Book review: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

Book:The Wee Free Men

Author:Terry Pratchett

Year published: 2003

Genre: Comic fantasy

Rating: 10/10

Review: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett is a great book.  Not just a good one, a great on. One of the best parts of the book is the protagonist.  Tiffany Aching is a 9 year old girl who lives on a far on the Chalk, a region of Discworld. Tiffany wants to be a witch because, a while ago, her neighbors killed an old woman because they thought she was a witch and she wants to stop that from happening again. When Tiffany reads, she thinks. Tiffany has first sight and second thoughts, which means that she sees what is really there and thinks about it.

Another great part of The Wee Free Men is the title characters.  The Wee Free Men (also known as pictsies, the Nac Mac Feegle and other terms) are little creatures.  They are immensely strong, very mischievous, not that smart (in some ways) and have a fairly complex social structure which I will let you discover for yourselves.

Also making brief appearances are Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, two witches who readers of the Discworld series may be familiar with.

The Wee Free Men is a "young adult" novel, but here "young" should be interpreted as "not dead yet". Yes, the hero is a child and no, there are no sex scenes.  But Tiffany Aching is a hero for the ages and for all ages.

About the Author:Terry Pratchett was the author of the Discworld series and other books.

 

Interesting words: Impression vs. impersonation

The other day we (my wife, son and me) were discussing the difference between an impersonation of someone and an impression of someone. So, I decided to look it up.

According to Merriam Webster, the relevant definition of impression is:

an imitation or representation of salient features in an artistic or theatrical medium; especially : an imitation in caricature of a noted personality as a form of theatrical entertainment

while to impersonate is

to assume or act the character of

I think the key difference is how much you are trying to fool people (perhaps even yourself). When someone does an impression of some famous person, no one is really fooled. When Alec Baldwin does Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live, no one thinks it's really Trump. If someone tried to impersonate Trump, they would be trying to get people to believe they really were him.

Book Review: Breaking Point by Jefferson Bass

Book:Breaking Point

Author: Jefferson Bass

Year published: 2015

Date finished: November, 2017

Genre: Mystery

Rating: 8/10

Review:  Breaking Point is the 9th book in the "Body Farm" series by Jefferson Bass (a pseudonym for two men, see below). In it, protagonist Bill Brockton helps solve a very twisty case involving a crashed plane and a dead man - or is he? At the same time, he's being threatened by a psychotic killer he helped convict and dealing with other trials and tribulations as well.  Indeed, Bass adds some thoughts on the Book of Job to their usual mix of anthropology, murder and plot twists.

I didn't like this one quite as much as some of the earlier novels in the series, but I still thought it was very good and definitely a page turner.

 About the Author:  Jefferson Bass is the writing team of Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. Bass is a scientist and the founder of the real life body farm. Jefferson is a journalist and writer.

 

Great quotations: Franklin on secrets

The quote: "Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead"

Who said it: Benjamin Franklin

When and where?  In Poor Richard's Almanac for July, 1735.

Why I like the quote:  People just don't keep secrets, at least, not reliably.  But, rather than say something like "people don't keep secrets" or "don't tell people secrets" Franklin makes it funny and, therefore, memorable.

A laxative poem for the irregular verb

English has a lot of irregular verbs.  It can get confusing!  When you are irregular, you need a laxative. So, here is a laxative for the English irregular verb.

I sometimes bite the things I bitBut should I fight the things I fit?
Or perhaps spite what I once spit?

I can still spin the things I spun
And I can win whatever I won
But I can't dine on what I've done.

The things I drink will soon be drunk.
The things I shrink will soon be shrunk.
And so, the past of pink is punk.
And what I clink will have been clunk.

The things I teach have long been taught.
The things I buy have now been bought.
But can I reach what I have wrought?
And what I fry - is it all fraught?

I no longer grow but I grew
And I hope I know more than I knew.
But I can't throw as well as I threw. 
But after I slow did I slew?

You say that I'm not done, perhaps.
There are more irregulars! What a lapse!
But I can't do them all and make
This poem short enough to take.

What are you reading? 11/25/2017

Here is what I am reading now.  Share what you are reading in comments.

• A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. This is a very good history of the subject, well written and clear.  Kenny follows an unusual strategy in that he takes two approaches: He first covers each era in a more-or-less chronological order, then he looks at the big topics of that era in a systematic way.  I am on p. 181.
• Handbook of Missing Data Methodology ed. by Geert Moelenberghs, Garret Fitzmaurice et al. A fairly technical treatment of the best ways to deal with missing data.  I am on p. 71.
• The Great Formal Machinery Works: Theories of Deduction and Computation at the Origins of the Digital Age by Jan van Plato.  An examination of formal logic and computation.  I am on p. 60.
• The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing by Zachary Petit. I am trying to do some more writing and maybe even selling it.  This is a good guide.  I finished this and reviewed it.
• Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  Science fiction. I finished this and reviewed it.
• High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything you Know About Drugs and Society by Carl Hart. Why everything you know (or thought you knew) about illicit drugs is wrong. I am on p. 119. 
• Breaking Point by Jefferson Bass, which is part of a series of crime novels about  the Body Farm in Tennessee. I am on p. 205.
• I started and finished The Midnight Line by Lee Child and reviewed it. 
• I started A Column of Fire by Ken Follett, which is a novel set in Elizabethan times. I am on p. 138.

That's what I'm reading.  What are you reading?

Book review: The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing by Zachary Petit

The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing tells you whether you will like it in the title. Do you want to be a freelance writer?  Do you need an essential guide to doing it? If the answers to both questions are "yes" then this book is one you should have.

It has 10 chapters plus an introduction and an appendix and covers all the essential points including writing queries, style, some pointers on method and craft, how to come up with ideas and more. Petit has a light and breezy style which makes for easy reading; if anything, I found it a little too light and breezy.  The book is 233 pages long (including index), the pages are not large, the print is big and there are lots of nontextual additions, headings and subheadings.  That's not the format I prefer, but it doesn't really detract from the book.

This isn't a complete book on how to write.  Entire books could be and have been written about each of its chapters.  But it is what it says it is: A guide to the essentials.  It's also not a book to simply read through; you'll want to put it on a reference shelf. 

Zachary Petit is a freelance writer and editor in chief of Print.  He is also a former editor of Writer's Digest.

Book review: The Midnight Line by Lee Child

The essential plot of every Jack Reacher novel is the same:

1. Reacher is innocently traveling around the country carrying only his toothbrush.
2. He finds something that bothers him.
3. Much violence and sex ensues.
4. Reacher rights all wrongs and moves on.

In The Midnight Line, the thing Reacher notices is a West Point class ring in a pawn shop.  It's very small and was clearly worn by a very small woman. It's inscribed with initials and a year of graduation. Reacher  doesn't think anyone would willingly sell their ring, so he decides to return the ring to its rightful owner.

The plot and violence here centers on the market for opiates. The sex centers around the original owner of the ring.

People who like Lee Child's style will like this novel. Sentence fragments. Minimal characterization. Physical violence, well described. Short-term relationships. I'm a fan, personally, and I think this is one of the better novels in the series.

Book review: Hyperion by Dan Simmons

What a big, strange, wonderful book.

I admit, I had started Hyperion several times and put it down. But so many people rave about it that I picked it up and persevered.  It was worth it.  It combine one of the oldest tropes in fiction with some of the most original ideas.  The trope is that of a group of pilgrims swapping tales as they travel. Chaucer wrote a rather famous example of this more than 600 years ago, it became known as The Canterbury Tales .

There are fewer pilgrims in Hyperion (7 instead of 24) and it's a long strange trip they're on, to a planet where time operates differently and where a deadly being known as the Shrike lives and is worshiped.  Simmons has invented all sorts of new technology, but the real interest is in the people and their stories.

Hyperion is a long book and a complex one. It will make you think, but it will also make you feel. And it's only the first book of four in the series.

 Dan Simmons is the author of more than 30 books in the SF, horror and fantasy genres. He was born in 1948 in Peoria IL.

Great quotations: Pompey on law

The quote:  "Stop quoting laws to us. We have swords."  (sometimes the second sentence is translated as "we carry weapons").

Who said it: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, aka Pompey the Great (106 - 48 BCE).  Pompey was a brilliant general who became First Consul.

When he said it: He was leading troops who were besieging a city and this was his reply when they said he was breaking the law.

Why I like the quote:  It's such a blatant statement of power.  Obviously, the sentiment behind it is perverse, but nevertheless realistic.

What are you reading? November 18, 2017

Here is what I am reading now.  Share what you are reading in comments.

• A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. This is a very good history of the subject, well written and clear.  Kenny follows an unusual strategy in that he takes two approaches: He first covers each era in a more-or-less chronological order, then he looks at the big topics of that era in a systematic way.  I am on p. 149.
• The Cartel by Don Winslow.  A novel about the drug cartels of Mexico. Amazingly violent.  Sort of a 21st century The Godfather.  I finished this, and reviewed it.
• Handbook of Missing Data Methodology ed. by Geert Moelenberghs, Garret Fitzmaurice et al. A fairly technical treatment of the best ways to deal with missing data.  I am on p. 61.
• The Great Formal Machinery Works: Theories of Deduction and Computation at the Origins of the Digital Age by Jan van Plato.  An examination of formal logic and computation.  I am on p. 39.
• The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing by Zachary Petit. I am trying to do some more writing and maybe even selling it.  This is a good guide.  I am on p. 61.
• Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  Science fiction.  I'm not sure how I avoided this book for so long.  I am about 80% through (no page numbers on the Kindle version).
• High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything you Know About Drugs and Society by Carl Hart. Why everything you know (or thought you knew) about illicit drugs is wrong. I am on p. 74. 
• I started Breaking Point by Jefferson Bass, which is part of a series of crime novels about  the Body Farm in Tennessee.

That's what I'm reading.  What are you reading?

Book Review: The Cartel by Don Winslow

The Cartel, written in 2015, is an important book but a flawed one. The importance  The importance lies in its reportage and description of the damage that drugs and, especially the war on drugs, has done to Mexico and on the relations between America’s appetite for drugs and their supply of guns and the criminal cartels that are so powerful in Mexico.  The flaws lie in its fictional structure.

As fiction, one obvious comparison is to Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.  This is an updated version of that book, set mostly in Mexico and dealing with various drug cartels instead of Mafia families.  The problem is that, while The Godfather had a single protagonist (Don Corleone), The Cartel does not.  It’s told from too many points of view, with too many characters introduced who aren’t particularly strong. And the violence is so indiscriminate and continuous that it is more confusing than illuminating.

I think this book would have been stronger as reportage than as fiction. 

 Don Winslow is the author of 20 books.

Great Quotations: Oliver Wendell Holmes on taxes

The quote: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society".

Who said it: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Where it was said: Compania General de Tabaccos v. Collector, 275 U.S. 87, 100. 

When it was said: 1927.

Some thoughts:  The company "Compania general de tobaccos" was a Spanish tobacco company.  They brought suit to recover taxes they had paid in the Philippines. The taxes were due on insurance payments, even though the insurance was not bought in the Philippines. For details of the case, see here.

The case hinged on whether the tax was, in fact, a tax rather than a penalty. The company won the case, but Holmes dissented.   A slightly fuller version of the quote is

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure. A penalty. on the other hand. is intended altogether to prevent the thing punished. It readily may be seen that a state may tax things that, under the Constitution as interpreted, it cannot prevent.

Aside from the technical details of the case, Holmes makes the point that we cannot have civilization without taxes. 

Great Quotations: Carl Sagan on "from scratch"

The quote:  "If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe".

Source: Here is a YouTube of it.

Why I like this quote:  First of all, it's funny and I like funny.  But it also makes a relatively deep point: The universe contains a remarkable amount of order.  It took billions of years for it to get that order. When we say "from scratch" we still take huge advantage of the order put into the universe by evolution. 

Interesting words: Eusocial

Eusocial is an adjective meaning, according to Merriam_Webster:

living in a cooperative group in which usually one female and several males are reproductively active and the nonbreeding individuals care for the young or protect and provide for the group

It's a relatively recent word, its first known use was only in 1966.  The best known eusocial animals are various species of ants, but there are quite a few other examples, including some bees, wasps, termites, aphids, shrimp, mole-rats, meerkats and mongooses (mongeese?).  E.O. Wilson, in his book The Social Conquest of the Earth posits that humans can be eusocial but this is rather controversial. (Nor is it the only controversy Wilson has spawned).

The eu- prefix to "social" is from the Greek word  εὖ eu, which means "good".

Not surprisingly, both eusocial and eusociality (its adjectival form) are quite rare words.  The former occurs about 1 in 16.7 million words, the latter 1 in 23 million or so. Both hit peaks around 1994, although the Ngram viewer time window does not include the publication of Wilson's book.

Interesting words: Odobene

Odobene is the adjectival form of odobenus. And what, you may ask, is odobenus? It is the genus of walruses.  So, odobene means "walrus-like".  I read this rather obscure word in Christopher Hitchens' collection And Yet .... which I reviewed a few days ago.  (You can read my review at the link).

The origin of Odobenus is Latin and thence Greek: Odon, meaning tooth and bainein meaning "to walk".  It was once believed  that walruses walked by pulling themselves with their tusks.

Both of these words are very rare. Indeed, Google ngram viewer found no uses in books between 1800 and 2010.

What are you reading? Nov 11, 2017

Here is what I am reading now.  Share what you are reading in comments.

• A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. This is a very good history of the subject, well written and clear.  Kenny follows an unusual strategy in that he takes two approaches: He first covers each era in a more-or-less chronological order, then he looks at the big topics of that era in a systematic way.  I am on p. 134.
• The Cartel by Don Winslow.  A novel about the drug cartels of Mexico. Amazingly violent.  Sort of a 21st century The Godfather.  I am on p. 263.
• Handbook of Missing Data Methodology ed. by Geert Moelenberghs, Garret Fitzmaurice et al. A fairly technical treatment of the best ways to deal with missing data.  I am on p. 56.
• The Great Formal Machinery Works: Theories of Deduction and Computation at the Origins of the Digital Age by Jan van Plato.  An examination of formal logic and computation.  I am on p. 23.
• The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing by Zachary Petit. I am trying to do some more writing and maybe even selling it.  This is a good guide.  I am on p. 39.
• Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  Science fiction.  I'm not sure how I avoided this book for so long.  I am about halfway through (no page numbers on the Kindle version).
• High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything you Know About Drugs and Society by Carl Hart. Why everything you know (or thought you knew) about illicit drugs is wrong. I am on p. 74. 

That's what I'm reading.  What are you reading?