Aaron's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 13 Nov 2023 13:46:34 -0800 60 Aaron's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Mary and Vincent Price's Come into the Kitchen Cook Book: A Collector's Treasury of America's Great Recipes]]> 137751
Vincent Price and his wife, Mary, authors of the classic A Treasury of Great Recipes, turn their attention to four centuries of traditional American dishes in this charming cookbook. Starting with the chowder, stewed cod, and hasty pudding of early America, the collection ranges through scrapple, apple pandowdy, and other regional favorites of the nineteenth century to the recipes of modern America, from vichyssoise to corned beef cheeseburgers to cherries jubilee.

An informative and atmospheric introduction precedes each historical section, followed by the straightforward, easy-to-follow recipes. In addition, the Prices present a complete section on wines that features the story of wine making as well as helpful information on how to shop for domestic or imported vintages and which to serve with various foods, plus advice on crafting homemade wine.

Richly illustrated with photos of historic American kitchens and numerous whimsical images, this edition includes a new Foreword by Victoria Price, Mary and Vincent's daughter, as well as a new Introduction by Darra Goldstein, Founding Editor of the journal Gastronomica.]]> 212 Mary Price 0873960203 Aaron 4 cookbook The Prices were gourmands and world travelers. This book is a collection of their favorite recipes from restaurants they have dined at all over the world. The recipes will impress your guests -even more so if you leave the book out for them to leaf through. Pictures of the Prices at various restaurants and in their kitchen (worthy of Julia Childs) interspersed with reproductions of the menus of the restaurants featured punctuate the sections of the book. The menu reproductions are fun to look at -especially if you're a graphic artist looking to reproduce a certain look from the Mad Men-era.
I recommend finding a really beat up copy of this, if you want to actually cook from it. Otherwise, it's an out of print collector's item. If you find too nice a copy, you can't really crack open the book or you'll be too worried about getting white wine on it as you try your hand at Volaille Pyramide or one of a thousand other recipes.
It's hard not to hear the voice of Vincent Price as you read this. You may as well put on The Masque of the Red Death or The Abominable Dr. Phibes. You know you want to...]]> 4.33 1969 Mary and Vincent Price's Come into the Kitchen Cook Book: A Collector's Treasury of America's Great Recipes
author: Mary Price
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/11/13
shelves: cookbook
review:
I first saw this seventeen years ago when I worked at a used bookstore. I regretted not buying it and the Salvador Dali cookbook when I had the chance. Time passed. I was in a thrift store, looking at things. Broken toys, fondue set, Mitch Miller albums, all the usual things. Along with an oriental print, a baking cookbook from the 1920's that you hang on the wall like a calendar (!?), the Mary and Vincent Price cookbook was in a display case at the front of the store. Sadly, when you die, all your stuff goes to the curb or someone takes it to the thrift store. I bought all three items (there was also a cookbook from World War II from the same collection that didn't go home with me.) It seemed sad and weird that no one from the deceased's family wanted it. Like finding old family photo albums at the flea market.
The Prices were gourmands and world travelers. This book is a collection of their favorite recipes from restaurants they have dined at all over the world. The recipes will impress your guests -even more so if you leave the book out for them to leaf through. Pictures of the Prices at various restaurants and in their kitchen (worthy of Julia Childs) interspersed with reproductions of the menus of the restaurants featured punctuate the sections of the book. The menu reproductions are fun to look at -especially if you're a graphic artist looking to reproduce a certain look from the Mad Men-era.
I recommend finding a really beat up copy of this, if you want to actually cook from it. Otherwise, it's an out of print collector's item. If you find too nice a copy, you can't really crack open the book or you'll be too worried about getting white wine on it as you try your hand at Volaille Pyramide or one of a thousand other recipes.
It's hard not to hear the voice of Vincent Price as you read this. You may as well put on The Masque of the Red Death or The Abominable Dr. Phibes. You know you want to...
]]> <![CDATA[Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire]]> 40709 Now with a new and up-to-date Introduction by the author, the bestselling account of the effect of American global policies, hailed as "brilliant and iconoclastic" (Los Angeles Times)

The term "blowback," invented by the CIA, refers to the unintended results of American actions abroad. In this incisive and controversial book, Chalmers Johnson lays out in vivid detail the dangers faced by our overextended empire, which insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From a case of rape by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa to our role in Asia's financial crisis, from our early support for Saddam Hussein to our conduct in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the ways in which our misguided policies are planting the seeds of future disaster.

In a new edition that addresses recent international events from September 11 to the war in Iraq, this now classic book remains as prescient and powerful as ever.]]> 301 Chalmers Johnson 0805075593 Aaron 0 currently-reading 4.06 2000 Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
author: Chalmers Johnson
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/15
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Down and Out in Paris and London]]> 393199 213 George Orwell 015626224X Aaron 0 4.10 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London
author: George Orwell
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1933
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst]]> 31170723 Why do we do the things we do?

More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs—whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened.

Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old.

The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do ... for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.]]> 790 Robert M. Sapolsky 1594205078 Aaron 5 4.39 2017 Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/12
date added: 2021/10/12
shelves:
review:
This took me a year and a half to read. The thickness of my copy gained about 30% due to all the post-its I stuck into it. This was a fantastic book, but I recommend first checking out any of his lectures on YouTube so you can hear his voice, inflections and mannerisms first and then imagine them as you're reading. Not only did I learn about biology, but also learned (or at least saw examples of) how to write about extremely complex topics for a lay audience.
]]> Lonely Boy 30048098
Steve’s modern Dickensian tale begins in the streets of Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush, West London, where as a lonely, neglected boy living off his wits and petty thievery he is given purpose by the glam art rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music and becomes one of the first generation of ragamuffin punks taken under the wings of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

For the very first time Steve describes the sadness of never having known his dad, the neglect and abuse he suffered at the hands of his step father, and how his interest in music and fashion saved him from a potential life of crime spent in remand centres and prison.

From the Kings Road of the early seventies, through the years of the Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and the recording of Never Mind the Bollocks (ranked number 41 in Rolling Stone magazine’s Best Albums of All Time), to his self-imposed exile in New York and Los Angeles where he battled with alcohol, heroin and sex addiction � caught in a cycle of rehab and relapse � Lonely Boy, written with music journalist and author Ben Thompson, is the story of an unlikely guitar hero who, with the Sex Pistols, changed history.]]> 320 Steve Jones 1785150677 Aaron 0 3.97 2017 Lonely Boy
author: Steve Jones
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Master Class in Figure Drawing]]> 258025
“Robert Beverly Hale is a beloved teacher. He is a tall, spare, somewhat rumpled patrician of seventy-six, with black-rimmed glasses and an El Greco face. He teaches two courses, Artistic Anatomy and Elements of Drawing, at the Art Students League, on West Fifty-seventh Street, and his classes are a continual, almost legendary, celebration not only of the beauty and wonder of the human form but of Hale himself. Many people consider Hale the foremost teacher of artistic anatomy in the country, and perhaps the world. His classes are always oversubscribed, and students return year after year. When Hale enters a lecture hall or a studio, his students burst into applause.”� The New Yorker Profile, June 13, 1977]]> 144 Robert Beverly Hale 0823030148 Aaron 4 art 4.25 1985 Master Class in Figure Drawing
author: Robert Beverly Hale
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/19
date added: 2021/01/02
shelves: art
review:

]]> <![CDATA[History of the Peloponnesian War]]> 261243 648 Thucydides 0140440399 Aaron 0 3.90 -411 History of the Peloponnesian War
author: Thucydides
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.90
book published: -411
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/15
date added: 2020/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Plays of Aristophanes]]> 1562 577 Aristophanes 0553213431 Aaron 0 to-read 4.21 -388 The Complete Plays of Aristophanes
author: Aristophanes
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.21
book published: -388
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Alchemist 18144590 The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following our dreams.]]> 182 Paulo Coelho 0062315005 Aaron 1 4.01 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1988
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2020/07/30
shelves:
review:
I heard good things about this from a famous person I respect who recommended it. Apparently, there are more than a few celebrities who liked it, too. I think everyone has a screw loose. I kept looking to confirm that it was a young adult novel. This is what you read while recovering from having your wisdom teeth removed or while being held hostage in a hippie commune and quickly forgotten about after escaping. If this were a movie, it would be a Hallmark Holiday movie, only in the desert. And with lots of shmaltzy orchestral music. Looking back at all my bookmarks, the best bits of wisdom I marked at the time now read as a bunch of folksy, irritating horseshit. There are a couple of tiny nuggets of something worthwhile that still ring true. But it's like searching for sushi in a giant aspic mold -not worth the journey!
]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Rhyming Dictionary: Including The Poet's Craft Book]]> 853232
This simple-to-use, exceptionally complete reference work has been updated, expanded and redesigned to meet the needs of today's most demanding wordsmiths. Included here

� Over 10,000 new entries—over 60,000 in all
� More rhymes than any other book
� Sight, vowel, consonant, and one-, two-, and three-syllable rhymes
� Proper names, slang, and scientific words
� Guide to techniques and forms of poetry]]> 705 Clement Wood 0440212057 Aaron 4 4.29 1936 The Complete Rhyming Dictionary: Including The Poet's Craft Book
author: Clement Wood
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1936
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/22
date added: 2020/06/22
shelves:
review:
Loved it. Perfect prose to serenade neighbors and friends through a bullhorn as you slowly drive through the neighborhood...
]]> The Souls of Black Folk 43452848 199 W.E.B. Du Bois Aaron 5 5.00 1903 The Souls of Black Folk
author: W.E.B. Du Bois
name: Aaron
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1903
rating: 5
read at: 2020/05/17
date added: 2020/05/17
shelves:
review:
Whatever you do, don't buy the Kindle edition I bought. I think it was Google-translated from English back into English. I had to purchase a different edition to avoid curious mistranslation-like errors. The book itself is something worth returning to again and again; I can't offer anything new that 100+ years of reviews have not already offered.
]]> <![CDATA[Readings about the Social Animal]]> 401269 The Social Animal, this collection of classic and contemporary readings explores the most important ideas, issues, and debates in social psychology today.]]> 532 Elliot Aronson 0716759667 Aaron 4 4.14 1973 Readings about the Social Animal
author: Elliot Aronson
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2012/05/24
date added: 2019/07/19
shelves:
review:
This is a fantastic book. I've had a copy for years that I've worn out. Makes for great beach reading. Make sure you bring your horn-rim glasses and steely judgemental stare you aim at everyone who walks by whom you think is judging you. They don't understand the depth of your soul. You are a scientist. While they hook up at tourist bars full of college kids and cougars, you'll be sitting in your weekend rental, learning the inner workings of human behavior. Why did you agree to go on spring break? These things always depress you. Go to the bar and order a mai tai. But bring the book for company. Everyone else is dumb.
]]> Sophie’s World 10959 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.]]> 403 Jostein Gaarder 1857993284 Aaron 4 Sophie's World via the band Spiritualized from their 1997 lp Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space -the title being from a line in this book. Years later, I misunderstood someone, thinking they were referencing the book in a comment about one of my photos. I figured this would be a nice break between reads in social psychology, sociology, and behavior change (what I call my psychological warfare shelf.)
While the plot itself is a bit fluffy (teenage girl gets mysterious notes from a stranger who is to become her personal philosophy teacher - girl and teacher work together to break out of the book called Sophie's World that they have been written into as characters which was written as a gift from a father to her daughter), the amount of detail and work the author put into creating a readable summary of world philosophy is quite an accomplishment. I recommend this the way I'd recommend Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco; as some of the best beach/doctor's office/airplane/waiting on a tow truck reading I've come across. This Administration gives it a thumbs up.]]> 3.94 1991 Sophie’s World
author: Jostein Gaarder
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2012/12/30
date added: 2019/07/19
shelves:
review:
I had first heard of Sophie's World via the band Spiritualized from their 1997 lp Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space -the title being from a line in this book. Years later, I misunderstood someone, thinking they were referencing the book in a comment about one of my photos. I figured this would be a nice break between reads in social psychology, sociology, and behavior change (what I call my psychological warfare shelf.)
While the plot itself is a bit fluffy (teenage girl gets mysterious notes from a stranger who is to become her personal philosophy teacher - girl and teacher work together to break out of the book called Sophie's World that they have been written into as characters which was written as a gift from a father to her daughter), the amount of detail and work the author put into creating a readable summary of world philosophy is quite an accomplishment. I recommend this the way I'd recommend Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco; as some of the best beach/doctor's office/airplane/waiting on a tow truck reading I've come across. This Administration gives it a thumbs up.
]]> <![CDATA[The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #1)]]> 86524
The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that set LBJ apart. Chronicling the startling early emergence of Johnson’s political genius, it follows him from his Texas boyhood through the years of the Depression in the Texas hill Country to the triumph of his congressional debut in New Deal Washington, to his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, of the national power for which he hungered.

We see in him, from earliest childhood, a fierce, unquenchable necessity to be first, to win, to dominate—coupled with a limitless capacity for hard, unceasing labor in the service of his own ambition. Caro shows us the big, gangling, awkward young Lyndon—raised in one of the country’s most desperately poor and isolated areas, his education mediocre at best, his pride stung by his father’s slide into failure and financial ruin—lunging for success, moving inexorably toward that ultimate “impossible� goal that he sets for himself years before any friend or enemy suspects what it may be.

We watch him, while still at college, instinctively (and ruthlessly) creating the beginnings of the political machine that was to serve him for three decades. We see him employing his extraordinary ability to mesmerize and manipulate powerful older men, to mesmerize (and sometimes almost enslave) useful subordinates. We see him carrying out, before his thirtieth year, his first great political inspiration: tapping-and becoming the political conduit for-the money and influence of the new oil men and contractors who were to grow with him to immense power. We follow, close up, the radical fluctuations of his relationships with the formidable “Mr. Sam� Rayburn (who loved him like a son and whom he betrayed) and with FDR himself. And we follow the dramas of his emotional life-the intensities and complications of his relationships with his family, his contemporaries, his girls; his wooing and winning of the shy Lady Bird; his secret love affair, over many years, with the mistress of one of his most ardent and generous supporters . . .

Johnson driving his people to the point of exhausted tears, equally merciless with himself . . . Johnson bullying, cajoling, lying, yet inspiring an amazing loyalty . . . Johnson maneuvering to dethrone the unassailable old Jack Garner (then Vice President of the United States) as the New Deal’s “connection� in Texas, and seize the power himself . . . Johnson raging . . . Johnson hugging . . . Johnson bringing light and, indeed, life to the worn Hill Country farmers and their old-at-thirty wives via the district’s first electric lines.

We see him at once unscrupulous, admirable, treacherous, devoted. And we see the country that bred him: the harshness and “nauseating loneliness� of the rural life; the tragic panorama of the Depression; the sudden glow of hope at the dawn of the Age of Roosevelt. And always, in the foreground, on the move, LBJ.

Here is Lyndon Johnson—his Texas, his Washington, his America—in a book that brings us as close as we have ever been to a true perception of political genius and the American political process.]]> 882 Robert A. Caro 0679729453 Aaron 5 4.39 1982 The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #1)
author: Robert A. Caro
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science]]> 22811858 As we learn more about the mechanisms of human behavior through evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and other related fields, we're discovering just how intriguing the human species is. And while scientists are continually uncovering deep similarities between our behavior and that of other animals, they're also finding a wealth of insights into everything that makes us unique from any other species on Earth.

Join acclaimed neurobiologist and award-winning Professor Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University for a surprising, amusing, and undeniably fascinating study of what makes you you. Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science is a 12-lecture course that takes you to the front lines of scientific research and offers you a new perspective on the supposedly quirky nature of being ourselves. Thought-provoking, witty, and sometimes myth-shattering, this course is sure to have you thinking about, observing, and even appreciating your own life in novel ways.]]> Robert M. Sapolsky 1598038095 Aaron 5 4.35 2012 Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Disasters of War (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)]]> 279353 The artist himself never saw the results. The etchings were not published until 1863, some 35 years after his death. By then, the passions of the Napoleonic era had subsided and the satirical implications in Goya's work were less likely to offend. The Dover edition reproduces in its original size the second state of this first edition, which contained 80 prints. Three additional prints not in the 1863 edition are also included here, making this the most complete collection possible of the etchings Goya intended for this series. The bitter, biting captions are reprinted, along with the new English translations, as are the original title page and preface.]]> 112 Francisco de Goya 0486218724 Aaron 5 4.53 1863 The Disasters of War (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)
author: Francisco de Goya
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1863
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/01/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Hannibal (Hannibal Lecter, #3)]]> 32418 564 Thomas Harris Aaron 4 Silence of the Lambs, I felt like Lector was too perfect in every regard. The novel was much more bizarre than the movie, though the tv series uses lots of themes, dialogue and ideas that are in this volume.
It was gratifying to learn that the use of Memory Palaces in the Sherlock tv series was inspired by Mark Gatiss reading about it in Hannibal. After reading this book, I immediately read Moonwalking with Einstein and am looking for the unabridged version of Frances Yates' The Art of Memory (apparently, the version on Amazon is minus some dazzling drawings of Giordano Bruno's memory palace).]]> 3.82 1999 Hannibal (Hannibal Lecter, #3)
author: Thomas Harris
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/01/18
shelves:
review:
I enjoyed this, though after reading this immediately after Silence of the Lambs, I felt like Lector was too perfect in every regard. The novel was much more bizarre than the movie, though the tv series uses lots of themes, dialogue and ideas that are in this volume.
It was gratifying to learn that the use of Memory Palaces in the Sherlock tv series was inspired by Mark Gatiss reading about it in Hannibal. After reading this book, I immediately read Moonwalking with Einstein and am looking for the unabridged version of Frances Yates' The Art of Memory (apparently, the version on Amazon is minus some dazzling drawings of Giordano Bruno's memory palace).
]]> <![CDATA[The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction]]> 24331386 522 Neil Gaiman 0062262262 Aaron 0 to-read 3.95 2016 The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hansel and Gretel 20718289 "This all happened a long time ago, in your grandmother's time, or in her grandfather's. A long time ago. Back then, we all lived on the edge of the great forest."

Neil Gaiman and Lorenzo Mattotti both remember the horror and fascination with which they read the Grimm Brothers' "Hansel and Gretel." The writer and the artist now join forces for a brilliant reimagining of one of humanity's most enduring tales.

This best-selling author and fine artist have created a stunning book that's at once as familiar as a dream and as evocative as a nightmare. Mattotti's sweeping ink illustrations capture the terror and longing found in the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Gaiman crafts an original text filled with his signature wit and pathos that is sure to become a favorite of readers everywhere, young and old.

Be brave, be bold, and keep your wits about you � Gaiman and Mattotti are welcoming you into the forest.]]> 56 Neil Gaiman 1935179624 Aaron 0 to-read 3.82 2014 Hansel and Gretel
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Man's Search for Meaning 4069 Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.]]> 165 Viktor E. Frankl 080701429X Aaron 5
Hopefully this wasn't "required reading" in high school or any time of your life when required establishment reading ruins what's otherwise a good thing. This book can teach resilience, grit and how to live when everything is shit and not become an animal...]]> 4.38 1946 Man's Search for Meaning
author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1946
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/01
date added: 2016/11/01
shelves:
review:
This book could fit in your back pocket, but is something you can return to again and again for decades. It's always the integration of wisdom into your life that's the hard part. Getting the wisdom across the blood-brain barrier of intellectual wisdom into the realm of gut-knowledge takes reading the book, living a few years, reading it again and reflecting on the intervening time (the same with Leonard Cohen lyrics). I have a bunch of "get your shit together before you die like an asshole" books I previously bought while hungry, bored and wanting something to complete my life for a moment at Barnes & Noble (or Small Independent Bookstore); I could replace 80% of them with this timeless classic. It's cheap enough that you could tear a page out of it that has a meaningful quote, staple it to the sun visor of car and think on it every time you're at a stop light. Some of the passages would be better tattoos than some of the dumb shit I see people walking around on their bodies (full disclosure: I say this as the guy who wants an antlered man riding a dolphin with the phrase "Part of Everything" as a permanent part of his body). This book requires you unpack single sentences and explore what's inside over an extended period of time.

Hopefully this wasn't "required reading" in high school or any time of your life when required establishment reading ruins what's otherwise a good thing. This book can teach resilience, grit and how to live when everything is shit and not become an animal...
]]> <![CDATA[The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography]]> 440358 Book of the Law which contains the gospel that Crowley proclaimed for all mankind: the Law of Thelema, or Do What Thou Wilt.

Generations before his time, Crowley invoked sex, drugs, and Eastern philosophy in his perpetual and often bizarre search for self-realization. The Confessions, skillfully edited and annotated by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, serves as the perfect introduction to Crowley's extraordinary life and thought.]]> 960 Aleister Crowley 0140191895 Aaron 1 autobiography, magick For someone who's usually rather witty and interesting, this sucked. I felt like someone trapped in an elevator with a pompous gasbag relating his adventures in one of the Boer Wars. I don't give a crap about mountaineering in the early 1900's. It also didn't help that the copy I had was given to me out of the bookstore trash years ago. As I read a page, it came right out of the book. There's a moldering pile on my nightstand now.
Supposedly, he wrote it while on opium or heroin which the forward's author admits made him overly talkative. Not knowing much about either drug, that seems opposite what I'd expect.
The best may be yet to come, so I'll give it another chance someday. For now, I'll dig into his book on yoga...]]> 3.99 1969 The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography
author: Aleister Crowley
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1969
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2016/11/01
shelves: autobiography, magick
review:
I may come back to this one...
For someone who's usually rather witty and interesting, this sucked. I felt like someone trapped in an elevator with a pompous gasbag relating his adventures in one of the Boer Wars. I don't give a crap about mountaineering in the early 1900's. It also didn't help that the copy I had was given to me out of the bookstore trash years ago. As I read a page, it came right out of the book. There's a moldering pile on my nightstand now.
Supposedly, he wrote it while on opium or heroin which the forward's author admits made him overly talkative. Not knowing much about either drug, that seems opposite what I'd expect.
The best may be yet to come, so I'll give it another chance someday. For now, I'll dig into his book on yoga...
]]> Just Kids 341879 Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry.]]> 304 Patti Smith Aaron 4 4.19 2010 Just Kids
author: Patti Smith
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World]]> 25744928 One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.]]> 296 Cal Newport 1455586692 Aaron 4 4.16 2016 Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
author: Cal Newport
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> Design Currency 17133281
Leverage traditional design skills in new ways Measure the value that your design work brings to a project Articulate that value so that you can position yourself as a partner in the development process Charge what you’re worth and prevent your job from getting crowd-sourced or out-sourced Generate business value by better identifying audience needs]]> 229 Jenn Visocky O'Grady 0321844920 Aaron 0 4.14 2013 Design Currency
author: Jenn Visocky O'Grady
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2016/04/04
date added: 2016/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> Inside the Third Reich 853201 B&W photos.]]> 672 Albert Speer 0684829495 Aaron 4 history 4.09 1969 Inside the Third Reich
author: Albert Speer
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2014/03/02
date added: 2014/03/02
shelves: history
review:

]]> Dictionar Tehnic Poliglot 15372045 1233 Editura Tehnica 0829009876 Aaron 5 reference
On this same trip, my grandfather befriended the ship's captain. For reasons unknown, the captain bequeathed this volume to my grandfather (an accountant.) There are very few people who need to know the translation of various mathematical, astronomical & nautical terms in English, Romanian, German, French and Russian. I am now in possession of such a volume. "Calculus of Predicates", "Diffuse Nebula", "Monomorphism" & "Vandermonde Determinant" are some of the handy terms worth memorizing in case you're planning a vacation to Bucharest, Paris, Berlin or St. Petersburg. Every once in a while, this book gets pulled out while friends are over.

It feels weird that this book exists in real life and isn't a figment from a Borges story...]]> 4.00 Dictionar Tehnic Poliglot
author: Editura Tehnica
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/09/15
shelves: reference
review:
In 1981, my grandparents went on a freighter trip. I forget the details, but there were some complications that caused their trip to last something like an additional month longer than it was supposed to. I think this was the same trip where, while in Copenhagen, they stayed at the same hotel as the Rolling Stones. My grandparents are the only people on the planet who would refuse to get on the elevator with them. Confronted with this possibility, I'm sure my grandmother clutched my grandfather's arm and whispered "Oh, Charles -I think they're on drugs." And they waited for the doors to close. My grandfather said Mick Jagger was wore a pearl necklace. Those were the only details they ever shared.

On this same trip, my grandfather befriended the ship's captain. For reasons unknown, the captain bequeathed this volume to my grandfather (an accountant.) There are very few people who need to know the translation of various mathematical, astronomical & nautical terms in English, Romanian, German, French and Russian. I am now in possession of such a volume. "Calculus of Predicates", "Diffuse Nebula", "Monomorphism" & "Vandermonde Determinant" are some of the handy terms worth memorizing in case you're planning a vacation to Bucharest, Paris, Berlin or St. Petersburg. Every once in a while, this book gets pulled out while friends are over.

It feels weird that this book exists in real life and isn't a figment from a Borges story...
]]> <![CDATA[The Book of a Hundred Hands (Dover Anatomy for Artists)]]> 477056 There is probably no better instructor to turn to for this understanding than Mr. Bridgman, a well-respected artist who for nearly 50 years lectured and taught at the Art Students League of New York. In this volume, a full text is accompanied by many illustrations depicting virtually every aspect and posture of the human hand. He first considers the back view of the hand, the wrist bones, the tendons, the muscles, the hand bones, the arch, and the veins; and then those of the palm. Throughout he pictures the musculature at work beneath the surface of the skin. He continues by showing how the muscles operate on the thumb side and on the little finger side when each is the center of force; how the thumb and fingers are constructed, their freedom of movement, joints, and complete anatomy as well as views of them straight, bent, and flexed; how the knuckles are formed, what shapes the fist can take and how flexible it can be; and he concludes with illustrations of the total movement, either turning or rotary, of the hand in its various positions.
The 100 illustrations the author has selected perfectly define the regions of the hand so that any artist, beginning or experienced, will increase his mastery of it. Better rendering of the human hand is sure to add new expressiveness to your human figures along with new forcefulness and new interest.]]> 192 George B. Bridgman 048622709X Aaron 0 "What's it to you, dollface?" I put the book down. I lit a cigarette of my own and ordered another drink.
"I'm looking for a man who's good with hands."
"Looks like it's your lucky day... "
(Trying to write a book review while watching Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. To be continued...)
This, along with other Dover classics such as Sundials; Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Materials; and Theory of Wing Sections add zazz to any library.

----
I didn't realize that Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ was keeping track of how much time I was reading this. It didn't really take over a year to read this. I did other things during that time. Created new documents in Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign; ate some almonds, olives and cornichons; dusted off lawnchairs, etc.

All in all, I liked this book, though while I was reading it, I was kind of wishing I was reading Pete Townshend's Who I Am instead.]]> 4.25 1920 The Book of a Hundred Hands (Dover Anatomy for Artists)
author: George B. Bridgman
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1920
rating: 0
read at: 2013/04/17
date added: 2013/04/17
shelves:
review:
"I see you're into hands" she said, lighting a cigarette and taking a sip from her Martini.
"What's it to you, dollface?" I put the book down. I lit a cigarette of my own and ordered another drink.
"I'm looking for a man who's good with hands."
"Looks like it's your lucky day... "
(Trying to write a book review while watching Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. To be continued...)
This, along with other Dover classics such as Sundials; Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Materials; and Theory of Wing Sections add zazz to any library.

----
I didn't realize that Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ was keeping track of how much time I was reading this. It didn't really take over a year to read this. I did other things during that time. Created new documents in Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign; ate some almonds, olives and cornichons; dusted off lawnchairs, etc.

All in all, I liked this book, though while I was reading it, I was kind of wishing I was reading Pete Townshend's Who I Am instead.
]]> Role Models 7243316

Here, from the incomparable John Waters, is a paean to the power of subversive inspiration that will delight, amuse, enrich--and happily horrify readers everywhere.

Role Models is, in fact, a self-portrait told through intimate profiles of favorite personalities--some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some surprisingly middle-of-the-road. From Esther Martin, owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore, to the playwright Tennessee Williams; from the atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair to the insane martyr Saint Catherine of Siena; from the English novelist Denton Welch to the timelessly appealing singer Johnny Mathis--these are the extreme figures who helped the author form his own brand of neurotic happiness.

Role Models is a personal invitation into one of the most unique, perverse, and hilarious artistic minds of our time.

]]> 304 John Waters 0374251479 Aaron 4 humor The first time, I found out a day in advance. It was a free event on Duke campus. We parked, walked around in the general area of where he was supposed to be, opened random doors to see if we were in the right place. Eventually, we found an obscure-looking building and a door that looked like an emergency exit. We went inside. And found a theatre, audience and John Waters! Like those dreams I have about finding secret doors that lead to an underground civilization where everything cool and dangerous happens all the time...

One of the best books I've read in a while. Maybe not a hard position to achieve considering that most of my current reading could kill someone with boredom who hasn't eaten truckstop speed and has an almost prurient interest in typography, digital image management and Adobe software. I recommend this book (and the other book of his that I've read, Shock Value) to all the freaks I love to remind them of themselves. Because of this book, I now have an appreciation of Johnny Mathis (I keep thinking I've heard his music in David Lynch movies.) His unapologetic ode and explanation of the art and expensive designer clothing in his collection makes me raise my fist and yell "Fuck, yeah!, John!" I would love to see our president appoint this man to a prestigious position. Maybe "Attorney General of Art" or "Culture Czar." And I would love to see him host a PBS series in which he explains art to the masses. ]]> 4.07 2010 Role Models
author: John Waters
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2013/04/06
shelves: humor
review:
I've seen John Waters twice. The second time was at the Carolina Theatre. We bought tickets in advance, arrived like civilized people, listened and clapped when he was done.
The first time, I found out a day in advance. It was a free event on Duke campus. We parked, walked around in the general area of where he was supposed to be, opened random doors to see if we were in the right place. Eventually, we found an obscure-looking building and a door that looked like an emergency exit. We went inside. And found a theatre, audience and John Waters! Like those dreams I have about finding secret doors that lead to an underground civilization where everything cool and dangerous happens all the time...

One of the best books I've read in a while. Maybe not a hard position to achieve considering that most of my current reading could kill someone with boredom who hasn't eaten truckstop speed and has an almost prurient interest in typography, digital image management and Adobe software. I recommend this book (and the other book of his that I've read, Shock Value) to all the freaks I love to remind them of themselves. Because of this book, I now have an appreciation of Johnny Mathis (I keep thinking I've heard his music in David Lynch movies.) His unapologetic ode and explanation of the art and expensive designer clothing in his collection makes me raise my fist and yell "Fuck, yeah!, John!" I would love to see our president appoint this man to a prestigious position. Maybe "Attorney General of Art" or "Culture Czar." And I would love to see him host a PBS series in which he explains art to the masses.
]]> <![CDATA[Asphyxiating Culture and Other Writings (English and French Edition)]]> 1355209 English, French (translation) 128 Jean Dubuffet 0941423093 Aaron 0 to-read 4.13 1968 Asphyxiating Culture and Other Writings (English and French Edition)
author: Jean Dubuffet
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/09/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Book of Genesis 6371553
Now, readers of every persuasion can gain astonishing new insights from these stories. Crumb's Book of Genesis reintroduces us to the bountiful tree-lined garden of Adam and Eve, the massive ark of Noah with beasts of every kind, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by brimstone and fire, and the Egypt of the Pharaoh. Using clues from the text and peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretations that have often obscured the Bible's most dramatic stories, Crumb fleshes out a parade of biblical originals: from the serpent in Eden, the humanoid reptile appearing like an alien out of a science fiction movie, to Jacob, a 'kind of depressed guy who doesn't strike you as physically courageous', and his bother, Esau, 'a rough and kick-ass guy', to God himself, 'a standard Charlton Heston-like figure with long white hair and a flowing beard'.

Crumb's Book of Genesis, the culmination of five years of painstaking work, is a tapestry of masterly detail and storytelling that celebrates the astonishing diversity of one of our greatest artistic geniuses.]]> 224 Robert Crumb 0393061027 Aaron 3 4.04 2009 The Book of Genesis
author: Robert Crumb
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2012/08/17
date added: 2012/08/17
shelves:
review:
Robert Crumb's style is one of those formative experiences that hopefully everyone should have while they are in art school. If you have the chance, watch the Terry Zwigoff documentary about him (in which the art critic Robert Hughes called him "the Bruegel of the 20th century.") Although he's approached this book as close to a straight illustration job as he can, there will probably always be people who find his pen-and-ink style kind of…creepy?…unseemly?…dirty? Hard to say -it's a horror vacuii of cross-hatching that has very few crisp, clean, straight lines and probably has immediate associations with dope smoking and Abbie Hoffman-era revolution. In his hands, I find the old testament actually engaging. I think he could do a great service by illustrating math and literature textbooks to make them far more appealing (just to guys, though. To make broad generalizations, I think women are instantly creeped out by his drawings.)
]]> <![CDATA[Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories]]> 11437
'Where I'm Calling From', his last collection, encompasses classic stories from 'Cathedral', 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love' and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previosly unpublished in book form.

Together, these 37 stories give us a superb overview of Carver's life work and show us why he was so widely imitated but never equaled.]]> 544 Raymond Carver 0679722319 Aaron 5 4.43 1988 Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories
author: Raymond Carver
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/05/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rastersysteme fĂĽr die visuelle Gestaltung]]> 350962 176 Josef Muller-Brockmann 3721201450 Aaron 3 A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, and to wow my guests...

Some links for further exploration:




]]> 4.10 1996 Rastersysteme fĂĽr die visuelle Gestaltung
author: Josef Muller-Brockmann
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2011/02/16
date added: 2011/02/23
shelves:
review:
Oddly, this isn't the page-turner I expected. Thus far it's functioning more as an unintentionally hilarious Objet d′art. I tried to like this. I know it's important, every designer should read it, etc. That said, I found it outdated and less than captivating. A landmark publication when it came out, I hoped it would help out my sense of composition and add clarity to everything I create. No such luck for me. I may try out The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst and leave Müller-Brockmann's book out on the coffee table along with A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, and to wow my guests...

Some links for further exploration:





]]> <![CDATA[Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions]]> 1713426
Why does recalling the Ten Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn't possibly be caught?

Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?

Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs are already full?

And how did we ever start spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee when, just a few years ago, we used to pay less than a dollar?

When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're in control. We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?

In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.

From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.]]> 247 Dan Ariely Aaron 4 4.12 2008 Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
author: Dan Ariely
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2011/02/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Harvest (The Continental Op #1)]]> 30005
The Op was in Personville, derogatory nickname aside, as the result of a letter to the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco from Donald Willsson, publisher of the local paper, asking for an agent to visit. No other information. As soon as the OP arrives, the body count begins and it starts with his client!

'Red Harvest' is more than a superb crime novel; it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in America and one of the greats of 20th century literature.

Librarian's note #1: this entry relates to the novel 'Red Harvest.' Collections, and other Hammett stories can be found elsewhere on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ.

Librarian's note #2: the two serialized novels are: 1. The Cleansing of Poisonville (which later became Red Harvest), and 2. The Dain Curse.

Librarian's note #3: there are a total of 28 Continental Op short stories plus one incomplete; they can be found by searching GR for: 'a Continental Op Short Story.' They are: 1. Arson Plus, 2. Crooked Souls, 3. Slippery Fingers, 4. It, 5. Bodies Piled Up, 6. The Tenth Clew, 7. Night Shots, 8. Zigzags of Treachery, 9. One Hour, 10. The House on Turk Street, 11. The Girl with the Silver Eyes, 12. Women, Politics & Murder, 13. The Golden Horseshoe, 14. Who Killed Bob Teal? 15. Mike or Alec or Rufus, 16. The Whosis Kid, 17. The Scorched Face, 18. Corkscrew, 19. Dead Yellow Women, 20. The Gutting of Couffignal, 21. Creeping Siamese, 22. The Big Knock-Over, 23. $106,000 Blood Money, 24. The Main Death, 25. This King Business, 26. Fly Paper, 27. The Farewell Murder, 28. Death and Company and, 29. Three Dimes (unfinished).]]> 215 Dashiell Hammett 0752852612 Aaron 3 3.98 1927 Red Harvest (The Continental Op #1)
author: Dashiell Hammett
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1927
rating: 3
read at: 2010/11/04
date added: 2011/02/12
shelves:
review:

]]> The Chicago Manual of Style 103362 The 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has been superseded by the 17th edition.

In the 1890s, a proofreader at the University of Chicago Press prepared a single sheet of typographic fundamentals intended as a guide for the University community. That sheet grew into a pamphlet, and the pamphlet grew into a book—the first edition of the Manual of Style, published in 1906. Now in its fifteenth edition, The Chicago Manual of Style—the essential reference for authors, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers in any field—is more comprehensive and easier to use than ever before.

Those who work with words know how dramatically publishing has changed in the past decade, with technology now informing and influencing every stage of the writing and publishing process. In creating the fifteenth edition of the Manual, Chicago's renowned editorial staff drew on direct experience of these changes, as well as on the recommendations of the Manual's first advisory board, composed of a distinguished group of scholars, authors, and professionals from a wide range of publishing and business environments.

Every aspect of coverage has been examined and brought up to date—from publishing formats to editorial style and method, from documentation of electronic sources to book design and production, and everything in between. In addition to books, the Manual now also treats journals and electronic publications. All chapters are written for the electronic age, with advice on how to prepare and edit manuscripts online, handle copyright and permissions issues raised by technology, use new methods of preparing mathematical copy, and cite electronic and online sources.

A new chapter covers American English grammar and usage, outlining the grammatical structure of English, showing how to put words and phrases together to achieve clarity, and identifying common errors. The two chapters on documentation have been reorganized and updated: the first now describes the two main systems preferred by Chicago, and the second discusses specific elements and subject matter, with examples of both systems. Coverage of design and manufacturing has been streamlined to reflect what writers and editors need to know about current procedures. And, to make it easier to search for information, each numbered paragraph throughout the Manual is now introduced by a descriptive heading.

Clear, concise, and replete with commonsense advice, The Chicago Manual of Style, fifteenth edition, offers the wisdom of a hundred years of editorial practice while including a wealth of new topics and updated perspectives. For anyone who works with words, whether on a page or computer screen, this continues to be the one reference book you simply must have.

What's new in the Fifteenth Edition:

* Updated material throughout to reflect current style, technology, and professional practice

* Scope expanded to include journals and electronic publications

* Comprehensive new chapter on American English grammar and usage by Bryan A. Garner (author of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage)

* Updated and rewritten chapter on preparing mathematical copy

* Reorganized and updated chapters on documentation, including guidance on citing electronic sources

* Streamlined coverage of current design and production processes, with a glossary of key terms

* Descriptive headings on all numbered paragraphs for ease of reference

* New diagrams of the editing and production processes for both books and journals, keyed to chapter discussions

* New, expanded Web site with special tools and features for Manual users at .]]> 956 University of Chicago Press 0226104036 Aaron 0 4.23 1906 The Chicago Manual of Style
author: University of Chicago Press
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1906
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/11/04
shelves:
review:
I've heard they're making a buddy-cop adaptation of this starring John Goodman and Adrian Brody...
]]> <![CDATA[Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die]]> 69242 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The instant classic about why some ideas thrive, why others die, and how to improve your idea's chances--essential reading in the "fake news" era.

Mark Twain once observed, "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on." His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas--entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists--struggle to make them "stick."

In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds--from the infamous "kidney theft ring" hoax to a coach's lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony--draw their power from the same six traits.

Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.

Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas--and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.]]> 291 Chip Heath 1400064287 Aaron 4 I flipped through the Weimar Berlin book first (separate review to come.) Then, I poured another glass of wine and devoured volume 3 of The Ultimates. Then back to Weimar Berlin. Finally, I picked up the orange book and started skimming through it. If you're a marketer, writer, speaker, propagandist or anyone wanting to communicate an idea, this book will accompany you as you sit alone at the chinese buffet for lunch, at the gym as you cycle to work off the crab rangoons and at your bedside as you force yourself to turn out the light. Lots of easy-to-digest chapters on how ideas are "sticky" (interesting, easy to remember, hard to forget -thanks to Malcolm Gladwell of The Tipping Point for the concept.) One of the concepts brought up is the Curse of Knowledge: the inability to remember what it's like not to know a certain thing. Which causes the difficulty of communicating an idea since we can't easily re-create what the listener's experience is and how to best get the knowledge across. The experiment cited for this involves having a pair of people: someone who taps out a popular song and someone who guesses what it is. Try tapping out "Happy Birthday" to someone. You hear it in your head. The other person is just hearing taps like someone knocking on the door in code that means nothing to them. The tapper can't believe they just aren't getting it. The book is devoted to strategies of combatting this kind of communication breakdown.
I enjoyed this one enough that I'll probably go through it again and take notes. Makes me wish I did this the first time around, but trying to make that work while cycling on the Alpine Trail setting on the bicycle at the gym isn't worth it. It isn't as interesting as The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, but most things aren't...
]]> 3.98 2006 Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
author: Chip Heath
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/05/09
shelves: psychology, marketing, social-psychology, writing
review:
I was browsing in Edward McCay's when I found this one. It has a pretty orange cover which is a draw for me. It says "New York Times Bestseller", so that's another selling point. The back seemed to promise how to sculpt/craft/makeover ideas so that people will not only be interested, but they might never forget them and pass them on to others. Sounds good, I thought -keep talking, you. So I approached the counter with this book, Unstuck by K. Yamashita & Sandra Spataro; Ultimates 3 Volume 1 (graphic novel) and Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. A quick trip to the grocery store on the way home and my world was complete: wine, crusty french bread and kim chee.
I flipped through the Weimar Berlin book first (separate review to come.) Then, I poured another glass of wine and devoured volume 3 of The Ultimates. Then back to Weimar Berlin. Finally, I picked up the orange book and started skimming through it. If you're a marketer, writer, speaker, propagandist or anyone wanting to communicate an idea, this book will accompany you as you sit alone at the chinese buffet for lunch, at the gym as you cycle to work off the crab rangoons and at your bedside as you force yourself to turn out the light. Lots of easy-to-digest chapters on how ideas are "sticky" (interesting, easy to remember, hard to forget -thanks to Malcolm Gladwell of The Tipping Point for the concept.) One of the concepts brought up is the Curse of Knowledge: the inability to remember what it's like not to know a certain thing. Which causes the difficulty of communicating an idea since we can't easily re-create what the listener's experience is and how to best get the knowledge across. The experiment cited for this involves having a pair of people: someone who taps out a popular song and someone who guesses what it is. Try tapping out "Happy Birthday" to someone. You hear it in your head. The other person is just hearing taps like someone knocking on the door in code that means nothing to them. The tapper can't believe they just aren't getting it. The book is devoted to strategies of combatting this kind of communication breakdown.
I enjoyed this one enough that I'll probably go through it again and take notes. Makes me wish I did this the first time around, but trying to make that work while cycling on the Alpine Trail setting on the bicycle at the gym isn't worth it. It isn't as interesting as The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, but most things aren't...

]]> <![CDATA[The last Japanese soldier: Corporal Yokoi's 28 incredible years in the Guam jungle]]> 2828100 144 0854682937 Aaron 0 3.57 The last Japanese soldier: Corporal Yokoi's 28 incredible years in the Guam jungle
author: Sankei Shimbun Fuji Terebi Tokubetsu Shuzaihan
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.57
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2010/05/09
date added: 2010/05/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance, #1)]]> 1050383
But the girl never spoke about that night, nor did the crime's mastermind. Indeed, Pell has long been both reticent and unrepentant about the crime. And so with the murderer transported from the Capitola superprison to an interrogation room in the Monterey County Courthouse, Dance sees an opportunity to pry a confession from him for the recent murder -- and to learn more about the depraved mind of this career criminal who considers himself a master of control, a dark Svengali, forcing people to do what they otherwise would never conceive of doing. In an electrifying psychological jousting match, Dance calls up all her skills as an interrogator and kinesics -- body language -- expert to get to the truth behind Daniel Pell.

But when Dance's plan goes terribly wrong and Pell escapes, leaving behind a trail of dead and injured, she finds herself in charge of her first-ever manhunt. But far from simply fleeing, Pell turns on his pursuers --and other innocents -- for reasons Dance and her colleagues can't discern. As the idyllic Monterey Peninsula is paralyzed by the elusive killer, Dance turns to the past to find the truth about what Daniel Pell is really up to. She tracks down the now teenage Sleeping Doll to learn what really happened that night, and she arranges a reunion of three women who were in his cult at the time of the killings. The lies of the past and the evasions of the present boil up under the relentless probing of Kathryn Dance, but will the truth about Daniel Pell emerge in time to stop him from killing again?]]> 448 Jeffery Deaver 034083384X Aaron 0 to-read 3.94 2007 The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance, #1)
author: Jeffery Deaver
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2010/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Black Hole 38333
As we inhabit the heads of several key characters—some kids who have it, some who don't, some who are about to get it—what unfolds isn't the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it, or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself—the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.

And then the murders start.

As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it—back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.

To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…]]> 368 Charles Burns 037542380X Aaron 4 3.85 2005 Black Hole
author: Charles Burns
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/03/04
shelves:
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]]> Defenders: Indefensible 552416 120 Keith Giffen 0785117628 Aaron 3 3.26 2006 Defenders: Indefensible
author: Keith Giffen
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Lunar Park 4031 Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past.

Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.]]> 404 Bret Easton Ellis 0375727272 Aaron 2 3.65 2005 Lunar Park
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/02/07
shelves:
review:
While I was sucked in enough to read about 3/4's of the book, it wasn't anything fantastic. I enjoyed B.E. Ellis' recounting of Wild, Drugged-Out Times but grew quickly bored by the supernatural aspect of it. I was coming in to the book having never read anything by him (and only being familiar with the movies based on his books.) To me, the use of the supernatural seems like a cop-out. I felt that a little when I started Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby but the more I read, the more it worked. Not so for Lunar Park. I'll have to check out his other novels and look forward to whatever comes next.
]]> <![CDATA[The Power Of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential]]> 3467088
The Power of Less will show you how



By setting limits for yourself and making the most of the resources you already have, youll finally be able work less, work smarter, and focus on living the life that you deserve.]]> 170 Leo Babauta 1401309704 Aaron 4 Read before drinking the David Allen Getting Things Done kool-aid...]]> 3.72 2008 The Power Of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential
author: Leo Babauta
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2010/01/21
shelves:
review:
Something perfect to read when trying to cycle for 40 minutes at the gym.
Read before drinking the David Allen Getting Things Done kool-aid...
]]> Crooked Little Vein 2197082 Authority and Transmetropolitan brings his trippy and fast-paced style to the publishing world with his first detective novel.

A burned-out private detective is enlisted by an army of presidential goons to retrieve the U.S. Constitution...the real one. Following in the steps of Neil Gaiman, Crooked Little Vein is packed with action, adventure, and a wild cast of characters that are sure to appease not only hardcore comic fans, but a whole new slew of mystery readers waiting for a surprisingly surreal treat that infuses the madness of the graphic-novel world.]]> 294 Warren Ellis 0061252050 Aaron 2 3.83 2007 Crooked Little Vein
author: Warren Ellis
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2010/01/21
shelves:
review:
Although I love most everything else I've ever ready by Warren Ellis, this was silly at best.
]]> Heavy Liquid 7229629 forever.]]> 256 Paul Pope 140122007X Aaron 3 3.75 2001 Heavy Liquid
author: Paul Pope
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2010/01/21
shelves:
review:
I enjoyed this one. While I agree with other reviewers that the story can be a somewhat pedestrian detective story, I really like Paul Pope's art and muted color scheme.
]]> <![CDATA[Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts]]> 262762 Forty years in the making, a new cultural canon that celebrates truth over hypocrisy, literature over totalitarianism.

Echoing Edward Said’s belief that “Western humanism is not enough, we need a universal humanism,� the renowned critic Clive James presents here his life’s work. Containing over one hundred original essays, organized by quotations from A to Z, Cultural Amnesia illuminates, rescues, or occasionally destroys the careers of many of the greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists, and philosophers of the twentieth century. In discussing, among others, Louis Armstrong, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, James writes, “If the humanism that makes civilization civilized is to be preserved into the new century, it will need advocates. These advocates will need a memory, and part of that memory will need to be of an age in which they were not yet alive.� Soaring to Montaigne-like heights, Cultural Amnesia is precisely the book to burnish these memories of a Western civilization that James fears is nearly lost.]]> 912 Clive James 0393061167 Aaron 5 4.11 2007 Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts
author: Clive James
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/12
shelves:
review:
Fantastic reading whether you have months to spare or have come home from the bar, almost seeing double but still awake enough to need to settle down with a good book. Each chapter is about an individual (artist, writer, dictator, philosopher, etc) of the 18th-20th century or about one of their ideas and it's ramifications. A demanding yet engaging book. Everyone from Dick Cavett to Terry Gilliam to Adolf Hitler is included. Quite heavy on the WWII-era personalities. My favorite thus far is the chapter devoted Joseph Goebbells and his personal assistant, Wilfred von Oven. Now I want to track down a copy of von Oven's "...unrivaled comic masterpiece" that is his reminiscences of Herr Doktor Goebbells as seen as "...the soul of reason, a great intellectual, a philosophical and creative genius whose visions are frustrated only by unfortunate circumstances."
]]> Asterios Polyp 4070095
Meet Asterios middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this “escape� really about?

As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he’s gotten to where he is. And isn’t. And we meet a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she’s gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.

In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli’s extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.

Asterios Polyp is David Mazzucchelli’s a great American graphic novel.]]> 324 David Mazzucchelli 0307377326 Aaron 4 4.21 2009 Asterios Polyp
author: David Mazzucchelli
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/09/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Talk Dirty and Influence People]]> 105989 188 Lenny Bruce 0671751085 Aaron 2 4.00 1965 How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
author: Lenny Bruce
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1965
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2009/01/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Dangerous Laughter 1540810 Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey that stretches the boundaries of the ordinary world.]]> 244 Steven Millhauser 0307267563 Aaron 4 ]]> 3.81 2008 Dangerous Laughter
author: Steven Millhauser
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2009/01/07
shelves:
review:
An impressive batch of short stories. Each story takes an idea/obsession to it's ludicrous apex. Highly recommended. Would make good beach/plane/waiting-for-a-cop-to-show-up reading. If I knew much about writing, I'd say he's a heavy-weight. I enjoyed it the way I enjoy Borges or Raymond Carver.

]]> St. Mawr / The Man Who Died 114873 St. Mawr is the story of a splendid stallion in whose vitality the heroine finds the quality that is lacking in the men she knows. It is also the first of Lawrence's writing to be partially set in America, on a ranch in Arizona. The Man Who Died, originally published in Paris as "The Escaped Cock" and later retitled and revised, has as its main character Christ, who does not die on the cross but escapes to wander through the country seeking the meaning of human existence, which he finally discovers in a temple of Isis by the waters of Lebanon.]]> 212 D.H. Lawrence 0394700716 Aaron 3 The next novella, "The Man Who Died" was much better. No horses. Just an unspecified Man Who Died who sounds suspiciously like J.Christ who wakes up in his tomb with what sounds like an existentialist hangover. This is a much better story because no one did a paper on it using the copy I read. Lawrence hits the nail on the head with several phrases. ]]> 3.77 1929 St. Mawr / The Man Who Died
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1929
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/12/07
shelves:
review:
I picked this up from either a thrift store or library sale. Looking at the cover, I thought "oh hey -Viggo Mortensen. That's worth a quarter." The previous owner must have written a paper on St. Mawr. Alot of underlined phrases, encircled paragraphs and occasional question marks. If it were an audio book, it would be like someone getting really close and breathy into the mic during key parts. Really annoying. That and I realized I don't give a crap about a novella about a horse. I'm sure if I got over that and really read it, I would get alot out of it like the previous reviewers have.
The next novella, "The Man Who Died" was much better. No horses. Just an unspecified Man Who Died who sounds suspiciously like J.Christ who wakes up in his tomb with what sounds like an existentialist hangover. This is a much better story because no one did a paper on it using the copy I read. Lawrence hits the nail on the head with several phrases.
]]> <![CDATA[Perspective for Artists (Dover Art Instruction)]]> 1093004 "As a book of reference to the practicing artists who wants to solve some particular difficulty, the book could hardly be bettered." � Field
Rex Vicat Cole makes learning about perspective an enjoyable and fascinating pursuit in this clearly written and profusely illustrated book. Over 390 diagrams illustrate every aspect of the text, and more than 80 illustrations reproduce drawings and paintings � by old masters and by the author � that indicate how perspective is utilized in practice. The book is so well illustrated that many perspective problems can be answered without reference to the text at all.
The text itself clarifies the theory of perspective and offers numerous practice exercises. Among the topics covered are the principle of perspective in theory, the rules of perspective and their application, depths, the use of plans in sketching foreshortened surfaces, inclined planes, the circle, arches, how to draw curves by straight lines, perspective of the sky and sea, perspective of shadows, and more. Two additional sections cover perspective in the history of art and mechanical perspective.
A noted landscape painter and art instructor, Mr. Cole combines common sense with an understanding of Nature's laws to make perspective a subject that every artist can approach with confidence. Art students will also find this book extremely valuable.]]> 288 Rex Vicat Cole 0486224872 Aaron 0 4.05 1976 Perspective for Artists (Dover Art Instruction)
author: Rex Vicat Cole
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at: 2008/12/07
date added: 2008/12/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 1984 5470 328 George Orwell Aaron 3 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/11/19
shelves:
review:
Surprisingly entertaining for a work as profound as it is. I dare say it could even be airport or beach reading.
]]> Eight Lectures on Yoga 420531
Speaking in turns as mystic, magus, philosopher, scientist and seasoned adventurer, few sacred cows escape the Mahatma Guru Sri Paramahansa Shivaji, who even delights in poking fun at himself.

The first series of lectures is introductory, and is entitled Yoga for Yahoos. The elements of Yoga are introduced, examined and demystified with a view to extracting the practical essence of Yoga doctrine. Yoga is also correlated to astrology and the Qabalah.

The second, more advanced series of lectures is entitled Yoga for Yellowbellies. Here Crowley weaves Yoga into a conceptual framework that encompasses Western philosophy, magick and mathematical physics. He introduces relativity and quantum mechanics, and discusses their implications for ontology and consciousness.

Crowley's humor suffuses thee talks, which are as entertaining as they are illuminating, and his wit elucidates concepts that elude rational explanation.

Revised second edition, introduced and annotated by Hymenaeus Beta, Frater Superior of Ordo Templi Orientis. Includes a new author's portrait and index.]]> 128 Aleister Crowley 1561840076 Aaron 3 4.12 1939 Eight Lectures on Yoga
author: Aleister Crowley
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1939
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/10/14
shelves:
review:
Unlike his insufferable autobiography, this one is much more readable. It helps to have some background in philosophy, logic and the kabbalah to get the maximum out of it (which I either never had or forgot.) No advice on yogic positions or anything you could take to yoga class at the gym. More of a discussion of the limbs of yoga and the altered states of consciousness associated with it. Generally clear and precise with good humor. Still, he can't resist referring to his own publications frequently. Imagine a much more self-aggrandizing and provocative Alan Watts. Enjoyable but requires a few readings.
]]> <![CDATA[Found II: More of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World]]> 138441 256 Davy Rothbart 0743273079 Aaron 4 art 4.00 2006 Found II: More of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World
author: Davy Rothbart
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2008/10/14
date added: 2008/10/14
shelves: art
review:

]]> GREP in InDesign CS3 3743041
GREP moves beyond the restrictions that hampered earlier InDesign search features, but unfortunately, it does have the reputation of being difficult to master. As with many things, it can be challenging to learn, but, fortunately, a lot can be done with surprisingly simple expressions. The aim of this Short Cut is to show how to create simple but powerful regular expressions. ]]> 47 Peter Kahrel 0596517068 Aaron 0 3.83 2008 GREP in InDesign CS3
author: Peter Kahrel
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2008/10/14
date added: 2008/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier]]> 107009
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier is an elaborately designed, cutting edge volume that will include a Tijuana Bible insert and a 3-D section complete with custom glasses, as well as additional text pieces, maps, and a stunning, cutaway double page spread of Captain Nemo's Nautilus submarine by acclaimed LOEG artist Kevin O Neill.]]> 208 Alan Moore 140120306X Aaron 4 3.46 2007 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
author: Alan Moore
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/07/07
shelves: graphic-novel, mythology, science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shock Value: A Tasteful Book about Bad Taste]]> 304875 257 John Waters 1560256982 Aaron 4 autobiography, film 4.40 1981 Shock Value: A Tasteful Book about Bad Taste
author: John Waters
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/05/08
shelves: autobiography, film
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Confederacy of Dunces (Evergreen Book)]]> 310612
His mother thinks he needs to go to work. He does, in a succession of jobs. Each job rapidly escalates into a lunatic adventure, a full-blown disaster; yet each has, like Don Quixote's, its own eerie logic.

His girlfriend, Myrna Minkoff of the Bronx, thinks he needs sex.

Ignatius is an intellectual, ideologue, deadbeat, goof-off, glutton, who should repel the reader with his gargantuan bloats, his thunderous contempt, and one-man war against everybody: Freud, homosexuals, heterosexuals, Protestants, and the assorted excesses of modern times.

A tragicomedy, set in New Orleans.]]> 394 John Kennedy Toole 0802130208 Aaron 4 3.89 1980 A Confederacy of Dunces (Evergreen Book)
author: John Kennedy Toole
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Promethea, Vol. 1 821800
Sophie Bangs was a just an ordinary college student in a weirdly futuristic New York when a simple assignment changed her life forever. While researching Promethea, a mythical warrior woman, Sophie receives a cryptic warning to cease her investigations. Ignoring the cautionary notice, she continues her studies and is almost killed by a shadowy creature when she learns the secret of Promethea. Surviving the encounter, Sophie soon finds herself transformed into Promethea, the living embodiment of the imagination. Her trials have only begun as she must master the secrets of her predecessors before she is destroyed by Promethea's ancient enemy. ]]> 178 Alan Moore 1563896672 Aaron 4 Watchmen. For anyone seeking a readable (i.e. won't put you to sleep) introduction to Hermeticism/mythology/Aleister Crowley-anity/etc., then this is it. Anyone not interested in that might get a bit bogged down as the series progresses but it's still alot of fun. One of the top graphic novels I've picked up. ]]> 3.91 2000 Promethea, Vol. 1
author: Alan Moore
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/16
shelves: graphic-novel, mythology, magick
review:
To my mind, one of the best Alan Moore projects I've ever read. I enjoyed it more than The Watchmen. For anyone seeking a readable (i.e. won't put you to sleep) introduction to Hermeticism/mythology/Aleister Crowley-anity/etc., then this is it. Anyone not interested in that might get a bit bogged down as the series progresses but it's still alot of fun. One of the top graphic novels I've picked up.
]]> <![CDATA[Planetary, Volume 1: All Over the World and Other Stories]]> 209966 Jakita Wagner, an extremely powerful and bored woman.
The Drummer, a man with the ability to communicate with machines.
Infatuated with tracking down evidence of super-human activity, these mystery archaeologists of the late 20th Century uncover unknown paranormal secrets and histories, such as a World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, a ghostly spirit of vengeance, and a lost island of dying monsters.

Collecting: Planetary 1-6]]> 160 Warren Ellis 1563897776 Aaron 5 4.20 2000 Planetary, Volume 1: All Over the World and Other Stories
author: Warren Ellis
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/04/04
shelves: science-fiction, graphic-novel
review:
A damned fine series that turned me on to Warren Ellis' writing. Award-winning art. One of the best series I have ever read...
]]> <![CDATA[Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street]]> 22416 72 Warren Ellis 1563894459 Aaron 4 Someone at the Cameron Village Regional Library knows good comics...]]> 4.21 1998 Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street
author: Warren Ellis
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/04
shelves: science-fiction, graphic-novel
review:
I enjoyed the series. It seems to be Warren Ellis riffing the question of "What would Hunter S. Thompson be like several hundred years from now?"
Someone at the Cameron Village Regional Library knows good comics...
]]> Weegee's World 2080482 262 Weegee 0821223755 Aaron 4 photography 4.50 1997 Weegee's World
author: Weegee
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: photography
review:
One of my favorite photography books. I refer to it alot for sketching and painting...
]]> Steal This Book 184085 Steal This Book captures Hoffman's puckish tone and became a cult classic with over 200,000 copies sold. Outrageously illustrated by R. Crumb, it nevertheless conveys a serious message to all would-be revolutionaries: You don't have to take it anymore. "All Power to the Imagination was his credo. Abbie was the best." —Studs Terkel]]> 352 Abbie Hoffman 156858217X Aaron 3 humor, yippee 3.62 1971 Steal This Book
author: Abbie Hoffman
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1971
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: humor, yippee
review:

]]> Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1) 249 Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller’s famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s. Tropic of Cancer is now considered, as Norman Mailer said, "one of the ten or twenty great novels of our century."]]> 318 Henry Miller 0802131786 Aaron 2 literature 3.69 1934 Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1)
author: Henry Miller
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1934
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: literature
review:
When he's good, he's really good. But most of this is just a cure for insominia...
]]> The Redneck Manifesto 1707029 Jim Goad 0684831139 Aaron 3 race-studies 4.29 1997 The Redneck Manifesto
author: Jim Goad
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: race-studies
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shit Magnet: One Man's Miraculous Ability to Absorb the World's Guilt]]> 426102 328 Jim Goad 0922915776 Aaron 3 autobiography 3.62 2002 Shit Magnet: One Man's Miraculous Ability to Absorb the World's Guilt
author: Jim Goad
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: autobiography
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Whack Your Porcupine, and Other Drawings]]> 550797 250 B. Kliban 0911104925 Aaron 5 art, humor 4.27 1977 Whack Your Porcupine, and Other Drawings
author: B. Kliban
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: art, humor
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head & Other Drawings]]> 550796
“Not to put down Crumb or Koren or Booth or Rodgriguez or Trudeau or anybody else, but Kliban’s Never Eat Anything Bigger than Your Head & Other Drawings is the only book I’ve read in years that made me howl. I mean thigh-slapping, roll-on-the-ground, can’t-catch-my-breath howling. And every time I go back to it, I find some new detail to chuckle at.”—Charles M. Young, Rolling Stone .]]> 160 B. Kliban 0911104674 Aaron 5 art, humor 4.23 1976 Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head & Other Drawings
author: B. Kliban
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1976
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: art, humor
review:
B.Kliban's books never get old, even after pouring over them late nights with friends and family, drunken or sober. Some will love them, others will get that question mark look to their face and wonder what the hell it is that the other people see in these...
]]> Fight Club 375782 Fight Club is now recognized as one of the most original and provocative novels published in this decade, Chuck Palahniuk's darkly funny first novel tells the story of a god-forsaken young man who discovers that his rage at living in a world filled with failure and lies cannot be pacified by an empty consumer culture. Relief for him and his disenfranchised peers comes in the form of secret after-hours boxing matches held in the basements of bars. Fight Club is the brain child of Tyler Durden, who thinks he has found a way for himself and his friends to live beyond their confining and stultifying lives. But in Tyler's world there are no rules, no limits, no brakes.]]> 208 Chuck Palahniuk 0805062971 Aaron 4 literature 4.11 1996 Fight Club
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: literature
review:
One of the best black comedies I've ever seen (along with Dr. Stangelove) and a fantastic book.
]]> VALIS 216377 VALIS is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. VALIS is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.]]> 242 Philip K. Dick 0679734465 Aaron 4 science-fiction 3.93 1981 VALIS
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: science-fiction
review:

]]> A Scanner Darkly 14817
The undercover narcotics agent who calls himself Bob Arctor is desperate to discover the ultimate source of supply. But to find any kind of lead he has to pose as a user and, inevitably, without realising what is happening, Arctor is soon as addicted as the junkies he works among...]]> 324 Philip K. Dick 057507681X Aaron 4 science-fiction 4.04 1977 A Scanner Darkly
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/02
shelves: science-fiction
review:
Amongst my favorites by P.K.D. The movie is a very faithful portrayal of the book...
]]> <![CDATA[Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in Counter-Culture]]> 610354 352 Paul Krassner 0671898434 Aaron 5 humor, autobiography 4.01 1993 Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in Counter-Culture
author: Paul Krassner
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/04/01
shelves: humor, autobiography
review:
Loved this one. Anyone who tries to get the phone company to list him as "Rumpleforeskin" but settles for "Foreskin, Rumple" is alright...
]]> Pranks 925259 240 V. Vale 0965046982 Aaron 5 humor 4.27 1987 Pranks
author: V. Vale
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/04/01
shelves: humor
review:
One of my all-time favorites. I laughed until I cried for twenty minutes straight. Several times. If you're suicidal, I recommend this. Now watch, you'll probably hate it...
]]> Collected Fictions 17961 Alternate cover edition of ISBN-13: 978-0140286809, ISBN-10/ASIN: 0140286802

For the first time in English, all the fiction by the writer who has been called “the greatest Spanish-language writer of our century� collected in a single volume

A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with flaps and deckle-edged paper

For some fifty years, in intriguing and ingenious fictions that reimagined the very form of the short story—from his 1935 debut with A Universal History of Iniquity through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, the enigmatic prose poems of The Maker, up to his final work in the 1980s, Shakespeare’s Memory—Jorge Luis Borges returned again and again to his celebrated themes: dreams, duels, labyrinths, mirrors, infinite libraries, the manipulations of chance, gauchos, knife fighters, tigers, and the elusive nature of identity itself. Playfully experimenting with ostensibly subliterary genres, he took the detective story and turned it into metaphysics; he took fantasy writing and made it, with its questioning and reinventing of everyday reality, central to the craft of fiction; he took the literary essay and put it to use reviewing wholly imaginary books.

Bringing together for the first time in English all of Borges’s magical stories, and all of them newly rendered into English in brilliant translations by Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions is the perfect one-volume compendium for all who have long loved Borges, and a superb introduction to the master’s work for all who have yet to discover this singular genius.]]> 565 Jorge Luis Borges Aaron 4 literature 4.57 1998 Collected Fictions
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: Aaron
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/04/01
shelves: literature
review:
Every now and then, I'll read a few more stories from Collected Fictions. This one has some of the same stories as Labyrinths. The translations in Collected Fictions seem to make more sense. Labyrinths, in comparison reminds me a little of the google translator.
]]> Galactic Pot-Healer 498123
What could an omnipresent and seemingly omnipotent entity want with a humble pot-healer? Or with the dozens of other odd creatures it has lured to Plowman's Planet? And if the Glimmung is a god, are its ends positive or malign? Combining quixotic adventure, spine-chilling horror, and deliriously paranoid theology, Galactic Pot-Healer is a uniquely Dickian voyage to alternate worlds of the imagination.

]]> 177 Philip K. Dick 0679752978 Aaron 2 science-fiction 3.63 1969 Galactic Pot-Healer
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Aaron
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1969
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2008/04/01
shelves: science-fiction
review:
P.K.D. is frequently cited as being science-fiction for people who don't like science-fiction. I find that even one of his merely-okay books is far more enjoyable than most other sci-fi authors. I like his later work better (probably everything that occurred after this novel.)
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