June 29, 2010: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

Finally, the release date for David Mitchell's next book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, has been announced.

I found a description on an English website, http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails-Deshima+-9780340921579.html ,:

'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet' Description


In 1799, Jacob de Zoet disembarks on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company's remotest trading post in a Japan otherwise closed to the outside world. A junior clerk, his task is to uncover evidence of the previous Chief Resident's corruption. Cold-shouldered by his compatriots, Jacob earns the trust of a local interpreter and, more dangerously, becomes intrigued by a rare woman -- a midwife permitted to study on Dejima under the company physician. He cannot foresee how disastrously each will be betrayed by someone they trust, nor how intertwined and far-reaching the consequences. Duplicity and integrity, love and lust, guilt and faith, cold murder and strange immortality stalk the stage in this enthralling novel, which brings to vivid life the ordinary -- and extraordinary -- people caught up in a tectonic shift between East and West.

I just noticed that the UK release date is April15th, 2010.  Amazon.uk... so tempting...

Lolchair Is My Friend

I am fascinated by anthropomorphism and simulacra, and the mysteriously whimsical workings of the human brain that engenders them.  Lolchair is the perfect example of the way the mind "humanizes" the nonhuman.  For more "object-oriented" fun, visit the Lolchair website at http://www.lolchair.com.

I am still dipping my toes in Stewart Elliott Guthrie's deep tome, Faces In the Clouds:  A New Theory of Religion, which covers this subject as it relates to religion. This book puts forth the theory that early humans with anthropomorphic tendencies had a better chance of surviving.  Simple example of this theory:  If you see a shape and you think it looks like a bear or some other threatening creature, then your survival chances are better than if you think it is just a rock.  If it is indeed a rock and not a bear, no harm done.  However, if it is indeed a bear and you don't interpret it as a potential threat, then your chances of survival go down. 

I have also been sampling a variety of other thought-provoking books on evolving scientific perceptions of human mind and consciousness.

When They Severed Earth From Sky:  How the Human Mind Shapes Myth by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber - Dr. Barber, one of my favorite authors, who co-authored this book with her husband, also a professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, explores the way myths preserve historical truths.

Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett - Computers, brains, and more!  Older book, with lots of geeky, mathematical goodness.

Proust and the Squid:  The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf - Questions the notion that humans are really "born to read".

Outliers and other books by Malcolm Gladwell - Gladwell makes interesting assumptions and turns common perceptions of reality inside out in an interesting way.