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Aug202011

Book Recollection: National Audobon Society Guide To Nature Photography

Ever start reading a book and come to the conclusion you might never actually finish it.  That is the exact situation I was in with today’s book recollection post.  Over three months ago I started reading National Audobon Society Guide to Nature Photography written by Tim Fitzharris.  Having perused the pictures in this particular book there was high expectations that the narrative would equal the stunning photos. And by stunning, I mean absolutely beautiful.  Turns out a number of Tim’s photos were actually scanned in from film with the added bonus of over 200 new digital photos (at least I think the new ones were all digital).  For those with access to the book, tops in my list was the image of a Marabou stork and African fish eagle fighting over a flamingo carcass.  That is now my benchmark for any photo session.  Another nice feature was he included the camera details for each of these shots providing some insights into how they were achieved.

As a quick background, this book was published by the National Audobon Society.  Interesting enough, their mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.  It was first published in 1990with a revision in 2003.  This particular copy was a second printing 2011.  Supposedly this was updated for the digital age, but there are still missed references to the film days and the digital age has actually evolved a couple of levels since 2003 (for instance a gig card for a day’s shoot is looooong gone).  So what trumped all these great pictures?  The honest truth was the Tim’s writing style.  He deserves every credit he has ever received for his images, but his writing style tends to overplay the profession.   It is hard to identify exactly what it is about the narrative that annoyed me so much and therefore hard to really describe the issue here.  Instead, let me take a quote and let you form your own opinions.

“… No matter the result of your picture-taking efforts, the act itself serves as an example to family members, friends and even the larger community of a philosophy that marries abstraction with the elemental dictums of survival.”

Did you know the perfect line of system code (in Forth of course) eschews the very fiber that separates society from barbarianism and insure that humanity will always demonstrate the higher thought process once attributed only to the deities of religion?  I didn’t think you did .. ha.

You get my drift.  After about 10 pages of that I had to put it down before I witnessed the re-evolution of dinner, making the progression through the 207 pages quite difficult.  Eventually, the last page was turned.  Again, the pictures were quite impressive and there were some takeaways so it was not a waste by any means – although not a great return of tip per time read.  The scary thing is we already purchased a sister book from Tim focused on Landscape Photography.  We’ll just let that sit for awhile.

Hit the jump to see my takeaways.

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Feb102011

Book Recollection: Bird by Bird

True to my word, I am starting to dig into my stack of reading material. As of right now I have shaved off about 2 inches based on today’s book and another one I finished a few days ago (future post).  After some validation with a ruler and some highly technical math it doesn’t bode well for getting through all of the material by the end of the year.  It is too early to give up and my vacations generally provide a lot of reading catch up time so the game is still on.  The first book this year is titled “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” and was written by Anne Lamott.  This was an interesting pick for me primarily because I am not really a writer in the true sense of the word.  A Photography blogger mentioned it as one of his favorite books and I noticed a few other book recommendation sites I follow had it on their top ten as well.  All those recommendations mentioned it was beyond a basic writing book and more of an interesting outlook on life.  Now the latter part of that is right up my alley and a few tidbits on writing just might help out on this blog.  Let me give my recommendation on this particular novel…. BUY IT AND READ IT.  I went into it with minimal expectations, however, I soon found myself captivated by Anne’s ability to paint a picture with words, provide imagery to a feeling and cause me to literally laugh out loud through her dark wit and straight forward delivery.  Anne has been through some tough moments in her life that she has been able to internalize and reflect on those experiences in manner that everyone can relate to.

The vehicle of the book is a writing seminar that she puts on for eager writers looking to be successful in the field.  During this seminar she conveys her writing wisdom learned over the years while creating and publishing her works.  Although I am not a subject matter expert, she seems to give a lot of good advice on how to drive through writer’s block, providing characters with real emotions, learning how to  establish a relationships to the reader and advice on keeping their expectations of success in check.  Actually, this concept of expectations was a big theme in her book whether it was intended or not.  When the last page was turned, I put the book down thinking two things; how hard professional writing must be and how glad I was I picked a different career.  I wonder how her students felt after getting a dose of reality like this.  There is a since of sincerity and openness from the author that helps lend credibility to her outlook on life.  It is evident that faith plays a an important part in her life, however, she doesn’t hammer you with it our try to influence your perspective on this front.  So, yes, it is a book geared to writers, but there is plenty non-writers can take away from reading Anne’s excellent work.  Even now I am seeing the impacts of her writing suggestions on my blogging efforts and probably more noticeable is the writer’s eye  that I’ve been applying to the written works of others I read or listen to… are the character’s believable, can the author create the vision and feeling of being part of the story etc.?  With that benefit, her viewpoints on life put the cherry on top of a sweet read.

Hit the jump to see some of my recollections from this!

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Oct182008

Book Recollection: Song Man

As you may recall, my brother gave me Will Hodgkinson’s previous body of work called Guitar Man which I blogged on back in May.  Well, he also gave me his second book entitled Song Man.  Having successfully learned enough about the Guitar to complete his mission of playing a gig, Will now took on the task of learning how to actually write a song.  The goal of this effort is to learn enough about composing a song to write an original work and record it.  I definitely enjoyed the guitar learning saga and was hoping his second book would be just as entertaining (although I currently do not have a thirst to develop my own songs so I did have a little bit lower expectations compared to the fact I too have been experiencing the torture of learning the six string.)  The gang was all back from Guitar Man so it flowed very nicely from the first book.  Similar to the process in that book, Song Man is constructed around Will’s journey to seek out experts in the field, gain insights into their approach to making great songs and then tried to apply those nuggets of genius into his own songs.  The disappointing aspect of these books is that it doesn’t come with a CD of the created material.  After awhile, you start wondering how the transformations in the various songs actually sound, was the advice he was getting from the experts actually improving the work or was it stifling his creativity.  Something tells me I am going to have to seek out a copy of his pressed songs and take a listen.  The nice thing about it, I will have a complete understanding of how the song came to be which has always interested me more than just hearing the actual song.  This is probably why I like VH1’s Behind the Music and their Unplugged show so much.  In those short sessions, the artist usually gives a glimpse into the creativity process, the catalyst for their particular piece of art.  Of course every once in awhile you get the heart wrenching “it was just luck” or an “accident” when questioned how a particular riff was constructed or a particular beat was established. 

From Song Man’s perspective, he must be commended for setting a goal, formulating a process to achieve that goal and ultimately delivering on his Life List entry.  In comparison to Guitar Man, I thought the first book was a little better read, but I still enjoyed this particular work and now looking forward to what journey he dreams up next.  It actually just occurred to me that I am developing a common theme for some of my favorite types of books to read.  Many of them tend to involve the subject putting himself under some type of challenge followed by a detailed account of the journey to that end.  Both Will and probably my favorite author A.J. Jacobs fit this description to a T.  I would definitely recommend Will’s (and Jacobs’) if you also like this type of theme. 

Follow the link below to read my highlights in Song Man

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Jul312008

Book Recollection: My Life On The Run

Bart Yasso can thank my Runner’s World subscription for my purchase of his book.  In one of their issues, they had some short excerpts from his My Life On The Run that resulted in an extremely embarrassing outburst of laughter.  Ironically, it was on my way back from the 4 mile Corporate Chase Run in Chicago.  Obviously, I enjoy running… recant that… I force myself to run.  When I gave up martial arts, I had to find a way to keep the fat off and running seemed like a good idea at the time.  Well many years later and I am still running and still trying to figure out why people subject themselves to this torture.  In my quest to discover the answer to this question, I often find myself reading material related to running (for example Runner’s World).  After reading the excerpt in the magazine, I decided I needed purchase Yasso’s book. 

Basically, Bart has lived an interesting life.  He started out embracing the weed and barley derivatives, but eventually found running as a means to rise above it all.  One mile lead to another and eventually he was running full marathons, ultra marathons, traveling all over the world as an ambassador to other countries to the joys (again, I question that word) of running.  He has definitely done more things than I would have ever dreamed possible and clearly appears to be someone who understands a little about true humor.  I was a little worried after a few pages in when the theme I absolutely can’t stand surfaced … My Father didn’t appreciate me and never gave me affection – typically I close the book and take my best shot towards the garbage can.  Generally this is just an easy way to lay blame on others for your life’s failures – take some ownership and stop wasting my time writing about it – that story has already played out.  For some reason I let it slide solely on the fact I had remembered the good portions in the magazine.  Eventually this gave way to some extremely funny (dare I say hysterical) recounts of running from rhinos, competing in a birthday suite race, dragging a burro to the finish line, biking across America and many others.  More surprising was coming down with chronic Lyme Disease – I had absolutely no idea this was even possible, but had a definite impact on his running career. 

I did have a couple of dislikes related to Bart’s book.  At times it really didn’t flow well from chapter to chapter.  For example the cycling chapter really didn’t fit well with the surrounding running topics and the break towards the end to discuss his running heroes was informative, but would have been better further towards the end.  I also didn’t expect the second part of the book to be dedicated to training routines – I have enough of those books so I just skipped all of those pages (~45) and went right to the summary of some races he recommended participating in. 

All in all, definitely worth the money for the gut holding humor.  So even if you are not a runner yourself, pick up the book and experience life through the eyes of another – and for the record, based on the suffering he experienced running, I am still not buy the joy part of the sport.

follow the jump for my highlights

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Jun282008

Book Recollection: The Definitive Book of Body Language

If you have not figured it out by now, I spend a great deal of time observing things and trying to figure out what led to specific decision or activity.  So a book focused on body language is a no brainer great gift idea for me.   My wife was kind enough to give me The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease.  All in all, it is a pretty quick read and actually had some information I hope to validate in my future observations.  Although, there is a downside to having read this book – you constantly make yourself aware of any body language signals YOU may be given off in a given situation.  I’ll be sitting there talking to someone and check of things like… are my legs crossed, where are my hands, what part of the face am I staring at, are my palms down or up etc.  It is pretty unnerving at first, but it gives some quick validation on some of the points in the book.  I think there are some over-generalizations scattered about the book and I completely disagree with some bathroom statements/rules that were made, but overall, I place this informative book on the recommended reading list – especially for anyone who likes assess situations as much as I do.  Here are some of the informative things that stuck with me after my initial read – I am reserving the right to read this again in a couple of years and see if my own assessments until then.

  •  Apparently Charles Darwin started the study of body language in a work he did back in 1872
  • We are capable of recognizing around 250,000 facial expressions
  • 55% of communication is non-verbal – I have read other related research that says this is probably closer to 60 to 65%
  • Initial opinions are 60-80% done in 4 minutes
  • When crossing your arms across your chest – 70% cross left arm over right arm – This fact I immediately tried out on myself and friends – I am in the minority, but 5 of 6 people I tested were in agreement.  Oddly enough, every one of them had troubles consciously switching the order
  • Assessing body language should be done in clusters – look at the whole before making an assessment

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May262008

Book Recollection: Guitar Man: A Six String Odyssey

It’s been a week, so now time for my traditional review of the book I recently completed reading.  This particular piece of literature/documentary was given to me as a gift from my brother Ron due to the similarities of the  author’s late endeavor to learn the guitar and my own efforts to master the instrument.   The premise of this book is the chronicling of Will Hodgkinson’s commitment to performing a gig.  The catch is the author does not know how to play the guitar, but set the date of the live audience event around 6 months out.   Having lived (actually still living) through the hardships of understanding the fundamentals of the guitar, this particular book really hit home and if nothing else provided some badly needed therapy to know someone else out there has struggled as much as I have.   I must admit, I was impressed with his commitment to immerse himself not only into the efforts to learn enough about the guitar to perform at his gig, but also to go underneath the technique and travel throughout the music world to meet with pioneers in the guitar field – including a tour through the deep south of the US to get closer to the birthplace of the blues.  I am not sure if this book would appeal to an individual that couldn’t relate to the hardships of learning the guitar, but I found it a very entertaining and actually looking forward to reading his sequel (Song Man) also given to me by my brother. 

 Now on to those items that stuck with me after finally putting the book down:

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May092008

Book Recollection: Ronnie

Anybody who knows me knows I like the Rolling Stones…. and that I absolutely can’t stand the Beatles but that pretty much goes without saying since those two bands really don’t mesh well.  I was excited to see Ron Wood put out an autobiography since I have actually drifted towards him as my favorite guitarist.  Not to slight Keith, but he is pretty much in a downward spiral.  I also really like his artwork and almost broke down and bought one about 6 years ago when I was in Denver the night they were playing – as Ron mentions in his book he used to pair up his gallery showings with the concerts.  I didn’t feel like spending the money at the time ~$1100, but 2 years later that print was worth much much more than that…. someday I will have one.  The book was a pretty quick read and clearly English.  As with the Slash book, it really didn’t dwell much at all on the craft of his guitar skills as opposed to the wild life and numerous debts.  The early years were interesting since I really didn’t know that much about his past before joining the Stones.  It is amazing how many famous people he has met, rocked with, wife swapped and lost money too.  What was really nice is the book is full of his photographs and his artwork – he actually sketched all of his houses.

Here are some highlights that stuck with me:

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Mar292008

Book Recollection: The Year of Living Biblically

 A year or so ago my brother gave me a previous book by A. J. Jacobs entitled Know It All about the author’s journey to read the entire Britanica Enyclopedia from A-Z.  Hands down, that has been one of the best books I have read for some time.  A. J. has a very dry humor that can hit like a fish in the face and leave you laughing well into the next couple of pages.  Couple that with the opportunity to learn more stuff than ever thought possible in a relatively short book.  Laughter and education almost always warrants a 5 star effort in my rating system. 

Ron also bought me A. J.’s latest offering entitled The Year of Living Biblically.  Honestly, this title concerned me when I first saw it, but based on his last book, I was definitely going to give it a chance.   I think his previous novel may have had more humor, but definitely an equal amount of education and entertainment.  Once again, I lost a hefty share of sleep while consuming every page of this book because there were times I just could not put it down – this from a somewhere less than devoted religious individual.  Ron must be trying to tell me something 8^)

Although not up to the Know It All level, I still give it a 5 star effort based on the tremendous amout of knowledge gained about the Bible (my baptized religion doesn’t really encourage self-reading of the Bible so a lot of this was new – apparently we are not qualified to interpret the Bible … or more likely, they do not want us to because quite frankly there are lots of jaw dropping passages in there.  I have never considered the Bible a literal life pattern, but rather a moral guideline – you do not have to be extremely religous to understand the morality behind “Thou shall not kill”.  Sidebar – about 7  years ago I was talking to a coworker and was describing a discussion I saw on TV with someone who believed the Bible should be accepted as literal truth and required compliance to get to heaven.  To my astonishment my coworker stated he believed the same.  My jaw dropped, but I let it pass in accordance with good advice previously given on not engaging in politics or religion at work – I was aware of some things in the Bible at that time and would have enjoyed questioning him about those, but now I am more armed.

So in this book, Jacobs spent 8 months trying to live the Old Testament as literal as possible and same for 4 months with the New Testament.  I can’t believe his wife put up with him during this endeavor especially while dealing with the birth of twins.  To help him on this effort, He had a number of different spiritual advisors in different religous camps in an effort to understand all of the nuances and interpretation conflicts.  With the exception of Bill Bryson, I think there are few people who put as much effort into their writing craft. 

Now on to the stuff that stuck:

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Mar282008

Book Recollection: Steve Martin – Born Standing Up

It has actually been a couple of weeks now since I finished this book, so unfortunately, I do not have a lot of content for this recollection.  This of course really means that there was not a lot that really stuck with me in regards to this autobiography.  I have always liked Steve Martin so I was actually pretty excited about reading the book.  When I was younger I remember always watching SNL with my brother Ron and it always made us laugh – yes, there was a time many many years ago when SNL was actually funny – I gave up on that show a couple of years ago because quite frankly it is boring and stupid – if there is something entertaining they beat that horse until it morphs into grating … but I digress.  I am also a proud owner of many of his albums (large black vinyl disks that have little grooves in them which are translated into sound via a diamond tipped needle that rides along in the grooves … help for the cyber generation out there).   This book is a fairly quick read and flows very conversationally.  Here are the few things that stayed with me:

  • Steve started his standup at a very early age working a little comedy/entertainment side show at Disneyland – was close to where he grew up
  • He definitely worked very very hard at his craft and althought it looks spontaneous he actually plans out many of his acts.   This even included taking the people out of the theater to provide a more interactive experience – guessing the theater owners didn’t exactly warm up to this idea since it left the seats empty
  • Worked for the Smothers Brothers variety show
  • His shtick was to appear totally out of synch – jumping from one logical thought to a completely different one resulting in the audience continually thinking about what was to come next
  • He has now strengthened his relationship with his sister
  • His motivation was continually trying to earn his father’s respect who apparently didn’t think much  of his career choices.  I do not think he ever obtained this before his father passed away.
  • He is still extremely funny since more than once I laughed out loud at something he had written

That’s it.  Nothing to earth shattering.  Again, it is a very quick read and worth the time to get some insights into a true comedian.  I was a little shocked by the high marks in the Amazon rating system (around 4.5 at the time I looked).  I would probably put this closer to 3 myself compared to the other books I am reading at the moment.  In fact, I hope to post a true 5 star book recollection tomorrow.

Here’s to the life of the one and only Wild and Crazy Guy

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