The Peerless Peer by Philip Jose Farmer

I usually review nonfiction books on this blog (a likely cause of no one reading it). Sometimes I read a fiction book that I enjoy so much, I comment on it anyway.

The Peerless Peer is such a book. Philip Jose Farmer brings together Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan in the heart of Africa. Holmes and Watson are on a mission to retrieve a formula that could change the course of World War I by destroying all the fish and chips. Along the way, Holmes sorts out certain points of the Greystoke family history that are “wrong” in the sensational jungle king novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Farmer throws in cameos and name-dropping of a host of popular and pulp heroes. On their first two, back-to-back airplane flights, Holmes and Watson have the mixed blessings of being piloted by G-8 (possibly The Spider) and The Shadow. They obviously meet Tarzan, and unexpectedly meet the daughter of Allan Quatermain. Along the way, they interact with Henry Merrivale and Gideon Fell. As a player of The Game, Farmer describes how Watson’s previously unpublished manuscript came to him through a chain of provenance that included Lord Peter Wimsey.

If you’re looking for a short, fun, pulpy, nostalgic novel, this will do. It is fun.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont

Pulp Art by Robert Lesser

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

What's New Nov. 8, 2010

Alternative Fuels and Energy Resources Articles and Links (Updated)
Big Construction Bonds at Stake this Election
Bill Watch—111th Congress (Updated)
Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
Federal News in Brief
Glossary of Phobias
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
Interesting Stuff Nov. 8, 2010
Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
November Featured Book
November Featured Category
Progress Report
Some ARRA training I presented:
-Introduction
-Davis-Bacon
-Reporting
Thanks! by Robert A. Emmons
Thanksgiving Reading & Entertainment
Vegas Hotel Bakes Guests Poolside
Water News Tidbits
What's New Oct. 8, 2010

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

As a Man Thinketh, a short book written by James Allen, has become a staple of self-help literature. Many stripes of self-help teachers have referred to it since, from the mystical to the practical-minded.

As the title suggests, Allen teaches that a person’s life and achievements are results of his thoughts. Thoughts are the seeds. These seeds grow into actions. The fruit of actions are wealth or want, health or illness, joy or despair. It simply depends on the kinds of seeds you plant.

If you’re not intentionally planting seeds, preferably thoughts will produce salutary and beautiful results, your mind will be seeded with whatever falls there. Your life will be weedy, having mixed and low-value results.

Each chapters of the book is an essay on some aspect of Allen’s theme. They deal with character, life conditions, health, purposefulness, achievement, vision and peace. I each case, Allen suggests the life you have is the life you choose through your habits of thought.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

The 4:8 Principle by Tommy Newberry

The Joy of Supernatural Thinking by Bill Bright

Think 4:8 by Tommy Newberry & Lyn Smith

Allen, James. As a Man Thinketh. White Plains, NY: Peter Pauper Press.

What's New Oct. 8, 2010

Banned Books Week
Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
Glossary (Updated)
Halloween Reading & Entertainment
Infrastructure & Recovery News
Interesting Stuff Oct. 8, 2010
October Featured Book
October Featured Category
What's New Sept. 29, 2010

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It is a follow-up to Gary Taubes’ previous book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. While the first book was aimed at presenting arguments and evidence that might persuade experts to consider new—and revive old—models of nutrition and health, his more recent book is aimed at laypeople who want a more basic understanding of how our bodies manage weight and fat and how we can manage it.

The primary driving force in the way our body uses or stores fat is insulin. Chemicals in our body, primarily insulin, tell our cells when to burn glucose instead of ketones (a product of fat that can fuel our cells) and when to store fat. Though there are various factors that contribute to insulin production, the big driver—one we can control—is carbohydrates. Insulin increases when we eat carbs, instructing our cells to consume sugar (to get our blood sugar levels down) and store fat in the meantime. If we eat too many carbs, we stay in the sugar-burning, fat-storing mode and spend very little time burning fat.

The antidote to getting fat, then, is to eat less carbs. There is a genetic component to this, so how much a person needs to cut carbs to manage weight is individual to them. The upside is that almost anyone can get leaner but cutting carbs; the down side is that your genes govern how lean you can get, which may not be as lean as you want to be.

A more positive upside is that people can lay aside the guilt that come with the association of overweight with overeating and laziness. Appetite and energy levels are driven by the same processes that govern fat storage. In addition to losing weight, a low-carb diet can help one have more energy and less hunger.

Though Why We Get Fat is less reference-intensive that its predecessor, it is still full of references to research. It also covers the history of how the counterproductive calories in-calories-out model came to be dominant in American nutrition and health circles. The emphasis on the book is why.

Though Taubes focuses on why, he does not neglect what, thought the what (cut carbs) is fairly straightforward. He recommends a low-carb diet and includes a model in an appendix, though he also recommends an even simpler list of does and don’ts that goes back to the 1940s, before the calorie counting model took over the medical view of weight management.

I’ve been cutting back on carbs for a few days. I’ve seen my weight drop, but it is too early to say if it will continue. However, Taubes’ book has given me reason to believe it will work if I stick with it.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
8 Minutes in the Morning for Extra-Easy Weight Loss by Jorge Cruise

How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

Making the American Body by Jonathan Black

The 6 Day Body Makeover by Michael Thurmond

The Ultimate Weight Solution by Phil McGraw

Walk Away the Pounds by Leslie Sansone

Taubes, Gary. Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

What I Read (8)

Books I want to read:
Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, Susan Jeffers
The Aladdin Factor, Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen
The Success System that Never Fails, W. Clement Stone
Work Less, Make More, Jennifer White
Multiple Streams of Income, Robert G. Allen
A biography of Beethoven
A biography of William Wilberforce
You Were Born Rich, Bob Proctor
Skills for Success, Adele Scheele
Getting Business to Come to You, Paul & Sarah Edwards & Laura Clempitt Douglas
Mentored by a Millionaire, Steven K. Scott
How to Make Millions with Your Ideas, Dan S. Kennedy

Date: November 4, 2006
Title: The Difference Maker
Author: John C. Maxwell
Thoughts: “If you’ve done the best you can—if you have done what you have to do—there Is no use worrying about it, because nothing can change it,” Harry S Truman.

If your interested in The Diffrence Maker, you may also by interested in The 21 Irrifutable Laws of Leadership Tested by Time.


Date: January 9, 2007
Title: The Way of the Wild Heart
Author: John Eldredge
Thoughts: “Be decisive. Every time a man makes a hard decision, the Warrior in him is strengthened” (quote from the book).

John Eldredge also wrote Epic and Walking with God and co-wrote The Sacred Romance.


Date: January 20, 2007
Title: The Club of Queer Trades
Author: G. K. Chesterton
Thoughts: “’Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction,’ said Basil placidly. ‘For fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore must be congenial to it’” (quote from the book).


Date: February 12, 2007
Title: Tortilla Flat
Author: John Steinbeck
Thoughts: A beautiful, funny, sad, wonderful book.


Date: February 16, 2007
Title: The Dangerous Duty of Delight
Author: John Piper
Thoughts: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him” (quote from the book).


Date: March 19, 2007
Title: The Innocence of Father Brown
Author: G. K. Chesterton
Thoughts: “’All right,” said Father Brown. ‘I never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was always dangerous’” (quote from the story “The Sins of Prince Saradine” in the book).


Other parts of What I Read:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,
Part 6, Part 7