This blog post is part of my ongoing “60 Books in 60 Days” encounter with the Penguin Great Ideas series, which was the Guardian’s book site of the week and mentioned on the Penguin blog. (Their latest post comments on the first 20.) From mid-December to mid-February, I will read one book in the series each night and post a blog entry about it the next morning. For more on this beautifully designed series, visit Penguin’s page about the books.

The Art of War
by Sun-tzu (551-496 BC)

Memorable Line
“The Way of War is a Way of Deception. When able, feign inability. When deploying troops, appear not to be. When near, appear far. When far, appear near. Lure with bait; strike with chaos.”

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I give you this fungal video by Taylor F. Lockwood while sitting here a nervous wreck at half-time of the Florida-Oklahoma game. Maybe it will be calming.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is coming to DVD soon. Honestly, anyone want to gift me with something, anything from the sidebar will do. I’ll write you a nice thank you note and draw you a Cheshire Cat. (POB 4248, Tallahassee, FL 32315. Thank you, and back to nailbiting…)

Oh–not to mention the sortable mushroom index.

Alas, the peaceful union described pictorially above isn’t what Ann and I share. We have what’s known in Tallahassee as a “mixed marriage”–specifically, I am a Gator (University of Florida) and Ann is a Seminole (Florida State University). Every day, up here in Tallywacky, I’m hyper-aware of the fact I’m in enemy territory.

What does that mean for tonight? I’ll be watching the football game while Ann reads. But, then, that’s another way in which it’s a mixed marriage: I am a football fanatic and Ann…is not.

Luckily, we’re both movie nuts, so that if the score gets out of hand, we will watch either Priceless or Flawless.

Still, I believe things will go our way against those land-bound Sooners. I had a dream last night that Tebow threw an interception, but then grew to the size of Godzilla, wrenched the ball away from the safety, and scored a touchdown. (This is not too far from Tebow Reality, if you watched the Alabama game.)

Are you a football fan? Hint: If you didn’t understand a word in this post, you aren’t.

Sitting around watching TV last night…

Jeff: We should develop an idiotgrams business.
Ann: What do you mean?
Jeff: Everybody knows somebody who’s an idiot.
Ann: So?
Jeff: So we take advantage of that to supplement our income. We start an idiotgram business. For a fee, we’ll send someone around to the person or people of your choice and they’ll just say “you’re an idiot” and leave. Totally anonymous. We could start in Tallahassee and franchise it.
Ann: Can I buy one now and have it sent to you?

This blog post is part of my ongoing “60 Books in 60 Days” encounter with the Penguin Great Ideas series, which was the Guardian’s book site of the week and mentioned on the Penguin blog. From mid-December to mid-February, I will read one book in the series each night and post a blog entry about it the next morning. For more on this beautifully designed series, visit Penguin’s page about the books.

The First Ten Books
by Confucius (551-479 BC)

Memorable Line
“The Master said, ‘If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril.’”

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In Alasdair Gray’s terrible afterworld of Unthank, giant mouths descend from the sky to devour the main character, Lanark, a cold wind rising “with the salty odour of rotting seaweed, then a hot one with an odour like roasting meat.” As Lanark is swallowed up, so is the reader.

Gray’s visions in his masterwork Lanark (1981) are as apocalyptic as they are political, and when the fantastical becomes entwined with themes of social iniquity, the critic who attempts to pull them apart risks being devoured himself. “I believe there are cities where work is a prison and time a goad and love a burden,” Lanark says. Yet embossed on the hardcover first edition of Gray’s novel Poor Things (1992) are the words “Work As If You Live In The Early Days Of A Better Nation.” Dragon hide, “as common as mouths or softs or twittering rigor” in Unthank, encrusts the limbs of citizens in a “glossy cold hide,” the color “an intensely dark green” that causes people to act out their hidden nature: “Lanark saw that his dragon fist was clenching to strike her. He thrust it into his pocket where it squirmed like a crab.” At the same time, many, like Lanark, seek the light in a lightless place, even as the dragon hide conspires to take them into darkness. On the level of prose, at the sub-atomic level, does Gray make his intentions clear through the words of Lanark’s eventual enemy, Sludden?

Metaphor is one of thought’s most essential tools. It illuminates what would otherwise be totally obscure. But the illumination is sometimes so bright that it dazzles instead of revealing.

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More year’s best lists and reviews…

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I just posted, on Amazon, Jack O’Connell’s fascinating list of favorite books read in 2008. Here’s the list. Visit the post for the full description.

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By popular request, a list of the second set of Penguin Great Ideas books. (Tomorrow, #21…)

Any favorites here? I’ve marked with * authors I’ve read, and if I’ve in the past read any particular book listed below, I’ve marked it with **.

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Voila! A close-to-final cover for the Kosher Guide, by that talented rogue, Mr. John Coulthart…I believe publication by Tachyon is set for November. Don’t quote me on this, but the current plans for format are an attractive little “gift book” 5 x 7 hardcover, about 112 pages. Based on this post, but including more animals, as well as descriptions and art/illo of each, a selection of the blog comments (if space allows and fair use of public material holds true here–currently researching). As well as “other stuff”.

The blog post itself wound up getting comments from around the world, and inspired a Swedish national public radio broadcast, among other things.

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