In addition to Project 365! (see yesterday’s post for more on that) I’ve decided to have a crack at a meme that I’ve seen bouncing around LiveJournal and various blogs for several years. One book for every week in the year. In the past this would have been easy, but after I read so little in 2008 it might actually pose a challenge. Still, I’ll give it a go – if nothing else it will hopefully get me reading more again.
There aren’t any special rules for this one – this will just be every book I read this year, up to and perhaps surpassing #52. If I’m reviewing a book elsewhere, my comments will likely be quite brief. Oh, and very very short books or comics get a decimal point, so I can mention them without appearing to be cheating.
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1 – Ray Bradbury – Something Wicked This Way Comes
Read for review for Vector. Enjoyed this one a great deal. Given that it’s a coming of age novel with strong themes of youth and aging, it’s a good time for me to read it. Now that I’m 26 and feeling old for the first time, I mean. Since clearly I’m as goddamn ancient as dinosaur-sucking tar.
1.1 – Marc Ellerby – Speed Trail, An Hourly Comic
A teeny tiny little comic book in which Marc Ellerby pretends he has written and drawn a comic every hour for a day. It’s cute and sweet and warm and anecdotal and is probably worth more than the 80 pence I paid for it.
2 – Alan Weisman – The World Without Us
I started reading this one back in the summer of ’07, and for some reason I’ve only today finished it. Why was that? Oh yeah – I hardly read anything.
Anyway, this is an astonishing read. It’s essentially a thought experiment that begins from the fantasy hypothesis that human beings disappear from today’s world. Perhaps they have a few minutes to switch a few things on or off, perhaps not, but either way we’re gone. The book spends the next 18 chapters exploring the ways in which human beings have affected the world in which we live and the creatures we share it with, and imagining how it might change, rebound or suffer when we have gone. On both sides of this coin Weisman is assisted by well-researched information and arguments put forward by various experts, be they project directors at oil companies or waste disposal facilities, marine biologists and zoologists, geologists, archeologists, and so on.
Sometimes the picture of the future Weisman draws is alarming, but more often it’s beautiful to read the ways in which our planet’s inhabitants might again thrive. The past is presented similarly; the impossibly rapid end of the prodiguous passenger pigeon, and the extinction of most of the world’s megafauna, both at human hands, is shocking to read. And yet there is so much history that provokes wonder. Mayan society, for example, which was for a long time huge and powerful, yet built sustainably and held in balance with its environment. Another example is the world’s underground cities that, running deep into the earth, have outlived empires and nations.
I feel more people should read this book, especially so if they fulfil any of the following critera: are interested in the past, care about the present, look to the future, are science fiction writers.
[...] questions.1Your Word is “Think”You see life as an amazing mix of possibilities, ideas Project 52! Books 1 & 2 – nostalgiaforinfinity.com 01/11/2009 In addition to Project 365! (see yesterday’s post for more [...]
Well your off to a good start. Very detailed and thought out review.
Thanks! For the record, though, I’m not intending these to be formal reviews, just a few thoughts or opinions.