17. Supermanship by Stephen Potter

This is, I believe, the last in the -upmanship series by Stephen Potter, which started with Gamesmanship (there may be one last one called Golfmanship, that I'd love to get my hands on). I was extremely psyched to spot a lovely old Penguin copy of this book sitting on the $1 table outside S.W. Welch's. It's nice to know that there are still quality collectibles that can slip through the fine net of the internet market.

Supermanship is fairly unfocused, being a collection of brief applications of oneupmanship in a wide range of situations, some correspondence and some brief (and fictional) history of some of the major players at the oneupmanship institute. It's the same kind of humour, tons of subtle techniques to make the other fellow doubt himself. I particuarly liked the section on lecturemanship, which dealt with academics and visiting lecturers. It gave strategies for both the host (like wearing a short sock and then crossing one leg over the other and raising your pant leg, revealing your white flesh, so the audience is constantly distracted by it) or the guest lecturer (like turning to the host, making a particularly obscure reference and capping it with "as Professor Gates-Willoughby will surely know").

Some of the humour went far over my head, being very British and very much of its time. But it's a quick read, organized into digestible gulps (great for the bathroom), which is all I'm capable of these days. I'd recommend Gamesmanship or Lifemanship before getting into this more advanced volume. I'm very pleased to have discovered that a friend of mine actually has a copy of Lifemanship, so that will be 3 out of 4 in my hands!

44. Gamesmanship by Stephen Potter

My dad recommended this to me. He told me that when he was at UBC in the 50s, Stephen Potter came to do a lecture. He described him as a small, unassuming looking man who spoke very quietly and soberly, but by the end my dad laughed so hard that his ribs hurt.

It's a manual on how to defeat your opponent without actually being skilled at a sport or cheating. The games are british popular sports from the early middle of the 20th century: lawn tennis, croquet, billiards, golf. It's a very slim manual, with a few hilarious diagrams and instructions on how to have the more sympathetic injury, or how to create an inflated reputation. The humour is sometimes very dry and couched in very different cultural mores, but the spirit is the same today and this book will appeal to anyone with a competitive spirit. I laughed out loud many times and I will definitely use some of the techniques here.

He also has a book called Lifemanship that I definitely want to read.

I recommend it highly.

58. The Tiger in the Well (Sally Lockhart #3) by Philip Pullman

Now this is more like it!  I was quite frustrated by the structure and plot elements of the second book, The Shadow in the North, and that led me to some trepidation while reading this one.  The story starts a few years later.  Sally is established in her business and home and she has given birth to a daughter, Harriet, who is now a toddler.  All the men in her life are gone.  Jim and Garland Webster have left on an adventure of their own in South America.  The conflict starts immediately, although subtly, as Sally receives a legal summons.  At first, she treats it lightly as it is so absurd.  She is being sued by a man for abandonment who claims to be her husband.  He also wants Harriet.

As she looks into it, and deals with super weak and sexist legal representatives, the case becomes deadly serious and she truly risks losing her child, as well as all her assets and her business.  We quickly meet a truly nasty antagonist, the bland and professional seeming Mr. Parrish.  Meanwhile, we also follow the story of Jews fleeing the pogroms in Europe and arriving in London, where they are often exploited by criminals and attacked by racists or a combo of both.

These two storylines combine in a rich historical adventure that all center around Sally.  I was able to guess quite quickly who was behind it all and it was a bit frustrating that it took Sally so long.  That felt a bit manipulative on Pullman's part, though he explains himself away by basing it on her psychology (she knew all along but didn't want to face it; why?).  My distrust held back some of my enjoyment as Sally really goes through the wringer.  He pulls it out in the end, but the promise of a competent, extraordinary woman that the first book is set up is not fulfilled here in a lot of ways.  She spends much of the book being victimized and never gets to use her skills (no cool financial gamesmanship, she never shoots anybody).  This what we call deprotagonization in the tabletop RPG business.  For instance, in one scene when she is down to her last shillings and she pawns the watch that her father gave her and gets a super low price for it.  I get that Pullman wants her to be as desperate as possible, but this woman is super skilled at money and her dad taught her to be tough and street smart.  This could have been a good opportunity for her to show some mettle and skill and instead she meekly accepts the price.

The other characters and the situation is wild enough that once we start to see some hope, the book gets really fun.  Sally doesn't use her skills, but she is brave and resourceful and quite tough.  We get to see a lot of the lives and locations of the poor Jewish community and this is quite interesting and entertaining.  The finale is quite wild, a real page-turner, so much that I partially blame it for my insomnia and me writing this at almost 2 in the morning.  Too stimulating!

So some minor hiccups but overall this was an excellent adventure and I am glad I am working my way through this series.