More Than a Bit Confused

Book Review: Human Software: A Life in IT by Richard W. Bown

By the title - Human Software: A Life In I.T. - I was expecting a memoir, the tale of a fellow software engineer negotiating the trials of corporate culture. The back matter, however, promised a "gripping, vivid must-read", a "thriller whodunit page-turner".
It turns out Human Software is a little of both, giving us the Novel Memoir.

The Prologue is in novel style, so I settled in for a novel experience. And was promptly yanked out of it when the jargon began to appear in Chapter One.

We techies, much like any of a number of specialized workers, love our specialized vocabulary of terms and acronyms. It's kind of a secret handshake, something that makes our fellow nerds smile and nod in our shared knowledge, and makes everyone else's eyes glaze over. To be fair, there is a helpful glossary at the back.

Last summer I read Sarah Wynn-Williams' Careless People, a memoir of her time in the Zucker-world of Meta. The fact that it was my "beach read" should tell you all you need to know: it was accessible and easily digestible. It actually read more like a novel than a memoir. But then Ms. Wynn-Williams was in marketing, not IT.

Genre bending is really not uncommon in literature, it's how we got "romantasy". I have to give kudos to Richard Bown, he actually brought a measure of life and humanity to the world of bits and chips. I don't feel like he quite closed the deal here, but he is on the right track. The story he tells here is important, not only to those of us whose lifetime of work is now food for AI, but to everyone on the planet. I hope he persists.

(This reviewer is a recovering software engineer)

Intense, unflinching, brutally honest

Book Review: Crossings: A Doctor-Soldier's Story by Jon Kerstetter

It is seldom that one encounters a book that encompasses such power and passion as Jon Kerstetter's Crossings. Which, as a book reviewer, is perhaps a fortunate thing.

The problem is not that there is a scarcity of laudatory terms to describe such a book, but in finding adjectives that have not already been over-used to the point of being cliches. Everything from automobiles to cellphones is described at length in glowing superlatives: unique, ground-breaking, and essential products abound. Thanks to the efforts of marketing professionals, there are virtually no second-rate, average, or superfluous objects to be had; everything is bigger, better, faster than its competitors.

Crossings is a product of a different stripe. It is not shiny, or technologically advanced. In clear, concise language, Kerstetter tells the story of his life, from his beginnings on the Oneida Indian Reservation, on through medical school, to his deployment as a combat surgeon. It is not glossy, or highly polished - it is gritty, honest, and free of artificial additives.

Crossings is an immersive experience. Kerstetter walks us through his journey, telling us not only what happened, but how he felt about it. The result is neither new nor improved. The events are recent, the language is contemporary, but the tale is as old as humanity. What sets Crossings apart is the way that the story reaches out to us, and touches us in that ineffable way that a new car or cellphone cannot approach. This is not a technological "marvel", this is a human being who has fought his way through trials and tribulations. It reaches deeper than any material object possibly could.

The true measure of a culture is not in what it produces, but rather in what it values. Jon Kerstetter's journey opens the door into a world that many of us will never experience, and yet does so in a way that makes it universally accessible. By relying on the quintessential qualities of humanity, no matter what the setting may be, Crossings reveals fundamental truths that may just get you to put down your cellphone.

A Blog's-Eye-View

Book Review: Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics by Alisa Harris

"I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another" - Thomas Jefferson

Even well into into its third century, the United States continues to debate whether the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution is, or was meant to be, absolute. In the black and white mindset of Christian Conservatives, there is no doubt that the founders of our country meant freedom of Christian religion, under the umbrella of conservative politics.

Alisa Harris was raised in that belief, and in the absolutist dogmas that define the world of the Christain right. In Raised Right, she describes her move into the continuum of life outside Pleasantville , where the lines are not clear cut and the elusive truth is found in an infinite gradient of colors; a world that is "a more complicated place than a culture warrior's sound bite." On her journey she was confronted not only by her own doubts and misgivings, but by the censure of those around her who branded her at best as simply misguided; at worst a heretic.

My criticism of her work is not philosophical, but mechanical (as in writing mechanics). I personally dislike the growing tendency to "bloggify" our literature, turning novels into keywords that can gain ranking on Google. Ms. Harris' background as a blogger and magazine contributor clearly shows in Raised Right; the chapters are like feature articles that often have minimal continuity with one another. There is a common theme that runs through the different sections, but from one chapter to the next the stories veer across time and location in a dizzying manner.

I truly admire the effort that Raised Right makes in raising the questions of faith and politics in America today; but it comes away feeling like a loosely-linked book of blog posts. I feel that the message gets lost in the delivery.

Entertainment for the Whole Family

Book Review: You'll Like It Here (Everybody Does) by Ruth White

The Blues are a typical American family. Mom is a single parent, a university professor who really wants to do the best by her kids. Her father, who everyone calls Gramps, likes to paint and does his best to fill in the gap left by his late son-in-law. The children, Meggie and David, like going to school and making friends. They live on a small farm in North Carolina, grow some of their own food -- life is good.

Good, but not perfect. The Blues aren't from around here. Like many Americans, English is their second language. And its possible they are not in this country legally. They came to the U.S. seeking refuge; not political asylum but ecological asylum. The environment in their native land is actually dangerous to their health. Oh, and sometimes their hair turns blue.
The Blues REALLY aren't from around here.

In You'll Like It Here (Everybody Does), Ruth White puts us into the lives of aliens not just from another country, but from another world. In doing so she gives us some basic lessons in tolerance and cultural awareness, and a view of an alternative world where uniformity is literally the rule.

Forced by an unruly mob to flee their comfortable North Carolina lifestyle, the Blues end up in Fashion City, a town in a parallel America. Everyone likes Fashion City, or so it seems. The 'Fathers' provide everything: housing, jobs, security. The price is conformity and the sacrifice of those basic rights that even the alien Blues regard as ... well, inalienable.

Author Ruth White confesses, "This book is unlike anything else I've written." It is unlike anything else I have read. While it contains thematic links to adult works ranging from Stranger in a Strange Land to 1984, it does it in a way accessible to kids, using emotions and ideas my 12 year-old daughter could understand. Without being preachy, You'll Like It Here underscores the true value of friendship, loyalty, and individuality through the eyes of a child, and reminds us as parents how simple yet profound those truths really are.

When Characters Speak for Themselves

Book Review: The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany (Author), Russell Harris (Translator)

The Automobile Club of Egypt opens with the author being visited by two of the characters from his novel. They inform him that, "Some of our thoughts and feelings are absent from the novel." He dismisses them, but not before they leave him with a CD containing THEIR version of the story. What follows is an intricately woven novel that is equal parts political history, social commentary, and interpersonal relationships. There may not be a lot of action of the "Die Hard" variety, but there is plenty going on.

Henry Ford saw the automobile as the great equalizer - his goal was to produce cars that his own workers could afford. And yes, in truth he was driven more by money than social altruism. At the other extreme lies the Automobile Club of Egypt, where the possession of a car is a mark of high social status, of being above the rank and file. At the Automobile Club the average person exists solely to serve those with means. Colonialism (and slavery) is predicated on the idea that those in servitude are less than human, that they require masters because they are unable to take care of themselves. The attitudes of the English founders of the Automobile Club are not much different than those of any ruling class in any society.

What sets the novel apart are the characters that populate it, and the relationships that evolve between them; in other words, the very character development that some seem to find so dreary. In my experience life is a process of gradual change, not grandiose gestures. Heroes and villains evolve over time, and often have contradictory motives; all is not black and white. Al Aswany allows his characters to speak for themselves, and they have plenty to say on every subject, from love and marriage to political and social inequality.

At some point we have accepted the dumbing-down of our art and literature. We have come to believe that action should be explosive, literally and figuratively. Characters should speak in easily digestible sound bites, and not complicate our thinking by having doubts and desires of their own. Alaa Al Aswany has given us a book about real life in all its glory: often messy and convoluted; ultimately beautiful and powerful. This is not the Reader's Digest version, something you can read in between texting; this is life as it actually is. The Automobile Club of Egypt is more than worth whatever time it may take, frankly I thought it ended all too soon.

The Loneliness of Being Human

Book Review: Barbara the Slut and Other People by Lauren Holmes

It actually takes more skill to write a good short story than one might think. It takes a fair amount of linguistic skill to pack a complete story into a small space. It is not simply a matter of condensing a novel, a la "Reader's Digest"; such stories read like book reports and are as enlightening. Other authors appear to simply lift a chapter from an incomplete novel, starting you off in the middle of a story and then leaving you there as well.

I suppose the best analogy is that if a novel is the equivalent of a full color oil painting, then the short story is a sketch; all the main points are there - the subject is clear, but the background details are left to the reader's mind to fill in. The rest of the picture is suggested, but not fully drawn.

Barbara the Slut and Other People supplies several examples of short story writing at its best - if not yet at a master level then certainly a journeyman. We are presented with ten sketches of individuals, mostly young women, who are doing their best to cope with the demands of the lives that they find themselves in. In some cases these are the results of choices they have made, and in others simply the circumstances of life.

In either case, the subjects of Ms. Holmes' literary efforts must make the same choice we all must make: accept their lives as they stand, or make an attempt to change them. Therein lies the crux of the human dilemma, the "to be or not to be" that is the source of, as Ms. Holmes puts it, "the loneliness of being human." For all the guidance we may get, for all of the well-meaning advice from family and friends and books, it falls upon each of us individually to make that decision.

Despite this common theme, the examples in Barbara the Slut are as different as they can be, providing a cross section of individuals from various backgrounds, and they each deal with their individual circumstances in individual ways. A solid debut work.

Not Just for Geeks

Book Review: Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others by Brian W. Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman

Don't let the title fool you - Team Geek is not just for geeks, or just software developers for that matter.

In the past few months I have had the opportunity to read (and review) management books at the two ends of the spectrum. At the one end we have the "practical" approach, typified by how-to books like The Truth About Managing People. Short two-page chapters that give the one-minute manager everything he needs to do to hire the right people, and make the right decisions. However these usually offer no help on what to do when your right decision goes unexpectedly wrong, like when your new star employee becomes a morale problem.

At the other end is the theoretical approach, exemplified by the textbook-like Dialogue Gap: Why Communication Isnt Enough and What We Can Do About It, Fast. Long chapters of different theories and approaches (because there is not just one way to get from A to B), a little more fuzzy and a lot more work; worth it if you have the time and patience. The answers to your unexpected problems are in here, but there's a lot of data mining to get the gold.

Both of these approaches had me wondering if anyone had found the productive middle ground - clear concise suggestions backed by sound theoretical ideas. Team Geek delivers.

I will admit I was a little hesitant at first, despite being by occupation a geek and software developer. A management book with cartoons?! Get real. Authors Fitzpatrick and Collins-Sussman are for real, and have real answers backed by real methods that work; not just for software development but for any team environment. These ideas could easily be applied in retail sales, or even in an office environment where you want to build a solid, cooperative working organization.