An introduction to our e-books

Summer has arrived, hot and steamy! I remember a month ago, when the temperature just would not rise, wishing things'd heat up a little. Well, I got my wish, and in spades. It's barely June, and already I'm thinking about snow and how it maybe isn't so bad after all.

Haha! I'm kidding! Forget snow.

Let's jump right in. I finished up Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities this past week because I bought a book based on his work -- Tom Wolfe's America: Heroes, Pranksters, and Fools -- and it piqued my curiosity. Bonfire seemed pretty well-thumbed through, and it's one of those titles you're always hearing about, thinking it's something by Maugham or, yes, even Woolf, maybe mid-century or even further back.

Bonfire's actually set in Manhattan of the late 1980s or thereabouts. It follows a few interrelated threads, mostly characters whose lives brush up against a single crime. The perpetrator is a Wall Street bond trader in collusion with his bored-heiress mistress; he picks her up from the airport after one of her many Italian trips, gets lost in the Bronx, and is accosted by a pair of local youths, who happen to be black. They panic, peel out of there, and in the process accidentally hit one of the young men and put him in a coma. The entire book is about the thought processes of three specific people involved in the accident's aftermath: the bond trader wrestling with his guilt; the Bronx assistant district attorney in pursuit of fame; the tabloid reporter chasing after his next drink. Other major players come through all of their lives: the black community leader who stirs up a seething cauldron of race and oppression while covering sins of his own; the heiress from an impoverished background and her drive to fight for freedom; the racist mayor and his staff's hapless observations of all that's going on far below them.

It's a fairly epic story, although you get a little tired of how repetitive some of the characters are, especially where scenes of wealth and privilege are involved. Wolfe lays it on a little thick: two detectives come to visit the bond trader in his opulent Manhattan apartment and gape around at the place. The bond trader thinks they're impressed and a little intimidated at this display of his wealth. Their interrogation done, the two detectives go back to the Bronx and mock the excess over dripping sandwiches. It's constantly driven home to the reader: Manhattan and the Bronx are two different worlds; wealthy WASPs and the Irish/Italian/Puerto Rican/African Americans two different classes. Still, there are some funny moments; the assistant district attorney who's prosecuting the case has a crush on a young woman juror from another case, so takes her out to dinner and extols his own bravery in the face of overwhelming poverty and crime. At the end, they're about to part, and he wonders what's going through her head. Wolfe tells you: She's thinking that those Manhattan men are more trouble than they're worth; you have to listen to two or three hours of His Career before he pays for dinner.

The whole point of the book seems to be completely puncturing the egos of nearly every significant male character. The bond trader gets arrested and is no longer Master of the Universe; the assistant district attorney finds out that the muscles he's so proud of are actually mocked by the women he pursues; the tabloid reporter discovers that his success is more due to luck than any skill on his part -- of which he has none. Nearly all of the characters are despicable and pitiable in some way.

Enjoyable (possibly because of the sheer schadenfreude saturating the book), but it's hard to say that I'd read it again or recommend it to anyone else who doesn't have the patience to slog through dozens of pages of exposition, stream-of-consciousness, and the insides of people's heads.

Now that that's over with -- I hate writing reviews of books that only get as far as "enjoyable" in my mind -- let's turn to e-books. What have we got?

Something like 70,000 of them. To start with. They cover topics from ethnic relations and civilization (whatever that means -- I'll include an example of this topic below) to economics and church history. It's a dizzyingly diverse array of topics, and is a pretty strong argument for having e-books in general. Let's take a look at a quick cross-section:

Talons and teeth: County clerks and runners in the Qing Dynasty
China's one of the oldest continuous civilizations on Earth, and has been a major power in Asia for most of that time. However, this book argues that although the Chinese imperium and its high-level functionaries had great influence, they were far outweighed by people who carried things between county governments. It's like saying that bicycle couriers are more powerful than the President, for instance; this is because those clerks and runners knew full well what they were processing and carrying, and were subject to some truly outstanding corruption. However, little is known about these people; any information we have about them survives through records kept by the highest of the high officials, which suggests something important on its own.

The Singapore Puzzle
It's long been a truism among certain kinds of people that a high degree of personal liberty is essential to keeping the people happy and the state functioning properly. Singapore, however, defies this; one of the most authoritarian governments in the world, it is home to one of the most modern, most prosperous, most successful city-states on the planet. Why is this? Why are people okay with being told not to chew gum, or spit, or smoke in public? Why do corporations agree to work in such restrictive environments, in spite of the laissez-faire capitalism practiced (in comparison anyway) by most of the rest of the developed world?

Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and International Terrorism
I found this one kind of spooky; it's a treatise on the history that exists between Afghanistan and the United States and its outgrowth into international terrorism -- written, rather presciently, in 2000. Even before September 11 occurred, there were warning signs and clashes between the U.S. government and Afghanistan-based terror groups, including Osama bin Laden, involving the first World Trade Center bombings and an incident in Nairobi that placed its imprimatur on relations between both countries. The chapter relating to a direct assault on America covers the history of cooperation between the US and groups in Afghanistan to throw off the Soviet Union concludes with this scary paragraph:

"Perhaps future governments, whether the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, or less powerful and influential nations, will take to heart this important lesson of late twentieth-century history: When you decide to go to war against your main enemy, take a good, long look at the people behind you whom you chose as your friends, allies or mercenary fighters. Look well to see whether these allies already have unsheathed their knives -- and are pointing them at your own back."

The Swedish Table
This is a pretty far-out cookbook; sort of traditional Swedish foods and customs. The recipes are making me hungry (I'm writing this just before lunch, so forgive me for this) -- for instance, Vegetable soup with prosciutto-filled "gnocchi," actually traditional salty potato dumplings called kroppkakor. Or gravlax-and-nasturtium sandwiches with mustard-dill sauce.

Lunch must wait. More to go ...

Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science
I was kind of hoping I'd come across this one. It's controversial! Those are the best books to have in a library, even if it's purely electronic in nature. The author argues that science is, by nature, heresy because it requires objective thinking. This is okay on its own -- we humans are instinctive, feeling creatures that believe in UFOs, ghosts, and angels -- but he takes it a little bit further by noting that of all the ancient civilizations, only Greece developed geometry and number theory. This leads to a set of arguments that assert that the Western world was solely responsible for the discovery of scientific thinking, and that science itself is not an intrinsic aspect of the evolution of civilizations. It's controversial mostly because it disregards quite a few other civilizations before and after the Greeks who independently developed mathematical systems and a logical infrastructure of their own.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Ever wondered about the guy in the deerhunter hat, a pipe in his mouth, and Watson in tow? Wonder no more. I've met people who struggle to get started on reading the Holmes stories because they're never sure which one to start with. I usually say, "They're all good," but that doesn't help them out much, so I steer them toward "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and hope for the best. In this case, there's a little less to worry about; there's a pretty good selection of nine short stories that are usually thought to express the quintessential Holmes, including classics like "The Red-Headed League," "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," and "A Scandal in Bohemia."

Cosmopolitanism in the Americas -- This is the one from "Civilization"!
North and South America, as a whole, represent a study in contrasts. The United States and Canada occupy the majority of North America, and they're places where it's difficult to find a culture that's remained in isolation for very long periods of time. We've pretty well hegemonized gigantic tracts of land, and have become relatively cosmopolitan as a result. Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, on the other hand, represent even larger swaths of people who have relatively little contact with the outside world; although some of the world's largest cities are located in the region (Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires, for example), there are still plenty of pockets where the intrusion of the outside world is minimal and cultures, traditions, and norms haven't changed much. However, that's in the process of being turned on its head; what does it mean when the American style of urbanization begins to overtake the jungle? How does it affect the people?

Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power
With a title like that, you know it's got to be good, right? I know, right. The author traces the history of the notion of "intellectual property" back to the case of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. Mr. Whitney had a lousy life; after he took his new invention public, the designs were promptly stolen by local farmers, who then built their own cotton gins. Whitney then began to sue anyone and everyone who built cotton gins similar to, but not exactly like, his design, but it was a long, painful, and expensive struggle -- partly because it was so difficult to prove which came first and partly because precursor designs had already been in use outside the United States, so it wasn't easy for him to claim the cotton gin as his own invention. However, and this is a side to the issue that the author pays attention to, this sort of piracy has gone on for a long time and is one of the biggest contributors to innovation and technological advancement. It's the whole idea of "intellectual property" that's a relatively new thing, and the author explores the ways it's used to both promote innovation and suppress it in the pursuit of profit; most tragically, in the case of HIV drugs in Africa.

Again, as with our journals, this represents only a very tiny drop in the bucket. From the intricacies of ancient Chinese government to industrial thievery in the United States, there's something in nearly every topic; it's hard to think none of these books actually take up any room on the shelf!

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Question of the Week
I checked out a book from another university, but I didn't realize they had a different due date. My book was due on May 31, a week after I got it, and now it's late. What gives with the one-week loan period?
It depends. If you're a student, you might be finishing up an Incomplete that's due on that date, and then you're no longer a currently-registered student if you haven't signed up for the summer. If you're a faculty or staff member, it may depend on when your contract expires or a host of other things.

Generally speaking we can solve the problem for you. But when we can't, it's time to go to the lending university and find out what their system thinks you're doing, and work it out as is appropriate. Just get in touch with us, and we'll get you all the contact information you need!