Read More, Blog Less

The blog's been on a bit of a holiday lately, while its owner does some work on "feelings and emotions and shit" which a) takes up a lot of time and energy, b) is very confusing, and c) is really difficult to write about, technically and personally.  (I had the pleasure of seeing REM perform at Red Rocks a few years back, and Michael Stipe introduced almost every song with, "This is one of the hardest songs for me to sing..."  It was never clear whether he meant the notes were hard to reach, or that the words had deep, sad associations for him.  Regardless, you have to respect that every time you hear "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", a little bit of Michael Stipe suffers.  Further proof that everybody does, in fact, hurt.)

In the meantime, here's a decent portion of my Christmas swag.  Apparently people have some idea I like books, so I was blessed this season with another couple shelf-feet of reading.  Here's a picture of my haul, next to some gratuitous drawings of Charliehog.

click photo to enlarge the Charliehog

I'm sure at any moment I'll crush my glasses and end up wailing, "But there was finally time now!!" on the front stoop.

If you've got nothing better to do than hear about what's on my bookshelf, read on:

• Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer  A kind of poor man's haiku, this form forces writers to distill stories to extremes, appealing for a wordy person like me.  Most of the good ones are really dark, like "Pushover": "He shoves me aside to get a better view.  I never fight back.  He's worn me down, weaker than that railing at the canyon's rim."
• The Best Writing on Mathematics, 2010  I think I'm in over my head here.  A typical quote: "For me, as a Baconian, the main thing missing in the Bourbaki program is the element of surprise."  Well, duh... what Baconian doesn't long for more surprise from the Bourbaki program?   Mmm, bacon.
• Angels  Denis Johnson is a minimalist writer and part of the Chuck Palahniuk cult, along with Amy Hempel.  He writes in a way that really forces you to slow down and digest.
• The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs.  This was a surprise and I don't know much about it, but it sounds cool and it's by the author of Rocketeers, which is promising.
• The Match King: Ivan Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind A Century of Wall Street Scandals  Hedge funds, derivatives, credit default swaps, Ponzi schemes-- all of these were largely inspired by Ivan Kreuger in the 1920s, in the name of creating a monopoly on, of all things, matches.  It all collapsed in ways that are eerily similar 80 years later.
• One Hundred Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know: Math Explains Your World  Suprisingly, this book, copy-write 2009, was written by Albert Einstein and Leopeld Infeld, and they called it "The Evolution of Physics."  Apparently Amazon sellers don't always open the book to see if the dust jacket matches its contents-- or did my observing change the nature of the book?
• The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work Contemporary philosopher Alain de Botton explores "the search for what makes jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying."
• resonate and slide:ology  Nancy Duarte wants presentations to suck less.  She wrote slide:ology to help people improve the visual aspects of their Powerpoints, but then realized that a lot of presentations suck because the message is boring, so she wrote resonate to help organize compelling messages.
• Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth  A graphic novel about the philosophy of Bertrand Russell?  Come on!  I haven't been this excited since R. Crumb decided to illustrate the Bible.
• The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper  An indulgent cookbook with good photographs of food I'll probably never get around to cooking.
• I'm Just Here For the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking Alton Brown is a douche, but this was written in his earlier years when he was less angry.  It's a classic, and you can add your own angry mother-in-law jokes to bring it up to date.
• Detroit Disassembled A stunning and beautiful photo-essay documenting the urban decay and renewal of our neighbor in poverty.
• Japanese The Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar and Structure I'm fascinated by the Japanese language even though I never got much further than "Nihongo ga sukoshi wakari masu" ("I only understand a little bit of Japanese") in my language tapes.  Maybe cartoons will help.
• Magazine subscriptions to Wired, Fast Company, Cooks Illustrated, and Harpers, to give me something to read in my spare time.