I'm still re-reading "The Ambassadors." I was trying to finish it on vacation, because going to Central Ohio was almost like going to Europe, in terms of the lack of distractions, which is a situation I require when I am reading "The Ambassadors." There was no other media in English to claim my attention, no Internet, no grown-up TV, and we only got the newspaper twice, and once was mainly to get the fire going.

Reading: "The Ambassadors," Henry James, year (manyboooks.net)
Why: Talking about the death of the telegram last year. Made me think of this book.
Takeaway: The action of this book hangs on telegrams, but the text is also an insight into the way the telegram affected speech and thought. Conversations always seem to start on the second sentence, without preamble or even a lede. People open with sentences like "You are scared of me." Meanwhile, the inner monologue soaks up all the excess words and subphrases. This is one of my Top 10 books and I am thrilled to be reading it again, on my Palm this time.

Read: "Space Prison," Tom Godwin, 1958 (manybooks.net)
Why: Space and Prison
Takeaway: People just die and die and die in this book. The main characters are dropped off on an inhospitable Earthlike planet by their alien oppressors. They reform society with one goal: to lure the oppressors back and beat them. The fictional aspect is how everyone works together with only a few exceptions to become a strong and powerful society capable of beating an alien oppressor. There's one snake-in-the-grass character, who is an administrator, and then the rest of the story is Arthurian, long quests and battles by noble guys who know all kinds of science. It is a dream of scientists, I guess, to breed out everyone of weak character, every backbiter and bureaucrat and lazy commentator on the action.

Read: "The Club of Queer Trades," G.K. Chesterton, 1905 (manybooks.net)
Why: Finished "The Innocence of Father Brown," also on manybooks
Takeaway: Completely annoying. Maybe this would be fun if you read one of these per year, in a magazine, but to read them all at once was a bad idea. There's a mystery, and the solution is incredibly obscure, and one character goes through the entire story knowing the solution and eventually tells you it.

Read: "Barks and Purrs," by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, no year (manybooks.net)
Why: Assembling a reading list of the best dog books on manybooks.net, also the only thing by Colette in English so far
Takeaway: I'm not sure I can tell too many people to read this book, but it's wonderful and I loved it. Even describing it makes me sad, because it is about the thoughts of a dog and a cat. It is about the mystery of the human relationship with nature, domesticated nature. The relationships in this book between human and pet are filled with sweet devotion but also infinite sadness and misunderstanding. The dog is a bulldog, which makes it even sadder. His pains of love and confusion are exquisitely awful for him, as he explains them to the cat. Meanwhile, the cat, at one point, says the most catlike thing: "A fear that my sensibilities might be destroyed took possession of me."

Read: "Blindsight," by Peter Watts, 2006 (manybooks.net)
Why: On manybooks, was free and modern, looked freaky
Takeaway: Very freaky, lots of fun, kind of a head-breaker. This was the kind of book where the author carefully describes the shapes of things, and the relationships between people, and in general does a lot of setup work, then starts getting into the very nature of perception of those very things -- are things that we see really what they look like? who really likes who? what is perception? is your theory of it better than my theory of it? and all the time, you're floating in space, separated from the heart of things, from real life. What is real, though? I mean this to be a giant compliment when I say that reading this book helped me understand exactly what it would be like to be a grad student in Toronto.

Read: "Andersonville," by John McElroy, 1879 (manybooks.net)
Why: It looked awesome, and the preface says that it is written in simplified spelling
A memoir of the Confederates' Andersonville prison
Takeaway: Incredible. The writer was captured by the Rebels at Cumberland Gap and sent to Andersonville prison, in southeast Georgia, where he stayed for seven months. I have always wondered about the practice of taking war prisoners; the idea that you would go from trying to kill your enemy to treating him well, feeding and clothing him and letting him get mail, always seemed a little odd. So the Rebels just didn't; they dumped 30,000 Yankee prisoners into a stockade, gave them a piece of cornbread 2 inches square once a day, no tents, no bedding or clothing, no toilets, no nothing. It's amazing that more prisoners didn't die, but only 10,000 of them did in seven months. McElroy writes like a reporter, with wit and directness. His point-by-point explanation of why the North and South stopped trading prisoners, resulting in such a horrible loss of life, is clear and understandable, which is an accomplishment when you remember that he was one of the prisoners who was not traded, and thus came close to death, and saw his friends die of hunger, slowly. The story was published as a serial in the Toledo Blade!