My Life as a Fake - Peter Carey

The editors of literary magazines, while conceiving of themselves as priests, actually travel like brush salesmen, always making sure they have a sample of their wares packed along with socks and underwear, and it was not at all eccentric of me to bring several issues of "The Modern Review" to Malaysia. One of these had a very fine translation of Stefan George, which I expected a reader of Rilke would admire and so the following morning, at half past six, I wrapped it in some pretty paper and set off back to Jalan Campbell. I had no notion of how this half-mile walk was going to change my life. If I had only stayed in bed, I would not be where I am today, struggling in a web of mystery that I doubt I ever shall untangle.

Suspense and intrigue in an exotic locale make this an enjoyable book. It is very well written with a quick pace that keeps the reader engaged. I am not a big fan of mysteries, but enjoy a well-written one. Throughout the book, I kept second-guessing myself about which character was telling the truth. But the truth as described by two main characters is fascinating in both accounts. While I wanted to know what really happened some years earlier, I almost didn't care because both of the two explanations being offered were fascinating.

Carey does a great job of using the locale of Indonesia and introduces many strange and unusual settings and situations. At times, the story seemed to meander a little too far from the main drama, but didn't detract too much from an excellent book.

The Nothing That Is - Robert Kaplan

We may just now have walked past the whole point of our story...For all our thought, not only the mathematical with its recursive abstracting, is drawn toward formalism, as if our having drained it of the human made it god-like. Only after we've sold our souls to this figure do we realize that its hollow, adding nothing to what we knew and by multiplying apercus out to vast generalities, liable to set our understanding at nothing. Is this where the Great Paradigm was leading us- or is formalism rather an occupational hazard of the mind, which is prone to mistake the ever-enlarging context within which content is held for the disappearance of content altogether? So, the signs that facilitate thinking eventually come to be taken for its substance.

I really wanted, and fully expected, to enjoy this book, but I came away disappointed. I am curious and appreciative of history and mathematics. A history of the zero seemed a perfect read for me. The book fails in both its history and its math. It claims that only a basic understanding of high school math is required to understand the concepts in the book. As someone who has taken calculus at the college level, I found much of the math difficult to comprehend. Even worse, it didn't to be directly related to the history of the zero, but simply the author taking liberties to venture off in his own areas of interest. The book fails more so in the area of history. The actual history of the zero does not make up a majority of the book. It seems the actual history could have been covered in a chapter or two.

This is an academic treatise that is likely to only appeal to fellow academicians.

Point Omega - Don DeLillo

The true life is not reducible to works spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. The true life takes place when we're alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamingly self-aware, the sub-microscopic moments. His life happened, he said, when he sat staring at a blank wall, thinking about dinner.
I almost believed him when he said such things. He said we do this all the time, all of us, we become ourselves beneath the running thoughts and dim images, wondering idly when we'll die. This is how we live and think whether we know it or not. These are unsorted thoughts we have looking out the train window, small dull smears of meditative panic.

I love DeLillo's writing and this is a good book, but not great like many of his. It is a short novel that uses the desert and a slow motion video art presentation to present a mood of separation from the life most of live. DeLillo is a master at creating moods and situations evocative of deep self-examination. In Underworld and Falling Man, he moves the reader threw immense and all consuming emotions and thoughts as if travelling into uncharted areas of the mind. Point Omega is similar, but left me wanting more. It comes off as more of a short story than a novel. Still, the writing is often amazing and the engaged will reader will be given much to ponder about life and its meaning. It reminded me of a strange scent you can't quite place, but one that you also can't forget. DeLillo's writing always lingers.

Digital Photo Design - Paul Comon

All you need to know: Composition is the elimination of all unnecessary elements. At first glance, this inelegant definition seems too simplistic, but if you take only one idea away from this volume, let it be that.
You will never find that definition in any dictionary and it certainly does not address all the subtleties of image arrangement, but if you practice it faithfully, most compositional problems will fall away.

I liked the photographic depictions of design concepts in this book, but found the text poorly written and tedious at times. This is a basic photo composition book and would be very informative for someone who has never studied this subject. Certainly, the average person who has never studied photography could improve his or her photos tremendously by following the recommendations offered. I checked out the book from a library and there are better books to buy if you want to own a book on this subject. It covers all the basics and will be educational for beginning and amateur photographers.

The Zoo Keeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman

Ian and Antonina Zabinski were Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who capitalized on the Nazis' obsession with rare animals in order to save over three hundred doomed people. Their story has fallen between the seams of history, as radically compassionate acts sometimes do. But in wartime Poland, when even handing a thirsty Jew a cup of water was punishable by death, their heroism stands out as all the more startling.

A truly remarkable and moving story is recounted in this non-fiction book. Extensive research is in evidence of not only the lives of the people involved and the Nazi invasion of Poland, but also into natural history. The Nazi's interest in animals and zoos revealed new insights into their sickness.

The story is worth reading and takes a different approach to viewing lives under Nazi control. I am glad I read the book, but wasn't enthusiastic about the author's style and structure. I love natural history, but often found Ackerman's passages into zoology and botany distracting from the compelling story of the chilling historical times. Just when I wanted to be taken along on a daring escape, the book might diverge into pages about the history of an extinct species of animals. Perhaps this should have been two books- a more classic tale of daring heroism and a separate account of Nazi breeding applied to animals and plants. Still, the book is worth reading.

Intercourse - Robert Olen Butler

-What were you thinking?
-When?
-During.
-During.
-Yes. Not what goes where. Thinking deep down.
-About you.
-Liar.
-So what were you thinking?
-About you.

The author imagines what was going on in the minds of fifty historical couples during a sexual encounter. Butler is a great writer who is adept at writing fictionalized first person accounts of famous people. His prior book, Severance, was composed of short monologues of the last thoughts from people about to be decapitated. I liked this book more because of its dark humor and contrasting between the men's and women's minds during intimate moments. The couplings, beginning with Adam and Eve, are purported to have actually occurred and include some unusual pairings--Jefferson and Sally Hemming, J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson, Milton Berle and Aimee McPherson, Babe Ruth and a prostitute.

This is a very enjoyable read. It struck me how almost none of the people had erotic thoughts during the sex act, but instead pondered their lives and their futures. The men have expansive ideas about their importance while the women seem more aligned with reality about the men and their situation.

Digital SLR Guide - Jon Canfield

...what you're holding in your hands is that different book. It's really designed for those who are just getting started with a dSLR. If you haven't bought one yet, you'll find information that will help you select the right one. The bulk of the book, though, is about taking advantage of the features that a digital SLR provides over a compact digital camera.

This is a basic book for new owners of digital SLR cameras. While I have had one for a while, it looked like a good review of the basics while applying them to digital photography. Much of the book is good, although very basic information about f-stops, shutter speed, etc. The sections directly applicable to SLRs are quickly becoming dated as they describe digital photo software. I enjoyed the chapter on shooting the RAW format. The book is available to read online and it is worth looking at if you are new to digital SLR cameras. I wouldn't recommend buying this book.