Stress

School has started and that means it's time to write our first essay for Mrs. Geiger, my second grade teacher: what I did this summer. Over the next few posts I'll update you on what has been going on, but first I think it's important to let you know that, contrary to public opinion, we retired people do have moments of stress. Mine occurred over the last week as I got closer to retiling the bathroom. Now that doesn't sound like a very stressful job. In fact, as I was taking up tile this past weekend, I realized that I had done that job at least four times before (four layers of old tile came off the floor). Unfortunately, they were all wrong. When we went looking for tile, the nice people at the tile store implied that only a neanderthal would put tile in the bathroom without lifting the toilet and tiling underneath. So that meant a lot more work. It also meant we weren't going with the old standard (cheap) peel and stick tiles. We got vinyl plank tiling that is called floating tile. It doesn't stick to the floor. The two-foot by one-foot tiles interlock with each other on all four sides. That means they can shift as you are working so you always have to be checking that they are in the right place before you measure to cut the next one. 

Now none of that is overly stressful. We needed one extra tile so we had to buy an extra box of tiles. That means I have lots of chances to correct mistakes. I'm not really handy, but I've done a lot of the work around the house just by reading up and watching you-tube videos. And if you give me plenty of chances to make it better, usually the final outcome looks pretty good. I installed a 20 foot X 30 foot wood deck from scratch (with Dave's help from time to time), redid the front porch with all its slats from scratch, and generally feel if you give me enough time, I can probably do the job.  

There's the crucial word: time. Because we had to lift the toilet, it made sense to replace it with a new one that is higher and more water efficient. It was the same amount of effort either way. Unfortunately, we only have the one bathroom. You can't take your time when your bathroom is out of commission. This is the definition of stress.   

Let's see. What could go wrong? The project starts right at noon. 

1. Well, the 25 year old nuts and bolts might be rusted.   After fifteen seconds of turning them, I realized the nut wasn't getting any closer to the top of the bolt, but just spinning in place. Out came the hacksaw and fifteen minutes later the toilet is freed from the floor. I remembered to turn off the water ahead of time and clean out the bowl and the tank, so not much mess there. Ann and I try to take the tank off the back, but those bolts won't move and it's not worth cutting them by hand. It just means that it will be heavier to lift onto the cart and haul outdoors. We get that done and now it looks like this:  

             

I fill in the spots around the hole with old basement tiles to bring it level to the rest of the old tile, which is tan and speckled and we really can't remember it (remember we removed four layers of tile from above the speckled one) so we assume that was there when we bought the house. That means the guy before us cut out the tile around the toilet, too, rather than tile under it. Over the next two hours, I put down the new tile across the room (except for around the vanity which I can do after the toilet is in). And, yes, I'm putting the tile around the vanity and not underneath because we don't need a new vanity and that's a lot more hoses and pipes that have to be redone to make it fit. Laying the tile includes making a nice circular cutout in the tile where it goes above the hole. Probably the most I've used the Dremel tool   

in ten years. Worked perfectly (except for having to put new cutting disks on every five minutes because they broke off and went flying across the garage at 90 miles an hour).  So Ann and I read over the instructions for how to install the toilet, put on the magical wax ring, and together we lower the new toilet into place. Now everything I read implied that the toilet would need to be pushed down to seat the wax ring around the hole. That didn't happen. The toilet landed on the floor immediately. So back to the internet.  

2. Although it doesn't say anything in our instructions, it turns out the top of the hole needs to be at least a quarter inch above the floor to catch the wax ring. With the new tile, which is a lot thicker than press and stick tile, covering the area where the toilet used to be, the top of the hole is at least a quarter inch below the level of the tile. On the positive side, this meant we had to go to the hardware (which has restrooms - Yay!!). We buy extenders which will raise the top of the hole up to the right height, caulk to keep water from seeping through around the extenders, and a new magical wax ring. Ann and I put it all together, lift the toilet into place, and sure enough this time the toilet doesn't touch the floor (which is good). That means it is resting on the wax ring. As you push down on the toilet and tighten the nuts, the toilet gradually comes down to floor level. Pray with us that it doesn't leak.  

3. The next thing that can go wrong is that the tank which sits on the back of the toilet and holds the water doesn't fit. Well, luckily that didn't happen. It takes us a while together to figure out the instructions and tighten it enough that the tank is snug on the toilet base, but eventually we get there. There's not a lot of room in that bathroom. Add two people tightening screws and it gets pretty crowded. But we're still speaking to each other, so, so far, so good.  

4. Turn the water back on next to the toilet and let it fill up. Except you can't do that if the new toilet is higher and the old hose doesn't reach the bottom of the tank now. Luckily, we saw that one coming and picked up a new longer flexible hose at the hardware on the last trip. Those nuts aren't rusted, so that installation is really pretty easy. So now we can turn the water back on and let the tank fill up.  

It's nice that the hardware inside the tank that regulates the water level is already installed. I've done that before and I really don't enjoy it. Ann has to do some adjusting to get the water level in the tank right, but eventually we can't delay any longer and we have to flush the toilet and see if there are any leaks. Amazingly everything works the way it is supposed to. Once the toilet seat goes on, it looks perfect. I guess they were right when they told me that replacing a toilet is pretty easy. It's 6:30 now, so the whole toilet project takes only six and a half hours and required only one trip to the hardware in the middle. Even better, no animals (including us) were harmed during the completion of this project.   

The next day, I finish tiling - there are a lot of cutouts to do so it takes quite a while. Luckily Ann is gone most of the day so only Whimzy gets to hear me talk to the tile when it doesn't quite fit. All in all, though, it goes pretty well. I only make one mistake on the tiling that makes me redo a whole piece. I forgot to check the tabs on the side of the tiles where they interlock together and I cut a piece that had the low tab on the wrong side of the tile. I still end up with ten tiles left over (from a box of twelve). A little more hassle putting the new trim in place at the bottom of the bathroom walls and the project is pretty much done.   


And now, back to my normal level of stress.

First Day of the New School Year

Today marked the first day of school in Wauconda, an institute day for teachers, so I had the honor of being the first speaker up to welcome everybody back. It gave me a chance to use some of the information from some of my recent blog posts to talk a little bit about why education is so important.
Enjoy.  

It seems that lately my world has been overrun with things that make no sense to me.  

Last week, a survey by the University of Texas and the newspaper The Texas Tribune showed that only 35% of those responding agreed with the statement “Humans developed from earlier species.”  Only 41% disagreed with the statement “Humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time.”  I keep seeing in my mind the Lewis Black video where he now realizes that, for a large number of people, the Flintstones was a documentary. 

And a story popped up in the news about how vaccinations lead to all kinds of serious problems, including most notably, autism.  I thought this nonsense had been put to rest, but every so often it pops up again. The most recent major study published in the New England Journal of Medicine followed half a million children through their vaccinations and showed without much doubt that there is no link whatsoever between vaccination and autism. The doctor who started this whole antivax scare has been discredited, his medical license revoked, and his research labeled an elaborate fraud by the British Medical Journal. This whole discussion is reminiscent of the advice given in the 1940’s that children should not eat ice cream because it leads to polio. The feeling was that polio cases increased in the summer at almost exactly the same time that children started eating ice cream. Therefore “one of those must cause the other.” Luckily within ten years, researchers had isolated the polio virus and were well on the way to developing a vaccine that has worked very well. In that case misled parents may have withheld ice cream from their children, which has no long lasting consequences.  However when parents withhold vaccinations from their children, they are putting not only themselves, but also all the other children their children come in contact with in danger.  

And a third story made even less sense when I saw that coming in in 6^th place on the box office results this week with a total of $47 million dollars in ticket sales was Smurfs 2.  

Folks, it’s a scary world out there and the level of irrationality has grown to an all time high. And that makes it even more important that we provide our children with the most rigorous education that we can provide. Not because of No Child Left Behind or because of Common Core, but because an education is the surest way to provide for an informed and rational citizenry. Aristotle said, “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”   

So, the pressures on you as teachers have never been higher. And in some areas the support has never been lower. I have mentioned in the past the results of the Phi Delta Kappan survey on public education that says,  

“Public education – it stinks and teachers are terrible – well, not at my kids’ public schools. Their teachers are great and my kids love it there, but, you know, public education stinks.”   

The Board of Education would like to welcome you to the start of another school year and most importantly, we would like to thank you for the tremendous service you are doing for the children of District 118 and to recognize publicly the significant positive impact you have had on the students who have passed through District 118 schools.   

Thank you very much and have a great year.    

Texas? Really?

I know every state in the Union has issues of some sort or another. When it comes to my state, Illinois, I know that one of the things we lead the nation in is governmental corruption. At one point, I think we had three consecutive governors spending time in jail for various offenses committed while they were governor. Yay, Illinois. So it is hard, in general, for Illinois people to poke fun at other states. But this is just too much low hanging fruit to ignore.

A new University of Texas/Texas Tribune survey shows just how destructive a politicized right-wing curriculum can be. A large number of Texans polled said they still don’t believe in evolution and are convinced that humans and dinosaurs co-existed:

– 51 percent disagree with the statement, “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.”
– 38 percent agree with the statement, “God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago.”
– 30 percent agree with the statement, “Humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time.” Another 30 percent said they “don’t know” whether the statement is true.

This would be comical if it weren't for the fact that these same people are again in charge of choosing science textbooks to use in their schools.The Texas State Board of Education is looking to set state standards for science teaching this year. And the creationists on the board are looking to set the children of Texas back a hundred years in their education. Most of the people involved in this tragedy think they are doing it for religious reasons. If so, their interpretation of the Bible is seriously flawed.

Take, for example, Kenneth Miller, a Roman Catholic professor of biology at Brown University and author of one of the nation’s leading high school textbooks. His biology textbook, fully in support of evolution, is among those the Texas state board is considering for adoption this year. Or consider Francis S. Collins, an evangelical Christian and head of the Human Genome Project. From a Time magazine piece about Collins in 2009:

“Science can’t be put together with a literalist interpretation of Genesis,” he continues. “For one thing, there are two different versions of the creation story — in Genesis 1 and 2 — so right from the start, you’re already in trouble. Christians should think of Genesis not as a book about science but about the nature of God and the nature of humans," Collins believes. “Evolution gives us the ‘how,’ but we need the Bible to understand the ‘why’ of our creation.”

You would think that the overwhelming (let me say that again - OVERWHELMING) basis for evolution would sway some people. Unfortunately, creationists have proudly rejected out of hand the  scientific evidence behind evolution. They have reveled, as former Texas state board chairman Don McLeroy infamously said, in “standing up to experts.”

What can you say to that?

I'll leave it to an "expert" to get in the last word. Warning, some explicit language is involved here. If it bothers you, you may want to skip this.

Today's Math Lesson: Braess's Paradox

So, it seems like this whole summer around Wauconda we have been practicing merging from two lanes down to one. A six mile stretch of Route 12 is in the process of being repaved and each day they block off a new section to fill in all the potholes. I assume they want the road fairly level before they install the new surface. During one of these interminable waits, I happened to recall a problem from network theory (with some connections to game theory) that I remember talking about with my advanced students fifteen or twenty years ago. It took a while to find it, but it turns out it appeared in the New York Times in December of 1990. It was probably used in a talk that I heard at a math conference sometime after that and I knew my students would be interested in it.    

It is called Braess's Paradox, first described by Dietrich Braess of the Institute for Numerical and Applied Mathematics in Munster, Germany in 1968. To understand the paradox, we need the diagram below (from Wikipedia):   

Assume that there are two roads leading from START to END, one that passes through A and one that passes through B. For the moment, ignore the dashed line that is a road from A to B. The travel time in minutes for the passengers on the START to A road is the number of passengers (T) divided by 100 and the travel time from START to B is a constant 45 minutes. As you can see the times are flipped for the next section of the trip (A or B to END). To do the math, let's assume there are 4000 passengers who want to make the trip from START to END. For A passengers, the START to A to END trip takes A/100 + 45 minutes, and the START to B to END trip for B passengers takes 45 + B/100 minutes. For any one person (who cannot by themselves affect what A or B is to any extent) both paths look pretty much the same. Since A + B = 4000, it can be shown that the optimal solution is to just randomly pick a path with the result that A = B = 2000 (roughly). Then the total time to travel from START to END would be 2000/100 (which is 20) + 45 for a total time of 65 minutes regardless of the path you picked. Even if you are a selfish driver, there is no incentive to pick one path over the other. (For you econ and game theory buffs, this is called a Nash equilibrium, after John Nash, the mathematician profiled in the movie A Beautiful Mind.)    

Braess's paradox has to do with what happens when you try to ease the congestion by adding another road that runs from A to B that has a very short driving time (think 0 minutes for the purpose of the problem). Now when a single driver looks at the choices from START to the middle, even if all 4000 drivers go to A, the driving time is 40 minutes (4000/100), which is less than the 45 minutes to go from START to B. And similarly when they get to the middle, every driver sees that they can save five minutes by switching from from A to B. That makes each part of their drive 40 minutes for a total driving time of 80 minutes, 15 minutes longer than the time without the road from A to B.  From a game theory viewpoint, when everyone in the game acts selfishly, then everyone suffers.    

In an inverse way, that's what prompted the New York Times article. In the late 1980's, the Earth Day celebration in New York caused a lot of traffic congestion. In 1990, the Traffic Commissioner decided to lessen the car traffic congestion by closing one of the streets - in fact, a fairly major street, 42nd Avenue, which is always congested. Everyone thought it would be a disaster. In fact, traffic flow got better that year. Braess's paradox in action. When the streets are crowded, sometimes traffic improves when there are fewer streets to choose from.     

From the Times article:   

Dr. Joel E. Cohen, a mathematician at Rockefeller University in New York, says the paradox does not always hold; each traffic network must be analyzed on its own. When a network is not congested, adding a new street will indeed make things better. But in the case of congested networks, adding a new street probably makes things worse at least half the time, mathematicians say.     

Something to think about the next time you are stuck on Ohio Street, trying to get to the Garrett's popcorn store on Michigan Avenue.   

Typical summer day in 1960: played Home Run Derby until dinner; then rode my bike home, ate dinner, and read a book.

The 9 - 14 year olds who belong to National Public Radio's Backseat Book Club have nominated tons of books for NPR's Booklist of best books for the 9 - 14 set. A set of experts then chose the top 100 from those nominated. This is a diverse group: the 9 year olds are in 3rd or 4th grade, the 14 year olds are just starting high school, So these books are not for everyone in the entire age group. They do, however, give a remarkably wide range of books for kids to choose from. Ann and I went through the list tonight - she did better than I did, but there were still a lot of books that I have read from the list. And it's not too late: a YA book can be just as well written as an adult novel, and more interesting. I found several that I need to look up on Amazon for my Kindle.

Here they are; the books in green, red, or  blue (depending on my excitement level) would be high on my list:

Watership Down, by Richard Adams        (described by the editors as The Aeneid with rabbits)
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
The Chronicles of Prydain series, by Lloyd Alexander
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie  (part of my literary summer)
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda series, by Tom Angleberger
The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate
Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater
Poppy, by Avi
Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt
Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie
Oz series, by Frank Baum
The House With a Clock in its Walls, by John Bellairs
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume
Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
Ramona series, by Beverly Cleary
The Dark is Rising series, by Susan Cooper
Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech
The Watsons Go To Birmingham-1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis
Catherine, Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman
D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl
Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl
Matilda, by Roald Dahl
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo
The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau
Half Magic, by Edward Eager
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, by Julie Edwards
The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright
The Birchbark House, by Louise Erdrich
The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes
House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer
Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh
The Lincolns, by Candice Fleming
The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank
Eleanor Roosevelt, by Russell Freedman
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean CraigheadGeorge
My Side of the Mountain, by Jean CraigheadGeorge
Misty of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry
Bunnicula, by James Howe
Redwall series, by Brian Jacques
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, by Jeff Kinney
The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler, by E.L. Konigsburg
A Wrinkle in Time series, by Madeleine L'Engle
Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
The Earthsea Cycle series, by Ursula K. Le Guin   (well-written fantasy makes children think)
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine
The Chronicles of Narnia series, by C.S. Lewis
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin
Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan
The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne
Anne of Green Gables series, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Borrowers, by Mary Norton
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien
Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell
Wonder, by R.J. Palacio
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
A Long Way From Chicago series, by Richard Peck
The Twenty-One Balloons, by William Pène du Bois
The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett   (Can a book get any better than this?)
His Dark Materials series, by Phillip Pullman
Where The Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, by Rick Riordan
Harry Potter series, by J. K. Rowling
Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan
Holes, by Louis Sachar
Okay For Now, by Gary Schmidt
The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick   I bought this right after the movie came out      
Bomb, by Steven Sheinkin
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
The Bone Series, by Jeff Smith       (a graphic arts novel (we called them comic books))  
A Series of Unfortunate Events books, by Lemony Snicket
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
The Egypt Game, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Arrival, by Shaun Tan
The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, by Maria Tatar
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
All-of-a-Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Mary Poppins, by P.L. Travers
Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
The Sword in the Stone, by Terence Hanbury White
Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia
American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang

Glad to see Bunnicula and the Redwall series make it. I'm never sure they are on the expert's radars. Sorry that The Westing Game didn't make the list. Hope these books made your childhood more enjoyable and more imaginative. What are your favorites? I think I know someone who would put  The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler near the top of his list. 

Let's Save Some Lives ! !

August has become Blogust to the UN Foundation's Shot @ Life campaign. This marvelous campaign seeks to 

"educate, connect and empower the championing of vaccines as one of the most cost effective ways to save the lives of children in the world’s hardest to reach places. "

Each day of this month, a guest blogger tells us why vaccination is important. Today it was Amanda Peet, an actress from one of my top ten rated TV shows (Let's go, Marshmallow Fight), Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Amanda in her post talks about her five year old daughter and what a health milestone worldwide 5 years old is.
She is joined in the campaign by Walgreen's, which is sending one vaccine oversees for each comment left to each of the 30 blogs done in August, up to a maximum of 50,000 vaccines.

A comment from Shannon as simple as     Yay for vaccines     has earned a vaccine for a young boy or girl.

A child dies every 20 seconds from a vaccine-preventable disease. We can change this reality and help save kids’ lives!   Stay connected with Shot@Life at www.shotatlife.org, join the campaign on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. 

I sent a $20 donation as well. My $20 "gives a child a lifetime of immunity to protect her from pneumonia, diarrhea, polio and measles."

So send what you can. Comment on the blog posts during the month and help Walgreen's make good on its promise to sent 50,000 vaccines.

Sign up here for a daily email so you can quickly and easily comment every day during Blogust.

It really is an important step in helping that toddler make it to her fifth birthday party.

Thanks.  I knew I could count on you.

The Good, the Bad, and ....

The Good:

What an amazing finish to an amazing season! Two goals in the last minute and 20 seconds to go from behind by one goal to ahead by one goal and win the Stanley Cup. They made hockey fun to watch and I didn't think I'd ever say that.   




The Bad:  

It was reported last night that science fiction and fantasy writer Richard Matheson had passed away at the age of 87. Matheson wrote 25 novels, many of which were made into movies, including The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend which came out just a few years ago as a movie with Will Smith. I remember him mostly as the author of several TV screenplays, including the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" which starred a young William Shatner, and the classic "The Enemy Within" episode for Star Trek.  His Twilight Zone episode "Steel" was remade last year as "Real Steel" a movie starring Hugh Jackman about boxing robots.   

He was to be honored on Wednesday by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films with the Visionary Award. In 1910, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. If you are looking for something good to read, try I Am Legend. None of the three movie versions do it justice.  



 And the ...

The Cubs announced Tuesday that Carlos Marmol has been designated for assignment, meaning they have 10 days to trade or release him.They brought up an outfielder from Triple A Iowa to take his place. The last straw seems to be the blown save on June 16 when he entered the game with a 3 - 0  lead in the ninth and left two home runs later with a 4 - 3 loss to the New York Mets. He made the 2008 NL All Star Team, but had difficulty finding the plate in the last couple of years. Good luck to Carlos, and I think I speak for all Cubs fans when I say, "This should have been done last year."    

Literature?

If you know me at all, you know that the best part of being retired is that I don't feel guilty staying up all night reading. When I was working, reading until 3 AM, then getting up at 5:20 AM to go to work made for some long days.  Now, though, I can sleep in or nap if I have a really good book. I don't have a broad range of books that I like: when I go to the library once a week, I look for science fiction first, then mysteries, nonfiction about math or science, maybe an interesting biography. Another major category for me is books about words: their origins  ("happy as a clam?"), grammar concerns like 'who' vs. 'that' (if the pet has a name, we say, "Morris is a cat who knows what he likes," but otherwise, "There's the dog that catches frisbees"), and books on how to write (they help with the graduation speeches).    

I do not, by and large, however, choose books that might be called "literature."Much of that stems from reading lists in high school and college that attempted to force me to read books that were considered "literature".  Ten pages of Les Miserables was enough to cause bad dreams even now, Hugh Jackman notwithstanding.   

I have changed recently, however, with the purchase of a small kindle ebook entitled "Start Here  - Read Your Way into 25 Amazing Authors"  by Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Schinsky. These editors have found people in the book world who have a manageable passion for a certain author. Nicole Perrin, for example, is an editor, reader, and a blogger at Bibliographing. In "Start Here", she writes about what are the three best books to choose to start reading Herman Melville. The "Start Here" idea is that these experts will give you a place to begin to understand what the author is trying to say. That way, you won't start with Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Start with some essays  to see what he is about - "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again',  then move up to short stories - "Girl With Curious Hair", before tackling the 1079 pages of Infinite Jest.   

The twenty-five authors are a very eclectic group, so it is fun to read across several genres. Although most are currently writing, there are a few oldies: Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe are included, but for the most part the writers are current. So I decided to try literature again with the help of "Start Here". And so far, I feel like they have made good choices for me. On my most recent trip to the library, after picking up a Raymond Feist three book sword and sorcery series which was excellent, and a new Robin Hobb book I have been looking forward to, I went over to the regular fiction section. I had decided on three authors to begin with and because of the small size of our library, was prepared to have to take the second book on the list if the first one was not available.    

First up was Sherman Alexie. Alexie writes about the Wellpinit Reservation of Indians in Washington State where he grew up. My small library did not have in stock The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (although they will order it), so I went with the second choice Reservation Blues from 1995. It is the story of the short life of the Coyote Springs rock and roll band. Funny at times, very depressing at times. The novel can be hard to follow as he dips in and out of dreams with the characters. I did enjoy it enough that I am planning to go on to the other novels listed in the book.   

The second author I chose was Margaret Atwood, a Canadian author highly decorated as a poet, story writer, and critic. The starting novel was The Handmaid's Tale, written in 1985. This dystopian novel shows you a community where women's rights have been suppressed severely. In many ways, the novel foretells some of the antics of the past election where various congressman spoke out about things they knew nothing about: Todd Akins, Missouri - "Victims of legitimate rape rarely get pregnant, so maybe the pregnant women were not legitimately raped,"  along with many other knucklehead opinions that have no basis in fact or science. As recently as this week, Senator Chambliss, of Georgia, addressing top military officials about the incredibly large number of sexual harassment incidents in the armed forces, said: "The young folks that are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22-23. Gee whiz -- the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur." Luckily,  Rep. Mike Turner, co-chairman of the military sexual assault prevention caucus, issued a statement saying criminals, not hormones, cause sexual assaults. But that attitude, that women are partly to blame for rapes, and it's just boys being boys, permeates the culture of old white men, particularly in the South. The number of bizarre laws coming out of South Carolina and Mississippi curtailing women's reproductive rights is incredibly scary. I have not finished The Handmaid's Tale yet, but so far it is well written, but pretty bleak.    

My third foray into respectable literature is the author Cormac McCarthy. The starting book suggested to get into McCarthy is All the Pretty Horses, written in 1992. I have not started this one yet. I am hoping it is not as violent as No Country for Old Men, which is second on the list. After that, I have Bernard Malamud to look at, Richard Russo and Alice Munro, Italo Calvino and Zora Neale Hurston. I hope to get to Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami which is in the "Start Here" book and was on Mike's top ten books list on Marshmallow Fight.

I am excited to be reading these books and hope that they give me a wider perspective on life in general. As long as I can find a Philip K. Dick or Ray Bradbury story to read along with them, I'm happy.