Reading Habits From Mars
As promised a while back, here is the blog entry about my strange reading habits. I'll dive right in, then give you a list of some of my books.
First of all, I never, ever read fiction. I find it extremely boring. And although I am a librarian, I never borrow books from a library. I want to own the books I read. Besides that, my habits don't fit with the necessity of returning books on time, even if there are one or two renewal/extension periods provided by most libraries. Some librarian, huh. (And no, I don't wear my glasses down at the end of my nose and I don't run around telling people to shush up. Librarians generally don't do that. We tend to be people who love books and value knowledge and learning and are driven by a desire to help other people acquire knowledge and the habit of life-long learning. Heck, when I was in library school at the U of W O, the library students (mostly women) had the reputation for being the rowdiest bunch at the Graduate Student's Society's pub, which made us quite proud. Always eager to shatter myths, those crafty librarians.)
I normally have several books on the go at the same time. My favourite topics are history, social/political issues and science. I never seem to have time to read them in a timely fashion and I often don't finish them.
I have three thick books about history on the go right now. It is the thick books that I often don't finish. I often quit about 2/3rd of the way through and start another one, or read a thin book, another reason I prefer to buy my books rather than borrow them.
Examples of books that I have started and then put aside in the past year or so:
1. Heaven and Earth: Global warming, the missing science;
2. Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
3. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee.
I started the first one, many, many months ago, put it down, and just last week, picked it up again and decided to finish it. The second one I bought from either Amazon.ca or Chapters.Indigo.ca (can't remember which) many, many months ago and the third I picked up at a library book sale. Libraries, at least public and academic libraries, have to get rid of old books that are no longer being borrowed in order to make room for the new stuff that people/professors are demanding. The discarded books go really cheap. And if you work in a library, discarded books can sometimes be yours for the taking. (Secrets of the trade.) In any case, I will get back to all the three thick books that I have started recently and abandoned.
Although there are usually book reviews on the two "bookstore" websites next to the description and the ordering info for their books, I know that they will not include any unfavourable reviews, so it's obviously slanted and meant to sell more books. But I order the books anyway, just because the subject matter deals with one of my favourite subjects and the description sounds interesting. Besides, if a publisher considers a manuscript unsalable, they won't publish it, so if it's good enough for the publisher, it's good enough for me.
But I also have numerous thin and thinner books. (Bet you didn't know librarians describe books by their physical properties, did you? Thin, thick, red, blue, green. These are all highly technical terms from library science, as much (or more so) as classification and call numbers.) Frankly, I think the thick books are just poorly written. The thinner ones are written with great precision and no wasted words. There is little or no repetition, as there sometimes is with the thick ones. Heaven and Earth is especially bad on that count. It must have been written in a hurry. The author is a scientist, not a professional writer. But that's what editors are for. Publishers should make sure their books are properly edited. But I digress.
Anyway, some of my favourites are:
Plagues and Peoples (William H. McNeill): This book is about the role played by epidemics in the course of history. Very interesting.
Pox Americana: The great smallpox epidemic of 1775-82 (Elizabeth A. Fenn) A similar theme to Plagues and Peoples, this one deals with the effects of a smallpox epidemic that raged during the American Revolution.
Mapping Human History: Discovering the past through our genes (Steve Olson); This book describes how the history of homo sapiens and their migrations can be revealed by the genetic code found in human populations today. Very interesting.
American Alone (Mark Steyn) Steyn's classic work on the decline of Western Civilization (except the only place where it isn't in decline).
A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an age (William Manchester) The title suffices to tell you what the book is about. One of the most interesting feature in the book is a narrative about the voyage undertaken by Ferdinand Magellan, the first man to circumnavigate the globe, proving to his contemporaries that the earth was, indeed, round, along with several other things about the planet.
The American Revolution (Edward Countryman) This is more a social history than anything else. I did find it a bit hard to understand because it makes frequent mention of events and individuals that I am not familiar with. I think some basic grounding in the topic would have prepared me to better understand it. But, nevertheless, I still found it very interesting and learned a lot about the significance of the American revolution in the broader world.
Anti-Americanism (Jean-Francois Revel) A great little book by a Frenchman, that picks apart, and leaves shredded on the floor, many of the memes promoted by European leftists with their ethnocentric, snobbish, phony contempt for America. A fascinating read.
What's So Great About America (Dinesh D'Souza) Same thing.
But seriously, not all my books are about the US. I just happened to grab a bunch off my bookshelves and carted them downstairs to my computer room.
Left Out: Saskatchewan's NDP and the relentless pursuit of mediocrity (John Gormley) The title is a play on words. John Gormley is a talk-radio host of the conservative persuasion. His book is a finely crafted evisceration of Saskatchewan's NDP. There's not much left of them, by the end of the book.
The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkian Cultures 1504-1700: A study in Canadian Civilization (Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey) This is an excellent account, relying heavily on the Jesuit Relations, of the first encounters between, as the title says, European and Indian cultures. It was written long before political correctness entered the scene and made truth-telling verboten.
The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (James Axtell) Another book in the same tradition, Axtell tells the truth about contact between Europeans and native Americans. One of the best essays in the collection is about the history of scalping and the preponderance of evidence relating to its North American origin.
Scalping and Torture (Frederici, Nadeau, Knowles) A skinny little book (my favourite kind) that documents clearly and proves that native North Americans practiced both of these techniques (now a taboo subject, of course, but this book consists of three essays first published in 1906, 1940 and 1941) long before the current PC nonsense arose.
The Ecological Indian (Shepard Krech III) This is also a gem of a book that completely skewers the notion advanced by the Indian Industry, that, contrary to Europeans, Indians lived in harmony with nature.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The fates of human societies (Jared Diamond) A massive tome that handily explains why some peoples created advanced, highly technological societies while others never left the stone age.
The Little Ice Age: How climate made history 1300-1850 (Brian Fagan) This was published twelve years ago, before the AGW crowd reached their feverish and hysterical peak. The title says quite clearly what it's about; that most recent period in history that AGW scammers pretend never happened.
The Paleolithic Prescription: A program of diet and exercise and a design for living (Eaton, Shostak, Konner) A very interesting books about what early humans ate as they evolved and why we should try to eat the same way, today. Oh, and how early humans maintained a superb state of fitness. But since I don't have access to wildebeest and wild turnips, I have an excuse, and I'm sticking to it.
The Road Less Travelled: A new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth (M. Scott Peck) Oh, man! This book has been the single most important read in my life. I've read it several times and could read it again. If your head isn't screwed on right (and whose isn't) this book is indispensable for getting you unmessed-up.
Don't Know Much About The Bible: Everything you need to know about the good book but never learned (Kenneth C. Davis) Just an interesting book chock full of info, often humorous, about what's in the Bible. And, unlike the Bible, it's written in modern English, so I was actually able to read it!
The Trouble With Islam: A wake-up call for honesty and change (Irshad Manji) You've probably heard of this one and of her. This very brave young woman dared to write about the religion of Islamism and, as if to prove her right, has had to live with body guards ever since.
Saddam Hussein: A political biography (Karsh, Rautsi) A detailed account of his rise to power and his legacy, once in the president's office. Lot's of blood and mayhem along the way.
What Went Wrong: Western impact and Middle Eastern Response (Bernard Lewis) A mercifully small book on a very large topic.
There. That's a sampling of the books I own. Now you know what sort of stuff I like to read.
First of all, I never, ever read fiction. I find it extremely boring. And although I am a librarian, I never borrow books from a library. I want to own the books I read. Besides that, my habits don't fit with the necessity of returning books on time, even if there are one or two renewal/extension periods provided by most libraries. Some librarian, huh. (And no, I don't wear my glasses down at the end of my nose and I don't run around telling people to shush up. Librarians generally don't do that. We tend to be people who love books and value knowledge and learning and are driven by a desire to help other people acquire knowledge and the habit of life-long learning. Heck, when I was in library school at the U of W O, the library students (mostly women) had the reputation for being the rowdiest bunch at the Graduate Student's Society's pub, which made us quite proud. Always eager to shatter myths, those crafty librarians.)
I normally have several books on the go at the same time. My favourite topics are history, social/political issues and science. I never seem to have time to read them in a timely fashion and I often don't finish them.
I have three thick books about history on the go right now. It is the thick books that I often don't finish. I often quit about 2/3rd of the way through and start another one, or read a thin book, another reason I prefer to buy my books rather than borrow them.
Examples of books that I have started and then put aside in the past year or so:
1. Heaven and Earth: Global warming, the missing science;
2. Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
3. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee.
I started the first one, many, many months ago, put it down, and just last week, picked it up again and decided to finish it. The second one I bought from either Amazon.ca or Chapters.Indigo.ca (can't remember which) many, many months ago and the third I picked up at a library book sale. Libraries, at least public and academic libraries, have to get rid of old books that are no longer being borrowed in order to make room for the new stuff that people/professors are demanding. The discarded books go really cheap. And if you work in a library, discarded books can sometimes be yours for the taking. (Secrets of the trade.) In any case, I will get back to all the three thick books that I have started recently and abandoned.
Although there are usually book reviews on the two "bookstore" websites next to the description and the ordering info for their books, I know that they will not include any unfavourable reviews, so it's obviously slanted and meant to sell more books. But I order the books anyway, just because the subject matter deals with one of my favourite subjects and the description sounds interesting. Besides, if a publisher considers a manuscript unsalable, they won't publish it, so if it's good enough for the publisher, it's good enough for me.
But I also have numerous thin and thinner books. (Bet you didn't know librarians describe books by their physical properties, did you? Thin, thick, red, blue, green. These are all highly technical terms from library science, as much (or more so) as classification and call numbers.) Frankly, I think the thick books are just poorly written. The thinner ones are written with great precision and no wasted words. There is little or no repetition, as there sometimes is with the thick ones. Heaven and Earth is especially bad on that count. It must have been written in a hurry. The author is a scientist, not a professional writer. But that's what editors are for. Publishers should make sure their books are properly edited. But I digress.
Anyway, some of my favourites are:
Plagues and Peoples (William H. McNeill): This book is about the role played by epidemics in the course of history. Very interesting.
Pox Americana: The great smallpox epidemic of 1775-82 (Elizabeth A. Fenn) A similar theme to Plagues and Peoples, this one deals with the effects of a smallpox epidemic that raged during the American Revolution.
Mapping Human History: Discovering the past through our genes (Steve Olson); This book describes how the history of homo sapiens and their migrations can be revealed by the genetic code found in human populations today. Very interesting.
American Alone (Mark Steyn) Steyn's classic work on the decline of Western Civilization (except the only place where it isn't in decline).
A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an age (William Manchester) The title suffices to tell you what the book is about. One of the most interesting feature in the book is a narrative about the voyage undertaken by Ferdinand Magellan, the first man to circumnavigate the globe, proving to his contemporaries that the earth was, indeed, round, along with several other things about the planet.
The American Revolution (Edward Countryman) This is more a social history than anything else. I did find it a bit hard to understand because it makes frequent mention of events and individuals that I am not familiar with. I think some basic grounding in the topic would have prepared me to better understand it. But, nevertheless, I still found it very interesting and learned a lot about the significance of the American revolution in the broader world.
Anti-Americanism (Jean-Francois Revel) A great little book by a Frenchman, that picks apart, and leaves shredded on the floor, many of the memes promoted by European leftists with their ethnocentric, snobbish, phony contempt for America. A fascinating read.
What's So Great About America (Dinesh D'Souza) Same thing.
But seriously, not all my books are about the US. I just happened to grab a bunch off my bookshelves and carted them downstairs to my computer room.
Left Out: Saskatchewan's NDP and the relentless pursuit of mediocrity (John Gormley) The title is a play on words. John Gormley is a talk-radio host of the conservative persuasion. His book is a finely crafted evisceration of Saskatchewan's NDP. There's not much left of them, by the end of the book.
The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkian Cultures 1504-1700: A study in Canadian Civilization (Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey) This is an excellent account, relying heavily on the Jesuit Relations, of the first encounters between, as the title says, European and Indian cultures. It was written long before political correctness entered the scene and made truth-telling verboten.
The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (James Axtell) Another book in the same tradition, Axtell tells the truth about contact between Europeans and native Americans. One of the best essays in the collection is about the history of scalping and the preponderance of evidence relating to its North American origin.
Scalping and Torture (Frederici, Nadeau, Knowles) A skinny little book (my favourite kind) that documents clearly and proves that native North Americans practiced both of these techniques (now a taboo subject, of course, but this book consists of three essays first published in 1906, 1940 and 1941) long before the current PC nonsense arose.
The Ecological Indian (Shepard Krech III) This is also a gem of a book that completely skewers the notion advanced by the Indian Industry, that, contrary to Europeans, Indians lived in harmony with nature.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The fates of human societies (Jared Diamond) A massive tome that handily explains why some peoples created advanced, highly technological societies while others never left the stone age.
The Little Ice Age: How climate made history 1300-1850 (Brian Fagan) This was published twelve years ago, before the AGW crowd reached their feverish and hysterical peak. The title says quite clearly what it's about; that most recent period in history that AGW scammers pretend never happened.
The Paleolithic Prescription: A program of diet and exercise and a design for living (Eaton, Shostak, Konner) A very interesting books about what early humans ate as they evolved and why we should try to eat the same way, today. Oh, and how early humans maintained a superb state of fitness. But since I don't have access to wildebeest and wild turnips, I have an excuse, and I'm sticking to it.
The Road Less Travelled: A new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth (M. Scott Peck) Oh, man! This book has been the single most important read in my life. I've read it several times and could read it again. If your head isn't screwed on right (and whose isn't) this book is indispensable for getting you unmessed-up.
Don't Know Much About The Bible: Everything you need to know about the good book but never learned (Kenneth C. Davis) Just an interesting book chock full of info, often humorous, about what's in the Bible. And, unlike the Bible, it's written in modern English, so I was actually able to read it!
The Trouble With Islam: A wake-up call for honesty and change (Irshad Manji) You've probably heard of this one and of her. This very brave young woman dared to write about the religion of Islamism and, as if to prove her right, has had to live with body guards ever since.
Saddam Hussein: A political biography (Karsh, Rautsi) A detailed account of his rise to power and his legacy, once in the president's office. Lot's of blood and mayhem along the way.
What Went Wrong: Western impact and Middle Eastern Response (Bernard Lewis) A mercifully small book on a very large topic.
There. That's a sampling of the books I own. Now you know what sort of stuff I like to read.
posted by Louise at 1:29 pm
2 Comments:
That is awesome, Louise. I swear I would croak finishing a third of these. Nothing causes me to run faster than a prospect of reading a history book.
It all depends on how it's written. History can be a colossal bore or it can be fascinating. I tend to stay away from ones that are all names and dates and not much more.
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