A book about an extremely happy person, and about happiness being or not being genetic (and what that would mean for individual people and for society ( Read more... )

Music: I heard Giuliano Carmignola playing the one of the Mozart violin concertos on the radio and was totally wowed -- it completely changed the way I thought about the Mozart violin concertos.

TV: Deep Space Nine. Oh, yeah, it's got the shiny happy Star Trek thing going, but it surprisingly... doesn't suck. Abigail Nussbaum talks about how it ( Read more... )

Finishing up my 2010 posts over the next week or so.

I really liked all these and would have said a lot more about them had I remembered to post about them.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz) - Really a quite remarkable book. Highly recommended. Unfortunately as I read this in half-delirious-sleep-deprivation mode I have forgotten ( Read more... )

Dear people who write historical fiction, I have a request. Please actually read books written in the time period you are writing about so you have some idea of the style of the period. Also, if it's not too much to ask, maybe have a draft reviewed by someone who is passing familiar with the period? Thanks ( Read more... )

My sister wins. (Actually, she generally wins at life, but that's another story.)

The Checklist Manifesto is one of those books that I have not much to say about, because it is awesome. It is further a book that I think everyone ought to read, especially everyone who has any interest in health care OR complex tasks. Gawande writes very well and he ( Read more... )

Yeah, so, I thought i had things to say about Cryoburn, and then I went and read my LJ friends' reviews and found lightreads had said all of them already. And somehow managed to do this without spoiling. So go read that review at DW if you want to know pretty much exactly what I think (well, okay, I'm not a lawyer, but I also did laugh at the commodified ( Read more... )

Okay, I finished Mockingjay. And... I liked it more than I thought I would. I actually did think it was good, though I certainly found the second half way way way WAY more compelling than the first (I have a couple more thoughts about this). More than that, it made me want to rant about it, which a) is a good sign, and b) usually means that it is ( Read more... )

I blame my sister for the fact that I read these at all! That and running out of other books to read. But no fear, I just ordered Cryoburn ( Read more... )

Not to be confused with things that push my buttons -- these are things that make me bounce up and down and proclaim "This is awesome!" (and more likely to be plot- or meta-based) as opposed to things that make me fall utterly in love (which are more likely to be character-based ( Read more... )

So for Christmas (yeah, my family doesn't do delayed gratification; we had Christmas presents in September because we all had things we wanted) I got a kindle 3! It is much nicer than the previous kindle iterations; in particular I and my wrists are quite pleased that the page turn buttons are much easier to turn, and for some of my applications ( ( Read more... )