Ten precepts from The Art of War
Ten precepts from The Art of War that never made it past Sun Tzu’s editor. Ex: “When you sally forth to meet the enemy, show your contempt for him by the haughtiness of your prance”.
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kottke.org posts about books
An interview with Ruth Reichl, currently the
An interview with Ruth Reichl, currently the editor of Gourmet, on Garlic and Sapphires, a book about her experiences as a NY Times restaurant critic. (via meg)
Steven Shaw, founder of the excellent food
Steven Shaw, founder of the excellent food site eGullet, has a new book out called Turning the Tables, an outsider’s inside perspective on food and restaurants. Here’s an excerpt and a review from Wine Spectator.
Emergence
I recently reread Steven Johnson’s Emergence and was struck by how familar it all seemed, even for a reread. Flipping through the bibliography at the end, I realized why: much of my reading list over the past four years has come directly from those few pages in the back of the book:
The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil
A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History by Manual De Landa
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Pattern on the Stone by Danny Hillis
How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Nonzero by Robert Wright
Since reading the book, I’ve also heard talks or read articles by other folks mentioned in the bibliography, like Franz De Waal, Eric Bonabeau, Kevin Kelly, James Howard Kunstler, Marvin Minsky, etc. I’d read a few things on the topic before Emergence, but it was really a catalyst for a area of study I didn’t quite know I was focusing on until much later.
Freakonomists Levitt and Dubner: where did all
Freakonomists Levitt and Dubner: where did all the crack cocaine go? Well, it didn’t. Go. But the crime did.
Dan Barber on the embraced chaos of
Dan Barber on the embraced chaos of working in David Bouley’s kitchen. Barber, who runs the excellent Blue Hill, contributed this essay to the new book, Don’t Try This at Home (eGullet chatter).
Harnessing the power of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink
Harnessing the power of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink to win at poker.
What sprawling postmodern novels should you be reading?
What sprawling postmodern novels should you be reading?.
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses, a “social life of beverages”. Standage is one of my favorite technology/culture writers; he wrote about the telegraph in The Victorian Internet.
Steven Johnson’s open letter to Hillary Clinton
Steven Johnson’s open letter to Hillary Clinton regarding her call for a Congressional investigation about the effects of video games on children. “I know a congressional investigation into [the violence and hostility in high school] football won’t play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.”
The evolution of book cover design
The evolution of book cover design. Using Robert W Chambers’ The King in Yellow as an example.
“So You Want to Write a Book?”
“So You Want to Write a Book?”. O’Reilly Media’s guide for new authors.
Why children love Roald Dahl’s stories —
Why children love Roald Dahl’s stories — and many adults don’t. Danny, The Champion of the World is my favorite Dahl book and I’ve read most of the others as well.
Good interview with Malcolm Gladwell about Blink on Powells.com
Good interview with Malcolm Gladwell about Blink on Powells.com.
Slideshow of Harry Potter fans purchasing the newest Potter doorstop
Slideshow of Harry Potter fans purchasing the newest Potter doorstop.
An unauthorized electronic version of the new
An unauthorized electronic version of the new Harry Potter book is now available online. Rowling won’t do an e-book version of the Potter books, but one made its way onto the web about 12 hours after the hardcover was released in stores.
Harry Potter and Willy Wonka are going
Harry Potter and Willy Wonka are going head to head this weekend. Something tells me that Harry’s gonna win.
Summer reading list from Edge
Summer reading list from Edge. I think I would have rather seen a list of recommendations from Edge members rather than their books. Gee, Dawkins writing on evolution? Didn’t see that coming…
Table of contents for The Complete Norton
Table of contents for The Complete Norton Anthology of Emily Dickinson, Post-Zoloft Prescription. Includes “Oh, the ice cubes are melting” and “Today’s a good day for stuff”.
Reimagined covers of romance novels
Reimagined covers of romance novels. My favorites are “For the Love of Scottie McMullet” and “Lord of the Tube Socks”.
Jeff Veen’s The Art and Science of
Jeff Veen’s The Art and Science of Web Design is 5 years old. To celebrate, he’s made a proof of the entire book available for download.
The difficulty of pre-ordering the new Harry Potter book online
The difficulty of pre-ordering the new Harry Potter book online. If the book is ordered online, how much after the midnight release will the book be delivered? Next day or wait until after the weekend?
Snow Crash
When I mentioned Neal Stephenson here in February, several people recommended starting with the smaller Snow Crash rather than plunging head-long into Cryptonomicon or the Baroque Cycle. When I ran across a copy in my own household (who knew that we had one?), I picked it up and barely put it back down until I had finished. I mean — come on! — the main character’s name is Hiro Protagonist, but Stephenson has the chops to back that sort of cheesy bullshit up:
The Deliverator’s car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.
Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a roll model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity…
Roll model!
Aside from the entertaining writing, Snow Crash (excerpt) is packed full of ideas. Stephenson gives the reader as much to think about as do the authors of recent non-fiction books like Blink, The Wisdom of Crowds, etc. And whereas Steven Johnson gets a bunch of shit for winkingly calling his book “Everything Bad is Good for You” and suggesting that this miserable culture we’re stuck with might be good for us in some way, readers of Snow Crash might say, “hmm, that’s an interesting idea” and ruminate on it without feeling the need to completely disagree with the whole premise of the book. Is fiction better at presenting ideas in a non-theatening manner than non-fiction? Maybe Gladwell’s next book should be a novel?
Gothamist interviews The Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler
Gothamist interviews The Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler.
Fun new book from O’Reilly’s Hacks series: Astronomy Hacks
Fun new book from O’Reilly’s Hacks series: Astronomy Hacks. “This handy field guide covers the basics of observing, and what you need to know about tweaking, tuning, adjusting, and tricking out a ‘scope.”
Small corrections (from Dave Eggers) to Neal
Small corrections (from Dave Eggers) to Neal Pollack’s piece in the Times Book Review. Includes a response to the response from Neal.
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