false 27 65 56 true 5695938 read 8 true 152351 currently-reading 1 true 152350 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15444995 Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't (Hardcover) by Jim Collins
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15444953 Race Matters (Paperback) by Cornel West
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8930837 to: Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity (Paperback) by Lawrence Lessig
Wow. What can I say about this book? Not only engrossing and enlightening, but extremely fun to read. Given that it's about copyright law, I feel that's quite an endorsement.

It got especially exciting toward the end, when Lessig described a legal battle he directed that ended in a loss at the Supreme Court, and the crushing personal guilt he felt for this outcome.

The upshot is that today's cultural establishment dinosaurs - the recording industry and, to a lesser extent, book publishers - are stifling our culture by persuading Congress (an equal culprit) to award more and more control to intellectual property owners over their property. Copyright terms are extended and they will be indefinitely extended. The public domain as an institution is dying. The record industry claims that downloading a CD is morally equivalent to stealing a CD off the shelf - a legal claim that Lessig eloquently debunks - but stealing a CD gets you a $1000 fine in most states, whereas downloading a single song in today's climate makes you liable for millions of dollars in damages.

Lessig walks you through the basic concepts of property and piracy from a legal point of view, provides ample context both through American cultural history and today, and makes a powerful case for copyright reform. A brilliant book. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11922524 Thomas's review of How to Be Born Again
by Billy Graham

Once when I was a little kid Billy Graham came to Columbus and spoke at Cooper Stadium, where the Columbus Clippers play. I didn't go. But lots of people in Bexley did and bought all these bumper stickers that said 'Billy Graham Speaks at Cooper Stadium' and you can still see them around if you look carefully. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11843122 Claire's review of All Things Wise and Wonderful
by James Herriot

i love this book!! why not five stars (besides the fact that books on this website are perennially overrated and it's noble to push back sometimes)? ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11330515 Nachy's review of Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson

i haven't finished it yet, but it really is beautifully written. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11330515 Silent Spring (Paperback) by Rachel Carson
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10836029 Claire's review of Indecision
by Benjamin Kunkel

i would also be really annoyed if i read "he was like" in a book. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10129631 to: The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories (Oxford Books of Prose) by William Trevor
This was a pretty good book. The Irish short story is an interesting literary form, and like all culturally-based genres, is extremely dependent on the cultural and linguistic literacy of the reader. Trying to read these stories as a non-Irish person and a non-Gaelic speaker (they're all translated into English) is like trying to read Yiddish short stories in translation as a non-European Jew. It can be done, of course, you just feel like you're missing a lot.

All that being said, I loved these stories. Some were a little too strange or foreign for me to really deal with, but most were delightful little glimpses into Irish culture and history. I found it interesting that most end very abruptly and often anticlimactically - the important part of the Irish short story appears not to be the end, but rather the setting and the details of the telling. ]]>