Books and Ideas (06)

I read for ideas. What follows is my attempt to summarize the main ideas of books I have read.

The Devil in Massachusetts. Marion L. Starkey.
Young girls set off hysteria by charging that they had been hurt by witches. The result was both chaos and crisis, the Salem Witch Trials—and executions of innocent people. A study of irrational behavior in society.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton.
The Greek spirit: rejoice in life; the world is a beautiful place and a delight to live in. Joy, sorrow, exultation, tragedy stood hand in hand in Greek literature. Even in the darkest moments, the Greeks did not lose their taste for life or for criticizing the powerful and influential.

A Handful of Dust. Evelyn Waugh.
Novel. Bored British aristocrats and the breakup of their marriage.

Here at the New Yorker. Brendan Gill.
The joy and hard work of producing interesting stories and nonfiction at The New Yorker. Brendan Gill, the author of this book, fills his pages with gossip about the editors and the writers and the process of putting together each week’s issue.

A History of Reading. Alberto Manguel.
I thought I knew all there was to know about reading until I came across this book. Manguel’s ideas gave me plenty to think about. Examples. Socrates: “Only that which the reader already knows can be activated by reading.” Kafka: “One reads in order to ask questions.”

The House of the Seven Gables. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Romance/Novel. The plot is glacial, almost like a somnolent summer afternoon in New England. Small crises gradually enlarge to a major crisis. The curse of one generation is resolved by the marriage of a young couple who represent the cursed and the curser.

How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking. Dale Carnegie.
Some interesting and practical points on successful public speaking. Interesting opening: Know explicitly in advance. Don’t use humorous story unrelated to your speech. Plan your ending in advance. Close with a brief summary of your points. Appeal for action.

How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education. Mortimer J. Adler.
Books must be read in three ways: to understand, to question and to criticize the work.

I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born BC X. Murdered and Deified AD LIV. Robert Graves.
Novel. RayS.: My research revealed Claudius to be far from the benign, scholarly narrator of Graves’ I, Claudius. He was as cruel as his predecessors and the emperors who followed him.

Iliad. Homer (800BC).
Events of a few days near the end of the Trojan War, focusing on the withdrawal of Achilles from the contest and the disastrous effect of this act on the Greek campaign. Took place in the 13th century BC. Four centuries later, the material was organized and attributed to Homer.

The Immense Journey. Loren Eiseley.
Series of essays concerned with the meaning of evolution. Eiseley views evolution as a continuing process, changing to become—who knows what? Men and women as they are now will not be the men and women of the far future. We are working out what we are going to be.