by C.A. Oliver

This is a High Fantasy with an interesting concept. The characters are mostly elves of the Tolkienesque sort and apart from perhaps too many 'exotic' names to keep straight, I found the characters mostly distinctive and likeable. After all, who doesn't like elves?

The writing, while technically fine, felt a little forced, like someone trying too hard to become the next Tolkien. There was a fair bit of 'telling' in the first chapter and to my horror, footnotes to explain elements of the world building. This really killed it for me.

The plot varied in pace, but was overall typical of a quest story. Fantasy fans will know what I mean. Apparently there are to be twelve books, which I think might be overly ambitious. Definitely targeted to a Fantasy audience with the patience to unfold the greater story arc.

TITLE:  The Mind's Eye

AUTHOR:  Oliver Sacks

DATE PUBLISHED:  2010

FORMAT:  Hardcover

ISBN-13:  9780330508896

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DESCRIPTION:

"In Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks explored music and the brain; now, in The Mind's Eye, he writes about the myriad ways in which we experience the visual world: how we see in three dimensions; how we recognize individual faces or places; how we use language to communicate verbally; how we translate marks on paper into words and paragraphs; and, even how we represent the world internally when our eyes are closed. Alongside remarkable stories of people who have lost these abilities but adapted with courage, resilience and ingenuity, there is an added, personal element: one day in late 2005, Sacks became aware of a dazzling, flashing light in one part of his visual field; it was not the familiar migraine aura he had experienced since childhood, and just two days later a malignant tumor in one eye was diagnosed. In subsequent journal entries - some of which are included in The Mind's Eye - he chronicled the experience of living with cancer, recording both the effects of the tumor itself, and radiation therapy. In turning himself into a case history, Sacks has given us perhaps his most intimate, impressive and insightful (no pun intended) book yet."

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REVIEW:

A collection of interesting case studies.

Our current buddy read of The Invention of Nature is going well enough that when it's finished, we're going to convert the book club into a general science buddy read club.

We definitely need a snappier name for it.

In the meantime, the current members are going through their shelves and coming up with possible titles for future reads; we'll likely read one book every two months, as non-fiction is generally a more time consuming read and we don't want to burn anyone out with too much of a good thing.  

I've gone through my Planning to Read shelf and shelved all the science books onto the science shelf (something I generally don't do until I've read the book - more out of laziness than anything else) and I've included a few here to see if any of them look interesting to anyone else, or are maybe already on their shelves.  

I have 16 all up; if anyone has any interest in seeing them all, I have confirmed that if you go to my shelves (or anyone else's for that matter) and click on Planning to Read, and then click on my Science shelf, you'll only see the Science books I have that I haven't yet read.  BookLikes has a bit of boolean searching power it's been keeping under its hat.

I've stuck with hard sciences (left out philosophy for example), but as a member of the group I'm open to interpretations.  

This really brief book of four essays count among the most moving pieces I have ever read by anyone facing his own imminent demise. Having survived his unusual cancer for almost a decade, he was shocked to discover that although he felt wonderfully well, he was, indeed, now doomed. He took solace from his family and his friends, his memories and his accomplishments, recognizing that we all have a finite timeline. After reading his essays, it can only be said that he faced his death with dignity and grace, as well as with an appreciation and recognition of all that life had given him. I was moved emotionally to tears, but I was also moved to hope that I might face my death in much the same way, with an acceptance and a sense of joy for all I had been lucky enough to receive and enjoy as I “shuffled along on this mortal coil”.