Dewey, you fool! -- What I read this month

Oh, I have such good intentions. But to be honest, this month has been sort of busy with the actual, paying jobs and with the Quick!-Get-outside-and-weed-before-the-next-monsoon-hits! household chores and with the occasional social commitment or volunteer obligation. And next thing I knew, my beautiful dream of starting off the year right with my two-parter on My Time in the 000s and weekly reviews of what I read ... well, I'm now dreaming of getting off on the right foot in time for the Chinese New Year. Or later. It depends on how many other cultures have new years' celebrations I can use to make myself feel better about my time management skills.

(Note to self: see where time-management books are in Dewey Decimal system. Won't it be fun if I get all hardcore GTD on you all? No?)

However, if you'd like to read quickie summaries of the wonders to be found in the 000s, click on through.

There Are Giants in the Sea by Michael Bright (001.944)

This is less of a "where lurketh the mighty kraken?" polemic and more of a "What makes people think the mighty kraken lurketh, anyway?" book, which appeals to my nerdly little brain. Bright walks you though the sightings and investigations, region by region. He also provides a little bit of illumination into the critical difference between running into the unknown on the high seas and searching for it: whether people are terrified and a little thrilled, or thrilled and little terrified.

Cryptozoology A to Z : the encyclopedia of loch monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and other authentic mysteries of nature by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (001.944)

This book endeared itself to me in the introduction, with the following passage:

If to many mainstream biologists cryptozoology has yet to make its case, there is reason for such a cautious judgment. Until or unless there is better, more conclusive evidence for the reality of the cryptids with which you will become acquainted in the pages ahead, their status will remain uncertain. Cryptozoological animals are by their very nature intensely controversial. Reasonable persons come down on both sides of the debate, and even the authors of this book do not entirely agree about which cryptozological animals are most likely to coexist, however covertly, alongside us on this crowded planet.

Hey, it's refreshing to see people writing an encyclopedia with entries on the chupacabra and the Loch Ness Monster admitting that the problem with these subjects is that few agree on their existence. However, this passage was especially poignant because it came right on the heels of a paragraph wherein the authors conclude that sometimes, cryptozoology is a lot like an X-Files episode.

To me, something like the yeti (or its many subclasses therein, more lovingly detailed than anything in a Dungeons and Dragons bestiary) points to the human yearning for discovery. We like facing the unknown and making it comprehensible -- we do it through fables, through expedition, through intellectual inquiry.

You have to admit, we know a whole lot more about one specific lake in Scotland than we would if stories about a mysterious monster didn't persist. Kudos to inquiry! And personally, I've always liked the Loch Ness monster. I like the irrational hope at the heart of some theories: if a family of pleiosaurs has managed to dodge extinction by chilling in Scotland, we scrawny naked apes have a shot of outwitting our inevitable extinction too?

Mysterious America : the ultimate guide to the nation's weirdest wonders, strangest spots, and creepiest creatures by Loren Coleman (001.944)

When I was a kid, I had a comic book packed with spooky stories courtesy of Ripley's Believe It Or Not. When reading this book, I was acutely wishful that I had never thrown that trade paperback out. It had the appropriately pulpy quality that this book lacked.

The Odd Index: The Ultimate Compendium of Bizarre and Unusual Facts by Stephen J. Spignesi (001.91)

The oddest thing about this book was not the content contained therein; it was reading the book and realizing the World Wide Web had made it obsolete. This compendium is a collection of lists, some based in research, some based in simply sitting down and watching TV, and it reads like someone's blog. The list that really crystallized this observation: a deadpan recap of the photos in Madonna's coffee-table book on sex.

To be fair, the book came out in 1994, well before the proliferation of Web sites that are designed to cram your head full of items that get weirder when you pull them out of context. If you wanted to search on "bizarre torture methods" now, you'd have more pages than you knew what to do with, whereas in the beforetime, books like these were where you could find out about all the different types of crucifixes, the competing methods of drawing and quartering and the charming habit of applying branks to women who had the temerity to express themselves.

There's still a place for compendiums of the obscure -- Richard Zacks' An Underground Education is a good example. It's just that the bar for publication is higher now. Or at least, it should be.

My Bad : 25 Years of Public Apologies and the Appalling Behavior That Inspired Them by Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin (081)

Eh -- the problem here is that it's basically a collection of quotes with one-sentence explanations attached, so it's not like the book provides anything resembling insight into why people are compelled to make a public apology, or whether or not such mea culpas actually matter. Had the book tackled the phenomenon of the public apology, then used specific examples to gird its theses, I would have really liked it.

Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff (081)

Holy cats, was I surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Although a lot of the writing is still steeped in the precious, provincial mentality that infests a dismally high percentage of mainstream magazine editorial, there are flashes of insight, passages and the occasional essay that have me thinking about adding this to my essayists' shelf. These saving graces are all aimed at the same precious, self-important bubble that Rakoff's prose may be said to occupy. So at least he's aiming at deserving targets.

I particularly liked an essay on Martha Stewart and handcrafting, if only because Rakoff admitted that sometimes, crafts are an act of emotional aggression, and that's a pretty provocative thing to say in this knitty, scrapbooky age. But what really got me was the passage he included in his essay on becoming an American citizen:

When the administration censored images of the flag-draped coffins of the young men and women being killed in Iraq -- purportedly to respect "the privacy of the families" and not to minimize and cover up the true nature and consequences of the war -- [Barbara Bush] expressed her support for what was ultimately her son's decision by saying on Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, "Why should we hear about body bags and death? I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that."

Mrs. Bush is not getting any younger. When she eventually ceases to walk among us, we will undoubtedly see photographs of her flag-draped coffin … so let us promise herewith to never forget her callous disregard for other parents' children while her own son was sending them to make the ultimate sacrifice, while asking of the rest of us little more than to promise to go shopping. Commit the quote to memory and say it whenever her name comes up. Remind others how she lacked the bare minimum of human integrity, the most basic requirement of decency that says if you support a war, you should be willing, if not to join those nineteen-year-olds yourself, then at least, at the very least, to acknowledge that said war was actually going on.

It does my heart good to know that at least we're still capable of manufacturing righteous indignation in the U.S.

Comments

[Loren Coleman]

Thank you for taking the time to read a couple of my books.

When I was a young boy (especially 8-14 years old), reading anything and everything I could get my hands on at the Decatur (Illinois) Public Library was extremely important to me. The librarians were so helpful, and, without judgment, showed me how to travel through books to many worlds of natural history mysteries. I am grateful to those souls who probably had more to do with making me a cryptozoologist and an author than they will ever know.

I appreciate knowing now that I live in many libraries around the planet, there for others to discovery my passports to adventures, real and possible, via the nonfiction books I've written.

Best wishes
Loren Coleman

[Lisa S.]

You have no idea how thrilled I am to read your comment. Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your library stories!

[Kerry]

I am so disappointed to to find any cryptozoology books on the shelf at my libraries. And I really needed one too--someone came in interested in ligers!

Lisa, the link above is to a quotation from the new Sherman Alexie book that I thought you'd like. And I had never heard of the 3 layer reading method before you mentioned it, and I'm kind of in awe that you manage to do it.

[Loren Coleman]

I think that Kerry seems to be saying that she is disappointed to "not" find a cryptozoology book on her library shelves.

I would recommend that people who find such a situtation in their local library do one of two things, as I have in the past: (1) leave a note with the librarian asking for cryptozoology books - giving a specific title always helps - to be added to their collection; and/or (2) donate one or two to the library. It truly is an inexpensive gift that keeps on giving for years.

Needless to say, I give copies of Cryptozoology A to Z routinely, as I travel around the country, because it is an easy-to-read reference guide to 200 topics in the field.

However, it does not cover ligers (the hybrids of tigers x lions) that are not part of cryptozoology at all, but the subject might be found in books on zoos or genetics. :-)

Best wishes
Loren Coleman

[Kerry]

Yeah, yeah, yeah--it was late. Yes, disappointed not to find cryptozoology books on the shelf. Unfortunately, being a substitute librarian I knew we'd never order any as we have no money, but I'll mention it to the regular librarian and drop your name, Loren. And it might have been helpful--because the whole concept of ligers was just blowing my brain and I would have liked to have a backdoor way to check "real or not real?"For some reason I find it much easier to grasp Loch Ness Monsters and such than ligers and wholphins.