Book a Week in 2014 - BW46

[Kareni]

 And dh wants me to read a Saramago novel that's apparently plague-related also. Because he's been trying to get me to read Saramago for years. And I think he's a little jealous of my virtual reading club here.

 

Tell your husband that he's welcome here, too!  Pondering possible posting names for him (Violet Tiara? Indigo Crown? Violet Crumble?!) led me to learn from Wikipedia that "In one of his surviving fragments (fragment 64), the lyric poet Pindar wrote of Athens: City of light, with thy violet crown, beloved of the poets, thou art the bulwark of Greece."   I guess that my dearth of pre-1700s reading is showing itself!

 

Regards,

Kareni

[shukriyya]

How would we define sentience?  What threshold of awareness/experience would a living being need to cross to qualify as sentient?  ...and how would act differently if we were to learn that fleas are indeed sentient?

 

As I worked through today's labors, these questions have been nibbling at my consciousness.

 

I am certain that a stone has no awareness, no perceptions, no congnition, and definitely no sentience.

 

 

Of this I am most decidedly not certain. And it's late so I shall leave it at that for now...

 

Stones

 

Stones are only visiting us

here in the realm of perception.

They have a time

deeper than time.

They sing

quiet. They hold

space open

for shadows

and tilt the continuity

of the empty view.

They point

in the direction of around

and about

but not for

anyone. They long

for their unborn selves —and lean

against thought.

No feeling is at home among them.

No touch touches

except itself.

The stone is sleeping

as wide

as awake

and takes away the need to stay

too long.

 

George Quasha

[Nan in Mass]

shukriyya - Oooo lovely. I have always loved that bit in Kim where he lies down in the dust. It made me look at unliving things from a different point of view. I have a great respect for rocks, between living in New England and making a Japanese-style garden. My husband and I set many rocks for that. Some of them required a come-along attached to a tree and various crowbars and a really strong back. When they were right, they were right. My husband would laboriously get a three foot boulder in place and I would look at it and say, "I'm really really sorry but I think it needs to tip three inches that way." And he would come stand by me and sigh and say, "You're right," and go do through the whole process of resetting it. It was amazing. When it was right, it looked right to both of us and we would agree.

 

Eliana - I don't think we can know if plants are sentient. I have a hard time believeing that my giant beeches aren't and it doesn't bother me that I don't know one way or the other for sure. Maybe they communicate with each other on a different time scale? Or they are really something different in a different dimension? Life is full of surprises, like when I discovered that mushrooms aren't at all what I thought and instead are the biggest living thing on the planet. Do you even have to communicate with others to be sentient? I do believe that you can be cruel to plants. I have absolutely no problem believing that they suffer. And on a different subject, maybe love at first sight is an instantaneous recognition of commonality?

 

About LotR - I don't find it depressing. I find it sustaining and uplifting and strengthening. To me, it is about how someone ordinary can change the world, about love and loyalty and sacrifice and mercy, about doing the right thing even if it seems hopeless, about keeping on going. I like the poetry bits. I have never seen the movies. To me, the book is long, something to read a few pages a day for months, the way it was read to me when I was a child. I have no desire to condense it into a few hours. I also don't want my own pictures overlaid by someone else's ideas, or the voices (my mother's) overlaid by someone else's voice. I read it aloud to my own children and then was disconcerted to discover that they heard the book in my voice, not my mother's. Oops. : ) She's a way better reader than I, even though as I was reading it, I heard her voice and read it more or less the same way. (There are quite a few books that I hear in her voice. I was so thankful that I never had an English class that read it.

 

Nan

[Rosie_0801]

That's an interesting distinction - soul-mate connection/love.   Now that you say it, I can see that, and it makes sense... Hmmm. 

 

That's a hard question.

 

Do you want things written towards the inside or reaching out?  ... philosophical or personal or practical?

 

(Pam, you should chime in too!  I just put a purchase request in for Kaddish: Women's Voices thanks to your recommendation)

 

Re: Soul mates. It's not hard to imagine how people would mistake it for love. I was interested to learn soul mates and kindred spirits were not the same thing. One of my life's mysteries solved! 

 

 

Re: Jewish books. I don't want anything in particular. I have the book you sent me and would need to acquire four more! I'd rather not rely on the advice of the chaps in the Jewish shop because they were so useless. Perhaps it is best not to shop in Jewish shops on Fridays when their wives are all at home cooking.

[Rosie_0801]

Eliana - I don't think we can know if plants are sentient. I have a hard time believeing that my giant beeches aren't and it doesn't bother me that I don't know one way or the other for sure. Maybe they communicate with each other on a different time scale? Or they are really something different in a different dimension? Life is full of surprises, like when I discovered that mushrooms aren't at all what I thought and instead are the biggest living thing on the planet. Do you even have to communicate with others to be sentient? I do believe that you can be cruel to plants. I have absolutely no problem believing that they suffer. And on a different subject, maybe love at first sight is an instantaneous recognition of commonality?

 

 

I've got a bunch of Coursera vids to watch some time on plants senses. I've watched a few and the info was pretty cool. *Obviously* plants have senses, but I found it a tricky thing to try and think about.

 

To go over all New Age and hippy at you all, I received energy from a plant once. Just like you do from a pet animal if they discover you curled up in a corner sobbing.

[ChrisB]

I need to spend time looking at that list. I'm curious to see how many of those I've read. 

 

Just finished The Aviator's Wife - 4 Stars - This book is about Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Before reading this, I really did not know much about them at all (I read “Gift from the Sea†by Anne just over ten years ago). As I was reading, I found myself continuously going online to research Lindberghs. Melanie Benjamin does a great job with historical biographies. This is her second book that I’ve read and really enjoyed, the first one was Mrs. Tom Thumb. I look forward to reading more by her.

 

 

 

Oh, this looks interesting.  Might have to add it to my to-read list.

 

For those of you who skip the song lyrics in the LotR books, y'all need to hear ds's versions. He's set them all to music of his own composing and they are beautifully rendered in his clear boy soprano. Even the elvish ones.

 

Ahhh, that's lovely.

[ChrisB]

I woke up today in a quantifying mood.  As such urges strike rarely, I wanted to share, lol...

 

Of VC's 52 books thus far in 2014, I've read 8, or 15%.  Of these 8, only one did I read this year (Cone Gatherers).  VC's comment about how much higher a percentage of the 1001 list she'd read in more recent ETA: earlier!!   centuries got me curious, so...

 

 

(first of all, I would like to take this opportunity to kvetch about just how exasperating to quantifcation-minded sorts such as, ahem, myself :lol:   are all the a,b,c's on that list???! Once you count all those in, it's not 1001 books at all; it's more like 1243!!  So, Robin, at current rates it actually will take 123 MORE years to get through them all than you'd forecasted.....)

 

 

Anyway, drumroll...

 

In the 2000's: I've read 17 out of (approximately!  see a,b,c issue, above, grumble) 109 books:  16%

 

in the 1900's: I've read 127 out of (approximately! grumble) 920 books: 14%

 

In the 1800's: I've read 33 out of (approximately! grumble) 189 books: 17%

 

Earlier: I've read 10 out of 25 books: 40%

 

(total: 177 / 1243 ish: 14%)

 

which was interesting to me... unlike VC I actually don't feel that I mostly live in pre-1800 literature circles -- I expected the % to decline as I went back in time.  It is true that were it not for Austen, the Brontes and Dickens by 1800's would have been quite paltry!

 

 

So that's my Morning Report.  I do believe I'm avoiding dusty philosophy books...

 

LOVE.  Oh, to the Misrepresentation!  Bait-n-Switch?!

[ChrisB]

Stopping in....this is the time of year where I really resort to fluff. My 52 is accomplished and other things have taken over my mind. :) Earlier this week I tried out a Debbie Macomber - Three Brides, No Grooms. I hated it and couldn't put it down,

 

Jane, JANE! I went and "test drove" the Husqvarnas on Sunday....will message you about that soon! :001_wub: :001_wub: :001_wub:

 

"I hated it and couldn't put it down"  This made me LOL!  I've read a few of those, and I always wonder why, just why did I finish it.

[ChrisB]

Next up for me:  The Object of Her Affections by Sonya Cobb about a young-ish mother who is stealing masterpieces from the museum of art where her husband works in order to keep their house--which she HAD to have, lol--out of foreclosure.

 

After that, I will be tackling Kristin Lavrandsdatter.  I'm afraid.  It's huge.  Also, a quick question to anyone who has read this.  The back of the copy I have says it "portrays the clash between feudal violence and Christian piety..." and I'm wondering how negatively religion is portrayed in the story.  (I'm OK with negative, showing the flaws of flawed human beings, but exaggerated criticism of any religion can get annoying if it's a constant thing.) 

 

Don't be afraid.  I really enjoyed the whole trilogy, although it took me awhile to get through them all.  If I remember correctly (and it's been a few years), I think religion was neither negatively portrayed nor an exaggerated criticism.  As a matter of fact, I appreciate how she makes living the faith part of every day life for some of the characters, a commonplace, not as a contrary existence.  If it makes a difference, the author, Sigrid Undset, converted to Catholicism soon after this trilogy was published.

[ladydusk]

I read Elena Greene's Three Disgraces series. It was pretty well done, I liked the characters and the plots were interesting (if occasionally stretched too long). R rated.

 

I'm going back to The Ivy Tree.

[Nan in Mass]

How would we define sentience?  What threshold of awareness/experience would a living being need to cross to qualify as sentient?  ...and how would act differently if we were to learn that fleas are indeed sentient?

 

As I worked through today's labors, these questions have been nibbling at my consciousness.

 

I am certain that a stone has no awareness, no perceptions, no congnition, and definitely no sentience.

 

What about plants?  Do they have sensations?  Can one be cruel to a plant?  (does cruelty require intent?  a recipient who perceives it as cruel (or unpleasant)?) 

 

Thinking about things I believe not to have sentience, I felt that being a living being could be a prerequisite - though what about the possiblity of artificial intelligence/sentience?  ...and would we use a biology textbook definition of living (which would certainly exclude a computer), or some other measure?

 

I'll spare you all the rest of my process, but I perceive a dividing line between experience of sensation and cognition... and then another between having some measure of cognition and having a sense of self... and perhaps yet another between self-awareness and the extension of having awareness of other beings as also being self-aware.

 

...and now I want to go reread Slonczewski's Daughter of Elysium (which I *just read* the other week) and revisit her exploration of sentience... maybe I'll reread Children Star instead.  My least favorite, but it has some interesting pieces that connect to these thoughts (and to my microbiology studies!)

 

Still thinking about this.  (I seem to move more slowly than the thread lol.)

 

Eliana, I think my definition of cruel is broader than yours.  I think of cruel as something you do that causes another being to suffer that damages your soul (? I can't think of a better word).  If your intent is to cause suffering, then even suffering at the level of discomfort counts.  If it is an accident, then the suffering has to be greater than discomfort to count as cruel.  I probably didn't explain that well.  Plants sense their environment and respond to it, therefore they are able to suffer.  I have seen people deliberately inflict suffering on plants because they themselves hurt, and I have seen people kill plants by neglecting them or not knowing what to do for them.  Therefore, one is able to be cruel to plants.  Logic isn't my strong point, though, and this is such an ingrained belief that it isn't a logic thing, anyway.

 

Next bit - For now, I have naturally growing in my definition of living, and living in my definition of sentient.  A plant senses and so does my outdoor light that turns on when it sees something move.  I have no trouble accepting that a plant might be sentient and lots accepting that the light is sentient, although they both obviously sense.  Things begin to get murkier when I get down to comparing single cell oranisms with, say, nano-widgets that both sense and reproduce.  I can definitely see a line between sensing and cognition (processing information), but it isn't necessarily a useful line to me because all computers have cognition but some have no ability to sense.  I find the line between cognition and self-awareness a whole lot more difficult to find.  How can we know?  I'm still thinking about the line between self-aware and aware that others are also self-aware.  I think that might be the most useful line.  The most useful line, I think, is the one between aware-that-others-are-also-self-aware and able-to-be-compassionate.  Are fleas able to be compassionate?  I don't know.  Are plants?  I don't know, although like Rosie, I have, at times of desperation, leaned against trees and felt comforted.  To be on the safe side, I just assume yes.  Is my dog able to be compassionate?  Yes, most definately.  To all who would say that my dog is showing compassion because it is in her own best interest, I would say that this is true of homosapiens as well.  And that when computers are complex enough, they, too, can exhibit this behavior.  At that point, I think perhaps you are down to differences in what the life form is made of - carbon or whatever.  I don't have any problem accepting that life that does not grow naturally here on earth could also be self-aware, aware that others are self-aware, and compassionate.

 

New question - Is our planet sentient?

 

Eliana, your questions led to a fascinating discussion of consciousness, life, and death between my mother and me over breakfast this morning.  She (a biologist) thought you had nailed it with your gradations.  I (a software engineer) was not as sure.  I see the whole thing as a gradation in complexity, a matter of amountness, and I am less willing to draw a line someplace on it than she is, being plagued with questions of other dimensions, fractals, and some of the modern physics.  She's the one that taught me the importance of ants in the grand scheme of things.  (My father taught me that every ant feels and has other people who depend on it.)  This is what I meant when I said that Ocean dealt with a whole lot of issues that are important to me.  : )  I think my mother will enjoy it, too, when she gets around to reading it.  (She's currently reading Margery Allinghams.)  We've discussed these things before, but it is more fun now that I am older and have my own knowledge to bring to the conversation.  I don't have any biology and she has no computer knowledge, so we had a wonderful time.

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

I've got a bunch of Coursera vids to watch some time on plants senses. I've watched a few and the info was pretty cool. *Obviously* plants have senses, but I found it a tricky thing to try and think about.

 

To go over all New Age and hippy at you all, I received energy from a plant once. Just like you do from a pet animal if they discover you curled up in a corner sobbing.

 

Rosie - I live in the woods.  The idea of plants having senses is pretty easy for me.  How about thinking?  Does thinking have to be done with electricity?  Or can it be done with hormones?  Would I be able to find those Coursera vids?  I bet my mother would enjoy them.

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

I will accept our fearless leader's challenge and will also try to fit it into my new 1/52/15 challenge by picking the books most likely to involve England/Regency period/a murder/or some delightful misunderstanding with a foppish young gentlemen and his clever butler.

 

Howards End – E.M. Forster

Kim - Rudyard Kipling

The Maltese Falcon - Dahiell Hammett

Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

 

So, are you expecting Kim to include a fopish young gentleman and his clever butler?  Because if so, I think you are in for a disappointment.  It does include a young gentleman following a wise older man, but the young gentleman is an orphan running amok and the wise older man is a lama.  And if I remember correctly, Bunter isn't very obvious in Murder Must Advertise and Wimsey isn't at his most foppish in Murder Must Advertise.

 

Not to discourage you...  I love both.

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

Negin, your post reminded me that I wanted to read this book. I had planned to read a trio of books this year, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe instead of 5/5/5 for myself, I'll do some book 'sets' in 2015, especially because I so enjoyed my Pym reading last year (4 books).

 

Some of the sets I'm planning:

 

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin

North to the Orient by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life by Susan Hertog

 

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Moby Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page by Matt Kish

maybe one or two other books TBD

 

The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo

In the Footsteps of Marco Polo by Denis Belliveau & Fancis O'Donnell

maybe one or two other books TBD

 

To your first set, you could add Wind, Sand, and Stars by St.-Exupéry, and The Tale of the Rose, by Consuelo de St.-Exupéry.  If you haven't read Le Petit Prince, you should add that (very quick read).

 

To the second, you could add The Heart of the Sea or Maus.

 

Nan

[Jane in NC]

Just to add to the complexity of the sentient issue:  Each of us carries in our bodies several pounds of bacteria.  As we go through the motions of daily life, how much of what we do is motivated by our bacterial biome?

 

As humans we tend to treat fellow vertebrates anthropomorphically.  I am not convinced that non-human animals share the range of emotions that humans claim they may have.  For example, as a volunteer with a wild bird rehabber, I have seen birds display fear or distress but not happiness.  I assume that a well fed osprey is content but that is my projection and probably not true.  These wild birds cannot be content to be caged while undergoing rehab!

 

Many of the people I know who love animals seem to draw the line at cockroaches.  We liberate spiders who come into the house (as oppose to killing them) but we kill earwigs with impunity.

 

Because of the difficulty of this issue, many cultures, I think, give different names to the animal in its living form vs. its state on the dinner table.  I have known  people who are happy omnivores only when the pig or cow on their plate has nothing to do visually with the pig or cow in the field (or the modern factory farm).  Is this why some people do not want a whole fish on their dinner plate?  A fillet is one thing but seeing the eyes of what you are eating is another?

 

Perhaps my last paragraph is raising another question beyond sentience, rather the ramifications of how we treat other sentient beings.

[aggieamy]

 

aggieamy, on 11 Nov 2014 - 5:14 PM, said:

I will accept our fearless leader's challenge and will also try to fit it into my new 1/52/15 challenge by picking the books most likely to involve England/Regency period/a murder/or some delightful misunderstanding with a foppish young gentlemen and his clever butler.

 

Howards End – E.M. Forster

Kim - Rudyard Kipling

The Maltese Falcon - Dahiell Hammett

Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

 

So, are you expecting Kim to include a fopish young gentleman and his clever butler?  Because if so, I think you are in for a disappointment.  It does include a young gentleman following a wise older man, but the young gentleman is an orphan running amok and the wise older man is a lama.  And if I remember correctly, Bunter isn't very obvious in Murder Must Advertise and Wimsey isn't at his most foppish in Murder Must Advertise.

 

Not to discourage you...  I love both.

 

Nan

 

As long as there is a murder I'll be happy.  

 

It sounds like Kim won't fit any of my categories but it kinda jumped off that page at me to read so I'll give it a try.  Would it be a suitable read aloud?

 

Looking back over the list it looks like EM Foster has a few on there.  Does anyone recommend a particular book to start with or to avoid?

[Jane in NC]

 

Looking back over the list it looks like EM Foster has a few on there.  Does anyone recommend a particular book to start with or to avoid?

 

 

I have read four Forster novels:  A Passage to India, Howard's End, Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View.  Howard's End might suit your reading tastes most although A Room with a View should also delight.

 

A Passage to India is probably my favorite (I obviously like Forster!) but it may not be an Amy book with its tensions.

[Violet Crown]

As humans we tend to treat fellow vertebrates anthropomorphically. I am not convinced that non-human animals share the range of emotions that humans claim they may have. For example, as a volunteer with a wild bird rehabber, I have seen birds display fear or distress but not happiness.

There was a red-shouldered hawk sitting on the phone line across the street from my house yesterday, with scattered feathers of what had once been a mourning dove on the street below. He looked pretty smug.

 

This discussion also makes me think of the Tejano saying, "Vultures await the will of God."

[Violet Crown]

I agree with Jane all around; I've only read Room With a View and Passage to India, and liked Passage better, but Room is the one I'd vote for.

 

Middle Girl read Kim this year and says it's the best Kipling and you should definitely read it. I suppose I ought to read it too.

[Jane in NC]

There was a red-shouldered hawk sitting on the phone line across the street from my house yesterday, with scattered feathers of what had once been a mourning dove on the street below. He looked pretty smug.

 

This discussion also makes me think of the Tejano saying, "Vultures await the will of God."

 

Not sure I have ever met a hawk that did not look smug.

 

 

[aggieamy]

I have read four Forster novels:  A Passage to India, Howard's End, Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View.  Howard's End might suit your reading tastes most although A Room with a View should also delight.

 

A Passage to India is probably my favorite (I obviously like Forster!) but it may not be an Amy book with its tensions.

 

M'dear you know me so well!  Thanks for chiming in.  

 

I agree with Jane all around; I've only read Room With a View and Passage to India, and liked Passage better, but Room is the one I'd vote for.

 

Middle Girl read Kim this year and says it's the best Kipling and you should definitely read it. I suppose I ought to read it too.

 

It seems to be such a problem ... all these books we ought to read and just not enough time.  I estimate I'll only have enough time to read between 10-12k more books in my life.  

[Jane in NC]

 

Middle Girl read Kim this year and says it's the best Kipling and you should definitely read it. I suppose I ought to read it too.

 

My son's favorite Kipling was Puck of Pook's Hill.

[Kareni]

Last night I read and enjoyed a novella and novel from the military romance Lost and Found series by J. L. Madden.

 

The novella:  The Embattled Road (free to Kindle readers)

 

"This is a 20,000 word novella, prequel to the Lost and Found Series. It contains strong language, violence and adult situations. Not for readers under 18.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Wounded Warrior Project.

In the harrowing prequel to The Lost and Found series, three embattled Marines must deal with their devastating physical and emotional injuries in a world that seems to have turned against them.
When the rescue helicopter crashes into his convoy in Iraq, Marine First Sergeant Duncan Wilde struggles with the loss of men, his career and the use of his body. Things can't get much worse. Until his fiancée decides she has to move on with her life, and that of her unborn child by another man.
Sergeant Chad Lowell knew when he went to war that it would come with a price. And it did. A young Marine under his command is killed by a landmine. Chad's left with one less leg and a mountain of recriminations. That doesn't mean he wants to be a pitied by every female he comes in contact with.
Gunnery Sergeant John Palmer is furious at the hand he's been dealt. He's served his country faithfully, if not without antagonism, for many years. Now they're turning him out like a relative who has overstayed his welcome. And, since he's not even a real man anymore, maybe it is time to move on permanently.
Can these wounded warriors use a friendship borne out of adversity to form a partnership rescuing others? And can they find real love in spite of their challenges?"

 

 

the novel:  Embattled Hearts

 

"John Palmer hasn’t felt like a real man since he was injured during combat in Iraq. Though not content with his new life, he is mostly adapting, just like the other vets at the Lost ‘N’ Found Investigative Service. When Shannon Murphy is hired on as the new office manager, life suddenly gets a lot more interesting. Before long, John finds himself wondering if he could ever be the kind of man Shannon needs. Shannon Murphy wasn’t really looking for love when she hired on at LNF, but finds herself hopelessly attracted to the sex-on-wheels former Marine, John Palmer. The man is grumpy and nearly impossible to work with, but his brand of masculinity appeals to her on a basic level. Soon Shannon is wondering just what it would take for John to want her the way she wants him. When an old enemy tries to settle a vendetta against Shannon, John insists on protecting her. He moves into her house, fanning the spark of attraction into a blaze. But the danger continues to escalate. Will the connection that they’ve found survive when they’re thrust into a fight for their lives?"

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Violet Crown]

My son's favorite Kipling was Puck of Pook's Hill.

Middle Girl says Kim is better than Puck. She likes the Indian setting. I guess I know which Forster she'll eventually be reading.

 

You know Puck has a sequel, right?

 

ETA: Though your son may have moved on....

[Jane in NC]

Middle Girl says Kim is better than Puck. She likes the Indian setting. I guess I know which Forster she'll eventually be reading.

 

You know Puck has a sequel, right?

 

ETA: Though your son may have moved on....

 

The title Puck of Pook's Hill has remained with me all of these years. The sequel, Rewards and Fairies, I had to look up.  I can't remember if he read it or not--would have been about 8th grade.

 

[Stacia]

Got to see Madame Butterfly at the opera last night. I shed a few tears at the beauty & the tragedy of the story. Lovely stuff.

 

Amy asked about book gifts. In our house...

 

Ds will be getting more Terry Pratchett books (in his quest to have a full collection of Discworld books), as well as the knowledge that he will get the new Flavia de Luce book when it comes out in January. Probably also Ultimate Signspotting.

 

Dd wants the last couple of books in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series (she has the rest). She will get some other books, I'm just not sure what yet. She's easy to buy books for.... Some contenders include: Faeries, Rookie Yearbook 3, The Black Apple's Paper Doll Primer, The Paper Magician, The Pack Goat, The Crystal Cave, Eat the Year, etc....

 

Not sure about other book gifts. I usually get my sister at least one very weird book of some kind. (Any recommendations?) Sometimes I'll get a book for my dad, usually some sort of military history. (Again, any recommendations?)

[aggieamy]

Got to see Madame Butterfly at the opera last night. I shed a few tears at the beauty & the tragedy of the story. Lovely stuff.

 

Amy asked about book gifts. In our house...

 

Ds will be getting more Terry Pratchett books (in his quest to have a full collection of Discworld books), as well as the knowledge that he will get the new Flavia de Luce book when it comes out in January. Probably also Ultimate Signspotting.

 

Dd wants the last couple of books in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series (she has the rest). She will get some other books, I'm just not sure what yet. She's easy to buy books for.... Some contenders include: Faeries, Rookie Yearbook 3, The Black Apple's Paper Doll Primer, The Paper Magician, The Pack Goat, The Crystal Cave, Eat the Year, etc....

 

Not sure about other book gifts. I usually get my sister at least one very weird book of some kind. (Any recommendations?) Sometimes I'll get a book for my dad, usually some sort of military history. (Again, any recommendations?)

 

Is your dad a fan of Patton's?  My mom got my dad his biography and he really enjoyed it.  I can ask her which one she specifically purchased for him.  

[mumto2]

Stacia, Dh recommends

 

On War by Carl Von Clausewitz (classic must have)

 

Art of War by Sun Tzu (another classic)

 

He suspects your dad may already have both but in case he doesn't......

[LostSurprise]

 

 

Looking back over the list it looks like EM Foster has a few on there.  Does anyone recommend a particular book to start with or to avoid?

 

 

I'm in agreement with A Room with a View. I haven't read Where Angels Fear to Tread, but I have read Maurice (which it sounds like no one else has). 

 

Howard's End has a great feel to it (as a lit person), but if you're a A+B=C person some of the character motivations feel inscrutable. 

 

Passage to India is probably his best, but it's kind of...I don't know...impersonal? in tone. With the theme I found it hard to get into.  

 

 

 

Loving the conversation on everything from sentience to love-at-first-sight. 

[mumto2]

Nan and Jane -- I have to say birds are sentient. My parrot was fully capable of creating sentences and expressing them using his 50 or so words. He could really get the point accross when he felt he wanted to. I will admit food was the issue that normally made him get creative and use his language but he definitely expressed his feelings. He LOVED things and would say so. Things were also BAD. He created basic sentences when needed using his words not just memorized phrases. I can't believe that a parrot is sentient and a hawk not. The hawk just lacks some of the parrot' abilities to express itself. A wild bird who has always been free is not going to content in a cage ever. Imo, but it will know it is not happy and why.

 

Not sure about insects. Ds argues that they are. As long as he removes them we are fine. ;)

[Stacia]

Yes, Amy, I'd appreciate the Patton title.

 

Mumto2, I know he's read Sun Tzu's book; not sure about the other one.

 

I haven't read E.M. Forster in ages, but I do remember A Passage to India being one of my most disliked books when I was in high school. At the time, I found it incredibly boring. The movie came out soon afterward & I actually went to the movie too, hoping they had managed to make it into something interesting. They didn't, imo. I read A Room with a View a long, long time ago & liked it ok. I've never had the urge to really read Forster again after those. :cool:  Oh well. I think I'm in the minority there again. (And I have a friend who loves, loves everything he has written.)

[Pam in CT]

On gradations, awareness, and expediencies of living:

 

I tend, myself, to start ethical musings with the idea of self-awareness, which fuses both a fairly high degree of cognitive capacity and also a capacity for some kind of language (at least enough for the being to "speak" to itself in some fashion).  Conveniently, that sets humans in a category of one, though artificial intelligence may soon get there.  

 

My daughter, however, from whom I have learned much in this realm, starts in a totally different place, with the capacity for pain.  And clearly all kinds of living beings demonstrably have the capacity for pain (and computers don't).

 

This difference in original perspective drives us in substantially different directions, i.e.:

 

How would we define sentience?  What threshold of awareness/experience would a living being need to cross to qualify as sentient?  ...and how would act differently if we were to learn that fleas are indeed sentient?

....

 

 (does cruelty require intent?  a recipient who perceives it as cruel (or unpleasant)?) 

I don't know that cruelty requires intent -- at some level it seems that this is a question about language, not substance -- but Stella has dragged me into conceding that harm does not require either intent or acknowledgment for the harm still to be real.  My desire for cheap clothing really does create a market which really is filled by young children slaving in SE Asia without ever seeing sunlight or wages; my desire for cheap food really does support agribusiness practices which inflict real pain on chickens, who surely have capacity to sense physical pain, whether or not they "perceive it as cruel" (which would require cognition and language that the chickens definitely don't have; and also access to context re: "cruel" that the sweatshop kid might not have).  The harm itself is real, though, independent of whether or not I or the kid or the chickens acknowledge it.

 

 

Eliana - I don't think we can know if plants are sentient. I have a hard time believeing that my giant beeches aren't and it doesn't bother me that I don't know one way or the other for sure. Maybe they communicate with each other on a different time scale? Or they are really something different in a different dimension? Life is full of surprises, like when I discovered that mushrooms aren't at all what I thought and instead are the biggest living thing on the planet. Do you even have to communicate with others to be sentient? I do believe that you can be cruel to plants. I have absolutely no problem believing that they suffer. And on a different subject, maybe love at first sight is an instantaneous recognition of commonality?

 

 

The question of plants is an interesting one, because they demonstrably do have a capacity for "sensing" -- many plants will turn toward the sun within a couple of hours; a number of them open up at night, or in the rain; they often send trailers precisely toward the lower-elevated, damper parts of the bed, etc -- but is that more analogous to what we perceive, or is it more akin to Nan's motion-activated light or artificial intelligence?  

 

From my perspective, plants don't evidence self-awareness; and from my daughter's... I don't think she thinks they have the capacity for pain, either.  Pain is either neurological, or psychic, right?  And plants have neither?  Though

 

 

I've got a bunch of Coursera vids to watch some time on plants senses. I've watched a few and the info was pretty cool. *Obviously* plants have senses, but I found it a tricky thing to try and think about.

 

To go over all New Age and hippy at you all, I received energy from a plant once. Just like you do from a pet animal if they discover you curled up in a corner sobbing.

Me too.  

 

There's a Circle of Life / recycling the carbon / we are all original stardust hippy-dippy thing that I sense (!) with plants and soil and leaves and worms that hovers just beyond the edge of my ability to grasp and name, but as real as gravity, or geometry, in a prior age.   Perhaps as Nan says, it's just that the timeframe is too long for us to see.  We need some Ents to translate.

 

 

 

 

But, we have to live, so we have to draw lines of expediency...

 

Many of the people I know who love animals seem to draw the line at cockroaches.  We liberate spiders who come into the house (as oppose to killing them) but we kill earwigs with impunity.

 

Because of the difficulty of this issue, many cultures, I think, give different names to the animal in its living form vs. its state on the dinner table.  I have known  people who are happy omnivores only when the pig or cow on their plate has nothing to do visually with the pig or cow in the field (or the modern factory farm).  Is this why some people do not want a whole fish on their dinner plate?  A fillet is one thing but seeing the eyes of what you are eating is another?

 

Perhaps my last paragraph is raising another question beyond sentience, rather the ramifications of how we treat other sentient beings.

Right.  Even Stella agreed that we had to "deal" with my son's lice  :ack2: last summer.  She'll stomp a cockroach.  Whether or not plants can sense sunshine or moisture or temperature, she has to eat something.

 

I don't think her compassion goes all the way out to fleas.  (On the other hand, I'm not asking, because it's frankly a bit of a pain to live with someone who dwells as much as she does on this business of "harm.")

 

 

 

 

New question - Is our planet sentient?

What do you and your mother say about this?

 

 

 

The question of perspective actually to me appears separable in some ways from that of cognition or sentience or even language.  Stones do have stories -- a geologist can "read" a canyon wall; an archaeologist or historian can "read" ancient ruins; a poet can decode...

 

 

Stones

 

Stones are only visiting us

here in the realm of perception.

They have a time

deeper than time.

They sing

quiet. They hold

space open

for shadows

and tilt the continuity

of the empty view.

They point

in the direction of around

and about

but not for

anyone. They long

for their unborn selves —and lean

against thought.

No feeling is at home among them.

No touch touches

except itself.

The stone is sleeping

as wide

as awake

and takes away the need to stay

too long.

 

George Quasha

 

... and trying to imagine from the perspective of stones, or trees, or worms, mircro-organisms, or the planet as a whole... can only open our own experiences.  Though now I have a headache.

[CAMom]

Just popping in to say I'm up to 54 books finished for the year. :D

 

I read your recommendations each week and so many of my picks come from them.

 

Last night I finished A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout about her experience as a hostage in Somalia. That one will stay with me for a long time.

[mumto2]

I finally had a chance to go back to Robin's 1001 list and do my counts by century.

 

2000's nothing, have not read a single one of these. I blame the kids! ;)

 

1900's 31

 

1800's 13

 

1700's 1

 

Pre 1700's nothing. Part of Metamorphosis but I didn't count what I didn't finish.

 

 

I actually already had several of these books already on my list so it is hard to narrow it to a definite five.....

 

Kafka on the Shore (in the stack currently)

 

The Secret History (just had to return because of holds and length, what I read was good)

 

One of the John le Carre books

 

Same for Wilkie Collins, both are already on the kindle

 

I don't think I have ever finished a Jane Austen, I start them on trips and put them aside half done. So I shold read one completely.

 

Others beyond the five.....

 

Invisible Cities by Cavino has been in the stack a couple of times

 

Excellent Women by Pym has also graced the stack recently

 

House of Seven Gables, something I have always intended to read

 

My list from the list was long.......

 

 

Amy, before I forget I liked Murder Must Advertise quite a bit. A bit lighter than others.

[Rosie_0801]

Rosie - I live in the woods.  The idea of plants having senses is pretty easy for me.  How about thinking?  Does thinking have to be done with electricity?  Or can it be done with hormones?  Would I be able to find those Coursera vids?  I bet my mother would enjoy them.

 

Nan

 

I don't know when they're running the course again, but this is his book:

 

http://www.amazon.com/What-Plant-Knows-Field-Senses/dp/0374533881/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415823657&sr=8-1&keywords=plant+senses

[LostSurprise]

Got to see Madame Butterfly at the opera last night. I shed a few tears at the beauty & the tragedy of the story. Lovely stuff.

 

Amy asked about book gifts. In our house...

 

Ds will be getting more Terry Pratchett books (in his quest to have a full collection of Discworld books), as well as the knowledge that he will get the new Flavia de Luce book when it comes out in January. Probably also Ultimate Signspotting.

 

Dd wants the last couple of books in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series (she has the rest). She will get some other books, I'm just not sure what yet. She's easy to buy books for.... Some contenders include: Faeries, Rookie Yearbook 3, The Black Apple's Paper Doll Primer, The Paper Magician, The Pack Goat, The Crystal Cave, Eat the Year, etc....

 

Not sure about other book gifts. I usually get my sister at least one very weird book of some kind. (Any recommendations?) Sometimes I'll get a book for my dad, usually some sort of military history. (Again, any recommendations?)

 

I'm not a big military history enthusiast (although I am a history enthusiast), but these are interesting: 

 

There's always Julius Caesar or Livy's histories. The Pelopponesan War. Xenophon. Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. 

The Killer Angels (Gettysburg...but a really well-known choice)

Shelby Foote's Civil War series

TE Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom or the recent biography which is probably more objective (WWI-ish)

Gerhard Weinberg's World at Arms or Visions of Victory  (WWII)

 

There have been several interesting books about the Mongols the last several years. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Warriors of the Steppe. 

[LostSurprise]

Gift books:

 

I only do my immediate family. Books for others are so hit and miss. 

 

The Individualist (ds15)--a few of the Wheel of Time series (ds15)

 

The History Buff (ds14)--accidentally on purpose got him started on Heinlein recently so maybe Door into Summer or Tunnel in the Sky? Or maybe I'll go the opposite way and get him some nice grown-up translation of The Illiad and a book on Greek warfare or Gates of Fire (Thermopylae).  (ds14)

 

The Scandinavian (ds11)--Moomintroll books and Jo Nesbo's Dr. Proctor fart powder series. Maybe Uncle Albert. 

 

The Avian-lover(ds10)--picture books about birds and something to learn bird calls.

 

I'm not sure about dh yet. Last year it was Bowling Alone. This year it should be some rolicking science fiction or Scandinavian mystery, I think. 

 

 

[shukriyya]

Many of the people I know who love animals seem to draw the line at cockroaches.  We liberate spiders who come into the house (as oppose to killing them) but we kill earwigs with impunity.

 

 

Okay, I don't share this often but here is my cockroach story...A decade ago in another galaxy I was at home one evening with my cat, dh being out at work. All of a sudden I noticed the shudder-inducing movement of fast, dark, flat insects. The cat, as lovely as he normally was, in this instance was useless. I wanted him to eat them but he simply wandered over and spent minutes watching them crawl around the carpet while I quickly got a jar and paper and scooped them up and put them outside. This continued for several nights complete with cat's intent gaze though the roaches tended to stay on the other side of the door, perhaps alerted by the feline intensity separated only by some wood.

 

Finally I couldn't stand it any longer I went to Walgreen's and headed to the 'pest' aisle where I was met with shelves upon shelves of substances to do away with cockroaches, ants, mice, earwigs, slugs, caterpillars, rats, fruitflies and so on. I picked up a few containers and read the instructions and in the end I could not do it and came away empty-handed. Back I went to the apartment wondering how I would tackle this problem. I certainly did not want to share our living space with roaches but I couldn't quite bring myself to do them in either.

 

Later that week I happened to be talking to a friend and the subject of the roaches came up. Here's what she said, 'there's a giant, archetypal creature for every species. You need to contact that and inform it of the situation." I kid you not, those were her words. She's an herbalist, gardener and meditation teacher as well as a good friend and I was a bit desperate and while I didn't want to discount her advice entirely I also couldn't embrace it wholeheartedly. The point is I was open to it though.

 

That night I dreamt of the largest, most enormous, most humongous cockroach that ever lived. There was a sense of silent communion with that Being for quite a while and that was it. No mention of leaving the premises just communion. The next evening I waited for the telltale signs of the cat's interest and the rustling. Nothing. Nothing that night or the next or the next. The cockroaches had moved on. Coincidence? I like to think not ;)

[Violet Crown]

That reminds me; it's been a long time since I read The Metamorphosis.

[Stacia]

OnceUponATime...

 

 

Hope your day is wonderful!

[Pam in CT]

(Pam, .. I just put a purchase request in for Kaddish: Women's Voices thanks to your recommendation)

I look forward to hearing what you think about it... As I think I mentioned to you once before, supporting grief and mourning is not, imo, a strength of the Reform movement, so I was/remain curious about women's experience in more observant contexts.

 

re: Turning on the Girls:

It took me the longest time to try this book... really, it is safer than it sounds! Lisa's approach to her assignment is charming and her viewpoint on the romance novels (and other racier novels) she encounters is both amusing and illuminating.

 

...but that was just where the book started; that piece isn't what the book is about or where it focuses... and I think you might appreciate the climax and resolution similarly to how I did/do.. and that is what made the book for me.  I wonder if I still have a copy of it?  It's been so long since I read it, and it isn't something I keep out on the shelves the kids browse.   It isn't a polished book, in either plot or prose, but I still recommend it to you.

I'll try it!  Thank you.

 

 

Okay, I don't share this often but here is my cockroach story...A decade ago in another galaxy I was at home one evening with my cat, dh being out at work. All of a sudden I noticed the shudder-inducing movement of fast, dark, flat insects. The cat, as lovely as he normally was, in this instance was useless. I wanted him to eat them but he simply wandered over and spent minutes watching them crawl around the carpet while I quickly got a jar and paper and scooped them up and put them outside. This continued for several nights complete with cat's intent gaze though the roaches tended to stay on the other side of the door, perhaps alerted by the feline intensity separated only by some wood.

 

Finally I couldn't stand it any longer I went to Walgreen's and headed to the 'pest' aisle where I was met with shelves upon shelves of substances to do away with cockroaches, ants, mice, earwigs, slugs, caterpillars, rats, fruitflies and so on. I picked up a few containers and read the instructions and in the end I could not do it and came away empty-handed. Back I went to the apartment wondering how I would tackle this problem. I certainly did not want to share our living space with roaches but I couldn't quite bring myself to do them in either.

 

Later that week I happened to be talking to a friend and the subject of the roaches came up. Here's what she said, 'there's a giant, archetypal creature for every species. You need to contact that and inform it of the situation." I kid you not, those were her words. She's an herbalist, gardener and meditation teacher as well as a good friend and I was a bit desperate and while I didn't want to discount her advice entirely I also couldn't embrace it wholeheartedly. The point is I was open to it though.

 

That night I dreamt of the largest, most enormous, most humongous cockroach that ever lived. There was a sense of silent communion with that Being for quite a while and that was it. No mention of leaving the premises just communion. The next evening I waited for the telltale signs of the cat's interest and the rustling. Nothing. Nothing that night or the next or the next. The cockroaches had moved on. Coincidence? I like to think not ;)

 

That reminds me; it's been a long time since I read The Metamorphosis.

:lol: Best. BAW. Sequence. Ever.

[JennW in SoCal]

Cockroaches?  I'm gone for 2 days to have fun with company and I stop back by and the discussion is about cockroaches?!

[shukriyya]

Cockroaches? I'm gone for 2 days to have fun with company and I stop back by and the discussion is about cockroaches?!

And don't forget fleas. Fleas sparked off all the ensuing erudite and thoughtful discussion on sentience, compassion, perception and love.

[Robin M]

:w00t: :svengo: :toetap05:

[mumto2]

OnceUponaTime, Happy Birthday!!! Hope you have a great day.

 

 

To the rest of you, Have fun and think up some other unique topics for me to contemplate in the morning! Good night!

[Robin M]

Cockroaches?  I'm gone for 2 days to have fun with company and I stop back by and the discussion is about cockroaches?!

 

That's my gals!  You never quite now what to expect. You all are fascinating and when it comes to Insect whisperers versus Kim Kardashian's butt, I'll take the fleas. Off to clean my eyes with bleach.  Gak!!!

 

And now for something completely different.

 

 

Brainpickings:  The Jacket - a Sweet Illustrated Meta story on how we fall in love with books.

 

Royal Society Winton Prize for Science

 

Isabel Allende to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[melmichigan]

I refuse to think about cockroaches!  :auto:

 

I finished Bound by Night and Chained by Night, the first two books in Larissa Ione's new The Moonbound Clan Vampires series.  I will keep reading them.

 

From the above link:

 

THE FUTURE OF HIS TRIBE
Leader of the vampire clan MoonBound, Hunter will do what he must to save his people from extinction—or worse, a torturous eternity as vampire slaves and subjects of human experimentation. To keep his enemies at bay, he has agreed to mate a rival clan leader’s daughter in return for peace between the clans and an ally in the looming war with the humans.

THE LOVER OF HIS SOUL
But survival comes at a price. First, Hunter must break an ancient curse by successfully negotiating three deadly tests. Then he must resist the searing passions of the gorgeous vampire warrior he despises but is bound to mate. Will Hunter stay true to his word? Or will he risk everything for the woman he really loves: the vampire seductress’s identical twin sister?

[Violet Crown]

Happy birthday, OnceUponATime!

 

Literary flea connection--William Blake's drawing, "The Ghost of a Flea": http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_of_a_Flea#/image/File:William_Blake_002.jpg

 

As I learned from my 2013 read of Gilchrist's Life of William Blake, Blake--who tended to see things the rest of us don't see--said this was what the spiritual being of a flea looked like. What that contributes to the discussion of sentience, I don't know.

[Kareni]

. .. I'll get a book for my dad, usually some sort of military history. (Again, any recommendations?)

 

No first hand experience with either of these, but I've heard good reports.  These aren't quite military history, but might be of interest.

 

The Gun by C. J. Chivers  (If I recall correctly, this was written by the husband of a board member here.)

 

"At a secret arms-design contest in Stalin’s Soviet Union, army technicians submitted a stubby rifle with a curved magazine. Dubbed the AK-47, it was selected as the Eastern Bloc’s standard arm. Scoffed at in the Pentagon as crude and unimpressive, it was in fact a breakthrough—a compact automatic that could be mastered by almost anyone, last decades in the field, and would rarely jam. Manufactured by tens of millions in planned economies, it became first an instrument of repression and then the most lethal weapon of the Cold War. Soon it was in the hands of terrorists.

 

In a searing examination of modern conflict and official folly, C. J. Chivers mixes meticulous historical research, investigative reporting, and battlefield reportage to illuminate the origins of the world’s most abundant firearm and the consequences of its spread. The result, a tour de force of history and storytelling, sweeps through the miniaturization and distribution of automatic firepower, and puts an iconic object in fuller context than ever before.

 

The Gun dismantles myths as it moves from the naïve optimism of the Industrial Revolution through the treacherous milieu of the Soviet Union to the inside records of the Taliban. Chivers tells of the 19th-century inventor in Indianapolis who designs a Civil War killing machine, insisting that more-efficient slaughter will save lives. A German attaché who observes British machine guns killing Islamic warriors along the Nile advises his government to amass the weapons that would later flatten British ranks in World War I. In communist Hungary, a locksmith acquires an AK-47 to help wrest his country from the Kremlin’s yoke, beginning a journey to the gallows. The Pentagon suppresses the results of firing tests on severed human heads that might have prevented faulty rifles from being rushed to G.I.s in Vietnam. In Africa, a millennial madman arms abducted children and turns them on their neighbors, setting his country ablaze. Neither pro-gun nor anti-gun, The Gun builds to a terrifying sequence, in which a young man who confronts a trio of assassins is shattered by 23 bullets at close range. The man survives to ask questions that Chivers examines with rigor and flair.

 

Throughout, The Gun animates unforgettable characters—inventors, salesmen, heroes, megalomaniacs, racists, dictators, gunrunners, terrorists, child soldiers, government careerists, and fools. Drawing from years of research, interviews, and from declassified records revealed for the first time, he presents a richly human account of an evolution in the very experience of war."

 

and

 

Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz

 

"In 1941, the author and six other fellow prisoners escaped a Soviet labor camp in Yakutsk--a camp where enduring hunger, cold, untended wounds, untreated illnesses, and avoiding daily executions were everyday feats. Their march--over thousands of miles by foot--out of Siberia, through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India is a remarkable statement about man's desire to be free. While the original book sold hundreds of thousands of copies, this updated paperback version includes a new Afterword by the author, as well as the author's Foreword to the Polish book. Written in a hauntingly detailed, no holds barred way, the new edition of The Long Walk is destined to outrank its classic status and guaranteed to forever stay in the reader's mind."

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Jane in NC]

No first hand experience with either of these, but I've heard good reports. These aren't quite military history, but might be of interest.

 

The Gun by C. J. Chivers (If I recall correctly, this was written by the husband of a board member here.)

 

 

You do remember correctly! That would have been yellow perch whom I have not "seen" in a long time.

 

And happy birthday to Onceuponatime! I hope you had a lovely day!