Caught My Eye
Submitted by jim on Mon, 12/23/2002 - 04:01
Tags:
- May, 2003
- Isaac Newton by James Gleick ~~~ Gleick wrote one of my favorite biographies (Genius, about physicist Richard Feynman) so I'm very curious to see if he hit a similarly rich vein with this biography.
- Backyard Ballistics by William Gurstelle ~~~ "If you'd like to launch a potato in a blazing fireball of combusting hairspray, this is your best source."
- Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis ~~~ "Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players"
- March, 2003
- Jennifer Government by Maxx Barry ~~~ Looks like this might be a good one for Neal Stephenson fans (of which I am one). Corporations run amok satire.
- The Power of Babel by John McWhorter ~~~ Recommended to me by a good linguistically-gifted friend. He bemoans this as the book he wanted to write. :-) Sounds like good stuff.
- [ Oops. Apparently I've let this list go, hence this unattractive gap in the chronology. ]
- December, 2002
- Rocks of Ages by Stephen Jay Gould ~~~ I have yet to read any unenjoyable Gould, and I'm definitely curious to read his take on science and religion.
- The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker ~~~ Pinker takes on "Nature vs. Nurture". I really enjoyed his book, The Language Instinct.
- Complications by Atul Gawande ~~~ "Gawande, a former Rhodes scholar and Harvard Medical School graduate, illuminates 'the moments in which medicine actually happens,' and describes his profession as an 'enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information, fallible individuals, and at the same time lives on the line.'" I read the introduction, and it was great.
- Daddy by Loup Durand ~~~ Recommended by a co-worker. Looks like an off-beat thriller translated from French. The Amazon reviews are quite encouraging.
Author Comments:
I'm trying to get my "books that I own but haven't read" backlog under control. I often find that I buy books that look interesting, but years later when I finally get to a point where I could consider reading them I've lost some interest. So these are books that I probably would have bought if I weren't now trying to show a modicum of restraint. I may indeed buy some of them some day, but not until I'm actually ready to read them.
Oooh, I really wanna read Jennifer Government . I'm currently playing the online game that's based on the book, whihc can be found at www.nationstates.net.