Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Pulphead
by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Moonwalking with Einstein
by Joshua Foer
-Terrible title and cover. About memory and memory competition. Really enjoyed it and the topics of memory palaces and synaesthesia, etc. are favorites of mine.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists
by Seth

Troop 142
by Mike Dawson

Monday, October 31, 2011

The Grand Design
by Stephen Hawking and Leon Mlodinow

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Garden
by Yuichi Yokoyama
The Sisters Brothers
by Patrick DeWitt

Sunday, September 25, 2011

On Trust: Art and the Temptations of Suspicion
by Gabriel Josipovici

Thursday, September 22, 2011

The Book of God: A Response to the Bible
by Gabriel Josipovici

Monday, September 05, 2011

The Memory Chalet
by Tony Judt

Monday, August 29, 2011

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
by John T. Cacioppo & William Patrick

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Looking Glass Book of Stories
by Various, ed. Hart Day Leavitt
-Gorey cover. Inside a mixed bag, a short story collection for kids of all ages type of thing.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

A Drifting Life
by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

The Pale King
by David Foster Wallace

Friday, July 15, 2011

Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline
by Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton
-Got this out the library but liked it so much I bought it. If the topic interests you at all, I highly recommended it.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Moby Duck
by Donovan Hohn
-Google it. There's a lot of plastic in the ocean.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Find Your Focus Zone
by Lucy Jo Palladino
-Picked it up at the library. It's OK. Not really my style. There's an anecdote near the beginning, however, that fit me so well I couldn't believe it. Turns out that I need to form new habits and understand how my brain works.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Feast For Crows
by GRR Martin
-This stuff is escapist brain vacationing for me right now. "What's going to happen next?" "Bet you didn't see that coming."

Sunday, June 05, 2011

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
by Jill Bolte Taylor

Friday, May 20, 2011

The Cardboard Valise
by Ben Katchor
-loved it.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Storm of Swords
by GRR Martin

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

The Metamorphosis and other stories
by Franz Kafka
-Sammy Harkham edition.

Monday, May 02, 2011

I don't remember if I posted about it, but months ago I tried reading 

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
by David Eagleman

which you'd think would be right up my alley...a Calvino-esque parade of various possible afterlives. I did not like it, however. I could barely get through it, which is pretty bad for such a short book. I skipped around. I found many of the "thought experiments" pseudo-profound and predictably unpredictable...if that makes sense. I was unmoved by the attempts at deepness and heaviness and ultimately annoyed. Maybe it's one of those things where it's too close to something I would want to do, so I am extra demanding and mentally re-writing it into "my" book. And it does have a few good moments, too, sure.

Anyways, I just saw an article in the New Yorker about the author, who is a neuroscientist and Guggenheim recipient. Seems like an interesting guy, and I'm going to try to learn more about his work. The book did in fact feel to me like how a scientific mind would try to write playfully. I wish I could put into words what writers like Calvino or Borges are able to do (even in translation) that "Sum" can't pull off, but I just don't have the time to sort that out right now. 

In the NYer article Brian Eno makes an appearance--he liked this book and struck up an email conversation with Eagleman. Sigh! 

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
by Andy Hunt

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The True Deceiver
by Tove Jansson

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Clash of Kings
by George RR Martin

Saturday, March 26, 2011

What Do Pictures Want?
by WJT Mitchell
The Creative Habit
by Twyla Tharp
Game of Thrones
by George R.R. Martin

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Swann's Way
by Marcel Proust

Friday, February 25, 2011

Captain Easy Sundays

Popeye (volume "O)
-Just read the Sundays.
Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
by Leszek Kolakowski
-I like the size of this book. The content was ho-hum, merely summaries of different major philosophers' ideas, ending with some questions to think about. Pretty unremarkable, even boring. Only notable thing for me was that Kierkegaard came out looking pretty great in his chapter (as far as that goes). Husserl made into almost a joke. Not recommended unless you need short explanations of different philosophers--even then, I'm sure there's more readable books out there.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Emergence
by Steven Johnson
-quick read, a lot of old info in this...2001.

I liked how this part went back to the good old "cyberspace" vision of William Gibson without mentioning Gibson at all:
"Imagine the universe of HTML documents as a kind of city spread out across a vast landscape...so confusing...that the mapmakers (the Yahoos and Googles of the world) would generate almost as much interest..."

People say, "Where's my jetpack? Where's my flying car?" I'm always thinking, "Where's my cyberspace??"


I liked his other book "Invention of Air." There's a podcast somewhere where he talks to Brian Eno that I remember enjoying. But I think I first learned of his books from Cosma Shalizi (link).

Saturday, February 05, 2011

The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald