forget how to blink right. Just as your boss is confiding top-secret corporate strategy, all of a sudden Ralph Fiennes appears before you dressed as Lord Voldemort. That’s the sort of thing that makes a person choke on her chef salad.

The book’s last chapter envisions a typical morning in 2100, from the moment when a computer program named Molly projects its friendly face on the wall screen to wake you and send you into the bathroom to brush your teeth and have your daily molecular analysis, searching for potential disease.

Will the predictions come true? Maybe not. Kaku points out that, in 1964, At&T spent $100 million perfecting a TV screen for telephones, of which they sold a grand total of a hundred. He blames the Cave Man (or Cave Woman) Principle: Our wants, needs, and desires haven’t changed in 100,000 years. If there’s a conflict between new technology and our Cave Man instincts, technology will lose.

Just as our ancestors demanded that a successful hunter provide “proof of the kill” (a hunk of dead animal), we demand hard copy instead of trusting a bunch of electrons. That’s why computers have not resulted in the much-predicted “paperless office.”

Years ago, I freelanced from an attic apartment in Providence, RI, where summertime heat and humidity can be brutal. Interviewing a corporate executive on a sweaty day, I was grateful he or she couldn’t see what I was wearing—or, more accurately, not wearing. My cave woman instincts definitely would not have embraced a picture-phone.

A self-piloted sports car, though. Cool.

A Nip in the Air

It's been an exciting week at Castle Ne'er-do'well. I got a Kindle. The dog had surgery. The air is full of revving-up noises from the October 1 Bangor Book Festival. It's frikkin' freezing out, although six months ago this would have felt warm. I have tomatoes, zucchini, and blackberries in the freezer.

The Kindle is a cunnin' little thing, despite my Luddite tendencies. I got it because I'll be traveling a bit and also I'd like to read my manuscripts without sitting at the computer or manhandling a largish stack of paper on the dining room table. Supposedly you can take notes on stuff you're reading. We'll see how useful that turns out to be. But my goodness, aren't they trying hard to be clever? I was impressed right off by the fact that the USB connection nestles into the power adapter.

The dog, one Calamity Jane Booraem-Shillady, is gray around the muzzle and developing noncancerous fatty tumors in various spots (one of them unmentionable in polite society and undoing a decade of "sit" training). Thursday morning, when Rob was away canoing (naturally--heaven forbid this should happen with a full staff), I discovered that dear Callie had chewed off the bottom fifth of the tumor on her front right ankle. I disinfected it and wrapped it up, but by afternoon it was still bleeding and I was on the phone to the vet. Upshot: It was infected and growing too much.Yesterday morning, the little dear had $700 worth of surgery. Now she has a classy-looking bandage, a dazed expression, and one of those Elizabethan cone things to keep her from chewing at her stitches. Also an impoverished household.

TMI ALERT (skip this if squeamish): The little dear also has a grass-eating fetish, which would be fine if she just threw it up immediately or passed it along through like a normal dog. But no. Our choices are 1) she keeps it fermenting in her gut for three or four weeks, then throws it up at 3 a.m. on the floor at the foot of our bed, where it smells like Death on Eggs, or 2) she gets a blockage and has to visit the emergency room. When I took her in for surgery yesterday, I mentioned that she hadn't pooped for 24 hours. "Hmm," said the vet. And, sure enough, when he'd finished removing her tumor he also extracted a plug of grass from the relevant oriface. Another 24 hours and she would have been writhing in pain, so that's the silver lining to this cloudy tale. END OF TMI.

The Bangor Book Festival takes place September 30 and October 1. (The Maine Edge, an alternative paper, is interviewing the authors involved. Here's my interview.)  I'll be talking about character development and doing a reading/discussion for teens with Carrie Jones. The festival will be in various venues this year, as I understand it--public library, children's museum, perhaps others. More information will be forthcoming, but definitely mark your calendar...just look at that list of authors!

I conclude with pix of my favorite season-changing event: The Blue Hill Fair, which takes place on Labor Day Weekend. I tended the county Democrats' booth in the morning and ate french fries and watched sheepdog trials and livestock shows in the afternoon. Bliss.





A couple of farm kids leave the show ring with their charges. Behind them, the judge awaits the next group.

 

A sheepdog drives his charges through a gate. One sheepdog (not sure it was this one) got a perfect score, which involved sending a flock of sheep through two or three gates, across a bridge, and into a pen, as well as clockwise and counter clockwise around the show ring.



What every writer (and teacher and parent and human being) loves to see.



September Book Review Club

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@Barrie Summy

I’m a day late (and I’m always a dollar short, so that’s nothing new). Thanks to Labor Day and the sudden drop in summertime scheduling, I got this week thoroughly fouled up and thought yesterday was Tuesday. Today, oddly, feels like Friday, possibly because it’s raining for the third day in a row. Hmmm … curl up with a good book?

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Wicked Appetite
By Janet Evanovich
St. Martin’s Press, 2010

There are times when only a Janet Evanovich will do, and a rainy Maine day usually is one of them. She’s written so many of her signature comedy-romance-thrillers—almost forty, at last count—that if you haven’t tripped over one of them already you will soon. And when that day comes you’d be well advised to stay right there on the floor and start reading.

Don’t start with this one, though.

It could be that I’m over-Evanoviched, so familiar with her formula that I’ve finally gone sour on her. Or maybe, as I thought when I read WICKED APPETITE a week or so ago, she’s reached the too-familiar stage when she’s so hot that nobody edits her anymore. (Not at all familiar to me, obviously. But Neil Gaiman commented a while back that editors aren’t as likely to challenge him now that he’s a hotshot, so he’s under more pressure to do his own quality-control.)

I cut my Evanovich teeth on the numbered Stephanie Plum novels, starting with ONE FOR THE MONEY. As of November, they’re up to EXPLOSIVE EIGHTEEN. It was always fun revisiting hapless New Jersey bounty-hunter Plum, her sidekick Lula the ex-hooker, her nutty Grandma Mazur, and her TWO love interests, Morelli the cop and Ranger the mysterious high-tech security consultant. The books are hysterical in places, sexy in others, with a comfortable level of nail-biting. Nevertheless, somewhere around ELEVEN ON TOP I stopped salivating and started just picking them up sporadically whenever I tripped over them. As I said, that’s easy to do—they’re everywhere.

Apparently there are a few unnumbered Stephanie Plums, with titles such as PLUM SPOOKY and PLUM LUCKY, and apparently they have a supernatural element. This book—a birthday present because it’s set in my old stomping grounds near Boston—is the start of a new series in which a couple of Stephanie’s unnumbered otherworldly friends harass a brand-new protagonist, uber-baker Lizzy Tucker. Also migrating from New Jersey is a highly intelligent monkey who keeps farting and giving people the finger.

It’s a quick read with lots of laughs and steamily delayed sexual gratification, Evanovich’s stock in trade. The supernatural plot is silly and sometimes too obviously engineered for comedy, but that I can forgive, even enjoy. The finale, however, is a wet firecracker, with the real conclusion clearly to come in later books. This is something new—as I recall, the Plum books always came to a satisfying conclusion—and struck me as cynical and slap-dash. Thinking about it now makes me sad and kind of tired.

I have to say, though, that a friend of mine read this one a few months back and saw nothing wrong with it. Maybe I am Evanoviched out. That really would be sad.

Gaaaah! Book Review!

I JUST this minute realized that today's Wednesday, not Tuesday. And I was supposed to post my September book review THIS MORNING.

I am an idiot. See you tomorrow, Book Review Club. *slinks into corner, weeping.*

Science, and an Apology to Vermont

Well, I suppose I feel pretty proud of myself, don't I?

Science has proven that you will suffer an extended power outage under one or more of the following circumstances: 1. You haven't showered in two days; 2. You have a sink full of dishes; 3. The bathroom is a pit of iniquity. So it was that I spent the 24 hours before Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene showering, cleaning the bathroom, and washing every dish and teaspoon before it hit the sink. I also vacuumed.

Also, Rob moved the cars into the back yard next to the house. (To avoid this.)

I picked all the flowers in my garden, arranged some in vases, gave the rest to a neighbor.

I moved all the plants inside from the deck.

For something to do rather than fidget, I re-filled about half of the emergency water bottles in the cellar with fresh water.

As a natural and scientifically proven result, Irene moved west and whupped the tar out of Vermont. We had a little wind, less rain, and asix-hour power outage (child's play around here).

Again, I deeply apologize to the people of Vermont.

Further Scientific Fact:

If someone has planned a surprise birthday party for you, that will be the night you exercise-bike yourself into a sweat and opt not to take a shower afterwards because dinner's ready. You will also have laundry drying on racks all over the living room.

And so, two nights before I was scientifically scheduled to turn sixty, Rob leaped up in the middle of the Nightly News and said brusquely, "I'd get the laundry upstairs if I were you. That's all I'm saying." He then walked out the front door into the night.  I followed, and discovered twenty-five or thirty people standing in the front yard, each holding a cupcake.

I swore in hospitable fashion and ran inside to haul the laundry racks upstairs.

Turned out Rob had hand-delivered invitations to everyone, instructing them to show up with one cupcake apiece. (So that's why the morning coffee run kept taking so long. I thought he might be having an affair.) Here's most of them:

One pair was equipped with sparklers, so Rob lighted them out on the porch.

I looked like utter crap. I was, however, very happy. Here I'm holding one of two T-shirts our neighbors Lisa and Peg made for the occasion. Rob (seen frantically unearthing snacks) is wearing the other. They say, "Our favorite small person with wings is 60." 

Lisa and Peg also made cookies to top their cupcake entries, featuring a frog dressed in panoply. You have to read SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS to understand that, ditto the fact that there are a few Tampax-shaped cookies in there.

Lisa and Peg also made this video. They do not believe in half-measures when it comes to celebrations.

Yeah, Well, It's August

This isn't the worst blog hiatus I've suffered, nor will it be the last. I probably should just announce that August in Maine is a blog-free month, because it always has been and probably always will be.

As usual, the month started with the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta on the sixth. As usual, Rob and I joined our kayaking friends on Hog Island. Not at all as usual, we did not have the island to ourselves--apparently word has gotten out that this is the best possible vantage point for the race if you're not on a boat. (I suppose I shouldn't be telling you that. *Waves wand.* Obliviate!) The place was packed, although fortunately most of the invaders decided to stay down on the beach rather than joining us up on the ledge, which is less comfortable but more spectacular. (We always go for spectacular discomfort.)

Despite the (relative) crowds, it was a lovely day. The fog lifted, the breeze blew, although it came up a bit later than the race committee wanted, so the start was delayed by what was officially a half hour but felt like at least an hour. We'd already scarfed down our sandwiches and gorp and brownies--we like our spectacular discomfort to be as cholesterol-laden as possible--by the time the first boats scudded by.

We left before the race came back, mostly because the tide came up and there were people sitting where we normally would beach the kayaks. We had them (the kayaks, not the people) moored to a rock instead, so they were bouncing around and crashing a bit more than even plastic boats like to bounce around and crash.

The early departure turned out to be fortunate, because by the time we'd paddled to the other side of the island the tide had almost marooned our friends Peter and Marcia and their dog, Honey. (Well, not really marooned -- they would have been fine without us if perhaps slightly wetter.)

Peter and Marcia had beached their boat on the eastern shore of the island and trekked across to join us on the ledge. They trekked back across to find that they'd have to wade out to the boat and climb in from the rocks, which might have been a bit teetery. Rob put on his blue tights and billowing red cape and helped Peter haul the sailboat around to a rapidly diminishing spit of sand where everyone could board comfortably, then hauled them out to where the water was deep enough to start the motor.

Herewith, the photographic journal:

Peg, Lisa, Rob and a new acquaintance cool their heels on our Hog Island ledge, waiting for the race to begin. You can just barely see the fleet to-ing and fro-ing in the center distance.






At long last the race filters past, some huge motoryacht steaming along right in the middle of the fleet. We christened the yacht the SS Honeybadger, after the nervy fellow in this YouTube video. (Yes, I know, this is not the most famous or funniest version, nor is it the one we really meant.  But I write kids' books and I chickened out. If you MUST find the funny voice-over one, it's in YouTube's sidebar to this one.)

  

Another, less honeybadgerish approach to spectating.





The daring rescue at sea: Rob hauling Peter and Marcia's sailboat around to the sandy side of a little rocky islet. Peter is out of frame, on the islet hauling on the bowline.

 

Under the baffled eye of Honey the dog (no relation to the badger), Marcia and Peter climb aboard ...







... and Rob hauls them out to deeper water.

I'm out of time, so the rest of August will have to wait. Meanwhile...

The writing report: I'm in this weird almost-writing-but-still-researching stage on the next book while waiting for my editorial letter on CONOR'S BANSHEE. This very day I got the idea that is starting to make the new book work, and is getting me excited about writing it.  Then I went kayaking, because kayaking buddies Lisa and Peg are about to go home to Minnesota and we had to get one more in. Hey, it's August.

The knitting report: Got the yarn for a cotton-blend sweater, and it could be very cool. Before Lisa leaves, she has to translate the directions for the sleeves. And then let the torment begin.

Book Review Club: August

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@Barrie Summy

Okay, this one's a little friendlier to the beach reader than my last one was. It's a hoot, plus it's old enough to be out in paperback. Don't forget to click the icon for more reviews!

The Wordy Shipmates
By Sarah Vowell
Riverhead Books, 2008

When we think somebody’s a totally repressed killjoy, we call him a Puritan. Sarah Vowell would like this to stop.

Not that the Puritans were a barrel of laughs—especially those who came to New England in the early 1600s. (You couldn’t be a comedian and still lead a religiously triggered invasion of somebody’s homeland.) But they were a lot more complicated than popular history leads us to believe.

For a start, they didn’t call themselves Puritans—other people did, mostly decades or centuries past their seventeenth century heyday. They often called themselves “the godly”—as distinct from their arch-enemies, the Catholics and, for some, the Church of England.

Also, they weren’t a homogeneous group. Some of them still belonged to the C of E but wanted to purify it. Others thought anyone who stuck with the C of E was the spawn of Satan. (Or, possibly, of satin.)

Also, they didn’t mind sex, as long as it was sanctified by marriage vows.

Sarah Vowell has made a career out of reinterpreting history through the eyes of a non-historian. A former, long-time contributing editor for the public radio show “This American Life,” she has written six books that dance from history to social commentary to travelogue. This was her fifth, and the only one I’ve read. I’ll probably let some time pass before I read another, but I’m very glad I found this one.

Vowell’s tale this time is of the Puritan colonization of New England between 1630, when the Massachusetts Bay colonists arrived, and 1692, when Salem got crazy about witches. Her chief characters are John Winthrop, the colony’s first governor, and the colony’s first major outcasts, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson.

Williams believed in religious freedom and thought the English king had no right to give away Indian land, but unfortunately was such a wack-job that his views had no effect. His only recourse was to leave and found Rhode Island. Hutchinson, banished for making a theological left turn while female, moved her family to Rhode Island en route to New Netherland, where she and most of her family ended up dying in an Indian war.

There are no chapters in this book—it’s essentially a long essay with pauses—and Vowell regularly leaps over the centuries to link the colonists’ behavior with ours. She brings in Abu Ghraib, Ronald Reagan, even “The Brady Bunch.” Anecdotes from her own life (her Pentacostal upbringing for example) illuminate the Puritans’ story, particularly when she describes her tours of the Puritans’ stamping ground.

Just after reading about the English settlers’ truly brutal attack on a Peguot fort in 1637, we watch Vowell’s horrified seven-year-old nephew contend with a museum documentary on the subject. He has to close his eyes. “When do they have Thanksgiving?” he wants to know. This is one of many points during the book when Vowell gets emotional—sometimes admiring, usually angry. The book is strongest at those points.

This is a gutsy and illuminating approach to history, offered in a wry tone that often had me laughing out loud. I lost the sequence of events at times, but you can get that elsewhere.

That tone, however, is troublesome. Vowell can’t resist a one-liner, and her snarkiness started to get old for me halfway through the book. Since I’m usually a push-over for snark and one-liners (see the “satin” comment above), I couldn’t decide whether she was trying too hard or just needed one more close edit.

That’s why I’ll take a rest before moving on to her latest, UNFAMILIAR FISHES. It’s about the Americans in Hawaii, and I bet it’s a corker.

Dear FCC: I took this book out of the library.