pixxiefish in the stacks

Art History by Marilyn Stokstad

Art History
Marilyn Stokstad
(Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J.; Harry N. Abrams, New York: 2002)

Volumes 1 and 2 combined, with ArtNotes companion workbooks. In collaboration with David Cateforis, and chapters by Stephen Addiss, et al.

READ: September 2005 - April 2006

This was my textbook for the first-year Art History course that I was taking at the university this year. It's a textbook, so I won't go on and on about it. But as far as textbooks go, it was quite good. Other than being way too heavy to carry anywhere (I never brought it to class), it is fairly comprehensive as far as European art is concerned. There were two tiny chapters on the entirety of Japanese art totalling about twenty pages in all (as I discovered when I went to write a paper on Japanese temple architecture). But I guess it's only fair that most art history classes, at least in this part of the world, will focus mostly on the European tradition in art and architecture. There was a decent amount on American art, though again, not much if you are interested in aboriginal art. Ditto for other Asian art, like China and Southeast Asia, plus a small bit of information on Islamic and African arts. Still, this book is widely recognized as being the best textbook there is for a general introduction to art history. If you have an interest in art and art history and don't know where to start reading, this is a good place. I tend to not keep most of my textbooks - they get outdated or are not compelling enough on their own, but I'm keeping this one for sure.

Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey

Wrong About Japan
Peter Carey
(Vintage International, New York: 2006)

First published by Knopf in 2005.

READ: March 2006

I picked this up one day from a secondhand book shop because it had an intriguing premise: Peter Carey, famous Australian author (among other things, he is the author of the novel True History of the Kelly Gang, which I really want to read someday) who is based in New York City, takes his 12-year-old son to Tokyo for a week after his son declares that he is going to live in Japan someday. Charlie is interested in Japanese manga and anime, not kabuki theatre and temple architecture. So he gets his dad to promise that they will visit the Real Japan, which they do. They meet a young Japanese boy who speaks English (I guess in Tokyo, anything is possible) who shows them some way-off-the-beaten-track aspects of Japanese life. There is a bit of Japanese theatre, despite Charlie's loud protests, and if I recall correctly, Carey gets away at one point by himself to visit one temple or something like that. But mostly there is anime and yakuza and comics and Mr. Donut. It's a short book, and you don't have to be a Japanophile to appreciate it. It's a fun read with a number of laugh-out-loud moments.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Lynne Truss
(Gotham Books, New York: 2004)

First published in U.K. in 2003 by Profile Books.

READ: March 2006

Hee. Another funny book. I was given it as a present back in 2004 immediately before I left for Southeast Asia, but hadn't gotten around to reading it. By March of this year, plans were firmly underway to head to Japan for a year (or some) to teach English, so I figured it was time to figure out punctuation.

I've always been a bit of a punctuation stickler. Not always in my own writing (I do tend to drag things on and on), but when editing others' work. Plus in grade 8, my English teacher, Mr. Waddington (who, strangely, had been my French teacher the year before, but that's another story entirely), told me I overused commas. I'm not sure you can actually overuse commas - usually the problem is underuse, no? - but there you have it.

Anyway, this book hasn't helped really in terms of making me a better English teacher, but it was an excellent book nonetheless. It is quite funny. It's certainly not a how-to book. Truss doesn't really tell you when a comma is appropriate, but she can sure show many examples of inappropriateness. And the poor apostrophe! That's the one that drives me batty. It's so simple to use, yet so rarely used right. I can forgive things like "1970's" (shouldn't be an apostrophe), but "Orange's for sale" is only right if there is one thing for sale and it happens to be called Orange. And "it's" versus "its" - the easiest rule in the entire grammar book - let's just not go there.

Yes, the hype that surrounded its publication was worth it. It's a good book and quite enjoyable.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Jared Diamond
(Viking, New York: 2005)

READ: February-March 2006

I read Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel almost exactly one year ago and really enjoyed it. Collapse was one I'd been seeing around a lot, so it was time to tackle it. And it did not disappoint. Guns, Germs, and Steel is the better of the two, but Collapse is also worth a read.

The book is a series of case studies of environmental degradation, and the ways in which the societies affected did or did not overcome these collapses. Guns, Germs, and Steel looked at the winners in civilization; Collapse looks largely at the losers: the Vikings, the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi of the American Southwest, the Mayans, modern-day Rwandans, and so on. But he also looks at societies that managed to overcome their environmental difficulties; for example, the Icelanders. Iceland is an environment that should not work, yet it is one of the most prosperous nations in the world. Why?

Diamond's basic argument, to really dumb it down, is that not all failures of societies can be blamed on a cataclysmic event, on an act of God (or whoever), but that many times, a society fails because it does not respond appropriately to the environment around it. So the Vikings, for example, tried to live in Greenland in exactly the same fashion they had in Norway. Greenland's fragile ecosystem could not handle this, and so it eventually collapsed. Greenland itself, however, did not become inhabitable; the Inuit lived there for many centuries after the Vikings were forced to leave. But the Vikings were unable to adapt to a lifestyle that was more sustainable on Greenland's shores. Likewise, Easter Island, once a lush, thriving ecosystem, was continuously exploited by the Islanders until it, too, became what we now know it as: a barren, windswept rock of an island. There was no great event that destroyed Easter Island. People kept living there, farming the land and cutting the trees, until there were no trees left, and consequently erosion sped up.

Diamond also looks at a few modern-day societies who are facing potential environmental crises. Japan, with its post-WWII rapid deforestation, is one of these. So is the state of Montana, with the damage mining has wrought on its natural environment.

The pace gets sluggish at times, but overall the book is well-written and thought-provoking. I like the way Diamond approaches this subject - not too preachy, not too technical. He mixes just enough science with real-life meaning to make it interesting. Start with Guns, Germs, and Steel and move on to this one if you want to know more.

Hitching Rides With Buddha: Travels In Search Of Japan by Will Ferguson

Hitching Rides With Buddha: Travels In Search Of Japan
Will Ferguson
(Knopf Canada, Toronto: 2005)

Originally published in abridged form in the U.K. as Hokkaido Highway Blues by Soho Press in 2001.

READ: February 2006

Will Ferguson is one of my new favourite authors, and he's Canadian to boot! I actually haven't read much by him, but what I have read, I have enjoyed immensely. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable few days on Bali and Lombok in Indonesia two years ago, reading his book Happiness (TM). I really need to re-read it solely so that I may have the pleasure of reviewing it on this site.

Anyway, I digress. I'd been waiting for Hitching Rides With Buddha to come out in paperback, when I received it as a Christmas present from my parents who knew I was thinking of coming out to Japan later this year. And man oh man, is it ever funny. If you know anything at all about Japan, or don't know much at all but are interested in learning a bit, this book is for you. Taking Alan Booth's 2000-mile walk across Japan as inspiration, Ferguson, who taught English on Kyushu in the south end of Japan for about 5 years in the early to mid-1990s, set out to hitchhike clear across Japan. He is witty, he is insightful, and I promise he will make you laugh and laugh and laugh. I drove Randal crazy while I was reading this book as I kept laughing out loud every page or two. He couldn't understand it...until he went to read it himself a few months later. Then it was his turn.

And it's not just a book for Japanophiles. While the action is obviously set in Japan and most of Ferguson's comments are targeted toward Japanese and foreigners in Japan, many of these comments also translate to a larger picture of human nature generally. I'm sure I often say on this blog that "this book is an entertaining read", but this time I really, really mean it. I can't recommend this book enough.

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

Small Gods
Terry Pratchett
(HarperPrism, London: 1992)

READ: January 2006

So while I was going through my mini sci-fi/fantasy reading binge, I added this book to the list (yes, same bookshelf). The only other Terry Pratchett I have read is Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman. And I am, oddly enough, constantly getting the two books confused. But Small Gods is a good book, though not laugh-out-loud funny like Good Omens. It takes place in a time when the various small gods have been largely forgotten in favour of a few large, very important gods. One of these, Om, unfortunately has somehow gotten trapped in the body of a very small tortoise, and he must convince his chosen disciple, Brutha, and the people of his land that he is in fact the god Om and must be obeyed. There are, of course, neighbouring lands with competing gods, and most worrying of all, the Quisition, a thinly-veiled version of the Spanish Inquisition. Hilarity ensues. Read it.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Douglas Adams
(Pan Books Ltd, London: 1988)

READ: January 2006

Another book sitting on Randal's shelf that he recommended I read. I was forewarned that it was not as good a book as the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, but it's not bad. It had some loose bits that I didn't really follow, but on the whole, it was a good read. But, of course, if you ever had to choose one or the other, Hitchhikers Guide takes the prize all the way. And that's all I have to say about that!

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Dai Sijie
translated from the French by Ina Rilke
(Knopf, New York City: 2002)

First published 2001

READ: January 2006

A delightful tale. I read this book in about two days flat. It compelled me to keep going, just a little further, just a little more. The ending is a bit abrupt and unsatisfying - I think that's partially it's style - not everything can always be wrapped up into a nice, tidy package at the end.

The story is set in 1970s Communist China. It tells of two city boys who are exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's Cultural Revolution. While the work is hard and the hopes of returning to their families are slim, they become friends with the daughter of the local tailor. They also discover a hidden stash of Western literature - philosophy, novels, etc. - in Chinese translation. The book explores how this discovery changes their lives in small but important ways.

Falling Sideways by Tom Holt

Falling Sideways
Tom Holt
(Orbit (Time Warner Books), London: 2002)

READ: January 2006

This is a funny, funny book. It had been sitting on Randal's bookshelf for a while and when I finally asked him about it, he said, "Yeah, it's good. Read it. You'll like it." And he was right.

Basically, if you have read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you know the world is run by mice, right? Wrong! Frogs are actually in charge of the whole shebang. Or perhaps humans are actually frogs who think they are human. Or the frogs are human but think they are frogs. Anyway, something like that. There are also numerous clones involved in the various shenanigans, too, for good measure.

It gets bogged down at a few points, and once or twice I lost track of the storyline almost entirely (as you might have guessed from the previous paragraph), but it really is an entertaining read, and a short, breezy one at that.