How Do I
Wes's Picks
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Wolf, Maryanne Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain Nonfiction |
| We take reading for granted; it probably feels totally natural to read this sentence without a second thought of why you are able to do so. But did you know that alphabets and our ability to read them are only a few thousand years old, and that some of the greatest thinkers in history, such as Socrates, feared the influence reading would have on the mind and society? These are some of the topics Maryanne Wolf discusses in her excellent book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. Maryanne Wolf is a neuropsychologist who studies reading development in children. Her research eventually led her to study the history of reading and the ways in which reading influences the development of the brain. In one of the more fascinating parts of her book, Wolf discusses the fact that reading actually changes what parts of the brain we use, and that the parts used vary depending on which alphabet is being read. (Someone reading Japanese, for instance, would use different parts of the brain than someone reading English.) Wolf also spends a good deal of time discussing reading development in children, including reasons why reading fails to develop properly, particularly in cases of dyslexia. Wolf offers an especially interesting discussion here, mentioning at one point that dyslexia is strongly related to high activity in the right hemisphere of the brain, and that a surprising number of creative thinkers throughout history, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, were dyslexic. At times Wolf can be heavy-handed with her use of technical jargon, which might slow you down a little. Despite this, Proust and the Squid is overall a fascinating read, and should interest anyone curious about the history and importance of reading. I also highly recommend it to anyone interested in reading development in children, as there are a few golden facts presented that are as useful to know as they are intriguing. Recommended September 2008 |
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Russo, Richard Straight Man Fiction |
| Discovering a new author is exciting. Recently, I discovered
Richard Russo, whose name you may recognize from his Pulitzer Prize
winning book (and subsequent HBO miniseries), Empire Falls.
My first Russo book wasn't the prize winner, however, but a slightly
earlier work called Straight Man. Straight Man is
the story of William Henry Devereaux Jr., the aging chair of a quarrelsome
English department in a mediocre small-town college in, of all places,
Pennsylvania. Devereaux's approach to life is "don't take things too
seriously." When Devereaux applies this approach to administrative
funding cuts, the possibility of being ousted from his job by embittered
colleagues, and the indifference of his family, hilarious situations
ensue one after the other. Honestly, I think this is the funniest
piece of fiction I have ever read. Straight Man isn't all
laughs, though, and in the end it turns out to be pretty heartwarming.
Throughout the story there is serious soul searching on Devereaux's
part as he reflects on missed opportunities and wonders how he got
to where he is. His conclusion is not bitterness, however, but rather
a kind of grateful submission to life's vagaries that comes from his
refusal to stop seeing the joke in everything. Overall, Straight
Man is a good introduction to Richard Russo's writing and his
favorite themes, such as small-town life and missed opportunities.
Straight Man is also absolutely required reading for anyone
walking the precarious path of academia, as Russo's descriptions of
the wackiness of academic life are pricelessly spot-on. Recommended August 2008 |
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