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Guess what kids? The new Bujold novel kicked off a massive rereading project. Surprise, surprise.
Shards of Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
The Warrior's Apprentic, Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
The Vor Game, Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
Cetaganda, Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
Ethan of Athos, Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
Borders of Infinity, Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
Mid-Flinx, Alan Dean Foster
When Miles begins to wear, do I return to Alter's Genesis? Of course not. Instead, I grabbed a copy of the latest Flinx novel. (And there's a new Ed Regis pop science book on the way -- between that and two Natures showing up during one week, I'm unlikely to get back to religion for a while.) After a reread of Shards I have to say the hydrogen suspended floaters and hexapods just weren't as unexpected as they might have been. Foster does a reasonably competent job of depicting a three-dimensional world (i.e. travel typically ocurring up and down as much as across and no true planar surfaces). But wow he's a poor writer compared to Bujold. Awkward phrasing, poor word choice, flat characterization, predictable plotting -- the list goes on. Despite it all, the book was worth reading and finishing, so I can't complain altho I'm glad I waited for paperback.
Folklore and the Hebrew Bible, Susan Niditch
Genesis is showing up everywhere as various specialists redisocover the wonderful stories it contains. Niditch's discussion of folkloric elements in the Hebrew Bible spends some time analyzing the tale of the Fall and the role of Eve in it. The rest of this slender, but scholarly, volume are devoted to a detailed analysis of the various descriptions of the Passover festival, its origins and observance in the Hebrew Bible, and she concludes with a look at the mashal genre. We tend to think of proverbs, parables and metaphors as slightly different entities, but a common thread was found in these divergent literary forms by Jews in biblical times. Niditch's discussion of what that commonality might be and how it serves to illuminate the structur of various Bible stories is insightful and thought-provoking.
Virus Ground Zero: Stalking Killer Viruses with the CDC, Ed Regis
Ed Regis is just about my favorite science writer. If he isn't, then he's definitely my favorite writer about scientists. He followed Hans Moravec and assorted Extropians around in Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition; he followed a bunch of famous physicists around at the Institute for Advanced Research at Princeton in Who Got Einstein's Office; he followed Drexler and Co. around, worrying about grey goo with the rest of them in Nano. Now he's following epidemiologists and public health specialists around in possibly the first sane look at Ebola intended for the lay public.
What is it about lethal diseases? They confuse and paralyze so many bright people (not directly -- thinking about them). HIV is really, really hard to catch. It so happens that it's nearly 100% lethal -- but there's no reason believe that's going to wipe out humanity, and now that we know about it and what to do to avoid spreading it further, we have a reasonable shot at stopping it cold -- if we're actually willing to distribute condoms and clean needles.
Regis never loses sight of the human factor: humans are the problem when it comes to stopping disease, and human action is frequently the key factor which enables the spread of disease. Hospitals as a class don't spread Ebola -- only those with inadequate resources to support basic barrier nursing (enough needles, enough aprons, enough masks, etc.). And Regis keeps his terms straight -- lethality and infectiousness are not synonymous. Ebola, Lassa and Marburg haven't killed very many people and aren't likely to. There's no real reason to believe they are new diseases (just newly identified and understood), and the fact that expeditions to locate the reservoirs of these viruses have been generally unsuccessful (only the Lassa reservoir has been located) suggests they're incredibly rare and liable to stay that way.
Because Regis is focusing on viruses, he does not address the changes in malaria over the last decades, nor does he address the rise of multi-drug resistance bacteria -- it isn't like there's nothing to worry about in the realm of public health. But Regis manages to make utterly clear that while there are some real threats out there, Weird African Viruses are not among them.
The Opening of the American Mind, Lawrence Levine
Readers of the Bible, Juvenal and some of the more vituperative ancient Greeks enjoy a perspective on right-wing critics of children today, education and society in general which the less well-read do not. After all, grumpy old men who failed to acquuire wisdom with years have been yawping about the disgraceful state of morality and manners since time immemorial. One millenia it's they worship too many gods; another it's too few. The men are morally decrepit for loving women once; now their failing is the love of boys.
In the almost ten years since I first read Bloom's _Closing of the American Mind_, I've grown increasingly suspicious of the so-called canon. After all, reading novels only became a respectable activity in the last century, so they could hardly been Great Books before then, and as for going to plays! Well, Pepys considered the sin of play-going right up there with cheating on his wife (he did both). A little reading on just what curricular changes the Renaissance effected (fewer than you'd think -- interested readers might have a look at Paul Grendler's work) contributed to my suspicions.
Now Lawrence Levine has written exactly the book I needed: a carefully documented survey of canonical texts used by reputable educational institutions in the United States over the last two hundred years. You know: what books were taught at Ivy League schools, and how. Sure, more than a hundred years ago, those poor boys were reading Greek and Latin classics (and sometimes the Bible) in the original languages. But they weren't learning to appreciate them as literature, or even philosophy -- they were being taught grammar, and teachers who dared to do otherwise risked their jobs.
Levine covers the introduction of the elective system and its modification via the inclusion of "core sequences", paying due attention to both the structural void which these filled, as well as the propaganda purposes they were originally designed to satisfy. Levine continually draws attention to the nay-sayers of yesteryear, and the reader cannot help but notice stylistic similarities in the face of substantial differences in ideas: conservative critics today wish to preserve what conservative critics of fifty years ago decried as the End of Education -- and it was ever thus.
It's hard to imagine a better response to Bloom and his ilk. Bloom's overwhelming failing was a lack of historical perspective, and Levine never suffered from that fault.
Arabella, Georgette Heyer
The Unknown Ajax, Georgette Heyer
Frederica, Georgette Heyer
Faro's Daughter, Georgette Heyer
Venetia, Georgette Heyer
Devil's Cub, Georgette Heyer
A bunch of Heyer rereads. . .
The Universe Against Her, James Schmitz
The Telzey Toy and other stories, James Schmitz
And a couple of Telzey Amberdon rereads from the gone but not forgotten Schmitz.
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This file recreated from The Internet Wayback Machine in January 2002. Copyright Rebecca Allen, 2002.
Created October 11, 1996 Modified: January 10, 2002