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Hello and welcome to the first instalment of my exciting new blog-o-theme.  In this episode we will be looking into the private life of my bottom bookshelf!

My bottom bookshelf has a close and personal relationship with my top bookshelf.  After all, they live in the same cupboard together.

Here’s a photo of my bottom bookshelf (click for a big version where you can actually read the writing):

For the rest of this exciting and introspective look at the wide range of items on my bookshelf… I’ll list each and every topic and give a short review of what it is about.

From left to right:

The Tale of Genji—I haven’t actually read this yet, but the first few pages did seem interesting.  It was a 2006 Christmas present from my Uncle Quentin and his girlfriend.  Genji was an imaginary character dreamed up by ‘Murasaki Shikibu’, a maid in the imperial court.  ‘Murasaki’ was the author’s nickname, taken directly from one of the many characters in her writings; in fact, Murasaki’s real name is unknown.  Genji is a loose collection of short stories that deal with the issues of love, romance, competition and heartbreak, set in the time of Feudal Japan.  Beyond that, I can’t go into much detail.  It is worth noting that I first heard about Genji from the book Murasaki, which is also interesting (but doesn’t live on my bottom bookshelf).  Many people claim that Genji is one of the earliest examples of a novel; this makes it pretty interesting, but from my understanding it is more a collection of loosely-intertwined short stories.

Secrets of the Samurai—A gift from my ex-girlfriend Kirsty, this book is an impressive look at Feudal Japanese culture, dealing specifically with the mighty Samurai warriors.  Entirely unrelated to the book, it is interesting to know that the word samurai literally translates as ‘to serve’.  This is a book I pick up every once in a while in an attempt to make headway, but the writing is a little too terse and time really does start to drag.  It’s also annoying that I have to look every fourth word up in my English dictionary.  Still, in terms of reference or for when you want to be cool and learn the names of a few traditional weapons: this is the book to have!  (katana, dai-katana, naginata, etc.)

Colloquial Chinese: The Complete Course for Beginners—After about an hour sat in the bookshop I chose this book over another similar style of “teach yourself” Chinese.  As with almost all of my books, I didn’t really get too far.  In the case of Chinese, this is often down to the fact that I have a love-hate relationship with the language, but in addition it massively clashes with my desire to learn Japanese.  The net result is that I have one Chinese book, a Japanese dictionary, a Japanese phrasebook, two Japanese university course textbooks and the ability to swear in both languages.  Beyond that, things start to get hairy.  But the book… yes, it’s good.  I quite like structure to my learning, and this book provides it.  A good introduction to the make-up of the characters and basic grammar.  In all honesty what I need to do is sit down at night with a list of words and just learn them off by heart.  Then I’d be ichiban no... no, wait, that’s Japanese…

Sayo Masuda: Autobiography of a Geisha—I’m starting to see a pattern here.  So far all of the books have been about China or Japan: this is no different.  I’ve read a number of books about geisha: all of the ones everybody has read: Memoirs of a Geisha (now a TV series), Geisha by that funky American lady that spent some time being a geisha, and probably one or two more.  I’ve also read a couple less well-known ones; I don’t think I’ve really picked up any more knowledge about what it is to train as a maiko, but I have a pretty good handling on exactly what route most of the girls took, how a danna features in their lives, and so on.  Supposedly this is one of the very few true biographies… but in all honesty I don’t know if I’d trust it as a definitive source.  There’s plenty of flashy novel-stuff in there, but in sharp contrast to other books, it does paint a slightly more bleak picture for the profession.  Well worth a read, but check out Memoirs of a Geisha first.

KAFKA: The Complete Short Stories—No idea at all.  I bought three books all at the same time one rushed lunch break: this one, some Truman Capote book and the novel Pi by some guy with an Indian-sounding name.  The only thing I can tell you about this book is that it caught my eye thanks to another novel I read by Haruki Murakami (surely the greatest writer of fiction that has ever lived?).  Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore is an amazing tale that covers the span of Japan, includes talking cats and fish falling from the sky.  I believe that Franz Kafka was one of the big influences on Murakami, so I figured that there must be something worth finding out about.

Effective awk Programming—This O’Reilly book was a gift from my other ex-girlfriend Rowena (it even has writing ‘n’ stuff inside to prove it).  awk is obviously a funky scripting-language thing that allows you to manipulate text and other cool stuff.  From time to time I get this book out when I feel that awk might be an appropriate solution to my problem, but beyond that my net knowledge of the language involves something like: =ps auxw | awk ’/lewiz/&&/bash/ { print $2}’=.  This would print out the PIDs of all of my bash processes.  Thrilling stuff, I know.

The C Programming Language—aka the K&R book.  Doesn’t everybody have a copy of this?  No?  It’s a classic… albeit a second edition classic, in my case.  I bought this book because the university said it was good.  It did a fairly poor job of explaining C pointers to me; I’d recommend that you save your money (buy a few rolls of process-paid Ektachrome, or something) and head off to this website I heard about called Google.  You can search for something inventive like ‘c pointers’ or ‘what does this **p shit mean?’.

Solaris Internals—Another second edition here.  A very good book, too.  This book covers the working internals of the Solaris Operating System; Sun will have you know that Solaris is the most advanced OS on the planet.  I’m inclined to agree, and you should too.  I’m slowly working my way through this book, but like many others, it is heavy going.  Really handy get-to-sleep material (second only to Secrets of the Samurai, really), but an indispensible reference for system admin, kernel hackers, programmers, performance gurus and young children with a desire to prod the insides of what appears to be a T2000 without anti-static protection.  Details of plenty of useful kernel structures, how the UFS file system works, how process scheduling works… sort of how everything except ZFS works, really.

Portraits, Steve McCurry—If ever there was a genius photographer, Steve McCurry was he (or her).  Unfortunately this collection of portraits from around the world is pretty cheap (I think it was a tenner) so the print quality is crap.  Still a nice little book to have, full of some great shots.  Helps pad the other expensive books out too, which makes you look brainy.

Robert Doisneau—Some French photographer guy that did B&W stuff.  He has a couple of good shots (the one where the guy and gal are kissing in the street after hearing news of the war) and the rest of the stuff is indeed good to view.  Nice, but other books have to come first.

20th Century Photography—A bunch of black and white photos, really.  There’s some really random stuff (especially from the Germans), but on the whole it’s one of those books that helps you decide on your next purchase by providing a helpful selection of random photos from random people.

People Photography—A Lonely Planet book about how to take photos of people.  There are a few interesting concepts here, but of them all I don’t honestly expect there are any that you wouldn’t figure out pretty quickly on your own.  What it does provide is a nice selection of photos that you can have a go at copying… hmm, what do you mean you don’t have a Karen longneck shopping at your local Tesco?

Landscape Photography—Aha, another pattern emerges.  On the whole I found this more useful than the former, if only because it was the first landscape photography book I read.  What I do like is that it is short and snappy, which helps as I have a limited attention span.  Some great example photos and good discussion on what the guy did to achieve the desired result.  My general feeling for “how to” photography books is that they contain some good concepts, but nothing that you can’t discover on the Internet (if only because somebody else has spent the money and doesn’t mind sharing the wealth).  But, as with anything, it’s all about signal-to-noise, and if that’s what matters, this is a handy book… you could probably even take it with you.

Backpacking Photography—I borrowed this from my Dad (along with three more that are soon to come)... I can’t say I think it’s very good.  Too much time discussing which lenses to take, how to attach a rock to the bottom of your tripod to increase stability, etc.  Hell, the time they wrote this Billingham bags were probably ultra-modern.  Replace this with some common sense and a few trial runs.  Read the forums, etc.

Nobuyoshi Araki: Tokyo Lucky Hole—Porn, really.  A bunch of technically ‘interesting’ shots of Japanese prostitues.  In this book you’ll find black and white photos of every bit of the female Japanese body under the sun.  They even have a token blonde American.  Some of it is surely an acquired taste, but it does cover the full range.  Ever wondered what they got up to back in the day?  Well, this is one place to start… but I’ll help you out by telling you that not much has changed.

Criticizing Photographs—Been sat on my shelf for a while.  Supposedly it’s a degree-level book about how to criticise photographs in a good way.  To be honest, in retrospect I think it’s the precursor to going out and buying some ‘intelligent’ glasses (you know, the rectangle-shaped ones), picking up some of F Scott Fitzgerald’s writing and heading down to your local ‘art house’ cinema for wacko cinema.  Of course, come the end you’ll have enjoyed the picture, despite the fact you didn’t fully understand it, but it won’t have been quite on a par with the last film you saw from Japan… you know, that one by the guy who did Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon...

Creative Techniques in LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY—This and the next two are ones I borrowed from my Dad.  This seems like it could be a good book, but I haven’t had enough time to really sit down and appreciate it.  Certainly the first few chapters covered the usual topics pretty well.  Have you ever noticed how older books tend to not make the reader into an idiot?  These days you’re lucky if they let you know that if you make the F-number smaller it’ll let more light in… but if memory recalls, this book has decent diagrams showing the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and film sensitivity.  Good ones too.

The Joy of Photography—Now that I start to write about this one, I begin to wonder if this was the book that had the good diagrams… ?  Anyway, not looked into this too heavily.  I mostly enjoy it because it’s sort-of like having a copy of The Joy of Sex on your bookshelf… except it isn’t!

More Joy of Photography—Those bunnies are really working hard now.  Err, same as above.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Europeans—This was a gift from James and Kim for my last birthday.  HCB is a bit of a legend when it comes to the old photography.  Decisive moment, and all that.  I can’t say a great deal about this book, other than that you should buy it.  It’s a great collection of well-presented photos of people from around Europe.  Obvious, really.

Phillip Jones Griffiths VIETNAM INC.—Just go out and buy this book… now.  Without doubt one of the best purchases I’ve made in a good few years.  Griffiths was a photographer that covered, er, Vietnam.  It’s all very classic TRI-X 400 looking to me, with some expert darkroom work to really set the photos off.  He captures a lot of emotion in the way of happiness, pain, suffering and failed hope… but this he does in a unique way that preserves dignity, while at the same time managing to produce photos that I doubt I will ever come close to producing.  Really, a good book indeed.

Pink Box: Japanese Sex Clubs—Woo!  This book is a combination of three great things: photography, Japan and nakedness!  What more could you want from a book?  Well, as it turns out, quite a bit.  The photos are fun, but look as though they were taken with a $5 throw-away digicam.  The girls, well, yes, some of these are nice, but this isn’t really a pornography book, as I call ARAKI.  There’s some good text that accompanies the photos, but overall it wasn’t the stellar purchase I had hoped for.

The Bob Dylan Scrapbook 1956-1966—This was a gift from my girlfriend Xiaoxiao for… my birthday, I think.  I don’t know if it’s a limited edition or not, but it’s like a pre-made scrapbook that Mr Zimmerman might very well have come up with in his spare time.  Not really.  It has some cool stuff inside, but it does seem a little below my age and IQ level.  That said, it comes with one (two?) interview CD(s) that make interesting listening.

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture & Cabinet Construction—A potential evening hobby… until I realised that I didn’t have a saw, bench, any glue, chisels, clamps… in fact, I didn’t even have any wood.  I read the first few chapters, which did look interesting.  In terms of a beginners guide, I think I bought the right book.  Plenty of useful photos and some really basic writing.  What I didn’t like was the fact that it spent loads of time talking about which instruments one might need, without explaining what they are or did.

Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection—Capa was mates with HCB, but did different stuff.  One of the all-time-great war photographers, Capa is sure to turn up a few hits on the old Google.  This is a hefty collection, but the print quality isn’t amazing.  Overall I can’t say that Capa’s style is exactly what I’d look for… it’s functional, but in terms of photography I’d say he’s well behind Griffiths, but I dare say many would argue this point with me.  This was a pretty cheap collection, so overall I can definitely recommend it.

Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs—Not looked at this yet.  I picked it up because it and its sister volume were going on the cheap.  My initial page flicking suggested that there would be some interesting photos, although maybe not as good as a photographer’s own personal collection.

In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits—As above :)

Well, that’s it for this first instalment of the “What’s on my…” series!

Tags: Life

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