Category: books

Kurt Vonnegut farewell

On By Rick McIn bad news, booksLeave a comment

Ron says it well.

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“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” – Kurt Vonnegut

One of my literary heroes died yesterday at age 84. Today’s New York Times has a good obit.

Vonnegut’s dark wit, playful voice and humanist values helped me and millions of other teenagers live through the 70s with our sanity intact. He was funny, imaginative and, above all, outraged to the core at the cruelty of war and the absurdity of existence.

He was a snarky, charming athiest; the Mark Twain of his time.

His work is probably one of the main reasons I became a writer, and when I think about it I realize that he’s with me every time I string a sentence together.

Goodbye, Mr. V.

Hi ho.

For Your Approval: And so it goes

official website – Kurt Vonnegut

locations published in books

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

The Inside Google Book Search blog has posted maps of the Earth populated with dots representing locations referenced in books.

A Welsh View: Earth Viewed From Books

For your great novel you may want to choose locations that have not been over written.

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original source – Google

book – In Tasmania

On By Rick McIn books, product endorsements, traveloguesLeave a comment

The best book I have read in years: In Tasmania by Nicholas Shakespeare.

I knew Shakespeare as the biographer of the most celebrated travel writer of all time, Bruce Chatwin.

Shakespeare fell in love with Tasmania after a holiday hiking the Overland Track. He promptly moved there from England.

By chance discovery of family correspondence, Shakespeare learned he was related to the “founding father” of Tasmania, a con-man named Kemp.

His book — a fascinating, personal history of the island from Kemp’s penal-colony Van Diemen’s Land origins to modern day — has many parallels with the work of Chatwin. It’s eerie at times.

My conclusion: Shakespeare is an even better writer than Chatwin. This is a fantastic book.

In Tasmania

In Tasmania

This is the last post on the Australia travelogue.

book – John Hodgman

On By Rick McIn Apple, audiocasts, books, humour, miscellaneous, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Rockin’ tipped me off to the hilarious John Hodgman book, The Areas of My Expertise.

An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in the Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical; Matters Literary; Matters Cryptozoological; Hobo Matters; Food, Drink, & Cheese (a Kind of Food); Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels; Haircuts; Utopia; What Will Happen in the Future; and Most Other Subjects; Illustrated with a Reasonable Number of Tables and Figures, and Featuring the Best of “Were You Aware of It?”, John Hodgman’s Long-Running Newspaper Novelty Column of Strange Facts and Oddities of the Bizarre.

The Areas of My Expertise – Wikipedia

Very original.

Actually, I downloaded it for free (email address required) from iTunes as an audio book with accompaniment by frequent collaborator Jonathan Coulton.

The Areas of My Expertise

book – Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party

On By Rick McIn books, product endorsementsLeave a comment

On a long drive to Saskatchewan I was rapt with a book on CD: The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party.

I knew well the story of Shackleton’s miraculous escape with no lives lost. I thought.

What I didn’t know is what happened to his second ship. The 10 men he sent to the other side of Antarctica to lay out his stock pile provisions for after he crossed the continent.

Shackleton never even reached Antarctica in 1915. His Ross Sea party crew had a horrible experience. Three died. In vain.

The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton\'s Ross Sea Party

book – the skeptical environmentalist

On By Rick McIn books, good news, health & fitness3 Comments

Wow.

This is one polarizing book.

portraet.jpgThe Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjørn Lomborg.

It’s far too dense, scientific and … long for me to read. So I’ll save time and leap straight to the review.

I like it. I like the author. Some of the graphs are incontestable.

Lomborg concludes:

“… children born today — in both the industrialized world and developing countries — will live longer and be healthier, they will get more food, a better education, a higher standard of living, more leisure time and far more possibilities — without the global environment being destroyed.

And that is a beautiful world.”

Things are not good. But they are still improving.

The world may still end. But there is no evidence it will.

Thanks Bjørn.

Bjørn Lomborg – official website

The Skeptical Environmentalist – Wikipedia

a skeptical environmentalist – that’s me

On By Rick McIn books, economics, Islam, miscellaneousLeave a comment

I had a feeling I was doing some good NOT owning a motor vehicle. That was before I found out my airline flights do far more damage.

Just watched a Penn and Teller Bullsh*t video debunking environmental hysteria. It’s not nearly as good as the others I’ve seen so I didn’t link to it here.

But Penn did have some very good points.

Some environmentalists are embarrassingly naive and uninformed. It was not difficult for Penn to film them. And cry BS.

(Turns out he was one of the protesters in the 1970s.)

The vague fear people have in 2006 regarding global warming, ozone depletion, species extinction — reminds me of the uneasy, ill-informed fear of Islam that the right wing is so quick to foster.

I’d better get schooled. I could read Al Gore.

But instead I’ll start with this book: The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World

Measuring the Real State of the World

shop Amazon.ca, not Chapters/Indigo

On By Rick McIn books, music, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

logo_amazon.gif

Amazon is the big boy in on-line retail. I love just about everything they do.

But last year I shopped Chapters / Indigo as they are Canadian and finally matched prices and service with Amazon. It’s good for Amazon to have some competition.

This year … Amazon.

Lonely Planet Australia CDN$ 25.17
Love by the Beatles (Dlx Ed) (Digi) (W/Dvd) CDN$ 23.99

Free shipping. Hassle free shopping. Great prices.

Chapters / Indigo matched Amazon — but I had to join their loyalty card program to do so.

They should know that I am loyal only to companies that don’t require loyalty cards.

movie – Munich

On By Rick McIn books, government, Islam, movies, philosophyLeave a comment

Munich (Full Screen Edition)Just saw the film Munich , the Hollywood version of the story of Israeli retaliation after the kidnapping and murder of 11 athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

Steven Spielberg directed and the quality is excellent.

I thought it was remarkably unbiased. Both the Palestinian terrorists and the amateur Israeli retaliation team are shown as people, not heroes or villains.

Spielberg focuses on “the cyclic nature of revenge and the moral price of violence”.

Everyone is a loser in this film.

The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist TeamI might have liked the movie better if I had not read the book on which it is based, Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas.

Jonas attempted to document the true story of one of the Israelis, Yuval Aviv, who is played by Eric Bana in the movie.

In the book the assassinations of people on a list who may or may not be involved in Munich was much uglier than in the film.

Well … the movie is “inspired by the true story”. The book criticized as being inaccurate regarding the true story. The facts are muddled.

But one thing is clear to everyone. Assassination and counter-assassination do not work, long-term.

I recommend both film and book.

Robert J. Sawyer tribute to Randy McCharles

On By Rick McIn books, humour, McCharles familyLeave a comment

Canada’s greatest SciFi writer toasted (almost roasted) my brother who had been chosen for an award at a SciFi convention in Vancouver.

Congratulations Rand on recognition for your many years contribution to SciFi Fantasy Fiction.

In Vancouver today, the science-fiction convention VCon 31 begins. Fan Guest of Honour is my great friend Randy McCharles. I wrote the tribute to him for the convention’s program book (and will also be conducting the Guest of Honour interview with him on Saturday afternoon). Here’s the tribute:

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These days, the only ethnic jokes that can be made with impunity are those about one’s own group. Randy McCharles likes to portray himself as being thrifty, and often underscores this by saying, “I’m Scottish,” as if a certain parsimony was bred in his bones.

It’s true that Randy likes to get value for his money: he loves salt-and-pepper chicken wings, and can tell you which Calgary pubs have them cheap on which nights of the week. (Still, he expects quality; I was with him recently when he lamented, “These aren’t really fifteen-cent wings; they’re more like nine-cent wings.”) But all of his apparent cheapness hides an incredible generosity of spirit. I have never seen Randy fail to provide a lift to someone, no matter how far out of his way it took him, and he’s always there to help a friend. When my travels have brought me to Calgary, Randy has often put me up at his immaculate townhouse; at times, it’s been quite the hotel for writers, with three or four of us crashing simultaneously at Chez McCharles. … read more

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Robert J. Sawyer tribute