The Ultimate Treehouse!

Book Review: Ravenwood by Andrew Peters

For every child that has ever had a treehouse there comes a moment when the thought crosses their young mind: "What if I LIVED up here?" Author Andrew Peters takes that moment of young credulity and builds a world from it. Finding the world at ground level inhospitable, mankind has returned to the trees, building not just tree houses but cities in the treetops.

That we would ever have trees such as these, where we would live in trunk and along branch, using the trees own plumbing to supply water high above the ground. Complete with fields and even roads in the leafy canopy, the residents of the treetop settlement Ravenwood live a quiet, peaceful existence. But as it happens, the good citizens of Ravenwood can't see their forest for the trees. Forces both within and without would see the trees fall, and the kingdom along with it.

Peters successfully builds a complete world that branches off into many different directions -- we are not left up a tree, but taken down to the roots of Ravenwood, and even deeper. We fly above the treetops and even get a glimpse of the outside world, the appropriately named land of Maw which wants to devour Ravenwood. Will technology overcome the simple agrarian society (whose origins were not so simple)? Can man live in harmony with nature? Can a young sewer worker named Ark save the kingdom?

Written with just the right touch of tongue in cheek, Ravenwood does not answer all of the questions it poses, but earns points for posing them at all. Ark finds the answers are not all simple, anymore than the problems we face in the real world today. Too many solutions are trade-offs, he sees, and the choices are not easy.

Well-crafted and smooth reading, Ravenwood strikes the right balance of fantasy and reality, action and humanity. Targeted to grades 4-9, the vocabulary and style may be a little advanced for the lower end of that range. A fun read, it will give young readers some things to think about as well.

Emotionally Detached

Book Review: The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel by David Leavitt

I try to approach my reading of a new book with a clean slate. Other than certain expectations I have of any book (like some level of coherency), I really attempt to set aside any preconceptions of what the author has in store.

I do not set out with the idea that all of the characters I will encounter will be likable, or that they will share my emotional, ethical, or philosophical views. Part of the function of literature is to expand those horizons.

Virtually all of the characters we are introduced to in David Leavitt's The Two Hotel Francforts suffer from emotional detachment. This extends to not only their dealing with each other, but even with themselves. Lost souls, they seem to be striving to find something, anything to attach to - but invariably fail in the attempt.

Given the setting, I can understand that. Stranded in Europe in 1940, in the early stages of World War II, the world they had come to know had collapsed around them. Their lives were suddenly de-railed; left without a compass in a strange land, their reaction is not too surprising.

The difficulty I had with Two Hotel Francforts was not that the characters didn't seem to care about anything, but rather that I simply didn't care about them.

By the time I reached the somewhat forced conclusion of the story, I really didn't give a damn whether they made it home or jumped off a building. Apathy and ennui in your characters is one thing, but an author needs to be able to inspire more than that in his readers. In the end I was not expecting them to find redemption, I simply wanted the story to be over.

(ed. This review was originally published September 18, 2013)

"Grade A" Writing on an Unpopular Subject

Book Review: Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile by Taras Grescoe

In Straphanger, author Taras Grescoe gives us an excellent overview of mass transit in cities around the world. He has a keen eye for what makes a functional, transportation consumer friendly system.

While he admits a fondness for rail-bound solutions, he also gives us insight into dedicated bus networks. Grescoe thoroughly covers the subject as he takes us through mass transit in the United States, Europe, and Asia - what works, what needs work, and what isn't working. Even better, Straphanger is anything but dry; by making this a story of his personal explorations it reads more like a travelogue than a study of urban transportation.

The subtitle of the book is Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile, and here is where Grescoe (and many other transportation engineers) come up a little short. He recognizes that it will take more than a "if you build it they will come" attitude to lure Americans out of their gas-swilling, carbon-spewing automobiles. He sees that the suburban sprawl of our cities (actually started by the early transit companies) contributes to the perception that one must have a car to get around. He admits that the automobile is endemic to American culture, that cars are part of the American identity.

But our love affair with the internal combustion engine goes much deeper than that. Having a car is not just a part of the American identity; for many people it is a part of their personal identity. It is an extension of themselves - in some cases pathologically so. Every commute to work is their own little Daytona 500, a chance to feel better about themselves as they drive to their menial job. They are not going to part with this visible sign of their self-importance, and they will (sometimes literally) kill anyone who tries to cut in on their turf. Mass transit? We'll drill every inch of this country before we let that happen.

As an advocate of mass transit myself, I admire the diligence that Taras Grescoe brings to Straphanger, and I can't fault him for not resolving the cultural defects that hinder any efforts to bring usable transportation solutions to this country. He has written a hugely readable book, that I fear will largely go unread.

(ed. This review was originally published July 5, 2012)

On Becoming an American

Book Review: Russian Tattoo: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova

With rare exceptions, we are a nation of immigrants. It seems to be part of the American consciousness that we conveniently forget that fact within a generation or two.

We forget how our grandparents or great-grandparents struggled to learn a new language, a language full of secret idioms and unspoken meanings. We forget how they worked to fit in with a new and different culture that is itself a mixture of many cultures. We forget how they labored at menial and poorly paying jobs, no matter what their education might have been, because the language and cultural differences threw up walls against them.

Elena Gorokhova's Russian Tattoo serves to remind us of those things that we have chosen to forget on the road to becoming Americans. The twin barriers of language and culture mark the immigrant as clearly and visibly as a tattoo, a label of difference and strangeness that closes the doors of opportunity. Coming to America has given all of us a chance to start our lives over, and that is exactly what is required. Whoever and whatever you were before you arrived: a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist - is largely wiped away and you will find yourself washing dishes or waiting tables, trying to learn English from people who speak louder and slower to make you understand.

Russian Tattoo is the story of this American rite of passage as seen from the inside. Elena Gorokhova's journey is the journey that our own immigrant relatives took, as much as we want to deny it. OUR forebears learned English immediately, and were tax-paying contributing members of society within a month of getting off the boat - or so our romantic notions would have it. The fact is, my immigrant great-grandfather worked in an auto factory, was a truck driver, and English was a second language to his native German. His son - my great uncle - was a United States Marine who served in the Ardennes in World War One. Sometimes it takes a generation or two to achieve American-hood.

With each new wave of immigrants, those of us who are already here inevitably push back against the would-be new arrivals. Russian Tattoo lets us see that from the viewpoint of someone who was on the receiving end; not as a search for sympathy but simply understanding. The road to becoming an American is not an easy one, getting here is only half the battle. We all have our own tattoos, maybe it's time to acknowledge them.

(ed. This review was originally published January 25, 2015)

Blind as a Bat

Book Review: Flying Blind: One Man's Adventures Battling Buckthorn, Making Peace with Authority, and Creating a Home for Endangered Bats by Don Mitchell

As human beings, we like to think that the course of our lives is linear, logical, and to a certain extent, predictable. In other words, we want desperately to believe that our lives make sense, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

I live in an area where there is a resident bat population. On summer nights, shortly after dusk, I have watched them darting across the night sky as they forage. Their apparently random movements are the antithesis of linear, logical, and predictable behavior. At least so it appears to our unperceptive human eyes.

Like the flight of a bat, Flying Blind dips and swerves, but not without purpose. Cutting down trees requires a chainsaw, the resulting piles of wood require an ATV to haul them out of the forest. These side trips are not extraneous; they are part of the process that is needed to get from point A to point B; "... bouncing from here to there, from one topic to the next without advance warning. Much of life is lived that way, looked at from a certain angle." The bat is not zig-zagging through the sky aimlessly - it is getting dinner. We're simply looking at the bat's behavior from the wrong angle.

Mitchell begins to see the trees within the forest, individuals that are both distinct and yet cogs in a larger system. The trees, the invasive weeds, and the bats themselves each have their own niche. As Mitchell becomes immersed in the interaction of these interdependent parts, he begins to wonder how he fits into the grand scheme; what is Don Mitchell's niche? "Maybe there was a light at the end of this tunnel; maybe my efforts would eventually help the bats." Life is NOT linear, logical, or predictable; our insistence that it is leaves us all flying blind.

Flying Blind is author Don Mitchell's journey to epiphany; a story that begins with him trying to find a way to reduce the property tax burden on his Vermont farm and ending with the realization of his own place in the world.

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 Christian 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 only grievance with 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 improbably 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 felt 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 about 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 skilled apprentice. 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.

Could Have Bean so Much Butter

Book Review: Just My Typo: From Sinning with the Choir to the Untied States by Drummond Moir

I love typos. And misprints, and bad translations, and misused words (malapropisms). And there are plenty of them, even in the digital age. I have some great ones in my spam folder.

With such a bountiful supply of source material how did Just My Typo end up so ... not funny? Why repeat an instance of the same typo in a different context? Why choose examples that show up regularly on Facebook? Why choose examples that you have to explain?

Compiling editor Drummond Moir sets himself the goal of limiting his examples to errors involving a single character. Thankfully he frequently ventures beyond that self-imposed boundary, as only a few of the lengthier samples merit a grin. Maybe I missed the mark -- since he actually IS an editor, maybe Just My Typo isn't meant to be funny, but rather instrucutive. As in: "The importance of proofreading."

Maybe I'm just too jaded, having read some really funny compilations. There are much better collections out there: Jay Leno's Headlines series, Rich Hall's Sniglets (yes, I know those are not technically typos). The classic compilation of kids' typos is absolutely H. Allen Smith's Don't Get Perconel with a Chicken. For hilarious translation malapropisms try engrish(dot)com - I laughed until tears came.

Frankly, I was disappointed. I expected more than recycled autocorrect jokes and old chestnuts. But then I suppose one should expect the occasional disappointment in one's reeding.

A Portrait of Sao Paulo

Book Review: There Were Many Horses by Luiz Ruffato, translated by Anthony Doyle

Sao Paulo, Brazil is the largest city in the western hemisphere, and the twelfth largest in the world; home to over 11 million people. In "There Were Many Horses", Luiz Ruffato manages to condense this sprawling metropolis into less than 200 pages.

In order to accomplish this feat, Ruffato resorts to the age-old artistic technique of mosaic, creating a picture by assembling many small fragments. The fragments he uses are the bits and pieces of the lives of the citizens of Sao Paulo - their daily struggles, their small victories and defeats.

Like the citizens of the city themselves, each of these pieces has its own individual style. Some are first-person, some are third-person; there are bits of poetry, streams of consciousness, to-do lists, and formal prose. Each has its own perspective, its own voice. No two are the same, yet there is a common thread that joins them: the search for some small portion of happiness, the core of being human.

"... swaying this way and that way in the back of the truck her radiant blue eyes scanning the green expanse of the rolling hills and she was so happy the kind of happiness we feel at seven years of age and which now ... as she's spread out drunk on the floor, she desperately recognizes my god how did I let it crumble and slip between my fingers ..."

If you look at a mosaic from up close, you will see nothing but broken pieces, seemingly stuck together at random. But as you move back, the picture becomes clearer, until suddenly it pops into view. There Were Many Horses is much greater than the sum of its seemingly disparate parts. We must step back and take a wider view, and Ruffato's picture becomes strikingly clear. He reminds us that a city is more than just streets and buildings and cars; the essence of any city lies in the people that live and dream and die there.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It

Book Review: Grantville Gazette VI (Ring of Fire) by Eric Flint

"All I know is what I read in the papers" - Will Rogers

Imagine being whisked a few hundred years into the future, and when you asked someone what was going on in the world they handed you a copy of the local paper. No, not the New York Times - I'm talking about a LOCAL paper, like the little community paper in your hometown that gives the high school basketball scores. Of course since it's hundreds of years in the future it would be a holographic paper delivered by a robot in a flying car. You would get just enough of the big picture to make you wonder. A few questions might get cleared up, but a whole lot of new ones would take their places.

As a new arrival in Grantville, I was left feeling a little that same way on my reading of Grantville Gazette VI. The stories are generally well-crafted; entertaining and erudite. But they are follow-up stories, tales of events already underway - in short they are very like news articles that presume a least a basic knowledge of current events.

Several of the authors do fill in portions of the back story, so that by the time I had reached the halfway point I had a least a minimal understanding of how the 21st-century town of Grantville, WV had landed in 17th-century Europe. There were still a lot of unanswered questions, but it was more like reading the news from a new town, rather than in a different language. But one nagging question did remain throughout my reading.

The residents of Grantville, U.S.E. have obviously decided to ignore the age-old axiom regarding time-travel: never try to alter past events in order to influence the future - your actions can have unforeseen and unwanted consequences. They freely share their knowledge of past history and future technology, seemingly without any qualms about the impact on their ancestors/descendants. Have they no doubts as to the consequences, or has that issue been resolved in previous volumes? Inquiring minds want to know!

The different authors cover a wide range of topics, some more ably than others. I would recommend that readers know the full story of Grantville and the Ring of Fire before undertaking this follow-up feature.

Junk Science in a Green Wrapper

Book Review: Green Petroleum: How Oil and Gas Can Be Environmentally Sustainable by M. R. Islam, A. B. Chhetri, M. M. Khan

I took up this book with high hopes - as a student of the environment from the 1970's, I have long had concerns about the role of fossil fuels in our overall energy portfolio. I was hoping for an in-depth analysis of our present energy policies and the status of petroleum recovery and processing in that context.

Green Petroleum has depth, but it's the kind that requires a shovel, if you catch my drift. Very little of the book actually discusses petroleum processes - however we are treated to lengthy discussions on good CO2 and bad CO2, good light and bad light, good water and bad water. Analogies are stretched to their limit, with side trips into the relative merits of different religious beliefs. This pertains to petroleum how?

The authors posit that anything natural is inherently better than anything synthetic, therefore a chemical derived from natural sources is inherently better than the same chemical that is derived from synthetic sources. That is because anything that is synthetically produced is automatically toxic. Apparently if you take a large dose of naturally derived arsenic it will have only beneficial results. Since petroleum is the result of natural processes, burning fossil fuels is a good thing.

Besides the fact that the authors commit nearly every logical fallacy that I can think of, the complete lack of cohesion or continuity in the text makes it a painful read. Most of the references are to their own works which coincidentally support their viewpoint.

A word to the wise: just because a book has 'green' in the title and has a green-colored cover, does not make their argument sustainable. I will do my part by making sure this lengthy piece of drivel is recycled appropriately.

So they made you a manager ...

Book Review: The Rules of Management: A Definitive Code for Managerial Success by Richard Templar

Take one part Scott Adams' Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook, two parts Stephen R. Covey, add a sprinkling of contemporary cultural references ranging from "The Office" to "Pirates of the Carribean", and mix well. Pour into a highly readable format of 107 individual two-minute tidbits, and you have the recipe for Richard Templar's The Rules of Management

In my varied career, I have often ended up filling a position known as "manager". As a consequence I am wearily familiar with the flavor of the month variety of management/leadership 'how-to' books, all of which promise to turn you into a top-line manager by the second chapter. That is, until you find out this magical change won't occur until you buy the next book in the series, ad infinitum. If the secrets of being a manager are that easily distilled and digested, why would we need more than one book?

The fact is that managing people is not that simple. As Templar points out in the introduction to Rules, just the definition of what a manager does can be a complicated affair. In my own humble opinion (and 15+ years experience), management is like a Dilbert strip - you either get it or you don't. So it was with a great deal of skepticism that I started in on The Rules of Management.

To my relief I found that Templar does get it. Like the Pirate Code, the Rules are more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules. Templar is under no illusion that management is just a list of things to do (or not do). With an easy jargon-free style he points out the things that you already know but may have forgotten, or have neglected to actually put into action. He accurately but gently punctures many of the generalizations that managers fall into, and redirects that energy to where it needs to go - letting our people manage themselves, and actually enjoy our jobs!

This is not a read-it-cover-to-cover type of book, at least not for me. Open it at random for help, for inspiration, or for a kick in the butt when you get stagnant (and we all do). If you are sincerely interested in building, strengthening, or revitalizing a team, this is an excellent addition to your reference shelf. If you are of the old pointy hair school of management this book won't help you, but buy it anyway; you just might fool your boss into thinking you are motivated.

The truth is in here ... somewhere

Book Review: Consumption and Its Consequences by Daniel Miller

To most of the world the United States represents the epitome of unbridled materialism, the archetype of a consumption based society. Author Daniel Miller would prefer that instead we think of Norway, whose tightly regulated economy conforms to his ideal of egalitarian social welfare and economic responsibility. Whether or not one agrees that the arguably capitalistic Norwegian model is ideal, it is not typical (if anything actually is) and has not proven scale-able.

Miller likewise has an idealistic view of consumption as the market seeking to fulfill the deep-seated and often subconscious needs of consumers. He uses case studies of two distinctly American products (Coca-Cola and blue jeans) to support this idea; portraying them as localizing forces rather than a globalizing ones, and that serve to reinforce consumers' sense of self. He likens these products to Darwin's finches, evolving to fill a niche of demand. I would rather characterize them as chameleons, changing their appearance in response to local conditions while remaining the same animal. The makers of blue jeans have one concern: to sell blue jeans. They care not one whit whether we wear them or use them for automobile seat covers, as long as we buy them. Coke resolutely maintains the homogeneity of its product in all markets; whatever localized image it has is solely in the mind of the consumer.

It is regarding the mind of the consumer and its impact on consumption behavior that Miller finally finds the mark. The reason we consume, the reasons we select one product over another have very little to do with product value or cost.

Even while we aver one set of values (such as shopping at the corner store), we practice quite a different set. Our shopping and buying behavior hinges on personal, psychological, and cultural imperatives that we ourselves often do not understand. Miller contends that the fulfilling of those needs is the goal of the beneficent invisible hand of the marketplace, rather than a base profit-making activity. Perhaps in Norway it is.

[Note: This review concentrates on the core chapters of "Consumption and Its Consequences". The fictional conversations between three differing views of the author which 'bookend' the work I found to be tedious, rather pointless, and occasionally incomprehensible. That two facets of the author's personality are married to one another reveals a Freudian aspect to the exercise best left to professionals.]

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.

Nothing to Hang Your Cowboy Hat On

Book Review: Sierra Skullduggery by Jerry S. Drake

I find that writing a three star review is the most difficult of any as a reviewer. It is much easier to write either really positive reviews, or really negative ones - the strong emotions that the book has provoked make the words flow effortlessly. I find myself at a loss when the book hasn't touched a chord in me. What do I say?

There is nothing inherently wrong with Sierra Skullduggery. Author Jerry S. Drake is an able enough craftsman to keep the story moving, literally and figuratively. As a native Californian, I enjoyed the staging of the story in the historic Gold Country in the western Sierras. For the most part Drake is accurate in his details, and since this is a novel that is more than enough. There is sufficient action, and the characters have some depth.

There is just something missing from Sierra Skullduggery. Being a fan of Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey, maybe I set the bar too high. I really wanted to like this book. I even re-read it, thinking I must have overlooked some key point.

Finally, it occurred to me: I couldn't FEEL the story. If I closed my eyes and tried to envision the main characters, it was mostly a blank. The hero is "tall and lean", his wife is "a pretty blond woman." No clear picture evolves in the course of the story. I have spent time in the Sierras, but the scenery I know doesn't come across in Skullduggery. Instead I see a sort of generic Western landscape that doesn't do the real setting or the story any justice. When you read a Louis L'Amour story you can smell the creosote bushes, and you can taste the dust of the trail. It's the difference between a Western movie filmed on location, and one that was shot on a sound stage. It's a matter of atmosphere.

Sierra Skullduggery is a good enough story on the face of it, but a Western is more than just a tall, lean man wearing a six-shooter. With some minor changes this story could be happening in Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Timbuktu, in a variety of time periods. A painless way to kill an afternoon, but not much more than that.

Steven Martin's Pipe Dream?

Book Review: Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction by Steven Martin

While I have no doubt that Steven Martin is an expert in opium smoking paraphernalia, after reading Opium Fiend I have serious misgivings on his experience with smoking it himself.

While it may be romantic to picture oneself as a "21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction", our picture of addiction in the 21st century is anything but romantic. Martin's descriptions of the effects of smoking opium (and of withdrawing from it) are sufficiently realistic - but also very close to those of the references he cites throughout the book. Compared to the loving and detailed descriptions of his pipes and accouterments, the portrayal of his actual smoking activities are so much dross. The devil is in the details, and a lot of them are missing.

Martin admits to researching his subject thoroughly in old books and on the Web, and he quotes them frequently. Well, what of that? Well, there is this passage:

"I had spent the previous week ... using the Internet to update as much of the 'Rough Guide to Cambodia' as possible. My submission was way overdue ... Just a few years before it would have been impossible to get reliable information solely from the Net, but coverage of Cambodia had expanded and it was no longer absolutely necessary to visit in person. Of course this wasn't something I'd be telling my editors ..."

Is Opium Fiend a genuine collectible textile, or is it whole cloth, another Internet research project? It struck me as being like an American opium den in the 1800s, a pastiche of vaguely Oriental elements, a 21st century interpretation of a 19th century addiction which it wasn't necessary to visit in person. Like a brass bell, this just didn't ring genuine to me.