The Girl of the Sea of Cortez by Peter Benchley

 The Girl of the Sea of Cortez

by 

Peter Benchley

Timmy Cham's review

Sep 12, 2020  ·  edit

really liked it

I've always wanted to read a Peter Benchley book. I'm glad it was this one. No real violence, no sharks eating peeps...just a sweet tale about a strong young woman (Paloma) inspired by memories of her father (Jobim) and with a special protective relationship with a seamount and its denizen, a 20-foot manta ray. Will read again.

Words By Heart by Ouida Sebestyen

 Words By Heart

by 

Ouida Sebestyen

Timmy Cham's review

Sep 04, 2020  ·  edit

Based on the author's personal experiences, a gifted young African-American girl of 12 learns
about the realities of racism in the Midwest during 1910. Important, poignant and heartbreaking.

A few study questions I jotted down regarding the first two chapters (pages 1-22), which were
published as a short story in 1968:

1) Serena Williams wrote, in 2019, that "my family truly changed [tennis],
not because we were welcomed, but because we wouldn't stop winning." Does this quote
remind us of Lena's situation in the Bible-Verse Contest?

2) Many of the Bible-verses Lena recites have a deep personal meaning. Do you have the
same relationship with the Bible--or any other work of literature?

3) (pages 12-14): After reciting verses from the "Song of Solomon," Sebestyen writes that
"it would never mean again what it had meant (before)." What did the verses mean before?
Why won't they mean the same again?

4) What "prize" did Lena win? What prize did Lena really want?

5) What lessons does Papa teach Lena in the last pages of chapter 2?

6) (pages 18-21): How does Claudie react tot he knife in the bread? How does Papa react? Why do you suppose they responded so differently?

7) This story takes place in 1910. What lessons does it hold for us in 2020?

Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories by Philip Roth

Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories

by 

Philip Roth

Timmy Cham's review

Sep 02, 2020  ·  edit

Most people read this book in (junior) high school or college. I just got around to it, lol.

All the stories here are wonderful and thought-provoking, but I spent a good deal of time thinking about "Goodbye, Columbus." Some questions I know I'll still be thinking about:

1) What's the deal with Neil and Brenda's argument over her getting a diaphragm? (pp. 56-59, 69-70) Why didn't Neil just be understanding and drop the issue?!

2) What's the deal with the argument over whether Brenda "subconsciously" wanted her mom to find the diaphragm?! (pp. 89-97) Couldn't Neil just take Brenda at her word that it was an "oversight" or "simple mistake"?

3) "It had been so simple to be intimate with water pounding and securing all our pores," Neil says, "and later, with the such heating them and drugging our senses...but now, in the shade and in the open, cool and clothed on her own grounds, I did not want to
voice a word that would lift the cover and reveal that hideous emotion I always felt for her, and is the underside of love. It will not stay the underside--but I am skipping ahead..." (p. 19)
What evidence is there that Neil's feeling for Brenda have a "hideous emotion" on the "underside" of things? Is this true if all love, as Neil seems to claim?

4) "What was it inside me that had turned pursuit and clutching into love, and then turned it inside out again?" (page 97)
What evidence is there that Neil and Brenda's relationship takes on these three stages? Are love-relationships often like this?

5) Since both Neil and Brenda mention Mary McCarthy (pp. 58, 89), I had to look it up

6) It might be nice to compare the mores found in this book with the contemporaneous novel, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Reclaiming Our Lives: Hope for Adult Survivors of Incest by Carol Poston and Karen Lison

 Reclaiming Our Lives: Hope for Adult Survivors of Incest

by 

Carol Poston,

 

Karen Lison

Timmy Cham's review

Aug 22, 2020  ·  edit

it was amazing

What does it mean to lose one's childhood? Is there a way to reclaim lost childhood? These
are the pivotal questions at the heart of Poston and Lison's insightful and sensitive account of incest and its survivors.

The first six chapters painfully recount case-studies of incest-survivors, describing their experiences. In essence, an incestuous childhood is a *lost* childhood (Chapter 3). The predictable consequences of this lost childhood include trust-issues (Chapter 4), a lack of self-esteem, and a feeling of unsafe powerlessness (Chapter 5). The adult consequences of this poisonous triad of losses is obvious: lacking a sense of safety, lacking an ability to trust, lacking self-esteem, the adult survivor of incest is handicapped in her ability to live up to her God-given potential--to become the Best Person they can be.

We can put this in terms of Maslow's famous "Hierarchy of Needs." Without Safety, a person lacks the second level of Personal Needs. Without trust, a person is handicapped in their ability to build fulfilling Relationships--i.e., the third level of Maslow's Pyramid. And without a sense of durable self-esteem, the adult survivor of incest is left without a sense of Purpose (which is the fourth level of Personal Needs). Since the fifth, highest level of personal needs--Self-Actualization--depends upon the fulfillment of the previous levels of Personal Needs, it's unsurprising that the survivor of incest encounters serious Problems of Living in adulthood.

The book's remaining two chapters turn to how the damages of an incestuous childhood might be healed. Chapter 7 lists "Steps of Growth" for the survivor to assimilate and aim for--with the help of a counselor and/or a support group. And Chapter 8 lists a set of 26 A-through-Z practices (pp. 218-257) which comprise a Life in Recovery.

This book is insightful--not just for survivors of incest, but for anyone whose childhood scars have left them with trust-issues and fragile self-esteem. I'd gladly read this book again.

The Panic of '89 by Paul Erdman

The Panic of '89
by 

Paul Emil Erdman

Timmy Cham's review

Aug 08, 2020  ·  edit

really liked it

bookshelves: financial-thriller

Economics is known as the "dismal science." But not when it's in the hands of financial-thriller author Paul Erdman--also author of The Silver Bears, The Crash of '79 and Zero Coupon.

Here's the scenario Erdman paints for this one:

(Q) What if the countries of Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela announced their intent to default on their sovereign debt loans?

(A) Well, they'd be screwed--no US bank (not to mention the IMF and World Bank) would ever extend credit to them ever again!

(Q) Yeah, but what if, at the same time, the Swiss National Bank were assembling a consortium of European banks to extend loans to Venezuela, et al...based on the collateral of oil?

(A) Hmmm...well, in that case, we'd have a crisis: If foreign countries with deposits in, say, Bank of America feared that the Latin American default would imperil the security of their deposits...money would fly out of Bank of America with a Giant Sucking Sound! Naturally, the US Federal Reserve and other Government institutions would have to step in with emergency liquidity

(Q) Yeah, but suppose Venezuela had also contracted the assassination of the US Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the US Comptroller of the Currency?

(A) Well, then you'd have an outright PANIC!

Fade to Black by Paul Rawlings

Fade to Black
by 

Paul Rawlings

Timmy Cham's review

Aug 08, 2020  ·  edit

liked it

Boland Rand is an aspiring New York novelist. He's making little progress in his literary pursuits, despite 10 years of effort. One day, an old friend of his offers Rand a lucrative chance to do some publicity-writing for Jupiter Studios in Hollywood. The job? Fabricate a fictitious past for a soon-to-be Big Star stage-named Honey Horne. For that, Rand will be paid handsomely--$3,000 per week (in 1986 dollars)!

One catch: Rand is told never to inquire about Honey Horne's real past. The studio is especially intent on keeping the public in the dark about Ms Horne's first movie, "Sandscreen."

And then there's this eerie fact: Rand isn't the first person to have the Honey Horne assignment. Rand's predecessor died suddenly under iffy circumstances. Maybe it was just an "accident," but...

One thing follows another, and piece by piece, Rand comes to learn more about Honey Horne's past.

Problem is, whoever confides a new piece of the puzzle to Rand soon ends up dead.

A short, enjoyable book.

The Miramar Seduction by Keeling Jordan

The Miramar Seduction
by 

Keeling Jordan

Timmy Cham's review

Jul 31, 2020  ·  edit

liked it

Could subliminal advertising elect a President? This novel investigates that interesting scenario.

Rick Craig is a founding partner of the Atlanta ad agency, Collins & Craig. Unexpectedly, an enormous conglomerate, Miramar Media (helmed by Maxwell Hunter) bids to own the small ad agency. They set the company to work on three accounts: one for Fresh! soda, one for Chartwell Books, and one for a long-shot presidential candidate, Congressman "Hap" Hapworth.

Why would such a large media company want to control such a small ad agency like C&C? Craig smells a rat. After some twists and turns, Craig discovers that the three advertising campaigns will include subliminal advertising designed to boost Hapworth's image and tear down Hapworth's opponents in the Presidential race. As can be guessed, Craig's goal is to expose the plotting of Maxwell--with the help of psychology researcher, Dr. Paul W. Prescott, M.D., author of the (hastily recalled) book, Mind Control: The Role of the Sub-Conscious in Influencing Behavior.

How realistic is the book? Well, Jordan's novel sketches an ambitious subliminal advertising campaign--including video, audio, and print-based subliminal messages (pp. 252-286). And there are a couple of references to the "popcorn experiment":
During a six-week test in a movie theater, more than forty-five thousand
movie patrons perceived subliminal suggestions flashed on the screen: 'Hungry? Eat Popcorn.' They sold half again as much popcorn as usual. And the machine they used was a tachistoscope... (page 128)
But, alas, the so-called "popcorn experiment" has been long-ago debunked. For further discussion, see:
*Does subliminal advertising actually work? (BBC News, 2015)
*The Shocking Drink And Incredible Coke History Of Subliminal Advertising (Business Insider, 2011)

Also, readers might find Michael Crichton's take on the concept interesting. He directed and wrote the screenplay to the movie, "Looker" (1981)