Husband vs. Wife

2012-02-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries
by Thomas Mallon
-bought this for 50 cents at a book sale because I thought it looked like a good bedtime put-me-to-sleep book. I was right. A steady rhythm of discussing a diarist for 3-4 paragraphs, then a segue, then another diarist, then another segue, and so on, and then at the end of a chapter there would be paragraph that would take us to the next chapter. At the end he declares WNP Barbellion the all-time champ.

2012-01-29T07:52:00.000-08:00

Teach Us to Sit Still
by Tim Parks
-Jacket copy: "Overwhelmed by a crippling condition which nobody could explain or relieve, Parks follows a fruitless journey through the conventional medical system only to find relief in the most unexpected place: a breathing exercise that eventually leads him to take up meditation. This was the very last place Parks anticipated finding answers; he was about as far from New Age as you can get. As everything that he once held true is called into question, Parks confronts the relationship between his mind and body, the hectic modern world that seems to demand all our focus, and his chosen life as an intellectual and writer."

Me: Mindfulness helps Parks get over crotch pain. It was easy and interesting to read and moving and didn't feel like bullshit. The stuff about how a life of writing and thinking affects one's body over the long term -- tensing muscles, stresses -- seemed true and important to keep in mind. As it ended, though, I would have liked to hear more about whether he was able to make peace with the conflict he experienced between mindfulness and the writing life. If at all. Obviously he wrote the book; how did mindfulness inform the sitting down to write? But maybe that's beyond the scope of this book.

2012-01-24T09:48:00.000-08:00

Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
- There seem to be several other books on similar topics, but is the first book I have read about biases and heuristics, so a lot of this was new to me. I really enjoyed reading it despite all the potentially boring discussion of studies and story problems. This seems like the book to read.

I've often thought that I'd love to write/read a "how to" book that talked about basic decision making and thinking, and the stuff in this book would be valuable for a book like that -- the easy errors to avoid, etc. I'm predicting that a lot of this book will stick with me for a long time, like the thing about how predictions are almost always wrong.

Incomplete list of things to remember: don't jump to conclusions from small sample sizes, don't jump to conclusions period, regression to the mean, What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI), halo effect, priming, question substitution, repetition=familiarity=positive feelings, System 2 is lazy, experiencing self vs. remembering self, experts in low-validity environments are worse than random chance, Wall Street is bullshit, get the outside view, formulas and checklists beat intuitions...

2012-01-11T18:20:00.000-08:00

Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany and World War II by Stanley Payne

La conquista de Alhucemas, o En el Tercio está el amor by Juan Bautista Ros Andreu (for class on Fascism in Spain)

Madrid de corte a checa by Agustín de Foxá (class)

Tras el aguila del Cesar: Elegia del tercio, 1921-1922 by Luys Santa Marina (class)

Ultra Violet: 10 Years of "Violet Days" by Chris Monroe (starred review!)

2012-01-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

You Are Not a Gadget
by Jaron Lanier
-This should be read alongside What Technology Wants, because these guys are friends and seem to be thinking of each other when they write. In both books, I think the presentation of arguments could have been stronger. I was very sympathetic to the overall "humanism" in Gadget, versus the techno-mysticism of What Technology Wants, but Gadget was at times too disorganized, too undercooked. It was like, "...and another thing...and another thing..."-- rants with inchoate arguments. Kelly's book was better organized. But both are full of over-generalizing and hippy logic. (I wish arguments were like objects, and that you could easily lay them out in front of you and arrange things and put together a structure more to your liking. A mix of Minecraft and a word processor. I'm sure there's gotta be an app for that.) Here at edge.org is a good collection of responses to Lanier.

2011

2012-01-03T12:38:00.000-08:00

^ loved reading
# did not like

FICTION
The Great Gatsby ^
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Swann's Way
by Marcel Proust

Game of Thrones ^, Clash of Kings, Storm of Swords ^,

Feast for Crows, Dance of Dragons #

by George R.R. Martin

The True Deceiver
by Tove Jansson

The Pale King ^
by David Foster Wallace

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives #
by David Eagleman

The Metamorphosis and other stories
by Franz Kafka
(Sammy Harkham edition)

The Looking Glass Book of Stories ^#
by Various, ed. Hart Day Leavitt

Also: New Yorker stories, and misc. short stories in collections which I didn’t finish.

Obviously the list is short this year because George RR Martin dominated with 5 giant books. I’ll admit that I loved escaping into the unpredictable and empty plotlines, but I wish I had spent a lot of that reading time on better, meatier stuff. They’re candy. But it was easier to read these books while I was in the middle of Ganges #4 and in the hangover period after than to read more demanding books; it can be dangerous letting something rewire your brain in the middle of a big project. That’s what I told myself. Still, I wish I had read more Proust or Kafka instead. (Did not like the show.)

NONFICTION
Emergence
by Steven Johnson

Pulphead ^

by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Moonwalking with Einstein
by Joshua Foer

The Memory Chalet ^
by Tony Judt

Moby Duck
by Donovan Hohn

Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline ^
by Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton

All of the books in the nonfiction category are more or less recommended. (Lousy abandoned books are not listed.) I learned a lot. Moonwalking with Einstein is a terrible title. I finally read this after an article by Foer first introduced me to the idea of memory palaces in an article back in 2007. I've been obsessed with the idea and the meta-idea ever since. Memory palaces was a theme this year: Tony Judt used memory palaces to help him compose the essays in The Memory Chalet, which are wise and moving. This may be the first year in a while that I didn’t read anything about climate change — a conscious choice -- though Moby Duck was somewhat eco-apocalyptic. Cartographies of Time is great. I knew when I saw Saul Steinberg in the first few pages that it was going to be great. I can't recommend it highly enough, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

SELF HELP

The Creative Habit
by Twyla Tharp

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

Find Your Focus Zone #
by Lucy Jo Palladino

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

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
by Andy Hunt

The self-help category is comprised of books I found at the library when I’d wander around on a break from writing or drawing. The self-help section at this library is huge, many times the size of, say, the painting section. I got a lot of help from Loneliness — one of the most significant books of the year for me. My Stroke of Insight taught me (finally) to understand and begin thinking in the right/left brain model. Creative Habit and Pragmatic Thinking also both have a lot of good stuff in them. There were some lousy books too, but those aren’t listed here because I barely read them. You can tell pretty quick with this type of book whether it's going to be good or not. Focus Zone is listed because I actually read it, and it was somewhat helpful, even though it wasn't very special.

IDEAS
What Do Pictures Want? ^
by WJT Mitchell

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

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

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? #
by Leszek Kolakowski

The Grand Design #
by Stephen Hawking and Leon Mlodinow

What Technology Wants
by Kevin Kelley

This blog post here got me to read two books by Gabriel Josipovici, for which I’m very grateful. They’ll be with me for a long time. I had read WJT Mitchell’s other books in college (I have re-read Iconology, though — 3 or 4 times!) and one day I was like, “oh yeah...what is he up to?” I really enjoyed the riffing and thinking in What Pictures Want (2004), and recommend his work to any intelligent comics reader who likes thinking about the nuts and bolts of these things, or really anyone who likes thinking and reading. What Technology Wants was a good sprint through a generally optimistic argument about technology, and humanity, but it was maybe too optimistic for me. A lot to chew on. I'm going to have to think more about it before I figure out what I think. The Grand Design didn't really grab me, and Why Is There Something was an unremarkable intro to philosophy.

* * *

In terms of pure reading enjoyment, for me The Great Gatsby was #1, followed by Josipovici, then WJT Mitchell. Proust and Kafka are in their own category of, I don’t know, “the sublime” or something. Other books, like Loneliness or My Stroke weren’t masterpieces but did teach me big ideas that will probably stick with me and improve my life (“technologies!”). I liked Cartographies and Book of God so much that I bought them after reading library copies.

Many of these books were found at the library, either on the book sale shelf, or just browsing around.

I started a few other books that I never finished -- you know how it is. Maybe next year. I'm not listing comics or graphic novels because they should get their own post, as should Internet reading. (Also, for the record, I'm not listing the research reading I did for various projects.)
____
UPDATE 1/1/12: It just occurred to me that the title What do Pictures Want? contains a play on the word "want" (desire/lack -- Mitchell points this out himself several times), but What Technology Wants does not contain this double meaning, and reading that book you can see how it couldn't. I'd love to see Mitchell review and play with the ideas and ideology of Kelley's book.

Also, I had somehow forgotten about Cartographies, so I added that.

(Cross posted to the Balloonist.)

2011-12-27T23:12:00.001-08:00

Pulphead
by John Jeremiah Sullivan

2011-12-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-11-15T19:58:00.001-08:00

The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists
by Seth

Troop 142
by Mike Dawson

2011-10-31T11:48:00.001-07:00

The Grand Design

by Stephen Hawking and Leon Mlodinow

2011-09-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

Garden
by Yuichi Yokoyama

2011-09-27T08:37:00.001-07:00

The Sisters Brothers
by Patrick DeWitt

2011-09-25T18:15:00.001-07:00

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

2011-09-22T09:59:00.001-07:00

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

2011-09-05T11:25:00.001-07:00

The Memory Chalet

by Tony Judt

2011-08-29T13:40:00.001-07:00

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

2011-08-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-08-11T07:28:00.001-07:00

A Drifting Life
by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

2011-08-02T15:49:00.001-07:00

The Pale King
by David Foster Wallace

2011-07-15T07:25:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-07-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-06-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

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."

2011-06-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

The Cardboard Valise
by Ben Katchor
-loved it.

2011-05-17T18:22:00.001-07:00

Storm of Swords
by GRR Martin

2011-05-04T07:59:00.001-07:00

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

2011-05-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-04-17T18:41:00.001-07:00

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
by Andy Hunt

2011-04-10T11:52:00.001-07:00

The True Deceiver
by Tove Jansson

2011-04-03T09:34:00.001-07:00

Clash of Kings
by George RR Martin

2011-03-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

What Do Pictures Want?
by WJT Mitchell

2011-03-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Creative Habit
by Twyla Tharp

2011-03-26T12:51:00.001-07:00

Game of Thrones
by George R.R. Martin

2011-03-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

Swann's Way
by Marcel Proust

2011-02-25T08:41:00.000-08:00

Captain Easy Sundays

Popeye (volume "O)
-Just read the Sundays.

2011-02-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-02-15T19:24:00.001-08:00

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).

2011-02-05T08:52:00.001-08:00

The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

2010-12-29T10:51:00.001-08:00

War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy

2010-12-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

Ninja
If 'n Oof
by Brian Chippendale

X'ed Out
by Charles Burns

Acme #20
by Chris Ware

2010-11-16T09:02:00.001-08:00

The Summer Book
by Tove Jansson

2010-11-07T06:25:00.000-08:00

Robert E. Lee by Roy Blount Jr.

2010-10-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

The Best American Comics Criticism
ed. Ben Schwartz
-I was annoyed by this book. The title claims far too much for what it is. The choices are sometimes bewildering stunts, often mediocre, though of course many are fine. It ends up seeming silly and like a half-assed editing job. If the title was supposed to be taken seriously, it's half-assed; if not, it should have had a humbler name.

2010-10-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

Roughing It
by Mark Twain

2010-10-10T10:09:00.001-07:00

As William James Said:
ed. Elizabeth Aldrich
- Just a bunch of quotes and passages. Weird book, quick read.

2010-10-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

One Man's Meat
by EB White

2010-09-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

Moominsummer Madness
by Tove Jansson

2010-09-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

Moominpoppa at Sea
by Tove Jansson
-I had important, brilliant world-changing notes written on the bookmark. I finished the book this morning. Now I have somehow lost the bookmark. Where did it go???

2010-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Love of a Good Woman
by Alice Munro

-Another book sale pickup, begun randomly one night a few weeks ago. If I could go back and give myself advice about this book, I'd recommend just the first three stories, esp. the first–the title story, which was pretty awesome. All the stories are of course well-crafted and the characters varied and vivid, but after the first three, maybe not weird enough. For a dude, reading these stories about women and the various kinds of relationships with men and with each other–the loves of "good women"– was definitely wandering outside usual zones of research.

2010-08-26T14:18:00.001-07:00

The Watcher and other stories
by Italo Calvino

2010-08-25T23:04:00.001-07:00

The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norman Juster

2010-07-31T15:07:00.000-07:00

Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time
by Stephen Jay Gould

2010-07-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

Absence of Mind
by Marilynne Robinson
- I hope to write about this when I get some more time.

2010-07-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Berlioz and His Century: An Introduction To the Age of Romanticism
by Jacque Barzun

2010-07-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

Little Lulu Vol. 23
-I dunno if I've been keeping track of these on this blog, but yeah I've read them all, up until vol. 23, as has Katie. @#%!. It occurs to me that I've read maybe more pages of Lulu than any other comics? Not a bad way to spend your @#%!ing leisure time. Alvin tells a story in this one! Tubby-sitting on Halloween, The Spider spins, and a unexpected homage to Abraham Lincoln. Seems like Tripp starts using a different new brush in this one, but I'm not sure.

2010-07-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

The Best American Short Stories 1998

ed. Garrison Keillor

- I felt like reading the kind of stories I figured would be in here. I was right! I like to buy these old Best Americans at the YMCA booksales. Mr. Keillor says in the introduction that he read and selected all the of the stories without knowing the authors' names. Seems like a good approach, but how did that super boring Updike story make it in? Some really good stories and some pretty good ones, along with a few snoozers, which is usually the case with these Best American gimmick-books.

2010-07-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

A Jacques Barzun Reader

- Got this for a buck. Loved reading it, a nice hardcover. The straightforward and sensible essay "Criticism: Art or Craft?" was timely and instructive for me during the last few weeks, when so many comics critics and cartoonists have been talking about these subjects.

Here's something from p. 506, "Three Enemies of Intellect"--

"Avante garde psychology, avante-garde art, and the philanthropy that is coeval with them, alike cherish the warm confusions of animal existence." The first part of the sentence is maybe confusing without the context, but the last bit about "warm confusions" is nice. Even when he overstates and over-generalizes, in order to correct what he sees as the sloppy over-reaching of progressives and avante-gardes, I sympathize with him more than, say, the pontifications of a GK Chesterton or Marilynne Robinson, or a lot of conservative-minded writers, who seem to cherish warm confusions of a different kind. It's because I know that in Barzun there's always the strong influence of William James. Barzun's book on James needs to be read first, I think, (I've read it twice) and definitely before House of Intellect. Barzun follows James in his secularism and pluralism, and he stays very open-minded and relativistic, enthusiastic and sensible, no matter how cranky he might get in his old age.

"This rational linking of fact, motive, and explanation is what distinguishes sensible crime fiction from the thriller, which is the acme of helter-skelter [guess he never read superhero comic books]. Thrillers can be fun when the writer makes things happen so rapidly and surprisingly that the reader never even thinks of motive of probability. Otherwise, actions and agents appear childish and insane by turns, and the effect is tedium and disgust."

(p.568 "A Catalogue of Crime").

2010-06-20T17:41:00.001-07:00

Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton

Weathercraft
by Jim Woodring
-3x

Logicomix
by various
-I really hated this, but forced myself to finish it. (The week this came out, I had been thinking about Godel and Russell and Wittgenstein and about how much I'd like to draw comics about them, I shit you not. When I saw the book on the shelf I couldn't believe it!) Here's all you need to know: this book refers to these philosophers and mathematicians as "true superheroes." In the actual story, the writer of the story says that. It's often super corny and artless in this way. Also, the "lecture with slideshow" genre of nonfiction comics is on display, literally, as a framing device. (I'm guilty of this too, but I swear I try to avoid it, or at least do it right...) It's a great story, 20th C. and wars and Russell and Ludwig and all that, in theory, but this was cheeseball. It's a shame they ruined the material. Here "comix" means cheese and melodrama and writing for "young adults," not just the formal sense of mixing words and pictures. NYT Bestseller.

2010-06-13T23:43:00.001-07:00

The Kat Who Walked In Beauty
by Geo. Herriman
-Read 2 pages a day, every so often, for 6+ months to get through this. I was very inspired by it...the world of it, the forms. The world has changed a lot since Mr. Herriman drew these strips. Some real groaners in here, but some good jokes too.

Market Day
by James Sturm
-I loved this. It's very dark. Beautiful sequences.

books from class

2010-06-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

Exemplary Tales of Love (Novelas ejemplares y amorosas) by María de Zayas y Sotomayor
Lazarillo de Tormes (anonymous)
Novelas ejemplares por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Half of Snow Leopard and Shadow Country by Peter Mathiessen

Kiss of the Spider Woman (Beso de la mujer araña) by Manuel Puig, thought I'd hate it and I loved it
The Bad Girl (Las Travesuras de la niña mala) by Mario Vargas Llosa, thought I'd love it and I hated it
100 Years of Solitude (Cien Años de Soledad) by Gabriel García Márquez (Gabo)
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, remembered from 10 years ago as a "dry classic" but was wrong, it's awesome
The Death of Artemio Cruz (La muerte de Artemio Cruz) by Carlos Fuentes, maybe a bit over-dramatic in parts

2010-06-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

The Invention of Everything Else
by Samantha Hunt
- After the first 50 pages it seemed pretty good, but I decided to stop. Complicated feelings about the project. But it seems smart and readable.

2010-06-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things
by Barry Glassner
-A run-through of the big media panics of the past few decades, and what's the deal. Turns out people don't check the facts, believe what they want to hear, love a scary story, and distract themselves from looking directly at the real problems because it's too uncomfortable. Pro-gun conservatives come out looking particularly bad. Actually, conservatives in general come out looking pretty bad in this book, though I wouldn't say the book as a political agenda. I suppose it makes sense; the conservative attitude tends to be fearful. (I speak from past experience. And certainly not every fear is misplaced) The second group that comes out looking foolish and dangerous are, of course, journalists. Their environment selects for stories of outrage and danger... The hero is the skeptic--patient, thorough, sensible.

2010-05-30T10:33:00.001-07:00

Educating the Reflective Practitioner
by Donald A Schon.

"In a climate of mystery and mastery, undiscussability and indescribability reinforce each other. We keep ourselves unaware of what we already know because we habitually stay away from situations where we are called on to describe it. We describe it poorly because we get so little practice, which reinforces our disposition to keep it undiscussable."

2010-05-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Exploit: A Theory of Networks
by Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker

2010-05-14T19:13:00.001-07:00

The Design of Design
Essays from a Computer Scientist
Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.

2010-05-05T19:52:00.001-07:00

Portraits from Memory and other essays
by Bertrand Russell

2010-04-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

On Poetic Imagination and Reverie
by Gaston Bachelard

"To say that the poetic image is independent of causality is to make a rather serious statement. But the causes cited by psychologists and psychoanalysts can never really explain the wholly unexpected nature of the new image, any more than they can explain the attraction it holds for a mind that is foreign to the process of its creation. The poet does not confer the past of his image upon me, and yet his image immediately takes root in me. The communicability of an unusual image is a fact of great ontological significance. We shall return to this question of communion through brief, isolate, rapid actions. Images excite us--afterwards--but they are not the phenomena of an excitement. In all psychological research, we can, of course, bear in mind psychoanalytical methods for determining the personality of a poet, and thus find a measure of the pressures--but above all of the oppressions--that a poet has been subjected to in the course of his life. But the poetic act itself, the sudden image, the flare-up of being in the imagination, are inaccessible to such investigations. In order to clarify the problem of the poetic image philosophically, we shall have to have recourse to a phenomenology of the imagination. By this should be understood a study of the phenomenon of the poetic image when it emerges into the consciousness as a direct product of the heart, soul and being of man, apprehended in his actuality. "

Sounds like fun to me...I'm loving these Bachelard books. Didn't laugh out loud in gladness as much as with Poetics of Space. This book is a sampler. Didn't know that when I ordered it.

2010-04-09T21:53:00.001-07:00

Whole Earth Discipline
by Stewart Brand
-Pragmatic and optimistic and terrifying, and well-written, I thought. Sometimes when I'm searching around for a big abstract category of people to blame, I'll think, "engineers are the ones to blame!" Brand says he thinks like an engineer, like a problem solver, and that engineering will save us. We'll see. Seems like someone really has get to the people in charge, who make the rules, and change their minds.

Generation Ecstasy
by Simon Reynolds
-I have to say, I really didn't read all that much of this. But I really liked the parts I did read (esp. the Intro!). I like Reynolds' writing very much (and it's not just me--he's quite widely respected) and like his critical approach more than I like the music. More at his several blogs. When I read his series on "the nuum and its discontents" I wished there was a equivalent comics critic.

2010-04-05T14:42:00.001-07:00

The Poetics of Space
by Gaston Bachelard

2010-03-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

Starting Point 1979 - 1996
Hayao Miyazaki
-collection of interviews and lectures and articles, by the maker of my favorite movies (so far).

2010-03-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

The Way Through Doors
by Jesse Ball
-Couldn't get into this. I love meta-, but here there's too much archness/cuteness for me. Maybe there's some smartness to be found in the rest of the book. Not my style.

2010-03-01T21:52:00.000-08:00

The Book of Disquiet
Fernando Pessoa
(Extraordinary Classics)
-finally finished this after years (?) of off and on reading. It seems like the right way to read this book, with its short, dense meditations. I'll keep dipping back into it, it's a mental space that's good to return to from time to time. But I couldn't live there. I loved the book and felt a fondness and kinship with the author, even though at times I disagreed with the philosophy and attitude toward life he set forth in some of the meditations. He changes his mind often, however, and experiments with ideas, plays with them, and so it seems wrong to hold him firmly to anything he says. Irony and dreaming and play, not dialectics. The book is not about setting forth arguments, though he does try, arguing as an absolute aesthete, the real deal. This book was never even published in his lifetime. ...anyways...look it up... It goes on the shelf with favorite, wise, dense books I'll return to over and over during the years I have left.

2010-02-23T09:07:00.000-08:00

33 1/3 - Another Green World

- not much new to me, but easier to read than Aja or DNation

Time

by Eva Hoffman

-small books, big ideas series by Picador. Intro was good, so I was excited to read this, but the bulk of it was just "notecard writing" (is there a term for this?) If you're interested in the broad topic "time," like me, I'd say read the Intro and the final chapter.

Recent noteworthy articles and essays (off top of my head):

Adam Ciralsky in Vanity Fair on Blackwater

James Fallows in the Atlantic on “How America Can Rise Again"

Believer essay by Bachelder about kid and surprises. (Tried reading Bear vs Shark, couldn't get through it, despite the occasional good joke)

David Owen on smells in NYer (loved this, and the nickname one a while back. I'll buy this book when it comes out)

Article on Tea Party in New Yorker got terrifying with the Creation Museum cameo!

2010-02-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

33 1/3 Series:
Aja
Daydream Nation
-DNation not recommended, crazy writing. Aja for chord nerds only, and session musician imdb-ing.

2010-01-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

Gave up on Madame Bovary 1/3 through! Complicated feelings about it, respeck, but couldn't take enough pleasure in it to keep going. Might try again.

2010-01-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

The Invention of Air
by Steven Johnson

-Good pop science/history, short, but a lot packed in here, good ideas. I probably should read his other books. (also see his talk with Eno at ICA, can be found in iTunes podcasts)

Climate Change Links (Leaks)

2009-12-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

When It Changed

Leak Pseudo Scandal

Oy

The Real Leak

Hansen

Krugman re: Hansen

2009-12-05T12:27:00.000-08:00

On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno
by David Sheppard
-disappointed in this, but dutifully finished. Would have liked more ideas to chew on. Instead mostly a rundown of "then he did this, then this, then this" with few interesting insights into the whys and wherefores.

2009-10-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

Reading a lot, as always, but not finishing anything.

2009-09-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

Entre Parentesis
La Pista de Hielo
Putas Asesinas
Una Novelita Lumpen por Roberto Bolaño
Eleven Kinds of Lonelines by Richard Yates
Anton Chekhov's Short Stories (Norton)

2009-09-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet
by Oliver Morton
-Really enjoyed this.

2009-08-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

Little Lulu Vol:19
by John Stanley et.al

Bourbon Island 1730
by Lewis Trondheim and Olivier Appollodorus

2009-07-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

On Deep History and the Brain
by Daniel Lord Smail

2009-07-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

The Desire of My Eyes: the Life and Work of John Ruskin
by Wolfgang Kemp

2009-06-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

Herbie Vol. 2

Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes
by Andrew Nelson

2009-05-30T10:38:00.001-07:00

Angels and Ages
by Adam Gopnik

Herbie Vol. 1 and 2

--
skimmed/didn't finish

A Biographer's Notebook
by Hector Bolitho (good, funny)

The Scramble for Africa
by Thomas Pakenham (good, not funny)

Breaking the Headache Cycle
by Ian Livingstone and Donna Novak
(I don't get migraines, but I was curious the relaxation exercises)

There's a few more but I can't remember offhand.

2009-05-04T17:36:00.001-07:00

2009-03-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll
by Alvaro Mutis
-I can only recommend the first 3 novellas, which I really enjoyed...but considering what came after, I now doubt my reaction to those stories. As the book goes on, the interesting structures and adventure gets dialed way down, and the cliches and fake world-weariness and self-regarding bullshit gets to be too much, and it turns into almost a self-parody. By the end I was rolling my eyes big time! and almost quit reading, but kept with it. Sorry Katie.

2009-03-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

(These are the interesting and noteworthy articles and essays I read this month.)

March
(open)

The Last Book Party
Gideon Lewis-Kraus

Invisible Hands
Ken Silverstein

Curtain callsBy Edward Hoagland

Fatal Distraction
by Gene Weingarten
-Overwhelming. Be sure to read to the end.

The Unfinished
by D.T. Max

A Devil Obsessed Conglomeration of Christian Misfits
by William Giraldi

2009-02-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
by Umberto Eco

Last Evenings on Earth and By Night in Chile
by Roberto Bolaño

The Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce

The Odyssey
Robert Fagles translation

2009-02-18T22:25:00.001-08:00

Difficult Loves and Marcovaldo
by Italo Calvino

The New Sun
by Taro Tashima

2009-02-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

I'm going to start keeping track of noteworthy articles, essays, and longer blog posts I read on month-by-month basis. I'll add to this entry until Feb. is done.

February

Speaking in Tongues
Zadie Smith

Wow, Fiction Works!
Colson Whitehead

Sick in the Head
Why America won't get the health-care system it needs
Luke Mitchell

The war on telephone poles
By Eula Biss

A brief personal history of altweekly comics in America
Tom Tomorrow

2009-02-14T14:22:00.000-08:00

2009-01-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

The Dolphin Reader
ed. Douglas Hunt

-This is 1000+ pages, an anthology textbook of essays, 1986 edition. There are several editions of this anthology. From what I can tell by a quick look around the Internet, different editions have sometimes very different content. I think it's pretty great; at times it felt like reading a great issue of a giant magazine--a lot of it is magazine-style writing.

It goes high on 2 of my lists: "Books That Give You a Decent Liberal Education w/o Going to College" and "How To Write."

These were some of the highlights:

"Twins" and "Progress and Change"
by EB White
"Lord Bacon"
by Thomas Babington Macaulay
"On a Greek Holiday"
by Alice Bloom
"Why Paul Fussell Thinks He's Better Than You"
by James Fallows
(The section on "Art and Sport" contained the highest number of essays that I really enjoyed:)
"In the Country"
by Roger Angell (I was surprisingly moved by this, about loving baseball, of all things!)
"Georgia O' Keefe"
by Joan Didion
"Bullfighting"
by Ernest Hemingway
"Art for Art's Sake"
by EM Forster
"Benefit of Clergy"
by George Orwell
"Las Meninas"
by Kenneth Clark
(and...)
"Holy Dying"
by Jeremy Taylor
"Sightseer"
by Walker Percy
"Writing and Typing"
by John Kenneth Galbraith
"Examsmanship and the Liberal Arts"
by William G. Perry

(Left off this list are some classics which "go without saying," like "Civil Disobedience," "Letter from Birmingham Jail" or "Once More to the Lake" etc. Also Jessica Mitford's muckraking journalism makes a couple of inspiring appearances. She is new to me.)

As a service to future generations, I also kept track of what the LAME! essays, which I thought were either written in a weak or annoying style, or full of bad thinking, usually both:

"The Abolition of Man"
by CS Lewis (I have read this essay/book probably 4 or 5 times over the years, and I grow to despise it more and more. Someday I hope to write more about it...)
"Hugh Hefner" and "The Right Stuff"
by Tom Wolfe (These confirmed for me why my spider-sense has told me to avoid Tom Wolfe over the years. I don't like reading the way he writes.)
"The Middle Class"
by Paul Fussell
"In Defense of Snobs"
by William Manchester
"Going Home Again: The New American Scholarship Boy" and "Mr. Secrets"
by Richard Rodriguez (Not really that offensive...just mediocre navel-gazing.)
"The Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson"
by Robert Frost
"Suburbia: Of Thee I Sing"
by Phyllis McGinley
"Sunrise with Seamonsters"
by Paul Theroux (I have liked some of his writing in other places, but this was like being told a long anecdote by a person you wouldn't want to hang out with.)
"The Faith"
by David Bradley (skippable memoir)
"No Essays, Please!"
Joseph Wood Krutch (What a name! Not that bad, just particularly skippable.)
"Enlargement of Mind"
by John Henry Newman (This one has some meaty ideas to think about, but Newman is one of THE classic versions of my arch-enemies, the Disingenuous Intellectual Christian Krusader, whose schtick goes something like, "here's an argument showing how I'm right and you're wrong...but by the way, just so you know, also you're going to burn eternally in hell...so there's that to consider as well...")

----
Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
by Umberto Eco

2009-01-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

Wolf Whistle and
Music of the Swamp

by Lewis Nordan

2009-01-01T20:29:00.000-08:00

Savage Detectives (in English), Amulet, and Nazi Literature in the Americas
by Roberto Bolaño

The All Girl Football Team
by Lewis Nordan

2008-12-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

State of the Art
by Pauline Kael

2008-12-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

Sputnik Sweetheart

South of the Border, West of the Sun

and

Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami

2008-11-25T18:08:00.000-08:00

Burma Chronicles
by Guy Delisle

D&Q Showcase #5
-great