The Wrong Enemy, by Carlotta Gall, comes out of her nearly 15 years of reporting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, much of that time as Kabul bureau chief for the New York Times. Focuses on Pakistan's longtime support for the Taliban and other destabilizing forces in Afghanistan and how Pakistan's intelligence and military establishment perpetuates the war tearing up its neighbor to ensure that there's no stable non-client state on the border opposite India. The Afghan Taliban are, as Gall paints it, basically dependent on Pakistan for their survival and have even been directed strategically by Pakistan at various points. This has had terrible implications not just for Afghans but for Pakistanis as well, as the vicious religious intolerance and misogyny of the Taliban has spread and spawned. Nothing, from a macro level, that I didn't already know, but Gall has stories to tell and she's a good writer. Three stars
Other Minds, by Peter Godfrey-Smith, is a look at how consciousness seems to (may?) have evolved in cephalopods, which split off from the evolutionary branch that produced both vertebrates and arthropods more than 600 million years ago. That utter independence of evolution -- they in the sea, with dispersed nervous systems and nearly shapeless bodies; us on land, with giant brains, two legs, and opposable thumbs -- prompts a pretty serious need to reflect on our own specialness and on the nature of consciousness. SRB got me this as a gift: good gift, that sort of thing is catnip to me. The book ended up being okay: enlightening about a topic I knew little about but somehow less revelatory or mind-blowing than I hoped. Not its fault that my expectations were so high but there you go. 3.5 stars.
A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman, is sui generis. What is there to say? I loved the first three-fifths and then by the time she got to hearing and especially sight I was kind of ready for it to be over. She has much more interesting things to say about smell, touch, and taste than about the two senses that we're most conscious of. It's a tour-de-force of voluptuous, sensuous writing by a person who is deeply in touch with her own senses. Four stars and by golly I've never read anything like it.
Other Minds, by Peter Godfrey-Smith, is a look at how consciousness seems to (may?) have evolved in cephalopods, which split off from the evolutionary branch that produced both vertebrates and arthropods more than 600 million years ago. That utter independence of evolution -- they in the sea, with dispersed nervous systems and nearly shapeless bodies; us on land, with giant brains, two legs, and opposable thumbs -- prompts a pretty serious need to reflect on our own specialness and on the nature of consciousness. SRB got me this as a gift: good gift, that sort of thing is catnip to me. The book ended up being okay: enlightening about a topic I knew little about but somehow less revelatory or mind-blowing than I hoped. Not its fault that my expectations were so high but there you go. 3.5 stars.
A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman, is sui generis. What is there to say? I loved the first three-fifths and then by the time she got to hearing and especially sight I was kind of ready for it to be over. She has much more interesting things to say about smell, touch, and taste than about the two senses that we're most conscious of. It's a tour-de-force of voluptuous, sensuous writing by a person who is deeply in touch with her own senses. Four stars and by golly I've never read anything like it.
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