The Know-It-All and Esquire Presents, What it Feels Like - A.J. Jacobs

We had the great pleasure of hearing Jacobs speak a few weeks ago at the Wisconsin Books Festival about his new book A Year of Living Biblically. I am greatly looking forward to getting my mitts on this book. A mere 100 other patrons and then it is mine from the Dane Library. In the meantime, I amused myself with The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. Deciding that his brain is shrinking at a horrifying pace, Jacobs decides to read the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica in a year. Interspersed with the various and sundry bizarre nuggets he gleams from the EB are stories of his personal life, relations with his family and job working as an editor at Esquire Magazine. Jacobs is endearingly honest and often shreakingly funny. In addition to a great read, you will also learn more fascinating facts on totally useless information than you ever could desire.

What It Feels Like is a collection of very short essays edited by Jacobs. Covering everything from being mauled by a bear to feeling fake boobs, these 5 minute reads give you vivid recollections from folks attacked by swarms of bees, lottery winners, guys who have gone over Niagra in a barrel and even someone who flat-lined. 

My Life in Orange (Tim Guest) and Bhagwan, the God that Failed (Hugh Milne)

Both of these fascinating autobiographies tell of the authors' lives living in ashrams of the Guru Shree Bhagwan. Guest moved into his first communal ashram at about age 5 when, after short bouts with other major movements, his mother hears a tape of Bhagwan speaking. For the next 6 years the two move around the world at the behest of the guru. Guest tells of the freedom of life in a commune but also the loneliness and instability, particularly when his mother leaves to teach for weeks at a time. In addition to continual moves from ashrams in various countries, Guest also bounces from the total communal life to a few solitary weeks a year with his father in California. 

Though both Milne and Guest's book deal with interpersonal relationships and power struggles in the ashram, Guest writes his event as they unfold to the eyes of a bewildered child. Milne became a follower of Bhagwan in his early twenties. While he has a different focus - joining as a devoted follower - much of the commentary is very similar. They both talk about the early, almost idyllic days in Poona India. Then, as the number of followers grows, the mellow, happy and very pro-sex guru and his inner circle start taking the group into a very different direction. The end of both comes near the final days of The Big Muddy, a massive city in the works built in Oregon from the millions donated to Bhagwan. Both leave the group before the final tense collapse but do keep tabs on the major players as they flee the country pursued by law enforcement of all stripes. Both books give a very interesting clear-eyed look inside a major cult. They answer a lot of the "what the hell were you thinking?" questions that inevitably come to mind. Remember, Jesus saves, Bhagwan spends.

The Surfboard - Art, Style, Stoke - Ben Marcus

Have I ever surfed? No. Will I ever try? Maaaaybe. But gosh darn these surfboards are beautiful. Along with a pretty interesting history of the sport, major surfers and the evolution of design and materials and numerous gorgeous images of boards. Everything from the earliest all-wood boards to shimmering fiberglass. MMmmmm, shiiiinyyyy.

Sex, Lies and Handwriting - Michelle Dresbold

A self-proclaimed "top expert" of handwriting analysis (graphology), Dresbold gives quite a wild ride. After a few pages of self-congratulatory introduction, she gets down to business and covers a wealth of hidden information found in handwriting. While some does seem a hair far-fetched (you can see the weapon a murderer prefers in their handwriting) most of it seems very logical. While Dresbold focuses mainly on celebrities and murders, she does include some samples from her column the handwriting doctor. Her commentary is often snarky and very amusing. Check it out and see if you too have the handwriting of a secretive, egotistical lunatic (*sigh*). http://www.michelledresbold.com

Where We Lived - Jack Larkin

Despite the uninspiring title and cover, Larkin's book was thoroughly enjoyable. Focusing on homes of the common family from the times of the founding fathers, Larkin uses a wealth of images taken by the HABS (Historic American Buildings Survey), a project created during the Depression for out-of-work architects and photographers. Interspersed with pictures of the often dilapidated buildings are etchings and commentary by visitors to early America. While some found the new American cities charming (Charles Dickens) others loathed most that they came across (Joanna Trollope) and colorfully maligned them. While we still have regional styles, the descriptions and images of the original houses often follow rigid patterns based on region and immigrant nationality. In particular interest to me were the houses of Dutch immigrants from places like Amsterdam, still building their tall, narrow houses - despite the wealth of land around them.

Ancient Micronesia and the Lost City of Nan Madol - David Hatcher Childress

I first ran about Nan Madol last month in Oliver Sack's Island of the Colorblind. The city of Nan Madol is located deep in Micronesia. The partially sunken city once covered 11 square miles and was cut through with Venetian style canals and ringed with man-made islands. The massive walls are comprised of 250 million tons of basalt - the equivalent of a small mountain. And yet, the tiny Micronesian islands surrounding Nan Madol can only support a few thousand people. The many-ton basalt crystal are far too large to be moved by canoe or raft. Carbon dating gives dates as early as thousand so years to the late 1800s. What was this city for and who built it? Where did they find the stone? How did they manage to move the stones to the location and then up the tall walls?  

Equally interesting are other examples of enormous building projects throughout Guam, Micronesia, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and as far as Madeline Island. Sixteen foot pyramid shaped pillars topped with many ton coral capstones spot islands throughout Oceania. The most fascinating, and one of the least visited places in the world, is Madeline Island. Despite being uninhabited and 500 miles away from the nearest spit of land, the island is crisscrossed with a series of roads that lead off into the sea. Numerous enormous stone altars and spread across the island. Who came here and why did they go to the trouble of building such complex systems?

While Childress does an excellent job of giving an overview of the various archaeological sites throughout Palau, Yap, Chuuk, Guam and other islands, he tends to slide into some rather flakey new-age theories. The ancients used tuning forks to make the magnetic basalt float above the ground. Or perhaps the Egyptians came to help. Or Greek warships. Then, after a few paragraphs of out-there supposition, Childress snaps back to reality and gives another fascinating description of another mysterious site. 

Oceanic archeology seems to be a thinly covered subject and this book is one of the few I have found on the topic. A totally intriguing read, but to be taken with a small pyramid of salt.