Great Courses and Miracle Worker

Because of the work schedule and need to focus on a mission, Latter-day Saint missionaries aren't supposed to watch television, or go to the movies, or to read material that doesn't belong to the mission library (scriptures and a few other religious works.)  The first two were not a struggle to give up when I went but the last one was.  But since I knew about it well in advance, I decided to give myself a little reward before I went to serve: as soon as I came home, I was going to read all five of Orson Scott Card's Homecoming novels, mostly because I really like Card's work and this was one series I hadn't gotten to.

I still haven't read the Homecoming series.  In fact, I haven't read any of Card's fiction since coming home.  I don't really know why; it's just that whenever I start thinking about Card, I find another book in front of me and his fiction keeps getting put to the side.

Nevertheless, I am thoroughly hooked on his weekly column, Uncle Orson Reviews Everything (and he does review everything.)  He's funny, he's informative, I appreciate his candor, and even on the few occasions that I disagree with him, I'm satisfied with the reasons why he sees things the way he does.

One of the best parts of his column is on the subject of education.  Some time ago, he mentioned The Great Courses, which sounded really cool and I had to check it out.  Went to the website and gasped.  The prices were incredible, which is fair.  These are college-level courses and college is expensive, but here, you're not getting a degree.  Still, education is education and assuming that I have a steady job, these would be worth the money.

Fortunately, I have a nice compromise.  Turns out my local library has a few of The Great Courses to borrow.  This is exciting and terrifying.  I mean, if one DVD gets scratched, I owe them for the whole thing.  But I'm responsible and don't worry too much on that: I can't believe the free knowledge I'm getting from this!  My first course I took was on Philosophy and the Natural Rights of Man.  I didn't get to finish it because I was running out of time (these are long courses.)  I could have renewed but I found one that was even more exciting to me: 12 hours worth of lecture on the Old Testament from their Religion section.

This is just my taste.  They have courses in all subjects from Math to History.  I recommend checking them out if you can.  It's great stuff.

                       ***

I've seen a made-for-TV version of The Miracle Worker before and the story of Helen Keller continues to fascinate me after all these years.  The story is not really about her life but the small portion of childhood where Anne Sullivan helped Helen discover how to communicate and join civilization.

I just saw the 1962 black-and-white version, starring Anne Bankcroft and Patty Duke, and it wrapped me in from start-to-finish.  This is the best version I've seen so far.  The story is still the same as it was from the other film I saw, and since it's based on a play, I can't imagine that anybody would stray too far from the material.

What made this one a winner for me was the near ten-minute fight Sullivan has getting Helen to eat her lunch right.  There is almost no talking at all during the sequence; both actresses held the screen by their mere presence on screen.  It was by far the most dramatic scene for me since it was the first time anybody actually tried to parent her; her parents clearly couldn't handle disciplining the brat and Sullivan refused to let her behave like an animal but as a little lady.

Oh, and it makes me laugh.  Helen spitting food in Sullivan's face only for Sullivan to splash water all over her.  That was the best moment of all.  That is one of the best statements of the parent-child relationship that I've ever seen.

Trust Your Eyes

There is an unexpected perk to working at Barnes & Noble, one that I take great pleasure in.  Once a week, at least, a couple copies of books will be lying on the breakroom tables that are free for employees to take, at a first-come, first-served basis.  Advanced copies.

Now, most of these books hold no interest for me.  Often, they're some lame romance (not knocking the romance genre, understand, but the books themselves look lame) or they're some boring modernist affair that I will never remember.  I'm happy to leave those for somebody else.

Once in a while, though, a jewel shows up.  Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay is a thriller coming out in September (and I got to read it before all of you!)

This is not your typical thriller.  Not a whole lot of gunplay that goes on here.  In fact, this is really two separate stories that happen to collide towards the end.

The first story is a low-key family drama about two brothers, Ray and Thomas Kilbride.  Their father has just died in a lawnmower accident and Ray has moved in with his brother temporarily to help take care of things.  Thomas needs the help, too, because he has schizophrenic and obsessive tendencies, the latter being shown by his map obsession.  He spends all day, every day, on his computer playing around with his Whirl360, a computer program with pictures of every street across the world.  Thomas memorizes everything that is on there, every street, every store, building, all in the "service of the CIA" for when "all the computers in the world shut down and they lose all virtual maps."  Naturally, Ray is out of his league trying to help his brother behave like a normal human being, or at least a functional one, and easing him off his paranoid delusions.

At the same time, Ray is noticing some odd circumstances regarding his father's accident and is wondering whether it was really so accidental.

The other story is a murder conspiracy that goes wrong.  Allison Fitch, a bartender months behind on all her bills, sees something interesting about an upcoming governor election and realizes that blackmail is a lovely way to settle her debts.  Which seems to go well until the folks she's blackmailing decide to put a hit on her.  It all goes crazy from there.

I don't want to reveal too much else about that story because it thrives on surprise.  I had a lot of fun seeing what would happen next.

These two separate tales do collide when Thomas, on his Whirl360 tour, sees a disturbing image linked to the conspirators.  Down to the last page, I found this book hard to put down.

It's a fun read.  I'll happily recommend it.

May 2012

This has been a fun month for me as far as books go.  It's also an indication of how little I've accomplished socially and in any other format of failure in life that I have achieved.  But no regrets!

Nonfiction: Bhagavad Gita (note: this was fascinating.  I've made the comment before that you can't understand a religion until you've read their scripture.  This is the main reason I read the Koran several years back.  While this is not the only scripture I know of, it certainly has made aspects of Hinduism clearer than it ever would have been had I never looked through it.)

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain; The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, PhD; The Prince by Machiavelli; Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb; The World According to Fred Rogers; The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau

Graphic Novels: Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol; Naruto: Vol. 56 by Masashi Kishimoto

Fiction: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom; The Wastelands, Wizard and Glass, and Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King; Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut