Books/authors Julian read/recommends
Jon took issue with my last book review (on Masters of War), pointing out that I frequently came home listening to particular lectures and babbling about new thoughts it had spurred. This is true, but it is still vexing that a) it wasn't what it promised and b) it didn't stick very well. My therapist used to claim that I didn't have to write everything down, that I'd remember what was important, but she wasn't very good at her job in general so.
I'm stuck in reading Where Good Ideas Come From because it mentions a concept called a commonplace book, which is a book where you write ideas you find interesting, for future reference, which helps with slow hunches and ideas that need to rub against others to be truly valuable. Apparently all the cool Enlightenment kidz had one. The author likes a software called DEVONthink for this. I can't continue the book until I find something that will cross-index all my years of notes, bc seeing how distracting it is to just live with a 9yo part time, I bet being primarily responsible for a newborn infant will Harrison Bergeron my thoughts even more. But that's not the topic of this post (and if Julian has read Good Ideas, it's bc of me, not the other way around).
Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction reminded me of my issues with Masters of War in that there were some pages that were so generative, I stopped reading so I could think about them. Like, I'd never thought about how steppe nomad culture would have advantages, at times, over primitive settled cities and how that would be a catalyst for great migrations and regime change. Stick and I had a great exchange about chariots vs. hoplites as a result of the book. OTOH, the 19 pages of Silk Road history were close to unreadable unless you know off-hand the geography of the region (using historical names like Sogdian and Transoxiana) and the history of those bits as well. I liked the discussions of how technology - including food tech, papermaking, etc. - were passed east and west. I just wish the book was twice as long, which is why I have Peter Golden's Central Asia in World History on hold at the library.
I've been resisting Michael Chabon for years, bc someone I knew used to press copies of Kavalier & Clay on anybody who came near. However, I think The Final Solution is BETTER than anything Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, bc Chabon is more consciously a better writer. It's also a very clever novella that carefully lays out a story in which the old detective has much of his cleverness but little of his vigorousness. I second Julian's recommendation, even if my friend the RN points out that heroin addicts don't live into their 80s.
I've never gotten around to reading any of Tom Wolfe's books, even though one of the most interesting people I know lurves his books, but felt I had to go when I learned he was speaking at the Manhattan Institute. It was ok. Wolfe needed a little bit for his brain to speed up enough to be interesting; his interviewer spoiled many of the books while gushing about them; and he turns out to be more reactionary than even this Fred Thompson voter feels comfortable with. OTOH, he's a Southern gent who talks about tailoring, so he hits several of my fetishes; surely he's written something I'll enjoy.
I'm stuck in reading Where Good Ideas Come From because it mentions a concept called a commonplace book, which is a book where you write ideas you find interesting, for future reference, which helps with slow hunches and ideas that need to rub against others to be truly valuable. Apparently all the cool Enlightenment kidz had one. The author likes a software called DEVONthink for this. I can't continue the book until I find something that will cross-index all my years of notes, bc seeing how distracting it is to just live with a 9yo part time, I bet being primarily responsible for a newborn infant will Harrison Bergeron my thoughts even more. But that's not the topic of this post (and if Julian has read Good Ideas, it's bc of me, not the other way around).
Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction reminded me of my issues with Masters of War in that there were some pages that were so generative, I stopped reading so I could think about them. Like, I'd never thought about how steppe nomad culture would have advantages, at times, over primitive settled cities and how that would be a catalyst for great migrations and regime change. Stick and I had a great exchange about chariots vs. hoplites as a result of the book. OTOH, the 19 pages of Silk Road history were close to unreadable unless you know off-hand the geography of the region (using historical names like Sogdian and Transoxiana) and the history of those bits as well. I liked the discussions of how technology - including food tech, papermaking, etc. - were passed east and west. I just wish the book was twice as long, which is why I have Peter Golden's Central Asia in World History on hold at the library.
I've been resisting Michael Chabon for years, bc someone I knew used to press copies of Kavalier & Clay on anybody who came near. However, I think The Final Solution is BETTER than anything Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, bc Chabon is more consciously a better writer. It's also a very clever novella that carefully lays out a story in which the old detective has much of his cleverness but little of his vigorousness. I second Julian's recommendation, even if my friend the RN points out that heroin addicts don't live into their 80s.
I've never gotten around to reading any of Tom Wolfe's books, even though one of the most interesting people I know lurves his books, but felt I had to go when I learned he was speaking at the Manhattan Institute. It was ok. Wolfe needed a little bit for his brain to speed up enough to be interesting; his interviewer spoiled many of the books while gushing about them; and he turns out to be more reactionary than even this Fred Thompson voter feels comfortable with. OTOH, he's a Southern gent who talks about tailoring, so he hits several of my fetishes; surely he's written something I'll enjoy.