Self-education

While I’m a big fan of formalized education (having been in school for 24 years now–yikes), I think it’s equally important to know how to teach yourself about the things that interest you.  Therefore, at any given time, I’m reading one or two non-fiction books about topics that interest me.  Currently, I’m reading two of them:  Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen and Ever Since Darwin by Stephen J. Gould.

Lies is a book about American history.  The author (a historian) surveyed some of the most popular high school American history textbooks and wrote about the many inaccuracies found in those books.  It can be a bit depressing to read, though–not just because kids are being taught inaccurate information about American history–but because inevitably the inaccuracies are centered around sugar-coating events in American history.  So, mostly, I’m reading about the dark side of American history, so to speak.

Ever Since Darwin is a collection of essays about evolution written by Stephen J. Gould.  I have mostly shied away from blogging about evolution because it seems as though no other topic can bring the trolls and fanatics to your blog faster than talking about evolution (unless it’s talking about the need to improve the situation for women in science) and I just don’t need that kind of tsoris.  However, my blog is pretty low traffic, so I’m hoping it won’t be too much of a problem if I talk a little about my impressions while reading this book (this may be ridiculously naive of me, but I’m going to go ahead with it anyway).

I first read Ever Since Darwin about 8 years ago (just before I started grad school) and I’ve pretty much forgotten everything I read with a few exceptions.  This is not so much a statement about the material or the writing, but more of a statement about my ability to remember anything I have not specifically decided to commit to memory or taken notes about.  However, given the current trend of challenging the teaching of evolution in our schools, and being a scientist who is very interested in public science education, it seems to me that I should probably know more about the intricacies of the theory of evolution than I currently do.  Therefore, the last time I was in California (which is where the vast majority of my book collection resides, along with my husband), I tucked Ever Since Darwin in my carry-on and have been reading a bit at a time, making notes in the margins and in the space left at the ends of essays (note to self:  if ever I write a non-fiction book, try to make sure there’s at least half a page of blank space at the end of each chapter for people to make notes–and wide margins).  The fact that the book consists of relatively short essays is a bonus for me at this stage in my life because I rarely have solid chunks of time in which to read.  With this book, whenever my brain doesn’t feel like it’s about to blow a fuse (which, sadly, is not very often), I can read an essay and take a couple of notes without needing to make a huge investment in time.  So far, I have only read the introduction and about three essays in the first section.  Sometime soon, I hope to write a little about what I thought about those essays.  Stay tuned.

Recently read books

I mentioned in a previous post that I was (some might say) obsessively reading fantasy books. Fantasy is the genre I indulge in when I need to relax or escape from whatever is going on in my life at the moment.

Right now, I’m reading books by Raymond E. Feist. I read the first few of his Midkemia books quite a number of years ago (10 or 11, I think) and haven’t read anything since then. I have just finished his two latest (in paperback), Flight of the Nighthawks and Into a Dark Realm, which are set in the same world as those first few books I read years ago. In fact, I seem to have jumped over a good 6 or 8 books in the series to get to these. Normally, I don’t like to do that (I prefer to read a series in the order in which it was written), but I was at the university bookstore and their fantasy selection is rather small so these were the only ones of the series available. Fortunately, the author writes these books in sets of trilogies so that I’ve essentially started at the beginning of a new storyline, so I’m not horribly confused (which would not be relaxing at all). The last book in this most recent trilogy has been released in hardcover, but I’m not sure I want to spend the money on a hardcover right now.

In general, I tend to buy books rather than borrow them from the library. First of all, because I love books and love owning books and love the feel and smell of books so I much prefer to own a book than borrow a book. Second, because I often read books over and over again and it’s easier to do that if I own it. Third (and possibly most importantly), I really suck at returning books to the library. Therefore, I rack up huge fines and in the end it is not much cheaper for me to borrow a book from the library than to buy the book (if it’s a paperback). When I was a kid, I ended up with so many fines the library wouldn’t allow me to check out books anymore (I had no way to pay the fines). So, I would read books in the library. This required me to hide whatever book I was currently reading so that nobody could check it out until I was done. I’m not sure if the librarians ever caught on. The books were always where I had stashed them, so if the librarians did know, they were kind enough to allow me to keep the book on hold, as it were.

At any rate, I’m now going back and reading the books in between the first books I read in the series and the books I just read starting with the trilogy just before this one. Of course, I know which characters make it to the next trilogy so the life-and-death passages are not so gripping, but I’m still enjoying them.