Part sci-fi “first contact” story, part murder mystery, part chronicle of one man’s exaltation and complete devastation, this book utterly captivated me. I fell in love with the characters, perhaps the more so because you learn at the outset that they have all mysteriously died. The story weaves between the present and the past with a gripping, yet graceful, pace. The narration is compelling without being melodramatic, despite the subject material. (My only technical gripe would be the author’s habit of having the viewpoint drift in and out of different character’s minds in the same scene, which I find distracting.) Put together like a finely cut jigsaw puzzle, the story unfolds one tantalizing detail after another. I can’t wait to read the sequel, “Children of God.”

I first encountered these books in middle school and was completely entranced. The frame story, of wandering through a library through the “professions” section and encountering “So You Want to be a Wizard”, was too wonderful. I searched for such a book myself, to no avail.

I recently re-read this book, and like many young-adult books, it’s not quite as compelling as I remember. But as an inspirational story to open young minds to new ideas, with tones of self-reliance, responsibility, and the power of having a really good best friend, I can still whole-heartedly recommend it (and the whole series). The magic system is creative yet plausible, with a “scientific” feel (gosh, I want a temporospatial claudication!).

I haven’t seen the Miyazaki film, so I can’t say how the two compare. But I definitely enjoyed this story, with its fantastical setting and world yet a quite real flesh-and-blood protagonist you can’t help but care about. The gentle meta-parody of fairy tale formulas at the beginning of the book made me chuckle. If anything, I wished that the story went on a bit longer—the denouement falls on your lap like an anvil, and poof! All is well. The tensions building towards that point are too persuasive to be solved in a single stroke, and I was left wanting to know more, see more, to learn whether or not all really does end well!

This is an entertaining almost-biography of Nicolaus Steno, who first proposed that the history of the Earth could be deduced by careful examination of its layered structure. Like “Longitude”, by Dava Sobel, this book at times feels a bit stretched, as if there were a shortage of raw source material. This author fills in the gaps with background on the complex relationship between Religion and the newly emerging institution of Science (Steno’s work took place in the late 1600’s, just after Galileo’s time). The two were not always at strict odds, as a simplistic view of history would have it. Scientists often strove to find explanations for the natural world that adequately harmonized with religious beliefs not because the Church was pressuring them to do so, but because religion (mainly Christianity in this book) was such a solid basis for their existence that not to incorporate it would have been nonsensical, incomplete. Steno himself, a brilliant anatomist and arguably the first geologist on the planet, gave up his own scientific career and turned to the life of an ascetic monk, giving away his belongings to the poor and living a life of increasing deprivation until his death at age 48. However, his name in the science of geology lives on.

A blurb on the back of this book claims that it is Vernor Vinge’s “best work to date”. ?? I’m a big fan of Vinge, particularly for his “A Fire Upon the Deep” and “Deepness in the Sky” novels, and in picking this one up, I was hoping for more of the same. But “Rainbows End” is, in that respect, disappointing. It’s a fine book - interesting (not groundbreaking) ideas, good (not great) characterization, occasional plot twists - but it just doesn’t live up to his previous work. Perhaps that’s because it lacks a fascinating alien race? ;) He re-uses ideas that he’s already explored in his previous books (accelerated learning, hyper-intelligent analysts that see connections and can track down problems in realtime) without pushing them to the next level. He does create an interesting future computing paradigm, in which computers become omnipresent by being “wearable”. But overall, it was a good book… not a great one.

This is an excellent book, a collection of intellectual potpourri that provides a bite-sized daily serving. Each day of the week is devoted to a different theme: history, literature, music, art, science, philosophy, and religion. As a result, I’ve already added several books to my to-read list and acquired various trivia tidbits in each of the other categories. (Who knew that Mark Twain wrote a book about Joan of Arc, which he considered his best work? I definitely need to track that one down.)

I did not manage to complete this book before it was due back to the library (there are 365 entries, after all), but I’ve read enough of it to know that it’s worth purchasing my own copy. Highly recommended!

I grew up in Moab with Jim Stiles’s paper, The Zephyr, as a monthly mainstay. I don’t always agree with his views, but he’s invariably entertaining, and like Ed Abbey he’s got some great stories accrued from his experiences as a Park Service ranger. Many of those stories appear in this book, but it’s more than a collection of anecdotes; it also endeavors to take a careful look at Moab’s trajectory, past-present-future, to see what can be learned. Stiles also does a great job of setting aside differences and biases and really trying to paint a fair picture of events and responsibilities. He covers Moab’s transition from ranching to mining to tourism, and all of the attendant growing pains, with a clear eye and an affectionate heart. I found his retelling of Moab events of the late 80’s and early 90’s fascinating from a very personal perspective, since I was there at the time but not always aware of all of the “grown-up stuff” that was going on. It’s a little strange to read a book about the history of your hometown when it also covers the time you were there, and your parents show up in the cast of characters. But it’s given me a much broader sense of what was going on, and what might be coming for Moab on the horizon, and I’m grateful to Stiles for taking the time to survey the landscape, as it were.

Like several others, I was motivated to read this book after being blown away by “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. It’s not quite the same kind of book, but it is equally powerful in its own right. The writing alternates viewpoints between different principal characters in an unusual, personal way; although technically third-person, it is not a narration (“She thought.. He saw.. They did”) but more like having someone actually inside your head, talking to you (“He winced at the irony. Because, you know, life is like that.”). In pauses between paragraphs, you almost want to break in to join the conversation. Probably the strongest connection to “Curious Incident” is that most of the book actually takes place inside the characters’ heads. The action is internal, and we realize all over again how wild and wooly and yet hauntingly familiar the inside of someone else’s head can be.

• Misunderstandings happen even when both parties have good intentions—and even when both parties agree! They are “natural and normal”, despite the distress they create in us.
• Misunderstandings are very often the result of different communication styles—they do not mean that there’s something wrong with you, the other person, or the relationship itself.
• Communication (and relationships) involves a constant seesaw between the need for “involvement” and the need for “independence”. This can explain a lot of otherwise puzzling behavior and feelings.
• “Complementary schismogenesis” is when two people exhibit behaviors that trigger even more extreme behaviors in each other—a downward spiral.

These are all great observations, but I’m left wondering where to go from here. The book emphasizes that it doesn’t aim to provide solutions because this is just how humans communicate, and that the real value is in being aware that misunderstandings can happen simply due to style and not due to ill will, stupidity, or other issues with the people involved. The solutions that are included are along the lines of “try to adapt to the style of your partner” (while acknowledging that this may not work because how you communicate is part of who you are) and “consider trying new tactics rather than getting stuck in a downward spiral”. Talking about problems talking (metacommunication) can fail for a number of reasons (some people aren’t comfortable doing it, and just by the act of talking about the talking, you change the dynamics (“reframe” the conversation), and to some people this sends a message of failure (“things are so bad that we have to talk them out”)). I think there’s more positive action that can be taken, assuming two motivated participants.

This book weaves a magical, almost dizzying tapestry of stories and lives and loves. Each chapter is titled with an adverb that describes the way in which some character loves another (“obviously”, “soundly”, and “frigidly” were my favorites). But these are not syrupy sweet love stories, and they trigger no “Notebook”-like nausea; they are clever dervishes, whirling with words and faces, sometimes intersecting in surprising and entertaining ways. There’s hard love and hard times here, too, and overall the book is a creation of lyrical reality.