Flatland by Edwin Abbott

Read: 30 November, 2011

A. Square, an inhabitant of the two-dimensional Flatland, is taken on a journey of Lineland, Spaceland, and Pointland, during which he learns to transcend many of his assumptions about the universe and the natural order.

There are two parts to the Flatland narrative. The first reads like your standard (albeit clever - clever enough to fool several contemporary reviewers) social commentary, while the second tries to illustrate the failings of perspective and how trapped we are in comprehending only our own and lower dimensions. But as with any excellent writer, the division is never quite so clear and the second part provides a very interesting lens for the first.

I knew going in that I would enjoy Flatland; I'd heard enough about it for that. I'm glad to say that I was not disappointed. This is an excellent and readable novel that is one part social commentary, one part math, and one part Crusoe adventure!

I highly recommend the Broadview edition of the text. As always, the notes, introduction, and additional materials are both interesting and informative.

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.

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 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.

Don't Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

Read: 17 November, 2009

The thing that struck me the most about this collection of stories is that it could have been classed as travel narratives just as easily as horror. I found it so interesting to read about exotic locations while at the same time getting a wonderfully-crafted suspense story!

Don't Look Now

I wanted to read this story after seeing the excellent movie with Donald Sutherland, and it certainly didn't disappoint! The pacing is delightfully slow with great suspense-building, and the story has one of the most fabulous final lines I've ever read.

Not After Midnight

A schoolmaster holidays in Crete, hoping to work on his painting. But while there, he notices strange things starting to happen... An interesting story about madness and paranoia as the schoolmaster becomes obsessed with fellow vacationers.

A Border-Line Case

Shelagh's father dies, his final words some kind of plea, or perhaps an accusation. Confused and racked by guilt, she decides to find Nick, the estranged best man at her parents' wedding, to learn more about her father's past. This story was excellent, a crazy psychological "mindfuck" with a great twist ending.

The Way of the Cross

A group of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem meet with disaster. This is possibly the most character-focused story in the collection, but also the least interesting.

The Breakthrough

This is a story of science gone awry. The main character gets a new job with a team of scientists trying to find a new energy source. He quickly realizes that something far more sinister is going on. An interesting story with some really great lines, though not the best treatment of scientific ethics.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Read: 26 July, 2008

Overall, I loved this book. Dawkins is a wonderful writer and I think I would have enjoyed his style regardless of the subject matter. The only major flaw that irked me was his habit of veering off into tangents, but even this was made bare-able by not only his writing style, but also by the fact that most of his tangents were just plain interesting. Dawkins makes his case even stronger, in my opinion, by fulling admitting to and even going out of his way to point out the limits of his own personal knowledge. At several times during the book, he will say that he suspects one thing but does not know for certain, showing an inquisitive and flexible mind, both humble and confident. It's a refreshing break from the average writer who seems all too sure of her/his omniscience.

With all that out of the way, I'd like to address a couple of issues with the book. The first is with Chapter Four or "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God." I found the whole chapter to be a disappointment. Dawkins takes the question of "if there isn't a god, how did everything fall into place so perfectly to produce us?" and tries to answer it with science. This points him in an awkward and unnecessarily defensive position because the question itself is not a legitimate one (something he never once says outright). It's like asking "how did my parents know to have sex at just the perfect time to conceive me?" It assumes that we are an end result, a goal that the universe has been working towards - rather than the more accurate assumption that the universe is merely ambling along in one of billions (to pick an unrealistically small number) of possible ways and we just happen to be a bi-product (one of many possibilities) that happened to emerge. There is nothing special about the production of us, whether as individuals or as a species.

Another quibble I had with the book is that Dawkins repeats multiple times that natural selection gets rid of negatives and keeps positives, which is just sloppy. What about the vast majority of mutations, which are just neutral? Or mutations that have both positive and negative expressions?I understand the need for brevity and keeping things simple, but this is a major point and something that a lot of Dawkins's opposition can't seem to grasp.

And the final detail that I took issue with is his statement that "[monogamy] is what we expect, and it is what we set out to achieve." Is it? Maybe he's right, I don't know. Maybe monogamy really is the default. But that's not what even the quickest glance around the diversity of human societies in the world today will tell me. Many societies involve one man and several women, some even involve one woman and several men. If monogamy truly is the natural default, why isn't this expression universal? Like I said, maybe he's right - but because his statement was counter-intuitive, the existence of polygamous societies should have been addressed.

With all that said, this was a fabulous book and I am very glad that I've read it. It ought to have stayed on topic a little better, but that's okay. There were no parts of the book that I felt weren't worth reading and that's more than I can say for most books.