“Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating” by Moria Weigel

 

Publisher: Straus and Giroux

Copyright: 2016

ISBN: 9780374182533

This book looks at the history of dating, from his very early beginnings as a recognized activity through to modern day.

The author has done considerable research into this subject and presents a detailed examination of all the things that have both influenced people who date, as well as how dating has influenced the world we currently live in.

The book is written from a feminist point of you, but this just adds to the overall story as it gives a woman's point of view, whereas the majority of other books out there seem to focus more on the male perspective.

Ms. Weigel touches on a number of different subjects throughout the book such as historically how families dealt with the prospects of romance and used their influence/positions of power to select partners for their children, and how this practise changed throughout history. How things changed during and after the two world wars, and how it is continuing to change into the digital age.

An extremely interesting book to read.

"The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)

 

Publisher: London : Hamilton, 1967.

Copyright: 1939

ISBN: 9780394758282 

Characteristics: 216 pages

"The Big Sleep" Is Raymond Chandler's first novel, and introduces us to is now famous detective Philip Marlowe. I'm not sure if this novel is the first of what came to be known as hard-boiled detective novels, but if it isn't it's one of the first in that genre, and it’s a genre that has stood the test of time as the stories can be read many times and still be enjoyed.

Philip Marlowe is definitely a character that will stand out in anybody's memory. He works for $25 a day plus expenses which in 1930 was even extremely low wages. In this book Marlowe is hired by a dying millionnaire when he is being blackmailed because of one of his daughter's antics. However Marlo finds that there is more to the case than he ever suspect suspected because it involves not only blackmail but extortion, kidnapping, pornography, seduction, organized crime, and few murders are thrown in just for good measure. 

The novel is written in first person which was quite typical for these type of stories, and for detective fiction in general as it puts the reader in the detective’s place, and they essentially solve the mystery along with him or her.

Enjoy!

"The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking" by Matthew Hutson

 

Publisher: One World Books

Copyright: 2012

ISBN: 9781851689347

Mr. Hutson is an extremely interesting author to read, and one who does a lot of research. This book is essentially about critical thinking. And he has broken down human beliefs into seven general areas.

The seven laws themselves are: that objects carry essences, that symbols have power, the actions have distant consequences, but the mind knows no bounds, the soul lives on, but the world is alive, and that everything happens for a reason.

Each of these laws in turn talks about things like contagions and historicity, spells in ceremonies, luck and superstition, psychokinesis and ESP, Life after death, animism, and destiny.

The overall premise of the book is that all people wherever they are, believe in magic of some kind. They might not define it as magic, but that is essentially what it is. The author starts out this way by giving examples of various things that people typically do that have links to magic in the past, and he concludes in the eighth chapter by returning to this.

And excellently researched book that is well worth reading and what that would hopefully be a good medium level read for somebody who is interested in critical thinking. I suggest medium level because I think people should have some Basic understanding of critical thinking and what is required prior to starting this book.

Highly recommended.

"The Dark Design" by Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)

 

Publisher: Berkley Medallion

Copyright: 1977

ISBN: None listed

The Dark Design is the third book in the Riverworld series, and much like the "The Fabulous Riverboat" the story revolves around the building of in this case a Zeppelin for the purpose of getting the source of the river. WE once again meet some interesting characters such as Tom Mix (1920s &30s Hollywood movie star), Jack London (Author), Nur el-din el-Musafir as 12th Century traveller who wrote extensively about his exploits, and many others. Hermann Goring once again makes a brief appearance, as do a few other from the first two books.

I personally found this book to be well written, but once again had some trouble believing the premise behind the various developments the Riverworld residents made. Yes, I realise that "the willing suspension of belief" is a key component to science fiction, however when you have scenarios which have people developing 20th century technology without the background or specialized equipment to doo so, it simply stretches believability a little too much in my opinion.

Once again in this novel I felt that the characters weren't as well developed as they were in the first.

This book overall was good, but no, as I've said before a good as the first "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", and considering the amount of potential the premise had it could have been exploited in many ways rather than as a goal to see who could reach the polar sea first, no matter who suffered.

It has been many years since I first read this book, and while it was a good read I'm still out on a limb as to whether it's a good as some people say.

"Stranger Than We Can Imagine: An Alternative History of the 20th Century" by John Higgs

 

Publisher: Signal Books (McClelland & Stewart)
Copyright: 2015
ISBN: 9780771038471

When I first read the title of this book I assumed that it was going to be looking at possible alternative histories of the 20th century i.e., taking some aspect of real history and seeing what would've happened if something else had taken place.

In actual fact this book is an examination of the influences various events and beliefs had on a number of different things that actually occurred in the 20th century. These topics are for example: Einstein's discovery of relativity, the influence of modernism on art and society, how the war influenced imperialism and nationalism, how individualism grew during the century, The rise of science fiction and how it influenced people, the development of space travel, changing attitudes towards sex and their influence on society, the influence rick music and other facets of the life of teenagers, chaos theory, and much more.

Each of these topics is covered in very good detail, and sometimes from an expected angle, with a great discussion of how the other influences and events mentioned in the book are support them. The various chapters are definitely related to each other and make for an extremely interesting read.

Without a doubt a full book could be written on each of these topics as well as more. But this book will definitely whet the readers appetite to look for more information if they are so inclined.

Highly recommended!

"The Fabulous Riverboat" by Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)

 

Publisher: Berkley Medallion

Copyright: 1971

ISBN: None listed

"The Fabulous Riverboat" is the second novel in the Riverworld series, which is set sometime in the far future when all people who ever lived on earth are resurrected along the banks of an enormous river. No one knows why they were resurrected, or by whom but some are determined to find out.

This novel has it has as its primary character Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) who is determined to get to the headwaters of the river, and to do so decides to build a paddle-wheel riverboat.

Some of the other characters you'll meet are the Viking chief Erik Bloodaxe, Lothar Von Richthofen (brother to the Red Baron), Prince John Lackland (brother to Richard the Lion Hearted), Odysseus, and Herman Goering also makes another appearance.

I my opinion this novel wasn't quite as good as "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", which I reviewed 2 weeks ago. This is primarily because the time span is in the order of a number of years, but should be many decades. The main reason I come to this conclusion is because they were using technology that would not have been known, or even thought of during the time of Clements. It is true this is explained somewhat by the fact that other more modern engineers assisted him, but it still did seem a little too much of a stretch. The techniques used to build the riverboat also seemed to advanced, to be able to be performed with essentially very rudimentary tools and techniques. I'm sure there are many who will disagree with this, but that's why I said it was my opinion.

In addition to this the characters themselves didn't seem to be quite as well-developed as they were in the first book. This may be because a lot more people have read Clements' books as opposed to those of Burton and therefore have a context to frame his character, but I still feel it would've been nice to see more character development. On the other hand there was some good interaction between Clements and some of his neighbouring peoples with regards to discussions about race, and how Clements portrayed this in his novels.

Race relations do play a large part in the latter part of this novel, so a reader should be prepared for some rather strong language, if that is a concern.

Even with these draw backs, I did enjoy the book as it has been many years since I first read it.

"Dynamic Characters: How to Create personalities that keep readers captivated" by Nancy Kress

 

Publisher: Writer's Digest Books
Copyright:1998
ISBN:0898798159

Nancy Kress is an award-winning author and colonist for writers digest magazine. In this book she looks at a number of different topics that all relate to characterization, how the characters influence the plotting, and the story's world view.

The book itself is separated into three major sections the first is creating strong and believable characters: the externals, the second is creating strong and believable characters: the internals, and third she goes into a discussion of how character and plot interact and influence each other, and how they work within the story's worldview.

Each of the sections is separated into a few sub-sections. For example in the first she talks about things such as what's in a name, the role of setting in creating a character, dialogue and how to enhance characters through it, how to make dialogue read naturally, amongst others.

In the second part she deals with such things as using a character's attitudes, their dreams and news casts to enhance the character. She also looks at how to make the bad guys better, Creating an unsympathetic protagonists, etc.

The third section has sub-sections such as starting in various places within a story and still establishing a plot, point-of-view, secondary characters and their influences on plot construction, basing stories on real events, and much more.

I found this to be an extremely well written book, that is very informative and gives excellent advice and examples. The vast majority of the examples are chosen from very well known books, which therefore gives the aspiring writer even more information to ground their characters on.

Well worth the read, but also good advice for practising authors.

"To Your Scattered Bodies Go" by Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)

 

Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Copyright: 1971

ISBN: 0425028097

The Hugo award winning novel"To Your Scattered Bodies Go" is the first book in Farmer's very popular River World series. In which every person who has ever lived on earth is resurrected from the dead and finds themselves naked on the banks of as immense river. There is no explanation as to why they are there, or what they are supposed to do.

The primary character in this novel is a Sir Richard Francis Burton. For those who don't know, Burton was a real person, and is the translator of One Thousand and One Nights (also known as the Tales of the Arabian Nights), he's the co-founder of the Royal Anthropological Society in Britain, the discoverer of Lake Tanganyika, and accomplished many other exploits during his life. Even with all these credits to his name he was an extremely controversial figure who was not well liked by many in the world, especially many religious leaders.

Burton is somewhat unique in the story, as he was one of very few characters that woke up prior to arrival on the shores of the river, and therefore was aware that other beings were manipulating them. Some of the other characters he meets are Alice Hargraves Little, Herman Goering both of whom play rather significant roles in Burton's quest to find out what is really going on.

This is a very entertaining read, and I would recommend it to anybody who likes essentially classic science fiction, although some have classified this more in the fantasy genre.