Blues for America

I love Kurt Vonnegut. Truth be told, I haven't read too much of his writing. Slaughterhouse Five, a while ago, then again when I taught an elective class on Vonnegut, which is when I also read Sirens of Titan. I also used a couple of his shorter stories with my 8th graders. They liked it, like I do, because he's honest and funny and brutal. I saw this link on someone's facebook, which is where I get most of anything anyway. Thanks friends.

Blues for America
Kurt Vonnegut

I don't have a really good summary for this. Read it. It isn't too long. I haven't really thought about what it means or what it means to me or what I think about it. While I read it, my brain sort of went, huh, yeah, I know what you mean, sorta. A lot of what Vonnegut writes about I haven't been through, so I can't really say that I know what he means, exactly. But I think he expresses it the way I would if I had. And when I do chance upon some overlap, I think he sums up my thoughts pretty nicely. We have a whole heck of a lot of opportunity, and for some reason, we seem determined to squander it in an effort to make the world a greedy and unhappy place. Not being terribly powerful or important, though, I don't bother to do much about it. I live my life, fight more with my family than I should, try to tell everyone I love that I love them, and figure out what things I can do that will make me smile the most often. 

In a Sunburned Country

Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors, if not my favorite. I will read pretty much anything penned by him. I have 3 on my bookshelf (among about 15 total books), several on my kindle, and a couple at my mom's house. What I love about his books is that they are non-fiction combined with wonderful storytelling. It's all the most fun things you would want to know about a topic, nicely picked out by Bryson from all his research.

In a Sunburned Country
Bill Bryson

This book is about Australia. As Bryson points out several times, most people outside of Australia don't really know that much about it. I certainly didn't really. I've met a few Australians and they were pretty nice, tan, and had a different accent than mine. That was basically my starting point. I read this book over the course of several months, so it hasn't really stuck together as a cohesive story to me, but I can recall out a few themes.

I liked the book a lot. As with all of Bryson's books, it's funny enough often enough to make me laugh out loud and get made fun of by whoever is around me while I'm reading. I figure if a book makes me laugh and teaches me something (even if I don't remember terribly well), then it is probably a pretty good thing to read.

Bryson talks a lot about the landscape and incredible vastness of Australia - it is an incomprehensibly large country that is mostly unknown and unconquered. Even when people manage to struggle through it, it often happens that they can't get back to the places they saw and visited on their way. He also talks about how remarkably diverse the flora and fauna of the country are, and that some are endangered while others still thrive in spite of changes in the environment.

Speaking of flora and fauna, Bryson spends a lot of time talking about the plants and animals of the country and how unique and often deadly they are. I got the heebie jeebies a few times and it made me think twice about wanting to go tromp about in the country and its ocean although Bryson makes pretty convincing cases for visiting. Apparently Australia is home to the most (quantity) and most (quality) deadly plants and animals on the planet. Yipes.

The rest of the book is told via Bryson's travels throughout the country, exploring the cities and landmarks that he visits and going back to retell the history and other facts. 

Word Choice Detects Everything from Love to Lies to Leadership

I've been poking around the UT website to see what goings-on are going on around campus that I can go to or get involved with, and I saw this article/news release on their news page.

Word Choice Detects Everything from Love to Lies to Leadership, According to Psychology Research
James Pennebaker

An excerpt from the article:

“Using computerized text analyses on hundreds of thousands of letters, poems, books, blogs, Tweets, conversations and other texts, it is possible to begin to read people’s hearts and minds in ways they can’t do themselves,” says Pennebaker, the Liberal Arts Foundation Centennial Professor and Psychology Department chair.  Pennebaker will publish his findings in his new book, “The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us” (Bloomsbury Press, August 2011), which is based on a large-scale research project that links natural language use to social and psychological processes.

It was pretty short, so I think to really know what he found and how it works, I will have to read the book, but I am intrigued. I like becoming more conscious and aware of what I say, how I say it, and what it means, especially as I don't think we are always terribly conscious of what we say, how we say it, and what it means, even though we are the ones saying it.

Of course,  because he mentions politics a bit, the commenters latched on to that and started throwing liberal/conservative fits (which I always find annoying). I don't really think that is terribly relevant.

A link to the book:
The Secret Life of Pronouns:What Our Words Say About Us