The question came up on the Editors' Association of Canada mailing list today, and here's my response:
It's been awhile since I've read Hemingway. I went on a binge :-) of his writing, and writing about him, about 20 years ago. Some of his stuff is very good, some may feel dated now, and, like any writer, there are weak patches.
I think his writing has been (and to some extent perhaps always was) overshadowed by his persona. And in death the persona grew even larger. I've seen the strangest documentaries on his life. By chance there was a scathing review in today's Vancouver Sun of a "new release" of his classic A Moveable Feast, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture of attempts by his heirs to "improve" on his work and cash in along the way.
My bottom line? At his best, I think he was one of the best. I just wonder how many people read him any more, how much he is now of a certain (bygone) era, and how many just wear the T-shirt.
Have had a great morning at Book Camp Vancouver, and am settling in for the afternoon sessions. This morning sat in on Open Source business models and publishing, and a session on newspapers, magazines and books in the digital age. Next up is Getting to Zero: Who Gets Paid When Books are Free?
Lots of people are covering the conference in real time on Twitter at #bcvan09.
There's been some discussion on the Editors' Association of Canada mailing list recently about plagiarism and how to detect it. Here are my perceptions of overall trends:
I believe there is an ongoing technological and cultural shift that is blurring the issue of plagiarism in people's minds. We have become a copycat, copying world, and the digitization of content has made it effortless to make exact copies of text, graphics/photos, audio and video. This is not by any means a new idea or concern, and I'm sure there is research on this trend, but here are a few words off the top of my head.
In my youth we learned relatively simple analog copying from LP to cassette, from TV to VCR; however, such copying took as much time to accomplish as the length of the original recording. Now everything is digital files that can be copied and transferred from medium to medium in seconds or minutes at the click of a mouse. Kids have grown up with digital audio players (iPods et al), personal video recorders (PVRs) that amass hundreds of hours of one's favourite TV programs, and computers and the 'Net.
This digitization also makes it easy to non-destructively break down files and use snippets of original works. Kids are now encouraged to do "mashups" using text, graphics, audio and video, and web designers "suck" and "scrape" data from all over the 'Net for inclusion in re-purposed or re-branded websites. It's par for the course for bloggers and Twitterers to copy and use ideas/data, though most abide by precepts of acknowledgment, including citation, mutual linking, blog rolls and the RT (reTweet) function.
When I did my MA a couple of years ago after a 20-year hiatus from the halls of higher learning, I was pleased, amazed, and finally shocked at how easy it was to "do research" by logging into the university library from the comfort of one's home computer, and copy and paste relevant bits from peer-reviewed papers in respected journals downloaded in their entirety from databases. I kept such notes and quotations in a different font to make sure they stood out on the screen as I wrote papers. A far cry from physically entering the library, combing through the card catalogs and stacks, and taking notes by hand on 3 X 5 cards!
I have encountered situations in which people have copied copyrighted and trademarked material wholesale and passed it off in their "own works" -- entire swaths of writing, not just a sentence here or there -- only to have them deny that they'd done anything wrong. Pressing the issue resulted only in anger, incredibly (to my mind) broad definitions of "fair use," or a blanket dismissal that I wasn't with it.
Now I believe there are upsides to this technological/cultural revolution. I'm a fan of open-source movements that originated in software development and are gradually encompassing photography, audio/video production, and publishing. I appreciate the benefits of "open-source learning," which entails a lot of collaborative group work in educational settings. The key here is that people who honestly contribute original work are recognized by their peers in a self-policing atmosphere of mutual respect, acknowledgment, and encouragement.
Whether or not the positive influences of such open-source concepts overcome the temptations of cut-and-paste plagiarism remains to be seen. The bottom line is not technology, despite my focus on technological developments. Technology doesn't set ethical standards, though I wonder if it can undermine them. It's the people using the technology that need to know better.
Perhaps the cookie jar of original research and artistic production has become too easy to access and copy. A strange statement coming from me, since I despise DRM (digital rights management) and censorship. But I realize that I am human, and when there are cookies easily accessible, I know I'll be tempted to gobble them up, though if I had to bake them from scratch I'd think twice about the effort. At least I know that I wouldn't pass off store-bought cookies, or the neighbour's muffins, as my own!
I see that my argument is getting mired down, and my mind is not keeping up with my fingers on the keyboard, so I'd better quit now before I get stuck. Time to get back to work. Perhaps I'll write another mini-essay extending this topic another day.
CFUS is awarding its first George S. N. Luckyj Ukrainian Literature Translation Prize to my aunt, Roma Franko, and my late mother, Sonia Morris:
Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies
www.cfus.ca
416-766-9630
May 19, 2009
MEDIA RELEASE
The Board of Directors of the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies (CFUS) is pleased to announce that Dr. Roma Franko and her sister, the late Sonia Morris have been selected as the first recipients of the George S. N. Luckyj Ukrainian Literature Translation Prize.
The Prize is named in honour of the late Professor George S. N. Luckyj, an eminent Ukrainian Canadian Slavist, editor, and translator of Ukrainian literature. It was created to encourage the translation of Ukrainian literary works into English and other major languages and consists of a monetary gift in the amount of $2,000.
Roma Franko and Sonia Morris are being awarded the Luckyj Prize for their dedication to and tremendous efforts and achievements in translating Ukrainian literature into English and making it accessible to a wide reading audience. After taking early retirement from their respective academic careers at the University of Saskatchewan in 1996, the sisters embarked on new careers, Roma Franko as translator and Sonia Morris as editor. Together they founded Language Lanterns Publications dedicated to publishing works of Ukrainian literature in English translation. They imposed on themselves what seemed a daunting schedule of publishing at least two books of literary translations per year. In 1998, a series entitled Women’s Voices in Ukrainian Literature was launched. By 2000, the first set of six books in this series was completed. The series includes translated prose of Ukrainian women writers of the 19th century. To date, seventeen volumes have appeared translated by Roma Franko and edited by Sonia Morris. A further three volumes are in preparation. Roma Franko currently lives in Toronto. Sonia Morris passed away in 2007.
The Prize will be presented to Dr. Franko and the family of the late Sonia Morris on June 3, 2009 at the UNF Library Dinner in Toronto. The names of the recipients will be inscribed on a plaque that will be permanently displayed in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto.
CFUS is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to securing funds and other resources that will promote the growth and development of Ukrainian studies in Canada in perpetuity. The work of CFUS is supported by the generosity of individuals through donations, bequests, and endowments.
For further information, please contact:
Natalka Zyla
Office Administrator, CFUS
Review - British Columbia: A Natural History by Richard Cannings and Sydney Cannings.
The western Canadian province of British Columbia is blessed with a diversity of ecosystems ranging from lush rain forests to near deserts and everything in between. This book covers the geology, and the flora and fauna of this gorgeous region of our planet. The Cannings ably describe the origins of the land, ocean, and waterways, and the animals and plants that inhabit them. The book is full of photographs that depict the natural abundance and variety of landscapes of the province.
I finished Stephen Hume's Off The Map: Western Travels on Roads Less Taken earlier this Christmas Eve. I couldn't have chosen a better book to while away a few hours on this slow-moving, relaxing, yet emotionally intense day -- my first Christmas following the death of my mother.
Hume has a knack for unearthing stories about British Columbia and then painting them in words that stir the reader's soul. His sense of human history within the natural environment imbues his prose with haunting detail and emotion. He shares his strong conscience, and is not afraid of pointing fingers at those who would despoil our land, kill our rivers, and strangle indigenous cultures while blithely assuming the mantle of "progress."
This collection of essays is a must-read for anyone who cares about our great land. I am not shy to admit that several passages brought tears to my eyes.
I've been on a Battle of Gettysburg binge over the last few days. It began when I read a book my sister had given me: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. It's a well-written novel based on the pivotal battle in 1863 during the U.S. Civil War. Shaara does an impressive job of putting words and thoughts into the mouths of key players on both sides of the engagement while sticking closely to historical accuracy.
Having had my interest sparked by the novel, I then plowed through Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage by Noah Andre Trudeau, which had been sitting on a shelf unread for a couple of years. It is recognized as a definitive work on the battle and is superbly researched and engagingly written.
I used to be a military history buff, and found such works stimulating as a teenager and young man, but now I tend to focus more on the horror.
As I emailed a friend yesterday: "Am in a troubled state about all that killing... And the eagerness to kill... And to die for 'honor.' Does that sort of courage = stupidity? Sometimes I think the basest human instincts (fight, kill, those different, them, the enemy) are somehow manipulated into being viewed as the noblest (courage, valor, buddies, us, our state, our country)."
Bush Telegraph: Discovering the Pacific Province
by Stephen Hume
This is a gem of a collection of essays by Stephen Hume about British Columbia, ranging from history to nature to even a few recipes for native berries. Hume has a nose for tales that reveal the human condition and our relationship to the geography and history of this amazing province. From the wisdom of first nations to the aspirations of early immigrants, these stories are pictures into the human soul and our relationship with the ocean and land around us. Hume's prose displays an intense dedication to his craft and is a joy to read.
The Patricias: The Proud History of a Fighting Regiment
by David J. Bercuson
This well-researched book on the history of one of Canada's most storied regiments reinforced in my mind the incredible sacrifices our military has made, and our government's lack of sustained support for our forces. It also debunks the myth that Canada's army has been primarily a peacekeeping force.
I would like to quote at length from the book's conclusion (it was printed in 2001):
"The world is a far different place at the dawn of the twenty-first century than it was in August 1914, when Hamilton Gault first thought of raising a regiment for war. It is no coincidence, however, that members of the regiment he founded helped to bring a sort of peace to the Balkans and now serve there whenever their turn comes. The war the Patricias were raised to fight, after all, started in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, not very far from the Canadian area of responsibility in Bosnia today. War is a much more technical phenomenon than it was in 1914, and some would argue that it is far deadlier and more destructive. That may be so, but war is still war and the primary job of all soldiers -- killing others and offering themselves up to be killed -- has not changed since the dawn of time. The same attributes of courage, steadfastness, loyalty, dedication to a higher cause, and a love for comrades in arms that exceeds love of self, motivated and sustained the Patricias in those first days in the Ypres Salient, at Bellewaerde Ridge, at the Hitler Line, at Kap'yong, and at the Medak Pocket. They sustain the regiment today."
Saskatoon History Trivia Quest
by Robin and Arlene Karpan
I received this 176-page collection of Saskatoon history trivia for Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed munching my way through it a few pages at a time. I was born and raised in Saskatoon, so I was familiar with some of the content, but lots was delightfully offbeat and truly trivial--in a good sense. It's one of those collections of snippets that is perfect for the magazine rack in the bathroom :-).
How to Do Media & Cultural Studies
by Jane Stokes
This is one of two texts I'm reading in preparation for researching and writing my final project for my MA in Professional Communication from Royal Roads University.
It's a slim tome at less than 200 pages, but it covers the bases and provides references to more detailed works in specific areas.
I am on the last lap of the program, with two classes and my SP (short project) to go. If all goes well, I should be done around June, and while I've greatly enjoyed the program, my professors and my fellow learners, I'm looking forward to finishing.
Devereux, Eoin. (2003). Understanding the Media. London: Sage Publications.
This short (app. 150 page) introduction to media focuses on how mass media works and how to analyze it. It takes a distinctly social view, with students encouraged to question media hegemony and think about structure vs. agency in how mass media depict the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised.
Devereux touches on most media/communication theories and provides exercises for stimulating thinking about mass media. The recurring thread throughout is political economy, ownership, the concept of "dominant ideology," and media representations "of a divided world," "of social class," "of ethnicity," and "of gender." This focus is evident in the chapter titles: Understanding the Media, Media Globalization, Media Ownership: Concentration and Conglomeration, Media Production and Media Professionals, Media Ideology, Analyzing Media Content: 'Re-presentations in a Divided World,' and Audiences and Reception.
Devereux includes introductory material on content analysis, and a good comparison of quantitative vs. qualitative approaches.
Though the book was published in 2003, it uses Internet statistics mostly from 1996-97 and 1999, so I disagree with the overly negative take on the Internet's potential influence on promoting agency and revitalizing the public sphere.
My mother gave me an ancient treasure today that she had found in her records.
It's a well-thumbed blue Hilroy Exercise Book, a No. 993 Narrow Ruled, with a price of 39 cents printed on it.
It contains a list of 1,446 books that I read between August 1971 and July 1, 1985. That's an average of 103 books a year!
There is also a series of notations and calculations on the last page that says by a "conservative estimate" I had read 1,250 books up to August 1971, for a total of 2,696 books by age 26.
Zounds! Needless to say, the yearly totals dwindled fairly rapidly until for several years I was reading barely a book a month. In the last couple of years I've been back up to several books a month, but I doubt if I'll ever return to the voracious pace of my youth.
I still keep records of books I've read, and after a six-month gap in the last half of 1985 (when I was on the road in Japan and Southeast Asia -- surely I must have some record somewhere?), the count picks up again in 1986.
From 1986 through the end of 2004, I read 819 books, for a life total to that date of 3,515 books.
Flipping through that dog-eared Hilroy stirs fond memories of binges of reading on photography, cars, art, nature, music, economics, history, psychology, Canadiana, etc. The phases I went through, the one or two-month flares of passion for some subject that I can barely recall now.
A summer in my teens spent in a cast, plowing through Solzhenitsyn novel after Solzhenitsyn novel. I read thousands of pages of Solzhenitsyn in a month or two, the Gulag series and most of his novels -- I guess I was quite ill :-).
It's a fascinating record, and a somewhat scary one too, when I think of how few of all those words I can recall. I guess it all adds up though -- while I may not remember specifics, the knowledge and the styles are still guiding me today.
Thanks for preserving that blue notebook, Mom!
Review - Preparing for the Twenty-First Century.
By Paul Kennedy
This is a solid overview of the economic, social and political forces that are shaping the world into the 21st century. Kennedy presents a good discussion of the changes that are affecting the world, and the challenges that humankind will have to deal with to survive.
The general trends that he lays out include the demographic explosion, the rise of information technology that is driving a communications and financial revolution, biotechnology, robotics and dangers to the environment.
As with many recent commentators, Kennedy points out the ever-increasing gaps between wealthy and poor nations, and posits that "... the most important influence on a nation's responsiveness to change probably is its social attitudes, religious beliefs, and culture."
While not shying away from the huge problems we face, Kennedy believes people and nations can choose to respond positively to change, however that requires the adoption of "... a market economy, at least to the extent that merchants and entrepreneurs are not discriminated against, deterred, and preyed upon; the abscence of rigid, doctrinal orthodoxy; the freedom to inquire, to dispute, to experiment; a belief in the possibilities of improvement; a concern for the practical rather than the abstract; a rationalism that defies mandarin codes, religious dogma, and traditional folklore."
The question is whether or not our political and social structures can adapt quickly enough to keep a handle on the massive changes going on around us.
"It is inconcievable that the earth can sustain a population of 10 billion people devouring resources at the rate enjoyed by richer societies today -- or at even half that rate. Well before total world population reaches that level, irreparable damage to forests, water supplies, and animal and plant species will have occurred, and many environmental thresholds may have been breached."
Can we run fast enough to stay in place?
The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580.
By Samuel Bawlf
Take painstaking historical research, add a buccaneering yarn about one of the greatest sailors and adventurers who ever sailed the seas, toss in the development of new theories about exploration that read like a detective novel and you get this wonderful book by Samuel Bawlf.
The gist of the story is that Bawlf believes Drake got much further north up the coast of western Canada in a search for an Arctic passage than previously believed, and he makes an excellent case.
Maps and charts have always had great strategic value, and the charts and logs of Drake's various voyages were purposely obfuscated and censored.
Review - The Unusually Useful Web Book.
By June Cohen.
This is another website book that focuses on creating succesful websites rather than the nitty-gritty of coding.
Lots of useful information on usability, ranking, common errors, etc.
Plenty of lists and action items make it easy to quickly implement some of the ideas, and comments from experts on the front lines back up the information.
Review - Vanvouver, City on the Edge: Living with a Dynamic Geological Landscape.
by John Clague & Bob Turner
This book is a fascinating look at the geology of the lower mainland area of British Columbia. Full of illustrations and photographs, it is an excellent primer on the history and present state of the landscape we live in.
The authors cover several important issues including earthquakes, slides, volcanoes and watersheds. They also point out several good locations for field trips.
One point that one hears from time to time, and that always blows my mind, is that if we look at the age of Earth and compare it to a single calendar year, human recorded history began 30 seconds ago.
Ponder that for a moment. When looking at one calendar year as compared to the age of Earth, "It was not until 8 PM December 31 that humans evolved from more primitive primates... All recorded history falls within the last 30 seconds."
Amazing when you consider to what extent our species has impacted our planet in a few dozen heartbeats.
Review - The Enduring Forests: Northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Southeast Alaska
Edited by Ruth Kirk, Photo Editor Charles Mauzy
Soothing photographs accompany sparkling essays on the forests of the west coast of North America from California to Alaska.
Covering issues including logging, biodiversity, and our increasing knowledge that nature cannot survive in isolated pockets, it is a solid read in addition to being a feast for tired eyes.
Review - Designing Web Usability
by Jakob Nielsen
Nielsen is the Web usability guru, and his site is well worth checking out if you do any design work.
This book thoroughly covers page and site design, along with usability and accessibility.
While some may find Nielsen on the conservative side, his advice would help 95% of the sites on the Web to some degree.
Remember the user!
Review - Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual
by David S. McFarland
Another of the excellent books in the missing manuals series that I read from cover to cover. Yes, I know, there's something wrong with me :-).
It has comprehensive coverage of the powerful Macromedia Dreamweaver Web publishing program. I have yet to put Dreamweaver to use, though I've dabbled with it a bit, however I have a number of sites that I want to spruce up and make compliant with XHTML, so I'll be getting into the program soon.
Review - The Honorable Visitors: The plot to assassinate Charlie Chaplin and other Tokyo welcomes...
by Donald Richie
"To visit Japan... even now, in the age of jumbo jets and package tours, a faint air of the exotic clings to the project. You are going to a land somehow strange, somehow other. This quality of the different, the unfamiliar, can be an attraction, something to be enjoyed, or it can be a discomfort, something to be complained about. It depends on you."
Richie puts his delightful insights and delectable prose to good use in this charming collection of stories about the visits of famous Westerners to Japan following the opening of its closed borders in the later part of the 19th century.
Ranging from Ulysses S. Grant to Rudyard Kipling to William Faulkner, we get a cross section of the cross, the enamoured and the factually observant.
A gem of a short collection, it should be mandatory reading for all prospective and practicing travel writers or cultural critics.
Review - The Ronin: A Novel Based on a Zen Myth
by William Dale Jennings
This is a mind-bending tale. Violent and ribald, it is a pithy take on pride and human weakness. The language is taut, the perceptions of humain frailties are uncomfortable, the Zen mystique and way of the sword are thought provoking.
Not a novel for the timid, or those who cannot stomach a blunt, down-to-earth look at life, once hooked, you'll want to read it again.
Review - Marketing Your Service
by Jean Withers and Carol Vipperman
This is another book in the Self-Counsel Press series of do-it-yourself business books. I've used several of the books in our business, and for the most part they have been clear and helpful.
This book is an introduction to marketing targeted at service businesses. It covers the basics of defining your business and its goals, and then writing a marketing plan to achieve your goals.
About half of the book is made up of excercises designed to get you to think about your business and get your plan down on paper. At first I thought this was a waste of space -- it would be more efficient to simply point readers to a website where they could download the material -- however on second thought perhaps it is useful to be immediately confronted with those blank pages!
Speaking from personal experience, I know how easy it is to simply "wing it" when it comes to running a small business, and while that may lead to short-term success, it rarely leads to growth and expansion.
I've zipped through the book, pehaps it's time to fill in some of the blanks...
Review - The Canadian Writer's Guide, 13th Edition
This "Official Handbook of the Canadian Authors Accociation" is a collection of bite-sized articles on a wide variety of topics of interest to aspiring and published writers.
Ranging from prose to poetry, from the business of writing to finding an agent, it can be read cover to cover, or flipped through at leisure to find topics of interest. Articles range from a page to four pages in length.
It also contains extensive listings of writing groups, contests, and private and governmental funding sources.
Review - The Run of the River: Portraits of Eleven British Columbia Rivers
by Mark Hume
Hume weaves eleven tales about eleven rivers, convincingly showing that we are in the eleventh hour before much of what little wilderness remains may be lost. This eye-opening book is a must for anyone who is concerned about preserving our natural heritage and maintaining our fisheries.
"Long before the environmental stress on a river becomes obvious to most of us, it shows up in the fish. They are canaries in a coal mine -- but canaries that cannot sing. We must pay attention to what the fish are telling us, and to the whispering voices of our rivers, for they are speaking about our future."
Hume's first-hand experiences and research combine in moving prose that focuses on the human propensity to ignore environmental costs and fixate on short-term economic gain. Yet there are growing numbers of people from ever-broadening constituencies who are waking up to what we have been doing, and realizing that technology cannot solve everything.
"... while engineers can reproduce fish, they cannot replace nature. Hatcheries are technological marvels and they may be a necessity in the modern world, but they are not signs of progress; they are monuments to our failure to protect rivers."
Why does nature always have to come last in our scheme of things? "...fish have no legal rights to water. There is no base flow reserved for them."
People have been wiping out salmon runs for centuries, and B.C. and the rest of the Pacific northwest host the best that remain. We have learned that runs are genetically unique, and once gone, are very difficult to repopulate.
"The important thing is that the habitat be taken care of. Without that, no salmon can survive, for there is no genetic code that can overcome suffocation, pollution, or a lack of water."
Review - Return to the River: The Classic Story of the Chinook Run and of the Men Who Fish It
by Roderick Haig-Brown
Originally published in the 1940s, this "historical novel" was reissued in 1997. It's a wonderful tale of the lifecycle of chinook salmon told from the perspective of one fish from birth to death. The detail is incredible as "Spring" hatches, begins to grow, travels downstream to the ocean, and returns years later to spawn and die at the spot she was born.
While at times verging on the hokey to a modern reader, the rich, colorful prose more than makes up for any feeling of being dated. It's still an excellent read.
What is disturbing is that the occasional optimism at man's hoped for ability to use technology to restore nature, and salmon runs in particular, has not been borne out.
This is a theme that is cropping up over and over again as I explore more books about salmon -- humanity's seeming inability to learn from mistakes. Or inability to enforce regulations and laws to prevent short-term "gain" and destruction.
Review - National Geographic Photography Field Guide
by Peter Burian and Robert Caputo
With a copyright of 1999, this book barely touches the digital camera revolution, however it thoroughly covers all the basics of exposure, depth of field, lighting, composition, using different lenses etc., that apply to all photography.
As an added bonus, the book is chock full of gorgeous National Geographic photographs, many of which are simply stunning.
Having done a lot of photography in my youth, I skimmed the technical parts and concentrated on brushing up on composition and lighting. I also enjoyed the interviews with National Geographic photographers that are interspersed throughout the book.
This book is an excellent introduction to photography.
Review - Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition
by David Pogue, Craig Zacker, L.J. Zacker
Yes, believe it or not, I do read computer manuals from cover to cover :-).
I recently got a new computer running Windows XP Pro after being happy with a Windows 2000 Pro box for over four years. XP is different enough from 2000 that I needed some mental upgrading.
The "Missing Manual" series is excellent. The books are engaging, cover their topics extensively, and are funny to boot.
The series is aptly named as well, considering my installation of XP Pro came with only a 32-page introductory pamphlet. What is Microsoft thinking? Oh, yeah,that it can make more money selling books...
I found the XP Pro Missing Manual to be very useful, as it explained a few things I was confused about, and showed me how to accomplish things in XP that are different from Windows 2000.
Highly recommended if you are new to Windows XP Pro. The content can be understood by beginners who take their time going through the book, yet there is still plenty of useful information for advanced users who can skim the more basic parts.
Review - Macromedia Dreamweaver MX for Windows & Macintosh: Visual Quickstart Guide
by J. Tarin Towers
Well here it is, a few days to 2005, and I finally finished this book long after I had installed Macromedia Studio MX 2004, a newer version of the software. Unfortunately I've never gotten around to learning Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash, maintaining my mediocre sites with HomeSite and an ancient version of FrontPage that produces really ugly code.
I vow to transfer all of the sites that I maintain to Dreamweaver in the coming year, and take advantage of its clean code and powerful capabilities. I also want to redesign all of my sites with XHTML and CSS stylesheets.
I started this book early in 2004, and found it buried in a corner of my desk a week ago and decided to finish it. It's a clear, well-illustrated guide to the intricacies of Dreamweaver. It's a fairly exhaustive treatment that remains readable and accessible.
Manuals included with software are getting thinner and thinner, and one has to rely on books like this one to learn new programs.
Review - Web ReDesign: Workflow that Works
by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler
This is a solid guide to designing and overhauling websites, with a focus on project management, design and content as opposed to the nuts and bolts of writing HTML/XHTML or setting up dynamic database-driven sites.
The authors do an excellent job of laying out a process that can be applied to almost any scenario, starting from defining the project, to developing site structure, visual design and testing, and production and quality assurance.
The focus of the process is the user, and rightly so. Test, test and test again -- can users use the site easily and effectively?
Highly recommended for anyone who works in the web publishing arena.
More information and downloads can be found on the book's accompanying website. There is a "2.0" version out that I have not seen yet.
Review - Zen in the Art of Archery
by Eugen Herrigel
This whimsical tale of a European learning Zen through the practice of Japanese archery for six years between the great wars is a profoundly satisfying little read.
Just over 100 pages long, it chronicles the author's attempts to lose his "willful will" and become one with the art. A wonderful introduction by T. Suzuki ably sets the stage, and the reader is carried along with Herrigel's frustrations and gradual progress.
Review - Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
by Anne Lamott
"...for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die."
If the above resonates in your soul, if you have the itch to write something, anything, this book is for you. Lamott takes an unflinching, deeply emtional, yet humorous look at life and writing, and one comes away uplifted.
Lamott takes the reader through the whole writing process, and manages to teach a lot about life in general along the way.
"Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do -- the actual act of writing -- turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward."
This book can, and in fact ought to be, savored chapter by chapter, so that all of the annecdotes and advice truly sink in. Enjoy.
Review - Information Anxiety 2
by Richard Saul Wurman
"Learning is remembering what we're interested in."
That's the lead theme in this thought-provoking potpourri of ideas for dealing with the deluge of information we are subjected to in modern life, and choosing how to live rewarding lives.
Wurman is probably best known for his TED confernces on technology, entertainment and design.
"A weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in 17th-century England."
How do we deal with this and live meaningful lives? Wurman collects thoughts on business, education, learning, communication, and personal growth, and presents it in an easily digestible manner.
An important step in gaining control is "to be able to admit when you don't understand something."
Wurman pokes holes into objectivity and facts: "A fact can be comprehended only within the context of an idea. And ideas are irrevocably subjective, which makes facts just as subjective.... The key to understanding is to accept that any account of an event is bound to be subjective, no matter how committed the recounter is to being accurate and objective."
Questioning everything is key to understanding. "Life is all about questions. If you stop asking, you stop living."
It comes down to designing your life. "Confidence in your own understanding, acceptance of your ignorance, and determination to pursue your interests are the weapons against anxiety."
Review - Cadillac Dessert: The American West and its Disappearing Water
by Marc Reisner
Written some 20 years ago, this book is a brilliantly researched and colorfully written account of how man's attempts to tame the deserts and arid plains have resulted in incredible folly, wasteful spending, and environmental destruction.
Blending history, geography, political science and rolling narrative, it's an excellent expose of how greed, self-interest, misplaced piety, and pork-barrel politics have resulted in hundreds of at best dubious, and at worst incredibly destructive, water projects over the last century.
Review - The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era.
By Jeremy Rifkin
Rifkin draws an apocalyptic picture of all that could go wrong with global society as rapidly increasing numbers of jobs are replaced by computerization, automation and robotics. I felt somewhat sceptical, as the book was written nearly ten years ago, and I haven't noticed dramatic increases in unemployment. Yet the trend is there, and it certainly would be wise to prepare for possible consequences.
Rifkin's thesis is: "The wholesale substitution of machines for workers is going to force every nation to rethink the role of human beings in the social process. Redefining opportunities and responsibilities for millions of people in a society absent of mass formal employment is likely to be the single most pressing social issue of the coming century."
Rifkin writes about the increasing gap between menial labor and knowledge workers, and points out that "... all three of the traditional sectors of the economy -- agriculture, manufacturing, and service -- are experiencing technological displacement, forcing millions onto the unemployment rolls."
Is there any hope? Rifkin sees some in the third sector or non-profit organizations, work sharing, shorter work weeks, taxation policies, and so on. He considers the utopian view that technology will solve everything.
Yet his conclusion is that "the end of work could spell a death sentence for civilization as we have come to know it. The end of work could also signal the beginning of a great social transformation, a rebirth of the human spirit. The future lies in our hands."
Well, the future has always been in our hands, though perhaps it is more so now than earlier in our history.
Do we know where we're going to?
What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East.
Bernard Lewis
This book was written based on a series of lectures and originally published just prior to 9/11.
It's a short, highly readable look into how and why the Muslim world fell behind progress elsewhere around the globe over the last 500-600 years, and the anger that has fueled.
The gap appears to boil down to an inflexible dogmatism that refuses to allow the separation of religion from politics, governance and law, and equality for women.
What is terrifying is that the backlash against the West that is resulting in a return to rigid dogma is perverting even positive Islamic principles.
I didn't see much in the book to reassure me, however it did help me get some idea of where the anger is coming from and why. Not encouraging.
Starting and Running a Nonprofit Organization
Joan M. Hummel
2nd Edition
A good introduction to exactly what the title states.
This well-written, concise guide covers a lot of the bases, with emphasis on setting goals and measuring results.
Whether dealing with setting up an effective board of directors, raising funds, running the office and coordinating volunteers, or compiling and monitoring budgets, this book offers sage advice.
While aimed at a U.S. audience, I found plenty of information to put to good use in Canada.
I have winnowed out over a hundred books from my shelves to donate or give away. It's always hard to see them go, but I need the space.
When my wife and I moved from Japan to Canada in 1999, we shipped over 100 boxes at great expense, and over half of them contained books. Those boxes were met by 30 or 40 more boxes of books that had sat in my mother's garage for the 14 years I lived in Japan.
Last week, nearly five years after we arrived in Canada, I finally unpacked the last half-dozen boxes, and something had to give.
Last summer I managed to toss a couple of hundred old textbooks and useless tomes on the Soviet Union and Eastern European history. At one point in my life I'd thought I'd be a Kremlinologist :-).
This latest batch includes a pile of Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Robert Ludlum and other assorted novels. Why keep them when I'll never re-read any of them? A bunch of books on running -- my back hasn't been able to take pavement-pounding for years now....
There are several hundred more books that could go, but this is enough for the moment.
Start and Run a Copywriting Business
by Steve Slaunwhite
Another how-to book in the Self-Counsel Press small business series.
Our business is mostly translating and editing, however I found this book a valuable read. Much of it applies to any freelance creative business.
Lots of good tips on setting rates, getting organized, marketing and promotion, and dealing with clients.
The Bear and the Dragon
by Tom Clancy
Copyright 2000
Why am I still reading Tom Clancy novels after he's strung Jack Ryan out about three increasingly preachy books too many?
New York Times #1 Bestseller, I guess that's why. Plus I didn't buy this one, a friend gave it to me over a year ago and I finally got around to plowing through its turgid 1,000-plus pages while I was under the weather recently.
It's sad that such a formulaic novel that blatantly stimulates all sorts of phobias and fears while banging the drum of American superiority can top the bestseller lists.
Never one to hide his biases, Clancy goes over the top in this novel with extreme religious and political views.
Tom, we know you're anti-abortion, we know you hold deep religious beliefs, we know you think U.S.-style democracy has no equal and that its military can never lose.... Lighten up, eh?
I admire much about the U.S., and I think Canada should be putting a lot more money into its military, but I found myself gagging at this novel's black-and-white take on international relations.
I also got sick of all the racist language. If that's really the way "our" leaders talk about "them," and how "they" talk about "us," we might as well give up hope for the human race.
All in all, a disappointing book.
The Eye of the World
by Robert Jordan
Book One of The Wheel of Time
Where did I get this epic fantasy novel? I don't remember if I bought it in a second-hand bookstore or if someone gave it to me. Why did I read it? It started with a bout of insomnia that found me in my office around midnight, looking for something light to get lost in.
Did I like it? Well, I read the whole thing and got quite caught up in it, even though it had too many characters and scenes ripped straight out of Tolkien.
One of the blurbs on the back cover says "Women have a stronger role than in Tolkien."
Yep, Gandalf is a woman, served and protected by a Strider-a-like character. We also have the village bumpkin heroes, one of whom carries a special sword. We have Orcs (Trollocs), we have wraiths, we have a Dark One, we have a talking tree....
There are twists and additions to the tale, and it's not badly written, it's just unfortunate that one keeps muttering "this is just like Tolkien" too often for comfort.
Will I venture into the rest of this series that began to be released in 1990? Tough call. I have dozens of other books piled up unread that would probably be a more valuable use of time.
Here are a few books I've read recently that I thought would be of interest to streamkeepers. Both were interesting, thought provoking, and well written.
King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon
David R. Montgomery
Westview Press, 2003.
ISBN 0-8133-4147-7
Montgomery is a Professor of Geomorphology at the University of Washington. The book is an excellent study of the decline of salmon, starting with Atlantic salmon in Europe, then moving across the Atlantic to eastern North America, and ending with the Pacific Northwest.
This well-documented book looks at the history of habitat destruction, and the repeated good intentions and the mistakes that have wiped out salmon runs. Legislation to protect salmon dates back well over 500 years (!), however poor enforcement and a lack of coordination between national, state/provincial, and municipal authorities abetted the decline.
He talks about what can be done to protect what we have left, and how to revive runs, with an emphasis on the Pacific situation. Highly recommended for anyone at all interested in streamkeeping, environmentalism, etc.
"Unlike our ancestors, those of us alive today comprise the generations running headlong into the limits of our use of natural systems while observing permanent loss of much of our natural heritage. The bottom line is that people have the freedom to change their behavior, whereas fish do not. If we are to save wild salmon, then some people will lose money or the ability to do things they wanted to do. But we all lose if we lose the salmon." (p. 245)
Cathedral of the World: Sailing Notes For A Blue Planet
Myron Arms
Doubleday, 1999
ISBN 0-385-49269-3
A book of short essays and thoughts about people and nature, particularly in relation to the vastness of the oceans that makes one realize how insignificant, yet damaging, humans are as a species. A wonderful, thought-provoking read, it is the kind of book that you can appreciate in nibbles. I kept finding myself staring off into space, lost in thought after reading each short section.
"...if we can silence our egos for a moment and set aside our preconceptions about who we think we are, we may begin to perceive some of the lessons that the rest of nature has to teach: lessons not of personality but of relationship, not of order but of complexity, not of private property but of shared responsibility, not of rationality but of mystery, not of the ultimacy of the human enterprise but of the interdependency of all life." (p. 47)
"... is the story we've been telling ourselves about our 'progress' as a species during the last ten thousand years really upside-down? Have we actually regressed, psychologically, from a state of harmony with our natural surroundings to a state of boredom, contentiousness, and alienation?" (p. 122).
"... we have learned to adapt, by increments, to the humanscapes around us until we can hardly remember what a natural landscape looks like any longer.... Most dangerous of all, we convince ourselves, perhaps because of the pervasiveness of the humanscape, that we are at the center of things -- that we are the controllers, the 'managers' of the planet."
If you've got some good reads to share, let me know!