The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco, 1980)

Book club selection (via PJr/PJ).

As the years go by, I can see that I will spend more of my reading on re-reading prior books that I found useful.  While this re-read was prompted by book club, I could also have seen myself re-reading it on its own merits.

Discussion from initial read is here.

Enjoyed it more this time around.  I have a better sense of the history, partly because of books like this.  Also, the book is pretty complex - so even though I didn't recall all that many details, it ultimately was helpful to have some familiarity going in (from the prior read).

Eco's "Afterword" is quite interesting.

Guns, Germs and Steel - the Fate of Human Societies (Jared Diamond, 1999)

[Something unusual:  I was reading two books within about a month of each other; both featuring the same cover artwork (second book linked here).]

Diamond's book has gotten a lot of attention so I'm glad I worked through it.  There are lots of very interesting ideas.  But his basic premise seems a little tired - he knocks himself out explaining that different levels of what we call "progress" among different civilizations are not due to intrinsic differences among the peoples.  I'm not sure there's a big audience out there promoting that viewpoint anymore?  Would have been a hot topic decades ago.  Now he just sounds a little boring flogging the "inequality" language.  But whatever.  When he sticks to basic ideas, there is a lot to learn.

Interesting stuff:

1.  Lots of information about the locus of useful plants.  Guess what:  a civilization can make more progress if it is blessed with useful plants.

2.  Same in regard to domesticable animals.  This part is really interesting to me, I had never read much about it.  The list of domesticable animals is pretty short.  Living in proximity to these of course led to disease/immunity implications as Europeans encountered new worlds.(Germs)

3.  He reiterates something I've read elsewhere:  plants and animals travel much better along lines of latitude than they do along lines of longitude.  Seems obvious once you focus on it.  This resulted in diffusion of plants and animals (and, of course, ideas) from China to Portugal.  Much harder for movement North to South America, or north to south in Africa.  Harder than I had realized.

4.  Big game has survived in Africa but has generally been wiped out everywhere else - and pretty shortly after humans showed up in those areas.  The theory:  humans and big game evolved together in Africa.  As humans showed up elsewhere, they found big game with all the savvy of dodo birds (and same outcome).

5.  Hunter-gatherer societies - limited fertility - I hadn't thought about their need to space out children a few years - would not want to be carrying >1.  And how accumulating "stuff" was just a useless idea.

6.  Agriculture, water projects, government, religion, armies, specialization - fascinating. (Guns, Steel)

7.  Like this author, scope is a little too ambitious here - can he really know enough about all the areas and time frames he discusses?

But all in all:  valuable, recommended.

" . . . the official religions and patriotic fervor of many states make their troops willing to fight suicidally.  The latter willingness is one so strongly programmed into us citizens of modern states, by our schools and churches and governments, that we forget what a radical break it marks with previous human history."

The Brewer's Tale - A History of the World According to Beer (William Bostwick, 2014)

I enjoy beer mightily.  As POC 'n NOC know, so this book was a gift from them.

I'm pretty sure there's never been a better time to be a fan of beer.  Quality and variety are both far superior to anything I knew even 10 or 20 years ago (and, it seems, times prior to that).

The author goes through something of a beer tour across time and geography - so the book is pretty ambitious in that sense.  Starts with Babylonians and works up to contemporary.  Interesting throughout, though some of the pieces are more interesting than others.  I will keep the book handy as a reference as I run across various beer styles - useful information but too much detail to remember.

Among other topics:  the beginnings and spread of using hops; "Trappist" definition; world war devastation in Belgium (the breweries there don't have quite the continuity I would have expected); IPAs; porters; saisons; Prohibition and its beneficial effect on the largest U.S. breweries.

The author had the idea to make his own attempt at brewing various of the styles he discussed; that idea could have been dropped.

My Struggle (Book One) (Karl Ove Knausgaard, 2009)

This is the first book of a multi-book series that has created a huge buzz.  The author - Norwegian - writes in great detail about early experiences.  The focus in Book One is on his relationship with his alcoholic father.  But much more ground is covered.

I've read that the percentage of folks in Norway that have read Knausgaard's work is incredibly high, and further that his life has changed for the worse due to resentment by characters in the book who are readily identifiable in the relatively small communities about which he writes.

Lots of comparisons to Proust among the reviewers; even direct references in this Book One.

My tentative conclusion:  (1) Book One is good-not-great, clearly worthwhile however; (2) I think I will read Book Two and see how it goes; (3) depending on how Book Two works out I will either keep going, or drop the project and re-read Proust (which I will do soon in any event).

I realize it's quite early to judge - based on just one book - but so far I don't think the comparison to Proust stands up well.  Part of this may be simply that discussions of things that occurred in the 1980s or 1990s inevitably sound less interesting or exotic than discussions of things from early 20th century?

Alcohol definitely an issue for these folks.

I read that the Mein Kampf-style title for the book was chosen deliberately though I don't recall why.