Tag Archives: books

BOOK: “Mastering the Art of War” by Zhuge Liang & Liu Ji [Trans. & Ed. by Thomas Cleary

Posted on by
Reply
Mastering the Art of War: Commentaries on Sun Tzu's Classic (Shambhala Dragon Editions)Mastering the Art of War: Commentaries on Sun Tzu’s Classic by Zhuge Liang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Shambhala

This book combines the writings of two prominent Chinese strategists, Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji. Both men came after Sunzi, author of The Art of War, and Cleary describes these two works as commentaries on the work of Sunzi.

Zhuge Liang’s piece is called The Way of the General and it collects short essays from Records of the Loyal Lord of Warriors. Like many, I first became acquainted with Zhuge Liang from his novelized personage in the Chinese classic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in which he is called “Kongming” and is a force to be reckoned with in service to Liu Bei of the Shu Kingdom. Zhuge Liang’s ideas are conveyed as short topical discussions, not unlike Sunzi’s work.

Liu Ji’s manual, Lessons of War, is a bit different in that the explanation of the strategy is briefer than in the works of Sunzi or Zhuge Liang, but Liu Ji always includes an exemplary story from history. This makes Liu Ji’s work a little more narrative. It is interesting to see the varied approach to conveyance of the concepts under consideration.

Because the works of Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji are thin, the book has a fair amount of padding in the form of Translator’s Introductions, both an overall Introduction and one per included work. I was happy with how these were done. They do not drone on but rather give some background that will be useful to the average reader without getting lost in the weeds.

If you’re interested in strategy, be it applicable to war or otherwise, I’d highly recommend this book.

View all my reviews

PROMPT: Topics

Posted on by
Reply
Daily writing prompt
Which topics would you like to be more informed about?
View all responses

I’d like to know more about the capabilities and limitations of AI, a rabbit-hole that I have only recently stumbled upon, but which I am tumbling down hard. Particularly, how to best use it for language acquisition as I am currently learning Chinese and would like to increase my literacy so I can open myself up to a whole new world of books.

I’m also curious about pratfalls and physical comedy all of a sudden.

5 Books to Read If You Want to Live

Posted on by
Reply
Taken on the Annapurna Sanctuary Trail in Nepal.

Over the years, I’ve read many books about survival in extreme or unexpected situations. Here are five of my favorites.

THE UNTHINKABLE by Amanda Ripley [Full Review]

What I like about this book: Ripley focuses heavily on the topic of mindset while exploring a wide range of survival situations from being stranded in a lifeboat to being in the Twin Towers on 9/11. It’s a fascinating – as well as educational – book.

SURVIVAL AT THE EXTREMES by Kenneth Kamler [Full Review]

What I like about this book: This book focuses on surviving in all the places humans are not adapted to, places where one cannot live for long without ongoing technological support. These places include Mt. Everest (with which the author has personal experience,) the ocean, and the harshest of deserts. Kamler is a medical doctor and the book, therefore, does a good job of explaining the limits of human physiology.

EXTREME FEAR by Jeff Wise [Full Review]

What I like about this book: Wise’s book examines how fear can work against us in challenging situations (e.g. causing one to freeze at the wrong time) and what methods have been developed to overcome such crippling or inappropriate fear responses. This book is not entirely about life-and-death survival, but it does have a lot to say that is relevant to the subject.

INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer [Full Review]

What I like about this book: This book is not like the others. There are no physical or mental techniques for survival described in it, nor discussions of physiology. Rather, it is an extremely well-written cautionary tale about a young man who goes out into the wilderness and gets in over his head. It is highly readable food-for-thought.

98.6 by Cody Lundin [Full Review]

What I like about this book: This is the closest thing to an actual survival manual on my list. But it’s written in conversational, folksy style that makes it easy to read, despite the daunting subject matter. As the title suggests, Lundin’s central premise is that one must keep the body burning at its appropriate temperature, or else…

BOOK: Sát Thát by Lê Vân [Illustrated by Nguyễn Bích]

Posted on by
Reply
Sát ThátSát Thát by Lê Vân
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Kim Dong Books

This illustrated book tells the story of the Vietnamese (Tran Dynasty) victories over the invading Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian-controlled China.) It’s a quick read with only a few lines of text per page, while the bulk of each page is a line-drawn monochrome illustration. The illustrations themselves are sufficiently clear and detailed to allow one to follow the general flow of the story.

I used a translator and don’t know how accurate it was or –more particularly — how true to the original it was, except to say that the translator produced a coherent story that seemed to be consistent with other sources.

This book focuses entirely on the military campaigns and takes a bit of a jingoistic tone. As I understand it, it doesn’t tell the whole tale as many consider the Mongol incursions to have been successful because they exacted a tribute from the Vietnamese (which was their ultimate goal,) despite the Mongols’ lack of military success. That said, it was an impressive set of military victories for the Tran Dynasty, and the Vietnamese have every right to take pride in them.

I discovered this book in the publisher’s bookstore in Hanoi and thought it was a small enough text with sufficiently detailed illustration to give me some insight into the story, even without any real grasp of the language. I did find reading the book to be informative and interesting and would recommend it for readers military history.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “The Future of Humanity” by Michio Kaku

Posted on by
Reply
The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality and Our Destiny Beyond EarthThe Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Author Booksite

As the title suggests, this is one of the books for which theoretical physicist Michio Kaku dons his futurist cap to speculate about what is to come. Other of his books that might be included in this “series” are: Visions, Physics of the Future, The Future of the Mind, and Physics of the Impossible. This particular book focuses on how humanity will spread beyond the planet (and, perhaps, beyond the universe) to survive the (probably distant, but – also – inevitable) threats to the species. While there are other topics discussed, such as the search for immortality and transhumanism, those topics are often framed as necessities of interstellar expansion.

As one would expect of a physicist, the book is highly focused on the physics of the subject. There is little discussion of the psychological difficulties, nor of biological issues such as the fact that humanity is not so lone wolf as we think, and taking off to other planets and living in space without the Earthly life we are interdependent on would involve challenges we have difficult fathoming. All of the challenges that are usually treated with handwaves in science fiction are also handwaved off here.

The book is fun and interesting reading. It’s probably more insightful of science fiction than of our future, but that doesn’t make it less compelling. The seven years since this book was published have seen a lot of change, and there may be a book on this subject that has more of a finger on the pulse, but I still enjoyed reading it. [The downside of writing about the future, even with a focus on the distant future, is that one risks becoming obsolete rather quickly.]

If you’re interested in how humanity might survive into the future, I’d recommend this book. If you enjoy popular science and / or science fiction, you’ll probably find it intriguing.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “How to be an Alien” by George Mikes

Posted on by
Reply
How to Be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and Advanced PupilsHow to Be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and Advanced Pupils by George Mikes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Penguin

This book is hilarious… unless you’re British — in which case it probably reads like a swift kick in the crotch. Well, if you’re from continental Europe, many of the comparisons with Britian are no more favorable to Europe and are just as comically searing. But if you’re American, it’s a laugh riot. Well, except for when it delivers reminders of the absurdity of xenophobia, triggering realizations that one’s own country is in the midst of a crisis of that malady. However, the book is not primarily a rebuke of xenophobia, but rather an accounting of what immigrants to Britain find strange and unwieldy about their new country.

George Mikes, born Mikes György, was a journalist and humorist of Hungarian birth who lived most of his life in England, and it’s this experience that the author draws upon to describe of what immigrants to Britain must accustom themselves.

Among Mikes’ prolific body of writings, there are a number that take this form — humor disguised as a how-to guide. The first one that I read was How to Be God, which was his last such book. The book under review was his first and continues to be the most popular.

I’d highly recommend this book for humor readers… unless you’re British… or European… or are experiencing dread over the Pheonix-like rebirth of xenophobia in the world. If there’s any one left after that who reads in English, this is the book for you.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “Long for this World” by Jonathan Weiner

Posted on by
Reply
Long For This World: The Strange Science of ImmortalityLong For This World: The Strange Science of Immortality by Jonathan Weiner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Author’s book site

This book considers the science around the question: will there come a day when human beings live forever (or at least considerably longer than we’ve achieved to date? — i.e. hundreds or thousands of years.) A secondary question, explored in the last of the book’s three parts, is should we want to?

It was a courageous decision to write this book because it focuses heavily on the ideas of one particularly controversial figure, Aubrey de Grey. And by “controversial” I don’t mean to the general public, a public which has limited understanding of the science involved, but rather a man who is controversial to many (perhaps, most) of his peers. Of course, with a Pulitzer under one’s belt, one can afford to take a few chances. (Weiner won in 1997 for The Beak of the Finch, a popular science work on evolutionary biology.) To be fair, Weiner does not present Grey’s ideas from the perspective of an acolyte. On the contrary, he is clearly skeptical and not shy about presenting the countervailing arguments put out by others in the gerontological field.

I can see several reasons why Weiner chose to focus on Aubrey de Grey. First, De Grey is an eccentric figure, and that makes for more interesting reading. Second, De Grey also takes the boldest possible stance on the topic (i.e. that there is no reason humanity won’t be able to overcome aging and death, given sufficient time and effort.) Finally, De Grey has a readily digestible roadmap for eliminating aging. De Grey identifies seven problems that must be solved, arguing that the last — i.e. defeating cancer — is the only one that will present a true challenge in the long run.

While I wasn’t converted to a belief that immortality is inevitable (and that wasn’t the book’s objective, though it may be de Gray’s,) the book does offer interesting food-for-thought, both on the scientific question of what it would take and on the philosophical question of whether we should want to.

If you’re interested in aging and mortality, I’d recommend reading this book.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “The Mind Electric” by Pria Anand

Posted on by
Reply
The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our BrainsThe Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains by Pria Anand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Simon & Schuster

There are A LOT of pop neuroscience books out there that reflect upon what we know about the brain from what goes wrong with it. I thought I was done reading such books because, while the first few are fascinating, they tend to retell the same stories.

That said, I’m glad I read this one, and what made it worth reading was that the science was explored in a very personal way, and I don’t just mean that the author recited her own personal experiences or those of her patients (though she does both,) but rather that the whole book is imbued with her worldview. She relates maladies of the mind to works of literature, of Greek and Hindu mythology, and to other aspects of culture in a relatable manner.

Another factor that sets this book apart is that its author shows a passion for language. In that sense, it reminded me of the works of Oliver Sacks (who she references a number of times,) rather than your average — articulate but linguistically conservative — neuroscientist.

I’d recommend this book for any readers interested in neuroscience, particularly anyone looking for a book that sets itself apart from the crowd. (I don’t recall it even mentioning Phineas Gage, which I thought was a requirement of all such books.)

View all my reviews

BOOK: “Hell’s Angels” by Hunter S. Thompson

Posted on by
1
Hell's AngelsHell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Penguin

This, the first published book of Hunter S. Thompson, is said to be from his pre-Gonzo period, but it bears many of the hallmarks Thompson would later be famous for: inventive colorful language, immersion in scenes of debauchery, and insight into the American cultural landscape.

The book is part exposé of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang, an organization shrouded in a reputation that was as much myth as reality and whose tightknit inner circle made obtaining an accurate picture a challenge. It would take someone as fearless / crazy as Thompson to get close enough to learn about the gang and then to tell enough truth to make at least some of the members unhappy.

The book also takes the temperature of America and reports on what ails the country. One might think this would not be worth reading, given that its insight of America is from the late sixties (it came out in ’67.) However, as I read the penultimate chapter, I was surprised to find how much of what was being said could be seen as prophetic. Thompson wrote about the Angels not as a romantic throwback to wild west outlaws (as many saw them,) but as a class of people who were ill-equipped to make a living in an ever more technologically advanced America, leaving them with little money and loads of resentment. He wrote of them as “prototypes,” and his description connects up to the latest model. It was at that point that I started seeing Thompson not only as a brilliant creative writer, but — perhaps — as a prophet.

I’d highly recommend this book for anyone curious about the Hell’s Angels or American outlaws, more generally.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “The Poetry of Zen” Ed. / Trans. Sam Hamill & J.P. Seaton

Posted on by
Reply
The Poetry of ZenThe Poetry of Zen by Sam Hamill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Shambhala

This poetry anthology consists of translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry that play in the Zen aesthetic. They are not Zen Buddhist poetry in the sense of being sutras or sutra-like expositions on Buddhist philosophy or theology (at least, not mostly.) And while there are many monks and Buddhist layperson poets represented, not all of those included were Buddhists. (In fact, there is even some verse from the Daodejing included, though Taoism is certainly philosophically related to Zen.)

About half the book is Chinese poetry, including pieces from Han Shan, Li Bai, Bai Juyi, Wang Wei, Du Fu, and many other greats of Chinese poetry. (Note: my spellings of author names varies from those used in the book because Hamill and Seaton use Wade-Giles spellings.) The other half of the book consists of works by Japanese poets, including: Saigyo, Dogen, Basho, Ryokan, Buson, Issa, and others. The Japanese part includes a few haibun (prose poems interspersed with haiku,) adaptations of Chinese-style poems, as well as the various Japanese fixed form styles (i.e.. haiku, tanka, etc.)

The two translators, Sam Hamill and J.P. Seaton, initial the poems that each translated (some were dually translated and others singularly.) I enjoyed the translations and felt they were fine reading in their own right. With haiku and tanka, the translators stuck fairly close to the traditional form (in as much as the aesthetic could be maintained doing so,) but with Chinese lyric styles they often took a freer approach to form.

If you’re interested in poetry that conveys Zen sentiment, this book is worth investigating.

View all my reviews