Book Log – The Book That Changed My Life

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The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them Edited by Roxanne J. Coady & Joy Johannessen

71 essays about life changing books. Many were interesting, some were funny, some I just skimmed. Several folks mentioned To Kill A Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. Amy Bloom cited The Most of P.G. Wodehouse, which I dearly love and read again and again, so I shall pick up some of her stuff at some point.

If the internet comes back. Where is it tonight? Livejournal is working. Lots of other major sites aren’t. Weird.

But I digress.

This is one of the Xmas gift books, for which I thank her again, as it helped pass part of the time happily on my 3.5 hour flight back and forth to El Paso.

Book Log – Jennifer Government

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Jennifer Government by Max Barry

This book went on and off my wishlist a couple times. I heard about it somewhere as a witty Orwellian satire, and I added it. I later heard there was an online game based on the novel (http://www.nationstates.net/), which I signed up for and was bored by, and thus later I took the book off my wishlist. Then, it cropped up somewhere else as a recommended novel for its smart wit and satire, so I added it back.

I dunno. It was an okay read. There was not a lot of depth or originality to any of the characters. The alternate future was a bit outlandish (Privatizing the government? Just how would that work, and how is that not a paradox?), but with a bit of effort I was able to suspend my disbelief… like Cars: accept the premise, don’t think too hard about it.

I wasn’t bored by it, and early on I knew there wasn’t going to be any big payoff, so the ride was fairly enjoyable. Though I can’t figure out what some of the reviewers “laughed out loud” about.

Max Barry’s other books (Company and Syrup) look like more of the same. As one Amazon reviewer put it, “knee-jerk anti-corporate humor is occasionally funny…” I probably won’t bother.

Book Log – The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

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The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson

This is the book adaptation of a letter written to the Kansas School Board that became an internet phenomenon. It’s pretty amusing in spots, but the joke gets old. It feels like a letter that’s been remixed into a book. (Okay, okay, I get it… your heaven has a Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory).

Overall, FSM is a delightful response to the insistence of teaching creationism alongside evolution in schools, but it probably should have stayed in letter and website form.

Somewhat related, this is an example of why I don’t let on that I’m an atheist at work…

Atheism: Reponses to “Atheists surely aren’t monsters,” @issue, Dec. 28
Brand of ‘morality’ hard to define, justify
If Sam Harris is the best apologist for atheism, then believers can rest easy. From the outset, it’s unclear why Harris believes America hates atheists when 37 percent would elect an atheist president.1
But Harris’ grossest missteps come when he justifies atheistic morality. Harris claims the Bible and Quran have nothing to offer “if a person doesn’t already understand that cruelty is wrong,” but what makes cruelty wrong absent divine disapproval? Nature is cruel. Just ask the wildebeest crossing a river full of hungry crocodiles. Cruelty often carries the day in survival of the fittest at the office, the ballot box and in society. By the time Harris suggests that “moral intuitions” are “hard-wired” into us, any rational reader should be hysterical. Perhaps, Harris could suggest who did the wiring? Harris should recall Sartre’s famous paraphrase of Dostoevsky: “If God is dead, then everything is permitted.” And so should we, if an atheist is ever on the ballot.
-ROB HARRIS, Gainesville

1 Um… because 63 percent wouldn’t?