Reading I've been doing over the last 6-9 months...

Books I've recently finished...

"Unbelievably Loud and Incredibly Close".... best book of the year so far. Heartbreaking and bittersweet, funny and endlessly inventive 9 year old new yorker who loses his father in the twin towers tragedy spends the novel trying to figure out if his father (who loved to lead his son on wild treasure hunts with obscure clues) left some sort of message for him. The book also intercuts the story of his grandparents as world war 2 survivors coming to america....
Good example of kid's clever mind? he invents a birdseed shirt so that people who work in high rises could jump out the window and pigeons would attach themselves to the shirt to eat and fly the person to safety... giant LED ticker tape displays on the top of ambulances so that as they pass below you (manhattan apartment dweller) it could sense that you're looking and if a friend is inside the ambulance it could say "don't worry, I'll be ok" or "I love you, give julie a hug", etc.

I also read his first book (Jonathan Safran Foer) "Everything is Illuminated".... its going to be a movie this summer. Not as captivating so if you read it and stopped... go buy Incredibly close...

"Naked Pictures of Famous People" jon stewart's book of absurd short stories of him visiting and hanging out with various famous people (when hanging out with kennedy and his family kennedy's mom has 3-05 more kids and tosses the rejects.. those without dashing looks... under the stairs)... it was ok, but America the Book is better.


"The Wisdom of Crowds"... a fascinating book about the four main elements of successful group decision making with real world studies across a variety of decision-making types of things... (best real world example.. a sub was lost, the guy looking for it gave 5 different types of people, oceanographer, sub captain, weatherman, etc.... all the info he had... fuel consumption, last known heading, etc. then averaged the results and when the found the sub it was 30 meters from the answer)...

good companion to a fluffier book called "Blink"... pretty pop psych kinda thing about how people make nearly instant decisions and how/when they make "good" ones... fun if you don't know the state of this sort of art... good example? it turns out that the first rule of improvization is "go with it" if someone comes up to you during improv and says something like "oh, I see you lost your leg" the immediate reaction is to deny it... if you go with it, it usually turns out to be funny (because unexpected and often absurd)...



"Time Travelers Wife" (worth reading, fun with meeting yourself and teaching you how to steal stuff.... since time travelers can't bring their clothes or wallets with them). Very engaging, my baby loved it too, so that's gotta mean something.

David Sedaris's new book of stories (he just kills me). If you want to read about screwed up families you can do no better than reading this book (too lazy to walk 5 feet to see the name of the book tho.... just google it, uhh, wait I could google it.....must....slide mouse...reach open new window....button and type amazon.com... ). Its called "Dress your family in Corduroy and Denim" and then there is this aref plus some kind of incredibly overused punctuation thingy and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316143464/qid=1093698692/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-2253528-5735300?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 and then another something something.

ok, I'm just saying that blogger could make my life a little easier by not punishing me for using a mac(ignore this if you don't get it).

David's best known as a contributor to this american life. My favorite book of his is "Me Talk Pretty One Day"

Devil in the White City is amazing history. All true, fine testament to what humans can accomplish (both evil and wonderful). Set in my hometown circa 1890 when they built the world's fair (right after paris did the whole... oui, we have built a big tower and eeet eeez an eyefull.)

Iron Council by China Mieville. I don't like fantasy as a rule, but this guy can write good stuff (gritty london circa 3000 years in the future after some sort of bad thing happened). Everything I've read by him is really fun. his unofficial homepage here

Dune: The battle for Corrin. Ok, I've been rereading all of frank herbert's stuff, and all of his son's prequels and I think I'm just about done. This one is a bit formulaic and might have been generated by a computer somewhere inside of google (you know that new "sets" thing that will write a book for you if you list three or four books that kinda are like the book you want).... but if you have neurons to waste go for it.

I also reread a bunch of Ian Banks stuff (Consider Phlebas, The State of the Art), he's got such a dry evil brit wit. If you're a reader, try to find Feersum Endjinn. About a generation ship that has been sailing for a very long time (hint the title is an example of the entire warped language that you'll have to read throughout the book, since english doesn't stay the same over a very long period of time).

"I thought my Father was God"... a great collection of "true" stories collected by NPR for their national stories project (actually a great idea, they asked listeners to send in short true life stories and then each week read them out loud).

Also I just bought my son "stranger in a strange land".... should I have done that? I seem to remember thinking that this was a good book for someone once they where an adult (I think I read it in my teeens). At least he'll learn how to grok.

killing me softly

Julie Childs is dead. Another hero gone. Joel Stein does an adequate job noting some of her grace in last week's Time.

Jon Stewart and Pentagram are coming out with a book about democracy inaction, called America (the book)... an educational textbook that just sounds stunning. America is still alive and kicking.

backstory?

hmm, (insert self-deprecating, self-conscious comment about finally trying out this thing called blogger and wondering why I think I could have the time to log my thoughts daily when I can barely entertain them) now what.
Ok.
Fast summary of my life as of today (so I don't have to go backward and log my preweb life in any sort of detail....) or at least part 1 of summary

Lesee...
Born in chicago with a bit of jaundice (my first rejection) on good friday, right around the middle of a fabulous year for american cars and american dreams as the 4th child (they should have stopped after me, but no they had to have a red headed 6'5" monster baby who would later propel me about 6 feet headlong into a circa 1910 sewing machine with his proud strong 12 year old legs leading to a swirl of stars and an early and intimate understanding of edges and how they may intersect with users nay projectile children of users of products) in a family that would ultimately have four children (a heartbreak for my parents that I'm sure led them to cherish us all the more), a dog named (at one point aptly and later very much not aptly) Pretty (though it could be used as a modifier, "pretty ugly," which would serve to aptify the situation nicely), a succession of birds and fish and robot servants fashioned out of brake calipers and bicycle wheels and drunken uncles, and visiting dominican brothers of the cloth, and grumpy gaelic spouting perenially dying with six months to live as told to her by her doctor 20 years ago grandmas and just about any stray friend in need of a room and some food and little verbal reparte (my mom and dad had a very open "our house is your house, share the wealth" policy... if your wealth is measured in open arms and tight warm hugs and witty jibs and jabs, and a stumble down tumble down hundred year old victorian home a few blocks from the inland fresh water sea of michigan) with a mother/scientist/teacher/denmother/matriarch/oldest polio-stricken daughter left fatherless at the age of 12 who had to grow up fast to help around the stockyard cafe run by my (heretofor mentioned tank of a pearl handled gun toting) grandma/electronmicroscopist and a father/motorcycle racer/tinkerer/horse trader/pack leader/mechanic/teacher/rube goldberger/life is a grand adventurer/war veteran from the wrong side of the tracks.