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Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 27th, 2016 08:42 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Quite a lot of things! I have allergies or possibly a cold, and therefore have spent as much of the week as possible reclining on the sofa and reading.
First, though, a book I dropped: Victoria Thompson’s Murder on Astor Place, a murder mystery in turn-of-the-century New York. How could that go wrong, I thought? But I thought it was too info-dumpy and simultaneously too modern-sounding. I could buy a turn-of-the-century midwife recognizing postpartum depression, but I very much doubt she’d use that term for it.
But I probably could have worked with all that, except… then our heroine, midwife Sarah Brandt, meets police sergeant Frank Malloy. They hate each other on sight in that “s/he’s soooo annoying, but what an amazing body” way that suggests they will be dancing around their attraction for the next ten books, and ugh, this is my least favorite romantic dynamic of all time.
And now for books I completed: Marie Brennan’s In the Labyrinth of Drakes, which I enjoyed very much! Brennan has gotten much better at skipping directly to the action as the series goes on. In the first book, it takes nearly half the novel for Isabella to even leave Scirland - I for one could have done with a much more cursory sketch of Isabella’s unhappy girlhood trying to quash her interest in dragons and be a proper young lady; I’ve read that story before, I can fill in the blanks - but by this fourth book, we’ve left that far behind, and there’s scarcely a chapter of set-up before Isabella’s heading out on her dragon-studying expedition.
I also read Maud Hart Lovelace’s Carney’s House Party, which is a companion novel to her Betsy-Tacy series, about how one of the characters in that series broke up with her high school boyfriend (who moved to California when they were halfway through high school) and ended up with the man she eventually married. It’s... not bad, but it’s probably my least favorite of Lovelace’s books that I’ve read, probably because in between breaking Carney up with one boy and engaging her to another, there’s not much time for anything but the romance.
And lastly, I read Kent Kiehl’s The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without a Conscience, which is very interesting, although marred by Kiehl’s forays into autobiography. Some authors can make their search for the information just as interesting as the information itself, but alas, Kiehl is not among their number.
Aside from that, though, it’s a fascinating book. Kiehl argues (backed by piles of brain scans) that psychopathy is caused by a malformation of the paralimbic system, which means that psychopaths don’t process emotions the way that the rest of us do and are physically incapable of learning from punishment.
This leads to a chapter about a program in Wisconsin which treats psychopaths entirely through positive reinforcement: patients are rewarded for prosocial behaviors with candy bars and video games. It’s clearly not a perfect treatment (but then, what is?), but it did lead to a 50% reduction in convictions for violent crime as compared to inmates who weren’t part of the program, so clearly it’s an avenue worth more investigation.
Although given that many people think our prison system is too cushy already - you have to wonder what sort of prison these people would approve; would the prisoners lie on piles of rotting straw as the cold rain dripped on their faces through the stainless steel bars on the windows? - it doesn’t seem too likely to me that this approach will take off in the near future. But then, stranger things have happened.
What I’m Reading Now
Still more of Constance Fenimore Cooper’s Anne. Anne has signed up to become a Civil War nurse. I’m hoping that this will lead to a dramatic scene where the unworthy man that she loves dies in her arms, or possibly just before she arrives at the hospital - yes, I think this has more dramatic potential - just before she arrives at the hospital, so she is there just in time to see his waxen face and his dead, staring eyes, and know she is too late.
I’ve also begun reading Christ Jennings’ Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopia, which I all but pranced over to the library to get as soon as I heard of its existence. Unfortunately, I can only really recommend it if you share my fascination with nineteenth-century American utopian communities, because so far the writing has been pedestrian at best.
What I Plan to Read Next
The challenge for next month on the 2016 Reading Challenge is “a book that has been banned,” so I’ve been contemplating various lists of books that have been banned over the years. Should I finally bite the bullet and read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings or The Things They Carried? On the one hand, I’ve meant to read both of those books for years; on the other hand, I have avoided actually reading them for years because I know they’re both super hardcore.
Maybe I should finally take this opportunity to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover. One of my friends is a big D. H. Lawrence fan (although I’m not sure if that extends from his poetry to his novels). Or maybe Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World?
Quite a lot of things! I have allergies or possibly a cold, and therefore have spent as much of the week as possible reclining on the sofa and reading.
First, though, a book I dropped: Victoria Thompson’s Murder on Astor Place, a murder mystery in turn-of-the-century New York. How could that go wrong, I thought? But I thought it was too info-dumpy and simultaneously too modern-sounding. I could buy a turn-of-the-century midwife recognizing postpartum depression, but I very much doubt she’d use that term for it.
But I probably could have worked with all that, except… then our heroine, midwife Sarah Brandt, meets police sergeant Frank Malloy. They hate each other on sight in that “s/he’s soooo annoying, but what an amazing body” way that suggests they will be dancing around their attraction for the next ten books, and ugh, this is my least favorite romantic dynamic of all time.
And now for books I completed: Marie Brennan’s In the Labyrinth of Drakes, which I enjoyed very much! Brennan has gotten much better at skipping directly to the action as the series goes on. In the first book, it takes nearly half the novel for Isabella to even leave Scirland - I for one could have done with a much more cursory sketch of Isabella’s unhappy girlhood trying to quash her interest in dragons and be a proper young lady; I’ve read that story before, I can fill in the blanks - but by this fourth book, we’ve left that far behind, and there’s scarcely a chapter of set-up before Isabella’s heading out on her dragon-studying expedition.
I also read Maud Hart Lovelace’s Carney’s House Party, which is a companion novel to her Betsy-Tacy series, about how one of the characters in that series broke up with her high school boyfriend (who moved to California when they were halfway through high school) and ended up with the man she eventually married. It’s... not bad, but it’s probably my least favorite of Lovelace’s books that I’ve read, probably because in between breaking Carney up with one boy and engaging her to another, there’s not much time for anything but the romance.
And lastly, I read Kent Kiehl’s The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without a Conscience, which is very interesting, although marred by Kiehl’s forays into autobiography. Some authors can make their search for the information just as interesting as the information itself, but alas, Kiehl is not among their number.
Aside from that, though, it’s a fascinating book. Kiehl argues (backed by piles of brain scans) that psychopathy is caused by a malformation of the paralimbic system, which means that psychopaths don’t process emotions the way that the rest of us do and are physically incapable of learning from punishment.
This leads to a chapter about a program in Wisconsin which treats psychopaths entirely through positive reinforcement: patients are rewarded for prosocial behaviors with candy bars and video games. It’s clearly not a perfect treatment (but then, what is?), but it did lead to a 50% reduction in convictions for violent crime as compared to inmates who weren’t part of the program, so clearly it’s an avenue worth more investigation.
Although given that many people think our prison system is too cushy already - you have to wonder what sort of prison these people would approve; would the prisoners lie on piles of rotting straw as the cold rain dripped on their faces through the stainless steel bars on the windows? - it doesn’t seem too likely to me that this approach will take off in the near future. But then, stranger things have happened.
What I’m Reading Now
Still more of Constance Fenimore Cooper’s Anne. Anne has signed up to become a Civil War nurse. I’m hoping that this will lead to a dramatic scene where the unworthy man that she loves dies in her arms, or possibly just before she arrives at the hospital - yes, I think this has more dramatic potential - just before she arrives at the hospital, so she is there just in time to see his waxen face and his dead, staring eyes, and know she is too late.
I’ve also begun reading Christ Jennings’ Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopia, which I all but pranced over to the library to get as soon as I heard of its existence. Unfortunately, I can only really recommend it if you share my fascination with nineteenth-century American utopian communities, because so far the writing has been pedestrian at best.
What I Plan to Read Next
The challenge for next month on the 2016 Reading Challenge is “a book that has been banned,” so I’ve been contemplating various lists of books that have been banned over the years. Should I finally bite the bullet and read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings or The Things They Carried? On the one hand, I’ve meant to read both of those books for years; on the other hand, I have avoided actually reading them for years because I know they’re both super hardcore.
Maybe I should finally take this opportunity to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover. One of my friends is a big D. H. Lawrence fan (although I’m not sure if that extends from his poetry to his novels). Or maybe Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World?
