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Hello! If you are reading this message through your feed reader, then my evil plan has not quite worked, and if you're viewing this on my Blogger site, then you are in the wrong place. :) I've moved my blog from Blogger to Wordpress, and also have a shiny new domain: alisonmccarty.com. Please update your bookmarks and let your feed reader know that you want to find me at http://feeds.feedburner.com/PilingOnTheBooks. If you're having any trouble, let me know what's going wrong!

The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

Things I knew about this book going in:
1) I should have read it a long time ago.
2) Time travel.
3) Something about a morlock.

Strangely, there's not actually much more to the story than that! There is, obviously, a time machine, and a Time Traveller, as he is called. And it's a frame story, so there's a narrator who has dinner with the Time Traveller and hears his stories and then recounts them to us, which is always a good time. And so through our narrator we learn about how time travel theoretically works (just moving really really fast through time, basically) and then later how the Time Traveller is now called Late for Dinner and also managed to travel to the year 802701. That is a big number, dudes.

In the future there are some perfect-ish people who are also totes lazy and boring, and also some terrifying people-ish creatures, the aforementioned Morlocks, who are industrious enough to steal Mr. for Dinner's time machine. Social commentary ensues, Mr. for Dinner gets his time machine back, he goes home, no one believes him, and then he and his machine disappear. The end!

I'm sure that when this book came out in 1895, people were like, holy moly this Herbert fellow is a genius and also possibly insane! But unfortunately here in 2011, I've read one or two books that involve time travel and so I already had that part down and the rest of the book had to carry itself, which it didn't do terribly well. So, as a novella experience, not so great.

But I totally enjoyed the book on its historical merits of introducing time travel (I mean, travelling really fast through time is a genius idea) and the intriguing future that Wells devises. It's not exactly a dystopian future, since there's no real sense of utopia, but it's obviously not the future to which Victorian gentlemen aspired and those Morlocks are pretty creepy. I also like the Time Traveller's nods toward literary convention — he mentions once that in a novel the author could tell you all the intricacies of society, but he was a little too busy experiencing the world, thanks, and while sometimes that can be really annoying, Wells does it just fine.

My only problem with the story is that I'm pretty sure that the Time Traveller should have gotten his time machine stuck somewhere along his travels, considering his explanation of how it works, but I suppose I can forgive Mr. Wells, just this once.

Recommendation: For people who like to know where their contemporary literature came from, also future time travellers (or past time travellers?).

Rating: 7/10

How the Hippies Saved Physics, by David Kaiser

Hey, look, I finally finished this book, first mentioned on the blog back at the end of July. I had to return the book pictured, but then found the audio version on OverDrive, so I couldn't help but listen, right?

Right.

Okay, so. First of all, this book is not exactly about how hippies saved physics. The title is based off of some study called How the Irish Saved Civilization, and the hyperbole is intentional, so I guess I'll let it slide. It is about hippies, and about hippies doing physics, and about hippies doing really weird things with physics, so if you're into that sort of thing you won't be disappointed.

On the actual surviving physics side of things, there's a lot of info in the book about quantum physics and how absolutely insane it is, with entangled particles and the double slit experiment and quantum encryption and of course Schrödinger's cat, which is probably still causing (and not causing) Schrödinger endless amounts of frustration.

I majored in physics, so mostly in this part I was like yeah yeah whatever none of this is really new or interesting.

BUT THEN.

Soooooo it turns out that more than one physicist in the 60s spent some time doing research into extrasensory perception, on the government's dime. And then some more on other people's dimes. And that is really the selling point of this book for me, because WHAT. Apparently there were some physics dudes and chicks totally into that Uri Gellar guy and other people who claimed to be able to see the future or see the other side of a playing card or whatever, and the U.S. government was like, well, we'd better play it safe and pour some money into this research just in case the Ruskies get there first. Fantastic! And even when said government stopped pouring money in and most people were like, eh, whatever, probably not, there were still physicists who were like, but MAYBE.

And I am a sucker for a crazy person story, so I liked this part of the book, and the part where Kaiser goes off about one of the non-government money-pouring people who totally turned out to be a murderer. WHAT.

Also, I love the guy who narrates the audiobook (he also did The Disappearing Spoon), whose delightful voice got me through all the boring parts just fine. I totally want to go find a list of his work and see if he's done any other books I'm interested in reading.

Recommendation: For those who need some crazy science-related anecdotes to throw around at parties.

Rating: 7/10

Wreck the Halls, by Jen Yates

Hee hee hee hee hee! I love Cake Wrecks, and also Cake Wrecks, and really just cake wrecks in general. I love stopping by the cakes on display at Publix and hoping one of them might be terrible enough to go on the internet, but also hoping that none of them are.

Unlike the previous general-wrecks book, this one is particularly focused on the end-of-year holidays. And Star Wars. Obviously. There are phallic poo-turkeys and a Super Bowel cake, really terrifying Santas and gingerbread men and Care Bears, and the last cake on this page that made a finals-addled husband of mine practically pee his pants laughing. It's not that funny, but law school is apparently very difficult.

There's also the patented Jen Yates patter, which here includes some re-written Christmas carols and several pun-laden paragraphs, which I would reproduce for you here except I do want to you keep reading my blog. Let's just say there's some fantastic wordplay involving bread and also poo, because this woman cannot stop talking about it.

Someday I will get that coffee table and then I will purchase this and its predecessor and any future Cake Wrecks books and scare people away from my home with them. And you should, too.

Rating: 8/10

Geek Girls Unite, by Leslie Simon

Hokay. So. I mentioned in my last post that I had picked this book up for no real reason but that it looked interesting and name-dropped some people that generally intrigue me. It is possible I did not even crack it open to look inside, just said, ooh, pretty purple cover and went for it.

Because prooooobably if I had looked inside I would not have brought this home. See, what I thought I was getting was a look at "geek girl" culture and, per the cover, how these girls are "taking over the world." Well, I did get that, I guess, but I also got a lot of stuff I was not expecting.

The book is set up so that each chapter covers a specific style of geek girl, starting with a quiz on your knowledge of the style (spoiler: all the answers are C and the A and B answers are often ridiculous), providing a stereotypical description of such a geek girl, giving a history of awesome girls who fall into the category, naming some current "geek goddesses," describing people these geek girls shouldn't be friends with and boys whom they should date, and offering up required reading/listening/clicking/watching/etc.

The parts with the historical context and the current "goddesses" are interesting, because they give me cool people and things to look into and are, like, factual and stuff. But all the other parts were either just okay or kind of lame, and I think it's at least partially because Simon and/or her publishers don't seem to know what audience this book is for.

Is it for girls who want to find their geek clique? Well, they won't be able to tell from the quizzes, since the right answer is generally very obvious even if you haven't figured out that it's always C. Is it for girls who want to read about themselves and their chosen clique? Maybe, but when I turned to what I thought would be mine, the "Literary Geek Girl," I found out through the "character sketch" that I'm going to have to become completely immune to fashion and popular music and also go back in time to undo all that Cliffs-Notes-ing I did of really terrible books, and I'm just not willing to do that. Is it actually for boys, considering the "geek love" sections seem directed at the boys (very specifically boys, too) who want to win over a geek girl's heart?

I don't know. I wish the book had been less segmented and more about the generally geeky girl, and I wish there had been more factual stuff and less Seventeen filler, but I suppose that wasn't meant to happen here. And so I am disappointed by my own high expectations. But I give Simon props for using actual geek girls as primary sources for the book and giving me scads of new books and albums and websites and movies to procure and devour, and really any book that's going to get people interested in new things is good by me.

Recommendation: For the girl who has always wanted to be a [insert geek style here] Geek Girl but never knew where to start.

Rating: 7/10

Six more reasons to keep me away from cataloging!

I know, you're like, "Just six? Not eight? Thirteen?" And I am like, dudes, this would be so much worse if I hadn't figured out how to keep all of my holds from coming to me all at the same time. I think I have about eight queued up just right now to come to me in January!

Also, this pile is much better because I've actually finished half these books already! Go me!

Here's what we've got:

1. Small Space Decorating, from Better Homes and Gardens. This is one I've read through already — I've got a smallish space and I have really no idea what to do with it, so picking this one up made lots of sense. There are lots of interesting ideas for maximizing storage space and making rooms look larger, but unfortunately not a lot of ideas for what I can do within the parameters of my existing furniture, my smaller-than-their-spaces space, and my current lease agreement. I will definitely go back to this if it's ever time to throw out all my furniture and just start over, though!

2. Upcycling, by Danny Seo. I found myself paging through this instead of working, so of course it ended up coming home with me! My dear Scott is a big ol' packrat, so I figured it might be a good idea to make something useful out of all that stuff he hoards. :) A lot of the stuff in the book is a little too purely decorative for me, but I'm definitely going to copy out the instructions for a wine-cork bathmat, glass bottle plus take-out chopsticks diffuser, and the take-out chopsticks trivet... and maybe get around to making them sometime.

3. Geek Girls Unite, by Leslie Simon. I just finished this one, so expect a real review in a couple days. But here's why I picked it up: nerd glasses on the cover, the tagline "How fangirls, bookworms, indie chicks, and other misfits are taking over the world," and the name-dropping of Amy Poehler, Felicia Day, and Zooey Deschanel on the back cover. Could you help but be intrigued? I think not!

4. Physics on the Fringe, by Margaret Wertheim. I've mentioned my love of physics in previous installments of this series, and so, really. It's got a pretty cool cover, but what really interested me is that this book talks about "outsider physicists," who are not generally academics or even degreed physicists but who make awesome giant smoke rings in the back yard with a fog machine and some garbage cans. That's cool physics and I am excited to learn more.

5. Those Across the River, by Christopher Buehlman. It is possible I am just a sucker for a sufficiently creepy, backlit, leafless tree. This book has two of them on the cover, and also sufficiently creepy, backlit, Southern woods on the endpapers. And that's almost enough for me! I nearly did decide to just let it go, but then I read the jacket copy, which promises small-town intrigue and a mysterious presence, and I was so in.

6. The Language Wars, by Henry Hitchings. As you may already know, if there's any non-fiction topic I'm a sucker for more than popular science, it's language. So of course this title grabbed my attention right away. It's subtitled "A history of proper English" and purports to discuss the ever-changing nature of "correct" English and how we decided what was correct and what was HORRIBLY TERRIBLY WRONG, anyway. Considering the recent loss of "literally" to the non-literal masses, I figured it might be interesting to see how else we've destroyed the language over the years. :)

Also, how do you like that Christmas tree we've got up? There are about four ornaments and ten lights on it, which is not really enough, but I figure we've got a month to make it look a little nicer!

The Postmortal, by Drew Magary

Dudes. Dudes. How did you let me not read this for so long? I picked it up because a) it has to go back to its library home soon and b) I hadn't read anything in a week and it looked like it would go quickly. You should pick this book up because it turns out to be pretty fantastic!

I guess there are some caveats to the fantastic, as you kind of have to like a few different kind of things to get into this story. For one, it's a semi-dystopia — "semi-" because the world isn't ever really advertised as utopia, but it's definitely got that dystopian/apocalyptic air to it. Two, it's written as a series of blog posts, which I of course think is delightful but maybe you read enough blogs already? Three, for a book about quasi-immortality, a lot of people die in it, and not very nicely at that.

So. Yes. The background to the story is that some ginger guy invented the cure for aging instead of the cure for gingerness (sorry, Mary!) and everyone is like, "I gotta get me some of that." And that's kind of the story itself, too. We follow this guy John's blog posts as he guides us through 60 years of almost no aging, from right before The Cure is legalized to everyone getting them some of that to those who aren't everyone beating up/throwing lye in the eyes of everyone to some people deciding that cure, whatever, it's time to die if that's cool to government-sponsored bounty hunting to government-sponsored murder. It's pretty intense. And of course the whole time the population is increasing like crazy and all the countries are freaking out at each other and a plane ticket costs $12K because there is no oil left and the lines just to get on the highway (in your plug-in, of course) are hours long because America still won't get behind useful public transportation.

That last is probably (and sadly) the little detail that makes this story ring most true to me, but there are plenty of those little details in Magary's story. This whole book, although it's told as John's story and follows his generally poor handling of all the crazy going on in the world, is really about those details and how on earth the Earth is going to handle a population that suddenly can't get old. And Magary does a great job of showing every facet and really making you think about how this universe is going to play out.

And I really like the blog conceit, which exemplifies the intense nose-to-smartphone social media obsessiveness that Magary predicts will only increase in the next seventy years (right, the book starts in 2019, which is not that far away oh no!). There's a brief intro at the beginning that sets up the story as coming from a hard drive on a discarded old smartphone, with the entries in this book selected to construct a narrative, so right away a couple levels of unreliable narrator, which is excellent. But also I like the blog posts because they convey the right tone for the story, which is this sort of personal-but-one-level-removed, kind of journalistic, kind of diary-ish tone that, and this is key, doesn't really allow John to go exposition crazy because he's nominally writing for people who know what the hell is going on. It would be so easy to go exposition crazy in this kind of story (see Torchwood: Miracle Day, which I would compare and contrast to this except it would end in me yelling), but for the most part Magary avoids it (except for a stray "as you know," which, yelling).

It's not a perfect book, and I found myself super-annoyed with John at many points in the story, some of which were probably not supposed to make me annoyed, but on the whole I found it quite intriguing and thought-provoking. In fact, I had to stop more than once along the way to play "what-if" with my husband, who was trying to play a video game and is probably now trying to figure out how to get one of those cycle marriages all the fictional people are talking about, only maybe five years instead of forty because he's not going to live forever.

Recommendation: For enjoyers of dystopia, sad truths, and a little gratuitous violence (not too much).

Rating: 9/10