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 Reasonableness of Faith and Other Addresses by W.S. Rainsford

Read: 13 August, 2011

I have the very good fortune of having been born into a family with solid ties to its history. So this summer, while attending my cousin's wedding in our family's old farmhouse, I picked up a collection of addresses written by W.S. Rainsford, published in 1902. I had to read carefully lest the book fall apart in my hands!

Keeping in mind that this is a collection of addresses and not essays or arguments, I nonetheless couldn't help but judge them as apologetics. Certainly, several of the addresses were clearly meant that way since they claimed to address certain theological issues.

The titular address, "The Reasonableness of Faith," perfectly illustrates my distaste for theologians. Rainsford sets out to prove that faith is perfectly reasonable. How does he do this? By redefining faith as "that which is not unreasonable." It's muddy thinking at its finest. Faith is defined solely by what it is not and never by what it is.

It's all the more a shame because Rainsford is clearly a good writer and a good thinker. He's just suffering from the brain-rot of theology.

It was interesting to see a book from 1902 accept evolution as a known scientific fact - something that many theologians (though by no means all) are still struggling with over a century later.

This made for lovely drizzly summer afternoon in the country reading, but it was vacuous. Beautiful prose and the occasional interesting observation are this book's only saving graces.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Read: 12 August, 2011

Robert Neville is alone, completely alone in a world overrun by vampires.He is alive, but he can't figure out why he bothers.

I enjoyed the recent movie with Will Smith - mostly because I read into it far more than any of its creators intended. When I talk about the movie with others, it's like we saw entirely different movies. Mine was a subtle commentary on racism, or perhaps our relationship with the mentally ill. My movie featured a brilliantly executed unreliable narrator and one of the best ironic endings I've ever seen. What other people saw was yet another mindless monster flick.

I Am Legend the novel is everything I saw into the movie, only better.

Neville is a fantastic character. He's going nuts, making stupid mistakes, and drinking himself silly. But it's never frustrating, and I never felt that I just wanted him to shut up and get on with things. That's because Matheson has perfect timing, he never allows Neville to wallow for too long.

The sense of isolation and loneliness is palpable. As I was reading, I could really feel Neville's despair. This makes the story creepy and even terrifying without ever resorting to monster-in-the-closet gimmicks. Quite the opposite - the vampires' inability to wake during the day give Neville the advantage. He can scavenge safely during the day and then simply wait out the night in his house-come-fortress. The vampires are never the source of terror, the loneliness is.

This was one of the best, most perfectly executed books that I've read in a very long time. I highly recommend it for any fans of science fiction, distopian fantasy, post-apocalyptic fiction, and horror fiction.

NOTE: The copy I was reading was a first printing and had a truly creepy portrait of a young Matheson emerging from the shadows on the back. Yikes!

Gil & Alys Cunningham Mystery #3: The Merchant's Mark by Pat McIntosh

Read: 10 December, 2010

Gil Cunningham is eagerly awaiting a shipment of books. But when the barrel that was supposed to contain literature turns out to have a human head floating in brine instead, he and his companions become enmeshed in yet another mystery.

Another great addition to the series!

There's a bit more supernatural stuff (a ghost this time), but it's still manageable in quantity.

I like that Gil's station changes between the books. Each book is an isolated mystery, of course, but the character development is continuous throughout the series. I've really enjoyed watching Gil's relationship with Alys grow and change - which it does in a delightfully realistic and sensible way - as well as their accumulation of companions - first a baby, then a dog. I look forward to reading the next books in the series!

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?

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Read: 8 June, 2009

When Fiver senses that a great danger is coming to the warren, only his brother and a few others believe him. Unable to convince the other rabbits, this small band leaves on a journey in search of safety that takes them through farmyards, across roads and rivers, and into warrens with very different cultures.

This is an absolutely fantastic book. The adventure story alone is well worth the read, but the amateur mythicist in me was especially impressed with the construction of an entire rabbit culture and religious system, language included. Especially impressive is how familiar and, yet, distinctly alien the rabbit culture is. This rarely felt like a book about people that happens to be set in a rabbit setting. Rather, this was a book about rabbits, only slightly anthropomorphism. The characters and their culture retain a great deal of what can only be called 'rabbitiness.'

Most books get at least one aspect right. Some get a few things right. When this happens, the book may be called masterful, or great. But Watership Down is one of the very few books that tempt me to use the word 'perfection.' This is a masterpiece and I think that anyone who hasn't read it yet is somewhat impoverished. There's something about it that just touches the Jungian collective subconscious. This is the hero with a thousand faces pulled off in a way that feels natural.

Though marketed as a children's book (although perhaps a little too gruesome/frightening for younger kids), Watership Down is a must read for adults as well.