Cod, Salt, Zero

Here's another interesting list from Nancy Pearl, inspiration for the librarian action figure with amazing push-button shushing action! (For Christmas ... please?) She's become something of a regular on National Public Radio, offering up interesting book ideas. A recent installment addresses microhistories (check out the show here), those nonfiction books that look at a seemingly small phenomenon from a historical/anthropological perspective. Here's her list:

1. Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life, by Toby Cecchini

2. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky

3. Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, by Henry Petroski

4. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

5. E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

6. One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw Witold Rybczynski

7. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach

8. Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky

I have read three of these books: Cod, Salt and Zero. They were all good. I liked Zero the best. Interesting tidbit: Some ancient cultures found the abstract idea of nothingness to be so alien that they didn't even have zero in their number system. It makes sense if you think about it. And then you start to realize the mysterious, terrifying power of 0!!

Nancy Pearl also has an intriguing list of best spy novels. I'm thinking of choosing her No. 1 pick, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre, for my book group, as an eclectic change of pace.

Perceptive writing on the Schiavo debate

If you've been reading about Terri Schiavo in the news this week, rest assured I have, too. Mrs. Schiavo (pronounced SHY-voe) lives in Pinellas Park, in a hospice about a half hour from Tampa. As you can imagine, there has been intensive local media coverage.
One of the more gripping commentaries I've read about the case is an essay in Slate.com by Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disability rights lawyer and all-around fascinating woman from Charleston, S.C. (Here's the link.)
She wrote a fascinating and candid article for The New York Times Magazine not long ago about her debate with philosopher Peter Singer. Ms. Johnson is what the mainstream culture would call profoundly disabled; Singer, on the other hand, practices a philosophy of utilitarian happiness and finds euthanasia morally acceptable in more cases than probably the rest of us would. He's also an ardent vegetarian. This limited synopsis glosses over some pretty big issues -- but you can read Johnson's article here. It begins:

He insists he doesn't want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine and satisfy the reasonable preferences of parents for a different kind of child. It has nothing to do with me. I should not feel threatened.
Whenever I try to wrap my head around his tight string of syllogisms, my brain gets so fried it's . . . almost fun. Mercy! It's like ''Alice in Wonderland.''
It is a chilly Monday in late March, just less than a year ago. I am at Princeton University. My host is Prof. Peter Singer, often called -- and not just by his book publicist -- the most influential philosopher of our time. He is the man who wants me dead. No, that's not at all fair. He wants to legalize the killing of certain babies who might come to be like me if allowed to live. He also says he believes that it should be lawful under some circumstances to kill, at any age, individuals with cognitive impairments so severe that he doesn't consider them ''persons.'' What does it take to be a person? Awareness of your own existence in time. The capacity to harbor preferences as to the future, including the preference for continuing to live.

The thing I love about Johnson is that she writes so wonderfully, with such honesty and humor, that you feel as if you're right there with her, seeing things as she sees them. I think that's particularly true of the article about her confrontation with Singer.

Johnson has a new book out this spring, called Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life.

God Lives in St. Petersburg (Russia)

I wrote a review of a new collection of short stories called God Lives in St. Petersburg. Check it out here.
Sorry for the sporadic posts of late, but I've been in the process of moving from Palm Harbor to Tampa and didn't have Internet service for awhile. Hopefully I can pick up the pace on posting now.