March 8, 2016

Mörder Guss Reims

Mörder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript, translated and annotated by John Hulme, 5/5

Inspired by Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames, these German verses sound, when read aloud, like Mother Goose rhymes being spoken in accented English.

You can give it a try if you’re in private (or not easily embarrassed):

Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep,
And doesn’t know where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they will come home,
Bringing their tails behind them.

Liesel Bopp hieb es Schloss der schieb
An Dutzend Noor, wer zu Feind dem,
Lief dem Aal ohn’ an Tee willkomm Ohm;
Brenken der Teil Spee ein dem.

Compared to the French version of this concept, I found the rhymes much easier to recognize in German. I also liked that this edition had all the English verses in the back, so I didn’t have to resort to Google for translations nearly as often.

Why I read it: while researching Mots d’Heures, I learned about this book and bought a copy immediately. I sing in German a lot (in fact, this weekend I’m performing in Bach’s St. John Passion), so this is great practice and fun.

March 6, 2016

The Book of Shrigley

The Book of Shrigley by David Shrigley, 3/5

This collection of Shrigley’s messy, misspelled, dark and unpredictably humorous art seems less accessible than his What the Hell are You Doing? The Essential David Shrigley. “Less accessible” is a fancy way of saying that I didn’t really “get” a lot of the stuff in this book (which you might find a bit ironic if you read my last review of his work). Perhaps I also didn’t enjoy this as much because I went into it expecting to be surprised and delighted, an approach that never seems to work well for me.

Why I read it: My library only has Shrigley’s books in e-book form (which I hate), so I picked this up at Easton’s Books, hoping it would be as funny as the last thing by him that I read.

March 3, 2016

Mots D’Heaures: Gousses, Rames

Mots d’Heaures: Gousses, Rames: The d’Antin Manuscript edited and annotated by Luis d’Antin Van Rooten, 5/5

This might be the strangest and most ingenious premise for a book I have ever seen–even after reading it, I still don’t really see how it’s possible. It is a collection of poems written in French that, when read aloud, sound like Mother Goose rhymes being read in English with a thick French accent. The author supplies entertaining footnotes that attempt, with varying degrees of success, to make sense of the “original” French.

Here’s an example for “Little Bo Peep”:

Little Bo Peep
has lost her sheep
and doesn’t know where to find them;
leave them alone and they will come home
wagging their tails behind them.

Lille beau pipe
Ocelot serre chypre
En douzaine aux verres tuf indemne
Livre de melons un dé huile qu’aux mômes
Eau à guigne d’air telle baie indemne.

Why I read it: My friend, Alison (whose own book, Entropy Academy, is soon to be released), gave this book to me while I was taking a French language class. Hearing the verses read aloud in her English accent was a hilariously bizarre experience.

N.B. There is a German version of this concept called Mörder Guss Reims.

February 26, 2016

Good Food, Great Medicine

Good Food, Great Medicine: A Mediterranean Diet and Lifestyle Guide (Third Edition) by Miles Hassell, MD, and Mea Hassell, 4/5

This homey guide to healthy living contains all the information I imagine one could possibly need about the Mediterranean diet and lifestyle, including medical research, advice on nutrition, sleeping habits and exercise, and a large collection of recipes. The authors’ approach is good-humored, unpatronizing and realistic–well-suited to the common-sense advice they give and the varying amounts of commitment they can expect from their readers. I haven’t tried any of the recipes, which is why I give the book four stars instead of five.

Eat more simple, natural food that is close to its original form and eat less prepackaged, processed or sugary junk…thanks in part, I guess, to a relatively healthy upbringing, most of this book fit into the “well, duh!” category for me and it is the duh-factor that I find most convincing about the Mediterranean lifestyle. This is no silver bullet, no gimmicky fad diet; it can’t be boiled down to “oh, I don’t eat carbs” or “I count calories” or “I fast intermittently” or “I only eat raw food,” etc. Unfortunately, there’s nothing very sexy about a well-balanced, natural, sustainable approach to eating that requires lots of common sense and self-control.

Self-control–there’s the rub. From both observation and first-hand experience, I’ve found that lack of self-control and lack of motivation, not lack of information, are at the root of unhealthy, excessive eating habits. Knowledge may be power but it isn’t will power. I can read a million studies about how doing x lowers your risk of dying by 35% and not doing y makes you 20% less likely to get cancer, but when I stop reading, it’s often because I need to put Nutella on my toast while it’s still warm. Still, we all make decisions every day that affect our health, whether positively or negatively; for me, this book’s value is in helping me make a few better, more informed, eating decisions than I might have made before. In this way, I hope to continue refining my approach to eating from merely counting calories to emphasizing those foods that are both good for me and make me feel good.

Why I read it: my dad had some heart trouble last year and his doctor recommended this book to him.

A picture quote I made:

February 21, 2016

Aku-Aku

Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island by Thor Heyerdahl, 5/5

This account of the first serious archaeological expedition to Easter Island could not be more exciting if it were set on a different planet entirely. Heyerdahl and his crew unearthed ancient statues, carvings and structures that had never been seen by outsiders before and some of their finds amazed the native residents as much as themselves. Even second-hand, the thrill of exploration and discovery was intoxicating. I did experience moral qualms caused by the author’s sometimes manipulative approach to wheedling secrets out of the islanders and it was a bit disturbing how willingly they seemed to trade their ancient artifacts for cigarettes. Still, it wasn’t a completely one-sided relationship–the expedition uncovered new statues, shed light on the island’s history, corroborated some of the local legends and encouraged the native people to remember their past and even revive some almost-forgotten traditional skills.

Why I read it: I’ve been an admirer of Heyerdahl since reading Kon-Tiki and wanted to read this book also before visiting the Kon-Tiki museum in Oslo, Norway, with my brother next month.

A picture quote I made:

February 21, 2016

Picture Quote — David Hackett Fischer

February 15, 2016

Historians’ Fallacies

Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought by David Hackett Fischer, 5/5

Fallacies everywhere! Browsing through eleven categories of faulty reasoning, all illustrated by examples from published works of historical scholarship, made me feel like a kid in a candy shop. My initial reservation–that it isn’t very respectable to do nothing but pick apart the works of one’s colleagues–was satisfactorily addressed in Fischer’s deliciously cogent introduction to the book. Here, the author acknowledges the dual impossibility and necessity of defining a logical approach to the study of history and justifies his negative method with the respectable goal “to extract from these mistakes [in other historians’ reasoning] a few rough rules of procedure” (xviii).

Though some may find his approach off-puttingly critical, the author is no intellectual slouch–many of the fallacies he addresses are so subtle that I am impressed he could identify them at all, much less find relevant examples in the wild. Though the topic is very specific, the application is broad–historians aren’t the only ones who are susceptible to fallacies of question-framing, factual verification, factual significance, generalization, narration, causation, motivation, composition, analogy, semantical distortion and substantive distraction.

Why I read it: The title caught my eye as I was browsing through Easton’s Books. The owner was so surprised that someone was actually interested in the book (he’d almost thrown it out, thinking no one would ever buy it) that he gave me a discount and said I’d made his day.

A picture quote I made: