false 7 83 82 true 5745792 read 1 true 1547658 currently-reading 0 true 1547657 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78609001 After Thoughts (Hardcover) by Lee Meriwether
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76838665 to: Black and White and Dead All Over (Hardcover) by John Darnton
"Black & White & Dead All Over" isn't the greatest murder mystery ever written but it was a fun look at the (increasingly battered) world of big city newspapers. Taking place in and around the New York Globe, a thinly disguised New York Times, John Darnton (who worked for the Times for 40 years as a reporter and editor), puts together an intricate novel in which three newspaper people are killed and a young reporter and police detective team up to find out who was responsible for the killings. There are too many characters in the novel, and I had to keep turning back to previous pages to see who was who. At least "War and Peace" had several pages of listings of the fictional and historical characters. This novel is especially recommended to those who have worked at newspapers. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75163719 to: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Hardcover) by Leonard Mlodinow
Leonard Mlodinow is an unusual writer: He has a doctorate in physics from the University of California-Berkeley and he wrote for "Star Trek: The Next Generation." This combination of expertise and writing skills came in handy when he wrote "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives." His assertions are well-documented (16 pages of notes) and made more interesting by examples from everyday life. Mlodinow is not saying we have NO control over our lives, but he cautions us that much of our success and failure in our lives can be attributed to causes beyond our control. "And so the first step is to realize that success and failure sometimes arises neither from great skill nor from great incompetence but from, as the economist Armen Alchian wrote, 'from fortuitous circumstances.'" Mlodinow looks at polls and wine ratings and shows that they are often of limited usefulness and sometimes meaningless. He also cites team and individual streaks in sports and investment advice and demonstrates that success is determined as much by chance as skill. The book should teach its readers to be humble about success and stoic about failure -- and to take polls and ratings with several grains of salt. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74348308 to: Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back (Hardcover) by Douglas Rushkoff
There have been many good books written recently about the implosion on Wall Street, the massive debt held by Americans, corporations, and the federal government, and the current recession, but few have gone into such depth about the United States and its economic and political discontents as Douglas Rushkoff's 2008 book "Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back." This book explores the history of the corporation from the late Middle Ages through the chartered monopoly of European colonialist powers to corporations being granted the rights of "persons" by an inexplicable U.S. Supreme Court decision. During the past 40 years, corporations have insinuated themselves into every aspect of American life and bought undue influence in Congress and state legislatures. Everything we own was made by corporations, and most Americans are bombarded incessantly with commercials promoting consumption (provided by corporations). As Rushkoff points out, most Americans think like corporations and cannot imagine any other world than the corporate economic system we live under. "We live in a landscape tilted toward a set of behaviors and a way of making choices that go against our better judgment, as well as our collective self-interest. ... In short, instead of acting like people, we act like corporations." ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72930195 to: Rock Springs (Paperback) by Richard Ford
Up until reading this 1987 book of short stories, I had been familiar with Richard Ford only from his novel "The Sportswriter," which I read many years ago. These 10 stories take place in western Montana in and around Great Falls and involve characters just scraping by and often in trouble with the law. Ford well describes the wind-swept western plains and mountain ranges and has created believable characters and situations, where fishing rods and guns are a common part of the culture, where life is hard and luck is fleeting. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71634567 to: Tolstoy's "War and Peace" A Study (Library Binding) by R.F. Christian
This book is a good critical study of Tolstoy's epic work "War and Peace." The author looks at Tolstoy's historical and fictional characters, his use of source materials from 1805-14, and the verisimilitude of his depictions of the most prominent people during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/70875790 to: Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter (Hardcover) by Rick Shenkman
This is a depressing but not surprising book about the ignorance of many American voters. Shenkman, unlike many liberal and conservative commentators of the past 30 years, is unwilling to let American citizens off the hook for the mess that this country has gotten into. Yes, the Far Right misleads and lies, the Democrats equivocate, the mass media have become more and more entertainment and less and less serious news gathering, and political and economic elites manipulate people for their own advantage. But, Shenkman says, all of us American citizens in a democracy have to take responsibility for our country by educating ourselves, voting, and in other ways getting involved in our political system. Writing of American voters, Shenkman says, "Busy leading their lives in a 24/7 rat-race capitalistic culture -- running to the store, earning a living, taking care of the kids -- they do not have the luxury of reflection. Their inattentiveness is legendary."
The really sad thing is that voters -- ignorant or well-informed -- at least make the effort to go to the polls. National elections in the U.S. during the 20th and 21st centuries typically have turnout rates of 20 to 50 percent of eligible voters, making it easy for parties with narrow bases and out-of-the-mainstream politics to win elections.
One of the most irritating attitudes shown in recent years has been people voting for candidates because they would be a better beer partner at a bar. That attitude is the part of the problem of ignorance and stupidity that this book tackles. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68771112 to: War and Peace (Hardcover) by Leo Tolstoy
It took me 41 days to read the 1,282 pages (introduction, text, appendix, notes, and historical index), but I finished at 10:10 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009. Considered one of great novels in world literature, "War and Peace" is truly a work of great breadth and insight about the Napoleonic invasion, Czar Alexander I, the aristocracy in Petersburg and Moscow, and Russian life in general 1805-1820. I found the English translation by the husband-and-wife team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky easy to read. Leo Tolstoy mixes descriptions of the lives of fictional and historical characters and the struggle between the armies of Napoleon I and Gen. Mikhail Kutuzov in 1812 with comments on history, power, freedom, and the chaos and uncertainties of battle. The epic novel consumed almost six weeks of reading time, but it was worth it. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65446748 to: It's Crazy to Stay Chinese in Minnesota (Paperback) by Eleanor Wong Telemaque
This 102-page book by Eleanor Wong Telemaque is a short fictionalized account of growing up in Albert Lea, Minn., in a Chinese-American family owning a local restaurant. I wished the book were longer and the characters fleshed-out more, but I enjoyed the unique perspective of the author. I grew up in Minnesota in a small town that did not have a Chinese restaurant until 15 or so years after our family moved to Maine in 1965. I have been amazed at how ubiquitous Chinese restaurants have become in even the smallest of towns in my travels across the U.S. in the 1990s and 2000s. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/64414826 to: What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable (Paperback) by John Brockman
One hundred eight writers, most of them scientists and academics, contributed to this book. There are well-known people like Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Helen Fisher, and Jared Diamond and lesser-know people. As can be expected, the short essays, ranging from one to five pages each, vary in interest. But many of the essays examine fascinating ideas that may challenge our beliefs and the status quo (hence, their danger).
Daniel Golman, for instance, notes the difference between having a discussion with someone in person and by e-mail. On "flaming": "The hallmark of a flame is that the same person would never say the words in the e-mail to the recipient were they face to face."
Karl Sabbagh writes about the immense difficulty of humans knowing the universe: "And even if we are on the right lines in some areas, how much of what there is to be understood in the universe do we really understand? Fifty percent? Five percent? The dangerous idea is that perhaps we understand half of a percent and all the brain and computer power we can muster may take us up to one or two percent in the lifetime of the human race."
On why aliens have not contacted humans despite there being billions of planets in our galaxy alone: "Basically I think aliens don't blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they're too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don't need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today."
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