Book Review: Ghosts of the Tsunami

Ghosts of the Tsunami

Writer:                          Richard LLoyd Parry

Publisher:                      Jonathan Cape

Type:                              Hard Cover

Pages:                             251

Genre:                            non-fiction

Published:                      2017

ISBN:                             9781911214182

 This is a handsome hardcover, the dust jacket has a shinny wave very reminiscent of The Great Wave of Kanagawa. Under the dust cover is a nice blue tome with metallic silver title on the spine. There a five maps at the beginning which are very helpful, and some black and white pictures. The book ends with extensive notes and index.

 I will note right upfront this book isn't as advertised. I pre ordered this book based on the description on a bookstore website.  It was described as an exploration of the paranormal events encountered after the 2011 Japan Tsunami. But while the book does indeed address some of the paranormal, that certainly is not the main focus of the work.

 It isn't until eight chapters in that we really get a good look at some paranormal activity. But the work is fascinating anyway. It examines the Tsunami and its effect on the people. The book deals especially with one school that lost many children. 
 The book examines grief, politics, law, precognitive dreams, possession, ancestor worship, all in relation to the Tsunami.

 Despite the book not being what i expected, i did really enjoy it. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Tsunami, grief and survival. It really doesn't deal with enough paranormal activity to highly recommend it to the parapsychologist unless your also interested in the non paranormal aspects of the Tsunami. 

 I really do wish someone would write a book on the paranormal activity related to the Tsunami. 

Book Review: The search for the Giant Squid

 The search for the Giant Squid

The biology and mythology of the worlds most elusive sea creature 

 

 

Editor:                            Richard Ellis

Publisher:                      Penguin Books

Type:                              Soft Cover

Pages:                             250

Genre:                            non-fiction

Published:                     1998

ISBN:                             9780140286762

The book itself is well made as should be expected from a major publisher. It has many black and white drawings and photographs. Sadly this work does have photos of deceased Cephalopods. The text is a little on the small side for my ageing eyes. The book has on page notes that are very helpful.

Full disclosure; I love Cephalopods they are my favorite animal on earth, and that includes humans,and i am very interested in Cryptozoology. So i really wanted to love this book. 

  At the beginning of the book (page 4) the author states that the Okapi was not suspected to exist until a full specimen was found. This was very worrisome for everything i read afterwords as i believed this statement to be untrue. I went to a trusted resource Cryptozoology A to Z by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark and indeed i was correct. Now i thought that perhaps the author was simply unfamiliar with Cryptozology but he does mention it a few times and it would be impossible to study the giant squid without studying cryptozoology. So i don't know how this error occurred, but when reading a book and knowing that such errors exist within it it does bring into question everything else in the book.

The book begins with an examination of what the giant squid is. The author seems to dispute the larger sized encounters because i think, the creature was not captured for study.  I would have preferred a more skeptical scientific view, but this is a minor gripe as long as the encounters are not dissed out of hand.
 So this problem was mine and not the books. The author took issue with the fictional descriptions of the giant squid a few times and it struck me as an odd thing to do. Upon consideration i can understand his stance, in that it puts misinformation into the public arena, by those who can not differentiate between fact and fiction. In fact later a whole chapter is devoted to giant squid in fiction. Maybe i would have dealt with the parts about fictional squid in that chapter alone.
The book then looks at various sea creature sightings and tries to see if those sightings were actually not of serpents or other beasts but were misidentified giant squid. the author is reasonably convincing in this endeavor. And it is good to see him admitting that some sea monsters just do not fit the squid at all. It really does bring more credibility to a theory when you can see that your idea doesn't fit every example.

The book examines what we know about cephalopods and what can be extrapolated from this knowledge and applied to the giant squid. We then see the different names and classifications the giant squid has had through history.
  A lot of attention is given to the interaction between whale and squid. And a chapter is devoted to models of the giant squid, which is something i wasn't expecting.

 In the conclusion the author does consider if he has been too eager to dismiss many reports of the giant squid, which is good to see. The back of the book does have a list of "authenticated" giant squid sightings and standings, an extensive reference section, all illustration credits, and the all important index.

 I am really conflicted by this book. Reading it seemed very disjointed and while looking for the ISBN to write this review i noticed that portions of the book had been previously published. I am not really sure if that is what i was picking up or not. It could be the inclusion of fiction, or even the chapter on the models?
 Perhaps in a book about a major cryptozoological success story i had expected the field of cryptozoology to be held up to a higher regard. Trying to give this book a rating is hurting my head. I appreciate it, i think i would have enjoyed it more if i wasn't so interested in cryptozology which is a weird thing t say i know.
 Perhaps despite my love of cephalopods, cryptozology, history, and monster fiction i am not the target reader, but then i am not sure who is. I feel like the book tried to be or do to many things perhaps.  

 I also feel like i am sounding harsher than i actually feel. I would still recommend this book to someone interested in the subjects mentioned, but i definitely would also advice looking into those subjects in separate dedicated works as well.

Book Review: My Dear Boy

My Dear Boy

Gay Love Letters Through the Centuries

Editor:                            Rictor Norton

Publisher:                      Leyland Publications

Type:                              Soft Cover

Pages:                             278

Genre:                            non-fiction

Published:                     1998

ISBN:                             9780943595719

 This book is well written and well produced. It has a few black and white photos, paintings and drawings within. It should be noted that there is a little nudity, but this is very tasteful and artistic.

 This book is exactly what it says on the cover, it presents love letters between male loves thorough history. It is amazing that so many gay love letters have survived.

 The introduction makes a very excellent point that while some have tried to claim that homosexuality s a modern invention. That claim is as ridiculous as claiming there were no alcoholics before Magnus Huss "discovered" alcoholism in 1852.

 Each entry starts out describing the writer and recipient of the letters and then often shows some written correspondence back and forth between them.

 We start off reading of Alexander the Great and his lovers, the we move on to Marcus Aurelius who funnily enough equated his desire for his male lover with being thirsty after a great fever. After that we move to ancient China and a love story that might just bring a tear to the eye.
 I will also mention that some of there solve letters come from saints, monks and clerics.

 The stories come from all over the world, Germany, Portugal, China, Rome, Japan, Italy, Brittan, France, America among other locations. 

 Some of the authors i knew while others were a mystery to me. Some more famous names included; Hans Christian Anderson, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, King Ludwing II, Pior, Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo, King James, Alexander Hamilton, Lord Byron, William Burroughs, TS Elliot, Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, Countee Cullen, TE Lawrence and Allen Ginsberg.

 This is a fascinating and very important work. Australians LGBTQ community is currently going through a hate campaign enabled by the right wing government, in it every Australian will get to vote on if LGBTQ people should have equal marriage rights. During this horrible "debate" i have hear much vilification and many threats against LGBTQ individuals, family's and youth. But the worst was probably one woman. She was arguing that LOVE was between a man and a woman, not marriage, no she was adamant that only a man and a woman could love. For more on what kind of people are voting on our rights read the #TheyGettoVote hashtag on Twitter.

 Anyway i highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in history, or LGBTQ issues. If fact if your going to comment publicly on LGBTQ issues you have a responsibility to educate your self on those issues. You should read this book. This book should be in every high school, perhaps an edited version with some pictures removed if necessary, but it needs to be there.

Book Review: Haunted & Mysterious Australia

 Haunted & Mysterious Australia

Bunyips, yowies, phantoms and other strange phenomena

Author:                          Tim the Yowie Man

Publisher:                      New Holland Publishers

Type:                              Soft Cover

Pages:                             189

Genre:                            non-fiction

Published:                     (First: 2006) This edition: 2017

ISBN:                             9781742579436

 The first thing you will notice in this large book is the big colorful photos, but fear not, this isn't just a picture book, it also devotes most of the page to text describing the mystery in common language. Its refreshing to see such vibrant pictures in a book like this.

 There is a map of Australia in the front of the book which shows the location of the phenomenon and on which page you'll find it. 

 Tim the Yowie Man takes a logical but skeptical look at a lot of different Australian mysteries including; spooklights, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, a fishman, fairy, crop circles, haunted shipwrecks, lake monsters, poltergeists, vanishing lakes, ghosts, yowies, out of place animals, standing stones, haunted cars, surviving prehistoric creatures, UFO's, a levitating beer glass, sacred sites, mysterious geological formations, geoglyphs, cryptids, rock art, ghost ships, and haunted buildings among other subjects.

 I really like that this book is written from an Australian perspective, and it was interesting to see Tim the Yowie Man's own clearly marked encounter within it. Its also really refreshing to see stories that i have not heard of before alongside the famous ones.

 There is a bibliography in the back and a really interesting list of Australian ghost tours. 

 This is an excellent book and one worth having on every bookshelf. The only criticism i could have against this book is that the page numbers are a little bit difficult to read. If your at all interested in Cryptozoology, Paranormal activity, history or Australian culture you have to grab yourself a copy of this book.

FULL SCORE

Book Review: Intermediate types among Primitive folk

 Intermediate types among Primitive folk

Author:                          Edward Carpenter

Publisher:                      George Allen & Unwin Limited

Type:                              Hard Cover

Pages:                            174

Genre:                            non-fiction

Published:                     1911

ISBN:                             Unknown

 This is an old book, its pages roughly cut and i had to read it in short bouts as its ancient pages brought on sneezing fits.

 This amazing work looks at the why of queer (LGBTQ) people, why did homosexuality evolve, what is its purpose? And in doing so it shows how influential queers have been to the development of civilisation. It is not difficult to read though and avoids using too many "university speak terms." It remains highly accessible to the novice reader.

 I often write notes when i know i am going to review a book, and i have filled two double sides of A4 pages with brief notes to refresh my memory of things i thought were fundamentally important. 

 Do no t fear i am not going to write about everything this book entails. I will note that it does use some antiquated language and has some old fashioned beliefs, but considering it was partly written in 1907 i am sure that can be forgiven. 

 The book looks at the role queer people have had through many different civilisations in our history.  We see again that queer members of society have filled valued positions in the past and such people were seen as a blessing to the group.

 This work is well thought out, excellently explained and logicly reasoned. It shows that being queer is of course natural and proposes that civilisation itself may have relied upon queer people to develop. It shows that queers being outside the usual masculine/feminine roles had time and inclination to think, to developed new ideas and look at problems from a different perspective. It shows that queers were a forward force in human evolution giving us amazing advances in religion, science, invention, art, crafting, healing, philosophy, music dance and poetry, 

 There is also chapters on "hermaphrodites", women, and the Samurai. In addition to a conclusion and index.

 Before talking about what is traditional, (yes this book does demonstrate some traditional same sex marriages through history), you need to read this book. Before talking about what is natural or best for society you need to have read this book. It should be required reading for everyone commenting on queer issues. It should be in every high school and university library.

 It is extremely shameful that we had this knowledge way back on 1907 and homophobic bigots in Australia are still trying to deny queer rights.

 

Book Review: The Song Of Achillies

 The Song Of Achilles

Author:                          Madeline Miller

Publisher:                      Bloomsbury

Type:                              Soft Cover

Pages:                             352

Genre:                            based on a true story

Published:                      2011

ISBN:                              978-1-4088-1702-5


 This is a large softcover with metallic gold card just behind the cover i am not quite sure if that make it a special edition or something but it is beautiful. Its a historical novel so sadly no artwork adorns the pages. 

 Everyone should know the story of Patroclus they are one of the most famous gay couples in history. While most focus on the abduction of Helen and the siege of Troy this work actually fills in the gaps in the historical record of the love between the two men.

 If you have ever considered watching the movie Troy, don't as it encourages straight-washing, pick up a copy of this book instead. 

 You will know the fate of the protagonists but the beauty is in the journey. And it is a beautiful journey brought alive by a talented writer. keep in mind this isn't erotica and everything is kept very tasteful. 
  
 This is a great book, it should be read by anyone who doesn't understand the gays. It should be on every high school library shelf. You should read this book.

 Homophobes often forget that humanity has a very queer history as is being demonstrated in Australia as the LGBTQ community is being defamed and terrorised by bigots (some Nazi, some not) arguing we shouldn't have equal rights. Just today A homophobic politician Cory Bernardi has claimed that marriage equality is a "rainbow Trojan horse" he is rather silly so he probably doesn't realise the irony of his statement.

 

Book Review: The ghosts of toowong cemetery

 The ghosts of Toowong cemetery

Brisbane's Necropolis

Author:                          Jack Sim

Publisher:                      Jack Sim

Type:                              Soft Cover

Pages:                             40

Genre:                            Non-Fiction

Published:                      2012

ISBN:                              9780975796023

 This is a small book with no spine. It was actually given to me by a friend. There are numerous black and white photographs.  The text is of good size and clear. The book even has a map of all the locations in the cemetery in the back!

 The book deals with the areas of Toowong Cemetery that are haunted or have had paranormal activity reported there.  Some of the uncanny goings on includes strange lights, disembodied voices, found bodies, Nazi- vandalism, moving statues, vampires, ghostly apparitions, haunted celebrity graves, grim reaper sightings, witchcraft, mysterious blood, wailing women, and death parades.

 The cemetery is also home to a spook hill one of many found around the world. You know the story park your car at the bottom of the hill and wait as unseen forces will push your car up the hill, defying gravity and the rules of the living. 

 Each place is given much explanation, with history and legends well explained. Unfortunately the cemetery is locked up at night but there are tours that have access. 

 One company Brisbane Ghost Tours was established by the author of this book. 

  This is a really good book, excellent for anyone interested in ghosts, the and paranormal of course. But just as interesting for those interested in the history of Brisbane in particular and Australia in general.

Book Review: The soul of an Octopus

The Soul of an Octopus 

A surprising exploration into the wonder of consciousness

 

Author:                         Sy Montgomery

Publisher:                      ATRIA

Type:                              Hard Cover

Pages:                             241

Genre:                            Non-Fiction

Published:                      2015

ISBN:                              9781451697711

This book is a nice hardcover and underneath its colourfull dust cover the book is elegant with black cover and silver writing.
 As a cute added bonus the corner of each page has a little octopus in it, if you flick the pages the octopus moves. There are also eight full color pages of photographs.

 The book is a personal journey of the authors interactions with various octopus. It is a fascinating journey and we grow to know her and her friends which does come to include some cephalopods. 

It looks briefly at some octopus legends. It again draws attention to the science establishment and its attempts to minimise the fact that animals show emotion. It brings up some interesting questions about consciousness.   

 There are a lot of facts scattered throughout the personal story, and the knowledge bombs are dropped smoothly. There is even a little about Na Kika the Octopus God of Gilbert Island.

 I recommend this book for anyone interested in animals, consciousness, psychology, octopus, squid, nautiliod, and especially anyone who eats cephalopods. I should point out, the book isn't preachy, that's all me.

Do you care about animals? Then you really shouldn't eat octopus.