Book Review: Kingdom Under Glass by Jay Kirk

For a book that was a lucky draw from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program, this was quite a fortuitous catch for me.  Natural history has always been one of my interests, and to get the opportunity to read a biography about the man responsible for the African Hall of Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History was incredible.

Kingdom Under Glass examines the life and career of celebrated taxidermist Carl Akeley.  The book traced his training at a school for taxidermy, where Akeley began to develop his new methods for improving the lifelike quality of his stuffed subjects.  Among his many accomplishments were the first museum diorama of a natural habitat at the Milwaukee Public Museum, an exhibit at the Chicago Columbian Exposition, aiding in the preservation of P.T. Barnum’s famous elephant Jumbo, and the aforementioned Hall of Mammals (which bears his name to this day).  Even more amazing was that he was an inventor, responsible for a fast acting concrete that can be delivered through a “concrete gun” and a new revolutionary film camera and he was a writer of children’s stories as well. Also, ironically for a man that led several major hunting expeditions into Africa, he was the main proponent behind the chartering of the Virunga National Park (formally the Albert National Park) in Africa.

Jay Kirk does a wonderful job telling this remarkable man’s story: the experimentation he went through as he refined his trade, his turbulent relationship with his feisty wife, and the troubles he went through to build his dream exhibit in the New York Museum.  Kirk uses a narrative style, often extrapolating private thoughts and conversations from available documentation.  In this way, this book reminded me a good deal of David Grann’s Lost City of Z, which reads less like a historical biography and more like a novel.  While this may affect some of the historical accuracy of the book, it certainly spices up the reading experience and allows the reader to dive deeper into the life of the taxidermist explorer.

Overall, if you have an interest in natural history or even just the events around the turn of the 20th century, this is an excellent book.  I guarantee that after reading it, your next visit to the American Museum of Natural History will carry a different meaning.

Amusing Spam E-Mail

This got past my spam filters the other day, and I found it amusing. Are there people out there that truly believe that spam e-mails like this can still fool people?

Subject: READ CAREFULLY AND COMPLY

Federal Reserve Bank

New York

Greeting To You,

I wish to inform you that we are in custody of your inheritance fund of the sum of $10,500,000.00 from Nigeria. However, we have been directed by the US Department of Homeland security to put the fund on hold until you present to us, the United Nations Monetary Compliance Certificate which confirms that the fund have been certified free from any form of Global financial crime such as money laundry and terrorism.

\

United Nations Compensation Commission are compensating the inheritance as its stipulated in Section B act 4 of United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) guide lines and regulations of ( 08/04/2003 ) you can view this website for confirmation: Kindly click on the link below: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/ik344.doc.htm, which Your E-mail ID were listed and approved for this payment as one of the inheritance to be paid the above stated amount.

Please send me the above stated document through my email address or fax number as stated below so that we can release your funds as we do not wish to delay you from receiving your fund.

Email:  arnold.rob@blumail.org

Fax: (607)2573522

Tel:  607 595 1915

In case you do not have the document you can get back to me with Your Full Name……. Address……..Tel……….. so that i will direct you on how to obtain it. Send me an e-mail or You can call me on (607)595 1915 if i am not available leave a message. As soon as you get this document, we shall release your fund.

Your’s truly

Arnold Roberts

Federal Reserve Bank New York

Every part of this is absurd. From the “Greeting to you”, to the reference to “money laundry”. There is no such thing as a “United Nations Monetary Compliance Certificate”.

Of course I find this amusing and absurd, but it stands as a good example about why information literacy (to preach on a subject of great interest to me) is incredibly important in our increasingly digital lives.  Part of information literacy is being able to critically evaluate what is presented to you and judge whether it can be trusted.  I knew that this was a spam e-mail message that was using a twist on a classic scam, but even if I didn’t there were elements (like what I mentioned above) that tip off its fallacy.  So enjoy the humor in someone failing with their scam, but consider how likely you might be caught by something that may appear to be more valid.

Book Review: The Painted Darkness by Brian James Freeman

This was one of the excellent books I received through LibraryThing’s EarlyReviewer program.  Reading this felt very similar to reading a work by Stephen King.  Both authors have the ability to delve into the sometimes dark place that artists and writers go for their creation.  In this case of The Painted Darkness, the monsters that haunt Henry’s paintings and dreams are real and take him back to a traumatic experience he had as a child.

We encounter Henry in the modern day alone in his old house, as his wife and children have left after he got too distracted by his artwork.  Freeman does a masterful job intertwining the story of present-day Henry with the story of what happened 20 years earlier.  The childhood story is slowly unwound as we’re faced with the horrors that older Henry is facing alone in his house.

This volume is not particularly long, offering a couple of hours of reading, but the text is interspersed with beautifully horrible illustrations that help give visions to the creatures that haunt Henry’s twisted brain.  An excellent book to add a little chill to those nights reading while the wind and snow pound outside your windows. Just don’t let your boiler go out.

Book Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

This was a book that was on my radar for a long time before I read it.  I was fortunate enough to get a copy when I attended a science fiction and fantasy author panel at the ALA 2010 Annual Conference.  I have been gradually working my way through a substantial “To Read” pile that is sitting on my nightstand and finally got to this one.  Now I regret, in hindsight, that it has taken me so long to get to it.

As I was reading this book my thoughts kept flipping between two different ideas:

• “Wow, this would make a really great movie.”
• “Wow, this would make a really great video game.”

The book moves with a good cinematical pace leaping between the perspective of Briar Wilkes and her son Zeke as they manage the hazards and obstacles of an 1870s apocalyptic Seattle.  Priest sets up her story well by giving us an alternate history where the American Civil War is still being fought after sixteen years which has driven technology beyond it’s accepted historical level.  After a tragic incident with an earth boring drill (the titular Boneshaker), a large section of Seattle’s financial district collapsed and a strange gas was released into the city.  This gas, aside from being toxic to humans, had the bizarre property of being able to raise dead people into ravenous zombies.  The afflicted part of the city was walled off as a protective measure and most of Seattle’s inhabitants lived around the outside of these walls.  There is a sizable community that continued to exist inside the wall living life the way they want to.  It is within this society that much of the action in the book occurs. Aside from a prologue outlining the incident that strikes Seattle, we are thrown directly into the story and gain much of the character’s background through flashbacks and their narration.

This book falls squarely into the Steampunk genre with the requisite goggled and gas-masked characters and lots of fantastically anachronistic machines and gadgets.  There are some excellent scenes dealing with the zombie (called “rotters” in the books) hordes and with the mad scientist character that has set himself up as the despot of the walled-in society.  There is also a unique mix of characters that our two protagonists encounter inside the wall.  As is usual in stories like this, everyone we meet has their own reasons for being here, some of whom are straightforward about their motives and others are mysterious.

Past all the swashbuckling adventures and cool Steampunk vibe, this story is really about a mother trying to find her son and willing to do anything to accomplish that task.  Muddying the waters are themes of loss, betrayal and the consequences of keeping secrets.  We get to see, at times, people operating at their very best and people at their worst. You know, the literary properties that have a great effect on readers.  Priest does an excellent job developing characters that we can feel strongly, both negatively and positively.

It becomes clear near the end of the book that the author intended this to be part of a multiple volume work as she introduces a new conflict early enough for it to develop and pique our interests and close enough to the end to ensure there would not be a resolution.  This is fine though, as she is able to wrap up the main plot that has driven us through the story and to give us answers to questions that hang around from early in the book.  Also fortunate is that the first of the sequels, Clementine, is already available and the conclusion to the trilogy, Dreadnought, is being release late next month (September 28).

Overall, this was a very thrilling book to read and fully satisfied my anticipation for it.  The author evidently did an extensive job researching the area and the time period that the book was set.  In her afterword, she explains the reasoning behind several key historical changes.  Blended into that alternate Seattle we got a excellent mix of characters and plots that made the entire book a lot of fun to read. I certainly hope that someone licenses this for a film or television series (a miniseries of the entire trilogy might work) as it would make excellent entertainment in one of those mediums as well.

A Scout is Friendly, Helpful, Courteous…

I was once a Boy Scout.  One of my biggest regrets from growing up is that I never finished the final requirements I needed to attain Eagle Scout.  I had a very good time as a Boy Scout.  I was a member of an extremely active troop that went on some incredible trips and sponsored some awesome activities.  When we went camping it was not any of this pitching your tent 50 feet from the car sort of thing.  It was 200 mile canoe treks through the wilderness of upstate New York or Maine.  It was 100 mile backpacking trips at the Scout ranch in New Mexico.  It was weekends spent in the Adirondacks in the middle of February – we stayed in tents, not heated cabins. 

The Boy Scouts were an incredibly important part of my formative years.  It makes some of the latest controversies surrounding them more painful to me.  An article recently printed in The New York Times – Scouts Seek a way to Rebuild Ranks mentions some of the major issues that BSA is facing today.  Here are a few snippets from the article which resonate with me.

The declines reflect the difficulties of keeping up with changing times and shifting demographics, as well as of battling a perception that the organization is exclusionary because it bars gay people and atheists, not to mention girls under 13.

I have been an atheist for as long as I have been able to organize my thoughts regarding beliefs and religion.  This never prevented my access to the activities provided by the Boy Scouts. Furthermore, I was never pressured or questioned about my beliefs though I did work to make sure I respected other peoples’.  There is definitely a pro-religion aspect to the Scouts (especially to Christianity) which is clearly seen that one of the 12 points to the Scout Law is Reverence (I always murmured that part really quietly).

One thing that has really struck me is the extreme homophobia displayed by the Boy Scouts of America.  It seems to be a incredibly narrow-minded viewpoint to take for an organization that is present in the development of many young men.  This should be a golden opportunity to teach the ideas of tolerance and friendship. It is a way to show that no matter what ethnicity, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation we can all share the same interests and experiences. We are not that different after all!  Instead they squander it with close-minded viewpoints that only work to continue the separation and prejudice in our society.

The gender thing is also a very big deal.  We are in the 21st century now, why are we still relegating women to “quilt-making” and “selling cookies”?  The option should be there for young women to join the scouts at the same ages as the boys and to do all the same activities. In fact, I think the Boy Scouts could probably even gain by adopting some elements of the Girl Scout programming, since more diversity can only improve things.  Again it would give a chance to teach respect and understanding of the opposite gender for both sides. Again it’s another opportunity squandered.

An even bigger challenge emerged this year as a jury ordered the Scouts to pay $18.5 million in damages to a man who had been abused by a scout leader as a boy. The trial focused renewed attention on the secret files that the Scouts’ national office in Texas has kept for more than 70 years of claims of sexual abuse by troop leaders and volunteers.

This is another thing that hurts me to my core.  I really admired and trusted my scout leaders and it shocks me to think that there were men that would abuse this trust.  The mention of the secret files reminds me of the cover-up that the Catholic Church is currently struggling to overcome.  There seem to be many similarities between the two situations and I feel that its going to be a stain that’s going tarnish them both for a long time.

I still believe that the Boy Scouts have a lot to offer young men and women even as we advance further into the 21st century.  Especially as more of our lives are filled with electronic entertainments there is an increased need for us to make some contact with the natural world and with our local communities.  The Scouts can be an integral part in providing a fulfilling experience in youth development, they only need to overcome their conservatism and look at ways to open themselves for the future.

One Book, One Twitter – A World of Readers Connected by 140 Characters

The beginning of May also marked the start of a new online experiment: “One Book, One Twitter” (hashtag #1b1t).  Modeled after the “One Book, One City” programs done in cities like Seattle and Chicago, the purpose was to unite a group of people on the Twitter social network and have them discuss the same book in a worldwide book club.  The project was started by Crowdsourcing author Jeff Howe.  The planning for this experiment started much earlier then its start due to the need to select the book to read.  I missed this section and only came in after a final selection had been made, in this case American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  Although I had already read the book, this was rather exciting to me because I had been meaning to reread it for a couple of months and this ended up being the ideal circumstance to do so.  So having read about this new program I promptly purchased the novel for my Kindle and eagerly waited the start of the program.  Some early mapping attempts revealed that this was going to be an international efforts with readers throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America.

From the start, #1b1t showed its experimental state.  It had been decided very early on to separate discussions into separate chapter hash tags to prevent spoilers in the main #1b1t discussion for people who were joining late (or following the schedule as I’ll explain).  There was some early confusion as to what hash tag notation to use when discussing different sections or chapters.  At one point there was an announcement made by Jeff Howe about a certain notation, and then later that same day it was changed.  This all sorted it out and pretty quickly we were happily (and briefly) discussing our reading of the novel. Being a generally fast reader myself and having a good amount of time on my hands (I had just handed in my last assignments for the semester the prior weekend), I decided to stick to the schedule and pretty much read American Gods as a side project to my normal reading. The simple capability to jump between books on my Kindle made this an easy task.

In order to focus the rest of my thoughts about the #1b1t program, I’m going to highlight the areas that I felt worked really well, and then the areas that could probably use some assistance for following One Book, One Twitter reads.

Independence Day: A Historically Defining Moment

And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

-Bill Pullman as President Thomas Whitemore in Independence Day

234 years ago on this date the collection of men of various motivations, interests, and backgrounds that made up the First Continental Congress convened to approve the wording of the Declaration of Independence.  This became a critically defining moment, not only for the embryonic nation that was growing in the Americas, but also for the entire world.  This action was the crystallization of ideas that had been percolating through the salons and universities of Europe and the Americas.  It was a pure result of the Age of Reason and a primary catalyst for both the greatest and the bloodiest moments in the centuries to come.  One thing that stands out profoundly to me, and reveals even more concisely the influence of reason, is that this moment is not defined by a gun shot, explosion, ship sinking, or assassination. Rather it is defined by the signing of a document. It is the result of 56 men reaching a consensus and showing their support for an idea that would forever reverberate through the history of the world.  The quote above from the film Independence Day speaks truly that today’s date should be recognized not just as a holiday of the United States but an important date throughout the world.  Now, I am not saying that the rest of the world should celebrate with the same fervor as us Americans, but just something so that people may pause and think about the results of this day in history (for good or bad).