Book 40: One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovitch

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First Published in 1962

I can't immediately recall a better display of character development in less than 150 pages before. Ever. S.E. Hinton tried with The Outsiders, but The Outsiders and One Day In the Life are on completely different levels, not to mention languages, times, motifs, genres and literary stages.

I didn't know much of anything about this novel before I read it. It was something I picked up at a Half-Price books in Austin several years ago. I was cleaning off my desk the other day and re-found it, pocketed it, and haven't really been without it since. It's even caused me to stop playing Borderlands for a day or so.

One Day In the Life is really one day in the life. The original narrative. And I've got to tell you: in this novel, my good buddy Sasha Solz is as much in love with the colon ( this one:   :   , not the poop chute) as I am. Constant usage. I like that. It fits where the translator put it, and although it's not always 100% mechanically correct, dammit: it works.

I have no idea why that giant white block is there, and I really don't care. 

Book 39: Brave New World

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

1932

I read this when I was in middle school.

I don't think there is anything in my life I have ever NOT gotten as much as I didn't get this novel.

I wasn't too young for the subject matter when I was however-old-I-was when I read it. I just didn't have enough critical thinking skills, or the two semesters of college Shakespeare necessary to really appreciate what Huxley had to say here.

Of all of the things this book has to offer, the most shocking thing is that it was written in 19thirty-fucking-two.  I couldn't really wrap my mind around that at first. 1932? Really? Holy shit.

In 1932, in the US, only 11% of farm houses had electricity.  Can you believe that shit? In one part of the planet, we've got a guy writing about soma and rocketplanes, and in the other, we've got a pre-WWII population without electricity.

Wowza.

If you've not read or heard of Brave New World, well, my guess is that English isn't your first language or you're not much of a reader.  It's one of the cornerstones of the dystopian genre. Even if dystopia isn't your thing, and even if sci-fi isn't your think,  you should read it-- it was written in 1932, and it's about the future. Awesome stuff.

If you're a curious person, you'll learn lots about contemporary world history of the 30s and slightly previously. Huxley name-drops all over Brave New World. Too bad most people now don't know who many of the referred-to are.

Awesome novel, from both a SF/dystopian standpoint and as a social critique (while those two usually go hand-in-hand, that's not always the case).


While I was reading it, I found myself, from time to time, thinking that the world Huxley described wouldn't be all that bad. It's the notion of hypnopaedic conditioning that really makes it not all that uncomfortable for me.

If you went through your entire life confident with the knowledge that yours was the best life there was, would you really have that much to complain about? Probably not, because you had been conditioned since before you were conscious not to think about it.

If you could take a pill that carried with it no risk of social, moral, ethical of physical repercussions, a pill that made you forget about your worries and enjoy your mind, wouldn't you? A pill with no unpleasant side-effects, even.

If you could live your life knowing that anything you needed was within your capabilities to have, and that you would always be perfectly content knowing that there would be no war, no strife, and no social instability, wouldn't that be appealing?

This sounds like it would be a terrible and very un-free world to live in, right? But if you had been conditioned since birth to think that it was the best possible way to live, and that there was no option, you would know nothing of freedom and think only about how awesome it was to be alive.

Doesn't sound like too bad of a deal.

Book 38: Marine Sniper

Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills

Charles Henderson

2001, Berkley Trade

Self-Discipline. Lots of it.

Carlos Hathcock was a freakin' badass. That's all that needs to be said about that.

Whenever I read books like this, or watch a circus, or hear about some monk living for 3 years off of a handfull of rice, it makes me feel really, really, really worthless. We're all made up of the same stuff, but some people are capable of amazing things, while the most of us struggle with our own mediocrity.

Speaking of Mediocrity, It's nearing the middle of December. I don't think I'm going to make my 52 book mark. No way.

Book 37: Knock on Wood And other Superstitions

Knock on Wood, and other Superstitions



Carole Potter

1984

With most entries being less than a page, this 263-page book provides a decent sampling of some of the weird, odd, nonsensical things humans have come up with over the years.

Some of this shit is just wonky. Completely off the wall. Some were pretty interesting, but others were just insane.

Insane: If you find salt in your right pocket, turn three times in a counter-clockwise circle and then spit over your right shoulder 3 times while clapping the tune to jingle-bells to ward off evil spirits.

That isn't a direct quote, but it's the kind of thing one might find in this book.

Humans... weird, weird creatures we.

Sane: The Rx prescription abbreviation is the Roman alphabet equivalent of the symbol for Jupiter, who was apparently thought to be able to offer protection from illness... or something along those lines.

What did I learn from this book?
Well, I learned that if a person collects a bunch of nonsense, they can alphabetize it, call it a book and sell it.

I also learned, or reaffirmed my notion, that ignorant humans will always try to explain things they don't understand-- even if the explanations are completely absurd. Completely.

Book 36: Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E.Frankl

1946

Viktor Frankl was in a handful of concentration camps in Nazi occupied Europe. As a psychiatrist, Frankl made observations, suggestions, and was able to detatch himself from the horrible suffering of the camps.

Reading this was like reading Gulag Archipelago or  Death March.: utterly heartbreaking and not at all inspiring.  I doubt the authors of any of these two books intended for their works to be inspiring. They are some of the most damning works concerning the development of systematic fucked-upness that humans so frequently exhibit.

Frankl explores the conditions of the camps and the psychological toll of such an existence. Ultimately, he argues that if a person has a reason to live, he can endure almost any condition. But if that "why" is not satisfied, then survivability of extreme conditions is unlikely. I am reminded of stories of individuals, lost in the woods, desert, or mountains, who should not have survived, but simply refused to die.

The power of the mind over the functions of the body are pretty well-understood. We understand that mental stimulus, whether real or perceived, can be a large determining factor in healing and endurance. Mind over matter is more than just a pithless phrase. 

Man's Search isn't long, and while some parts of it seem incoherent, non-relevant, or repetitive, it is worth a reader's time. Frankl's logotherapy seems, to me at least, to be a rather dated and axiomatic way of looking at things. Some of his clinical examples from the second half of the book seem awfully convenient. I'm not saying he lied, I'm just suggesting that telling a man who is unhappy with his occupation to change jobs isn't exactly groundbreaking. 

Like I said, it's worth the reader's time, but I would venture to guess that if the holocaust was not a centerpiece, this book would not have enjoyed the success it has. It's interesting, but transplant the narrative to any other human-caused disaster with equal or greater amounts of suffering (is there such a scale?), and I doubt as many people would've picked it up.

3/5 monkies. 

Book 35: The Demon Haunted World-- Science as a Candle In the Dark

I'm busy. I'm tired. I read this book. I loved it. It was awesome. 5/5 masturbating monkeys.

Book 34 Billions and Billions

Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millineum

1998. Ballantine Books

Carl Sagan died before he could finish this book. 

The Afterword is written by his surviving wife, who finished proofreading it. He didn't live long enough to finish the Acknowledgement, and one of the last things he was able to do was finish the prologue.

Carl Sagan. What a dude. 

Billions and Billions was not necessarily what I thought it would be. Though, honestly, I didn't do any research before jumping into it.

I was surprised (although I'm not sure why) to see the clarity with which the great doctor was able to convey his ideas. If nothing else, Sagan was a great teacher. A sage, one might say. The Sagacious Sagan.

Billions and Billions  deals, as one might expect from the subtitle, with considerations of life and death at a point in time just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The world was very much in fear of total nuclear annihilation just a few years before, and Carl Sagan, an outspoken voice against nuclear proliferation, brings not only concern for mutually assured destruction to the table, but also global warming and the destruction of the environment.

The pleas against animal testing, which were thinly veiled in Dragons of Eden,  are almost absent in B&B. But that's not necessarily what the book was supposed to be about.

It's unfortunate that so many of the concerns voiced in Billions and Billions, which are still valid concerns, are not higher priority items today. There still exist a great many social, environmental and political problems which have been forgotten in the Palin-plagued media crapfest which is the American dialogue. 

I'll not quote too many passages, as the book does best on its own. It speaks for itself. Sagan, no advocate of religion and the notion of an afterlife, still lives on through his work. 

It's a very touching plea for common sense.

"Along with progress in literacy such trends are the allies of Jeffersonian democracy. On the other hand, what passes for literacy in America in the late twentieth century is a very rudimentary knowledge of the English language, and television in particular tends to seduce the mass population away from reading. In pursuit of the profit motive, it has dumbed itself down to lowest-common-denominator programming-- instead of rising up to teach and inspire"

A man after my own heart, that Carl.

"Perhaps the most wrenching by-product of the scientific revolution has been to render untenable many of our most cherished and most comforting beliefs. The tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors has been replaced by a cold, immense, indifferent Universe in which humans are relegated to obscurity. "

Yes! It's true. Taking this into consideration, we can see the obvious selfishness associated with modern findamentalism and superstition. The unwillingness to realize that we are, in the grand scheme of things, individuals without a central importance in the universe, is difficult for us to accept. Thinking of one's self as not being the center of the Universe doesn't exactly have evolutionary advantages. 

But, to think that we are special; that we have a special place, are some sort of a plan or prospectus makes us feel better. Especially when we don't enjoy our lives.

So, while we may feel less comforted knowing that we are on a mote of dust in the endless, cold sea of space, we should all the more appreciate the life we do have, and the ones we do love. 

And banjos.

Book 33 Open Veins of Latin America

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. 

Eduardo Galeano

Originally Published 1971

This book was given to Barack Obama by Hugo Chavez.
It's left-of-center, but much more centrist than I would have expected to see on Chavez' reading list.

It's actually been a while since I finished reading this, but I've been so busy with other stuff, I haven't managed to write about it.

It's really heartbreaking.

Galeano wrote it in about 3 months, but apparently it took him several years to gather and compile the information he needed to write the book.

Galeano chronicles the historic exploitation of the South American continent. He details the ways in which the natural resources have enriched other nations while impoverishing the native people. 

It's an economic and political study of one of the most influential and misunderstood continents on this pale blue dot we call Earth. And it's just a damn shame. 

Book 32: The Dragons of Eden

The Dragons of Eden: Speculations of the Evolution of Human Intelligence

Carl Sagan
Random House 1977

5/5 Masturbating Monkeys.

After reading the scheissdreck that was The Road,  this was a wonderful and much-appreciated change.

Carl Sagan, in case you didn't know, was a badass. His work lives on, and continues to influence our lives today. He is best known for his Cosmos series, and for writing Contact, upon which the 1997 film "Contact" was based (Jodie Foster).


As I was reading Dragons, and now that I'm finished with it, it stays with me. I can't stop thinking about some of the arguments Sagan has put forward, and the implications of his observations.  Sagan covers a wide range of topics from evolution to abortion, but not at all in a controversial way. Sagan never was attempting to create controversy. His goal was to educate, and answer questions.

His discourse is elevated above the "rights" and "wrongs" of the contemporary nonsense we are surrounded by.  There is a short list of books which have really touched me, which have really helped me to understand my place in the world and which I feel like I could read over and over again, each time gaining something new.

This is definitely one of those titles.


If you're an intellectually incurious or boring person, then this isn't for you. This isn't entertainment. It's enlightenment.


That may scare some people away, but Sagan is about as scary as a beach ball. The accumulated wisdom he offers in Dragons is accessible and delivered in a stimulating way. He writes, as always, for the layperson.

Sagan is largely responsible for the popularization of real science (as opposed to science fiction) which took place after the 1950s.  He understood how important it was for us to be a people who understood the fantastic power of science; how it could both improve and destroy our lives.  He has a unique voice and an ability to bring new ideas to the door of the mind which is difficult to find in the hard sciences.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I feel like any attempt I make to review it will really do it an injustice.

Cool tidbits:
"There is some recent evidence that the two types of sleep, dreaming and dreamless, depend on the lifestyle of the animal. Turett Allison and Domenic Ciccheti of Yale University have found that predators are statistically much more likely to dream than prey, which are in turn more likely to experience dreamless sleep"

Want to know why? Read the book.

"I sometimes wonder whether the appeal of sex and aggression in contemporary American television and film offerings reflects the fact that the R-complex is well developed in all of us, while many neocortical functions are, partly because of the repressive nature of schools and societies, more rarely expressed, less familiar and insufficiently treasured. "

Sagan said this in 1977. How far have we come in 30 years? More importantly, how far have we fallen?

"There is a place in the brain that makes "dirty" words (and apes may have it)."

Fuck yeah!

"Finding a solution to a problem is helped enormously by the certain knowledge that a solution exists."

That's pretty powerful. It's simple, but it's also very insightful. I wish I had thought about that more earlier in my life when I felt like there were no real solutions to some problems. I'm taking this a little out of context, but in a different context, the words are just as meaningful (if not more), and can be applied to just about any difficult situation.

"There is today in the West (but not in the East) a resurgent interest in vague, anecdotal and often demonstrably erroneous doctrines that, if true, would betoken at least a more interesting universe, but that, if false, imply an intellectual carelessness, an absence of tough-mindedness, and a diversion of energies not very promising for our survival"

This is the closest Sagan gets to criticizing religion as a retarding force for scientific progress.  I think he understands that conflict isn't going to change minds, but if a person is genuinely curious about the world they live in, it's this kind of thinking that will spur them on to question not only the nature of the world they live in, but their own belief structures.

Note how Sagan suggests that if these demonstrably erroneous doctrines were true, that would suggest a more interesting universe.  The universe is interesting enough as it is without adding magic.

Book 31: The Road

The Road

Cormac McCarthy

Vintage
January 2007


I read   No Country For Old Men  a year or two ago and told myself that I wouldn't read another Cormac McCarthy novel again.

A friend of mine suggested that I read The Road, because it was "different" and "not as shitty."

I read The Road

It's not different, and it's just as shitty.

Now, when I say that The Road is a shitty book, I want to be specific in my criticism. Character and plot development are pretty good. This was the case with No Country.  The problem I have with McCarthy's novels is McCarthy's style.

It's a personal preference. I just don't like the way he writes. Whenever I read McCarthy, I feel like his audience is a 3rd grader with a penchant for grammatical anarchism. I feel like this type of writing contributes to the shortening of the attention span of the average U.S. Citizen, and does not stimulate the reader.  This type of writing, to me, panders to folks who don't like reading. It looks to me like  a marketing ploy, to be honest.

I don't like run-on sentences, and I think that the conjunction "and" should have a ceiling limit of 2 or 3 uses per sentence. McCarthy just don't give a fuck when it comes to "and."   I made a facebook post about McCarthy's love affair with the conjunction after reading No Country. I was hoping that the "less shitty" description I had heard about The Road would cover the obscene conjunction abuse, omission of quotation marks, and discontinuity of plot that I found in No Country.

Guess what?

The Road isn't less shitty than No Country when it comes to these things. As a matter of fact, it's worse.

I think McCarthy found something that works financially, and he's sticking with it. His style, which might have at one time been an experiment, seems to be his favorite method of pissing me off.

Apparently people think his style is edgy and artistic, but it's about as edgy and artistic as your boss's vacation photos: not.

It's not original, it's not efficient, and it detracts (rather than adds) to his ability to tell a story.


That said, even in light of the piss-poor style, McCarthy still manages to draw his readers in, and he uses character development to do that. He reveals the information you need at the time you need it, which is what character development is all about.

I'm not going to quote anything. Instead, I'm going to give you an example of what reading this book is like.


I am sitting at my computer and pressing keys on the keyboard and when I do I see letters on the screen and enough letters make a word and enough words make a sentence and enough sentences make a paragraph and enough paragraphs make an essay and if an essay is long enough some people might call it a monograph and others might call it a book and these are the kinds of things that people read and write even though that isn't what this is.


This kind of writing should not be rewarded. It should be punished. It is...

Unforgivable.

This is a picture of what how reading McCarthy makes me feel:

Against. A. Fucking. Wall.

Dystopian novels? Me gusta. Post-apocalyptic novels? Me gusta mucho!

This one? No me gusta.

2.3 of 5 masturbating monkeys.

Book 30: Brains: A Zombie Memoir

Brains: A Zombie Memoir

Robin Becker

Harper Voyager. 2010

What a glorious, ghoulish gait down the lofty gantry of the badass brain-eating zombie genre.

Outstanding book. 5/5 Masturbating Monkeys, all across the board.

The author, Robin Becker, (whose blog and band you should check out, if you know what's good for you) totally and completely rocked my world with Brains.

Like many of the books I read (and almost all of the books I've read for this little project), I didn't do any research before I start reading them. Aside from the obvious subject matter of Zombies, I didn't know the what Becker had in store for me as a reader. What a pleasant surprise.

The reader follows a modern-day prometheus professor zombie who just happens to maintain the ability to think, plan, reason, read and write. He meets other skilled zombies and they have themselves an odyssey. I am reminded of Tom Robbins' animated inanimates in Skinny Legs and All, but the characters of Brains have a much loftier goal.

The writing was just delicious. Accessible and packed tighter than 18 virgins in a Volkswagen. The prose is layered, and the plot is really well thought-out.  Character development is nicely done; I felt empathy for the soulless undead. Brains delivers all of the elements aspiring writers know they need to include in their fiction.

The conventional (and some well-received unconventional) elements of fiction are present here, but their presence isn't overwhelming.

Some authors will beat you to death's door with unnecessary exposition, thinking that it is a suitable replacement for character development, while others make it a point to find a rule and break it to the point that the misplaced mechanics distract from the story (I'm looking at you Cormac "I'm so cool I don't need quotation marks" McCarthy).  

Not Ms. Becker. She knows her shit.  That might have something to do with her being a writing professor.

As usual, I'll give a few examples so you can judge for yourself if this is the kind of thing you're into. If you're not, then you probably have a boring sense of humor.

"Geraldo bludgeoned the zombette with his microphone, but to no effect. The mic merely sank into the undead's head, disappearing like a baby thrown into quicksand."

Yes, that Geraldo. And yes, Geraldo has tattoos.

You know what a baby being thrown into quicksand looks like? Me too!

"For breakfast I veered into the trees and found a rabbit's nest. The mother and her five bunnies screamed as I bit into them. The sound was unexpected, as piercing and angry as the cry of a newborn stuffed into a trash can at prom."

See, at MY prom, I thought someone eating rabbits in the bathroom. Now I know!

"In life, I wouldn't have looked twice at these men. They were large and one wore an oversized T-shirt advertising Pepsi. Both had on NASCAR ball caps.

The only Homer they knew was Simpson; their favorite beer was Bud Light. Their idea of an art film was The Shawshank Redemption and their wives collected Precious Moments figurines. What could I possibly talk about with them? The weather?"


When did Robin Becker meet my cousins?



"Everything in me sang:

"

Okay, Becker. You win. I give up. You're my new favorite author.

"Rosencrantz and Guildernstern were undead.
Oh, gotta love those allusions."

Yesssssssss! Yes you do gotta love those allusions! If you don't, well, I don't know what to do for you.

"Joan, Ros, Annie, and I plodded along, bringing pestilence, war, famine and death-- but at a glacial pace, the velocity of slugs. Call us the Four Retarded Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It might take us a while, but eventually we'll kill and eat you. Relax while you wait -- have a cannoli."

That speaks for itself, I think.


This is the only novel of this length I've ever read which, to my memory, uses the word "simulacrum" twice.

If this happened on purpose, I think this was a good editorial decision.
There are several different types of readers, but generally, they can be divided into two groups: Those that look words up, and those that run on context clues to define words.

I don't fit into either of these groups because I'm illiterate, but it seems that using a word like simulacrum twice would be sufficient for optimal impact. The lookeruppers will have looked simulacrum up the first time, and then had their definition reinforced later. Similarly, the contextcluers would be able to gain more information for their vague and less-effective definition.

If an author drops simulacrum once, they're just showing off. If they drop it three times in a novel this length, they really, really want you to know how large their vocabulary is. Twice is just right.

Like Goldilocks.

Except here, Goldilocks is the one who is juuuuust right.


I think I'll stop with the quotes there. I've marked several more passages, sentences and specific word choices which really, really worked, but you should just go read the damn thing yourself. 

I can't imagine how much fun it was to write this novel. Probably at least half as fun as it was for me to read it.



I know zombies are big right now.  But Brains is here to stay.



Not only was reading  Brains an entertaining and enlightening experience, it was inspiring. There's a novel in me. At least one. Maybe more. Probably more, but they might just stay there if I don't do something about it most ricky-tick.

I've been pretty successful at making excuses for not finishing the one(s) I've started, or starting other projects I'm more interested in at the time. But I really can't allow myself to do that anymore. Some things will be coming up in the near future which will be even more of a time vampire than Fallout 3, so I need to get my shit in gear.

Book 29: Wingnuts

Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America

John Avalon

Beast Books 2010


Wingnuts attempts and succeeds in exploring the ever-polarizing nature of the political discourse in this country.

It also illuminates the (hopefully) clear fact that more and more people are getting fed up with the bullshit and abandoning traditional "party" values and becoming independents. More than on Avalon makes mention of the growing number of Independents in this country, and how few Americans classify themselves as strictly conservative, strictly liberal, strictly Republican or strictly Democrat.

Only the talking heads on the far ends of the spectrum, who are constantly attempting to radicalize the discourse (often in order to gain attention) are the ones who think the way they do. Unfortunatley, it doesn't take much fear to get someone to grab ahold of a leader and proclaim allegiance, no matter how retarded their ideas are.

I used to be pretty far out there. It took time and patience for me to finally simmer down after my collegiate explosion of radical Fuckyouism. It's still here, just on the back burner.  I had a whole new world to explore and I quickly found out that it was out to get me.

After several years of hearing that any day now the world was going to end, I figured out that the world wasn't going to end, and that the only way to keep peoples' attention in this country is to keep them freaked out all of the time.

I recognized the power of fear, and I understood it for the mind killer that it is.

Avalon does a great job of illimunating the extreme absurdities on both the left and the right side of the contemporary political spectrum.

People who have no accountability are free to say whatever kind of nonsensical bullshit they like. This gains traction in the echo chambers of "with us or against us" mentalitiy and eventually, unfortunately, winds up on the senate floor.

The people largely responsible for this nonsense (Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Sarah Palin, et al) have no responsibility to act like sane people. They're free to go on their radio shows and report that SOME SAY that puppies have been brainwashed by Al Quaeda to report our eating habits to Obama so they can work together to poison our food. Then they'll go on their TV shows and report it like it's news. Some say that puppies are more dangerous than militant Islam to our freedom and way of life.

Normal people know that puppies aren't responsible for anything malicious. Normal people know that the United States isn't undergoing a communist takeover, and normal people know that there probably won't be any kind of armed revolution in the United States. Ever. But it doesn't take much to scare the fuck out of people and get them thinking that it might happen. From might, it's not hard to lead them to likely. From likely to inevitable isn't really all that far. And from inevitable to imminent is just a matter of time.

Fortunately for us, most people in the United States want to return to the center. We're not extremists, we're just represented by them.

Avalon offers some ideas for dissolving the wingnuts in all of their nutty glory, but it can really just be summed up like this: Don't panic.

Ever wonder why the pundits never run for office, even though they seem to have all of the answers? It's because they're not accountable to anyone. They control the memory hole and can say and do whatever they want.

I can't do the book justice. It's full of gems which both enlighten and incense the reader. I'll provide a few.

"Demagogues always arise when the economy goes south, offering a narcotic for the nervous and dispossessed, with occasionally violent side effects."

Check.

"The fringe is now blurring with the base, enforcing a bitter and predictable partisanship. The most influential figures are political entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck-- they are leaders without the responsibility of governing, a combination that encourages the demonization of difference and the condemnation of compromise."

Check.

"These political performers become prisoners of their own shtick-- they cannot evolve or they will be called traitors by the tribe they have cultivated. They can only move in one direction: further into the extremes."

Check, check, check.

"It's a reminder of what the Czech dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel once wrote:"Ideology offers human beings the illusion of dignity and morals while making it easier to part with them."

Holy shit. Someone give that man a leadership position.... wait... he went and got one for himself.

"But when you pull the curtain back on Wingnut politics, behind the all-or-nothing demands, apocalyptic warnings and the addiction to self-righteous anger, you'll see that fear is the motivating factor: fear of the other; fear wrapped up in the American flag; fear calling itself freedom."

Nuff said.

Book 28: The Complete Outdoorsman's Handbook

The Complete Outdoorsman's Handbook: A Guide to Outdoor Living and Wilderness Survival

Jerome Knap
Pagurian 1976


I've read a lot of books like this one. The SAS Survival Handbook, the NOLS Wilderness Guide, Ronald Eng's Mountaineering, and maybe half a dozen other titles over the years.

Never in my life have I come across a more condescending book.

As annoying as it is to be around holier-than-thou/ more-punk-than-thou/ more-well-read-than-thou types, you can usually just make fun of them in your mind and dismiss them as the children they are. When you're reading something they've written and are trying to glean real, meaningful information from them, you can't. You have to pay attention. And it's a nightmare.

On top of the author's dickish sensibilities and down-the-nose glance towards newcomers to the great outdoors, this is by no means a complete handbook. The topics covered are either just barely touched upon, or gone into with a maddening level of detail. The detailed chapters are almost completely meaningless, and the generalized ones are the chapters which would be of benefit to the most people.

For instance, the author spends an inordinate amount of time on the different designs and materials of snowshoes, but barely touches on water preparation or expedient shelters. For a book that claims to be about "outdoor living" and "wilderness survival," much is left to be desired.

I didn't learn much from this book, which was maddeningly disappointing. I felt like I was enduring Knap. I get that this book is 35 years old, and I've had all of my life to independently research the things I wanted to learn on my own.

I would not recommend this book to anyone, ever. It would be like recommending Deuteronomy as a guide to field first aid. Got leprosy? Sprinkle some dove blood on it.

This volume was clearly written for people living north of Montana. All of the literature dedicated to dry or warm climates can be summed up on one page, and that information is pretty much useless. One of the more startling omissions in the book is on a chapter about poisonous spiders. The Brown Recluse spider is not mentioned at all as a poisonous spider of North America.

The author continues on to explain the importance of snares for catching small game, but goes into absolutely ZERO explanation for snaring:
"Birds can be caught in the Ojibway bird snare."

What the fuck is an Ojibway bird snare? I don't know. And my guess is that you don't either. Thank Google that the internet exists and I can figure it out, because Knap makes absolutely no effort to explain it to his readers. I guess taking the time to explain things would make him look like less of a hipster.

"I'd use an Ojibway bird snare. It's effective, but you've probably never heard of it."

Pictured: The Author

Overall, I'm annoyed with this book. So far, it's only the second book I've read during this adventure that will go on the crappy books list. Right next to The Art of War.


A sentences which appeals to my juvenile sense of humor:

"Many injuries have been caused by backward-flying butts."

A sentence which appeals to the author's lack of ability as a writer:
"The most important maneuver in snowmobiling is turning."


To be fair, there were a few entertaining moments in the book, but I would not go so far as to say that they justify the experience of being talked down to for 200 pages.

Zero masturbating monkeys.

Book 27: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

Dr. Oliver Sacks

Touchstone, 1998

This is one of those books I started, literally, over a year ago, and only recently remembered that I needed to read it. Perhaps that's a neurological disorder...

It's not because I didn't care for the writing or the content of the book. It's fascinating. I was recently discussing the notion of the mind/brain connection with someone on the internet. He suggested that the mind and the brain aren't the same thing. I said that they are, and pointed to this book as evidence. Neurological damage is directly linked to changes in personality, ability, temperment, decision-making, and everything else that constitutes a "mind." When we physically alter the brain, the identity of the individual changes as well.

There's no reason to think that there is anything else going on inside our skulls than electric meat.

The person with whom I was discussing this assumed that I was strictly a materialist, and that I must believe that my point of view suggests that there is no such thing as free will, because if all our brains are is electric meat, then they'll have to follow the immutable laws of physics (through chemistry).

I said no, that we are capable of decision making (which is all "free will" is), which takes place at higher macro-structures in the brain, and that there is no need to suppose that anything else is taking place.

I set off to do some research on the topic (and as a result, finished this book). It turns out that decision-making skills is something which is not currently fully understood by the neurological community. I imagine that Harris has more to say about this in The Moral Landscape, which I intend to read soon enough.

I presented this current lack of understanding in the discussion.

"Ah-ha! So science can't explain it!"

"Correct. Not yet. But that doesn't automatically point to anything."

There was a time when we didn't know anything about anything. Neurology has come a long way in the last 50 years, so just imagine what the next 50 will hold.

That aside, Dr. Sacks wrote and edited this book in a phenomenal fashion. Towards the end, he seems to get a little mystical dreamy, but that's understandable given the subject matter of the last few chapters (autistic savants).  This book seems to be a collection of essays he has had published in medical journals, with postscripts attached to give the current reader some followup.

One thing which should've been at the beginning of the book, but for some reason found its way to the back, is a sort of leveling-chapter for non-neurologists.  Sacks, when he was writing his articles, was writing them for a specific crowd, versed in the terminology of his profession.  While I wouldn't expect him to Bowlderize or dumb-down his articles for general consumption, it would be nice if he took the very tail end of the book (a description of general terms and neurological philosophies) and made it a foreword.

This isn't a major issue; the gods of the interweb can easily answer any terminological questions a person might have, and kindle 1 has a pretty good dictionary.  But it still would've been nice.


The human brain is a fascinating thing. We know so little about it, but it's so important to us. Part of the problem is that it's so complex. I think the other fence which stands between us and a full understanding of the brain is the implication that there isn't some kind of built-in mystery-- that it's all understandable, even the most complex mesh of electric meat. When we get to that point, we will have few, if any, personal mysteries left.

Without personal mystery, we eliminate the need for a personal magician. Some people think that fully understanding the brain as a physical entity it would also cheapen things like love and art and wonder. They feel that if we reduced everything we perceive as wonderful to electrochemical reaction, then we would cease to see those things as wonderful.

I say nonsense. I'm of the opinion that we are physical entities, and I'm just as much in love with the world and with life as anyone else. I sincerely doubt that if everyone in the world came to the position that our brains are electric meat and that's all there is to it that it would change the way people behave. 

Using these in a positive and beneficial manner is the meaning of life.

Instead of cheapening life to see things from a material point of view, it seems to me to make it more important because it forces us to realize that we're temporary and that yesterday is gone.  If we could get to that point, maybe our priorities would change a little.

Anyway. The brain. It's a crazy place.

Book 26: The Internet is a Playground

The Internet is a Playground

David Thorne

Tarcher, 2011


If you've ever read the articles on Thorne's website, then, to be honest, buying the book is unnecessary.

It's as if he were writing the articles online, then he thought to himself that he could make a book, so he came up with a bunch of extra material to make a book, and *kablamo*-- book deal.

Unfortunately, the extra stuff, the filler, isn't nearly as funny as the website material.

That said, it's still damn funny.

The book starts out at a high that, honestly, is going to be very difficult to ever top. The articles Throne has included are genuinely hilarious (if you have the right sense of humor, I suppose... and I do....) and the book just keeps on giving.

Don't read it in a bathroom stall. People will think you've lost your mind when you begin to laugh like a maniac.

Speaking of bathroom stalls, I was in one a couple of weeks ago and a little kid came crawling under my stall. It spooked me and I stomped in his general direction. He withdrew, frightened, and started to cry.

I didn't feel sorry for him, because I was trying to have a peaceful experience and he invaded my very personal space. I think he learned his lesson, but I regret not being able to give him a boot to the head, or at least a piss puddle to splash in his creepy little face. It was seriously creepy, and it has forced me to remain on the defensive whenever I poo.

See what I just did there? That's what reading a lot of these articles is like, but Thorne does it in a magical, trollish way that bakes like funnycake and makes me laugh like a manic in public bathroom stalls.

The book gets less and less funny as it continues on, but is punctuated by moments of hilarity. Your mileage may vary, but if you enjoy fucking with people for the hell of it, then this is an excellent addition to your library.

4/5 masturbating monkeys.

If you think a masturbating monkey rating system is funny, then you definitely need Thorne's book.  If not... you probably won't enjoy it very much. Don't get all hoity-toity on me, either. You chuckled. You know you did. Look down your nose all you want, but it's funny to even say "masturbating monkey," let alone see an ape with his junk in his hands and a look of utter nonchalance on his face.


So far as the writing goes, it's decent and clever, but not divinely inspired.  The book is hilarious. And that's what it was intended to be.

But seriously, if you've read the content on his website, then you've seen the best parts of this book.

Book 25: Assholes Finish First

Assholes Finish First

Tucker Max

Gallery, 2010

If you're familiar with Tucker Max, you know exactly what to expect. If you're not, just imagine a rich kid with little respect for social mores and a drinking problem. This book is a collection of stories of his inebriated exploits and, aside from a little moral proselytizing at the end, is hilarious.

These are exploits that can only come from people with more money than sense.

In AFF, Max mentions being broke for a time, but it's my contention that if you have the opportunity to go to law school and stay wasted the whole time, you (or someone you know) have no real worries. I think Max is smart enough to recognize this.  

Having been a non-traditional student, having had to literally deal with other peoples' shit for 5 years in order to get my undergraduate degree, I'm a little sensitive to people who have the opportunity to piss away their college years.  Is this jealousy? Absolutely. I would've loved to have been one of those kids with nothing to do and nowhere to go on a Tuesday afternoon. But I wasn't. So I hold a continual grudge against everyone who was.

But that's not to say I don't enjoy the stories that come out of such lives of privileged. Fun is fun, regardless of who you are.

Just like my envious anger towards these people will likely never die, I will likely never stop wishing I lived their lives. Don't get me wrong, I've had my fun, and I'm still having it, but not like this. Not to the absurd extent that people like Tucker Max have.

The protection that comes with narcissism and money affords a person the chance to do whatever they want-- consequences be damned.  While that would be nice,  I'm getting to the point in my life where it seems much more appealing to have these experiences through others. As lame as that sounds, it's the truth.

Say whatever you want about Tucker Max, his stories, and their validity-- he's a damn good writer. It honestly doesn't matter if everything (or anything) he writes about actually happened, even though we have  enough supporting evidence to lend credence to his tales.

What matters, at least to me, is how well he tells his tales. A great story can only come from a great storyteller. While a crappy narrator can destroy a good story, a bard can make a trip to the corner store an Indian Jones short.

This is from an excerpt about his 21st Birthday.

"That's it. The corner has been turned. I can no longer discern faces from furniture without squinting and concentrating. I blithely wave off the next shot, but the ensuing boom of castigation from the bloodthirsty savages I call "friends" somehow pushes the liquid down my throat."

That's good writing. This isn't a carefully selected passage, either. The entire book is this well-crafted. 

If you don't enjoy the humor involved, you're probably either too old or a Mormon. If the latter is the case, you need to learn to distinguish fantasy from reality, and if the former is true, what are you doing reading books like this?

For what it's worth, assholes usually do finish first. Ask any asshole.

Book 24: Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

 

Edited by John Joseph Adams

Nightshade Books, 2008

It's exactly what it says on the tin. A collection of short stories about either the end of the world, or life after the end of the world.

None of these stories are boring. They're not all entirely depressing themselves, because the notion of people carrying on after the end of the world is one that has kind of pervaded our culture. Most recently, it's come in the form of zombie survivalism, but a couple of decades ago, it was all about living past the inevitable nuclear holocaust. Before that it was aliens.

Many of these short stories avoid these notions alltogether. There are no zombies. And there isn't necessarily some worldwide nuclear war. There are wars, and there are rumors of wars, but the acting parties aren't specifically mentioned.

Some stories don't waste time explaining what caused the end of the world. It just happened, and, honestly, how the people are surviving in their particular situation is what is really important-- not which suit pushed which button.

The idea of a god, often the absence or forsaking nature of a present god comes up from time to time in a couple of the stories. I don't need religion in my apocalyptic short stories, so that's nice.

Some of these are depressing as hell.

Some of them are uplifting and inspiring.

They're all worth reading if you want to consider how fragile the society we've constructed is

I've found in this collection what is probably one of my all-time favorite short stories.
Dale Bailey's "The End of the World AS We Know It" openly mocks the genre in a way which mirrors my own (perceived) writing style. Sometimes that 4th wall doesn't need to exist in order for the reader to suspend disbelief.  The author is current, present and very active as an agent as you read the story. You know it's a story because he's telling you he's writing a story as you read it.

But he writes it so damn well that you still believe in his characters.  Simply outstanding.

Neal Barrett Jr.'s "Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus" is a delightfully hilarious absurdity.  I don't know what else to say about it. 

Jonathan Lethem's "How we Got In Town and Out Again"  is an outstanding example of a writer's ability to take one element, one possibility, and exaggerate it to the point of absurdity, but make it seem not only plausible, but eventually possible.

Outstanding collection. Well worth your time, but I wouldn't recommend trying to just burn through all of this in one sitting... it will have the literary effect of watching Requiem For a Dream six or eight times. Just a bad idea overall.

And then you look like this.

 

Book 23: Salmonella Men on Planet Porno

Salmonella Men on Planet Porno

Yasutaka Tsutsui

Translated by Andrew Driver

Vintage 2010


To your average Westerner, Japanese pop culture can seem a little... weird.


To the average Westerner, science fiction can seem weird as well.


Will it blend?

Yes. And what a wonderful smoothie of odd whu't'f it makes.

Salmonella Men is a collection of short stories. I wouldn't necessarily call them all science fiction, but that's the main theme of the collection.
If a person takes a novella, and adds something impossible or exaggerates one notion of reality, that turns it into a SF story, apparently.

Genres are tricky at this level.



I was excited to read this, and it's one of the few books I've read from beginning to end without stopping to read another book for any amount of time. I've always like short story collections because, like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.


I really had no idea what to expect with this, but I'm glad I took the time. It's rewarding to anyone who enjoys science fiction. If you're easily offended by mild misogyny or sexual content, then leave this book alone.

Before judging the author as you would someone from Ohio, remember that Tsutsui is definitely not from Ohio.  The world he has lived in is nothing like Ohio, so to judge his works with your Ohio sensibilities (which are probably Puritan by comparison), would be a mistake.

This isn't Calligula, but it's not exactly To The Lighthouse, either.

Quotes and Comments:
"As I opened the bathroom door, white plumes of steam wafted up from the bath tub. I lifeted (my son) and plunged him in up to the waist. To check the temperature, you understand."

Tsutsui isn't advocating child abuse. In this short story he speaks to the insanity of a group of people who have lost control of their minds because they've lost control of their lives (they hate everything about their lives, but they do it anyway without thinking it could be better).

The story ends with mass unintentional suicide.  This is probably the heaviest, darkest story of the collection.



"The real name of the great composer Mozart was Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Gottlieb Amade Amadeus Mozart.

Mozart was born at the age of three. The reason for this is unknown.


.....


When he was fourteen, Mozart went to Rome. There, he was profoundly moved on hearing a piece called 'Miserere" in a well-known chapel. That same evening, he wrote a composition of his own. But it was exactly the same as the 'Miserere' he'd heard in the afternoon, and was therefore never recognized as his own work."

Tell me that doesn't remind you of Vonnegut.

"By that I  don't mean some major species migration, but something like, well, you remember back in the Second Green Revolution on earth, when all those obnoxious hippies were herded onto spaceships and banished beyond our galaxy."

May this be a lesson to us: Never banish hippies into space. They'll colonize a planet and de-evolve into sex-crazed hippos and 4-legged mutant monkeyspiders.

Trust me.

I read it.


In  a book.




Overall-
Weird. But in a good way.

Book 22: The Case For God

The Case For God

Karen Armstrong

Knopf, 2009


A while back (what may or may not have been years ago, I'm honestly not sure), a friend of mine recommended that I read this book. I'm not entirely sure what the context of the conversation was, but I'm glad she suggested it.

Karen Armstrong is a comparative religion scholar, a former nun, and author of several books on the topic of religion.  I have been intending to read her A History Of God, since I saw it in the clearance bin at Barnes and Noble several years ago.

I've got it in Calibre, but I just haven't gotten around to it. If it's anything like The Case For God, it will be well-written, well-researched, and worth the time I put into it.

The Case For God isn't an apologetic.  Armstrong, basically, explains the roots of monotheism (and religion in general), and follows through different historical perspectives of god. She covers different philosophical approaches, different schools of theological thought, belief and non-belief, and all that they entail. It's an invigorating insight into the three desert dogmas for the believer and non-believer alike.

She winds up making a thinly-veiled plea for apophatic theology, which, to me, is a waste of time. Maybe I'm simple-minded, but I don't see the need to invent contrivances and make things more complicated than they already are.

When I read about apophatics, I have the following dialogue in my head.

"Yes, we can explain that."
"But maybe magic was involved."
"What kind of magic"
"Oh, you know, that undetectable kind of magic that exists outside of space and time, which isn't necessarily good, but probably isn't evil and may or may not care about anything we do or don't do."
"Why would you think that?"
"Why not?"
"Because there's no reason to think so. We can explain the phenomenon without employing any unknowns."
"Or can you?? HMMMMmmmmmMMMM?"

It's a total waste of time.

I usually prefer to use the sharp side of Occam's Razor, which seems to be in direct opposition to apophatic theology, which seems to keep everything as vague (and consequently, meaningless) as possible.

My inclinations aside, I can see how appealing apophatic theology is. It allows one to maintain the belief in "something," which can be comforting in times of trouble and reassuring in times of danger.  But the only reason we should be comforted or reassured is if that "something" gives a shit about people--- which is something apophatic theology refuses to do.  AT merely suggests (in spite of any evidence to the contrary) that this "something" isn't evil.This, of course,  suggests a duality in nature. Unfortunately, nature just is. There's no magic to it. We can describe it as a duality, but that's just a convention of human thought in the most base form of binary prejudice. 

I think that the reason Armstrong comes to this conclusion is because she, being a religious scholar, recognizes (and thankfully for us, has condensed) the limitless change humans have seen in religious thinking since the dawn of religion. The only way an individual can find any kind of truth in the yes/no, this/that, constant ebb and flow of religious ideas is to de-conceptualize and undefine a notion of a god until it becomes a nebulous "something."  That really my only beef with the book. Otherwise, it's an outstanding history of religious thought and development.

The relevance and reliance upon a god figure has decreased as our understanding of the universe has grown; Armstrong gives a good illustration of the negative correlation between Yahweh's duties and human understanding.

Armstrong does, though, help a nonbeliever like me, who has lived in an era of biblical literalism and fundamentalists making the news, understand that it wasn't necessarily always like this, and that the role religion has played hasn't necessarily always been a bad one. That's refreshing news.

I'm not one of those "new atheists" who thinks that we ought to just get rid of religion. It's not for me, but it works pretty well for some people.  It disgusts me to no end what people get away with because we, as a society, place religious ideas on a pedestal outside of the light of inquiry or discussion, but I think that is coming to an end.

If it can die, it's not a god.

Quotes and comments:


"Religion is a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of mind and heart."

For some people this is true. For others, it's just the opposite.

"But the 'new atheists' command  a wide readership, not only in secular Europe but even in the more conventionally religious United States. The popularity of their books suggests that many people are bewildered and even angered by the God concept they have inerited."

One good, sure-fire way to irk someone who doesn't believe in a god is to ask them, "Why are you so angry at god?" It's nonsense.  It's like asking someone who doesn't believe in Bigfoot why they hate Bigfoot so much.  It totally misses the point of everything, and I think that Armstrong misses the point here as well.

The popularity of the 4 Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennet, Harris and Hitchens) has more to do with a reaction to do with the followers, and less than the god concept. The nonbelievers don't think the god exists, so the concept itself is a moot point. It's the young-earthers and the fundamentalists who are responsible for resistance to religious ideas.

If religion remained benignly quiet and in private (where it belongs) nobody would have a problem because nobody would know that there was a problem to be had.

"People believed that God exceeded our thoughts and concepts and could be known only by dedicated practice. We have lost sight of this important insight, and this, I believe, is one of the reasons why so many Western people find the concept of God so troublesome today."

I would disagree, Karen.  I think it has more to do with the Problem of Evil,  theodicy, talking donkeys and invisible, flying people. Our modern appreciation for rationality, fairness and justice exists in direct contradiction to these concepts, and only through feats of intellectual acrobatics and doublethink can we justify all of these things. 

I'll take Occam's Razor again, please.  

People don't take "Because. That's why." for an answer anymore.

These are the reasons people in the West have a problem with the notion of the traditional god figure.

"Rooted in eighteenth-century Pietism, Evangelical Christianity led many Americans away from the cool ethos of the Age of Reason to the kind of populist democracy, anti-intellectualism, and rugged individualism that still characterizes American culture.


At the end of the book, Armstrong makes a plea for compassion. Compassion, next to and following knowledge, is the greatest thing that humans can give to each other. So I agree with her.

What I don't agree with is her notion that compassion somehow implies the necessity, not of any god, but of religion.  I think she is inventing something that doesn't have to exist and injecting the notion of a god wherever she can without any decent reason to.

"One day a Brahmin priest came across the Buddha sitting in contemplation under a tree and was astonished by his serenity, stillness, and self-discipline. The impression of immense strength channeled creatively into an extraordinary peace reminded him of a great tusker elephant. "Are you a god, sir?" the priest asked. "Are you an angel... or a spirit?" No, the Buddha replied. He explained that he had simply revealed a new potential in human nature. It was possible to live in this world of conflict and pain at peace and in harmony with one's fellow creatures. There was no point in merely believing it; you would discover its truth only if you practiced his method, systematically cutting of egotism at the root. You would then live at the peak of your capacity, activate parts of the psyche that normally lie dormant, and become a fully enlightened human being.  "Remember me," the Buddha told the curious priest, 'as one who is awake.'"

As poetic as that all is, keep in mind that the notion of a god is both completely absent, and completely unnecessary for the above to take place.  It's an unnecessary addition.

The following phrase is attributed to Douglas Adams:
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it, too?"


Isn't it enough to live a good life; be compassionate and decent to each other, without having to believe that there is a "reason" to exist? Isn't life just as sweet in the absence of an afterlife, or a holy anything? Or, as Armstrong would argue, an invisible "something?"

Book 21: Beyond Prozac

Beyond Prozac

Michael J. Norden  (I bet he got called Mike Nerden a lot when he was in middle school)

1996 Harper Paperbacks

I take this for my brain.

It's in the SSRI family of brainpills, which is the same family as Prozac.

I used to be kind of embarassed and worried about people knowing that I take brainpills because there's an absurd stigma around it. Like most things, stigmas arise out of ignorance.  The more you know, the less you assume.

I wanted to know more, so I could hopefully understand a little better what was going on with my brain.

This book cost me all of $.10, and I would say I definitely got my dime out of it. I would go so far as to say I got $14.00 USD out of it. That's the price above the SKU. Those are 1996 dollars, mind you, so that's saying a lot.

It really was an interesting and useful book, even for people who don't take brainpills.

Beyond Prozac is divided into 3 parts.

The first section discusses just exactly what is wrong with us that more and more people seem to be showing more and more signs of depression and, as a matter of consequence, are being medicated for it.

Dr. Norden explains that just about everything about our lifestyles is completely out of whack with our  biology in an evolutionary sense. The environment we live in now is so much different than any we have ever lived in. It only makes sense that our bodies will react differently to different environments and different stimuli.  Brain chemistry is a part of our biology, and it, like every other part of our biology except for the Id, doesn't particularly agree with the way we live our lives.

If we try to live in water, we die, because it doesn't agree with our biology. We're not set up for that kind of living.

If we try to live on the South Pole, we die, because that environment doesn't agree with our biology. We're not set up for that kind of living.

Similarly, we've spent the vast majority of our evolutionary lifetime not indoors, not in front of computer monitors, not eating whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, and not sitting on our asses all day.

It's hard for us to live like that. The environment we've created for ourselves doesn't agree with our biology because we're not set up for this kind of living.

I'll spare you the details of when and why hormones are produced in the manner in which they're produced, their functions and how brainpills work.  If you're really interested, I'll be happy to direct you to some germane articles or even give you the book (I doubt I'll be reading it again). 

This isn't what I take, but I wouldn't mind having some.

This book was meaningful for me. I had some conflict about whether or not I was comfortable with being medicated.

I knew in the back of my mind that what has been wrong with me is an actual medical condition (a serotonin deficiency), but I didn't really know what to do about it. I felt like I should just deal with it.

 It's easy for men in this stupid, weird culture we live in to be confused when we require medication for something which we feel like we ought to be able to just deal with.  I feel like I ought to just be able to suck it up and tell this problem to go fuck itself.  I can't. I tried that. It didn't work.

Know why it didn't work?

Because there's something wrong with me, that's why!

I don't have enough of the feely-good stuff in my brain. I need more good stuff in my brain to continue to live in the world I live in and not be miserable. My body isn't in synch with the world we've created.

If I want to survive in the world we've constructed for ourselves, I have two options-- use brainpills make myself tolerable, or go live in the woods and die by the time I'm 40.

I'll take brainpills, along with the rest of modern medicine. 

...... I guess.

At least for a while. 

Anyway, Beyond Prozac is something I would recommend to anyone looking for more information on how and why the brain functions the way it does with regard to serotonin and melatonin (not melanin). Norden himself specializes in Seasonal Affective Disorder, and that comes across in the pages of the book. It doesn't advertise itself as a guide to treating SAD, but, that's kind of what it is. Fortunately, a lot of the information applies to general serotonin disorder, which usually precipitates into major depression, like I had. 

The last third of the book is really kind of pointless and out of date, unless you just really, really want to know about SSRI anti-depressants that were coming out in the late 90s.

But, 50 or so pages of uselessness and $.10 is a small price to pay for coming to terms with the fact that your brain doesn't work like it's supposed to.