The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale

Read: 16 March, 2012

The Road Hill House murder shocked Victorian England. The crime itself was brutal, of course, but what really shook the foundation of Victorian assumptions about social class and safety was that the murder took place in an otherwise ordinary middle class household and that the murder was evidently one of its inmates.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher follows the investigation of the murder and its aftermath, focusing on the lives of the Kent family and on Mr. Whicher, the detective, himself.

Summerscale does an amazing job of contextualising the murder and its aftermath. While she does go a little overboard in painting the Road Hill murder as the catalyst for change in Victorian society, she does at least make her argument rather convincing. Her writing style is approachable even for those unfamiliar with the era, and her frequent mentions of books and historical figures added extra fun to the reading for me because it brought back so many of my lessons from when I studied Victorian literature in university.

I highly recommend Mr. Whicher if you have an interest in the Victorian era, issues surrounding the interaction of law enforcement and privacy, or simply enjoy mysteries and want a little more background on real life detectives.

Buy The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher on Amazon.

Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child by Robert J. MacKenzie

Read: 21 February, 2012

Since my son was born, I've occasionally indulged in "mommy boards" - online forii where mothers argue, call each other names, and generally try to maximize the amount of parental guilt each feels. In other words, oodles of fun.

In these groups, The Great Spanking Debate often rears its ugly head. At one end of the spectrum are those who decry spanking as a failure in parenting, while at the other are those who say that spanking is God's Gift to Parents. But the more interesting responses are from the vast majority who say that spanking isn't ideal, but that many kids simply don't response to other methods of discipline and make the occasional spank a necessity.

Setting Limits is about those kids.

The premise of the book is that while some kids are naturally very compliant and eager to please, some kids are strong-willed and will always seek to test limits. Setting Limits doesn't talk about spanking, but the position of the author is clear that the problem lies with the parent. Compliant kids are very forgiving and will respond well even to inconsistent or inefficient disciplinary methods, but strong-willed kids need a much more strategic parenting style.

The focus of the book is on setting clear expectations, making consequences proportional to transgressions and logically related to transgressions, and following through on stated punishments. I still found it a bit heavy handed for my bleeding heart, but I generally found the advice sound. The real strength of Setting Limits is in the numerous examples of possible situations. Too often, parenting books cover the theory, give a few highly scripted examples, and leave me feeling no wiser as to how I should actually be applying any of it. But in Setting Limits, much of the book is devoted to running through a wide variety of situations, making the practical application far easier.

But, like many books in the genre, Setting Limits was far too wordy and repetitive, repeating every idea about as many times as the English lexicon could allow. The book could easily have been a quarter of its present length and still be a little on the wordy side.

My son is still pre-verbal, so I'm a little early to actually put any of the theory to the test, but I do feel that Setting Limits has helped me prepare a bit. I would recommend it but, as with all parenting books, with the caveat that it should be read as a possible source of ideas only, not as an instruction manual.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Read: 27 January, 2012

It was hearing that Psychopath Test was coming out that got me interested in Jon Ronson. At the time, the only of his books my library carried was Men Who Stare At Goats, a book that had been sitting on my reading list for some time. So I read that, enjoyed it, and put Psychopath Test on hold as soon as it came out. As it turned out, I wasn't the only one and it took a really long time for my turn to get it.

Like Men Who Stare At Goats, the writing is a real trip. It's not so much as exposé as it is a journey - a meandering journey that occasionally slips in time and subject. Rather than an argument of a thesis, it reads more like a discovery.

It straddles the line between non-fiction and fiction, between history and personal experience, and between the logical and the totally insane.  There were times when I couldn't believe that what Ronson was reporting could be true, that people really said what he said they said in interviews, for example. But pull up the original articles and there it is, in all its glorious craziness.

It's an interesting (and quick!) read with complicated conclusions. Ronson explores the Scientology-styled anti-psychiatry and he looks at those who believe in it so much that they diagnose and medicate 4-year-olds with bipolar. Never are the issues presented as simple or one-sided, and Ronson is very good at leading his readers down one path and then veering in a very different direction. It's interesting and refreshing.

I can't close without commenting on how perfect the cover design is for this book. I don't often see a cover that is so memorable and perfectly suited for the subject!

The Duggars: 20 and Counting! by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar

Read: 16 January, 2012

My great challenge in writing this review is to critique the book itself, not the faith that motivates it. The two are so intertwined that sometimes it's impossible to speak of one without speaking of the other. This book is, after all, part of the Duggar ministry.

This is never more clear than the structure of the book. Superficially, it chronicles the history of the Duggar family, from Michelle and Jim Bob's childhoods until just before the birth of their 18th child. But the stories are told in such a way as to reinforce the thesis of their ministry: In each case, there is a problem or a crisis, the Duggars react by either "listening to God" or listening to their fears, or greed, or ambition, and then things suddenly and serendipitously resolve.

The lesson, of course, is that God can be counted upon to provide. This has the potential to be very dangerous theology, as we see in Prosperity theology, but at least the Duggars impose limitations, such as refusing to borrow money. Even so, this "leave it to God" attitude has a lot of potential for harm when they follow it to the point of making themselves responsible for 18 children. The Duggars have done well for themselves, but many Quiverfull families haven't, living well below the poverty line and denying their children basic necessities such as health and dental care. To make matters worse, the repetition that God will provide if the family puts sufficient trust in him implicitly sends the message that those families that are not surviving are failing because they are not putting sufficient trust in God, which would mean that they should give up more control and have more children...

I also noticed that the Duggars have tried to fit parts of their story into a Biblical narrative, such as Jim Bob's references to the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham as analogous to his political campaign. It isn't bludgeoning, as I've seen elsewhere, but they certainly are speaking to their audience.

Further on that point, I noticed a lot of formulaic phrasing. These are phrases included in the narrative, ostensibly in the voice of Jim Bob or Michelle, but that are repeated frequently (either in the book itself or in the wider evangelical community, or both). For example, the words "Children are a blessing from the Lord" is repeated, without variation, multiple times and integrated into multiple different sentences. I've noticed the family use these little phrases in the TV show as well, and it's always felt scripted and rehearsed, making the family seem insincere.

Speaking of the TV show, I feel that I can't talk about the book without comparing it to the show (of which I've only watched the 18 and Counting season, which overlapped nicely with much of the topics discussed in the book). To its credit, this book never felt like just another TV show tie in. Rather, it had real content and was entirely readable even for families that do not have a television and have never seen the show - which I imagine was intentional given the Duggars' TV viewing philosophy.

I found the differences between the TV show and the book interesting, and it speaks to just how media savvy the Duggars are. The TV show, clearly intended for a broader audience, focuses on the fuzzy family happiness. God is ever present, but more as an underlying principle. The goal, clearly, is to make the show interesting for "lukewarm Christians," drawing them into the lifestyle with promises of the happy, close-knit family, without scaring them off with too much God-talk. The book, on the other hand, is clearly marketed at the converted, perhaps young couples who already hold Quiverfull values but who are afraid of taking that next big step. I imagine that this book is intended to be passed around in churches, recommended to new couples or given to new parents. As a result, the God-talk is front and centre, with every story coming back to God and to the Biblical underpinnings of Duggar theology. If the TV show is the infomercial, the book is the hard sell.

But given this, I found it interesting that any Biblical passages references were hidden away in the end notes, not displayed in the actual pages either as footnotes or embedded in the text. Given the audience and the fact that the Duggars are clearly not holding back on the God-talk in other ways, I found this detail very interesting.

In closing, I would like to share a recent post written by Libby Anne that was running through my mind as I read: From cog to individual.

The Duggars: 2o and Counting! was a better read than I expected, and it was interesting for me because of my interest in the Quiverfull movement. But the advice is all tied to the ministry, so don't bother if you are looking for real tips for managing your household! The recipes provided, while interesting and great for bulk cooking, look awful and have very low nutritional value. Much of their advice for making money or being frugal relied on tales of their good luck (err... good "faith," as Jim Bob prefers to call it), and many of their organizational tips are good but require substantial remodling of the average home to accommodate. In other words, I'd recommend this book for people with an interest in the movement, whether they are thinking of joining it or merely studying it. For anyone else, meh.

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

Read: 23 December, 2011

For the last year, I have been working on a project to blog the Bible (and doing a terrible job of it for the last two months), so a book like The Year of Living Biblically struck a chord. Like A.J. Jacobs, I've also been trying to make sense of a book that is at once one of the founding pillars of my culture, and yet profoundly alien.

The Year of Living Biblically is, of course, a book of its genre: Stunt Journalism. Jacobs does kookie things like paint his door frames with lamb's blood (or, rather, with lamb pan drippings) and throws pebbles at adulterers. And like any book in this genre, he concludes with his insights and feel-good message.

But in the midst of this formulaicism, I did find food for thought. There was a lot of discussion about what it really means to take the Bible literally, and how to deal with the application of the rules in a cultural context that is so foreign to any the Bible's authors could have possibly envisioned.

One element I particularly enjoyed was Jacobs's insistence on turning the Bible into a Self Help manual. Even when called out on this by a member of his "religious advisory council," he goes right back to trying to draw life lessons!

One theme he kept coming back to is that everything happens for a reason. He explains early in the book that his wife believes this and part of his journey is coming to accept at least some version of this. Believing that there are reasons beyond chemical reactions and physical laws is, he declares, "certainly healthier." This profound and far-reaching statement is given as a throw-away line in the middle of a broader discussion, and it never receives the serious discussion it deserves. Is it, truly, healthier to believe something that makes us feel good about ourselves without any evidence for it to be actually true?

Prior to reading The Year of Living Biblically, I'd heard complaints that it trivialises religion and makes it look bad. It's all about legalism, and focuses on things like stoning adulterers rather than the broader moral teachings. But having now read the book, I haven't found this to be the case at all. Jacobs gives a fair acknowledgement to the legalism of the Old Testament. The bulk of the book, however, is a discussion of the moral teachings and about the applicability and relevance of the book as a whole in a modern, North American cultural setting. Overall, I found his treatment of the Bible to be extremely respectful; perhaps, even, too respectful at times.

Jacobs has a very readable writing style and he's generally quite good at finding the right balance between entertaining and provoking thought. I'd say it's an important read for those who consider themselves to be Jewish or Christian, because it initiates a very important discussion that I think Western society really needs to have about what it means to be Judeo-Christian and what the Bible's place should be in our culture.

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

Read: 10 October, 2009

The Greatest Show on Earth is a fantastic introduction to the theory of evolution. Although marketed towards adults, I think it's really more appropriate for a tween/early teen level, to provide a solid foundation in evolution.

The book is written in Dawkins' approachable language, and he explains difficult concepts in a very simple and easy to understand way. Illustrations are well chosen and well used to emphasise his points.

The only real downside is that the preface dwells a bit too long on the Creationism issue. While terribly satisfying for the True Believer, it would be a turn off for someone neutral or leaning towards Creationism and interested in learning more. It's a shame, although perhaps no more damaging that having the name Richard Dawkins printed on the cover.

Baby Signs by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn

Read: 22 November, 2011

Much of what is terrible about the "terrible twos" come down to baby brains developing faster than their speech is able to communicate. The frustration of having ideas, needs, observations to communicate but no ability to do so leads to conflict.

Baby Signs proposes a solution. While speech may be difficult for very young children, a modified sign language may help smooth the transition into verbal fluency.

The book is fairly well written and it's a very quick read. It introduces the information at an appropriate pace and in a good order. The illustrations showing the signs themselves are clear and easy to understand. I especially liked that the dictionary at the back noted which signs were official ASL and which are designed specifically for this theory.

I don't know how to evaluate the theory itself, although I did notice a few small pink flags. For example, at one point, the authors recommend purchasing their video tapes, that should be watched by babies to help teach them. To reinforce the legitimacy of this, they mention the Baby Einstein videos, which have been fully debunked. In fact, all research that I've read says that videos are no good for teaching babies.

The theory seems worth trying to avoid frustration for simple and common issues, such as asking for more food, asking for a drink, or complaining about discomfort.

NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Read: 17 November, 2011

Common sense and instinct can tell us a lot of things. For example, it's good to praise our kids, it's good to leave the radio on because babies will learn language better the more words they hear,  and racial desegregation of schools will lead to less racism as kids grow up interacting with peers of different races.

Unfortunately, all of these are wrong.

"NurtureShock" is the feeling a new parent experiences when they discover that the Parental Instincts Fairy has missed their home. It turns out that while the instinct to protect our children is very real, the how of it is up to us to figure out.

NurtureShock is different from the other parenting books I've reviewed in that it isn't an instruction manual. Instead, it simply summarizes some of the recent science in child development. Although the science itself is very interesting and I positively devoured the book, the lack of practical application was frustrating. As a parent, I don't just want to know the science, I want to know how I can use it.

I think that NurtureShock would have done better if each chapter were divided in half. The first part would remain exactly as is, but the second part would provide examples to show how parents might apply the theory to their own parenting.

But that doesn't mean that NurtureShock isn't worth reading. Far from it, I think it should be required reading for every new parent because it fundamentally challenges so many of the assumptions we make about our kids and how they develop.

Flim-Flam by James Randi

Read: 20 October, 2011

I don't consider myself to be a Skeptic. I run with a lot of people in the skeptic community, and I do think of myself and generally skeptical, but I'm not a big-S Skeptic. I knew of James Randi, of course, but I was never terribly familiar with him or his work. So when the Centre for Inquiry managed to book him for a pan-Canada tour, I figured that I ought to read up on him a little bit before he hit Ottawa.

Because I was reading Flim-Flam around the same time that I saw Randi speak live, the parallels between the two were made quite evident. In both cases, there's an ostensible thesis, although the experience is much more of a series of vignettes from Randi's professional life.

The tone throughout the book is light and conversational, like Randi's telling an acquaintance about the work he does. He covers a number of psychics and supernatural phenomena, explaining the tricks. He personally exposed most of them, although some, such as the Cottingley fairies, are merely explained.

I found Flim-Flam to be an interesting read - enough so to inspire me to want to learn more about conjuring and mentalism. And while it was written in the early '80s, it really isn't at all dated. Recommended for anyone with an interest in the paranormal, or with skepticism in general.

[caption id="attachment_1215" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Your humble narrator meets the aptly-named Amazing Randi."][/caption]

The Medieval Cookbook by Maggie Black

There are a few "medieval" cookbooks floating around, but this is the best I've seen so far. It's the kind of cookbook that you can actually sit down and read through.

The recipes are divided by era, social class, and function. There's a chapter on foods that were primarily associated with the cloister, for example, and a section for remedies. There are simple dishes with few ingredients that would be most appropriate for a side-dish or breakfast, and there are elaborate meals that belong more properly to a great feast.

Each recipe comes with a short introduction or with a contemporary passage describing the dish, followed by the ingredients list and instructions. Some license is taken with substitutions - sometimes multiple substitutions are indicated for choice - to deal with the fact that many of the ingredients are hard to find these days or no longer exist at all.

illustrations from contemporary sources are plentiful and printed in full colour, making this book a lovely source of medieval art as well.

I've tried a couple of the recipes over the years and enjoyed them. I'd love to throw a "Period Party" someday to really make use of this book.

What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated? by Alfie Kohn

Read: 22 September, 2011

I don't think that anyone questions the idea that our public schools are, by and large, failing kids. It's also no secret that programs like No Child Left Behind that require mass standardized testing promote "teaching the test," often at the expense of real learning. But in this collection of essays, Alfie Kohn goes a step further and argues that even grades should be dumped as an assessment tool.

Kohn ranks the evilness of the various assessment methods, with standardized tests at the top, followed by ranking methods (such as class ranks and grading on a curve), and ending with the assignment of grades. But each, he says, causes kids to view learning as a chore to get through rather than something they might choose to do.

The book is a collection of essays, so each chapter is a discrete unit. That being said, they've clearly been edited so that they make sense together, with references to other chapters for more information. The whole is brought together with a well-written introduction that serves to unify the individual essays in support of a common thesis.

I found Kohn's book to be very interesting and well-written. It challenged a lot of my assumptions (such as the bunk-ness of grade inflation), and has left me thinking a great deal about education. Only the chapter discussing Maslow was on the weak side, and I'm not sure what it was supposed to contribute to the thesis of the book.

If I had to find a flaw, it would be that while the current system is heavily criticised, Kohn is very light on the alternatives. I think this is a fairly important failing because he's challenging so many concepts that we take for granted that he absolutely must provide us with alternatives.

I don't know how much I agree with Kohn yet. I think that his arguments were very compelling on first reading, but I need to mull them over a bit longer before I come to a conclusion. He's definitely given me food for thought, though, and done so in a vehicle that was a pleasure to read. On that basis alone, I highly recommend What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated for parents of school-aged kids and anyone involved in education, at any level, formal or otherwise.

Raising a Secure Child by Zeynep Biringen

Read: 13 September, 2011

Raising a Secure Child starts from the same Daniel Goleman research that informed Emotionally Intelligent Parenting. Since the two were so similar in many ways, I can't help but to review the former in light of the latter.

I complained that Emotionally Intelligent Parenting provided sample dialogues to illustrate their points that were clearly idealized and read like something from the Stepford Wives. It was almost creepy. Raising a Secure Child, while making much greater use of dialogues and sample situations, did a much better job. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this was one of the book's most positive features. Every major point was backed up with a short vignette of a family either doing it right or doing it wrong that helped me see what the point should (or shouldn't) look like in practice. I found these to be a huge help in visualizing how I might out the advice into practice.

While Emotionally Intelligent Parenting focused on always saying the right thing, the focus in Raising a Secure Child was much more on the non-verbal interactions between parent and child. In other words, really meaning it is seen as more valuable than always having the right script handy. This made a good deal more intuitive sense to me.

Both books had the same emphasis on being emotionally present for kids (although, again, I felt that Raising a Secure Child made the point in a way that felt more practically applicable), and both talked about the importance of structure and limit-setting.

Raising a Secure Child spent a good deal of time on helping me to analyse my own upbringing to help me see how that might affect how I interact with my son. While it's something I have thought about a lot, I still found it helpful to go through in a more methodical sort of way.

And while it isn't applicable to my family, I do think the sections on children with special needs and getting through a divorce could be very useful.

Both books covered the full range from baby to young adult. I think that both are worth reading, but Raising a Secure Child is by far the better of the two.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth

Read: 9 September, 2011

There's a trick to reading parenting books: Never read them reactively.

It's a rule I'm normally really good at following, but I broke it when I picked up Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child. To make a long story short, my son sleeps wonderfully at night but is a terrible day napper. This often leads to some horrific bouts of crankiness, so I looked up infant sleep books at my local library to see if I could find something to help.

The central advice of Healthy Sleep Habits is to have babies take regular naps (and he does emphasize the "regular"). Great! I agree! Now how do we accomplish this?

Well, that's where the book starts to fall apart. Weissbluth recommends a sleep routine that may include things like reading a bedtime story (which excites my son because books are OMGWTFAWESOME!!), a bath (which excites my son because water is OMGWTFAWESOME!!), a massage (which excites my son because physical contact is OMGWTFAWESOME!!), and a lullaby (which... Yeah, I think you get the point).

I realize that my son is a bit weird. The grandson of two professional track-and-fielders (one of whom held a world record for a year) and a professional mountain climbing instructor, he's predisposed to some rather heightened energy levels. Not only is he an unstoppable force, he's also hitting all of his physical milestones on the very early end of the spectrum.

So Weissbluth's advice doesn't seem to work for our family (and I refuse to even try the cry-it-out method that he says may help if the stable bedtime routine fails). Ordinarily, that wouldn't be a huge deal. I don't know any adults who need nipples in their mouths to fall asleep, so I can reasonably assume that TurboKid will eventually grow out of his sleep problems, like I did. I could just keep trying with the routine and that would be the end of it.

The problem with Weissbluth is that he peppers his book with comments like:

I think it possible that unhealthy sleep habits contribute to school-related problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities.

and:

Warning: If your child does not learn to sleep well, he may become an incurable adult insomniac, chronically disabled from sleepiness and dependent on sleeping pills.

These sorts of friendly reminders are helpfully printed apart from the text, presented in bold and segregated in little boxes, lest you fail to notice that you are irrevocably breaking your baby.

There were aspects of the book that I enjoyed, such as the breakdown of strategies by age. But these were so overshadowed by the fear-mongering that it's hard for me to write anything other than a negative review. It's bad enough that I'm dealing with a cranky baby and that I can't get the method to work. To add a level of desperation, to make my failure something that will turn my precious babe into a disabled drug user, is just cruel.

Bad, Weissbluth. Bad.

Emotionally Intelligent Parenting by Maurice J. Elias, Steven E. Tobias, and Brian S. Friedlander

Read: 26 August, 2011

Since my son is now moving from the "pooping lump" stage into the "destroyer of worlds" stage, I figured that it was about time I start reading some books to help me control this little monster. So apologies to anyone who isn't particularly interested in parenting books, but I've got a stack to get through. Then it'll be over for a while, I promise!

Emotionally Intelligent Parenting has very little fact in it. For the most part, it's just a discussion of strategies that the authors think are beneficial and how to execute them. I found it rather worrisome, however, that when facts were presented, they were incorrect. It started early, in the introduction by Daniel Goleman, when he says that parents today "have less free time to spend with [our children] than our own parents did with us." I'd say that's intuitively true, one of those common sense things, but it's factually false.

So that made me wonder about the advice given in the book, which, for the  most part, seemed intuitively true. Plus, there was something about the repeated advice to talk about feelings that doesn't sit too well with my old New England Protestant family upbringing!

A lot of the advice was centred around acronyms like FIG TESPN, which is supposed to remind you (and kids) of how to work through problems. It seems to me that this is needlessly complicated and of dubious worth - not to mention absurd to implement on a daily basis.

My final major complaint is that I really wasn't wowed by the dialogues in the book. These were usually there to illustrate how to put the ideas into practice. Thing is that it made the parents sound like robots and I'm pretty sure that any kids subjected to these kinds of speeches would interpret them as insincerity. And then, to illustrate how well the method supposedly works, the  dialogues invariably end with kids saying: "I never really thought about it like that [...] Can we talk later? I have to do my homework now." Yeah right.

That's not to say that the book was all bad, not by any means. There were some gems, such as the parenting Golden Rule to "do unto your children as you would have other people do unto your children." There was also a lot of emphasis on modelling, so making sure that you display the behaviour you want to see in your children. And the last bit that really resonated with me was the advice to focus on goals. For example, focus on specific behaviour that you want corrected and work on that, or think about whether punishment is really the most effective means of prompting change.

Overall, I'd say that this was an interesting read and I did get some ideas, but I found that most of it was not realistically implementable. It also lacked evidence to back the assertions made.

How To Have Your Second Child First by Kerry Colburn and Rob Sorensen

Read: 25 August, 2011

As a new parent, it seems that I'm always one step behind my son. Just as I've figured out how to deal with one of his quirks, he passes into a new phase and my awesome new strategy is no longer useful.

That's where How To Have Your Second Child First comes in. The idea is to have parents who've already been through the process 'spill the beans' so that first time parents can avoid making all the mistakes that first time parents always make. For example, how important is it to warm your baby's bottle? Does a household really need to be kept in total silence while the baby is sleeping? Does everything your baby might touch need to be sterilized?

The book is organized like a list of lessons, each with some explanation and quotes from 'experienced' parents. Like most of these books, it's a mix of really good advice and advice that may simply not fit your family. So I'll give the same speech I always give for parenting books: Have a read through and take away what makes sense for you, ignore the rest.

That being said, I do think that the book's underlying message is incredibly important. Don't sweat the small stuff, you won't break your baby.

My son is nearly six months old, so I definitely read this too late for it to be of much help. It would be far better as a baby shower gift, or a 2nd-3rd trimester library take-out. I do think it should be on every parent-to-be's reading list.

The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson

Read: 7 July, 2011

I really want to categorize this book as fiction; and, in a sane world, I would. Unfortunately...

It begins in 1983,  when Major General Albert Stubblebine III (a truly Dickensian name), upon realizing that both his body and the wall are made up of atoms and that atoms are mostly made up of empty space, tries to walk through a wall.

Starting from Stubblebine's sore nose, Ronson takes the reader through a brief history of the US military's more insane moments. He lulled me into a sense of "oh, that happened in '70s, but it would never happen today" with stories of men staring at goats to make their hearts stop (and, when goats aren't available, the odd hamster would do) and a First Earth Battalion that could end conflict with their "sparkling eyes."

But then he gets into the 'War on Terror' and the horrific acts at Abu Ghraib.

The most difficult part of reading The Men Who Stare At Goats is to remember that this is only, as the subtitle says, about a "small group of men" who happen to be placed in some key positions. It isn't representative of the army as a whole. The problem is that each of these "highly placed" men have subordinates in a culture that does not tolerate dissent - even when the orders are quite obviously insane.

Throughout, Ronson remains very objective. He allows his subjects, and their beliefs, to speak for themselves. This is an amazing feat when writing a book about men who believe that they can walk through walls or stare goats to deaths.

The tone of the book seems somewhat rambly - jumping back and forth through time and skipping from subject to subject - but it all makes sense by the end, when the whole is tied together and the influence of Jim Channon's First Earth Battalion Operations Manual is made clear. And, really, this is the story of that book - of its history and its legacy.

Men Who Stare At Goats appears to be meticulously researched. Certainly, it comes through in Ronson's writing just how difficult certain people and facts were to find. And, although some of the connections he draws are speculative (or based on "wink wink" statements from his informants), he does make the case that it's all at least plausible if not factual. I found it to be a very interesting and thought-provoking read, even if my faith in humanity requires that I remain somewhat provisional in my trust of Ronson's depictions.

Assuming that it is all (or mostly) true, though, I'd be very interested in a follow up in coming years as to the effect of the book on military policies and strategies. Has Men Who Stare At Goats embarrassed the leadership sufficiently to cause a change? Will it spell the end of First Earth Battalion's influence? Or will it increase its popularity?

The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life As An Experiment by A.J. Jacobs

Read: 28 June, 2011

I listened to the audio book version of this. I'm finding that my ability to hold books is being seriously hampered by Captain Wiggly's wild gesticulations. And it's only gotten worse now that he's started teething and requires holding at all times. So, at the recommendations of several friends, I'm giving the audio reading experience a try.

In The Guinea Pig Diaries, A.J. Jacobs conducts a number of experiments on himself. For a while, he tries to life according to George Washington's code of conduct, he tries to scrub his brain of all irrational thinking, he outsources much of his life, and he dabbles with radical honesty.

Since the book is episodic, with each experiment serving as a discreet section, I thought it might be best to give my thoughts on each separately.

What would George Washington Do

In this segment, Jacobs tries to incorporate George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior. In the process, he learns about the 'founding father' and learns a new respect for Washington.

I found the history of this piece to be very interesting, but it may have been the weakest of Jacobs's experiments in terms of its impact on his life. Keeping a straight face and adopting good posture isn't exactly revolutionary. Ha ha! See what I did there?

The Unitasker

After a failed multitasking attempt causes Jacobs to lose driving privileges, he decides to experiment with unitasking - focusing on a single task at a time. This section had quite a bit of relevance for me as I'm almost never doing fewer than at least two things at a time. Even while I'm playing with the baby, I'm generally reading a book or even getting dishes done at the same time!

The human brain can't multitask, says Jacobs. What we end up doing instead is simply switching back and forth between our tasks. This is inefficient because there's some "now where was I?" time between each switch. He argues that we're actually faster and more productive if we simply stop and focus on one thing at a time. From personal experience, I find that I get more enjoyment out of the task too, because it's actually "there" mentally. It wasn't a great chapter, but he made his point and I think I'm provisionally convinced.

I Think You're Fat

In this section, Jacobs gives radical honesty a try. The concept is that you must tell the truth, all the time. All the time. Lying by omission is also out. If you're a fan of gimmicky detective shows, you may have encountered the concept of radical honesty on Lie To Me (featuring Mr. Orange). Personally, my first exposure came when my brother-in-law started practising it.

Jacobs's experience seems fairly similar to what I've seen first hand. There are quite a few occasions where it serves everyone well. It gets uncomfortable topics out in the open, initiating a dialogue that can actually fix the inter-personal problem. It can also help achieve short-term goals by forcing you to ask for the things you want. But on the other hand, it can also cause quite a bit of negative feeling.

For the project, Jacobs meets with radical honesty's inventor, Dr. Brad Blanton. During his description, he mentions that Dr. Blanton has been married multiple times. This is shocking given Blanton's claim that radical honesty "leads to intimacy in relationships."

And that's my main observation of radical honesty - the disconnect between the claimed benefits and the reality of its practice. Jacobs also points out a psychological quirk that voicing thoughts solidifies them in our minds. So, feeling a little down in the dumps about your job today? Vent about it and your opinion of your job will actually become more negative overall, even on the good days.

That's why I'm much more in favour of a little thing I like to call radical positivism. Always say nice things until you train your brain to believe them. This doesn't exclude constructive criticism, by the way. It's merely a policy against whining.

240 Minutes of Fame

Jacobs happens to look a great deal like an actor I'd never heard of but who apparently had a little spot in the sun a couple years ago. When the actor decided not to attend one of these fancy Hollywood award ceremonies, Jacobs attended - letting people think that he was the actor.

He soon realized just how intoxicating fame can be, and how constant praise skews an individual's perception of reality. I quite enjoyed this section because it pointed out just how fallible we are and how quickly any one of us, no matter how nice, could turn into one of these tantruming celebrity monsters.

My Outsourced Life

This may have been the best section, if only for the entertainment value. Jacobs uses firms in India to outsource parts of his life. It starts out fairly normal, outsourcing research for his articles and other menial tasks. But then he starts pushing the boundaries, even outsourcing a fight with his wife.

The lesson for this section is a good one. He starts off with what I think is a fairly common perception in the West that the people we're outsourcing to are somewhat brutish. They're great for simple, mindless work like the call centre screen reading that passes for tech support. But he soon realizes that his virtual assistants are every bit as intelligent and creative as American workers - if not more so.

The Rationality Project

This project struck a chord with me because it's something that I've been working on for a few years now. In this project, Jacobs tries to eliminate as much irrational thinking from his brain as possible.

What he learns is rather similar to what I've learn, that simply being rational doesn't necessarily eliminate subjectivity, nor does it allow us to find "correct" answers. For example, he experiments with toothpaste - does the rational mind choose based on cavity protection or taste? Well, as one of his sources points out, 10 years without a cavity may be worse than 9 years without a cavity but spent enjoying a much more pleasant brushing experience. Even though the latter is the "wrong" choice based solely on the cavity protection metric, the actual answer is far more complex and involves subjective preference.

That's not to say that rationality is bunk. There are unquestionably "wrong" answers that we should make every effort to purge from our brains. But what Jacobs learns is that it's perfectly rational to be an emotional human being and that subjective experiences are legitimate.

My life as a beautiful woman

This section was an extremely close runner-up for entertainment value. For this project, Jacobs tries online dating on behalf of his very attractive nanny. What he finds is fairly expected, that saying "no" to forceful advances all day gets tiresome and that there are some really mean manipulative jerks out there.

To be fair, his experience as a beautiful woman is only online, so he's meeting a large collection of the scummiest individuals in high concentration without additional worries such as physical safety. As a result, his ability to really learn from the episode is somewhat stunted. But still, his writing style brings the adventure to life in a really funny way.

The truth about nakedness

[caption id="attachment_858" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Included for your edification"][/caption]

This is the deep feminist piece that "My life as a beautiful woman" couldn't be. Jacobs's job is to edit an article by actress Mary-Louise Parker on the experience of doing a naked photoshoot. Additionally, Parker is asked to illustrate her piece with a nude photo. But Parker, brilliantly, turns it around by only agreeing to write the article if Jacobs will also pose for a nude photo, which she gets to choose for the final print.

Jacobs isn't writing any kind of deep analysis, but the lesson of sexual objectification does get conveyed. He experiences the shame of being exposed, the loss of control of having someone else get to choose which picture makes the cut, the emphasis on status when his shoot isn't catered as nicely as Parker's, etc.

Whipped (a.k.a. the perfect spouse)

For this experiment, Jacobs vows to be the perfect spouse for one whole month, doing everything his wife (who is a saint!) says. As expected, he quickly learns to appreciate just how much she does for the household. As Jacobs puts it, she was doing chores that he didn't even know existed!

Though treated lightly, he brings attention to a very serious issue with our "post-feminist" society - that women are now working as much as men, but are still expected to come home and do the bulk of the housework and childcare. Not an issue in my household, thankfully, because my husband is every bit the feminist I am (and a fabulous cook to boot!).

Conclusion

I really enjoyed The Guinea Pig Diaries. As expected, this isn't an in-depth treatment of any of the subjects Jacobs covers, and the lessons he draws are, for the most part, fairly superficial. But what he does is provide a light, entertaining, and humorous introduction to a wide range of social and global issues. There's plenty of food for thought, served with a spoonful of sugar.

It works well for what it is.

The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

Read: 22 October, 2010

The basic premise of The Moral Landscape is that the well-being of sentient creatures is the proper measuring stick to determine morality. He convincingly argues that defining morality simply as that which God likes or dislikes is absurd, in the same way as defining it based on the wishes of a king would be absurd. But on the other side of the debate, the idea that morality is a natural offshoot from our evolution as social animals, merely describes an 'is' and does not allow us to argue for or against the 'shoulds' we may encounter in our navigation of ethics. The well-being of creatures sufficiently aware to care about well-being is the only measure that makes any sense.

In the book, Harris anticipates and responds to a number of criticisms. The greatest of these is the question of whether well-being is even worth valuing in the first place - what makes this, above all others, the concept that ought to be at the centre of this debate? To answer this, Harris compares well-being to health. Why should we value health? None of us would think twice about calling someone insane who argues that health ought to be defined as weight as much as possible, so why do claim that there is no way to say whether a patriarchal system in which half the population is kept under constant bondage is any worse than a society in which genders are viewed as equal?

He also brings up the idea of neuroscience - that we will one day be able to scan people's brains to determine what truly contributes to well-being, and what people have merely been acculturated into thinking it does.

I've been surprised by how poor the book's reception has been among the atheist community. It seems that many have fallen into the trap Harris anticipated, arguing that there is no reason to value well-being above any other criteria. But for my own part, I'm convinced. Harris challenges his readers to think of any criteria that would be equally valuable in resolving ethical issues, and I've been unable to think of any. It seems as obvious to me that well-being is the only foundation that makes any sense at all. Once we accept this premise, it seems obvious to me that ethical questions could potentially be resolved with right or wrong answers.

Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

Read: 28 September, 2010

It is often said that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God. But which Bible?

In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman takes the reader through some of the changes that have been made to the Bible over the years, both deliberate and not, and the techniques scholars can use in an attempt to uncover what the original might have said. He does an amazing job of making some pretty complex material accessible to a lay reader.

My first encounter with Ehrman was through his textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. I was a Christian at the time, and, while I knew that the Bible had been translated and that it was therefore subject to the manipulations inherent in translation, I had no idea just how deeply the transmission errors lie.

As I read through Ehrman's textbook and studied the material in class, I found my faith deeply challenged. Just as Ehrman describes in his introduction, our way of knowing God is through scripture. And if scripture is flawed or inaccessible, what can we truly say we know about God?

This thinking put me on a path that eventually led to my deconversion.

Misquoting Jesus is every bit as challenging as The New Testament. I find it rather interesting that the most damning argument against Christian belief comes from the Bible itself - from reading it, from understanding it within the context of its writing, and from learning just how fragile texts can be.

But Ehrman never argues against the Christian faith. He is by no means a Dawkins or a Hitchens. Rather, he simply presents the research and allows it to stand, or fall, for itself.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens

Read: 27 April, 2010

"God should be flattered: unlike most of those clamoring for his attention, Hitchens treats him like an adult."

The above quote is from the New York Times Book Review and appears on the cover of my edition. I find it to be an excellent summary of the book, and of Hitchens's work in general. He treats God like any other human adult, holding him responsible for the actions attributed to him, and not letting God's celebrity status get in the way of justice.

My complaint of this book is the same as my complaint of pre-sober Hitchens in general. He has a lot of zingers and truly quotable lines, but they're buried under a meandering and unstructured argumentation. The book is divided into chapters, but there's no build-up or progression. It's more like Hitchens merely writes in the train of thought and then publishes, without regard for editing.

I also didn't like the lack of notation. He does have end-notes, but they aren't marked in the text and mostly only provide citations for the passages he quotes. Any "facts" that he writes aren't sourced, so it's often difficult to check their veracity. For example, on page 110 of my edition, he write: "One recalls a governor of Texas who, asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.'" Unfortunately, no details are provided about this incident that might help the interested look it up. No name, no year, nothing except the location. It seems plausible that it's true, but I have no way of verifying it.

I'm being harsh on the book, but I did enjoy it. Hitchens is an excellent writer - funny, interesting, and he certainly keeps the pace moving. So this is a fine book to read while travelling or sitting by the pool. What it isn't is a resource or an argument. It's the fluff of the atheist library.