Week Seven: The Black Cloud - Sir Fred Hoyle

Week Seven - the Black Cloud was written by famed UK astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, back in 1957 and is a stunning and precipitous novel about contact with an alien intelligence. It defies conventional wisdom and structure to climax in a way that would horrify literary and film critics alike. Sweeping and calamitous events are dealt to in short and almost off hand paragraphs, which serve to illustrate the nature of the story itself.

There are some wonderfully naive and intelligent characters contained and they say the most amazingly intelligent, coherent and perceptive things about humanity and alien beings in very succinct terms.

I picked up a recent re-print edition after seeing it reviewed in the Guardian online. It comes with an afterword by Richard Dawkins, and having read the book I can see why he would want to, or was chosen to comment.

It's about the nature of a whole bunch of things like the universe, humanity, politics, religion, physics and by extension of all those things, God and our place etc...

But it does not preach and that is the brilliant thing about this - this is an academic exercise, not an action movie or worse, a sermon.

Above all else this is a great read.

Week Six: Grow your own Drugs - James Wong

Not a manifesto for the "Leaglise" movement, but a cookbook of sorts with all sorts of handy advice for keen gardeners and non-conformists alike on how to use herbal remedy type solutions and home make those things that you would normally pay for someone else to make.

I thought I'd read this as an antidote to the psychological books I'd been into lately and sure enough it's very, very different. The approach is one I kind of agree with as a choice, drugs in and of themselves are not bad, anymore than lotions and ointments made in factory are not. This is a way to make these yourself, not preach how awful all these chemicals are etc...

Which is good because a huge percentage of these "chemicals" are present in naturally occurring things - which is where we got them from in the first place. Like Acetyl-Salicylic Acid - which became Aspirin (Dispirin) and Heroin and a few other choice drugs.

What was interesting was how make emulsions and oils and what all the differing things do. There's loads of gardening advice and then page after page of "recipe".

Interesting to read about someone else's passion - on a scientific subject delivered so rustically, but with common sense and not a head full of "belief" and "nature" as if these two things can convince any rational mind.

Enough ranting, it was interesting but not fascinating. A curiosity.

Next Week: The Black Cloud by Sir Fred Hoyle (or the Infinite Crisis Graphic Novel - depending on how much time I have).

Week Five: Sway (The Irrestible Pull of Irrational Behaviour )

Sway: Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman.

Another in a long line of psychological behaviors and/or social economics books I have on my list. This one gets points for being brief and easy to read, with really fascinating case studies, but little else.

It was interesting to see yet again the way we think and the way we act are not what we think they are, but the book provides anecdote after anecdote, experiment after experiment and study after study. Then what?

People are stupid and don't always act rationally? Hardly a news flash, but the subtitle of the book describes the pull of irrational behaviour, but nowhere in this book is there such a thing. Instead it simply does what always happens in scientific progress, our understanding of the parameters changes. Things we didn't know - we now know or have uncovered.

All very interesting stuff, particularly in the chapter on job interviews (you should test all applicants before reading their CV's basically - which is a brilliant idea).

Ultmiately I'm not looking for hope or a roadmap to success - just a little more information and insight. It has the information, but no insightful commentary or revelations. It's defeatist as it tends to come full circle as if to say "oh well, that's the way we are, it doesn't make sense does it?"

People are stupid, I know that and I fall prey to the same stupidity sometimes and this book points it out, but that's all.

Not lame, just not great, damned with faint praise?

Perhaps I'll try something completely different next week.

Week Four: The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave

Two things, yes it's THAT Nick Cave and no I didn't buy it for the cover. Actually the cover of the version I have is all red and only has the title and author text that takes up the entire cover. The lady at the bookshop where I bought this told me that there was a more offensive cover (she wasn't offended but there were complaints) but that it had been reissued with something less 'grabby'.

So as I post this is the first time I've seen the cover, and the cover is pretty lightweight based on what's actually inside the book and if the picture is of the scene that I assume it is, well it's much worse than what people were probably complaining about.

On to the book. It's vicious and dirty, cathartic and revealing as well. It's not a book I'd recommend to many people, but not because of the content so much as the content. I know that's a bit backwards, but the story is redemptive, reads like a David Lynch film plays out and in the end is so full of metaphor, self loathing and fantasy (guilt induced) that I couldn't help but feel that it wasn't intended to shock or disgust, or even confront the reader. It felt more like the author just wanted to speak without boundary or internal censorship. It's not a treatise on the human condition, nor a shock fest for the genre lovers.

The death of Bunny Munro is a psychological balancing of the scales, for one man who could be all of us, but in truth is none of us. I can picture Nick Cave acting this out in my head, and hear the sympathetic timpani of his voice running through it's narration. Loved the language and the style and unencumbered nature of his observations. Everyone is up for it, in our minds and in our fictions, we usually never publish them in general terms.

Next Week: Sway (The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior) and a return to non-fiction in attempt to wade through all the behavioral science books I have...