Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew B. Crawford

Matthew Crawford is clearly a Marxist. A very funny Marxist that writes and debates well, but a Marxist nonetheless. While normally I roll my eyes at those that expound on the battle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie, Crawford takes a particular approach that not only fascinates, but is widely appealing. Shop Class as Soulcraft is a treatise on how the ongoing abstraction of life and the loss of individual tangible skills is leading towards a world where very few actually maintain mastery of anything, and how that is bad for everyone.

In our society children are increasingly pushed to go to college, regardless of their natural bent. If you don't have a degree you are considered to be not quite smart enough to be promoted or even obtain a white collar job. I believe this is utterly ridiculous, but still find myself somewhat propagating the myth with my kids. While I do have a degree, other than the checkbox that gets ticked for certain job applications it didn't really do much to advance me in my chosen field of software development. I'm quite proud of my degree (and I love my Longhorns!) because it was the first thing I'd earned that was due to my effort—nobody forced me to go to class or called my parents if I failed a test; I truly earned the degree because I wanted it. That said, virtually nothing I was taught about computers actually applied to the real world; I wasn't interested in academia and developing software for a living was nothing like the often silly assignments done in class. I did take a "software engineering" course, but the professor was easily the worst one I encountered during my tenure (although I quite liked and respected her husband) and the closest thing to relevance we learned was COCOMO, an even then somewhat outdated estimation model. But I digress. Some of the most talented and successful people I've encountered in my career don't have college degrees. Others that have been influential in my professional development have degrees in subjects other than software, such as film. Interestingly, some (but not all!) of the least impressive people with whom I've ever worked have degrees from MIT, to the point where I actually consider a degree from there a point against someone rather than a point in favor. Of course this isn't to say that a college degree is meaningless for everyone not interested in staying inside academia, but with our culture pushing everyone to a university, what do you tell a high school student in today's world? Crawford says, "if you have a natural bent for scholarship ... go to college. ... But if this is not the case; if the thought of sitting in a classroom makes your skin crawl, the good news is that you don't have to go through the motions ... for the sake of making a decent living. Even if you do go to college, learn a trade in the summers. You're likely to be less damaged, and quite possibly better paid, as an independent tradesman than a cubicle-dwelling tender of information systems." I certainly don't consider college "damaging" and truly do treasure the wide variety of people and views to which I was exposed during my university years, but I do somewhat prefer this advice to what my son's high school counselors seem to espouse. After all, what do you do with a B.A. in English?

Not sure where that college rant came from, I clearly have some unresolved issues there! Regardless, there are many other topics in Shop Class as Soulcraft worth discussing. Crawford covers subjects from outsourcing ("You can't hammer a nail over the Internet.") to modern management techniques. His lament that blue-collar work has devolved from a "craft" molded by tradition and experience to a "process" where anyone can perform complex tasks with minimal training simply by following instructions is particularly heartfelt. Quite a bit of this resonated with me, but at the same time I think he is missing the boat entirely. Crawford believes that a pride of accomplishment is largely absent from corporate America; we are all cogs in a larger machine with the people at the top completely out-of-touch with what is actually built and the people at the bottom unclear on the larger picture. If I'd spend my entire career at IBM, Hewlett-Packard, or BMC I might be able to believe that. These organizations innovate and create by acquiring other, smaller companies and rarely build anything interesting on their own. However, to say pride is absent in those acquired start-up companies where new ideas become reality and everyone from accountants to developers are passionate about what they are doing and aligned on the eventual goal is downright silly.

Clearly this book pushed several buttons for me and I quite enjoyed reading it. As with most treatises it is fairly biased and presents its opinion as "right" and the current social norm as "wrong" which is entirely too one-sided. I believe someone can find job satisfaction sitting in a cube, or pulling wire at a construction site, or patrolling a border in a hostile country. Corporate America isn't necessarily unethical or soul-crushing, but neither is tradecraft necessarily a good choice for everyone. As someone that sometimes struggles when asked the seemingly simple question, "What did you do today?" (or the much harder "Why do you change jobs so often?") I found this an intriguing—and somewhat disturbing—read.

First Sentence:

Tom Hull teaches welding, machine shop, auto shop, sheet metal work, and computer-aided drafting at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon.

The Firefly, by P. T. Deutermann

This novel is truly awful. The Firefly is a cookie-cutter thriller that finds a retired Secret Service agent trying to prevent a tragedy that no one else believes is real. Written in 2003 the author clearly had the 9/11 attacks firmly in mind, as our government goes to unbelievable lengths to combat the "cancer of international Muslim terrorism."

Unbelievable is an excellent word to describe this tripe as the plot barely holds together as the one-dimensional characters pinball from chapter to chapter. The main villain has plastic surgery that not only changes his looks, but gives him inflatable breasts and an internal pouch for his genitals so he can transform into a woman and back again. He tries to kill everyone that worked on him, but one nurse escapes; she goes to great lengths to explain to the cops and agents investigating that she couldn't possibly identify anyone as the clinic had strict protocols for insuring privacy but the terrorist spends over half the book trying to kill her anyway. Coincidences abound; what luck that the Washington D.C. car lot where the terrorist is buying a vehicle happened to be right across the street from the auto mechanic at which the nurse is having her car serviced—and of course they were there at the same time! His luck also held when neither neighbors nor federal agents noticed he sawed a three-foot-square hole in the roof of a duplex in a dense neighborhood a mile from Capitol Hill the day before a presidential inauguration. The inauguration ceremony is at the heart of the plot, but the security measures put in place by the Secret Service are ludicrous even for a fiction book: the stock markets were closed, all government workers were furloughed for the day, the airports and train stations were shuttered, public cell phone networks disabled, cable and satellite television was shut down, and over 300 "people of interest" were sent to Guantanamo Bay for the duration. While I can certainly see the presidential detail liking these measures, believing they could actually happen is laughable. The resolution of the novel is as ridiculous as the rest, with the United States creating a massive deception (that was kept completely secret from the world despite massive troop movements and expansive special effect filming) that would justify every stereotype of American aggression during the height of the Bush era.

The Firefly is somewhere between silly and preposterous, one of the worst books I've read in a long time.

First Sentence:

The man who calls himself Jäger Heismann awakes in the dimly lighted recovery room of the private cosmetic surgery clinic in northwest Washington, D.C.

World Without End, by Ken Follett

I quite liked The Pillars of the Earth but it still took me over four years to pick up the sequel, World Without End. Big mistake; I liked it even more than the first! This isn't a direct sequel—it is set two centuries later and shares a setting rather than the more typical characters. Other things the two tomes share are a plot (political intrigue contrasted with a revolution in building and a mix of noble and low-born people) and a rich historical backdrop where fiction and reality mix; here, the reign of Edward III and the bubonic plague is the stage against which the novel plays out.

In The Pillars of the Earth Follett poured his voluminous research into page after page of ancillary description, often resulting in extended passages only tangentially related to the plot. World Without End is equally in depth, but the author does a much better job of staying on point and keeping his knowledge flowing with the surrounding story. Besides an excellent description of 14^th century warfare, the role of women in society in this era is made horrifyingly clear. A mentally-ill woman is publicly stoned, another is traded into prostitution by her father for a cow, still another trades her body for political favors which are then reneged upon, and many other are raped or forced into unhappy marriages. While the masses—men and women—all view these acts as simply a part of life and that a woman's place is to be subservient to man, the antagonists all look on this with a modern disdain. Compare this with the many monks, bishops, and friars that play integral parts of the play—with only a very few exceptions all these men are of low moral and ethical character and yet are looked upon with high regard by the community. An interesting juxtaposition to say the least.

As depressing as that is, I did enjoy the novel. Solid storytelling and interesting plot twists keep the pages (all 1200+ in my copy!) turning quickly. The sex is much more graphic than I remember in the original and the violence is often excessive, but the look into life in the late medieval ages is fascinating. World Without End is a great book for airline trips, waiting rooms, or rainy Saturday afternoons.

First Sentence:

Gwenda was eight years old, but she was not afraid of the dark.

Night Over Water, by Ken Follett

Set largely aboard the Pan Am Clipper, the legendary aircraft that launched commercial transatlantic service, Night Over Water is a somewhat entertaining, if far-fetched, read. The multiple plots follow the passengers and crew of a flight from the UK to the US immediately after war broke out between England and Nazi Germany, intertwining when they all board and begin interacting with each other. The descriptions of the plane were captivating and it often seems almost another character rather than the setting; as a reasonably frequent overseas traveler the luxury in which people traveled back then is virtually unrecognizable to the state of air transportation today. Of course, having three stops between Southampton and New York taking over 27 hours to make the journey is also hard to imagine today! Unfortunately, the people aren't as compelling; most are shallow caricatures—the lucky thief, the whiny teenager, the English fascist, the forthright engineer, the evil sibling, and so on—and more than one appears in a scene or two and then simply vanishes from the book. The multiple plots vary enough that they hold your interest, though; if it wasn't for the somewhat graphic sex scenes I'd say this was a good novel to give to a younger reader making the switch to adult fiction. While I won't recommend this book to anyone, I won't dissuade anyone from reading it either. Very average, which is disappointing for Follett.

First Sentence:

It was the most romantic plane ever made.

Super Giant Monster Time! by Jeff Burk

I loved "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as a kid, even writing my own at one point. When Super Giant Monster Time! was selected for my book club a wave of nostalgia engulfed me. I ordered it, and when it arrived I discovered that it was actually a wicked parody of the genre written by the delightfully subversive Jeff Burk.

You have the choice of three characters to become: a boring office worker, a punk-rock chick, or a scientist at a secret government lab. As any of the three selections you make selections amid a backdrop of an alien invasion and giant rampaging monsters. Virtually none of the endings are what you'd call "happy," but they are all pretty damn funny. A selection: "You feel no pain as your body is blown into thousands of tiny bits." "You think, but turtles aren't cannibals! And then they fall upon upon you." "You laugh as the city burns around you, the flames clearing way for the new age of carrots." "You flick your tail as you dream of what you will do to the hairless apes with these new powers. You are no longer Mr. McWhiskers, you are now Mr. McWhiskers — the Super-Cat!" "Then you get stepped on by a giant walking carrot. Serves you right you piece of shit." Good stuff!

With scenes including mass-murder, rape, porn, and a close-encounter with the business end of an ejaculating monster this isn't a book for kids, regardless of the format. Super Giant Monster Time! is a fun read and makes for a good escape for an hour or so. But you should wait until your after work, because after all, "those TPS reports aren't going to file themselves!"

First Sentence:

You started off your day at the office just like any other.

Sixth Street, by Allen Childs, M.D.

Sixth Street is the heart of Austin's entertainment district. While it has changed a lot in the twenty-five or so years since I first moved to town, in many ways it hasn't changed at all: the names of the bars and clubs change, but the feel of the area remains the same. With this book of annotated photographs and drawings dating back to 1840, though, it is clear the history of Sixth Street is long and varied.

When stagecoaches roamed the land Sixth Street was the main east-west thoroughfare in Austin, largely because it was the avenue that had the fewest hills while being far enough from the river to avoid flooding. As such, hotels, saloons, and storefronts occupied a lot of the real estate, lasting until the entertainment boom and revitalization of the area in the late 1970's. The Driskill Hotel remains popular today and the legacy of the saloons is obvious, but while there is still the odd retail store today, it is hard to believe Austin's first JCPenney and HEB were located on this road!

The narrative of the book isn't very fluid but the photos more than make up for this. I love picking this up and just thumbing through it, looking at the history and imagining how much things have changed over the years. If you've spent any time in Austin, this thin tome will put a smile on your face.

First Sentence (from the Introduction):

East Sixth Street, now a hub of the live music capital of the world, had its humble beginning as a dirt road, the only level path from the east.

Scholar, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Scholar takes place in the Imager universe but is set centuries before Modesitt's first trilogy. Here the art of imaging is feared worldwide and people who possess the talent are often killed outright—but the seeds for the Collegium are planted. A recognizable world, but a very different society—I look forward to seeing the evolution of this environment through future novels.

One of the key points in the first trilogy was that an imager is a huge danger to himself, to the point of sleeping alone in a lead-lined room to prevent creating dangerous items via dreams. In Scholar, however, this doesn't seem to be an issue with the lead being a powerful imager and yet living on crowded boats, dormitories, and castles. Not sure if this is by design and will feature into future novels, or simply an oversight or writer's remorse. Time will tell!

First Sentence:

"You'd think the Tilborans would have more sense," snapped Bhayar.