Category Archives: Books

BOOKS: “36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem” by Nam Le

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36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem by Nam Le
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Release Date: March 5, 2024

This is a clever collection of poems, lighthearted in places but raw and incensed in others. (A pacing that I appreciate in poetry collections.) The collection draws heavily on the author’s experience being of Vietnamese ethnicity while growing up in the West. It touches upon the tragedies lived by his elders, but, more so, how his life (and perception of him) has been shaped by war and the diaspora it caused. The collection playfully engages with language and cultural concepts in a way that is interesting and – at times – scintillating.

My main gripe with this collection would be its occasional swerves into the domain of huge, rare, and super-specialized terminology. I enjoy being sent to the dictionary as much as the next person, but in a poetry collection – where evoking emotion is the name of the game – I find it takes me out of the experience.

I enjoyed reading this collection and would recommend it for poetry readers.

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BOOKS: “Anthony Bourdain and Philosophy” ed. by Scott Calef

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Anthony Bourdain and PhilosophyAnthony Bourdain and Philosophy by Calef Scott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Release Date: December 26, 2023

These pop philosophy books that examine philosophical ideas through the lens of a particular pop culture personality or entity have become, well, popular. It’s not hard to see why; it’s an easy way to take your medicine, your medicine being to learn philosophical concepts. And, let’s face it, scholarly philosophical books are often nigh unreadable, being laden with jargon and having a tendency to get so lost in the minutiae of razor fine points that they display no relevance to the human experience. I am not immune to the appeal of such books, though when I see a book like “Miranda Sings and Philosophy” I figure I can take a hard pass. But this one caught my eye because Anthony Bourdain did live a life shaped by his own particular philosophy, and an intriguing one at that.

Like most of these books, this is a collection of essays written by different authors. As such, the quality and relevance of the included chapters does vary somewhat.

The book is divided into four parts. The first part looks at the subject of the work for which Bourdain was best known — i.e. at the intersection of food and travel. In these four chapters, authors explore the aesthetics of food and questions like: Do “expert” views on food matter? What is disgusting? And what role does culture play in the culinary experience?

The second part is entitled, “life,” and these five chapters look at Bourdain, the man. That is, they shift away from his work, and look at Bourdain as a martial arts student, a storyteller, and -generally – as a person. These chapters also offer insight into his epistemological perspective — i.e. how he viewed (and engaged in) the pursuit of truth, as well as touching upon his philosophical views more broadly.

The third part takes another turn to examine Bourdain’s addiction and his death by suicide. The chapters present broader philosophical frameworks on suicide and freedom, as a means to put Bourdain’s experience in perspective.

The final part is really kind of a grab-bag of subjects that don’t fit neatly into the other sections. Probably not coincidentally, this is where most of the book’s rough spots are located. It sometimes seems that Bourdain’s philosophy is not so much the subject anymore, and some authors convey their ideas more clearly and effectively than others. This is not, by any means, to say that any of the chapters are completely stinkers, nor to say that all of the chapters are defective. Chapter 13 [which, BTW, I think could have found a spot in Part II] does an interesting job in clarifying Bourdain’s approach to ethics, no easy task as it can seem like an odd mix of spiteful nihilistic impulses and compassionate humility (and it certainly evolved over time.) But even Chapters 14 and 15, which are not only the least flattering discussions of Bourdain but also the most didactic, have something to offer. The first lays out the scandal involving Bourdain’s girlfriend who was a MeToo leader but who also paid off a young actor who accused her of statutory rape, a pay-off made by Bourdain and which seems to be a factor in his suicide. Chapter 15 offers examples of what the author believed Bourdain did right and wrong in discussing the historical context of the places he visited that had been colonized. Ch. 16 was a discussion of the ethics of engaging in luxuriant fine dining in a world with starving people. I thought this chapter would stay the course set by the previous two, but it did shift back into academic objectivity by producing a more complete discussion of competing viewpoints. The penultimate chapter goes more niche than the others, but is a fascinating look at the ethics of AI generated voicework for the “Roadrunner” documentary — i.e. using AI to make it sound like Bourdain said things that he wrote in emails or books but never said [at least not into a recording device.] The last chapter involves climate change and episodes Bourdain did in Madagascar and Bhutan. This was both one of the longer chapters and definitely the most muddled. It remains unclear to me exactly what the author was trying to say, exactly. It’s perfectly readable, and yet unclear.

All in all, I enjoyed this book (as much as one can “enjoy” a book that is about a deceased beloved figure,) and thought it offered some excellent food for thought.

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“There is no Frigate like a Book” (1286) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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There is no Frigate like a Book
   To take us Lands away
 Nor any Coursers like a Page
   Of prancing Poetry --
 This Traverse may the poorest take
   Without oppress of Toll --
 How frugal is the Chariot
   That bears the Human Soul --

Five Wise Lines from In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

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Have you never felt a sort of fear in the face of the ageless, a fear that in that room you might lose all consciousness of the passage of time, that untold years might pass and upon emerging you should find you had grown old and gray?

But our thoughts do not travel to what we cannot see. The unseen for us does not exist.

This was the genius of our ancestors, that by cutting off the light from this empty space they imparted to the world of shadows that formed there a quality of mystery and depth superior to that of any wall painting or ornament.

I wonder if my readers know the color of that ‘darkness seen by candlelight.’ It was different in quality from darkness on the road at night. It was a repletion, a pregnancy of tiny particles like fire ashes, each particle luminous as a rainbow.

Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of light and shadow.

BOOKS: In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

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In Praise of ShadowsIn Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Tanizaki’s essay on Japanese aesthetics doesn’t just show the reader the simple, rustic, and weathered traits of Japanese beauty, it fully submerges them in an otherworldly place ruled by different principles of seeing. So enamored with this pre-modern Japanese aesthetic was Tanizaki that we are convinced he would give up all present-day conveniences to see the world this way (but, alas, he recognizes the impossibility of maintaining a household or business in today’s world that way.)

While the book is principally a tour of this Japanese shadow world, moving from architecture to toilets to lacquerware to Noh plays to skin tones to hotels (with other stops along the way,) it is also a critique of modernity, and particularly a modernity shaped by the West by virtue of Western countries building a lead in a number of key technologies. The most crucial of these technologies, and the one Tanizaki most decries, is electric lighting, which does away with the artistic beauty that derives from the interplay of varied toned shadows (and occasionally a little bit of light.) [I should say, he’s not bashing the Western technology or ways, but rather how poorly they work with maintaining Japanese aesthetic ways.]

I’d highly recommend this book for all readers. If you’re interested in aesthetics, art, architecture, culture, or “things Japanese,” then all the more so, but I can’t remember the last time description pulled me into a book as hard as this one. The essay can be a bit rambling and shifts from euphoria to rant and back, rapidly, but that is part of its magic.

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BOOKS: The NEW Comedy Bible by Judy Carter

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The NEW Comedy Bible: The Ultimate Guide to Writing and Performing Stand-Up ComedyThe NEW Comedy Bible: The Ultimate Guide to Writing and Performing Stand-Up Comedy by Judy Carter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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As the title suggests, this is a soup-to-nuts exploration of building a standup comedy act. While the bulk of the book discusses how to build jokes that work in a comedy club setting, it also gives helpful tips on relevant issues such as stage fright, hecklers, bombing and bomb recovery, set arrangement, and editing material. It offers many insights that may seem counterintuitive to a neophyte reader.

In writing, there is a common distinction made between “plotters” and “pantsers” (as in “by the seat of one’s pants.”) Plotters do a lot of research and outline everything thoroughly before beginning to write (as most people understand the writing process.) Pantsers like to get right into the typing and are willing to have a much messier process in exchange for greater feelings of spontaneity and surprise. A similar distinction seems to exist in standup comedy. Jerry Seinfeld might be the posterchild for the comedic plotter, writing and rewriting jokes on paper and having an already finely honed collection of jokes when he goes into the comedy club to revise through audience feedback. Other comedians seem to like to work by riffing and editing material on the fly. My point is: this book will definitely appeal most to plotters. That said, I think it has a lot of useful information that will save pantsers a great deal of trouble, but I suspect those with intense pantser proclivities will be skeptical of such a step-by-step approach.

The book is set up as a workbook woven into an instructional guide. That is, it has exercises throughout. It also presents a lot of jokes and partial bits by headlining comics to help the reader see how successful comics apply the principles in question.

I enjoyed reading this book and found it helpful. I thought that many of the exercises were quite helpful in triggering joke ideas. If you are looking for a book that deals in both joke writing and comedic delivery, I’d highly recommend this book.

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BOOKS: Everyday Shakespeare by Ben & David Crystal

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Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for LifeEveryday Shakespeare: Lines for Life by Ben Crystal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This is like a word-a-day calendar, but with a quotation from Shakespeare for each day (rather than a vocabulary word.) Also, each quote has accompanying text that explains what the quote is from, what it means, why the language says what it does, and the context in which an individual might use Shakespeare’s words today. [Note: while that last bit (i.e. how to employ the Bard’s words today) is a major theme of the book, I wouldn’t recommend it. It will make one look more like a pretentious nincompoop than like a clever wordsmith.] That said, the book still has great value for anyone interested in Shakespeare’s work, specifically, or the evolution of the English language, more generally. In dealing with many phrases that describe workaday activities that were common then as now, the book builds a niche different from books that deal in the grandiose phraseology of war and aristocratic life.

Many people struggle with Shakespeare, and this book helps make clear why some of the statements that were about mundane matters had the meaning they did. I would put people’s difficulties with Shakespeare into three buckets. First, poetic and non-colloquial language in which the reader knows all the words and their meanings, but the poetic / stylistic language and grammar throws them for a loop. This book shouldn’t really need to deal with this one, but it does a little bit. Second, evolutionary language drift, in this case the reader knows the words but is thrown off because they don’t mean what they once did. The book is quite helpful in clarifying these changes. Third, the revolutionary shifts, these involve words and phrases wholly unfamiliar to the reader because they deal in activities and perspectives not present in our daily lives. The book explains these changes, as well, but there aren’t a great deal of them because the selections are supposed to be applicable today.

The book draws from the entire Shakespeare canon, but more heavily from the plays than from the sonnets or long form poems. (Also, not surprisingly, it draws more heavily from the popular plays — i.e. many of the tragedies and the popular comedies — than it does from the more obscure plays (i.e. most histories and a few of the others.) This only makes sense, and I was happy to see references to sonnets, histories, and other Shakespearean poems at all.

All in all, this is an informative book and is recommended for those who are interested in getting into Shakespeare, or who are intrigued by the ever-shifting landscape of the English language.

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BOOKS: Batman Arkham: Penguin by Bill Finger, et. al.

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Batman Arkham: PenguinBatman Arkham: Penguin by Bill Finger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Drawing from 70 years of stories, this collection of issues involving the Penguin as Batman’s villain du jour really shows the shifting landscape of comic books over the decades. In the early issues, written with a young audience in mind, the Penguin is a skillful thief, but also kind of goofy, camp, and with not really much menace. By the last issue included, we see the hard edge of psychopathy and the gross deformity of this classic villain.

I was pleasantly surprised with this collection. Often these cobbled together comic collections lack coherent storytelling and feel as cheap and lazy as a sitcom clip show, but this volume shows several satisfying story arcs, and — while there is no overarching arc — it makes for a satisfying read.

I enjoyed reading this collection and seeing, through it, the evolution of comic books.

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BOOKS: The Shaolin Workout by Shi Yan Ming

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The Shaolin Workout: 28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior's WayThe Shaolin Workout: 28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior’s Way by Yan Ming
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This book presents an exercise regimen based on Shaolin Kung fu as taught by a prominent New York City martial arts teacher. The book moves from gentle joint articulations suitable for anyone through to movements that require some degree of flexibility and athleticism. The sequence is presented in such a way as to build on itself, adding a bit more each time until one is doing the entire sequence.

Interspersed with the descriptions of the physical exercises are meditations, mostly of a contemplative nature. The illustrations are color pictures and provide the sequences of movement, though the textual descriptions will be necessary in many cases to clarify the transitional movements. There are a number of full-page color plates that are very well shot, though mostly for aesthetic (versus educational) purposes.

The book is probably the most pep-talk laden book I’ve ever read. That said, there’s not much discussion of modifications or capacity building for individuals who are incapable of doing the full expression of the techniques.

The practices often reminded me more of yoga than of martial arts. There are many deep stretches and low positions, e.g. similar to Warrior I (Virabhadra I.) It’s true that there are punch and kick movements, but they are done in more of a range-of-motion building way than as one would in combative arts.

It is an interesting set of movements, and I’d recommend it for those who like to work with unconventional workouts and movement systems.

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BOOKS: Mad World by Slavoj Žižek

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Mad World: War, Movies, SexMad World: War, Movies, Sex by Slavoj Žižek
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Release Date: November 27, 2023 (Jan 11, 2024 in some markets)

I can see why Slavoj Žižek is one of the most successful popular philosophical authors out there today. For one thing, he deals in provocative topics straight from the headlines: politics, pop culture, war, and sex. Furthermore, like the authors of such books as Freakonomics, he picks cases that are fascinating, if inconsequential / frivolous (e.g. in the case of this book, the question of a proposed massive Ukrainian orgy to be carried out in response to a Russian nuclear strike.) For another thing, while philosophy tends to be nigh unreadable owing to the philosopher’s need to be defensively precise (which, in turn, leads to overuse of complex jargon and tedious qualifiers,) Žižek is quite readable owing to an ability to make clear and confident statements.

Of course, there is a downside to this confident clarity. Many a reader will find too many gratuitous statements for his or her taste. Žižek is often willing to say “clearly, x means y” about things for which there is no consensus, whatsoever. An example seen more than once in this book is in discussing what Žižek believes to be the unambiguous meaning of symbolism in artistic works. Of course, there is a name for the fallacy of believing one knows what an author or artist meant to convey, i.e. the intentional fallacy.

That said, the author provides many intriguing ways of thinking about the absurdity of the modern world. For example, to (deceased) former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s tripartite epistemological nomenclature (i.e. known-knowns, known-unknowns, and unknown-unknowns) Žižek asks us to consider a seemingly impossible fourth sector, unknown-knowns (i.e. we don’t know the question, but we have an “answer.”) Žižek’s self-described “pessimistic realism” appeals to the reader’s sense of martyrdom even as it frustrates, by-and-large telling us that the modern world is screwed and there’s little chance of saving it.

If you’re interested in popular philosophy, this book is worth giving a read. However, if you are used to scholarly philosophy, you may find it a bit sloppy and trivial.

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