Don Quixote. Yea. Don Quixote. It’s been on the reading list a long time. But not always. Despite how famous Don Quixote is — a pillar of western literature and the first modern novel — I kept putting off reading it. I think it was because I had to read a part of it in Spanish when I was in school. And Spanish class was like a little taste of hell in the purgatory of high school.

Don Quixote reentered my sphere of consciousness in 2005, on the 500th anniversary of it’s publication. It took a few more years for me to get around to buying it in 2007. Then it sat around for over a year, staring at me every time I walked by the bookshelf. Then, once I did get started, I was reading it for almost two years. I started reading it in 2008 when I took time off for my daughters birth. And I just finished the last 200 pages on a 30 hour air trip to the US. I wonder how long it would have been if I didn’t have to make such a long trip?

I enjoyed Don Quixote despite the long struggle to actually get it read. Don Quixote and Sanho Panza, is squire are memorable characters. Over all the story is good, it’s just not something I can read quickly, at least not if I want to actually understand what it is I’m reading. The language doesn’t flow, I suspect a lot of that has to do with being translated and written in a colloquial form from a time half a millennium ago. There were a lot of footnotes about changing meanings and wordplay in the original that doesn’t translate.

On thing that put me off early on in reading was the windmill scene. Everybody knows about the windmills; it’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Don Quixote. But then, the whole episode is about a page, and it’s really early on in the story. It’s like the having the climax of the novel at the beginning of the story.

But after a long struggle to get through the later half of the first part the story picked up again. The second part, where Don Quixote‘s fame becomes the main foil, as people start to play with is madness and Sancho’s gullibility, was more fun to read than most of the first part. If Cervantes was prompted into writing the second part because of the less-than-good “false Quixote” that someone else published after the first part proved successful, then the author of the false Quixote did the world a favor. I doubt Don Quixote would be half as famous if it stopped at the end of the second sally. The third sally, which comprises the second part, is the best. Except for maybe the windmills.

I enjoyed The Sun Also Rises but I can’t really can’t point to any one feature of the book that made it outstanding. It’s more of a gestalt feeling that raises The Sun Also Rises above any number of other books with similar stories to tell. The book is well written and justly famous for Ernest Hemingway’s clear and concise prose. The greatness of the plot is harder to pin down.

I think the most important characteristic of The Sun Also Rises is empathy. I was drawn in because I found myself empathizing with the characters on two sides of the love triangle (more like a hexagon) that is at the center of the book. I have, at various times, played the role of ‘best friend who will never be a lover’ and the lost puppy being lead around, ultimately to be left behind when something new comes along. All of the characters in the love triangle are archetypal caricatures that most of us can relate to, at least most of us who have felt the bitter sweetness of love.

I did notice that while The Sun Also Rises is famous for it’s depiction of bull fights and the running of the bulls in Pamplona these events are only briefly described and are almost not described. It reminds me of how famous the white whale of Moby Dick [confusion.cc] is despite the fact that the whale manages to appear on only a few pages of the novel.

I think I missed the meaning of The Catcher in the Rye by about 15 years. While it was not a bad book, at 30 it was not a great book either. The whining, mad at the world, fuck off attitude of Holden would have fit better in my world view when I was a freshman or junior in high school.

How The Catcher in the Rye slipped through my reading list in high school is not something I can comment on. We should have read this book, assuming it was not banned for using naughty words. Maybe the teachers thought it would make us more rebellious.

Anyway, Catcher is a coming of age book, and I think (looking back from closer to mid-life crisis) it is good at being a coming of age book. Too bad I did not read it when I was that age.

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce — Been there, done that. Hated it. [confusion.cc]
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald — Read it in school, liked it, should read it again.
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce — Never read it, one Joycean adventure was enough for me up to now.
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov — Beautiful, disturbing, disgusting. In the end, the language is a greater force than the objectionable plot elements. A good book.
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley — Way to prophetic to be comfortable reading.
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner — Liked it, need to read it again to understand it I think.
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller — Yossarian Lives! [confusion.cc]
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler — Never heard of it.
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence — Not yet.
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck — Another school book, ignored it before I heard Rage Against the Machine’s version of The Ghost of Tom Joad [wikipedia.org]. Then I went back and re-read it and like it. Not my favorite but a good book.
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry — Never heard of it.
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler — Never read it.
13. 1984 by George Orwell — Orwell was wrong… but only about the year. Should be required reading for all British MPs.
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves — This one scares me, have not got around to reading it.
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf — Nope.
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser — Never heard of it.
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers — Nope.
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut — I didn’t think this was a good book. Maybe I was too old when I read it.
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison — Amazing. [confusion.cc] One of my favorite books.
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright — Nope.
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow — Counting Crows make me want to read this… have not done it yet.
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara — Never heard of it.
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos — Scares me.
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson — Nope.
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster — Not yet.
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James — Another miss.
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James — And another.
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald — Nope.
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell — Nope.
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford — Nope.
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell — Of course, some are more equal than others.
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James — Not yet.
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser — Never heard of it.
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh — Nope.
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner — Not yet.
36. ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren — Nope.
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder — Not yet.
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster — Didn’t even see the movie.
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin — Nope.
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene — Nope.
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding — I like this the first time, found it a bit wanting on the re-read.
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey — Does the movie count?
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell — Nope.
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley — Nope.
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway — This one is sitting on my bookshelf even now (maybe when I finish Don Quixote…)
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad — Nope.
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad — Nope.
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence — Nope.
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence — Nope.
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller — Nope.
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer — Nope.
52. PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth — Nope.
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov — Nope, heard it was too much like Lolita.
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner — Not yet.
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac — Never liked the beats, skipped it.
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett — Nope. Never saw the movie either.
57. PARADE’S END by Ford Madox Ford — Nope.
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton — Nope.
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm — Nope.
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy — Nope.
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather — Nope.
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones — Nope.
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever — Nope.
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger — I did not understand this book. I put it down to reading it at age 30…
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess — Nope.
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham — Nope.
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad — I started this one. Got lost, maybe not a book for a 17 year old. Saw Apocalypse Now.
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis — Not yet.
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton — Never heard of it.
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell — Never heard of it. (But what’s with all the trilogies and quartets, is length an automatic in for this list?)
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes — Nope.
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul — Nope.
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West — Nope.
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway — Not yet.
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh — Nope.
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark — Never heard of it.
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce — Spare me. It took him 14 years to write it and he expects me to spend 14 years trying to understand him. I’ll skip it.
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling — Nope. But I did read The English Patient.
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster — Nope.
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh — Nope.
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow — Never heard of it.
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner — Never heard of it.
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul — Nope.
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen — Nope.
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad — Only excerpts in school.
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow — Nope.
87. THE OLD WIVES’ TALE by Arnold Bennett — Nope.
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London — When I was like 14.
89. LOVING by Henry Green — Nope.
90. MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie — No, most of his other books but not this one. Will have to fix that.
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell — Nope.
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy — Nope.
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles — Nope.
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys — Nope.
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch — Nope.
96. SOPHIE’S CHOICE by William Styron — In high school. Forgot it all after the test.
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles — Never heard of it.
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain — Nope.
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy — Nope.
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington — Never heard of it.

That’s like 15 out of 100… not so good. Will have to fix that someday.

The God Delusion is a good book. It is a bit too hostile for me at some points but Richard Dawkins [wikipedia.org] spends a chapter of the book on why he is so hostile and his position is well thought out and researched (the opposite of religion, which is what he is arguing against)

Being an Atheist I agree with almost everything Dawkins says in the book, even if some of his conclusions make me uncomfortable. Mostly I feel uncomfortable with is idea that society and we as individuals should not respect others religion and religious customs. His logic as to why we should not respect others religious beliefs and practices and his evidence to support this is convincing to me but I have a lot of good friends who have various religious beliefs and I don’t find it hard or inconvenient to respect those beliefs.

I think there are two reasons I am uncomfortable with this central point made by Dawkins in the book:

One is that I am non-confrontational in nature (people who I disagree with at work might find this a shock but work it is true.) I respect other peoples irrational beliefs just as I respect other peoples sexual practices (in so far as they don’t harm other, unwilling people, like children or non-consenting adults.)

My second objection to Dawkins’ lack of respect of peoples religion is that as a vegetarian I want others to respect my choice not to eat meat and not to use leather or other animal products. I am happy to debate this point with others, but I don’t want to force my beliefs on others. I prefer Ghandi’s ideal that ‘you must be the change you wish to see in the world.’

Dawkins does point out that (western, liberal) society has a special ‘respect’ for religion outside of how it deals with other personal choices and that this is wrong because many of the choices people are vocally disrespectful of they disagree with because of their religious choice. We allow these people their ravings not because of our belief in free speech but because of our belief that it is automatically wrong to criticize a religious belief. This point, backed up by examples in the book makes it difficult to disagree with the idea we should challenge and be hostile to religious belief. This all scares me that there is some sort of Secular Inquisition or Anti-religious Revolution (descended from the French Revolution) foreshadowed in Dawkins’s book. If the western, liberal world embraces Dawkins’s ideas there will be no debating a clash of civilizations. It would be a fact of dealing with any group that defined itself by it’s religion.

I learned a good deal from the book and found it well written and engaging. The fact that the conclusions make me uncomfortable does not imply the book has a problem but that I need to consider my own stance more so I can be comfortable either agreeing or disagreeing. A good book that should be read by a great number or people both those inclined to agree and those who reject it’s basic assumptions outright.

I picked up Joseph Stiglitz book in the same purchase I got Naomi Klien’s No Logo and Peter Singer’s One World. Obviously there is an interest in globalization in that recipe. I’ve been reading The Economist [economist.com] for some years and been mildly informed on globalization and the backlash against it evident in the protests against the IMF, World Bank, G7/G8, WTO and other multinational bodies associated with it. I didn’t really develop an interest in globalization until I read The Best Democracy Money can Buy by Greg Palast.

Palast’s book wet my appetite but Stiglitz, who was President Clinton’s economic adviser before joining the World Bank, really lays on the blame. He places most of the blame for the Asian Financial Crisis, the Russian collapse, and Argentina’s Defaulting, on the IMF. More specifically he claims that a shift away from the Keynesian ideas that the IMF and World Bank were founded on is to blame. What caused the shift? The introduction of Thatcherism and Ragantonian ideals, the ousting of experienced economist and the promotion of free market fundamentalist at the IMF.

To support his accusations Stiglitz roams around the globe from one crisis to another pointing out the faults in the blind, ideological, one-size-fits-all prescriptions the IMF doled out to country after country in the past 25 years. Time and again the IMF’s blind belief in the Market becomes a vehicle for greed and capitalist hegemony. To back up the point that the IMF refused to learn from it’s mistakes and the experience of others Stiglitz points out several countries that refused to follow the IMF plan, and shows that while their development has not been as smooth as could be desired and they have not developed as fast as the IMF says they could, they have avoided the painful problems of many of the IMFs poster child countries: Thailand, Argentina, Russia. And stand better today than many of the countries who followed the IMF plans.

I found the section of the Asian Financial Crisis the most poignant because shortly after I finished the book I traveled to Bangkok, the epicenter of the crisis. The problems that began in Bangkok when Thailand opened it’s market to ‘hot money‘ [wikipedia.org] are always recalled as something that happened ‘over night.’ How true those statements are really became apparent when I was in Bangkok. The skyline is filled with half completed skyscrapers and rusting cranes that have sat empty since 1997. Many construction sights literal closed the doors one night and never opened them again, putting hundreds of workers on the street over night.

After nearly a decade Bangkok is just beginning to recover from it’s nightmare. If Stiglitz is to be believed the IMF leadership, which shares a large part of the blame because it pushed questionable policies faster than was advisable and without tailoring them for local conditions, has not learned its lesson. Stiglitz acknowledges that the goals of the IMF, the goals of Globalization, are not inherently bad, and need not lead to the problems that we have seen. Rather it is the way the IMF uses it’s political power and money to force these ideas on countries that are not ready for them that has lead to so much suffering and poverty.

Globalization is not a new movement, it is the as old as civilization. It is the force that sent caravans down the Silk Road and the wind that launched the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria across the Atlantic. The goal now should be to move forward in a way that does not destroy entire societies so that a few rich people can get richer. Modern globalization was sold to the world as a way to bring the worlds poor into a better world. It has, to a large extent, made many of their lives worse while being hijacked to make the rich richer.

Animal Liberation is credited with launching the animal rights movement in the industrialized world when it was first published in 1975 by the then relatively unknown, Peter Singer [wikipedia.org]. You can blame all of the illogical stupidity of PETA [peta.org] on this book. But PETA’s antics tend to blind people to any logical discussion of the real points in Animal Liberation. Singer does not support the animal rights movement epitomized by PETA but holds many of the same views, referred to as speciesism [wikipedia.org], based on a logical examination of the practices of the industrialized societies in their use of animals. The examination is based on Utilitarian morals and ethics and you have to read the book with that frame of mind, even if you don’t agree you have to be open to utilitarian ideas, to understand some of what Singer is talking about.

Most people in the industrial world are far removed from how their food is produced and how their beauty products or drugs are tested and approved. This blinds many people to the true magnitude of the use of animals in sustaining or modern standard of living. Animal liberation strips off the blinders and exposes the realities of our system of animal exploitation. Animal Liberation is an academic book on ethics but is also in-your-face and readable.

I first read Animal Liberation when I worked in the fish store back in C’ville. One of our regular customers was a post-doc biologist at the university. She came in one day to buy 100 Zebra Danios to be used in an experiment. I’m not sure now what the exact nature of the experiment was but Jason argued with her and said he would not sell them to her if she was going to ‘cut their heads open and stick electrodes in their brains.’ Jason continues to argue by asking her ‘have you even read Animal Liberation?’ to which she responded, ‘yes, have you?’ The only thing Jason could say was, ‘um. No, actually.’

Even though Jason, John and myself had, for a time, been vegetarian neither Jason or I had read Animal Liberation yet and I’m not sure if John had finished it yet. We’d become vegetarians based on discussion of the principles in Animal Liberation with several of our customers and friends, including a ethics teacher at the university. This was when I picked up my first copy of the book, figuring that I could not speak intelligently about the decision I had made, could not even justify the decision unless I had actually read the book. I’m glad it was Jason and not me that got caught on the soap box without being prepared.

If it’s hard to imagine going vegetarian or vegan read Animal Liberation and then think about it. It’s hard for anyone I’ve meet to read Animal Liberation and not change their lifestyle in some way. Not everyone goes vegetarian or vegan but they all change some, the arguments are compelling and the images and examples of humans use of non-humans are graphic and disturbing.

I first read Dune one summer sitting in an old arm chair in the basement of my grandparents house in rural Minnesota. I found a copy of Dune on the book shelf next to Louis Lamour western and Readers Digest Condensed Books when I was 14 or so. A battered musty original print run version that had belonged to my uncle. I read it in 3 days sitting in the basement in a chair that is probably older than me.

I still have that copy of Dune — it’s held together by a strip of Duck Tape along the spine. Has that lovely quality of curling into the palm of your hand naturally when you read it but still manages to close flat. The well used nature was hard won by repeated readings over the years.

I think I have read Dune 10 times, give or take. I read it in high school on the bus. I read it in college late at night and in the student union. I read it on planes on my way to business meetings. I keep reading it because it blew my mind the first time.

There are so many interweaving topics in Dune: It deals in ecology, psychology, philosophy, politics, physics, and a myriad of other subjects. Most good Sci-Fi and Fantasy books have politics and religion but only at a very shallow level. A ‘look, back-story! Now over here…’ level. Frank Herbert weaves them into the core of the story in a mostly coherent way that is missing from most Sci-Fi and Fantasy, J. R. R. Tolkien excepted..

Maybe it appeals to me because I like complected, epic stories. I know that each time I re-read Dune it looses a bit of it’s magic. The story is not high fiction and it doesn’t grow up like I do. But it’s still a good story, and one of my favorite. Dune is one of the books I would want with me if I was lost on an island or, lost in space.

Practical Ethics is the one book I know that can, without fail start a heated argument in any company. You just open to any page read a paragraph out loud. Instant debate.

Peter Singer makes a habit of bait-and-switching the reader. Starting with what (usually) sound like simple, easy to agree with axioms he builds up easy to follow example. Then proceeds to explain why, if you agree with the example, which most people do, you have agreed to something that most people would find u…more is the one book I know that can, without fail start a heated argument in any company. You just open to any page read a paragraph out loud. Instant debate.

I’m a naturally liberal and logical person and Practical Ethics is probably the single most influential book I have read. I think having, and understanding, a ethical system is a good thing. Too many people never think about their ethics and why they make the decisions they do. They just repeat decisions they don’t really understand.

I was a utilitarian before I read Practical Ethics, but it forced me to examine what that means in the extreme. Taking all the basic utilitarian axioms and pushing them to their logical limits.

On Amazon.com

The tale of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and their companions as they search for a save haven. I love this book, I’ve read it several times and each time I find myself experiancing the same range of emotions. Adams weaves a beautiful tale of life with themes and morals as important to humans as to the rabbits in the book. With simple language Watership Down is a quick read that you can’t put down, and it will touch you in a way few books can.