| Subject: Summer reading picks |
Author:
Adrian
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Date Posted: 23:01:12 05/26/03 Mon
School's out for summer. You may find yourself with a lot of free time on your hands. Besides the Attack of the Sequels at the movies, there are some good books out that you might like. Here are my summer reading picks.
Confucius Lives Next Door by T.R. Reid.
The ultimate guide to today's Japanese society, told from a Westerner's viewpoint. If you're curious about what it's like to live in Japan, this is the book for you.
Shogun by James Clavell.
An 1100-page epic journey of an English sailor into 1600 AD Japan. Clavell's classic novel explores a clash of cultures as an English man faces and adopts Japanese customs. Besides being a good novel (with a well-done romance), Shogun has historical merit as a description of various aspects of Japanese society in 1600.
Jennifer Government by Max Barry.
A new science fiction book for fans of the Matrix and Neal Stephenson. Jennifer Government is a fast-paced novel set about 50 years from now. Global corporations have grown so huge that they have eclipsed national governments. A government agent by the name of Jennifer must track down corporate criminals who are engaging in guerrilla tactics to market their products. The novel is a gripping and thought-provoking satire of global corporatism. This one may grab you, so don't read it right before you have to go to work.
Crashing the Party by Ralph Nader.
Ralph Nader describes his 2000 election campaign. His narrative explores his dissatisfaction with the similarities of Bush/Gore politicians who will say anything to get elected. Nader provides an insider's view of how the two major parties (Democrat and Republican) banned him from the debates, and kicked him out of a public university auditorium where he could even watch a debate. Nader reveals that the 2000 election wasn't just a voting machine failure in Florida, but actually a political failure as Bush and Gore both adopted exactly the same centrist poll-driven stances on major issues. Nader reveals that the presidential debates are actually paid for by US corporations who get to schmooze with the candidates and influence debate questions. However, Nader does provide hope for the future by describing his commitment to building a grassroots progressive movement through the Green Party.
There are other decent books out there, but few that I could bring myself to recommend.
I suppose kids will go crazy over Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but personally I feel that the Harry Potter series has turned in a soap opera. These enormous novels tread the same old Hogwarts ground as Harry, Ron, and Hermione start becoming teenagers with girlfriends/boyfriends and teenage angst. It's becoming Dawson's Creek in wizardry school. For those of you who followed Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, this is another series that has lost its magic and become a money-maker for the author.
A topic that might interest people is the Robert Hanssen case. Hanssen was the head of Russian counterintelligence for the FBI. It was revealed that he was the most effective double agent in decades. Recently, it has been on the news that a Chinese double agent named Katrina Leung has been discovered and captured. The conclusion to draw is that the FBI is a mess. The FBI has compromised all of our intelligence operations to the two biggest competitors, Russia and China. There has also been a scandal about Assistant FBI Director Jordan trying to clamp down and punish FBI internal affairs for whistleblowing. There have been several books published about the Hanssen case. I've heard positive murmurs about a book called Spy. I've heard bad news about a book called The Bureau and the Mole-- the author was a greedy guy who bought 20,000 copies from Amazon.com just to get to the top of the bestseller list (which drives more sales). On the other hand, the other books about the topic look very respectable and interesting.
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