Catching Up

No, I didn't quit reading altogether the last few months, though I didn't get in nearly as much as I would have liked.  So here's a quick review of what's been consumer since August:

I can't figure out how to rotate this picture, and I've already given the book away, so you'll just have to live with it.  It's a hardship, I know, but really, if you've read this book, I think you'll appreciate that it's something you can probably live with.  The book (and the obligatory film) have been popular enough that you probably already know the plot -- a dying father travels with his young son toward a hoped-for but unspecified better place, set in the dreariest post-apocalyptic environment you can imagine.  As best as I can tell, all plant and animal life on earth is gone except for a few humans who manage to scrounge up something to eat every once in a while by digging in the residue of civilization.  If they don't turn to cannibalism, which many of them do.  Plus, it's darker and colder than it is now, just in case you missed the other symbolic cues.  But the story compels you forward because it is a story about a father's love for his son, with none of the opportunities for demonstration of that love that we are accustomed to.  This one will stay with you.

Men of Courage (1995) is a little  dated in that it was written for men living in a world without the internet, but its ideas and prescriptions hold up solidly twenty years later.  Crabb thinks it's very bad that men often don't talk to each other, or even their spouses, about their deepest failings, insecurities, dreams and hopes.  It's hard to argue that he is wrong.  He envisions a recovered spiritual culture of men supporting one another and mentoring the next generation.  It would be fascinating to hear what Dr. Crabb thinks of these ideas today.

1939 is a sweetly written introduction and homage to the world of the late 1930s as  exemplified by 

the World's Fair in New York City.  A fictional love story attempts to set the mood and tone, but somewhat distracts a dedicated nonfiction reader like me.  The book does a nice job of communicating the "feel" of the culture of the time, which trusted authority almost implicitly, had no hangups with self-doubt about America's greatness, and believed almost religiously in the promise of science and technology to deliver us from evil.  My  teen daughter and I read this book together, a practice I heartily recommend with good books.  Incidentally, the author was a victim of the anti-tech Unabomber,  about which experience he has written extensively elsewhere.

Tam Blake & Co. is a nice companion to Albion's Seed, which turned up in my last post.  It's nowhere close to that book in intellectual heft, but it does present extensive and entertaining anecdotal descriptions of the Scots Irish in America.  I can't let this review pass without offering you a single gem that outshone everything else in the book (though I still recommend the entire read):

"Montgomery's Highlanders were formed in 1757 and went to America to fight against the French in the Seven Years War during which both France and Britain ruthlessly used the Indian tribes against each other.  The Highlanders patrolled in small, mobile units, criss-crossing the tricky terrain around the Great Lakes and skirmishing with Indians and French.

"Several soldiers of the regiment fell into Indian hands, captured in an ambush.  One of them, Allan Macpherson, witnessing numbers of his fellow prisoners dying under torture and preparations having been made to start on him, signaled that he had something to communicate.  An interpreter was brought, and Macpherson explained that if his life was spared he would communicate the secret of an extraordinary medicine, which, if applied to the skin, would deflect the strongest blow of a tomahawk: he offered himself for the experiment.  Intrigued, the Indians agreed to his request and he was allowed under escort into the woods to collect plants which he then boiled into an ointment.

"Macpherson rubbed his neck with the juice and lay his head on a log, inviting the strongest man to strike him.  The Indian, leveling a blow with all his might, cut with such force that the head flew off a distance of several yards.  The Indians were astounded at their own gullibility, and the skill with which the prisoner had avoided a lingering death.  The story of Allan Macpherson became a legend in the Indian lodges."

I don't even care if the story isn't true.  It is one to be remembered.

Every few years I read a "business" book.  This is generally a good one, though like so many books it's twice the length it needs to be.  But people won't pay $24.95 for a long article, so authorial effort and careful typesetting give you a full 223 pages.  

Here's something to ponder -- would you pay MORE for a heavily edited version of a book that you "need to read" but don't really want to, that would allow you to pick up the important ideas in half the time?  Not exactly a "Cliffs Notes" version, which would be too short and even less fun to read, but something that condenses 223 pages to, say, 75?  I think I might.  Clearly, this is an idea for nonfiction, not literature, though I can think of one or two novels that might benefit from such treatment.

Anyway, there is really only one takeaway from this book.  Surely that doesn't surprise you!  Whatever you do, figure out what the most important thing is for you to do in a given meeting, day, week, month, or year, and make darn sure you do that thing.  Don't let all the distracting things that you have to do get in the way.  Do the ONE THING first, then you can do some of the other things if you have any time left over.  The author makes a compelling case that this is what really successful people do.