Browsings

Dirda, Michael. Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books. New York: Pegasus 2015. Print

First Sentences:

As readers of Browsings will discover in the weeks to come, I'm pretty much what used to be called a "bookman." 

 

This means, essentially, that I read a lot and enjoy writing about the books and authors that interest me....But my tone aims to remain easygoing and conversational, just me sharing some of my discoveries and enthusiasms.


Description:

OK, I admit it. I'm a hopeless sucker for books about books. Anything that covers ground about reading experiences and interesting titles, I'm all in. Whether the topic is about reading the encyclopedia (The Know-It-All: One Man's Quest to be the Smartest Man in the World), perusing every book on one shelf in the library (The Shelf: From LEQ to LES), thoughtful recommendations from someone who reads 6,000 books a year (One For the Books), or just a personal list of wonderful books organized by subject and complete with witty descriptions (Book Lust), I gobble up these books, copying enticing titles into my pocket notebook of "Books To Be Read" for later consumption.

My latest treasure in this "Books on Books" topic is Michael Dirda Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books. Dirda was a columnist for The American Scholar between 2012-13, taking the column over from the great William K. Zinsser, the author of On Writing Well, which to me is the definitive grammar and writing style advice guidebook. Quite large shoes to fill.

But Dirda can really write, and write he does on any book-related topic that strikes his fancy for his column, "Browsings." In this book, Dirda collects one year's worth of his short columns on a wide variety of topics, including:

Thrift store book shopping -

One thing never does change: the books you really covet always cost more that you want to pay for them. But, to borrow a phrase that women use of childbirth, the pain quickly vanishes when you finally hold that longed-for baby, or book, and know that it is your forever.

Book Collecting - 

Three important points for buying a collectable book : condition, condition, condition....Now you can easily acquire almost anything with a keystroke, if you have the funds. But where's the fun of that? Where's the serendipity? The thrill of the hunt?...that's not collecting, that's shopping.

Anthologies - 

Anthologies resemble dating. You enjoy some swell times and suffer through some awful ones, until one happy hour you encounter a story you really, really like and decide to settle down for a while with its author. Of course, this doesn't lead to strict fidelity.

His own life - 

I had graduated from Oberlin College and failed to win a Rhodes Scholarship -- a long shot, at best, given that I played no sports, earned mediocre grades as a freshman and sophomore, and had participated in absolutely nothing extracurricular. It turned out that zeal for learning and boyish charm weren't quite enough for the Rhodes committee... 

He introduces or refamiliarizes us readers with his favorite writers, such as:

• Everett F. Bleiler - author of The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, with summaries for 1,775 books written between 1750-1960;

• Irvin Leigh Matus - author of Shakespeare, In Fact, the definitive scholarly work about the life of the Bard, despite Matus having no formal education beyond a high school diploma, and incredibly had 20 years earlier been living on a heating grate behind the Library of Congress

• Charles Wager - Oberlin College professor who wrote essays on his college in To Whom It May Concern. Wager was the teacher whom Robert Maynard Hutching, renown president of the University of Chicago, said was the only truly great teacher he experienced during his years of education at Yale, Princeton, and many other universities

Dirda mentions his love of classic novels, especially those long-forgotten but are still captivating and worth re-exploring. He even developed and taught a course at the Univerisity of Maryland entitled, "The Classic Adventure Novel: 1885-1915" where students read King Solomon's Mines. Kidnapped, The Time Machine, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Man Who Was Thursday, Kim, The Thirty-Nine Steps, and Tarzan of the Apes (my favorite hero as a boy. I read all 24 Tarzan books three times before my parents made me move on). This wildly popular class led to his follow-up course "The Modern Adventure Novel: 1917-1973" which covered Captain Blood, Red Harvest, The Real Cool Killers, True Grit, and The Princess Bride. Who wouldn't want to take those courses with him and dive into these gripping novels?

Here's just a peak at a smattering of some of the other unusual titles Dirda mentions that caught my eye:

• Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind 
• The Moon Is Feminine
• The Man With the Magic Eardrums
• The Skull of the Waltzing Clown
• The Lost Continent
• When I Was a Child I Read Books 
• I Am Thinking of My Darling
• The Fangs of Suet Pudding
• The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
• The Venetian Glass Nephew
• The Man Who Understood Women 

I could go on and on about the treasures uncovered in Browsings, but I'll leave that pleasure to you readers curious about discovering new titles to explore, reading about the author's incurable scrounging through used book stores, encounters with famous and not-so-famous writers, and his pursuit of quality reads and reading experiences.

I've lived slow, dithered and dallied, taken my own sweet time, and done pretty much what I've repeatedly done ever since my mother first taught me to read so long ago: Found a quiet spot and opened a book. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Miller, Andy. A Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life  

Author Andy Miller decides to read fifty book in one year. Along the way, he writes an essay on each book about what the book means to him, his feelings for the author and background, and anything else delightful he can think of. He avoided Dan Brown's books. (previously reviewed here)

Queenen, Joe. One for the Books  

Here's a gifted reader, writer, and commentator on books (he reads up to 32 at a time!), guaranteed to fill up your To Be Read file with countless interesting titles you simply cannot live without reading. Wonderful writing and a goldmine of book ideas (previously reviewed here)

 

 

 

Rental Person Who Does Nothing

Morimoto, Shoji. Rental Person Who Does Nothing. New York: Hanover Square 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

I am starting a service called Do-Nothing Rental. It's available for any situation in which all you want is a person to be there...I only charge transport (from Kokubunji Station) and cost of food/drink (if applicable). I can't do anything except give very simple responses.


Description:

I just couldn't resist this outrageous (and enviable) title and premise of Shoji Morimoto's Rental Person Who Does Nothing: a man who hires himself out to accompany another person, but is not required to do or say anything during their encounter; just be there. He gets "payment for being."

Morimoto is inspired by a blog from a health counselor, Jinnosuke Kokoroya, who stated:

People should be paid for just being there...people have a value even if they do nothing.

Another inspiration for him was Pro-Orgorareya, a "professional guest," whose job "is having meals with people.

He just asks people on Twitter to give him food and somewhere to stay. Of the offers he gets, he chooses the ones that look most appealing. 

It seems an incredible concept. Yet author Morimoto, a real-life person, has gained many clients over the past few years via his "Do-nothing Rental" Twitter site. Over 4,000 clients have hired him (at relatively no cost except for travel and food) for such opportunities as:

• Going to a restaurant with someone who doesn't feel comfortable going on their own;
• Watching a drama rehearsal;
• Petting a person's pet dog who loves strangers;
• Walking through the streets of Tokyo;
• Sitting with someone while they scan through dating apps looking for a husband;
• Watching someone doing household chores;
• Passively listening to people (without giving advice)

He never performs activities like other advertised  "doing something" services, such as waiting in line for tickets, running errands, give advice, etc. He judges his requests received from his Twitter account on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes he finds he dislikes the job during the experience, gets fed up with what he is expected to do, and simply walks away. He avoids anything that might be stress-inducing. He rarely performs the same situation twice unless somehow the encounter will be interesting to him the second time.

The book contains many example taken from his Twitter postings about requests, the encounters themselves, and his comments about the experience, both positive and negative. Names are kept confidential as are other key elements that might identify the requestor. 

Morimoto actually is married to an understanding wife and has a child. His wife supports his occupation and sometimes offers her opinion of potential jobs. She nixed the request to watch people have offline sex. Morimoto is obviously not the big bread-winner of his family.

Although I did think about charging fees, I gave up the idea very quickly....I didn't like the idea of an hourly rate. I hated the feeling that someone would be swapping money for my time. I prefer being paid for getting something done, for achieving certain goals -- payment by results.

At the moment, I'm living on savings. What I do isn't really a business. Maybe it's best to think of it as something I'm doing for fun (like a trip abroad I've saved up for). 

Whew! A completely unique concept that Morimoto actually has brought to reality. Rental Person Who Does Nothing is an intriguing read as he quietly, thoughtfully recounts incident after incident and the philosophy behind his decisions. Through these fascinating pages, he shows that he has achieved his "wish to live without doing anything."

People tend to be driven by a feeling that they must "do something." And once they've done it, they feel they must do more -- better and faster. But when I started connecting with people as Rental Person, I realized that a surprising number were after something rather different. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

     See More Recommendations 

          (and read an Intro to The First Sentence Reader) 

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Jacobs, A.J.. My Life As an Experiment.   

Jacobs becomes a human guinea pig by offering himself up to real-world experiments like outsourcing all his tasks to a company in India and joining Radical Honesty group where he is not allowed to lie. Very wry, dry, and awfully fun to read. (previously reviewed here)

Prophet of the Sandlots

Windgardner, Mark. Prophet of the Sandlots: Journeys with a Major League Scout. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press 1990. Print.

First Sentences:

A good fifty years ago, the St. Louis Cardinals had a Class D minor league baseball team in Fostoria, Ohio, and the shortstop on that team was a five-foot-five kid from the South Side of Chicago named Tony Lucadello.


Description:

Not quite sure why I have been reading so many baseball books lately, but each one references another, pulling me in deeper and deeper into great writing about this sport. From fictional teams (Brittle Innings and The Great American Novel) to the creating of baseball films (The Church of Baseball), to in-depth biographies (I Was Right on Time), oral histories from the Negro Leagues (The Glory of Their Times), reminiscences (Road Swing and Wait Till Next Year), and baseball columns (Jim Murray: An Autobiography), each has revealed what is so exciting, humorous, and deeply captivating about this game. 

Somehow, they have all led me to my latest plunge into the rabbit hole of baseball writing: Mark Winegardner's Prophet of the Sandlots: Journeys with a Major League Scout, Where Brittle Innings was a fictionalized memoir of a baseball scout's former playing days, Prophet of the Sandlots is the real McCoy: the observations, thoughts, and decisions made by a real life baseball scout, Tony Lucadello, as recorded by the author. 

Winegardner was allowed to accompany Philadelphia Phillies' scout Tony Lucadello as he toured the midwest high school and college fields looking for talent, mile after mile, in rain, cold, and blustery days, even into the nights sometimes. Lucadello rarely sat still during these games, observing players from the outfield, first base stands, and even behind trees. 

That's how I analyze their body, by looking individually at the top front, back, right, and left sides and the bottom front, back, right, and left sides. That makes eight.

Oh, and he also constantly strolled under the bleachers and the sidelines looking for loose change, the donating his findings once a year on September 15 to the first church he sees on his travels.

Lucadello, while driving over 2.2 million miles in nine states and three Canadian provinces over the last fifty years, has signed forty-nine major league players, including Fergeson Jenkins, Mike Marshall, and Mike Schmidt. He knows what he is looking for, what players need to do to improve their chances of signing, and how to deal with parents to close a deal or present the bad news that their son will not be given a contract.

The weather in Tony's territory in March April, and May -- the critical months before the annual draft -- ranges from erratic to arctic. To have a fighting chance to see the players he wants to see, Tony gets the schedules from every baseball team in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan and plots out where he needs to go and when. 

Tony has two important pieces of advice for young players that he shares with parents who want to improve their son's chances. These already have been utilized by several of his prospects at an early age and their improvement has been significant.

1. Build a 4' cinderblock wall in the backyard. Inspired after seeing basketball hoops in every driveway, Tony felt boys should have an opportunity to groove their fielding and throwing every day, using a wall as a partner;
2. Hit 100 or more plastic golf ball a day with a bat to improve hand-eye coordination and confidence.
   

Lucadello, himself, had briefly been a baseball player as a Class D (lowest level) minor leaguer as well.

Tony Lucadello was a dirty-uniformed, clean-living little guy who never drank or smoked or swore, who always knew how many outs there were, who never threw to the wrong base, who always was the first to the ballpark and the last to leave, who never made a one-handed catch unless he absolutely had to. Not a lot of talent, really, and a build more like a jockey's than a ball player's.

In short, Tony Lucadello is an interesting, knowledgeable, personable man, someone the author feel very lucky to spend a scouting season with and glean tidbits of Tony's wisdom. The book is a wonderful insight into the man himself, the players and coaches trying to make the major leagues, and the insights he has on how to identify which player from among the hundreds that he watches has the best chance to make the next step to a contract.

And last of all, Tony is a modest man, even after 50 years of successful scouting. It was intially difficult for author Winegardner to persuade Tony to allow him access on his travels, mainly because Tony felt his story might be uninteresting to readers. It is far from that, trust me.

I had doubts, to be honest with you. Why would anyone want to read about me? I'm not famous. I don't want the attention. I'm just an old man who loves the game of baseball. I've given my life to it. And you -- maybe you [Winegardner] can help me spread the word. Maybe you can help me save the game of baseball.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

     More Book Recommendations 

          (and an Intro to The First Sentence Reader) 

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bishop, Michael. Brittle Innings.   

A fictional, quirky look from the eyes of an aged baseball scout about his younger years as a minor league prospect rooming with the real Frankenstein creature, the team's hard-hitting, erudite first baseman. (previously reviewed here)

 

Special Post - 100 Best Books of All Time

Beabout, Leandra. 100 Best Books of All Time. Reader's Digest, (November 15, 2023): (https://www.rd.com/list/books-read-before-die/). Online.

The 100 Best Books of All time - 

 

Go to:   https://www.rd.com/list/books-read-before-die/

Description - 

I stumbled across this interesting list of "100 Best Books of All Time" as selected by Leandra Beabout, who "covers all things books and words for Reader's Digest." Whatever you may think of this magazine, it's interesting to think about what books were chosen as "The Best" by any publication, and how these titles compare to your own reading preferences. Beabout's criteria for including a book?

We believe the best books open our minds to new characters, points of view, and worlds. They stay with us long after the last page is read. They make us want to share them with everyone.

So just for fun, I checked every title and put them into four categories to chart my own reading experience: "Read," "Heard of, But Haven't Read," "Never Heard of," "Embarrassed Not to Have Read." My results for your entertainment are below. 

 

Try it for yourself and, if you feel so inclined, send me your results (fredroecker@gmail.com) and I will compile them (anonymously, of course) and share them next month with other First Sentence Readers. Or just enjoy this list and think about what you would include or take off your very own list of "Best Books."

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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How I fared with the 100 Best Books list:

• Read - 40

• Heard of, But Haven't Read - 28

• Never Heard of - 19

• Embarrassed Not to Have Read - 13

• Alice in Wonderland
• Atonement
• Beloved
• Diary of a Young Girl
• Great Expectations
• The Kite Runner
• Long Way Gone
• Middlesex
• Omnivore's Dilemma
• Portnoy's Complaint
• Pride and Prejudice
• Silent Spring
• The Things They Carried

The Lost Tomb

Preston, Douglas. The Lost Tomb and Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder. New York: Grand Central 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

Some writers drank when the words didn't come. Now we have the Internet. Whenever I get stuck writing, instead of sliding open the bottom drawer with the whiskey bottle, I load up the New York Times or Politico, check my email, or, when all else fails, start Googling old acquaintances.


Description:

Who doesn't love a good mystery? Some sort of puzzle filled with suspicious characters up against thoughtful people who try to unravel the tangle of facts to eventually arrive at the truth and a satisfying conclusion by the last page?

But true life mysteries, while equally compelling as fictitious ones, are often not so neatly explained. Conclusions can be muddled, even after scores of scientists, treasure hunters, and researchers have delved into the physical and historic data for years. 

If you are like me, a true life mystery-lover, you should pick up Douglas Preston's The Lost Tomb and Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder. The author is a man curious about the odd, unsolved oddities he has read about over the years, leading him to publish heavily-researched articles which detail these mysteries for magazines including Wired, Harper's, and The New Yorker. Thirteen of these articles are collected in The Lost Tomb, conveniently organized into sections of "Uncommon Murders," "Unexplained Deaths," "Unsolved Mysteries," Curious Crimes," and "Old Bones." 

And what unsolved mysteries are detailed? Here's a sample:

• The author's own boyhood treasure chest buried with a friend, but in later life he was unable to find. His search led him to unexpected information about this boyhood friend whom he had lost touch with;

• Hundreds of skeletal bones found in a remote lake high up in the Himalayas whose age, how they got there, and what caused their deaths remain unknown;

• The Oak Island Money Pit, over 190' deep (so far) which has been explored for over 100 years by fortune-hunters and scientists looking for a rumored buried treasure;

• The New Mexico skeleton and accompanying artifacts that might be 20,000 years old, (making this the oldest evidence of man in America), discovered by a quirky Indiana Jones-type anthropologist;

• A 3,500-year-old Egyptian tomb that has 150 rooms (only 10% of which have been uncovered) that might be the final resting place for Rameses II and his 50 sons;
  

• Rare points from arrows and spears created by the ancient Clovis people in America, that suddenly turned up together in a suspiciously rich cache;

• A site with fossils of feathers, glass raindrops, delicate fish, and plant materials so carefully and instantaneously preserved that they might document the exact date when the asteroid hit Earth and destroyed 90% of all life.

Preston gathers the origins of these mysteries, researches the often-conflicting data from various people and scientists who are experts in the mystery, then allows each reader to draw his own conclusions. The people involved in the mystery are as fascinating as the mysteries themselves, presenting diverse opinions and drawing solid, if unproven conclusions that continue to be debated today.

I find real-life mysteries like these to be fascinating, even if they often do not have a tidy conclusion. Buried treasure, ancient bones, lost cities, and unexplained anthropological artifacts stretch my brain to wonder at the complexities of human life and our attempts to understand nature and our own past history. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Preston, Douglas. The Lost City of the Monkey God  

The author relates his electrifying, dangerous, scientific adventures in 2012 seeking the (rumored) fabulously wealthy, but cursed lost city of gold in Honduras as documented by Cortez and other explorers. A real page-turner for history and treasure buffs alike. (previously reviewed here)

Apple of My Eye

Hanff, Helene. Apple of My Eye. New York: Doubleday 1978. Print.

First Sentences:

On April Fool's Day, I came home from a meeting with a publisher, hurried through my apartment-house lobby and told all the tenants waiting at the elevator:

"I've got the dream assignment of all time! I'm going to write copy for a book of photographs of New York City."

Description:

Sure, author Helene Hanff is rightfully excited to land the plum assignment to write the text for a book of photos of New York City. The pictures will be of the famous sites in the city: the Statue of Liberty, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station, the Cloisters, Grant's Tomb, etc.

But there is one problem: Hanff, a born and raised New Yorker, has never visited any of these famous sites. So nothing would do but grab onto her friend Patsy, (someone who also has not seen these destinations) and set out to visit, observe, and take notes on the intriguing aspects of each location. The result of their frantic tour around New York in 1975 is the delightful, insightful book, Apple of My Eye, a tour-de-force that I highly recommend for any one interested in witty writing, overwhelmed tourists, and, of course, New York's iconic attractions.

With little money and no maps (or ones they were unable to decipher), the two women ride buses or walk to take in all the scenery tourists might come across, poking their heads into small restaurants, shops, and historic markers along the way. They refused to ride subways since that underground experience would rob tourists of the views of the city. 

Going from Grant's Tomb to Zabar's was going from the sublime to the ridiculous or from the ridiculous to the sublime, I'll never be sure which.

They are game to see everything, but their acrophobia make them very hesitant to take the elevator to the top of the Statue of Liberty and the new-opened twin towers of the World Trade Center. (It was quite a shock to read about these towers from a New Yorker's perspective in 1975):

Throughout its construction, the World Trade Center was cordially detested by all New Yorkers. The unpopular Rockefeller brothers were so closely involved in the financing that for a while the twin towers were knows as Nelson and David....the financially desperate city didn't need two new 110-story office buildings and couldn't afford to supply them with services.

But later, when they had swallowed their acrophobia and made it to the Tower's Observation Deck, Hanff felt differently:

And suddenly, irrationally, I gloried in the highhanded, high-flying damn-your-eyes audacity that had sent the Trade Center's twin columns rising impudently above the skyline at the moment when New York was declared to be dying, and so deep in debt it couldn't afford workers to dispose of the Center's trash, police its plaza or put out its fires.

Of course, Hanff and Patsy have their differences. Hanff, who has done copious research, constantly quotes "interesting" statistics and detailed stories to a non-listening Patsy, while her friend is constantly worried that Hanff will not include items in the book that might attract tourists. Their dialogue in Battery Park is typical of their back-and-fourth exchanges:

[Hanff] "President Washington," I told Patsy -- though I knew from experience that the minute you start a sentence with "President Washington," everybody stops listening -- "used to stroll here on summer evenings with his wife and the members of the Cabinet..."

[Patsy] Who's on this slab? Did you write him down? Who's on that slab over there? Did you read this one? Write it down. You're not writing anything down....I think you're being very haphazard about this...Somewhere in this book you'd better write: "Everything in this book is half-accurate."

When they drink coffee outside the Metropolitan of Art, Hanff sits with her back to the museum "Which is he only way I will ever consent to sit." You see, Hanff is bitter that the Met takes up space "torn out of Central Park, which does not belong to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it belongs to me. Me and a million other New Yorkers..."

They have judgmental observations about the people of New York as well:

West Siders look dowdy, scholarly, and slightly down-at-heel, and the look has nothing to do with money. They look like what a great many of them are: scholars, intellectuals, dedicated professionals, all of whom regard shopping for clothes as a colossal waster of time.

Witty, informative, personable, and always slyly funny. As a bonus, it's wonderful to see photos from that year of Central Park's model sailboat pond, the cable car over the East River to Roosevelt Island, Grand Central Station, the Metropolitan Opera House, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and yes, sadly, the World Trade Center towers. A wonderful overview of the city to accompany Hanff's text.

Hanff is the author of 84, Charing Cross Road, the epistolary story of her correspondence with a rare book dealer in London as she tries to procure obscure editions of favorite books. She is a very skilled wordsmith, someone you want to listen to forever as she reels off stories, demands, confusion, and self-reflection, all in witty, personable manner that makes you want to hear more and more.

I really love Apple of My Eye, especially since I have spent time in New York City over the past few years. Her descriptions of places I have seen, entered, or at least walked by struck a note that supported the idea that this is a great city during any age. And for anyone not familiar with New York, well, here's your chance to read all about it as you walk along side with Patsy and Hanff in their delightful explorations and observations.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hayes, Bill. Insomniac City.   

Author Hayes, newly moved to New York City after the death of his partner, loves wandering his new city late at night, talking with people, observing the world, and photographing the heart of New York, then sharing his thoughts with us lucky readers. Wonderful. (previously reviewed here)

Murmurs of Earth

Sagan, Carl. Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record. New York: Random House 1978. Print.

First Sentences:

 

On August 20th and September 5th, 1977, two extraordinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched into the stars. After what promises to be a detailed and thoroughly dramatic exploration of the outer solar system from Jupiter to Uranus between 1979 and 1986, these space vehicles will slowly leave the solar systems -- emissaries of Earth to the realm of the stars. Affixed to each Voyager craft is a gold-coated copper phonograph record as a message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations that might encounter the space craft in some distant space and time.


Description:

I cannot remember the last time a book made me say, on every page, "Wow, That's really interesting." The book which dis that for me is Carl Sagan's Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, a detailed recounting of the idea, organization, experts, and final decisions involved in sending a message from Earth's humans out into the universe.

Sagan and his team of experts, from scientist to musicians to artists, were tasked to create something that could piggyback on the Voyager spacecraft in 1977 to provide a description of Earth and its inhabitants to any life form in the universe who happens upon it. The Voyagers were sent to explore Jupiter and Uranus, then launch themselves out of the solar system and into the unknown beyond, traveling indefinitely for billions (yes, billions) of years.

Even quite optimistic estimates place the nearest civilization at a few hundred light-years, where a light-year is almost six trillion miles. It would take our present spacecraft some tens of thousands of years to go the distance of the nearest star, and several tens of millions of years to travel this estimated distance to the nearest other civilization.

So first, Sagan and team had to decide on the medium to present this information, settling on a two-sided metal record and an accompanying player as the most durable, long-lasting medium. (Remember, the project was slated to last a billion years.) Of course, the team had to also create clear instructions on what the disk and player were and how to use them in order for non-humans to interpret the data, a huge challenge in itself.

Here is what Science News writer Jonathan Eberhart said of the project at that time:

Describe the world. Not just that multi-colored ball in the spacecraft photos, but the world -- its place in space, its diverse biota, its wide-ranging cultures with their lifestyles, arts, and technologies -- everything, or at least enough to get the idea across. And do it on one long-playing record.

Oh, there's one stipulation: Assume not only that your audience doesn't speak your language, but that it has never even heard of the Earth or the rest of the solar system. An audience that lives, say, on a planet orbiting another star, light-years away from anything you would recognize as home. 

Once the concept of sending a message was approved by NASA, Sagan was given the deadline to provide a complete recording disk in six weeks. Inconceivable, but NASA made it clear that it was impossible to stretch that deadline.

So what exactly should be included in this limited space? Sagan's team concluded that there should be text and photographs on one side of the disc and music on the other. But what text? What songs or other audio? Which photos? Here is their summary of the decisions made:

Affixed to each Voyager craft is a gold-coated copper phonograph record as a message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft in some distant space and time. Each record contains 118 photographs of our planet, ourselves, and our civilization; almost 90 minutes of the world's greatest music; an evolutionary audio essay on "The Sounds of Earth': and greetings in almost sixty human languages (and one whale language).

Sagan's essay in Murmurs of Earth gently, clearly walks us through each phase of this challenging selection process. To introduce different languages, representatives from the United Nations were allowed to voice a brief message in their own language. Music was suggested by experts in ethnomusicology, classical, and modern genres (including "Prelude and Fugue in C" by Bach to "Pygmy Girls' Initiation Song" from Zaire, "Tchakrulo" Georgian chant, "Navajo Night Chant," "Symphony No. 5 in C Minor" by Beethoven, and "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry). 

Photos were selected from archives of National Geographic magazine, the Cornell University library, and shots created specially for this project. Since this was to be a description of the entire world, every country naturally wanted to be consulted and represented, so addressing their needs and suggestions was an added challenge.

And wonderfully, Murmurs of Earth contains all the photos included on the Voyager disk, complete with descriptions and reasons why each particular photo was selected. All music recordings are also listed, again complete with descriptions and stories behind the selection. 

Biologist Lewis Thomas, when asked what message he would send, replied "I would send the complete works of Johan Sebastian Bach." "But that" he added in an aside, "would be boasting."

The chosen text was typed out and then photographed to more easily and permanently be placed on the record, with enough instructional information to make logical connections to language, mathematics, and astronomy for any intelligent being to (hopefully) understand.

Usually, I put torn scraps of paper in books while I'm reading to mark significant passages, unusual writing, or unexpected ideas. In Murmurs of Earth, I found myself marking almost every page. Astonishment, enlightenment, joy, and thrills were recorded in virtually every paragraph of Sagan's matter-of-fact prose, totally engrossing a reader into the complexity and importance of this project. 

 

There are also essays by F.D. Drake to explain the systematic ordering of language and scientific text; by Jon Lomberg on the photographs chosen; Ann Druyan on sounds from Earth; and Timothy Ferris on Voyager's music. Each essay is highly-readable and fascinating in its scope, as well as for the patience from each writer to ensure in layman's language that every reader understands the thorough selection process and value of the piece included.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is readable, fascinating, awe-inspiring, challenging, and beautifully inspirational. Go get it and revel in the diversity and quality of human, their creations, and the world we live in. 

Here is a list of the complete contents of the Voyager Golden Disk:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record

(P.S. After reading the selections made by Sagan's team in music, photography, and text, what items would you include for a new message to other civilizations? A fun, challenging thought process.)

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Al-Khalili, Jim. Aliens: The World's Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterestrial Life,.   

The author assembled a team or renowned scientists to write essays on many aspects of potential extraterrestrial life, including such topics as "Identifying the Signs of Life on Distant Worlds," "Why Aliens Might Visit Us," "Abducted," "Flying Saucers: A Brief History of Sightings and Conspiracies," "Aliens in Science Fiction Writing," and many moire. Fascinating, challenging reading. (previously reviewed here)

 

The Plague and I

MacDonald, Betty. The Plague and I. New York: Lippincott 1948. Print.

First Sentences:

Getting Tuberculosis in the middle of your life is like starting downtown to do a lot of urgent errands and being hit by a bus. When you regain consciousness you remember nothing about the urgent errands. You can't even remember where you were going. The important things now are the pain in your leg; the soreness in your back; what you will have for dinner; who is in the next bed.


Description:

Can a person have a deadly disease and write an in-depth memoir of the experience, yet keep a sense of humor in the narrative? Well, I'm here to tell you that Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, does just that. 

It is a deeply personal, introspective, self-deprecating immersion into the journey through the world of serious illness that begins with her getting fed up with a recurring cough and feeling weak, several doctors' diagnosis (or lack thereof), then takes us through daily life a tuberculous sanitarium from a patient who just happens to be a gifted, humorous writer.

MacDonald is the author of The Egg and I which wittily documents her life with her husband on a chicken farm with no electricity and no running water. She is clearly a survival-type person who can still keep her sense of humor while experiencing outrageous conditions.

Our family motto was "People are healthy and anybody who isn't is a big stinker.

MacDonald's parents and siblings were all extremely healthy. Her father made the children run around the block and do calisthenics to music before breakfast every day (and chew each bite of food 100 times), and a weekly ice bath, even on freezing days when they lived in Montana.

But in the 1930s, divorced and the mother of small children, MacDonald contracts tuberculous, an extremely communicable disease which at that time was usually considered a death sentence. Treatments focused on absolute bed rest in a quiet place, to let lungs recover without exertion. That meant laying around in bed all day, usually in one position, with no reading, talking, reaching, sitting up, or walking without a nurse's permission and help.

So MacDonald begins her stay at The Pines sanatorium in upstate Washington and soon learns the rigorous routine and very strict rules enforced by the doctors and nurses (one fierce Charge Nurse she refers to as "Granite Eyes"). Any deviation from this behavior is considered being uncooperative and are grounds to be sent home (it was a sanatorium that accepted MacDonald and a few other patients free of charge).

The staff at The Pines had but one motivating factor -- to get the patients well. This motivating factor, like a policeman's nightstick, was twirled over our heads twenty-four hours a day....'We are going to make you well and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line,' we were told. 'Here is the line, either follow it or get out.'

That meant absolutely no deviation from the schedule and conditions that produced quiet. Day by day, truly hour by hour, MacDonald passes the time waiting for the next meal, whispering secretly to her roommates, having infrequent tests done (without her ever learning the results or any progress, good or bad), and trying to sleep during the twice daily 2-hour rest periods. Visitors were allowed for only a few minutes once a week, no more than three people at a time, and no children permitted. 

The night went on and on and on and I grew progressively colder and sadder. 'The one thing to be said in favor of life at The Pines,' I thought, as I tried futilely to warm a small new area at the bottom of the bed, 'it's going to make dying seem a like a lot of fun.'

I'm not making this memoir sound funny, I know, but believe me that MacDonald, although faced with many unfriendly people, restrictions, boredom and medical tests, retained her wry sense of the world and people around her. She records that her roommates offered her some wise words: "The first hundred years here are the hardest."

Being sent to an institution, be it penal, mental, or tuberculous, is no game of Parchesi, and not knowing when, or if, you'll get out doesn't make it any easier. At least a criminal knows what his sentence is.  

Not knowing how long she would be in the sanitarium, not ever being told whether her health was improving or getting worse, and living under the constant threat that to not follow the rules meant being sent home and her bed given to someone more willing to try to get well were challenges she faced daily. But overall, her memoir of the experience is a fascinating, entertaining, sobering, and wonderfully witty experience.

From my stay at The Pines I learned that a stiff test for friendship is: "Would she be pleasant to have t.b. with?"

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Diamond, John.  Because Cowards Get Cancer Too: A Hypochondriac Confronts His Nemesis.  

Times of London writer and admitted hypochondriac Diamond details with humor and fear his bout with throat cancer via his newspaper columns. (previously reviewed here)