The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

The first half of this book is good. Huck Finn is a poor kid living on the Mississippi. His dad is a drunk and always gone. Finn lives with the old church ladies who teach him reading and writing. When dad comes back, things are so bad that Finn decides to fake his death and run away. What I like is the fact that Finn is pragmatic. What is the problem, how do I solve it. Didn't work? Roll with the punches as we develop a new plan. Finn ends up traveling down the Mississippi with runaway slave Jim and the two encounter all kinds of adventure. The second part of the book is just boring. At this point, Tom Sawyer enters the picture (whom Huck adores). Tom has a family and comes across as a bored rich, white kid. Tom also likes adventures, but his are all extravagant and over the top, created adventures not based in reality. Huck goes along, but since the adventure is created, it has no urgency and ends up not being very interesting. Unless your intent is to compare the two adventure styles, stick with the first half.
Wait

note: this book is part of a Reading Lolita in Tehran project, which you can read more about here.

The Age of Radiance

The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era

Craig Nelson

Nelson presents the historical story of radiation, from discovery to the present. While it is a mostly known story, it is still fascinating and Nelson finds ways of putting the history together to tell a particular story. We are introduced to all the players in Europe and the US pre-WWII, and follow their contributions as scientists transition out of discovery and into application. Perhaps the most thought provoking part of the entire book is the discussion about the necessity of nuclear weapons for war. Nelson paints a picture suggesting that the only actual unique feature of nuclear weapons was the fear that they induced. He suggests that the purely military value was overstated, with equal devastation possible with conventional weapons. The impact of the fear throughout the cold war has lead to a general fear and misunderstanding of radiation. While he does not argue for/against current peaceful uses, Nelson does lay out much of the psychology and sociology that is helpful is thinking about why we are were we are today. This is one of those books that is both excellent as a resource for facts and information, and that sticks with you and makes you think.

Read

Naked in Baghdad: the Iraq War as Seen by NPR's correspondent

Anne Garrels

Basically a behind the scene memoir by Garrels of her time in and out of Iraq leading up to and during the 2003 war in Iraq. It is an interesting revelation about how reporters and foreign governments interact, how much graft and corruption there was in Iraq, how competitive and scoop oriented the media is (more scoop oriented than story or people oriented), and how beholden we are to this media for information. Garrels made efforts to find Iraqis and interview them, to really find the people of the country and not just report the government information. But this story is really about what it is like to be a journalist, not about the Iraq War. It is a decent companion to Baghdad Diaries, which is the Iraqi point of view on that war. But neither is really complete, as probably no single book can be.
Read

The Time Travelers Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

With this title, you might expect pure sci-fi. And while the plot mechanism is time travel, this is not really sci-fi. Instead, it is a romantic drama. It is an investigation into relationship and self identity. The story follows Henry, who is a CDP (chronally displaced person). That is, he time travels. Sometimes forward, sometimes backward. He does not control any of it, so finds that it happens often when his is stressed or anxious. The brilliant storytelling here is that each section begins with a date and Henry's age. Something like 'October 17th, 1998. Henry is 32 and 41. Claire is 24'. But these sections do not proceed in an strict chronological order, but are presented in such a way as to reveal the nature of the relationship between Henry and his wife Claire. So as the story progresses, as a reader I am working through what each character knows (or doesn't know) based on what they have experienced. This is great fun as a reader. However, as sci-fi, the time travel is nice. That is, Henry gives some soft explanation about fate, what can and cannot be altered based on information shared. But this is never really pushed (nor does it need to be for this novel). The breaking of time continuity is pushed a bit with Ingrid (Henry's ex-girlfriend), but a true sci-fi treatment might really investigate the nature of fate and information. Or the mechanism of the travel itself (which is also touched on superficially). But then it would be a totally different novel. So read this as a dramatic, fictional novel that uses time-travel as a device (much like Black Out is a historical fiction about WWII London that uses time-travel as a device). In both cases, time travel is not the essence, but the mechanism to tell a good story. With that expectation, you will enjoy this book.

Read

The Lathe of Heaven

Ursula K. Le Guin

George Orr is an ordinary guy. The only exception to this is that he is able to dream "effectively". That is, occasionally he has a dream that actually affects reality. For example, if he has an "effective dream" that chicken nuggets are the most fabulous food ever, he might wake to find that 5 years ago all fast restaurants changed their menus to serve only chicken nuggets (and nobody knows that there was any other reality). His dream might be vague, or have an intent, but the unconscious mind interprets the intent strangely (as dreams are wont to be) and manifests in reality in unintended ways. So of course, George is terrified of dreaming and seeks help. Enter Dr. Haber, dream/sleep specialist, who learns to direct George's dreams through hypnosis. Let the chaos begin.

I love the concept here and the fact that, using dreams and unconscious motivations, Le Guin is exploring the both the human brain and relationships, fear and power. All serious things to think about, and at the same time, it would not have surprised me if the last line of the book was something to the effect "When George woke up, he knew he would never use LSD again".

Read

Reached

Ally Condie
Book 3 in Matched series
 Matched - Book 1
 Crossed - Book 2

We pick up the storyline with Cassie as a government sorter (i.e. data analyst) extraordinaire, Ky a resistance pilot and Xander an Official Medic in a small border town. A plague hits the population and the resistance is able to manufacture and distribute a cure. This is the start of overthrowing the system and all three are working to help and find their own way (and find each other). There is not a lot of certainty (remember these are teenagers) and some half-hearted attempt to push thinking about the role of society and government. Condie is trying to make this relevant, to push the reader into making connections with current society and government. But everything is either too obvious or not interesting. It is an OK story, and taking the trilogy as a whole, everything is put together in a nice, tidy package. But aside from the basic premise of government controlled, computer matched marriages, in six months this will be entirely forgotten. 

Wait

The Wreck of The River of Stars

Michael Flynn

The River of Stars is (was) a luxury liner, best in its class. Similar to the Titanic of Queen Mary in their time, The River of Stars was the biggest and most decadent of all space travel vehicles. It was also the last of the big magnetic sailing ships. Shortly after its launch, the fusion propulsion systems became the cheaper, more reliable, more modern method of outfitting ships. We pick up the story with The River of Stars classified as a hybrid (retrofitted with fusion engines) and operating with a minimal crew as a tramp ship with a cargo load headed for Jupiter. The crew is a collection of misfits and rejects personally collected by the Captain... who happens to die in the first chapter. So the misfit crew, no longer held together by their captain, struggles through a series of mishaps along their voyage. Flynn's excelling here is in using this plot to explore who these misfits are. Told in third person, and successively focusing on each crew member individually, as a reader we are privy to background and thinking from each individual point of view, knowing things that even the individuals are often not aware of about themselves. Flynn, after telling what a particular character concluded, would often follow it with the parenthetical (although they don't know it yet, they might be wrong about that conclusion). So we have a great story, good technical sci-fi, and interesting/novel characters. What I am not sure about is if the novel was satisfying. What do I require for an enjoyable, or thought provoking novel? My current thinking is that is was trying to be more thought provoking that it actually was, ultimately wasting the great story, good technical sci-fi and interesting/novel characters.

Wait