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kevin_shepherd's reviews
563 reviews
The Man in the Ice by Konrad Spindler
5.0
Although a lot has been added to Otzi's story since the publication of this book in 1994, this is still a relevant, in-depth look at what is arguably the most significant anthropological find of the twentieth century. Spindler's style, while academic, is not overly technical. It's obvious that he was as excited to write about Otzi and all of his trappings as I was to read about him. For those interested in human prehistory and/or forensic anthropology, this is a must-read.
Carrie by Stephen King
4.0
“...one of the most frequently banned books in United States schools, because of Carrie’s violence, cursing, underage sex and negative view of religion.” ~Wikipedia
The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey by Salman Rushdie
4.0
Nicaragua, July 1986 - Rushdie's first nonfiction endeavor is my first Rushdie read. I can see why Christopher Hitchens liked him. In some ways, Rushdie reminds me of Hitchens. They're both well read, articulate, and can admire a thing while simultaneously being critical of it. Here, true to form, Rushdie is reverent but not without reservations.
"One didn't have to like people to believe in their right not to be squashed by the United States; but it helped, it certainly helped."
Like the majority of Americans in the first half of the 1980's, I was relatively oblivious to the Reagan administration's policy regarding Nicaragua. Even had I known, I most assuredly would not have lost any sleep over it. Central America was barely on the periphery of my sphere of concern. It was not until the 'Iran-Contra Affair' (1985 - 1987) that I took notice. The sad truth of it is that even then I cared very little one way or the other. In 1985 I still held on to the illusion* that our elected leaders had our best interests at heart, even if they had to sometimes ignore the rule of law to pursue those interests.
*The last shreds of that illusion spontaneously combusted in November, 2016.
If you are unfamiliar with 'Iran-Contra' suffice it to say that the CIA, with the full knowledge of the Reagan Administration, had arguably formed the Contra, a counter-revolutionary resistance force in Nicaragua, and then unarguably continued to fund them after congress, via the Boland Amendment, deemed it illegal and unconstitutional. They did so by selling arms to Khomeini's muslim fundamentalist regime in Iran, and then funneling the proceeds to the Contras.
"In a nearby village, the Contra had recently kidnapped more than two dozen children, many of them girls aged between ten and fourteen, 'for the use of the Contra fighters'... One girl had escaped and got home. The villagers had heard that five other children had escaped, but had been lost in the jungle. That was five weeks ago, and they had to be presumed dead. 'It's so sad going there now,' Mary said. 'The whole village just cries all the time'."
Is Salman Rushdie just a "communist stooge" (as conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has allegedly proclaimed), or is he a purveyor of truth? With over three decades to reflect on Rushdie's visit to Central America, I am seriously leaning toward the latter.
"One didn't have to like people to believe in their right not to be squashed by the United States; but it helped, it certainly helped."
Like the majority of Americans in the first half of the 1980's, I was relatively oblivious to the Reagan administration's policy regarding Nicaragua. Even had I known, I most assuredly would not have lost any sleep over it. Central America was barely on the periphery of my sphere of concern. It was not until the 'Iran-Contra Affair' (1985 - 1987) that I took notice. The sad truth of it is that even then I cared very little one way or the other. In 1985 I still held on to the illusion* that our elected leaders had our best interests at heart, even if they had to sometimes ignore the rule of law to pursue those interests.
*The last shreds of that illusion spontaneously combusted in November, 2016.
If you are unfamiliar with 'Iran-Contra' suffice it to say that the CIA, with the full knowledge of the Reagan Administration, had arguably formed the Contra, a counter-revolutionary resistance force in Nicaragua, and then unarguably continued to fund them after congress, via the Boland Amendment, deemed it illegal and unconstitutional. They did so by selling arms to Khomeini's muslim fundamentalist regime in Iran, and then funneling the proceeds to the Contras.
"In a nearby village, the Contra had recently kidnapped more than two dozen children, many of them girls aged between ten and fourteen, 'for the use of the Contra fighters'... One girl had escaped and got home. The villagers had heard that five other children had escaped, but had been lost in the jungle. That was five weeks ago, and they had to be presumed dead. 'It's so sad going there now,' Mary said. 'The whole village just cries all the time'."
Is Salman Rushdie just a "communist stooge" (as conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has allegedly proclaimed), or is he a purveyor of truth? With over three decades to reflect on Rushdie's visit to Central America, I am seriously leaning toward the latter.
Ellison Wonderland by Harlan Ellison
4.0
A collection of Ellison’s early shorts. It is mostly science fiction but also a little humor, a little horror, and a whole lot of Wow. It would have been 5 stars but my edition had a 100+ page introduction, roughly one third of the book, that was essentially Ellison tooting his own horn over and over and over.
Euphoria by Lily King
4.0
Lily King has effectively vanquished my aversion for romance novels by crafting a historically fictional but scientifically accurate love triangle composed entirely of cultural anthropologists. Finally, a mushy flirt-fest that even I, a testosterone laden tortoise of a man, can sink my teeth into.
The key question here is not who is going to win the heart of lovely Nell (I personally don’t care either way), but which of the three ethnographical methodologies is going to produce the most meaningful results…
New Guinea, circa 1930
Anthropologist Nell is highly interactionary. She is interview oriented and not averse to participating in tribal activities provided she can participate with one hand and take notes with the other.
Anthropologist Fen, Nell’s husband, is an immersionist. He is the anthropological equivalent of a method actor. Screw the notes, the real understanding comes from becoming an accepted member of the tribe. Experience it all first hand - ritual scarrings, tattoos and hallucinogens included.
Anthropologist Bankson, the tall, dark and handsome third corner of our triad, is a duck-blind observationist. Stand apart, don’t be intrusive, don’t interfere, and for Pete’s sake don’t contaminate the culture!
‘Which ethnographic approach produces the best results,’ you ask? Oh no. Unlike roughly 98% of my other reviews, this one is spoiler free!
The key question here is not who is going to win the heart of lovely Nell (I personally don’t care either way), but which of the three ethnographical methodologies is going to produce the most meaningful results…
New Guinea, circa 1930
Anthropologist Nell is highly interactionary. She is interview oriented and not averse to participating in tribal activities provided she can participate with one hand and take notes with the other.
Anthropologist Fen, Nell’s husband, is an immersionist. He is the anthropological equivalent of a method actor. Screw the notes, the real understanding comes from becoming an accepted member of the tribe. Experience it all first hand - ritual scarrings, tattoos and hallucinogens included.
Anthropologist Bankson, the tall, dark and handsome third corner of our triad, is a duck-blind observationist. Stand apart, don’t be intrusive, don’t interfere, and for Pete’s sake don’t contaminate the culture!
‘Which ethnographic approach produces the best results,’ you ask? Oh no. Unlike roughly 98% of my other reviews, this one is spoiler free!
If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut
4.0
Herein lies a collection of nine commencement speeches by Kurt Vonnegut, delivered at various academic institutions between (approximately) 1994 and 2001.
“We had a memorial service for Isaac [Asimov] a few years back and at one point I said, ''Isaac is up in Heaven now.'' It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That’s my favorite joke."
When my youngest son graduated from Williams College some eight or nine years ago, we were treated to a group of commencement speakers that completely blew my mind. Among those addressing his graduating class were author/historian Stacy Schiff, singer/songwriter Annie Lennox, and tennis legend Billie Jean King.
Commencement addresses can sometimes be a crap shoot. There are those that are academically inspirational [see Stacy Schiff], those that are artistically beautiful [see Annie Lennox], and those that are incredibly fun and entertaining [see Billie Jean King]. There are also, on rare occasion, those that are all of the above [see Kurt Vonnegut].
“Being merciful, it seems to me, is the only good idea we have had so far. Perhaps we will get another good idea by and by—and then we will have two good ideas.”
I wish desperately that he were still with us, but Kurt is up in Heaven now.
(He was right, that does make me laugh
“We had a memorial service for Isaac [Asimov] a few years back and at one point I said, ''Isaac is up in Heaven now.'' It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That’s my favorite joke."
When my youngest son graduated from Williams College some eight or nine years ago, we were treated to a group of commencement speakers that completely blew my mind. Among those addressing his graduating class were author/historian Stacy Schiff, singer/songwriter Annie Lennox, and tennis legend Billie Jean King.
Commencement addresses can sometimes be a crap shoot. There are those that are academically inspirational [see Stacy Schiff], those that are artistically beautiful [see Annie Lennox], and those that are incredibly fun and entertaining [see Billie Jean King]. There are also, on rare occasion, those that are all of the above [see Kurt Vonnegut].
“Being merciful, it seems to me, is the only good idea we have had so far. Perhaps we will get another good idea by and by—and then we will have two good ideas.”
I wish desperately that he were still with us, but Kurt is up in Heaven now.
(He was right, that does make me laugh
Origins: The Search for Our Prehistoric Past by Frank H. T. Rhodes
4.0
Everybody: “You cannot squeeze 4 billion years of evolutionary history, including the taxonomy of millions of existing species and billions of extinct species, into a 344 page textbook.”
Frank Rhodes: “Hold my beer.”
—————————————————————
An ambitious overview of the origin, evolution, and classification of all life on planet earth.
*One thing kept this from being a 5-star read for me: Rhodes includes several references to abrahamic creation myths (e.g. Noah’s “great flood,” Adam’s affinity for taxonomy, etc.) that are scientifically irrelevant and unnecessary even if they are anecdotal and (quite possibly) tongue-in-cheek.
Frank Rhodes: “Hold my beer.”
—————————————————————
An ambitious overview of the origin, evolution, and classification of all life on planet earth.
*One thing kept this from being a 5-star read for me: Rhodes includes several references to abrahamic creation myths (e.g. Noah’s “great flood,” Adam’s affinity for taxonomy, etc.) that are scientifically irrelevant and unnecessary even if they are anecdotal and (quite possibly) tongue-in-cheek.
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
5.0
Lorrie Moore's prose is, at just the right moments, lofty and lyrical without ever being pretentious. Yes, it's a coming of age story about the awkwardness of transition, a storyline that's been done over and over and over again, yet never quite like this. Moore makes it seem effortless. She introduces us to Berie and Sils and their small bubble of a universe and 148 pages later we're nostalgic and reminiscent and more than a wee bit sad. I get that this isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. I mean hey, not everyone likes or listens to Joni Mitchell, but that doesn't make her any less fantastic to those of us who do.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
5.0
I put off reading Anne's diary for far too long. She was like every other teenager I've ever known, with ambitions and insecurities. I felt I knew her and found myself almost cheering for her, forgetting for a moment the inevitability of her horrific circumstance. Even all these years later, her words remind us of what we lost.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
5.0
“grief has its place but also its limits.”
Didion chronicles her life in the aftermath of losing first her husband and then her adult daughter. She speaks courageously of the familiar, the inevitable pain and the not-so-inevitable perseverance.
Joan Didion’s story is my story.
September 20th, 2021 was my son’s 36th birthday. On September 21st, the very next day, he died in a hospital ICU of Covid.
The term ‘Magical Thinking’ is a somewhat outdated* anthropological designation. It refers to spiritual conceptions of cause and effect. “The rains will come if we appease Krull with a dance” - that sort of thing. (*Any beliefs that weren’t held sacred in western culture were labeled “magical thinking”)
In grief, our rituals are often subtle. Somehow I thought that if I kept Joshua’s number in my phone or if I kept saying “my kids” (plural) instead of “my kid” (singular) then Josh wasn’t really gone. That was my magical thinking. Of course I knew the truth in my head, it was my heart that desperately grasped for the magic.
Six months ago, when Joshua was still very much alive and texting me daily about Sooner football and/or Chinese food (his favorite), this would have been a sad book to read. Three months ago, when I was divvying up his urned ashes between myself, his mother, his best friend Tony, and his beloved Aunt Pam, this would have been an impossible book to read. But now, in the midst of my own year of magical thinking, I find Joan Didion cathartic, helpful even.
I know at some point I’ll be able to say the ‘d-word’ and ‘Joshua’ in the same sentence without wincing, but not yet. At some point Josh will be that picture on my desk and those old HotWheels in my library and thirty six years of memories in my head and nothing more, but not yet. For now I still drive by his house and collect his mail. I still say “my kids.” I still have his number in my phone.
Didion chronicles her life in the aftermath of losing first her husband and then her adult daughter. She speaks courageously of the familiar, the inevitable pain and the not-so-inevitable perseverance.
Joan Didion’s story is my story.
September 20th, 2021 was my son’s 36th birthday. On September 21st, the very next day, he died in a hospital ICU of Covid.
The term ‘Magical Thinking’ is a somewhat outdated* anthropological designation. It refers to spiritual conceptions of cause and effect. “The rains will come if we appease Krull with a dance” - that sort of thing. (*Any beliefs that weren’t held sacred in western culture were labeled “magical thinking”)
In grief, our rituals are often subtle. Somehow I thought that if I kept Joshua’s number in my phone or if I kept saying “my kids” (plural) instead of “my kid” (singular) then Josh wasn’t really gone. That was my magical thinking. Of course I knew the truth in my head, it was my heart that desperately grasped for the magic.
Six months ago, when Joshua was still very much alive and texting me daily about Sooner football and/or Chinese food (his favorite), this would have been a sad book to read. Three months ago, when I was divvying up his urned ashes between myself, his mother, his best friend Tony, and his beloved Aunt Pam, this would have been an impossible book to read. But now, in the midst of my own year of magical thinking, I find Joan Didion cathartic, helpful even.
I know at some point I’ll be able to say the ‘d-word’ and ‘Joshua’ in the same sentence without wincing, but not yet. At some point Josh will be that picture on my desk and those old HotWheels in my library and thirty six years of memories in my head and nothing more, but not yet. For now I still drive by his house and collect his mail. I still say “my kids.” I still have his number in my phone.