Glenn A Knight

Glenn A Knight
In my study

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Reading List: June 2012

During the month of June, 2012, the books I was reading included the following.

Caputo, Philip. Acts of Faith. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 669 pages. ISBN 0-375-41166-6. $26.95. Started on 4 June 2011 and completed on 11 June 2012.
I took a big hiatus in the middle of this book, but it is a marvelous, engaging novel about the strife in southern Sudan.

Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. A Critical Edition with an Introduction and Apparatus Criticus by Peter Laslett. Revised edition. New York and Scarborough, Ont.: New American Library, 1963. A Mentor Book. xiv + 576 pages. Bibliography. Index. $1.95. Started 30 March and finished 6 July 2012.
One of the great books of the Western World, and a must read as an antidote to the nonsense said about the ideas upon which the United States was founded. Yes, "was founded," not "were founded."

Prose, Francine. Blue Angel. New York: Harper Collins, 2000. 314 pages. ISBN 0-06-019541-X. $25.00. Read 4 March - 20 June 2012.
Francine Prose is a marvelous writer. In Blue Angel, she gives away the plot in the title, but she brings her penetrating observation and sardonic humor to bear on late twentieth-century ideas of political correctness.

Proust, Marcel. A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Paris: Gallimard, 1988 [1919]. xxviii + 568 pages. Started on 1 July 2004. As of 8 June 2012 I was on page 172.
This is the second volume of A la recherche des temps perdu, known in English as Remembrance of Things Past.

Russo, Richard. Mohawk. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1986. 418 pages. ISBN 978-0-679-75382-7. $15.00. Started on 3 February and completed on 26 June 2012.
A really terrific first novel from the (future) author of Nobody's Fool and Empire Falls. Growing up in a dying small town in Upstate New York.

Smiley, Jane. Good Faith. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. 417 pages. ISBN 0-375-41217-4. $26.00. Started on 18 May and completed on 14 June 2012.
Like Independence Day, a novel about a real estate agent in the Northeastern United States in the 1980s. But not like Independence Day, in that her protagonist is notable for his lack of angst. A very good read.

Zola, Emile. Germinal. Paris: Bookking International, 2993. Phidal pour le Canada, 1995. Original publication 1885. 473 pages. ISBN 2-89393-465-X. Started 1 July 2004 and finished 28 September 2012.
I probably made my life unnecessarily difficult by choosing to read Germinal in French, but it's been an interesting experience.

Don't Turn Your Back on Egypt

Robert Kagan published a very good column on the situation in Egypt on September 13.

The suggestion that we cut off aid to Egypt and, in essence, disengage from the largest country in the Arab Middle East is part of the dysfunctional American tendency to withdraw from contacts we fear might contaminate us. This is the first democratically-elected government in the history of Egypt - that's 8,000 years of history, folks. We should be celebrating that fact, and then assisting the Egyptians to deal with the challenges to come. There are certainly aspects of the Morsi government that raise serious concerns, the first being that Morsi represents the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun). But the correct response, as Kagan indicates, is to work with the Egyptian government to encourage them to move toward positions we would see as improvements. Abandoning Egypt at a moment when it has finally done what we long urged it to do is not a productive stance.

I might note that there is a business slogan: Work Smarter, Not Harder. One interpretation of this motto is that one should work with an existing process, application, or tool, and make incremental improvements to it, rather than discarding the existing system and starting from scratch. Trust me, I've seen both approaches at work, and I am fully convinced that making improvements to one's existing processes is the right course.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

As of Today ...

I finished reading Germinal on Friday. For those who are not familiar with this work, Germinal is a novel written in 1885 by Emile Zola. One reason that it took me so long (years, literally) to read this book is that I chose to read it in French, in a copy I picked up on a business trip to Ottawa, Ontario, in 1997. So, Germinal runs to 473 pages in French, divided into seven parts, each of which has a number (usually about six) chapters or sections.

The subject of Germinal is a coalminer's strike in the north of France, the soggy area near the Belgian border which became famous during World War I. Zola paints a grim and detailed picture of the lives of the miners and their families, and he obviously sympathizes with them, rather than with the mine owners. At the same time, it is not entirely clear that Zola agrees with his hero Etienne's decision to become a socialist revolutionary in the orbit of the Socialist International.

Lest you think that Germinal is merely a political tract, Zola also creates a really lovely star-crossed relationship between Etienne and Catherine, the adolescent daughter of the Maheu family, in whose home Etienne lodges.

The books I have in progress at this time, and the number of pages left to read in each, are listed below.

Complete Italian: The Basics........................................107
Excel Dashboards and Reports.....................................158
Hard Road West............................................................307
Statistical Analysis with Excel for Dummies.................328
Walking the Bible..........................................................382
A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs..............................391
Decision Points..............................................................438
The Force of Destiny......................................................616

Total............................................................................2,727

Reading List: May 2012

You may have noticed that my reading lists have generally been just a list of titles and authors. However, starting with April 2012, I decided to provide a full bibliographic entry for each book.

During the month of May, 2012, the books I was reading included the following.

Caputo, Philip. Acts of Faith. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 669 pages. ISBN 0-375-41166-6. $26.95. Started on 4 June 2011 and completed on 11 June 2012.
I took a big hiatus in the middle of this book, but it is a marvelous, engaging novel about the strife in southern Sudan.

Ford, Richard. Independence Day. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. 451 pages. ISBN 0-679-49265-8. $24.00 Started on 3 February and finished on 21 May 2012.
This is a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a fine novel, but I had some trouble liking the protagonist.

Grafton, Sue. V is for Vengeance. 437 pages. ISBN 978-9-399-15786-8. $27.95. Started on 3 May and completed on 6 May 2012.
Easy read hardly says it.

Larson, Erik. The Garden of Beasts. New York: Crown, 2011. xiv + 448 pages. Notes. Bibliography. Photo Credits. Index. ISBN 978-0-307-40884-6. $26.00. Started 18 April and finished 4 May 2012.
The title is a pun on Tiergarten, a neighborhood in Berlin which was once a royal hunting preserve. Fascinating look at the first year of the Nazi regime in Germany through American eyes.

Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. A Critical Edition with an Introduction and Apparatus Criticus by Peter Laslett. Revised edition. New York and Scarborough, Ont.: New American Library, 1963. A Mentor Book. xiv + 576 pages. Bibliography. Index. $1.95. Started 30 March and finished 6 July 2012.
One of the great books of the Western World, and a must read as an antidote to the nonsense said about the ideas upon which the United States was founded. Yes, "was founded," not "were founded."

Russo, Richard. Mohawk. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1986. 418 pages. ISBN 978-0-679-75382-7. $15.00. Started on 3 February and completed on 26 June 2012.
A really terrific first novel from the (future) author of Nobody's Fool and Empire Falls.

Smiley, Jane. Good Faith. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. 417 pages. ISBN 0-375-41217-4. $26.00. Started on 18 May and completed on 14 June 2012.
Like Independence Day, a novel about a real estate agent in the Northeastern United States in the 1980s. But not like Independence Day, in that her protagonist is notable for his lack of angst. A very good read.

Zola, Emile. Germinal. Paris: Bookking International, 2993. Phidal pour le Canada, 1995. Original publication 1885. 473 pages. ISBN 2-89393-465-X. Started 1 July 2004 and finished 28 September 2012.
I probably made my life unnecessarily difficult by choosing to read Germinal in French, but it's been an interesting experience.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Reading List: April 2012

During the month of April, 2012, the books I was reading included the following.

Berry, Wendell. That Distant Land. Washington, DC: Shoemaker Hoard, 2004. 440 pages. ISBN 1-59376-027-2. $26.00. Started 4 March and finished 11 April 2012.
Evanovich, Janet. Explosive Eighteen. New York: Bantam Books, 2011. 305 pages. ISBN 978-0-345-52771-4. $28.00. Started 18 April and finished 23 April 2012.
Ford, Richard. Independence Day. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. 451 pages. ISBN 0-679-49265-8. $24.00 Started  on 3 February and finished on 21 May 2012.
Larson, Erik. The Garden of Beasts. New York: Crown, 2011. xiv + 448 pages. Notes. Bibliography. Photo Credits. Index. ISBN 978-0-307-40884-6. $26.00. Started 18 April and finished 4 May 2012.
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. A Critical Edition with an Introduction and Apparatus Criticus by Peter Laslett. Revised edition. New York and Scarborough, Ont.: New American Library, 1963. A Mentor Book. xiv + 576 pages. Bibliography. Index. $1.95. Started 30 March and finished 6 July 2012.
Mankell, Henning. The Man from Beijing. New York, Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 369 pages. Author's Note. ISBN 978-0-307-27186-0. $25.95. Started 3 April and finished 15 April 2012.
Prague, Cary N., Michael R. Irwin, and Jennifer Reardon. Access 2003 Bible. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004. lvi + 1401 pages. Index. ISBN 0=7645-3986-8. $54.99. Started 8 December 2011 and finished 20 April 2012.
Sandford, John. Shock Wave. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2011. 388 pages. ISBN 978-0-399-15769-1. $27.95. Started on 6 April and finished on 9 April 2012.
Silva, Daniel. The Secret Servant. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2007. 385 pages. Author's Note. Acknowledgments. ISBN 978-0-399-15422-5. $25.95. Started on 31 March and finished on 7 April 2012.
__________. The Defector. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2009. 469 pages. Author's Note. Acknowledgments. ISBN 978-0-399-15568-0. $26.95. Started on 11 April and finished on 17 April 2012.
__________. Portrait of a Spy. New York: Harper, 2011. 455 pages. Author's Note. Acknowledgments. ISBN 978-0-06-207218-4. $26.99. Started 20 April and finished 28 April 2012.
Tufte, Edward R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Second edition. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2001. 197 pages. Index. ISBN 978-0-9613921-4-7. Started on 16 March and finished on 1 April 2012.
Zola, Emile. Germinal. Paris: Bookking International, 2993. Phidal pour le Canada, 1995. Original publication 1885. 473 pages. ISBN 2-89393-465-X. Started 1 July 2004 and finished 28 September 2012.