Reading log

[Vlad!]

On the trip to California and back, I read Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation and a book of selected short stories by Philip K Dick.

As for the former, I found it to be extremely entertaining and well-written. It does a pretty good job of listing guidelines for inserting punctuation that makes the sentence clearer rather than just enumerating rules. My only gripe is that it is focused on British usage, and while in some cases the UK usage is preferable (in my opinion), in other cases the American usage makes more sense. The ultimate thing I got out of it is that the goal of punctuation is to make the sentence clearer, something which I have tried to communicate when I mention grammatical mistakes here and elsewhere.

Regarding the second one, I enjoyed it immensely. I have always been a fan of the short story, and Dick proves himself a master of that medium. It was especially interesting reading "Paycheck" and "Minority Report", two short stories transformed into films. I will have to read Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly (and see the corresponding movies, since I confess I have not seen Blade Runner or ASD) sometime as well. In my opinion, PK Dick belongs in the same hallowed halls as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Robert A. Heinlen. I recommend him as a writer to those who enjoy Science Fiction, especially the works of those writers I just mentioned. And if you were put off by Cruise's performance in Minority Report or Affleck in Paycheck, don't worry; Hollywood did its usual job of completely altering the book to fit the film medium.

[Josh]

I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for a class three or four semesters ago, and while it's merely okay as a novel, the themes it addresses and the questions it raises are provocative, and it led to a very spirited and fruitful discussion.

[RedcoatJones]

Long plane flights led to finishing three books:

Talk, Talk by T.C. Boyle
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathanial Philbrick
Magic Street by Orson Scott Card

[Aaron]

Long plane flights led to finishing three books:

Talk, Talk by T.C. Boyle
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathanial Philbrick
Magic Street by Orson Scott Card

Dang Red, Where did you fly to and from?

[RedcoatJones]

Dang Red, Where did you fly to and from?

From Atlanta to San Diego via Pheonix. In addition, I was visiting clients that ranged from San Diego to Simi Valley (north of LA), so I had a lot of car (and hotel) time as well 

[Aaron]

oh ok...

[Vlad!]

Finished with The Children of Húrin. It was an easy read, but of course I am so used to both producing and digesting pages of impenetrable prose that all this means is that it kept my interest throughout.

If you have read Unfinished Tales, you are passingly familiar with the story. However, in the latter work, the text is dotted with footnotes and marks where the manuscripts, at least as they were seen at that time, were incomplete. In the former, the text itself is completely free from footnotes and other editorializing, and is a complete tale. Which isn't to say that it is free of prolix insertions by Christopher Tolkien, but at least he keeps them confined to forwards and appendices.

My foremost complaint here is actually in the chapter titles. My assumption is that they are the original headings used by J.R.R. Tolkien when preparing the work. However, I have noted that older works tend to exhibit a less-developed sense of suspense than we are quite used to in more modern text, and perhaps this is exacerbated by a lack of discretion on the part of Christopher Tolkien in the use of these section headings as chapter titles. The reason for this is that the title, while superbly descriptive of the chapter's contents, tend to remove all sense of anticipation. As stated above I have seen this at work in other novels from the early 20th century, in that the text will first give an overview of the events, then describe how they played out. When this involves the death or unexpected victory of a character, it can be a little deflating. I think this is even more so when the title of a chapter is "The Death of X", when the previous chapter gave little hint that X's death was, in fact, pending.

Despite this gripe, I think the story stands on its own, and for those to whom the History of Middle Earth or even The Silmarillion read too much like a history text, I think this is a very accessible and readable addition to the canon (although in truth it is less of an addition and more of a clarification for those who have read the aforementioned volumes).

[RedcoatJones]

Devil in the White City, by Erik Larsen

Excellent account of two stories: the building of Chicago's 1893 World's Fair and the story of one of America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes, who did his dirty work only blocks from the fair. If you're into history, an engrossing and fascinating story of the rise of Chicago in the late 1800s, the slow collapse of Victorian society, the incredible efforts to complete the fair in time and a portrayal of a psychopath who killed at least 27 (probably many more).

[Aaron]

Started and finished Sex God by Rob Bell today in about an hour.  Wow, what a great book.  The title captures you but what he writes is so much more than you think.  Bell is saying things that need to be said but aren't in the church today.  Excellent book.  I'm going to eventually blog about it.

[Aaron]

I started Blue Like Jazz last night before bed and finished it this afternoon.  I really identify with Miller's feelings about Christ and faith and our human struggles.  I am glad I finally got around to reading this because I have started to come up with a road map of sorts in regards to life.

[Aaron]

Just finished The Jesus of Suburbia by Mike Erre.  It's a real refreshing look at the state of Christianity in America.  His main point is that we've been worshipping the safe, sterile Jesus of Suburbia rather than the Jesus of Nazareth, the one who took risks, caused controversy, and didn't just sit back and preach feel good sermons.

[Vlad!]

A Wizard of Earthsea - Sometimes, LeGuin gets distracted by an agenda and writes something that is, in my view at least, sub-standard. This is not one of those times. Despite being pure Fantasy, a genre I'm not, as a rule, overly fond of, I enjoyed this one immensely. LeGuin's ability to weave a tale through the use of compelling and wholly human characters shines through undimmed in this first book of the series. I had encountered the series itself fairly well out of order, meaning that I knew of the wizard Ged as a strong, silent mage of great power, so to see him as a brash, impulsive youth was interesting both because of the personal development he was given and because, with the endpoint known, the starting point draws a much more interesting path. Not that I recommend reading the series out of order, but I think it's another testament to LeGuin's skill that I was able to do so and still enjoy the series.

One thing that interested me was the lack of compelling female characters. LeGuin is very heavily steeped in the feminist tradition--not the radical feminism sometimes associated with that word, but the healthy feminism that questions in-built societal assumptions about gender--and has written some very strong female characters. Why in this instance we never even see a female who does anything more useful than make dinner, let alone a female mage, is a little perplexing to me. Not that I need lots of girls to enjoy a story, of course, but Tolkien, a male, wrote far more interesting female characters and heroines than appear in this first book of Earthsea.

[ajyouthguy]

Just finished The Jesus of Suburbia by Mike Erre.  It's a real refreshing look at the state of Christianity in America.  His main point is that we've been worshipping the safe, sterile Jesus of Suburbia rather than the Jesus of Nazareth, the one who took risks, caused controversy, and didn't just sit back and preach feel good sermons.

i have this on my amazon wishlist.  it's nice to see someone who has read it and whose opinions i (for some reason? ) trust.  haha. 

[Aaron]

i have this on my amazon wishlist.  it's nice to see someone who has read it and whose opinions i (for some reason? ) trust.  haha. 

It was a very good book.  I even emailed Mike Erre about his book and he was kind enough to email me back thanking me for the positive comments about the book.

[Vlad!]

The Tombs of Atuan: Earthsea book 2. LeGuin has me reading fantasy again, and what's more she has me loving it. Much like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, they started out calling Earthsea a trilogy, then a tetrology, then they just gave up and started calling it the Earthsea Cycle. Maybe she even has some more up her sleeve; I imagine she will die when she's good and ready and not a second before.

Hacking RSS and Atom: It turns out this book is very Python-centric. Which I guess is good if you use Python or don't know much of anything and want to start out tabula rasa style, but my toolchain of choice is PHP and/or Ruby, so the "use this one Python library and generating Atom feeds is a snap" approach is pretty much useless to me. I read about a chapter of part 2 and skimmed the rest, then gave up.

The Draco Tavern: Niven wrote DT stories on and off for most of his career (not to imply that his career (or the story, for that matter) is over), even though it's not really set in the same universe as the one that made him famous (the Ringworld/Man-Kzin universe). It's interesting to see his evolution as a writer, starting with the earliest stories that play around with the technology behind the tavern, then shifting more and more into the psychological aspect, then gradually meshing from an idealistic perspective into a realistic one as humanity continually proves that not only is it not getting closer to enlightenment, it may be drifting further away (and doesn't seem to care).

[Vlad!]

Frankenstein. Actually, a very good book. It follows the same sort of classical/gothic horror route that Dracula and the works of Poe and Lovecraft do, in that it's not shock or surprise horror but rather full of the inexorable suspense of impending disaster. The events portrayed in Frankenstein unfold as a train wreck in slow motion, all the more horrific because the doom of the participants is visible from far off, but nothing can be done to avert it.

Definitely a good book, and a fast read (took me two evenings of about four hours of solid reading each).

[Vlad!]

Finished up with Neil Gaiman's American Gods. My criticisms still stand, with the possibly ameliorating comment that as the book progresses, the potentially bothersome content drops off significantly. Either that or I was inured to it, but I kept an eye out.

My praises still stand too, and I will add and reemphasize that American Gods is a truly formidable piece of literature. Not formidable in the sense of a dry and inaccessible tome, but formidable in the sense that its pacing, its story, its crafting--the very art of the thing--has been so masterfully executed that even now I almost feel as though the book is standing in judgment of me rather than the other way around.

While I really wish that the content of the book were such that I could unequivocally recommend it to all, I nonetheless feel that its strengths far overpower its faults and encourage those who would normally give it a miss due to offensive content to bear up through those parts; the results, I believe, will be worth it.

[Vlad!]

Finished Stumbling on Happiness.

My only real criticism of the book is its title. The title makes it sound like it's some sort of airy-fairy self-help book or an inspirational "how to encounter happiness where you least expect" type thing. The opening quote and closing remark explain a little more:
Opener:
One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and holds fast to the days, as to fortune or fame. --Willa Cather, "Le Lavandou"
Closer:
There is no simple formula for finding happiness. But if our great big brains do not allow us to go surefootedly into our futures, they at least allow us to understand what makes us stumble.

I think the closing remark very aptly illustrates the meaning of the book's title. It doesn't mean "unexpectedly finding happiness", it means "getting tripped up by happiness". In other words, his thesis is that our brains have certain limitations, and many of these limitations are what prevent us from achieving whatever it is we define as happiness.

I like two things about this book in particular. The first thing is that it is utterly fascinating. I learned a lot of new things, some of which I had idly wondered about and some of which I hadn't even thought enough or learned enough to wonder about. I also found research which corroborated some things I had suspected (and refuted other things I had suspected). I admire this book tremendously for taking what no doubt constitutes decades of psychological research and synthesizing from it a relatively succinct series of statements that are informative and convincing without being drawn-out and exhaustively rehashed.

Which brings me to the second thing I like: this isn't Dr. Phil writing this book. Every point is backed up by research, by papers, by journals, by books, or by ample historical evidence. It is written like a scientific paper, but the style is as accessible as any other book in the genre I could name. This book is as admirable for its scholarship as it is for its content.

The book is of course far from perfect. As with any psychological or sociological work, it generalizes regarding humanity. As the final chapter does a decent job of showing, these generalizations are quite possibly more accurate than we tend to give them credit for. On the other hand, the reader is fairly likely to come across a statement which does not apply. One of this book's strengths is that its major premises are sufficiently well-reasoned and well-backed-up that even if a single point or assertion is invalid for a particular reader, it is quite likely that the postulate the point was leading up to is still valid on the merits of several other assertions or evidences which are correct.

I believe I can wholeheartedly recommend this book, as I found the style to be enjoyable and the chapters quite easy to read despite the sometimes quite weighty content therein. There were a couple places where I felt like his point was not adequately explored, but at no point did I feel like he was rehashing material he had already presented, so if his commendable lack of redundancy occasionally lead him to not belabor a point as much as it might have deserved, this can be easily forgiven.

He provides a well-reasoned conclusion purposely designed to thwart complaints of "good book, but I don't know how to apply it". However, one thing I'm continuing to cogitate on is how I can take each of his points and learn from them so I can be better aware of the tricks my mind can play on itself sometimes or the limitations of my brain when attempting to think through something. If anyone else here has read or does read this book, I'd be glad to discuss it further in its own thread.

[bloop]

encourage those who would normally give it a miss due to offensive content to bear up through those parts

These "faults" may not really be faults at all, so I think I can take this as an unreserved recommendation for me.

(The fact that I love Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series tells me I should probably check this out, as well)

[ajyouthguy]

Was on vacation a couple of weeks ago and found a book called A Different Kind of Crazy: Living the Way Jesus Did by a guy named Lawrence Wilson.  It was an excellent read, one of those 'what if we REALLY took Jesus seriously, REALLY did what the Bible says, etc.' type challenging books.

[Vlad!]

Finished the first of my reading list: The Cuckoo's Egg.

I expected this book to be a fictional account of the Tom Clancy variety: based on enough research/Wikipedia browsing to sound convincing to a layman, but frustratingly inaccurate to someone who understands the technology involved. What I got instead was a non-fiction(!) account written by someone who has the cred to know what he's talking about (and I feel somewhat embarrassed that I hadn't even heard of him before...). I wouldn't recommend it to the average nontechnical reader simply because it is unapologetically technical. Not to the point where an intelligent reader couldn't figure out what's going on, but I suspect the average reader is unwilling to actually (gasp!) learn something while reading and will thus pan the book for being full of technobabble.

I had undoubtedly said this multiple times before, but one of the greatest measures I use to determine how much I enjoyed a pleasure read is how much the book draws me in, and subsequently how quickly I read it. I read the entire 400-page novel in one day, so I'd say Cuckoo's Egg passes that test with flying colors. I'll have to find some crappy books to read so I don't lose my reviewer cred by raving over every book I post about, but for a technical reader I recommend Cuckoo's Egg over American Gods (though under Shantaram), and even for a nontechnical reader who's willing to wade through an actually fairly small amount of geek-speak at times I think it would provide a great read.

[Vlad!]

Took a detour from my reading list to read a Christmas present: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

It is not every day that one is given an opportunity to see how annoying one must be to others, but the first couple chapters of this book contain primarily rapid-fire discussions on statistics, probability, number theory, and other mathematical concepts that the author feels many of us are weak in, and I am left with a sneaking suspicion that the irritation and boredom I felt when reading these chapters is somewhat akin to the irritation and boredom that must meet my own abstruse randomblings at times. Not that I plan on doing anything about this revelation, but it has been duly noted.

After the first chapter and a half or thereabouts, however, the book settled into a more tolerable rhythm. It would be interesting to see the reaction of someone who has not had much (or any) formal mathematical training past high school to this book, since I am familiar with the fairly basic statistical and combinatorial techniques described by the author. I certainly agree with his thesis that our modern educational system is particularly inept not only at conveying the necessary mathematical, statistical, and logical information to prepare students to properly address the real world but even at motivating students to care about such information or know that it's there.

While you're parsing that last sentence, also consider this passage from the book:
===
Different from and much harder to deal with than math anxiety is the extreme intellectual lethargy which affects a small but growing number of students, who seem to be so lacking in mental discipline or motivation that nothing can get through to them. Obsessive-compulsive sorts can be loosened up and people suffering from math anxiety can be taught ways to allay their fears, but what about students who don't care enough to focus any of their energy on intellectual matters? You remonstrate: "The answer's not X but Y. you forgot to take account of this or that." And the response is a blank stare or a flat "Oh, yeah." Their problems are an order of magnitude more serious than math anxiety.
===

Unfortunately, the book does not provide any real suggestions for handling this class of people[1], and while I can approve of a book which agrees with beliefs that I hold regarding our modern educational system, beliefs in its brokenness are not at all hard to come by, while practical suggestions are much rarer.

Ultimately, I would categorize this book as mathsturbation. Those who are mathematically-inclined and who agree with the author will read the book and laud it, while the presumed target audience, the innumerates, will probably not pick the book up at all, and if they do they will promptly put it down again once seeing that the first chapter consists of imposingly-large numbers and not a few of the dreaded mathematical formulae. I would not categorize myself as innumerate, yet even I got the feeling as though the first chapter was designed less to either entertain or inform than to make me feel bad because my mathematical prowess is not equal to that of a college professor of mathematics.

I would recommend this book to those considering becoming math teachers (or those who are already math teachers, a demographic I know at least one phorumer falls into), but probably not to the general public. It is a quick read--180 pages--and I received it as a gift today and finished it this evening. I would not categorize the writing as engaging or especially informative, but I feel like it raises some good points, exposes some fairly meaty issues. It challenged me in a couple ways regarding how I view information I am given, which is always good. The presentation is acceptable, written well enough and with enough humor or attempts at humor to make it feel more like a book one might actually want to read than your average mathematical discourse.

I also just noticed that on the cover the words "national bestseller" are stamped. I'm not sure what this means, but given that it was first published in the 1980s I am not entirely sure that it means a marked increase in the public awareness of mathematical failings. If you do pick this up, I suggest going for the revised edition, as apparently a few mistakes or miswordings have been corrected.

[1] I would suggest a vocational track and a menial-labor job, but this might just increase the societal stratification and make it more difficult for successive generations to break out of this mold and consist primarily of motivated and intellectually-energetic individuals.

[ajyouthguy]

i've started walking on a treadmill in the mornings before work, and in that time this week i've read all of The Mark of a Christian by Francis Shaeffer and most of Why I am a Christian by John Stott.

[ajyouthguy]

Finished 2 very different types of books today...Charlie Peacock's At the Crossroads: A Look at The Past, Present, and Future of Contemporary Christian Music, and Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon by Bryan Chappell.

[ajyouthguy]

Finished a very boring, albeit informative, scholarly type book called The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text

[ajyouthguy]

Purpose for the Pain, by Renee Yohe

she's the girl that the whole To Write Love on Her Arms organization's story began with.  it's a hard book, but very brutally honest and pretty powerful to read.

[Vlad!]

Purpose for the Pain, by Renee Yohe

she's the girl that the whole To Write Love on Her Arms organization's story began with.  it's a hard book, but very brutally honest and pretty powerful to read.

That sounds like an interesting book. I'm vaguely familiar with her story and suspect I could give a rough outline, but I'm curious: what precisely does she cite as being the purpose?

[ajyouthguy]

sorry, i didn't make it super clear...the book is a collection of her journal entries chronicling her journey into and out of drugs, depression, cutting, etc.  It is LITERALLY her journal entries, the actual pages from the journal, in her handwriting, sometimes even stained pages, sometimes hard to read the writing, etc.  It is that and no more...no summary, no typed up entries (except the last few, which are obviously from her myspace or something like that), no added writing, or anything.  so in that sense, it doesn't explicitly show her saying, 'and i realized, this is the purpose for my pain,' etc.  through some of the entries, and the preface, you realize, obviously, that she realizes that her struggle was all ultimately a part of God's bigger plan and that HER story has inspired a lot of other people, etc, which i guess is the answer to what you're looking for.  however, again, it is simply the ups and downs of an addict before, during, and after recovery, written in the rough, raw, often poetic, form of her journal she kept, in her handwriting.

[Vlad!]

Interesting...I guess that's why the book isn't available from Amazon: our large-scale printing operations aren't set up for that style of book.

[ajyouthguy]

just read 3 Hermeneutics texts for a seminary class on that subject.  thought i was gonna be bored to tears, actually enjoyed them quite a bit for the most part.  neat perspectives on reading and interpreting and applying the Bible.

[NewDimension]

^ Recently, I've been researching the exegetical study of Hermeneutics, and I find that it's a really interesting and vital subject--- every Christian should know at least its basic fundamentals.

[ajyouthguy]

Just read a couple of books on vision, one by Aubrey Malphurs and one by George Barna (they're in my office and today is my day off so i don't recall the exact names, sorry).

also read Churched, by Matthew Turner, earlier this week.

[Vlad!]

I read Memoirs of a Geisha this weekend.
 
The book is masterfully crafted and starkly beautiful. It's like a river which carries the reader along after just having put a foot in, and I certainly didn't begrudge it the ride.

I didn't know what to expect upon reading it; my primary concern was in regards to explicit content. I am pleased to report that there isn't anything to worry about. I would have no qualms recommending it be read in a high school class. The sexuality isn't explicit, true, but more importantly it is shown for what it is. The descriptions of her empty sexual encounters were powerful in their banality. The reader shares in the girl's bewilderment: this powerful man, a leader of government or captain of industry, spent so much money and felt so much emotion over this? This book is safe for anyone from teenagers to recovering pornography addicts to anyone in between; it completely destroys any allure the text might somehow possess by portraying the characters as starkly human and, in many cases, objects of pity. I suspect (though obviously I don't know for sure) that few men indeed could solicit a prostitute if they truly understood her tale of woe which led her to the place she's in, and that's how I feel about the book.

My primary criticism is that the ending feels unnecessarily forced, as though Golden decided to divert the river from its natural path to fit his own whims. That's not to say that I thought the book ended badly, because it didn't, but the ending had a significantly different feel from the majority of the novel. If any part of a tale should be lovingly crafted and fashioned, it should be the denouement, and that wasn't the feeling I got. I'm open to dissenting opinions, however.

My other reservation is that of historical accuracy. I recall, for instance, the lasting damage that Hawthorne did to the Puritans with The Scarlet Letter--so much so that Puritanical has come to take a strongly negative connotation, associated with legalism and hypocrisy. I recall in high school a classmate referring to a geisha as a 'Japanese prostitute' and brushing off my protestations that such an oversimplification was doing them and their culture a grave disservice. The novel does differentiate between a geisha and a prostitute, but it seems to me (in my incomplete knowledge of the subject) that the sale of a geisha's sexual services is very much accentuated in Memoirs. What little research I have done seems to bear me out on this: while perhaps historically the line between geisha and prostitute was blurrier than it is today, at the time the novel was set, many of the practices we as an audience are supposed to recoil at had ceased. 

I feel as though I can unreservedly recommend this book to all who enjoy a good story. For purposes of understanding Japanese culture more deeply the book was severely lacking, but I suppose I might as well complain that it also provides insufficient nourishment when eaten, since the book was not advertised as being able to fill either of those needs. I am always a proponent of reading books in as few sittings as possible; I found that Memoirs of a Geisha required two, though anyone willing to devote the entirety of a weekend day to it could possibly consume it in a single, if protracted, bite. It was pleasantly heavy reading: not so weighty that my mind could occupy nothing else while contemplating it, but not so lightweight that I found myself at any point bored. If you give it a go, be sure to let me know what you think.

[Vlad!]

Against the Fall of Night, by Arthur C. Clarke.

This book shows Clarke's trademark humanism. However, and this is in contrast to novels such as The Songs of Distant Earth, Childhood's End. and of course 2001: A Space Odyssey, there are also some sober overtones that cloud the belief in mankind's ultimate transcendence. I believe these are echoes of later Clarke, a Clarke that would collaborate to write such novels as the chilling The Light of Other Days and the somewhat depressing Jammer, which not only optimistically show humanity at its best but also realistically portray it at its worst.

I think that Against the Fall of Night neatly bridges this gap. The optimistic Clarke who seemingly effortlessly exerts his mastery over the written word is still very much evident on every page of this book, and the Clarke who would eventually shame us with what we are is still primarily in the business of enticing us with what we could become. I enjoyed this book a lot; were I teaching a literature class I would probably require my students to compare this book with his novella The Lion of Comarre[1], because of the similarities and the differences in the two works.

In any case, I recommend it highly.

[1] Some Google searching shows that I am far from the first to have this notion, and these two stories have in fact been printed in a single volume. I suppose I have to occasionally acknowledge that I don't have a monopoly on clever ideas.

[Rough Draft]

A while ago I dropped in and read Vlad's (!) bit on Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness. He made a strong case for it, so I queued it up; and lo and behold, it's excellent! Too bad no one I know has read it, so I thought I could talk about it with people here.   

I agree about iffy name troubles. When my friend first saw me with the book, she went slack jawed, and I could see her mind was hard at work, thinking of ways to tease me painfully. She thought she'd caught me with a self-help tome. She was disappointed. Me, I still don't know how accurate the title is. Maybe it's not about stumbling on happiness so much as stumbling around happiness, or past it.

There's a lot to love about this book. He says a great deal of fascinating things in a thoroughly enjoyable fashion. It was interesting to learn that all humans are born realists, per Locke, and grow into idealists, per Kant. Also, psychology is a science! But I tend to remember most vividly the places where I wished he would go a little further with a thought, or clarify, or just plain rephrase things. And from the author we learn that this may be because an unfinished story lingers longer in the brain than a story completed.

In one case, Gilbert claims that we condense our full experience of things into partial memories of a few salient details (good), but then goes on to say these detail-memories take the form of words: 'One of the functions of language is to help us pap [our experiences].' He gives as an example the smell of a rose, which is 'unressurrectable,' so we remember it with key descriptors. But I don't. I don't think of a word or a trait like 'fragrant' or 'good' when I think of a rose; I think of its smell. However distant and bland it may be, the smell is there. Vlad!, this is definitely one of those cases you mentioned wherein a major premise is valid even if the single assertion is wrong for me, personally; but I suspect that this particular assertion is wrong, period. I can't be the only human being like this. After all, Gilbert writes that when we recall a visual memory or an auditory memory, we engage the visual and auditory parts of our brain, the same gray bits that go to work when we see or hear something in real time. Why should it be any different with olfactory memories? If he were to replace 'words' in his formulation with a phrase like 'salient sensory details' then I'd be sittin' pretty.

Gilbert quotes Jeremy Bentham a lot, which makes sense. The prominence of Bentham also jibes with one of my major reservations regarding the book. Bentham's utilitarian philosophy was founded on a hedonistic moralism. He famously promoted "the greatest good [read: happiness] for the greatest number" as the ultimate goal of statecraft, and this sensibility permeates the book's framework, especially towards the end, where the author examines Bernoulli's idea, parallel to Bentham's, that 'potential utility' x 'probability of success' is the ultimate gauge of advisability for any action. The trouble I have with this point of view is that it makes any concern independent of happiness extraneous. This frustrates such lines of questioning as:
Q: Why should I do X?
A: Because it makes you happy.
Q: Why does it make me happy?
A: Umm. 'Why' doesn't matter. It makes you happy, period.
As in, the relative good of anything is equated with happiness, rather than happiness being a quality that is independent  and proceeding from the relative good. This seems backwards to me. It also makes for a very easily manipulated morality, so elastic that I can't see how it (hedonistic moralism) can alone constitute the basis for moral precepts. I really like how pragmatic the whole book is. It's reassuring. But it has the unfortunate extreme of panning out into utilitarianism.

One more matter. Gilbert's ultimate encouragement to seek the opinion of others who are actively experiencing the thing we seek is belied by material in the book's first chapters. In his own words, 'evaluating people's claims about their own happiness is an exceptionally thorny business.' To really get reliable advice, we would have to invoke the 'law of large numbers' and ask a very wide sample group of people who are presently experiencing that particular thing. (Sorry I can't think of a better word than 'thing.') Because this seems unfeasible for most situations, I don't think the author ends up offering any worthwhile advice in the denouement. The real lessons here are much more useful, on how to catch our brains messing up in the act, either to amuse ourselves or to mitigate the error.

In ending, the book raises a possible area of further research: how does bearing common names encourage common thinking and/or conglomeration? Seriously, look at the back of the book written by Daniel G. Most of the laudatory quotes are from fellow Daniels. And which other modern philosopher does the author refer to most frequently but one Daniel Dennet? Disturbing, yet fascinating.

[Vlad!]

Thanks for a thorough review and some good conversational material

When I try to recall a sound or a smell, though I can in some cases reproduce it mentally, what comes with it is a series of words. That said, I don't think that necessarily means that I store the salient details as a series of words. Surely Gilbert doesn't intend to posit that language is necessary for memory!

I agree that utilitarianism in most of its forms is an unsuitable basis for a moral system, especially because it's notoriously tricky to judge potential utility. However, it works well for illustrative purposes because he can demonstrate that even in cases where potential utility and probability of success can both be quantified, how we look at that quantification can greatly affect the choice we make. His point (if I recall; I have in fact read a couple books since then) isn't that we should make all our choices in such a utilitarian way but that we should realize how our perspective, regardless of how we make the choice, can influence the choice dramatically.

All your points address specific issues with the book, but I feel like you (or at least your review) is caught up in the details. The big picture Gilbert is trying to paint is one of introspection. He focuses less on the method we use for choosing and evaluating and more on why we think the way we do about our choices and our chances. As you say, it's interesting to have this opportunity to view our mind at work, and by noticing the way in which it works I believe we are better equipped to take advantage of its output. This is why I made the distinction between an invalid premise and an invalid assertion. I don't think it's at all necessary to agree with many or perhaps most of his specific examples to take advantage of his insights.

[Rough Draft]

However, it works well for illustrative purposes because he can demonstrate that even in cases where potential utility and probability of success can both be quantified, how we look at that quantification can greatly affect the choice we make.

I believe he errs on the side of saying that it can't be reliably quantified, outside of the more scientific methods that are employed in psychological studies. In that case, when you have a case study laid out in front of you as evidence for utility, I'm not sure how much perception factors into the matter, although I think you have a different kind of quantification in mind.

You captured his main points well. I agree that the book as a whole is useful, and if I quibble here and there it's only because I find the rest so solidly compelling that I feel the difference more sharply. However, I feel that the utilitarian basis that permeates the book keeps it from being as useful and as meaningful as it could be. It's not a matter of text, but of subtext. For all that he never comes out and advocates utilitarianism, he never questions it either. It's simply assumed. When all the illustrations he gives are utilitarian in nature, one asks, is there anything else? The implicit answer is, No. For me, that trivializes whatever lessons about happiness the book may have to teach, because the argument remains strictly on the level of sensuality and gratification. (Er. That sounds a bit tough.)

And yet, he brings a welcome humanism to the discussion that I once thought was missing from psychology. Sure, happy people delude themselves, optimistic people are being unreasonable, and we rationalize the heck out of things when we get hurt. But the author seems to take for granted that doing so isn’t wrong or stupid--it’s healthy and human.

I admit, I was being nitpicky with the first point. I don’t think he means to say that language is necessary for memory, but that’s what his statement (app. ‘Language is a papping device’) seems to connote. Anyways, it probably won't do for conversation to focus too much on details, since it's been a while since you read it. This would seem another illustration of Gilbert's point that when we are closer in time to an event we think of the 'how,' and father away in time with think of the 'why.' Or maybe I am just bad at synthesizing stuff.

Have you read much else in this subject? Anything else worth reading?

[Vlad!]

Have you read much else in this subject? Anything else worth reading?

Not a whole lot. Innumeracy, by John Paulos, is sort of in a similar vein, but with mathematics at the forefront and behavior/psychology as the backdrop. You can read my full review here. Other than that, no, I haven't.

[Rough Draft]

Hmm. "Mathsturbation." I guess I'll pass.

[NewDimension]

Books I've read recently:

Bad Astronomy - Philip Plait

Two different translations of Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.

And the book I've always wanted to read every since I was young, On the Origen of Species - Charles Darwin.