“The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” by Claire North

I didn’t expect to like this book. The premise of it is that Harry August lives, dies, and is born again in exactly the same manner, life after life. He remembers all of the information that he learned in his past lives, including the people he met and the facts he learned. In fact, there’s a whole group of people like this, organized into the Cronus Club to take care of each other.

Now most stories that deal with this reincarnation type thing just go through all of the different paths this person’s life can take. At some point they assassinate Hitler. And all that jazz. This story is different.

A child one life comes to Harry as he is dying, saying that the world is ending (as it always does) but it has started ending sooner. And there’s only one possible explanation: another person who keeps reliving their life is affecting the course of history. So Harry starts to hunt them down.

The narrative structure in this book does take some getting used to. It’s not in chronological order, but presents anecdotes from Harry’s lives as they become relevant, and so it bops around from his third live to his seventh to his fourteenth quite a bit. I quite enjoyed it really, it’s all through Harry’s perspective so it all makes perfect sense, but if you want a chronological order you will be disappointed.

One aspect of this book that I absolutely loved though was how it portrayed intimate relationships. All of the closest relationships in this book are friendships. Sure they could turn into romances occasionally, but none of the characters have delusions that anyone is their true love. Those that reincarnate rarely seek out the same partner in the next life that they live.

Possibly the closest relationship in the book could better be described as a rivalry. These two characters are so in sync on a mental level, pushing each other intellectually to new heights. But in the end they end up on different sides of their consciences, and that sets them against each other. Numerous times in the narrative though they insist how much they like and care for each other despite this, which makes it so interesting to watch them destroy each other.

This story was definitely not what I was expecting, with a quirky narration and an unconventional story. North is clearly a wonderful storyteller, with great ideas to write about as well as how to portray them. I look forward to checking out her other works as well.

“Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman

This book combines psychology and economics in really interesting ways. Kahneman is a psychologist by training, and he talks you through all of his experiments. He also gives questions to the reader, so you can judge your own reaction, before explaining what is going on. The main question here is “do people have good intuitive statistical reasoning?” You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the answer is “uh no, we definitely don’t make rational statistical decisions.”

Kahneman starts by introducing the two systems at play here, what he calls System 1 and System 2. System 1 makes quick judgements and doesn’t like thinking, while System 2 ponders questions and weighs the options. System 2 also makes up arguments for the decisions that System 1 makes. Of course, there is no biological aspect to these, it’s just shorthand for how we think. Since System 1 is quick and System 2 is slower, here is where the title comes from.

From these observations on our thought processes, Kahneman broadens his view to various applications within economics and otherwise. He demonstrates that we often don’t make rational decisions and are instead drawn to whatever seems appealing in the moment. For example, we rarely choose options worded as a “loss” instead of a “gain” regardless of the numbers.

Overall this was a great read. Kahneman explains everything clearly and illustrates all of his points with examples or stories of when he made similarly bad decisions. He also ends every chapter with examples of how to use these concepts more conversationally, since his goal here is to change our casual conversations so that we are more aware of our shortcomings. Because another aspect of humans is that we tend to think that statistics apply to other people and not to us, but that’s really not true. And if we are more aware of our natural shortcomings, maybe we can get better at avoiding these pitfalls and make better decisions.

“Wishful Drinking” by Carrie Fisher

Despite the fact that Carrie Fisher is my princess/general/ruler, I have never actually read anything that she’s written. Mostly because I feel like it would have just made me sad that she deserved so much more from life than what she got.

Having said that, this book is full of sad happenings, but also humor and hilarity. It takes a certain type of person to live a life like hers and still find everything funny. It was also based on her “Wishful Drinking” show, a kind of standup that Fisher performed. So it ends up being very entertaining to read.

It is also very important to understand mental illness and the stigma that goes along with it. Celebrities like Fisher talking candidly about being bipolar and having addiction problems definitely helps, that way it is less of a taboo secret and more just another aspect of someone’s life. I can’t believe how long it has been since this was written, and yet there is still such a pervasive stigma about mental health.

Carrie Fisher, you were my queen and I’m so sorry about what you went through. But if it results in great works like this book, then I guess I won’t be too sad about it. I’m going to watch “Star Wars” and cry now.

“The Book of Human Emotions” by Tiffany Watt Smith

I first came across this author through her recent TED Talk on emotions. I was so fascinated by it that I decided to read the book as well!

Smith’s argument is that emotions vary across time and across cultures, therefore there are no basic emotions that we all universally feel. We are so much more complex than that. This book is not an attempt to categorize all of the emotions, but merely to highlight a select number of them and provide context for them. There are all of the major emotions like love, anger, and happiness, but also obscure ones such as ambiguphobia (the fear of being unclear) or l‘appel du vide (French for “the call of the void”). It’s a fascinating look at our psychology.

I absolutely loved the format of this book, the emotions are arranged alphabetically, with short essays about each one. Depending on the emotion, Smith will explain its etymology and history and how its meaning has changed over time. For example, people used to die of nostalgia. Soldiers would be flown back home when they caught a bout of it, to avoid an untimely fate. However, that ended at the beginning of the 20^th century, and no one has died of it since.

Smith also has a lot of fun with this, a great example is how the entry for “exasperation” redirects to “frustration.” “Frustration” then sends you back to “exasperation” creating a perfect example of the two emotions, as well as highlighting Smith’s sense of humor.

Truly, this book left me wanting only more information on what we feel and how that is determined. Which is great because she leaves you with plenty of suggestions for further reading at the end. I hope she continues to write about emotions as well though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

“Origin” by Dan Brown

Let me just start off by saying that I have a love/hate relationship with Dan Brown’s novels. He has so many cool ideas in them, and I love the intersection of religion and art and science that he is exploring. However, all of his female characters are shit. Langdon is like the nerd James Bond, he gets a new female partner every damn book and then just discards her at the end of it. And most of the time the female sidekick is a damsel in distress or some trope like that. Ugh.

Having said that, I’m going to keep this post about the ideas explored in this book. To be honest, I didn’t love this one as much as his other novels. It felt as though there was less of a mystery here, not as many codes and plots to be solved. The main mystery is what Langdon’s friend was going to claim about mankind’s origins and where we are headed as a species. Spoiler incoming.

Now the origins of humanity are simple, he designs a computer program to simulate the primordial soul and figures it out. No God involved. That’s fine. It’s a book, he can do whatever he wants, I’ll let the computer and physics geeks debate the reality of that.

His second claim is more interesting. He claims that eventually humans will be overtaken as the dominant species on Earth, and that we will be merged with another, equally powerful species. This species is, of course, technology.

I have several problems with this. First of all, technology cannot really be called a “species.” It’s not alive. It doesn’t breed. If it does, it’s because a human programmed it to be like that. AI is what we make of it, no more no less. It doesn’t count on a basic level as a form of life.

And then there’s the idea that it’ll merge with humanity. I mean… yeah of course that’s going to happen. That’s been happening since mankind first developed tools! Studies show that your brain reacts more to a tool that you’re holding than your hand when you are using it. We have already merged with our technology, many people have pacemakers or artificial limbs or other forms of tech inside of them. A significant percentage of the population wouldn’t be alive without modern medicine and science. This concept is really rather obvious. Man and tools have been linked for millennia, this is nothing new.

Finally there’s the plot itself and what it says about technology. There’s a supercomputer named Winston who orchestrates its master’s death because it believes that his master would have wanted that. (He was dying from cancer anyways.) I’m really not a fan of this. If someone could build a supercomputer that can create art and think logically rather similar to a human, then you could also program a computer to have limits to how far it will go, or to not do shit like this without explicit permission. It’s rather easy, this is just fueling the AI paranoia that is so in fashion these days.

There’s also the religious ramifications of these claims that man was created without a God. This book very much so sets up the two forces at odds with each other, saying that you must choose one. I wish that a combination was more explored here, since both have their benefits. What with Winston causing several deaths in the book, it looks as though Brown thinks that we will end up on the side of science. But that same science will become our undoing. Which I disagree with on a couple different levels, as illustrated above.

But as Langdon says in the book, “dialogue is always more important than consensus.” Brown is using this story to raise awareness for several ideas, and to get his readers thinking about the various ramifications of it. I personally don’t love all his ideas about the future (I think I agree more with Homo Deus which I discuss here) but he is still creating a discussion and forcing us to think about it. Which is always a noble endeavor.

Variations on a Theme: Classical Saxophone Pieces

Classical saxophone is a genre that is near and dear to my heart, but no one else seems to know that it exists! Lets give a little love to one of the lesser used classical instrument, because music on a well-played saxophone is gorgeous.

1. “Aria” by Eugene Bozza

This is a gorgeous piece of music. Written similarly to a vocal aria, it really lets the sax sing through the melodic line. Bozza clearly knew the instrument well because it is perfectly suited to the range and sounds beautiful.

2. "Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra" by Claude Debussy

Debussy is best known for his piano works, but there are several pieces (such as this one) that he wrote for full orchestra with featured instruments. As part of the impressionist movement in music, the piece is more contemplative with some odd dissonance thrown in for color.

3. "Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano" by Paul Creston

This is a well known piece among classical saxophonists for being part of like every audition ever. Having said that, it is still a wonderfully surprising piece. The first movement is very exciting and technically difficult, but the second is a beautiful break right in the middle. The third then lights up the gas and brings the whole thing home. Stay through until the very end, you won’t regret it.

4. "Piece Breve for Solo Saxophone" by Eugene Bozza

Once again, Bozza shows that he really knows the sax. This piece goes all through its range of notes crazily, then bursts out with a melody that continually comes back through the chaos. I love this piece, it’s exciting but also melodic. A ton of fun to listen to.

5. "Alto Saxophone Concerto in Eb" by Alexander Glazunov

This is another quintessential saxophone piece with orchestra known for being part of auditions. It has the best of everything packed in there, from soaring melodies to incredibly fast sections. I just remember one part where when I played it I had to get it fast enough to do it all on one breath because it was impossible otherwise. It’s so fun to listen to though when you don’t have to play it.

6. "Concertino da Camera" by Jacques Ibert

I have always had a soft spot for this piece. I think it’s a lot of fun technically, and with some very catchy melodies. It tends to get left behind the others though.

7. “Saxema” by Rudy Wiedoeft

Wiefoeft is an interesting guy in that he was a very early saxophone player. He actually played the C melody saxophone, which is no longer in use, and usually just gets approximated to alto. His works usually hang out in that grey area between classical and jazz, and as a result they are just so much fun to play and listen to. Be sure to check out some of his other songs, he tends to really push the boundaries of what the saxophone can do, just because he was one of the first to play it professionally!

And that’s all we got for you this month with classical saxophone! Be sure to check back next month for a playlist on SHOW TUNES! Let's sing along to our favorite musicals!