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Science
Joseph B. Lambert, Traces of the Past: Unraveling the Secrets of
Archaeology through Chemistry (Addison-Wesley, 1997, 319pp hc
$30). At times this was a bit too technical for my purposes, but I still
found it fascinating to see ancient technologies and relics and how they
are uncovered and interpreted by chemical archaeologists.
David Keirsey & Marilyn Bates, Please Understand Me: Chracter &
Temperament Types (Gnosology Books, distr. Prometheus Nemesis
Book Co., 1978/1984, 210pp pb $11.95). This book is here because I
reread it from cover to cover this fall. Kristine and I first read it years
ago, and it provided great help in understanding each other and our
children. The Jungian philosophy on which the MBTI is based is, of
course, somewhere between pathetic and silly, but the MBTI is itself
based on an empirical foundation. The most important aspect of this
book and the MBTI-like test that it contains is not that it tells you great
truths about yourself, but rather that it gives you a framework through
which to view the behavior of others. The clerk who seems to delight in
enforcing an unreasonable and counterproductive rule is not a jerk, he's
just a complete J who is defending good order. The child whose room is
a disaster area is not disobedient or rebellious, but merely a profound P
for whom an orderly room would be a prison. Kristine and the kids and I
have found that using the ideas from this book, we were able to
accommodate each others needs more gracefully and almost entirely
without conflict. We have to bite our tongues now and then, and
compromise is essential to living together, but nobody starts from the
assumption that the others' "deviant" behavior is deliberately designed to
be provocative or annoying. Rather, we are all acting from our own set of
needs, and once we understand those needs, we can work things out
much more pleasantly.
Katy Payne, Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants (Simon &
Schuster, 1998, 288pp hc $25). Origin of my story "The Elephants of
Posnan." Payne's over-romanticization of the elephants is annoying
sometimes, but the fact remains that this book documents a fascinating
and rich society among elephants -- a milieu so fascinating that I
couldn't resist using it in a story that I'm very, very proud of.
Ian Tattersall, Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness
(Harcourt Brace, 1998, 258pp hc $27). A fascinating exploration. While
much of it is speculative, it is grounded in a solid overview of the current
state of knowledge on the subject.
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