Brian's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 07 Aug 2024 19:07:17 -0700 60 Brian's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings]]> 85416 496 Sigmund Freud 0141184051 Brian 4 3.97 1920 Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings
author: Sigmund Freud
name: Brian
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1920
rating: 4
read at: 2013/11/12
date added: 2024/08/07
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review:

]]> A History of the Apocalypse 40972301 637 Catalin Negru Brian 0 4.60 2015 A History of the Apocalypse
author: Catalin Negru
name: Brian
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/21
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]]> History of the Apocalypse 28029554 0 Catalin Negru 1329667646 Brian 0 to-read 4.27 2015 History of the Apocalypse
author: Catalin Negru
name: Brian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[A Libertarian Walks into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears)]]> 50358538 A tiny American town's plans for radical self-government overlooked one hairy detail: no one told the bears.

Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road.

When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness.


The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton's neighbors: the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city in an effort to get off the grid. The bears smelled food and opportunity.

A Libertarian Walks into a Bear is the sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is the ultimate story of a quintessential American experiment -- to live free or die, perhaps from a bear.]]> 288 Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling 1541788516 Brian 0 to-read 3.79 2020 A Libertarian Walks into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears)
author: Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
name: Brian
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows]]> 56897474 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“It’s undeniably thrilling to find words for our strangest feelings…Koenig casts light into lonely corners of human experience…An enchanting book. � —The Washington Post

A truly original book in every sense of the word, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows poetically defines emotions that we all feel but don’t have the words to express—until now.

Have you ever wondered about the lives of each person you pass on the street, realizing that everyone is the main character in their own story, each living a life as vivid and complex as your own? That feeling has a name: “sonder.� Or maybe you’ve watched a thunderstorm roll in and felt a primal hunger for disaster, hoping it would shake up your life. That’s called “lachesism.� Or you were looking through old photos and felt a pang of nostalgia for a time you’ve never actually experienced. That’s “anemoia.�

If you’ve never heard of these terms before, that’s because they didn’t exist until John Koenig set out to fill the gaps in our language of emotion. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows “creates beautiful new words that we need but do not yet have,� says John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars. By turns poignant, relatable, and mind-bending, the definitions include whimsical etymologies drawn from languages around the world, interspersed with otherworldly collages and lyrical essays that explore forgotten corners of the human condition—from “astrophe,� the longing to explore beyond the planet Earth, to “zenosyne,� the sense that time keeps getting faster.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is for anyone who enjoys a shift in perspective, pondering the ineffable feelings that make up our lives. With a gorgeous package and beautiful illustrations throughout, this is the perfect gift for creatives, word nerds, and human beings everywhere.]]> 272 John Koenig 1501153641 Brian 0 to-read 4.46 2021 The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
author: John Koenig
name: Brian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage]]> 139069 The harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole, one of the greatest adventure stories of the modern age.

In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.

In Endurance, the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton's fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.

First edition: here.]]> 282 Alfred Lansing Brian 0 to-read 4.42 1959 Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
author: Alfred Lansing
name: Brian
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> House of Leaves 24800
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.]]> 710 Mark Z. Danielewski Brian 2


]]> 4.11 2000 House of Leaves
author: Mark Z. Danielewski
name: Brian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2022/01/08
shelves:
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DNF. It felt very 90’s in both character description and prose. Not to mention the cringy pop culture references. It was like watching Reality Bites or Valley Girl - movies so of their time they are out of date in any other. That’s this book.




]]> <![CDATA[City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s]]> 484077 495 Otto Friedrich 0520209494 Brian 0 to-read 4.15 1986 City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s
author: Otto Friedrich
name: Brian
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Power 29751398 The Power the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; and a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. With this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.]]> 341 Naomi Alderman 0670919985 Brian 4 3.75 2016 The Power
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Brian
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/01/08
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Neat concept and great execution.
]]> American Psycho 28676 American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.]]> 399 Bret Easton Ellis 0679735771 Brian 4 It’s about Donald Trump 3.82 1991 American Psycho
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Brian
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/01/08
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It’s about Donald Trump
]]> <![CDATA[The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less]]> 10639 Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401K, everyday decisions have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains why too much of a good thing has proven detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz explains how a culture that thrives on the availability of constantly evolving options can also foster profound dissatisfaction and self-blame in individuals, which can lead to a paralysis in decision making and, in some cases, depression.

With the latest studies on how we make choices in our personal and professional lives, Schwartz offers practical advice on how to focus on the right choices, and how to derive greater satisfaction from choices that we do make.]]> 265 Barry Schwartz 0060005696 Brian 0 3.83 2004 The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
author: Barry Schwartz
name: Brian
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/08
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]]> Star Maker 525304
Even Stapledon's other great work, LAST AND FIRST MEN, pales in ambition next to STAR MAKER, which presents nothing less than an entire imagined history of life in the universe, encompassing billions of years.]]> 272 Olaf Stapledon Brian 0 to-read 3.93 1937 Star Maker
author: Olaf Stapledon
name: Brian
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Making of the Atomic Bomb 16884
Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers -- Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and yon Neumann -- stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.

Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step by step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man's most awesome discovery and invention.]]> 886 Richard Rhodes 0684813785 Brian 0 4.38 1986 The Making of the Atomic Bomb
author: Richard Rhodes
name: Brian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/08
date added: 2022/01/08
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]]> XX 51075314 The battle for your mind has already begun.
Ěý
At Jodrell Bank Observatory in England, a radio telescope has detected a mysterious signal of extraterrestrial origin—a message that may be the first communication from an interstellar civilization. Has humanity made first contact? Is the signal itself a form of alien life? Could it be a threat? If so, how will the people of Earth respond?
Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý
Jack Fenwick, artificial intelligence expert, believes that he and his associates at tech startup Intelligencia can interpret the message a find a way to step into the realm the signal encodes. What they find is a complex alien network beyond anything mankind has imagined.Ěý
Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý
Drawing on Dada, punk and the modernist movements of the twentieth century,ĚýXXĚýis assembled from redacted NASA reports, artwork, magazine articles, secret transcripts and a novel within a novel. Deconstructing layout and language in order to explore how idea propagate, acclaimed designer and artist Rian Hughes's debut novel presents a compelling vision of humanity's unique place in the universe, and a realistic depiction of what might happen in the wake of the biggest scientific discovery in human history.Ěý
Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý ĚýĚý
Propulsive and boldly designed,ĚýXXĚýis a gripping, wildly imaginative, utterly original work.Ěý]]> 992 Rian Hughes 1419750690 Brian 0 currently-reading 3.90 2020 XX
author: Rian Hughes
name: Brian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/08
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> Cat’s Cradle 135479 Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ...

Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh...]]> 306 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Brian 5 4.17 1963 Cat’s Cradle
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Brian
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Reckless: My Life as a Pretender]]> 25147580
Few other rock stars have managed to combine her swagger, sexiness, stage presence, knack for putting words to music, gorgeous voice and just all-around kick-assedness into such a potent and alluring package. From “Tatooed Love Boys� and “Brass in Pocket� to “Talk of the Town� and “Back on the Chain Gang,� her signature songs project a unique mixture of toughness and vulnerability that millions of men and women have related to. A kind of one- woman secret tunnel linking punk and new wave to classic guitar rock, she is one of the great luminaries in rock history.
Ěý
Now, in her no-holds-barred memoir Reckless, Chrissie Hynde tells, with all the fearless candor, sharp humor and depth of feeling we’ve come to expect, exactly where she came from and what her crooked, winding path to stardom entailed. Her All-American upbringing in Akron, Ohio, a child of postwar power and prosperity. Her soul capture, along with tens of millions of her generation, by the gods of sixties rock who came through Cleveland—Mitch Ryder, David Bowie, Jeff Back, Paul Butterfield and Iggy Pop among them. Her shocked witness in 1970 to the horrific shooting of student antiwar protestors at Kent State. Her weakness for the sorts of men she calls “the heavy bikers� and “the get-down boys.� Her flight from Ohio to London in 1973 essentially to escape the former and pursue the latter. Her scuffling years as a brash reviewer for New Musical Express, shop girl at the Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood boutique 'Craft Must Wear Clothes But The Truth Loves To Go Naked', first-hand witness to the birth of the punk movement, and serial band aspirant. And then ,at almost the last possible moment, her meeting of the three musicians who comprised the original line-up of The Pretenders, their work on the indelible first album “The Pretenders,� and the rocket ride to “Instant� stardom, with all the disorientation and hazards that involved. The it all comes crashing back down to earth with the deaths of lead guitarist James Honeyman Scott and bassist Peter Farndon, leaving her bruised and saddened, but far from beaten. Because Chrissie Hynde is, among other things, one of rock’s great survivors.
Ěý
We are lucky to be living in a golden age of great rock memoirs. In the aptly titled Reckless , Chrissie Hynde has given us one of the very best we have. Her mesmerizing presence radiates from every line and page of this book.]]> 312 Chrissie Hynde 0385540612 Brian 0 to-read 3.38 2015 Reckless: My Life as a Pretender
author: Chrissie Hynde
name: Brian
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> Hex (Robert Grim #1) 25533076
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters your homes at will. She stands next to your bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened.

The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting, but in so doing send the town spiraling into the dark, medieval practices of the past.]]> 384 Thomas Olde Heuvelt 0765378809 Brian 3
Some elements are given away early and others never clearly resolve.

I liked it but thought it could have been better so let’s say 3 to 4 stars. Worth a read.

]]> 3.69 2013 Hex (Robert Grim #1)
author: Thomas Olde Heuvelt
name: Brian
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2019/03/09
date added: 2019/03/10
shelves:
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Good premise, fast read...hit some flat areas - may be from the fact it was a translation from Dutch - but sufficiently creepy and dark with an ambiguity as to who or what is the nature of the danger and source of the hex.

Some elements are given away early and others never clearly resolve.

I liked it but thought it could have been better so let’s say 3 to 4 stars. Worth a read.


]]> <![CDATA[The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Centuries]]> 433364 144 Hugh Trevor-Roper 0061314161 Brian 0
Other essays spoke to the religious origins of the enlightenment...or rather how a strong secular/lay government that kept the orthodox in check allowed the enlightenment to take seed.

A brilliant book.]]> 3.49 1956 The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Centuries
author: Hugh Trevor-Roper
name: Brian
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at: 2018/08/08
date added: 2018/08/08
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Renaissance, Reformation, Counter reformation, Enlightenment....quite a time in European history. The standout essay in this book of essays is the titular namesake; "The European witchcraze of the sixteenth and seventeenth century'...quite amazing how bad information can become legitimized through continuous referencing of subsequent works similar to an echo chamber effect. How the evolution of terms created a new heresy and resulted in the death of thousands of innocent people. After all, no one was a witch, there were no witch's sabbat, no succubi/succubus, no communing with the devil which is why these people were tortured and burned. It was all a religious madness that swept these innocent people intothe pyres. Well, it made Dominic and Francis saints, so it is all good.

Other essays spoke to the religious origins of the enlightenment...or rather how a strong secular/lay government that kept the orthodox in check allowed the enlightenment to take seed.

A brilliant book.
]]> Jerusalem 13069874
Employing, a kaleidoscope of literary forms and styles that ranges from brutal social realism to extravagant children’s fantasy, from the modern stage drama to the extremes of science fiction, Jerusalem’s dizzyingly rich cast of characters includes the living, the dead, the celestial, and the infernal in an intricately woven tapestry that presents a vision of an absolute and timeless human reality in all of its exquisite, comical, and heartbreaking splendor.

In these pages lurk demons from the second-century Book of Tobit and angels with golden blood who reduce fate to a snooker tournament. Vagrants, prostitutes, and ghosts rub shoulders with Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce’s tragic daughter Lucia, and Buffalo Bill, among many others. There is a conversation in the thunderstruck dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, childbirth on the cobblestones of Lambeth Walk, an estranged couple sitting all night on the cold steps of a Gothic church front, and an infant choking on a cough drop for eleven chapters. An art exhibition is in preparation, and above the world a naked old man and a beautiful dead baby race along the Attics of the Breath toward the heat death of the universe.

An opulent mythology for those without a pot to piss in, through the labyrinthine streets and pages of Jerusalem tread ghosts that sing of wealth, poverty, and our threadbare millennium. They discuss English as a visionary language from John Bunyan to James Joyce, hold forth on the illusion of mortality post-Einstein, and insist upon the meanest slum as Blake’s eternal holy city.]]> 1266 Alan Moore 1631491342 Brian 5 science-fiction 3.93 2016 Jerusalem
author: Alan Moore
name: Brian
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2018/07/10
date added: 2018/07/10
shelves: science-fiction
review:
Incredible...and no I am not going to summarize, review or explain this book. Just nope.
]]> The Satanic Verses 4834 alternate covers for this ISBN can be found here.

Just before dawn one winter's morning a hijacked jumbo-jet blows apart high above the English Channel. Through the debris of limbs, drinks trolleys, memories, blankets and oxygen masks, two figures fall towards the sea without benefit of parachutes: Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices, self-made self and Anglophile supreme. Clinging to each other, singing rival songs, they plunge downward, and are finally washed up, alive, on the snow-covered sands of an English beach. A miracle; but an ambiguous one, because it soon becomes apparent that curious changes are coming over them. Gibreel seems to have acquired a halo, while, to Saladin's dismay, his legs grow hairier, his feet turn into hoofs, and there are bumps burgeoning at his temples.

So begins The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie's first novel for five years.

Gibreel and Saladin have been chosen (by whom?) as protagonists in the eternal wrestling match between Good and Evil. But which is which? Can demons be angelic? Can angels be devils in disguise? As the two men tumble through their tale, through time as well as space, towards their final confrontation, we are witnesses to a cycle of extraordinary stories, tales of love and passion, of betrayal and faith: the story of Ayesha, the butterfly-shrouded visionary who leads an Indian village on an impossible pilgrimage; of Allie, the mountain-climber haunted by a ghost who urges her to attempt the ultimate feat � a solo ascent of Everest; of murders, metamorphoses and riots in a London "visible but unseen"; and, centrally, the story of Mahound, the Prophet of Jahilia, the city of sand � Mahound, the recipient of a revelation in which satanic verses mingle with divine.

In this great wheel of a book, where the past and the future chase each other furiously, Salman Rushdie takes us on an epic journey, a journey of tears and laughter, of wonderful stories and astonishing flights of the imagination, a journey towards the evil and the good that lie inseparably entwined within the hearts of women and of men.


--front flap]]> 549 Salman Rushdie 0670825379 Brian 3 3.66 1988 The Satanic Verses
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Brian
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at: 2012/01/21
date added: 2018/05/19
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]]> Finnegans Wake 11013
Written in a fantastic dream-language, forged from polyglot puns and portmanteau words, the Wake features some of Joyce's most hilarious characters: the Irish barkeep Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman, and Anna Livia Plurabelle.

Joyce's final work, Finnegan's Wake is his masterpiece of the night as Ulysses is of the day. Supreme linguistic virtuosity conjures up the dark underground worlds of sexuality and dream. Joyce undermines traditional storytelling and all official forms of English and confronts the different kinds of betrayal - cultural, political and sexual - that he saw at the heart of Irish history. Dazzlingly inventive, with passages of great lyrical beauty and humour, Finnegans Wake remains one of the most remarkable works of the twentieth century.]]> 628 James Joyce 0571217354 Brian 0 to-read 3.66 1939 Finnegans Wake
author: James Joyce
name: Brian
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/01
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]]> The Metamorphosis 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Brian 0 to-read 3.90 1915 The Metamorphosis
author: Franz Kafka
name: Brian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/03/01
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]]> The Plague 11989
It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

The book tells a gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.]]> 308 Albert Camus Brian 0 to-read 4.05 1947 The Plague
author: Albert Camus
name: Brian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/03/01
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]]> The Destructors 254031
The humor of Mark Twain...the suspense of Edgar Allan Poe...the danger of Jack London...the sensitivity of Katherine Mansfield. Creative Short Stories has it all and will prove to be a welcome addition to any library.]]> 40 Graham Greene 088682348X Brian 0 to-read 3.83 1955 The Destructors
author: Graham Greene
name: Brian
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man with the Black Coat: Russia's Literature of the Absurd]]> 359963 258 Daniil Kharms 0810115735 Brian 5 4.38 1971 The Man with the Black Coat: Russia's Literature of the Absurd
author: Daniil Kharms
name: Brian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/28
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review:

]]> It Can't Happen Here 11371 Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to "save the nation." Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news.]]> 400 Sinclair Lewis 045121658X Brian 4 3.77 1935 It Can't Happen Here
author: Sinclair Lewis
name: Brian
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1935
rating: 4
read at: 2018/02/24
date added: 2018/02/28
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]]> The Divine Invasion 216398 The Divine Invasion, Philip K. Dick asks: What if God � or a being called Yah � were alive and in exile on a distant planet? How could a second coming succeed against the high technology and finely tuned rationalized evil of the modern police state?

The Divine Invasion "blends Judaism, Kabalah, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity into a fascinating fable of human existence"
--West Coast Review of Books

]]> 238 Philip K. Dick 0679734457 Brian 5 3.83 1981 The Divine Invasion
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Brian
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2018/02/24
date added: 2018/02/28
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]]> The Bone Clocks 20819685
For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.

A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.]]> 624 David Mitchell 1400065674 Brian 0 to-read 3.82 2014 The Bone Clocks
author: David Mitchell
name: Brian
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Grant 34237826
Before the Civil War, Grant was flailing. His business ventures had been dismal, and despite distinguished service in the Mexican War, he ended up resigning from the army in disgrace amid recurring accusations of drunkenness. But in the Civil War, Grant began to realize his remarkable potential, soaring through the ranks of the Union army, prevailing at the Battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign and ultimately defeating the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee after a series of unbelievably bloody battles in Virginia. Along the way Grant endeared himself to President Lincoln and became his most trusted general and the strategic genius of the war effort. His military fame translated into a two-term presidency, but one plagued by corruption scandals involving his closest staff. All the while Grant himself remained more or less above reproach. But, more importantly, he never failed to seek freedom and justice for black Americans, working to crush the Ku Klux Klan and earning the admiration of Frederick Douglass, who called him 'the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race." After his presidency, he was again brought low by a trusted colleague, this time a dashing young swindler on Wall Street, but he resuscitated his image by working with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs, which are recognized as a masterpiece of the genre.

With his famous lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow finds the threads that bind these disparate stories together, shedding new light on the man whom Walt Whitman described as "nothing heroic... and yet the greatest hero." His probing portrait of Grant's lifelong struggle with alcoholism transforms our understanding of the man at the deepest level. This is America's greatest biographer, bringing movingly to life one of America's finest but most underappreciated presidents. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary.]]> 1074 Ron Chernow 159420487X Brian 0 to-read 4.46 2017 Grant
author: Ron Chernow
name: Brian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Invitation for Me to Think: Selected Poems]]> 15798436 ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý Katya, Masha, and I are in jail but I don’t consider that we’ve been defeated.... According to the official report, Alexander Vvedensky died on December 20, 1941. We don’t know the cause, whether it was dysentery in the train after his arrest or a bullet from a guard. It was somewhere on the railway line between Voronezh and Kazan. His principle of â€bad rhythmâ€� is our own. He â€It happens that two rhythms will come into your head, a good one and a bad one and I choose the bad one. It will be the right one.â€� ... It is believed that the OBERIU dissidents are dead, but they live on. They are persecuted but they do not die.â€�
Ěý â€� Pussy Riot [Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s closing statement at their
trial in August 2012]

“I raise[d] my hand against concepts,� wrote Alexander Vvedensky, “I enacted a poetic critique of reason.� This weirdly and wonderfully philosophical poet was born in 1904, grew up in the midst of war and revolution, and reached his artistic maturity as Stalin was twisting the meaning of words in grotesque and lethal ways. Vvedensky—with Daniil Kharms the major figure in the short–lived underground avant-garde group OBERIU (a neologism for “the union for real art�)—responded with a poetry that explodes stable meaning into shimmering streams of provocation and invention. A Vvedensky poem is like a crazy party full of theater, film, magic tricks, jugglery, and feasting. Curious characters appear and disappear, euphoria keeps company with despair, outrageous assertions lead to epic shouting matches, and perhaps it all breaks off with one lonely person singing a song.

A Vvedensky poem doesn’t make a statement. It is an event. Vvedensky’s poetry wasĚý unpublishable during his lifetime—he made a living as a writer for children before dying under arrest in 1942—and he remains the least known of the great twentieth-century Russian poets. This is his first book to appear in English. The translations by Eugene Ostashevsky and Matvei Yankelevich, outstanding poets in their own right, are as astonishingly alert and alive as the originals.]]> 168 Alexander Vvedensky 1590176308 Brian 0 to-read 4.06 2009 An Invitation for Me to Think: Selected Poems
author: Alexander Vvedensky
name: Brian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Grace 32498842 A sweeping, Dickensian story of a young girl and her brother on a great journey across nineteenth-century Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine.

Early one October morning, Grace's mother snatches her from sleep and brutally cuts off her hair, declaring, "You are the strong one now." With winter close at hand and Ireland already suffering, Grace is no longer safe at home. And so her mother outfits Grace in men's clothing and casts her out. When her younger brother Colly follows after her, the two set off on a life-changing odyssey in the looming shadow of the Great Famine.

To survive, Grace will become a boy, a bandit, a penitent and finally, a woman. A meditation on love, life and destiny, Grace is an epic coming-of-age novel, and a poetic evocation of the Irish famine as it has never been written.]]> Paul Lynch 1478966343 Brian 0 to-read 3.62 2017 Grace
author: Paul Lynch
name: Brian
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World]]> 31450559
Hansen arrived in Istanbul with romantic ideas about a mythical city perched between East and West, and with a naïve sense of the Islamic world beyond. Over the course of her many years of living in Turkey and traveling in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, she learned a great deal about these countries and their cultures and histories and politics. But the greatest, most unsettling surprise would be what she learned about her own country—and herself, an American abroad in the era of American decline. It would take leaving her home to discover what she came to think of as the two Americas: the country and its people, and the experience of American power around the world. She came to understand that anti-Americanism is not a violent pathology. It is, Hansen writes, “a broken heart . . . A one-hundred-year-old relationship.�

Blending memoir, journalism, and history, and deeply attuned to the voices of those she met on her travels, Notes on a Foreign Country is a moving reflection on America’s place in the world. It is a powerful journey of self-discovery and revelation—a profound reckoning with what it means to be American in a moment of grave national and global turmoil.]]> 288 Suzy Hansen 0374280045 Brian 0 to-read 4.05 2017 Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World
author: Suzy Hansen
name: Brian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wild Shore (Three Californias Triptych, #1)]]> 41128 384 Kim Stanley Robinson 0312890362 Brian 0 ]]> 3.75 1984 The Wild Shore (Three Californias Triptych, #1)
author: Kim Stanley Robinson
name: Brian
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at: 2016/09/29
date added: 2016/09/29
shelves:
review:
Kinda neat...interesting allegorical characters throughout, a slow build to be sure, and since it is part of a trilogy, the outcome is pointedly expressed as a 'here we are now' ending with a definite lead in to a near future that might be quite different- but an enjoyable read...I did enjoy the promise of the San Diego mayor, who was a delusional blowhard, to 'again make America great'...prior to his downfall.

]]> <![CDATA[Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity]]> 13547504 Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition—that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.

All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.

Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other—a theme in every family’s life.]]> 962 Andrew Solomon Brian 0 to-read 4.25 2012 Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
author: Andrew Solomon
name: Brian
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier]]> 20707975

With his signature wit and thought-provoking insights, Neil deGrasse Tyson—one of our foremost thinkers on all things space—illuminates the past, present, and future of space exploration and brilliantly reminds us why NASA matters now as much as ever. As Tyson reveals, exploring the space frontier can profoundly enrich many aspects of our daily lives, from education systems and the economy to national security and morale. For America to maintain its status as a global leader and a technological innovator, he explains, we must regain our enthusiasm and curiosity about what lies beyond our world.


Provocative, humorous, and wonderfully readable, Space Chronicles represents the best of Tyson’s recent commentary, including a must-read prologue on NASA and partisan politics. Reflecting on topics that range from scientific literacy to space-travel missteps, Tyson gives us an urgent, clear-eyed, and ultimately inspiring vision for the future.]]> 384 Neil deGrasse Tyson 0393350371 Brian 0 to-read 4.03 2012 Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier
author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
name: Brian
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist]]> 120417

Like many athletic kids he played baseball, won medals in track and swimming, and was captain of his high school wrestling team. But at the same time he was setting up a telescope on winter nights, taking an advanced astronomy course at the Hayden Planetarium, and spending a summer vacation at an astronomy camp in the Mojave Desert.


Eventually, his scientific curiosity prevailed, and he went on to graduate in physics from Harvard and to earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia. There followed postdoctoral research at Princeton. In 1996, he became the director of the Hayden Planetarium, where some twenty-five years earlier he had been awed by the spectacular vista in the sky theater.


Tyson pays tribute to the key teachers and mentors who recognized his precocious interests and abilities, and helped him succeed. He intersperses personal reminiscences with thoughts on scientific literacy, careful science vs. media hype, the possibility that a meteor could someday hit the Earth, dealing with society’s racial stereotypes, what science can and cannot say about the existence of God, and many other interesting insights about science, society, and the nature of the universe.


Now available in paperback with a new preface and other additions, this engaging memoir will enlighten and inspire an appreciation of astronomy and the wonders of our universe.]]> 216 Neil deGrasse Tyson 159102188X Brian 0 to-read 4.10 2000 The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
name: Brian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari Brian 0 non-fiction
Part history, part sociology, part anthropology, part biology and all mind blowing.

I am a slow reader by nature, and this book really put my stick-to-it-ness to the test as it defied any attempt to parse quickly. It is the new record holder for the book that took me the longest time to finish, but again, absolutely worth it.

]]> 4.33 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Brian
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2016/09/02
date added: 2016/09/02
shelves: non-fiction
review:
It is a cold hard look at how our collective imaginings shape our ideas of the world and ourselves, and how those same collective myths allowed us to become Numero Uno unrivaled masters of the Earth for better or worse.

Part history, part sociology, part anthropology, part biology and all mind blowing.

I am a slow reader by nature, and this book really put my stick-to-it-ness to the test as it defied any attempt to parse quickly. It is the new record holder for the book that took me the longest time to finish, but again, absolutely worth it.


]]> The Breach (Travis Chase, #1) 6987527
Though a nightmare of monumental proportions, it pales before the terror to come, as Chase is dragged into a battle for the future that revolves around an amazing artifact. Allied with a beautiful covert operative whose life he saved, Chase must now play the role he's been destined for—a pawn of incomprehensible forces or humankind's final hope—as the race toward Apocalypse begins in earnest. Because something is loose in the world. And doomsday is not only possible...it is inevitable.]]> 372 Patrick Lee 0061584452 Brian 4 science-fiction 4.01 2009 The Breach (Travis Chase, #1)
author: Patrick Lee
name: Brian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/24
date added: 2016/06/24
shelves: science-fiction
review:
Terrific sci fi thriller...really fast read and enjoyable.
]]> <![CDATA[The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives]]> 2272880
By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow's intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives will intrigue, awe, and inspire.]]> 252 Leonard Mlodinow 0375424040 Brian 3 3.93 2008 The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
author: Leonard Mlodinow
name: Brian
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2016/03/15
date added: 2016/03/15
shelves:
review:

]]> American Gods 567724
Shadow spent three years in prison, keeping his head down, doing his time. All he wanted was to get back to the loving arms of his wife and to stay out of trouble for the rest of his life. But days before his scheduled release, he learns that his wife has been killed in an accident, and his world becomes a colder place.

On the plane ride home to the funeral, Shadow meets a grizzled man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A self-styled grifter and rogue, Wednesday offers Shadow a job. And Shadow, a man with nothing to lose, accepts.

But working for the enigmatic Wednesday is not without its price, and Shadow soon learns that his role in Wednesday's schemes will be far more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. Entangled in a world of secrets, he embarks on a wild road trip and encounters, among others, the murderous Czernobog, the impish Mr. Nancy, and the beautiful Easter -- all of whom seem to know more about Shadow than he himself does.

Shadow will learn that the past does not die, that everyone, including his late wife, had secrets, and that the stakes are higher than anyone could have imagined.

All around them a storm of epic proportions threatens to break. Soon Shadow and Wednesday will be swept up into a conflict as old as humanity itself. For beneath the placid surface of everyday life a war is being fought -- and the prize is the very soul of America.

As unsettling as it is exhilarating, American Gods is a dark and kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an America at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. Magnificently told, this work of literary magic will haunt the reader far beyond the final page.

Source: harpercollins.com]]> 465 Neil Gaiman 0380973650 Brian 4
I am pretty sure my take on it as an atheist would be very different from a person who was devout in some mythological belief and this is no doubt the intent of the author. The main character is never really revealed, named appropriately Shadow, he is a wildly blank slate for the reader to project him or herself upon adding to the very subjective nature of the book itself.

Aside from this, just as a read the story is a terrific romp of imagination and intrigue mixed with all sorts of characters whom you can barely imagine being real much less behaving in such ungodly ways, dammed if it isn't funny as hell along the way.

I felt the resolution of the storm was a bit hurried, but I am nitpicking and I am sure Mr Gaiman will be hurt at my criticism here, but my take on that was that the storm (using that term to avoid any spoilerage) was not the focus of the story as much as it seemed to have been leading the reader towards all along.

A terrific book and highly recommended. 4.5 stars easy. ]]> 4.04 2001 American Gods
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Brian
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2015/12/27
date added: 2016/01/07
shelves:
review:
A really interesting book that you could either read on face value, or read into, as you would be inclined to do or not.

I am pretty sure my take on it as an atheist would be very different from a person who was devout in some mythological belief and this is no doubt the intent of the author. The main character is never really revealed, named appropriately Shadow, he is a wildly blank slate for the reader to project him or herself upon adding to the very subjective nature of the book itself.

Aside from this, just as a read the story is a terrific romp of imagination and intrigue mixed with all sorts of characters whom you can barely imagine being real much less behaving in such ungodly ways, dammed if it isn't funny as hell along the way.

I felt the resolution of the storm was a bit hurried, but I am nitpicking and I am sure Mr Gaiman will be hurt at my criticism here, but my take on that was that the storm (using that term to avoid any spoilerage) was not the focus of the story as much as it seemed to have been leading the reader towards all along.

A terrific book and highly recommended. 4.5 stars easy.
]]> The Man in the High Castle 216363
This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.]]> 259 Philip K. Dick 0679740678 Brian 5 3.64 1962 The Man in the High Castle
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Brian
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2015/11/20
date added: 2016/01/07
shelves:
review:
It is very inventive and a great what-if...one of the most intriguing items of it was the nesting doll aspect of the book within a book within a reality within a reality...The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Brilliant.
]]> The Guns of August 11366
In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players, Tuchman’s magnum opus is a classic for the ages.]]> 606 Barbara W. Tuchman 0345476093 Brian 5
]]> 4.18 1962 The Guns of August
author: Barbara W. Tuchman
name: Brian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2015/04/03
date added: 2015/11/03
shelves:
review:
A dizzying run up to World War 1�.ostensibly focusing on the last month leading up to the war, but keeping the larger context in sight (decisions that were echoes of earlier affronts, embarrassments or competitions amongst the children leaders of Europe)…deliberate in its descriptions and not shying away from certain conclusions about what leaders shoulder the blame whereas they all share in the failure.


]]> The Wasp Factory 567678
The Wasp Factory is a work of horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all. A novel of extraordinary originality, imagination and comic ferocity.]]> 184 Iain Banks 0684853159 Brian 5 Brilliantly disturbed. 3.78 1984 The Wasp Factory
author: Iain Banks
name: Brian
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at: 2015/10/07
date added: 2015/11/03
shelves:
review:
Brilliantly disturbed.
]]> <![CDATA[Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems]]> 9006 Whether David Rakoff's contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot where he is provided with his very own personal manservant rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly skewered. Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Simultaneously a Wildean satire and a plea for a little human decency, Don t Get Too Comfortable shows that far from being bobos in paradise, we are in a special circle of gilded-age hell.]]> 222 David Rakoff 0767916034 Brian 2 3.73 2005 Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems
author: David Rakoff
name: Brian
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2015/04/04
date added: 2015/04/08
shelves:
review:
No David Sedaris. It is a fast read however, so it has that going for it. I felt more like the author was talking at me me rather than with me.
]]> <![CDATA[The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)]]> 13789914 208 Sheldon M. Stern 0804783772 Brian 4 3.96 2012 The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)
author: Sheldon M. Stern
name: Brian
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2015/03/08
date added: 2015/04/08
shelves:
review:
Oddly timely considering the drums of war are being beaten yet again.
]]> <![CDATA[The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914]]> 17345257
Beginning in the early nineteenth century and ending with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, award-winning historian Margaret Macmillan uncovers the huge political and technological changes, national decisions, and just as important, the small moments of human muddle and weakness that led Europe from peace to disaster. This masterful exploration of how Europe chose its path towards war will change and enrich how we see this defining moment in history.]]> 739 Margaret MacMillan 140006855X Brian 5
But as they thought and as leaders today surely think...peace surely lies under the next smoldering pile of rubble or pile of corpses. Just around the corner...]]> 4.21 2013 The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
author: Margaret MacMillan
name: Brian
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2014/12/12
date added: 2014/12/11
shelves:
review:
The dysfunction of war, its leaders and its planners laid bare. I like this book because it makes the masters of disaster appear almost silly and petty if not for their power and influence. I also like it for its incredibly detailed look at all the parties involved and the far reaching deals and secret agreements they had which drove them on.

But as they thought and as leaders today surely think...peace surely lies under the next smoldering pile of rubble or pile of corpses. Just around the corner...
]]> <![CDATA[Paris, 1919: Six Months that Changed the World]]> 26348
Between January and July 1919, after "the war to end all wars," men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. Center stage, for the first time in history, was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and wildly idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully, Wilson is only one of the larger-than-life characters who fill the pages of this extraordinary book. David Lloyd George, the gregarious and wily British prime minister, brought Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes. Lawrence of Arabia joined the Arab delegation. Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen assistant at the Ritz, submitted a petition for an independent Vietnam.

For six months, Paris was effectively the center of the world as the peacemakers carved up bankrupt empires and created new countries. This book brings to life the personalities, ideals, and prejudices of the men who shaped the settlement. They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China, and dismissed the Arabs. They struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews.

The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally; above all they failed to prevent another war. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made the scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. She refutes received ideas about the path from Versailles to World War II and debunks the widely accepted notion that reparations imposed on the Germans were in large part responsible for the Second World War.

A landmark work of narrative history, Paris 1919 is the first full-scale treatment of the Peace Conference in more than twenty-five years. It offers a scintillating view of those dramatic and fateful days when much of the modern world was sketched out, when countries were created--Iraq, Yugoslavia, Israel--whose troubles haunt us still.

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, the PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize]]> 624 Margaret MacMillan 0375760520 Brian 0 to-read 4.11 2001 Paris, 1919: Six Months that Changed the World
author: Margaret MacMillan
name: Brian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Third Concept of Liberty 852175

For this reason advocates of a liberty based on judgment are likely to be more concerned than are libertarians to make sure that government provides people with conditions for the use of their liberty--for example, excellent standards of education, health care, and unemployment insurance--while at the same time promoting a less paternalistic view of government than most of the movements associated for the past thirty years with the political left.]]> 338 Samuel Fleischacker 0691004463 Brian 0 philosopy, non-fiction 4.60 1999 A Third Concept of Liberty
author: Samuel Fleischacker
name: Brian
average rating: 4.60
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at: 2013/01/01
date added: 2014/11/11
shelves: philosopy, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity]]> 214332 The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel examined the claims of Christ, reaching the hard-won verdict that Jesus is God's unique son. In The Case for Faith, Strobel turns his skills to the most persistent emotional objections to belief---the eight "heart barriers" to faith. This Gold Medallion-winning book is for those who may be feeling attracted to Jesus but who are faced with difficult questions standing squarely in their path. For Christians, it will deepen their convictions and give them fresh confidence in discussing Christianity with even their most skeptical friends. "Everyone --seekers, doubters, fervent believers-- benefits when Lee Strobel hits the road in search of answers, as he does again in The Case for Faith. In the course of his probing interviews, some of the toughest intellectual obstacles to faith fall away." --Luis Palau "Lee Strobel has given believers and skeptics alike a gift in this book. He does not avoid seeking the most difficult questions imaginable, and refuses to provide simplistic answers that do more harm than good." --Jerry Sittser, professor of religion, Whitworth College, and author of A Grace Disguised and The Will of God as a Way of Life]]> 300 Lee Strobel 0310234697 Brian 1
From one chapter to the next the author fails to keep his arguments coherent. In one chapter God is hidden, then in the next a problematic scipture is explained away by a God that actual visits people - uh, visiting people is the exact opposite of remaining hidden, FYI. In another chapter, God's murderous demands are explained as being moral because, well, god makes life, thus he is justified in taking it ¬¬, uh, ok, but then in the very next chapter when discussing the ethics of hell, it suddenly becomes immoral for god to 'unexist' someone rather than have them suffer eternal damnation. Which is it? Is killing by God OK or not? Fortunately the author is not troubled by such details. Oh yea, speaking of hell; hell isn't full of fire and worms and gnashing of teeth, no no no, that was an allegory you see, hell is just a mental torment of being away from God...as if mental torment for an eternity is somehow better than physical torment?

This book is filled with such nonsense.

Throughout, the common thread is 'the end justify the means', which is Machiavellian more than divine, IMHO...and of course any troublesome bible passage that is complete abhorrent and debased is explained away by the ever handy 'mistranslation' or better yet, ignored.

I feel dumber for having read this book. Needless to say the case was weak. Clearly this is not a book for skeptics, but for lapsed christians seeking reassurance, and this author seeks to deliver a pablum of coddling to bring the stray sheep back to the flock.]]> 4.27 2000 The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity
author: Lee Strobel
name: Brian
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2000
rating: 1
read at: 2011/08/23
date added: 2013/12/20
shelves:
review:
It starts with 'You ask too many questions and you think too much' then gets worse from there. It presumes that the reader believes the Jesus mythology then goes ahead and uses quotes from the bible, in a circular logic, to support the claims of...wait for it...the bible. I went along with the premise of assuming Jesus to be real, but it really didn't help.

From one chapter to the next the author fails to keep his arguments coherent. In one chapter God is hidden, then in the next a problematic scipture is explained away by a God that actual visits people - uh, visiting people is the exact opposite of remaining hidden, FYI. In another chapter, God's murderous demands are explained as being moral because, well, god makes life, thus he is justified in taking it ¬¬, uh, ok, but then in the very next chapter when discussing the ethics of hell, it suddenly becomes immoral for god to 'unexist' someone rather than have them suffer eternal damnation. Which is it? Is killing by God OK or not? Fortunately the author is not troubled by such details. Oh yea, speaking of hell; hell isn't full of fire and worms and gnashing of teeth, no no no, that was an allegory you see, hell is just a mental torment of being away from God...as if mental torment for an eternity is somehow better than physical torment?

This book is filled with such nonsense.

Throughout, the common thread is 'the end justify the means', which is Machiavellian more than divine, IMHO...and of course any troublesome bible passage that is complete abhorrent and debased is explained away by the ever handy 'mistranslation' or better yet, ignored.

I feel dumber for having read this book. Needless to say the case was weak. Clearly this is not a book for skeptics, but for lapsed christians seeking reassurance, and this author seeks to deliver a pablum of coddling to bring the stray sheep back to the flock.
]]> <![CDATA[Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art]]> 10126 261 Gene Wilder 0312337078 Brian 4 3.87 2005 Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art
author: Gene Wilder
name: Brian
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2013/11/12
date added: 2013/11/12
shelves:
review:
What a nice and breezy read, it was full of enough information on G. Wilder without overdoing it or without leaving one feeling jipped. Funny, touching and sincere. If you like G Wilder you will absolutely enjoy and appreciate this book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape]]> 125313 The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots.

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

The Geography of Nowhere has become a touchstone work in the two decades since its initial publication, its incisive commentary giving language to the feeling of millions of Americans that our nation's suburban environments were ceasing to be credible human habitats. Since that time, the work has inspired city planners, architects, legislators, designers and citizens everywhere. In this special 20th Anniversary edition, dozens of authors and experts in various fields share their perspective on James Howard Kunstler's brave and seminal work.]]> 304 James Howard Kunstler 0671888250 Brian 4 4.04 1993 The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
author: James Howard Kunstler
name: Brian
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2012/08/31
date added: 2012/08/31
shelves:
review:
Eye opening critique of our modern landscape and our reliance on the automobile.
]]> Then We Came to the End 2025667
With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment--the one we pretend is normal five days a week.

"Not too many authors have written the Great American Office Novel. Joseph Heller did it in Something Happened (the one book of his to rival Catch-22). And Nicholson Baker pulled it off in zanily fastidious fashion in The Mezzanine. To their ranks should be added Joshua Ferris, whose THEN WE CAME TO THE END feels like a ready made classic of the genre. . . . A truly affecting novel about work, trust, love,and loneliness." -Seattle Times

"A masterwork of pitch and tone. . . . Ferris brilliantly captures the fishbowl quality of contemporary office life." -The New Yorker]]> 385 Joshua Ferris Brian 0 3.44 2007 Then We Came to the End
author: Joshua Ferris
name: Brian
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2012/07/01
date added: 2012/08/08
shelves:
review:
An enjoyable and funny slice of life at an office, characters are alittle cardboard-y, but it was a fun read with some good moments.
]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution]]> 6117055
"The Greatest Show on Earth" is a stunning counter-attack on creationists, followers of "Intelligent Design" and all those who still question evolution as scientific fact. In this brilliant tour de force, Richard Dawkins pulls together the incontrovertible evidence that underpins it: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics.

"The Greatest Show on Earth" comes at a critical time as systematic opposition to the fact of evolution flourishes as never before in many schools worldwide. Dawkins wields a devastating argument against this ignorance whilst sharing with us his palpable love of science and the natural world. Written with elegance, wit and passion, it is hard-hitting, absorbing and totally convincing.]]> 470 Richard Dawkins 059306173X Brian 5 4.15 2009 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Brian
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2012/06/01
date added: 2012/08/08
shelves:
review:
Richard Dawkins tends to insert a lot of asides and gets off on tangents, which annoys me, but his books are always enlightening and enjoyable...this one is no exception...having read Darwin's work I enjoy this expanded (and easier to digest) investigation of the vast sea of evidence that underlies Evolution theory. It gets five stars for attacking ignorance.
]]> <![CDATA[Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe]]> 12625589 Turing’s Cathedral, George Dyson focuses on a small group of men and women, led by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who built one of the first computers to realize Alan Turing’s vision of a Universal Machine. Their work would break the distinction between numbers that mean things and numbers that do things—and our universe would never be the same.

Using five kilobytes of memory (the amount allocated to displaying the cursor on a computer desktop of today), they achieved unprecedented success in both weather prediction and nuclear weapons design, while tackling, in their spare time, problems ranging from the evolution of viruses to the evolution of stars.

Dyson’s account, both historic and prophetic, sheds important new light on how the digital universe exploded in the aftermath of World War II. The proliferation of both codes and machines was paralleled by two historic the decoding of self-replicating sequences in biology and the invention of the hydrogen bomb. It’s no coincidence that the most destructive and the most constructive of human inventions appeared at exactly the same time.

How did code take over the world? In retracing how Alan Turing’s one-dimensional model became John von Neumann’s two-dimensional implementation, Turing’s Cathedral offers a series of provocative suggestions as to where the digital universe, now fully three-dimensional, may be heading next.]]> 505 George Dyson Brian 0 3.58 2012 Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe
author: George Dyson
name: Brian
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2012/06/05
date added: 2012/06/05
shelves:
review:
Interesting topic and glad to read a lot about Von Neumann...but there is a bit of meandering in the process and I find myself skimming through a bit more than i am used to doing.
]]> The Collected Poems 334306 288 Stanley Kunitz 0393322947 Brian 0 to-read 4.26 2000 The Collected Poems
author: Stanley Kunitz
name: Brian
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/05/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Society of Mind 326790 Minsky brilliantly portrays the mind as a "society" of tiny components that are themselves mindless. Mirroring his theory, Minsky boldly casts The Society of Mind as an intellectual puzzle whose pieces are assembled along the way. Each chapter -- on a self-contained page -- corresponds to a piece in the puzzle. As the pages turn, a unified theory of the mind emerges, like a mosaic. Ingenious, amusing, and easy to read, The Society of Mind is an adventure in imagination.]]> 336 Marvin Minsky 0671657135 Brian 4 4.04 1985 The Society of Mind
author: Marvin Minsky
name: Brian
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2012/03/12
date added: 2012/04/11
shelves:
review:
This book is deceptively difficult...brilliantly set up and each 1 page 'chapter' builds on itself - which is sorta how M Minski suggests the structure of the mind is arranged, so the structure of the book is no coincidence...excellent insight on how we know, learn and remember... how we make decisions and in general, how intelligence arises from unintelligent elements of our brains. Or to put it more succinctly, how a mind forms from brains....as Minski stated, a mind is simply what a brain does.
]]> The Origin of Species 22463
Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment, and—by implication—within the human world.

Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.]]> 703 Charles Darwin Brian 5 4.01 1859 The Origin of Species
author: Charles Darwin
name: Brian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1859
rating: 5
read at: 2012/03/12
date added: 2012/03/12
shelves:
review:
What am I going to say about this? The book is a brilliant piece of work by a brilliant naturalist. Irrefutable and brilliant. If the bible was even half as well done Jesus might have a chance with me.
]]> On The Shoulders Of Giants 83756 1280 Nicolaus Copernicus 076241698X Brian 0 to-read 4.31 2002 On The Shoulders Of Giants
author: Nicolaus Copernicus
name: Brian
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The God Delusion 747213 463 Richard Dawkins 0618918248 Brian 4
I thought Dawkins got into some swampy murk when he tried to equate child abuse with religious upbringing. I agree with his point that indoctrinating children in the ways of fallacy and fear is a form of abuse, but it is not something that any law that can address, and if it cannot be rectified via legal codification, it doesn't rise to the level of true abuse in my humble opinion. It is a form of abuse, but not to the level of criminality...at least not in this age. Hopefully in years future we will look back on this indoctrination that so many parents thoughtlessly foist upon their children as an outdated function of our time...much like we look back on candy cigarettes and realistic toy guns that were common in my youth but today are seen with a bit more concern or outright disallowed by any parent worth a damn. Until such a time as we outgrow the indoctrination of children, we will have to settle for opening their eyes with the powers of critical thought and curiosity to undo the damage of dogmatism.

Another knock i have which drops this book below Sam Harris and Freud's 'the future of an illusion' is the book would benefit from some editing to tighten up the progression and reduce the tangential inclinations of Dawkins just a bit. ]]> 4.04 2006 The God Delusion
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Brian
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2011/11/02
date added: 2011/11/02
shelves:
review:
I would put this just under 4 stars if i could rate so precisely...but in the world of either/or it is a 4 star much moreso than a 3 star. Anywho, I recommend this book and it makes very good arguments and does so with flair and flippancy.

I thought Dawkins got into some swampy murk when he tried to equate child abuse with religious upbringing. I agree with his point that indoctrinating children in the ways of fallacy and fear is a form of abuse, but it is not something that any law that can address, and if it cannot be rectified via legal codification, it doesn't rise to the level of true abuse in my humble opinion. It is a form of abuse, but not to the level of criminality...at least not in this age. Hopefully in years future we will look back on this indoctrination that so many parents thoughtlessly foist upon their children as an outdated function of our time...much like we look back on candy cigarettes and realistic toy guns that were common in my youth but today are seen with a bit more concern or outright disallowed by any parent worth a damn. Until such a time as we outgrow the indoctrination of children, we will have to settle for opening their eyes with the powers of critical thought and curiosity to undo the damage of dogmatism.

Another knock i have which drops this book below Sam Harris and Freud's 'the future of an illusion' is the book would benefit from some editing to tighten up the progression and reduce the tangential inclinations of Dawkins just a bit.
]]> <![CDATA[Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy]]> 10326084 Foreword by Morgan Spurlock

From the bestselling author of Buyology comes a shocking insider’s look at how today’s global giants conspire to obscure the truth and manipulate our minds, all in service of Ěýpersuading us to buy.
Ěý
Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years.Ěý Here, he turns the spotlight on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned dollars.
Ěý
Picking up from where Vance Packard's bestselling classic, The Hidden Persuaders, left off more than half-a-century ago, Lindstrom reveals:
Ěý
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýNew findings that reveal how advertisers and marketers intentionally target children at an alarmingly young age â€� starting when they are still in the womb!
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýShocking results of an fMRI study which uncovered what heterosexual men really think about when they see sexually provocative advertising (hint: it isn’t their girlfriends).
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýHow marketers and retailers stoke the flames of public panic and capitalize on paranoia over global contagions, extreme weather events, and food contamination scares.
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýThe first ever neuroscientific evidence proving how addicted we all are to our iPhones and our Blackberry’s (and the shocking reality of cell phone addiction - it can be harder to shake than addictions to drugs and alcohol).
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýHow companies of all stripes are secretly mining our digital footprints to uncover some of the most intimate details of our private lives, then using that information to target us with ads and offers â€perfectly tailoredâ€� to our psychological profiles.
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýHow certain companies, like the maker of one popular lip balm, purposely adjust their formulas in order to make their products chemically addictive.ĚýĚýĚý
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýWhat a 3-month long guerilla marketing experiment, conducted specifically for this book, tells us about the most powerful hidden persuader of them all.
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýAnd much, much more.Ěý
ĚýThis searing expose introduces a new class of tricks, techniques, and seductions â€� the Hidden Persuaders of the 21st century- and shows why they are more insidious and pervasive than ever.Ěý]]> 304 Martin Lindstrom 0385531737 Brian 0 to-read 3.80 2011 Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy
author: Martin Lindstrom
name: Brian
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/10/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Future of an Illusion 80458 112 Sigmund Freud 0393008312 Brian 0 3.78 1927 The Future of an Illusion
author: Sigmund Freud
name: Brian
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1927
rating: 0
read at: 2011/09/26
date added: 2011/09/26
shelves:
review:

]]> On Liberty 385228 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780140432077

Published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty presented one of the most eloquent defenses of individual freedom in nineteenth-century social and political philosophy and is today perhaps the most widely-read liberal argument in support of the value of liberty. Mill's passionate advocacy of spontaneity, individuality, and diversity, along with his contempt for compulsory uniformity and the despotism of popular opinion, has attracted both admiration and condemnation.]]> 187 John Stuart Mill Brian 0 to-read 3.95 1859 On Liberty
author: John Stuart Mill
name: Brian
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1859
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2011/09/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Civilization and Its Discontents]]> 357636 127 Sigmund Freud 0393301583 Brian 4
That is all I can say on this, the book is dense and, well, Freudian. There are people who get paid good money to make this sort of thing accessible, and I ain't one of them. I barely got through it as it stands. Well worth the trouble though if the topic interests you.]]> 3.79 1930 Civilization and Its Discontents
author: Sigmund Freud
name: Brian
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1930
rating: 4
read at: 2011/09/13
date added: 2011/09/16
shelves:
review:
Humanity instinctually seeks to group up, be it family or sexual or tribally or beyond...this grouping instinct leads to civilization and it is the shortsighted idiot who doesn't accept that while civilization my stifle certain impulses and instincts, the structure of civilization is much more preferable to the alternative of primitive lives of singular brutality living at the whim of a nature that is indifferent and cruel.

That is all I can say on this, the book is dense and, well, Freudian. There are people who get paid good money to make this sort of thing accessible, and I ain't one of them. I barely got through it as it stands. Well worth the trouble though if the topic interests you.
]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Nearly Everything]]> 21 544 Bill Bryson 076790818X Brian 4 4.21 2003 A Short History of Nearly Everything
author: Bill Bryson
name: Brian
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/23
date added: 2011/08/23
shelves:
review:
A great general science book, nice to read, some funny asides and awesome insight into the adventure of scientific discovery. Well recommended.
]]> <![CDATA[Schrödinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries]]> 100006 Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality illuminates the world's most intriguing and enigmatic scientific phenomenon - and shows how the "impossible dreams" of such legendary scientists as Bohr, Feynman, and Einstein may soon become reality.

]]> 261 John Gribbin 0316328197 Brian 4
One day...one day I *will* grasp QM.

(updated upon completion)

The last few chapters got a little hairy as the author delved into the myriad of competing interpretations of QED. The final proposed interpretation was quite interesting and I plan to look into it further (this book was released in the 1990's so of course everything that the author proposed may be obsolete by this time). A very good book on the subject however and well recommended.]]> 4.08 1984 Schrödinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries
author: John Gribbin
name: Brian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2011/05/31
date added: 2011/05/31
shelves:
review:
This is a nicely written and easy to follow book on QM...it stays light on the underlying mathematics and formulae...thankfully. It stays true to it's goal (so far at least) to be a fairly accessible wading into the swamp of QM. The author nicely lays out the problems and simplifies (not dumbing down) mind experiments that help to visualize the problems, possibilities and weirdness of quantum particles. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the subject as a nicely written history and examination of this topic.

One day...one day I *will* grasp QM.

(updated upon completion)

The last few chapters got a little hairy as the author delved into the myriad of competing interpretations of QED. The final proposed interpretation was quite interesting and I plan to look into it further (this book was released in the 1990's so of course everything that the author proposed may be obsolete by this time). A very good book on the subject however and well recommended.
]]> <![CDATA[Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects]]> 472025 "I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue," Russell declares in his Preface, and his reasoned opposition to any system or dogma which he feels may shackle man's mind runs through all the essays in this book, whether they were written as early as 1899 or as late as 1954.

The book has been edited, with Lord Russell's full approval and cooperation, by Professor Paul Edwards of the Philosophy Department of New York University. In an Appendix, Professor Edwards contributes a full account of the highly controversial "Bertrand Russell Case" of 1940, in which Russell was judicially declared "unfit" to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York.

Whether the reader shares or rejects Bertrand Russell's views, he will find this book an invigorating challenge to set notions, a masterly statement of a philosophical position, and a pure joy to read.

Why I am not a Christian --
Has religion made useful contributions to civilization? --
What I believe --
Do we survive death? --
Seems, madam? Nay, it is --
Free man's worship --
On Catholic and Protestant skeptics --
Life in the Middle Ages --
Fate of Thomas Paine --
Nice people --
New generation --
Our sexual ethics --
Freedom and the colleges --
Can religion cure our troubles? --
Religion and morals --
Appendix: How Bertrand Russell was prevented from teaching at the College of the City of New York

]]> 266 Bertrand Russell 0671203231 Brian 4 4.01 1957 Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
author: Bertrand Russell
name: Brian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2011/04/18
date added: 2011/04/18
shelves:
review:
Modern heresy. People on the subway who see the plainly readable title would probably like to burn me along with the book. Which is precisely why such philosophy is so important.
]]> <![CDATA[The End of the World: A History]]> 400380 384 Otto Friedrich 0880640626 Brian 5
The author wrote this book in 1980 - during the raging cold war and he looked at the possibility of a nuclear war as the last chapter in the book in epilogue, some of the descriptions of the mechanisms of doomsday are outdated and even quaint, but the quotes from Hiroshima victims peppered throughout the chapter describing events on the ground that day in the summer of 1945 will serve to keep the snickering about teletypes and rotary telephones to a minimum...and make one feel disgust at the Air Force 'missile men' who blithly consider their job as keyholders to doomsday as a 'job'...the author cleverly hinting at the same response that the guards in Auschwitz and the Inquisitors in Toulouse may have hidden behind in their day.

Stand out essays in the book are 'The Kingdom of Auschwitz' (released as a standalone paperback), The Black Death, Rise of the Inquisition and the Lisbon Earthquake and the Coming Revolution (Russia 1905) but the entire book is great and should be read from cover to cover to really appreciate the author's echoing of previous chapters as a means of reminding the reader 'those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it'...]]> 4.44 1982 The End of the World: A History
author: Otto Friedrich
name: Brian
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at: 2011/02/15
date added: 2011/02/15
shelves:
review:
The sort of book that changes perspectives. From the sack of Rome through the Inquisition and up to Auschwitz the author ties together epochal events from history to show how different societies responded and reacted and recovered from cataclysmic events that seemed to the people living (or not) through them to be the end of the world. It seemed like one couldn't find worse than the barbarism of siege warfare of the Roman era until you got a taste of the same tactics combined with religious fanaticism and systemic brutality of the Inquisition, until you got the completely random and wholly murderous Black Death and the Lisbon Earthquake that didn't respond to anything - be it science, mystics, blessing or bane...God's absence was also notable in the death camps of Auschwitz, but then, so was man's humanity to other men.

The author wrote this book in 1980 - during the raging cold war and he looked at the possibility of a nuclear war as the last chapter in the book in epilogue, some of the descriptions of the mechanisms of doomsday are outdated and even quaint, but the quotes from Hiroshima victims peppered throughout the chapter describing events on the ground that day in the summer of 1945 will serve to keep the snickering about teletypes and rotary telephones to a minimum...and make one feel disgust at the Air Force 'missile men' who blithly consider their job as keyholders to doomsday as a 'job'...the author cleverly hinting at the same response that the guards in Auschwitz and the Inquisitors in Toulouse may have hidden behind in their day.

Stand out essays in the book are 'The Kingdom of Auschwitz' (released as a standalone paperback), The Black Death, Rise of the Inquisition and the Lisbon Earthquake and the Coming Revolution (Russia 1905) but the entire book is great and should be read from cover to cover to really appreciate the author's echoing of previous chapters as a means of reminding the reader 'those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it'...
]]> <![CDATA[Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences]]> 186749 180 John Allen Paulos 0809058405 Brian 4
]]> 3.79 1988 Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
author: John Allen Paulos
name: Brian
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2010/05/26
date added: 2011/02/01
shelves:
review:
Currently reading this one...it is an interesting look at how our inability to grasp large numbers, small probabilities and extreme ratios shapes, or rather, distorts, our decision making processes.


]]> Absurdistan 70509 Absurdistan and meet outsize Misha Vainberg, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, lover of large portions of food and drink, lover and inept performer of rap music, and lover of a South Bronx Latina whom he longs to rejoin in New York City, if only the American INS will grant him a visa. But it won't, because Misha's late Beloved Papa whacked an Oklahoma businessman of some prominence. Misha is paying the price of exile from his adopted American homeland. He's stuck in Russia, dreaming of his beloved Rouenna and the Oz of NYC.

Salvation may lie in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as Minister of Multicultural Affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.

Populated by curvaceous brown-eyed beauties, circumcision-happy Hasidic Jews, a loyal manservant who never stops serving, and scheming oil execs from a certain American company whose name rhymes with Malliburton, Absurdistan is a strange, oddly true-to-life look at how we live now, from a writer who should know.]]> 333 Gary Shteyngart 0812971671 Brian 4 3.32 2006 Absurdistan
author: Gary Shteyngart
name: Brian
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2010/12/17
date added: 2011/01/13
shelves:
review:
Takes a bit to get going, but once it does it is a farce. Well done.
]]> Has Modernism Failed? 1121319 160 Suzi Gablik 0500284849 Brian 3
Other than those passages I think SG made a very coherent and powerful indictment of the diminishing coherence and point of post modernism and modernist art.]]> 3.96 1984 Has Modernism Failed?
author: Suzi Gablik
name: Brian
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2010/11/13
date added: 2010/11/23
shelves:
review:
Great read...i think it came off the rails a couple of times where she tried to stereotype science with sterility and a souless technocratic society...and attempted to tie secularism to the same. She seemed to be of the opinion that bureaucracies are limited to secular societies and are a condition of modern (secular) Western civilization...this is hardly the case as what bigger bureaucracy is there than, say, the Vatican and the Catholic power structure? Anytme an organization gets sufficiently large beureaucracies are inevitable.

Other than those passages I think SG made a very coherent and powerful indictment of the diminishing coherence and point of post modernism and modernist art.
]]> The Reenchantment of Art 626413 216 Suzi Gablik 0500276897 Brian 0 to-read 4.12 1991 The Reenchantment of Art
author: Suzi Gablik
name: Brian
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wreck of the Medusa: The Tragic Story of the Death Raft]]> 377110 294 Alexander McKee 0451200446 Brian 4 3.86 1975 Wreck of the Medusa: The Tragic Story of the Death Raft
author: Alexander McKee
name: Brian
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1975
rating: 4
read at: 2010/11/09
date added: 2010/11/09
shelves:
review:
I was a little worried that a book devoted to documenting and analyzing a horrific shipwreck off the coast of the SAhara desert would be very explicit and repulsive, but it was a very good read that left the repugnant details a bit off the page and also delved unexpectedly into the aftermath and a short history the famous painting by Théodore Géricault that captured the scene for all times. McKee also compared modern equivalents in search of the answer to his question of whether the Medusa Raft was unique in it's circumstances or in the way the survivors acted...this was all quite unexpected and quite enlightening.
]]> <![CDATA[The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason]]> 978266 336 Sam Harris 0393035158 Brian 4 3.85 2004 The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
author: Sam Harris
name: Brian
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2010/10/11
date added: 2010/10/11
shelves:
review:
It has some internal contradictions (oddly, the author seems to feel that our options against the intolerence of religion is to either change or destroy it - which is kinda what intolerent religions say about other religions/philosophies) - however, it makes a powerful argument that using religious faith as our basis for ethics and morality is as outdated as the use of prayer to treat cancer or bacterial infections. Time to move on or face destruction as 14th century morality now has access to 21st century weaponry.
]]> <![CDATA[The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements]]> 7247854
The periodic table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. "The Disappearing Spoon" masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, discovery, and alchemy, from the big bang through the end of time.


* Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.]]> 394 Sam Kean 0316051640 Brian 0 to-read 3.92 2010 The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
author: Sam Kean
name: Brian
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs, and Disease]]> 1042165 Homayun Sidky 0820433543 Brian 0 to-read 4.25 2004 Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs, and Disease
author: Homayun Sidky
name: Brian
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts]]> 469664 272 Anne Llewellyn Barstow 0062510363 Brian 0 to-read 3.85 1994 Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts
author: Anne Llewellyn Barstow
name: Brian
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pleasures of the Torture Chamber]]> 1678193 John Swain 1566197724 Brian 0 to-read 3.71 Pleasures of the Torture Chamber
author: John Swain
name: Brian
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus]]> 1329148 479 Earl Doherty 096892591X Brian 4 4.14 1999 The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus
author: Earl Doherty
name: Brian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2010/09/21
date added: 2010/09/21
shelves:
review:

]]> The Fool's Progress 118541 The Fool's Progress, the "fat masterpiece" as Edward Abbey labeled it, is his most important piece of it reveals the complete Ed Abbey, from the green grass of his memory as a child in Appalachia to his approaching death in Tuscon at age sixty two. When his third wife abandons him in Tucson, boozing, misanthropic anarchist Henry Holyoak Lightcap shoots his refrigerator and sets off in a battered pick-up truck for his ancestral home in West Virginia. Accompanied only by his dying dog and his memories, the irascible warhorse (a stand-in for the "real" Abbey) begins a bizarre cross-country odyssey--determined to make peace with his past--and to wage one last war against the ravages of "progress.""A profane, wildly funny, brash, overbearing, exquisite tour de force." -- The Chicago Tribune]]> 528 Edward Abbey 0805057919 Brian 5 4.21 1988 The Fool's Progress
author: Edward Abbey
name: Brian
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 1995/01/01
date added: 2010/08/17
shelves:
review:
Semi-autobiographical. Entirely hysterical and heartbreaking all at once...it brings to life the old saying, 'Everywhere i go, there i am'. This is my favorite book of all time.
]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Brian 4
It is also peppered with beautiful imagery and poeticism...for example: By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

That. Is. Awesome.

On the other hand, most chapters start like Snoopy wrote it, instead of 'It was a dark and stormy night...' Cormac (can i call him Cormac?) pens 'It was grey and the snow was falling...', I get it! Cold, lifeless, blasted and burned! Get on with it!

Overall though, the positives far outweigh any negatives.]]> 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Brian
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2010/08/17
date added: 2010/08/17
shelves:
review:
I am mixed on this book. On one hand it is a accurate description of the hopelessness of being the sole survivors in an end of the world as we know it scenerio. So many movies and books about that situation tend to embue the protagonists with superhuman hope and determination and of course, no one is ever starving. So this gets points for that.

It is also peppered with beautiful imagery and poeticism...for example: By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

That. Is. Awesome.

On the other hand, most chapters start like Snoopy wrote it, instead of 'It was a dark and stormy night...' Cormac (can i call him Cormac?) pens 'It was grey and the snow was falling...', I get it! Cold, lifeless, blasted and burned! Get on with it!

Overall though, the positives far outweigh any negatives.
]]> <![CDATA[Achilles in the Quantum Universe: The Definitive History of Infinity]]> 1489472 Richard Morris 0805047794 Brian 3
Not what I was expecting entirely, but in this case it was a pleasant surprise.

3.5 stars out of 5]]> 3.59 1997 Achilles in the Quantum Universe: The Definitive History of Infinity
author: Richard Morris
name: Brian
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2010/07/01
date added: 2010/07/01
shelves:
review:
More history than infinity to be sure, but it was a good read on the topic of impossibly complex systems and scales. Touched on a lot of theoretical physics in a relatively (no pun intended) accessable way and gave a lot of grounding to the ethereal and often rarified theories and realities therin.

Not what I was expecting entirely, but in this case it was a pleasant surprise.

3.5 stars out of 5
]]> <![CDATA[Relativity: The Special and General Theory]]> 6696414 125 Albert Einstein 0760759219 Brian 5 4.18 1916 Relativity: The Special and General Theory
author: Albert Einstein
name: Brian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1916
rating: 5
read at: 2010/06/16
date added: 2010/06/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (Encounter Broadsides)]]> 6611240 325 Harvey A. Silverglate 1594032556 Brian 0 to-read 3.69 2009 Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (Encounter Broadsides)
author: Harvey A. Silverglate
name: Brian
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet]]> 6368103 The New York Times bestseller: “You gotta read this. It is the most exciting book about Pluto you will ever read in your life.”—Jon Stewart

When the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History reclassified Pluto as an icy comet, the New York Times proclaimed on page one, “Pluto Not a Planet? Only in New York.� Immediately, the public, professionals, and press were choosing sides over Pluto’s planethood. Pluto is entrenched in our cultural and emotional view of the cosmos, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Rose Center, is on a quest to discover why. He stood at the heart of the controversy over Pluto’s demotion, and, consequently, plutophiles have freely shared their opinions with him, including endless hate mail from third-graders.
color throughout]]> 208 Neil deGrasse Tyson 0393337324 Brian 3 3.84 2008 The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet
author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
name: Brian
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2010/04/01
date added: 2010/05/10
shelves:
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I missed this controversy...i heard about it, but had no idea it was so hard fought. Chalk it up to my not watching TV or reading newspapers. A nice little diversion book chock full of humor and info. A nice beach book for the science nerds of the world.
]]> <![CDATA[Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies]]> 1842
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal]]> 498 Jared Diamond 0739467352 Brian 5 4.04 1997 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
author: Jared Diamond
name: Brian
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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date added: 2010/04/27
shelves:
review:
I now have even more contempt for racists after reading this book which profoundly changes the way one looks at the way the world's societies have grown and prospered or failed.
]]> IBM and the Holocaust 48838 IBM & the Holocaust tells of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany--beginning in 1933 in the 1st weeks that Hitler came to power & continuing well into WWII. As the 3rd Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest & genocide, IBM & its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification & cataloging programs of the 30s to the selections of the 40s. Only after Jews were identified--a massively complex task Hitler wanted done immediately--could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor & annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation & organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 30s no computer existed. But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed & constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate the persecution of the Jews.

Historians were amazed at the speed & accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify & locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany & then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations & ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads & organizing of concentration camp slave labor. IBM & its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, anticipating the Reich's needs. They didn't merely sell the machines & walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees & became the sole source of the billions of punch cards needed. IBM & the Holocaust details the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the 3rd Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters & the Geneva intermediaries--all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution & destruction. Just as compelling is the human drama of one of our century's greatest minds, IBM founder Thomas Watson, who cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit. Only with IBM's technologic assistance was Hitler able to achieve the staggering numbers of the Holocaust. Edwin Black has now uncovered one of the last great mysteries of Germany's war against the Jews: how Hitler got the names.]]> 710 Edwin Black 0751531995 Brian 4
Unforgiveable.

Nicely written and unassailably indexed and footnoted.]]> 4.03 1999 IBM and the Holocaust
author: Edwin Black
name: Brian
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/27
date added: 2010/04/27
shelves:
review:
All IBM had to do to impinge the Reich's ability to identify and inventory Jews and other enemies singled out for persecution was to pull the plug on their Nazi subsidiaries and stop supporting them...however, that would have put IBM's monopoly and growing profits at risk, so they didn't. And the rest, as they say, is (unreported) history.

Unforgiveable.

Nicely written and unassailably indexed and footnoted.
]]> <![CDATA[Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism]]> 463263 "Jacoby accomplishes her task with clarity, thoroughness, and an engaging passion."
-Los Angeles Times Book Review

At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby traces more than two hundred years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution. Moving from nineteenth-century abolitionism and suffragism through the twentieth century's civil liberties, civil rights, and feminist movements, Freethinkers illuminates the neglected achievements of secularists who, allied with tolerant believers, have led the battle for reform in the past and today.

Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, and the once-famous Robert Green Ingersoll, Freethinkers restores to history the passionate humanists who struggled against those who would undermine the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system.]]> 370 Susan Jacoby 0805077766 Brian 0 to-read 4.05 2004 Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
author: Susan Jacoby
name: Brian
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/02/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Death and Life of Great American Cities]]> 30833 The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.]]> 472 Jane Jacobs 0375508732 Brian 0 to-read 4.29 1961 The Death and Life of Great American Cities
author: Jane Jacobs
name: Brian
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob]]> 2387386
Of course the Internet is not one thing or another; if anything, its boosters claim, the Web is everything at once. It’s become not only our primary medium for communication and information but also the place we go to shop, to play, to debate, to find love. Lee Siegel argues that our ever-deepening immersion in life online doesn’t just reshape the ordinary rhythms of our days; it also reshapes our minds and culture, in ways with which we haven’t yet reckoned. The web and its cultural correlatives and by-products—such as the dominance of reality television and the rise of the “bourgeois bohemian”—have turned privacy into performance, play into commerce, and confused “self-expression� with art. And even as technology gurus ply their trade using the language of freedom and democracy, we cede more and more control of our freedom and individuality to the needs of the machine—that confluence of business and technology whose boundaries now stretch to encompass almost all human activity.

Siegel’s argument isn’t a Luddite intervention against the Internet itself but rather a bracing appeal for us to contend with how it is transforming us all. Dazzlingly erudite, full of startlingly original insights, and buoyed by sharp wit, Against the Machine will force you to see our culture—for better and worse—in an entirely new way.]]> 182 Lee Siegel 0385522657 Brian 0 to-read 2.83 2008 Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
author: Lee Siegel
name: Brian
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System]]> 903093 296 Paul Goodman 0394700325 Brian 0 to-read 3.78 1960 Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System
author: Paul Goodman
name: Brian
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/02/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy in the Digital Age]]> 1190309 Crypto tells the inside story of how a group of "crypto rebels"-nerds and visionaries turned freedom fighters-teamed up with corporate interests to beat Big Brother and ensure our privacy on the Internet. Levy's history of one of the most controversial and important topics of the digital age reads like the best futuristic fiction.]]> 352 Steven Levy 0670859508 Brian 3
Current encryption is theoretically impossible to break...of course in practice people choose passwords and keys that are easily remembered and thus, easily guessed or they write the password on a yellow post it and tape it to the bottom of their keyboards. Of course, there is the problem of the 'rubber hose cryptoanalysis' method...if you do happen to have something the NSA wants to review and you have chosen a strong password that isn't guessable (nothing related to your personal life and suitably long enough) well, they will beat you about the head and neck with a rubber hose until you tell them the passwords they need.

I wonder if this strong public encryption is the basis for the US's illegal and abhorrent use of torture? torture makes little sense when applied to publicly discussed sceneios (the '24' ticking bomb scenerio)...however, it does seem to make sense when trying to 'tease' out passwords...especially a password that takes a lot of time to remember in the first place.

But I digress, this is a fascinating book about the foundations of what makes modern communications secure - if one wanted to encrypt all their communication, that is.]]> 3.93 2001 Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy in the Digital Age
author: Steven Levy
name: Brian
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/24
date added: 2010/02/24
shelves:
review:
Great book and wonderfully easy to read without being so dumbed down that it is an insult to moderately educated people. It read at times like a magazine article - a little too much forced drama to put the reader on edge, but quite informative. Nice to read about some of the underpinnings of our digital society.

Current encryption is theoretically impossible to break...of course in practice people choose passwords and keys that are easily remembered and thus, easily guessed or they write the password on a yellow post it and tape it to the bottom of their keyboards. Of course, there is the problem of the 'rubber hose cryptoanalysis' method...if you do happen to have something the NSA wants to review and you have chosen a strong password that isn't guessable (nothing related to your personal life and suitably long enough) well, they will beat you about the head and neck with a rubber hose until you tell them the passwords they need.

I wonder if this strong public encryption is the basis for the US's illegal and abhorrent use of torture? torture makes little sense when applied to publicly discussed sceneios (the '24' ticking bomb scenerio)...however, it does seem to make sense when trying to 'tease' out passwords...especially a password that takes a lot of time to remember in the first place.

But I digress, this is a fascinating book about the foundations of what makes modern communications secure - if one wanted to encrypt all their communication, that is.
]]> <![CDATA[Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries]]> 7390227 What would it feel like if your spaceship were to venture too close to the black hole lurking at the center of the Milky Way? According to astrophysicist Tyson, director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, size does matter when it comes to black holes, although the chances of your surviving the encounter aren't good in any case. Tyson takes readers on an exciting journey from Earth's hot springs, where extremophiles flourish in hellish conditions, to the frozen, desolate stretches of the Oort Cloud and the universe's farthest reaches, in both space and time. Tyson doesn't restrict his musings to astrophysics, but wanders into related fields like relativity and particle physics, which he explains just as clearly as he does Lagrangian points, where we someday may park interplanetary filling stations. He tackles popular myths (is the sun yellow?) and takes movie directors—most notably James Cameron—to task for spectacular goofs. In the last section the author gives his take on the hot subject of intelligent design. Readers of Natural History magazine will be familiar with many of the 42 essays collected here, while newcomers will profit from Tyson's witty and entertaining description of being pulled apart atom by atom into a black hole, and other, closer-to-earth, and cheerier, topics. 9 illus. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Whenever astronomy intrudes on the news, interviewers flock to the telegenic Tyson for an explanation. The high-profile astrophysicist is also an essayist for Natural History, the American Museum of Natural History's monthly that is the source for this volume. His pieces are organized under whimsical banners such as "All the ways the cosmos wants to kill us," and Tyson's style will connect with general readers who are interested in the form the apocalypse will take. Scientists know that in a few billion years, an expanding sun will vaporize the earth, provided it's not been previously destroyed by a rogue black hole. Besides regaling spooky stories, the selections deploy movies as an astronomy popularizer, with Tyson critiquing the accuracy of the sky depicted in various scenes. Elsewhere, topics in the history of astronomy and physics fall into two categories: essays about the discovery of physical laws, and about cosmic objects such as galactic gas clouds and quasars. Whatever readers' scientific tastes, something in Tyson's wide-ranging collection will sate them. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews]]> 320 Neil deGrasse Tyson Brian 0 to-read 3.92 2006 Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
name: Brian
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2010/02/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Mongol Empire 2038167
A work of enduring scholarship and literary excellence, The Mongol Empire is a classic on the rise and fall of the world's largest empire. It describes the incredible ascent of the Mongol people, which, through the political and military genius of Genghis Khan, overwhelmed and subdued the nations of most of the world. It demonstrates the transformation of barbarous nomads into the most efficient rulers of their time and describes the crumbling of their vast empire and the assumption of its legacy by the formerly subjugated China and Russia.

Maurice Collis in Time and Tide said of The Mongol Empire: "It has the rare merit of being both scholarly and exciting.... The entire world comes on to his canvas, romantic and fantastical persons pass in our view, and at the conclusion we realize that we have seen the whole of what Marco Polo saw only in part." while The Observer commented, "it is a fine book, full of dramatic occasion well used, clear in proportions."]]> 582 Michael Prawdin 1412805198 Brian 0 to-read 4.23 1938 The Mongol Empire
author: Michael Prawdin
name: Brian
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance: Chronicles, #1)]]> 259836 This Dungeons & Dragons-inspired fantasy adventure is the first installment in the beloved Dragonlance Chronicles, set in the magical world of Krynn.

Once merely creatures of legend, the dragons have returned to Krynn. But with their arrival comes the departure of the old gods—and all healing magic. As war threatens to engulf the land, lifelong friends reunite for an adventure that will change their lives and shape their world forever . . .

When Tanis, Sturm, Caramon, Raistlin, Flint, and Tasslehoff see a woman use a blue crystal staff to heal a villager, they wonder if it's a sign the gods have not abandoned them after all. Fueled by this glimmer of hope, the Companions band together to uncover the truth behind the gods' absence—though they aren't the only ones with an interest in the staff. The Seekers, a new religious order, wants the artifact for their own ends, believing it will help them replace the gods and overtake the continent of Ansalon. Now, the Companions must assume the unlikely roles of heroes if they hope to prevent the staff from falling into the hands of darkness.

Lifelong friends, they went their separate ways. Now they are together again, though each holds secrets from the others in his heart. They speak of a world shadowed with rumors of war. They speak of tales of strange monsters, creatures of myth, creatures of legend. They do not speak of their secrets. Not then. Not until a chance encounter with a beautiful, sorrowful woman, who bears a magical crystal staff, draws the companions deeper into the shadows, forever changing their lives and shaping the fate of the world.

No one expected them to be heroes.

Least of all, them.]]> 444 Margaret Weis 0786915749 Brian 1
]]> 4.01 1984 Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance: Chronicles, #1)
author: Margaret Weis
name: Brian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1984
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2010/01/22
shelves:
review:
This isn't Lord of the Rings. If you want your fantasy stories of dwarves, fairies and elves told with proper gravitas, really, this isn't for you and honestly, you are looking for your gravitas in the wrong places. Pontificating aside, this is aD&D gaming session come to life and it is a fun read for the beach.


]]> <![CDATA[The Monkey Wrench Gang (Monkey Wrench Gang, #1)]]> 99208 The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a "comic extravaganza." Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it's true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief.

The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbey's concerns about wilderness preservation ("Hell of a place to lose a cow," Smith thinks to himself while roaming through the canyonlands of southern Utah. "Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place... to lose. Period").

Moving from one improbable situation to the next, packing more adventure into the space of a few weeks than most real people do in a lifetime, the motley gang puts fear into the hearts of their enemies, laughing all the while. It's comic, yes, and required reading for anyone who has come to love the desert.]]> 421 Edward Abbey 0061129763 Brian 4 4.09 1975 The Monkey Wrench Gang (Monkey Wrench Gang, #1)
author: Edward Abbey
name: Brian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1975
rating: 4
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date added: 2010/01/22
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There are parts of this world worth saving...and parts that can't be or don't deserve to be saved. What you consider to be one or the other says a lot about a man.
]]> <![CDATA[Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam]]> 567934 264 Michel Onfray 1559708506 Brian 0 to-read 3.55 2005 Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
author: Michel Onfray
name: Brian
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Universal Myths: Heroes, Gods, Tricksters and Others]]> 638455 272 Alexander Eliot 0452010276 Brian 0 to-read 3.69 1976 The Universal Myths: Heroes, Gods, Tricksters and Others
author: Alexander Eliot
name: Brian
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/01/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark]]> 17349
Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.]]> 459 Carl Sagan 0345409469 Brian 5
This should be a required text for any High School Freshman...at the very least specific chapters should be assigned and discussed. ]]> 4.28 1995 The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
author: Carl Sagan
name: Brian
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2010/01/22
date added: 2010/01/22
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review:
A great discussion about how we allow magical thinking to shade our perceptions and allow ourselves to be mislead. Sagan and Druyan made excellent points about the degradation of our educational system in particular our shyng away from and even mocking the pursuit of science for science sake.

This should be a required text for any High School Freshman...at the very least specific chapters should be assigned and discussed.
]]> Weaveworld 768879
Barker turns from his usual horror to epic-length fantasy for this account of the Fugue, a magical land inhabited by descendants of supernatural beings who once shared the earth with humans. The Fugue has been woven into a carpet for protection against those who would destroy it; the death of its guardian occasions a battle between good and particularly repulsive evil forces for control of the Fugue. Weaveworld is rich with memorable characters, exciting situations, and pockets of Barker's trademark horror.]]> 648 Clive Barker 0743417356 Brian 0 to-read 4.03 1987 Weaveworld
author: Clive Barker
name: Brian
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2009/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre]]> 36315 “H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”—Stephen King

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”—H.P. Lovecraft

This is the collection that true fans of horror fiction must have: sixteen of H.P. Lovecraft’s most horrifying visions, including:

The Call of Cthulu: The first story in the infamous Cthulhu mythos—a creature spawned in the stars brings a menace of unimaginable evil to threaten all mankind.

The Dunwich Horror: An evil man’s desire to perform an unspeakable ritual leads him in search of the fabled text of The Necronomicon.

The Colour Out of Space: A horror from the skies—far worse than any nuclear fallout—transforms a man into a monster.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth: Rising from the depths of the sea, an unspeakable horror engulfs a quiet New England town.

Plus twelve more terrifying tales!]]> 406 H.P. Lovecraft Brian 0 horror
Push not too firmly on the veil of reality...something may push back from beyond]]> 4.31 1963 The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Brian
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at: 2009/10/27
date added: 2009/10/27
shelves: horror
review:
The early 20th century saw many new horizons revealed...Einstein redefining the nature of light and gravity while Neils Bohr announced that all reality was based on chaos. Picasso was deconstructing art, fascists were redefining politics...is it any wonder HP Lovecraft tapped into the extra dimensional and things out of space and time realms for his terrors?

Push not too firmly on the veil of reality...something may push back from beyond
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