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This post written by Clint The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
by Langston Hughes
[cover name=thecollectedpoemsoflangstonhughes]
If you think that all poetry is too fancy, hard to understand, or pretentious, you should give this book a try. Langston Hughes wanted ordinary people to read, enjoy, and think about his poetry, so he wrote for them rather than for college English teachers. His writing isn’t dry or dull. It’s musical, and it sounds beautiful when you read it out loud. However, there is more to his poems than this. Hughes was proud of his African heritage, and he celebrated it in many of his poems. He wrote about ordinary people and their lives, hopes, and dreams, as well as problems that people faced, such as violence, hunger, poverty, and racism. His poems are not all serious, either – when he wanted to, he could be funny while taking on serious issues.
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes tries to include all of his poems, as well as a little background on Langston Hughes himself and a few notes on his poems. With over 800 poems included, you should be able to find quite a few that really hit home for you. Keep in mind, though, that Langston Hughes was a very passionate, complex, and honest person, and sometimes his flaws as a human being show up in his writing. It’s possible that some of his ideas might offend you. If you find a poem you don’t like, just keep reading. You’ll find something amazing sooner or later.
Just to give you an idea of what his poetry is like, here is “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” It was the first of his poems that I ever read, and it stuck with me.
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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This post written by Clint The Book of the Spider
by Paul Hillyard
[cover name=thebookofthespider]
I realize that not everybody likes spiders. I understand. I don’t panic around them, but I really don’t want to hang out with them, either. However, unless spiders really freak you out, you might want to give this book a try.
The Book of the Spider covers a wide range of spider-related topics. It is not a textbook or a field guide; it’s pretty fun, casual, and sometimes funny. It starts with a chapter on arachnophobia and then moves to spiders in folklore, myth, and literature. There are chapters on particular categories of spiders, such as social spiders, spiders that fly (with silk), and aquatic spiders. Hillyard also discusses spider silk, the history of the study of spiders, and various other topics.
This is not a book designed to scare anyone. The author genuinely loves spiders, so he would much rather convince you enjoy (or at least respect) spiders than shock or horrify you. This is meant to be a fun book, and I think it works well. I still panic when I walk into a spiderweb, but as long as I’m eat least two or three feet from any spider, I do appreciate them.
Also, I have to mention one specific fact I learned. Back in the 1920s, people didn’t know whether black widow spiders were poisonous. William J. Baerg, who was teaching at the very same college I would later attend, was challenged to prove that their poison could affect a human. Baerg’s plane went something like this:
- Get a spider to bite him.
- Describe the really awful pain he suffered over the next few days.
- Get his notes published.
- Let anyone who wanted to argue with him do the same thing.
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This post written by Clint The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor
by Ken Silverstein
[cover name=theradioactiveboyscout]
How would you like to come home one day and find people from the Environmental Protection Agency in your neighbor’s yard wearing those hazmat suits that they only wear when dealing with some kind of horrible disease or nuclear accident? Well, this actually happened to the residents of Golf Manor, which is near Detroit, Michigan. The folks from the EPA were busy cutting up a shed and sealing away all the parts in big canisters with radioactive warning signs on them.
What happened? Well, the seventeen-year-old boy who lived next door, David Hahn, was building a nuclear reactor in his back yard. Why? Well, he had always loved chemistry, and he may have been worried about the world eventually running out of oil. He was also a boy scout, and he had enjoyed getting his Atomic Energy badge, and he wanted to become an Eagle Scout. Very few scouts become Eagle Scouts, since it involves a really big project. Ideally, the project does not involve breaking federal laws and endangering the lives of 40,000 people, but David figured that making a nuclear reactor would still be the biggest Eagle Scout project ever.
You aren’t supposed to be able to get the material to build a nuclear reactor in the Unite States if you aren’t officially approved by the federal government, but that didn’t stop David. He pretended to be a high school science teacher (and eventually a college professor) when he wrote to various scientists for advice. He got a list of ordinary household items that contain radioactive materials, bought them in bulk, and extracted the radioactive elements. He bought or stole smoke detectors to get americium-241. Apparently he got a hundred broken smoke detectors for $1 each by claiming they were for a school project. He took tiny amounts of tritium from the sights of glow-in-the-dark plastic guns, wrote to the manufacturers claiming the sights were damaged, had them replaced, and took that tritium, too. He scraped the paint off glow-in-the-dark alarm clock hands because it contained radium-226. These clocks don’t really contain a lot of radium, but David managed to find a lot of spare paint in a clock at an antique store.
He used blowtorches, aluminum foil, coffee filters, and other household items to refine the radioactive materials he needed. Amazingly enough, most of his crazy ideas worked. He eventually decided to build a breeder reactor, which is a nuclear reactor that generates power and makes more radioactive fuel for itself. He never got the energy part working, but he did get it to produce more fuel.
Eventually David decided that the dangerous levels of radiation might be a little too dangerous, so he dismantled his reactor and put parts of it in the trunk of his car. While he was doing this, the police showed up. They were looking for a kid who was stealing tires, but they decided to check David out. You can guess what happened when he told them not to open the toolbox because it was radioactive.
There’s much more to the story, but you’ve got to read it yourself. If they put this stuff in a movie (and they might), nobody would believe it.
While this book is about science, it is not a science textbook. There are some big words, but you don’t need to know very much to enjoy the story, and what you do need to know will be explained. Basically, as long as you know that building a nuclear reactor in your bad yard is not a safe idea, you already know most of the science you need. You might even learn a thing or two. Just don’t try this at home.
You can read the first chapter online at the publisher’s website.
This book came from an article that Ken Silverstein wrote for Harper’s Magazine. You an read that article at the Harper’s site.
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This post written by Clint In the Time of the Butteflies
by Julia Alvarez
[cover name=inthetimeofthebutterflies]
Let’s get one thing out of the way before I actually describe the book. As you read my review, you might think this book sounds “educational” or “good for you” or any other fancy ways of saying boring, unpleasant, and hard to read. Well, it is educational and lots of bad things do happen to the main characters, but it is not boring, unpleasant, or hard to read. This is one of the few books I ever had to read for an English class that I loved. I think the author did a great job describing the characters and the setting. I found it very easy to read, and even though I kept thinking to myself, “This is exactly the kind of book I usually hate,” I couldn’t put it down.
In 1930, Rafael Trujillo became the President and dictator of the Dominican Republic. If you joined his political party (there was only one party, since he outlawed all the others), you were expected to “donate” some of your salary to the government. If you didn’t join his party, you might just end up dead.
Four sisters from the Mirabal family, Patria, Minerva, Dedé, and MarÃa Teresa, slowly realize just how awful Trujillo is, and eventually they join the resistance movement against him. I don’t mean they hold signs or carry letters. I mean they smuggle guns. They’re serious. They and their husbands spend time in prison. The novel isn’t just about four women in the resistance, though. It’s about their lives as human beings, although being in the resistance does become a big part of their lives.
Although the story is a work of fiction, the Mirabal sisters are real Рthey actually joined the fight against Trujillo, and three of them were murdered. The story is introduced by Ded̩, the surviving sister, but individual chapters are narrated by different sisters. This gives us a chance to really get to know each of the four women.
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This post written by Clint The Soul of a New Machine
by Tracy Kidder
[cover name=thesoulofanewmachine]
The Soul of a New Machine is not about a machine. There are plenty of machines in it, but it is really about people who happen to be designing a new computer called the Eagle. The small group of people who designed the Eagle put their hearts into their work. They put their souls into it. They worked long hours for a project that hadn’t even been approved by their company, so even if they did an amazing job, the company might just throw everything away. They weren’t working for money, or even for the chance to make the world’s next popular computer. They were doing it for the pure joy of creating something.
In the 1970’s, not everybody had computers at home or on their office desks. A minicomputer could be bigger than a couch. Microsoft and Apple weren’t the biggest names in the industry back then. They were just getting started.
The Soul of a New Machine tells the story of people who work at Data General Corporation, based in Massachusetts. Data General makes minicomputers. They have a series called the Eclipse, and they have just opened a new R&D lab in North Carolina. The people who work in North Carolina are asked to design the new series that Data General will start selling, while the people still in Massachusetts are left to keep tinkering with the old Eclipses. This doesn’t make the Massachusetts people happy. They want to create something, too, so their manager, Tom West, gets them going on a new project. He didn’t really get anyone’s approval to start this new project. He’s kind of unofficially asked if the president of the company would be okay with it, and he’s kind of unofficially gotten an answer: yes, but it needs to run the same programs as the old Eclipse machines did, and it can’t have a mode bit.
What does this mean? Well, you can’t just copy a program from your iPhone to your PC and expect it to run. Back in the 1970’s, pretty much every time you got a new computer, you had to throw out all your old software and get new stuff. This new computer that Tom West’s people might be allowed to build has to run all the old programs that the old computers could run.
The “mode bit” is basically an easy way to make this happen. It’s a sort of switch. Flip it on, and the new computer works just like the old one. Flip it off and the new computer gets to run like its new, awesome, shiny, super-fast self. If Tom’s group had any chance of getting their project approved, they had to find a way to make their computers run old software without this little switch.
So off the engineers went, working hard on a project that might not even be approved. They called their new machine the Eagle, and they were darned proud of it.
The Soul of a New Machine talks about their struggles. Corporate politics was part of it, but they also had to deal with tight deadlines, try things nobody had tried before, and push themselves hard to make the best computer they could possibly make. The book is also about the people themselves: their personalities, their quirks, and their hopes and dreams. You get to meet some really amazing people this way.
The time they spent on the Eagle project isn’t all hard work. You can’t work as hard as these people doand not take breaks, so we also get to see a bit of computer geek culture. One of the games the engineers play is called Adventure, and it’s pretty famous. You can play it online if you want to see what all the fuss was about.
If you are worried about having to read computer mumbo jumbo, you can relax. Yeah, there is some. The author generally does a good job of explaining it in terms that normal people can understand, but you can skip it if you want. The book isn’t about technical details. It’s about the people.
You can read some of it online at Google Books.
If you are interested in the history of computers, you might want to check out the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
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This post written by Clint Vagabond
by Takehiko Inoue
[cover name=vagabond]
Miyamoto Musashi was one of the most famous swordsmen in Japan. Modern Japan’s idea of the model samurai is based on Musashi. He was a master swordsman who invented a new way of fighting. He was involved in many famous duels, although he did not want to fight. He was also an artist, philosopher, and writer (he wrote The Book of Five Rings).
Vagabond tells a story of Musashi’s life, starting from age 17. At that point in his life, his name was Takezo, not Musashi. The story starts just after the Battle of Sekigahara. Takezo and his friend Matahachi picked the wrong side in that battle and are left for dead, but they are rescued by a young woman and her mother. Soldiers from the winning side of the battle are on the lookout for survivors, so Takezo and Matahachi have to hide. During this time, Takezo discovers that he is pretty good at fighting (something he didn’t realize as he was getting beaten up in his first battle). He seems to think that hitting people in the head with his wooden sword is a good way to solve his problems.
Soon Takezo decides to return home, but Matahachi stays with the mother and daughter. Unfortunately, Takezo is still a wanted man, and the people from his village try to capture him. Eventually a wise old priest and Otsu, Matahachi’s fiancee, manage to lure hm out of hiding and convince him that killing people isn’t the best way to solve his problems. Takezo changes his name to Musashi and sets out to travel Japan and become the best swordsman he can be. He is still looking for fights, but now he wants to learn from them rather than to kill people.
Most of the rest of the series focuses on his quest, where he becomes not only a better swordsman, but a better person. However, several volumes of the series focus on Musashi’s arch-rival, Sasaki Kojiro, and we also see a lot of several other major characters.
Musashi gets into a lot of fights, and a lot of people get maimed or killed. Also, there is some nudity and sex.
How historically accurate is Vagabond? Well, it’s rather loosely based on the novel Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa. Musashi is partially based on history, partially basd on the many legends about Miyamoto Musashi and partially made up, so Vagabond is a manga based on a novel based on legends. Still, it”s a good story, and it’s got at least some real history in it.
For those of you who are interested in Japanese history and culture, Vagabond starts at the beginning of the Edo period. The man who won the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu, soon controls all of Japan. Basically, just as Musashi finds out he’s a really awesome swordsman, over 150 years of war and rebellion end and peace breaks out. People like Musashi aren’t needed anymore, and because of his skills and his reputation, the government sees him as something of a treat.
At one point in the series, Musashi goes to the city of Edo, which doesn’t look that great and is built on a marsh. Edo is just being built, though. The new government, the Tokugawa Shogunate, needs a new capital, and Edo is on its way to becoming a major city. In 1868, Edo is renamed Tokyo.
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This post written by Clint Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist
by William R. Maples and Michael Browning
[cover name=deadmendotelltales]
If you like CSI or other shows like that, you might want to check out Dead Men Do Tell Tales. William Maples was a forensic anthropologist (someone who studies human remains to try to find out the cause of death and other things like that) and he talks about many different cases he has worked on. Some of the more famous ones include examining the remains of the Elephant Man, seeing if the 12th President of the United States, Zachary Taylor, was poisoned, and flying to Ekaterinburg, Russia, to tell whether nine skeletons there are those of the last members of the Russian royal family.
If you are uncomfortable reading about suicide, murder, or decomposing bodies, you should skip this book. I don’t think Maples goes out of his way to gross anyone out, but he is talking about dead bodies. On the other hand, if you’ve ever wondered how you can identify someone after they have been cremated, how you tell if someone was murdered or committed suicide, how you tell if a skeleton is from a man or a woman, or how you tell which particular brand of saw was used to dismember a body, this might be the book for you.
This is not a textbook. It is more like a biography that focuses on interesting cases Maples has had. He talks about his early life, how he got into forensic anthropology, as well as stories about his work and some general information about forensic anthropology. You get enough of the details to understand the big idea, but Maples mostly focuses on the story. You won’t learn how to do any of the stuff they talk about on CSI, but you should get a better idea of what they are talking about.
If you want to read some of the book online, you can do that thanks to Google Books.
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This post written by Clint The Oxford Project
by Stephen G. Bloom and Peter Feldstein
The town of Oxford, Iowa had a population of just under 700 people in 1984, and Peter Feldstein photographed almost all of them. Twenty-one years later, in 2005, he and Stephen G. Bloom returned and tracked down everyone he had photographed before. Feldstein took new pictures, while Bloom wrote down their stories.
Twenty-one years is a long time. Babies become college graduates. High school students are suddenly middle-aged. People in their fifties may be retired or even dead. A lot can happen in that time. The photos and short biographies give you little window into the lives of hundreds of interesting people. If you want a little sample, check this out.
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This post written by Clarissa Japan Ai
by Aimee Major Steinberger
[cover name=japanai]
This is kind of a travel sketchbook, by a professional artist (she works on Futurama and other things you’ve seen) who’s really into Japanese stuff–costumes, anime, manga, kimono, dolls–and decides to go to Japan with two of her friends. She’s six feet tall and white, so she really stands out! Fortunately for her, and for the reader, she has a really good sense of humor. You can follow along with her as she and her friends experience Japanese trains, food, and hot springs; dress up like geisha; get lost; generally have a lot of fun. She uses her own style of drawing, which is heavily influenced by manga but still unique. The drawings are supplemented with lots of handwritten explanations about what’s happening, and you’ll learn a lot of interesting stuff about modern Japanese pop culture, because she generally knows what she’s talking about. This is really a one-of-a-kind book, giving you the feel of a trip to Japan with three fun, kind of geeky (in a good way!) girls the way a travel guide never could.
Go here for a preview, or click on “OMAKE” for 60 pages of bonus sketches and photos that weren’t included in the published book! (One page has a tiny amount of back nudity of a seated person.)
By the way, if you decide to look for this in a bookstore, it might be in the manga section, even though it’s not manga. It was published by Go!Comi, a manga publisher, so Borders puts it in manga, but a used bookstore might not. You may have to ask.
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This post written by Clint City of Thieves
by David Benioff
[cover name=cityofthieves]
The siege of Leningrad lasted for 872 days and was one of the bloodiest battles in World War II. Over a million people died, but David Benioff’s grandfather survived and had a lot of interesting stories to tell. City of Thieves is based on tape recordings of these stories.
Lev, David’s grandfather, is a Russian firefighter who gets arrested by the Russian army for looting a German corpse. He is thrown in jail with Kolya, who was arrested for deserting the army to hang out with some of his girlfriends. Lev and Kolya are going to be executed, but the Russian colonel makes a deal with them. His daughter wants to get married, but they don’t have enough eggs to make a cake. Remember, this is Russia during World War II, and the Germans have completely surrounded the city. If Lev and Kolya can find enough eggs for the cake, they won’t be executed.
Lev and Kolya hunt for eggs in war-torn Leningrad, but have no luck at all. On their way, they talk about literature, life in the city, the horrors of war, and romance/sex. After they find the last living chicken in Leningrad, who can’t possibly lay all the eggs they need in time for the wedding, they hear about a chicken farm, but it’s out past the German lines. After a nice dinner of chicken soup, they leave the city and sneak into German territory.
During their search they encounter all kinds of strange and disturbing people and situations. This story is often funny, but it takes place during a horrible battle. Things are not pretty. People are eating rats and boiling the glue from books and doing much worse things just to keep from starving to death. Things don’t get any better when they leave the city, either. This is war, and neither side is playing fair. The Russians are desperate and willing to do anything to defend their homeland, and the Nazis are, as you might guess, even worse. There are a couple of scenes that I could have done without, so if you don’t like horrible things happening to people or animals, you might want to skip this one.
You can read an excerpt online at the publisher’s website.
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