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Diffstat (limited to 'books')
| -rw-r--r-- | books/2019.page | 168 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | books/2020.page | 33 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | books/to-read.page | 14 |
3 files changed, 211 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/books/2019.page b/books/2019.page new file mode 100644 index 0000000..762e1bf --- /dev/null +++ b/books/2019.page @@ -0,0 +1,168 @@ + +Cataloging The World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age, by Alex Wright +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +> The huge mass of published material grows by the day, by the hour, in +> amounts that are disconcerting and sometimes maddening. Like water falling +> from the sky, it can either cause flooding or beneficial irrigation + +I loved this book! + +Notes while reading: + +- "Biblion" as a unit of writing (and knowledge). +- Embodied Cognition + + +Singlularity Sky, by Charlie Stross +-------------------------------------- + +Had I really not read this? Maybe and forgot. Such strong optimism for info +maximalism and info-structures. Characters and writing meh; mostly interesting +for the taste of period (cyber)idiology. + +Overall, standard 90s singularity/space-opera genre fare. + + +Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch (2016) +-------------------------------------- + +Simple book, pretty well executed. Read like a film script, or a TV episode, +but with more twists. I liked the last quarter; much of the early exposition +was very slow and predictable. Good balance of fine details while glossing over +some hard physics which could have been an over-reach. + + +Oranges, by John McPhee +--------------------------- + +Ate so many oranges after reading this. Cara Caras are great, but had some +incredibly juicy flavorful oranges with Lucy at the kitchen table that now are +driving me mad that I can't remember the type. Changed my standards a lot: many +navels are great, many other easy-to-peel don't actually have much flavor. + +Orangeries! Florida! + +I like the small bit of 4th wall that McPhee breaks. + + +The World of Edena, by Moebius +---------------------------------- + +Always such a feeling of boundless creative universe with Moebius; could just +go on forever. Feels dated in a sometimes uncomfortable way (lots of naked +ladies), but also fresh and humanist. + + +The City and The City, by China Meville +----------------------------------------- + +For whatever reason I was skeptical going in... too popular? Too heavy-handed a +gimick? But liked it immediately, both the structure and the +characters/exposition. Not super happy with the resolution of the mystery, but +very happy with how the character arcs ended. + + +Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (2015-2017) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +Oof, I binge-read this trilogy (**The Fifth Season**, **The Obelisk Gate**, and +**The Stone Sky** in one week, which wasn't particularly healthy, and wasn't +mindful or thoughtful. + +The books were tightly written and well paced. I mostly liked the characters, +but the "world building" and exposition felt like the real show here. The mix +of magical realism and sci-fi worked surprisingly well to me, though I think I +prefered the fuzzy-but-hard science of Anathem (by N. Stephenson) more. +Surprised how fascinated in the "orogenes" power/curse I was. + +Overall well written and different. During and after I keep thinking of this as +young-adult or genre entertainment reading; there's more to it than that, but +also less than more traditional adult literature. + + +Energy by Richard Rhodes (201?) +-------------------------------- + +After "Making of the Atomic Bomb", a bit of a narrative disapointment, though +it is just a different sort of book. Felt like a series of snapshots, none deep +enough to feel like I really understood the course and pressures that lead to +success of different energy technologies. + +An over-arching theme was that ideas were had well before acceptance; it was +often a combination of small technical polish *and* external economic or +political changes that led to a new source being adopted. + +Narrative of coal, steam engine, and trains being intertwined was interesting: +coal nominally being used as a heating source, but required engines for +economical mining and transport; the engines themselves requiring cheap coal to +be worth developing. And along the way land-use regulation being a blocker. + +Surprising to hear how much the negative health impacts of fossil fuels were +known from the begining, and how bad the (local) environmental impacts were. +The global impact gets so much more attention today. The period belief from the +start that oil and coal reserves would run out. How poor Saudi Arabia was, and +how narrowly the kingdom survived by oil exploration taking off at just the +right moment. + +Part of what makes Niagra such a great power location is that the lake it +drains is a huge buffer of stored water (thus energy), and the flow rate can be +controlled at will (no flooding). More than a year of reserve water at full +full (including the fact that water level would be decreasing). + +Didn't know that religious minorities on Nantucket partially moved back to +Europe at some point to continue to pursue whaling. + + +Roadside Picnic +------------------ + +Oh, I really loved this. Very Russian. Explains "Stalker" the same way "2001: A +Space Odessy" makes sense if you read the script/narration. + +The informal/intimate stalkers against the official/institutional scientists +were so spot-on. This pattern doesn't always hold in sci/tech world, but it is +pretty common. + + +Devil and the White City by Eric Larson +------------------------------------------- + +Decent, easy flight reading. Focus on the serial killer thread is of course +only on the principle actors, but in the case of the fair, the focus on a +handful of leaders and planners was less compelling. + +The scale of the Fair as a singular and super-human event really comes through. +Will this sort of economic activity and make-work become more popular during +late capitalism? Or post-scarcity? I continue to be perplexed why the scale of +architecture gets less ambitious as society becomes more technically powerful; +was it really dependent on economic inequality and exploitation of labor? Don't +we have that again today? + +The background of economic recession, homelessness, and desparation against the +robber barons funding and directing the World's Faire seemed like the real +story and didn't get much coverage in depth. + +Combined with "Cadillac Desert", paints a story of agricultural development of +the American mid-west as an economic and policy tragedy of the same +incompetence as Soviet/Mao-ist economic planning, though of course far less of +a tragedy in the end as most were able to survive and freely relocated. + + +The Overstory by Richard Powers +-------------------------------- + +Decent, not spectacular. Most of the individual story threads would not have +stood well on their own. The tree protectors were the most compelling to me: +the aimless artist with a family flipbook of great tree growth, and the +near-death college dropout. The various endings are pretty dramatic. + +Had echos of "The Wizard and the Prophet". + + +Gandhi +---------- + +Easy read; very basic introduction to the person and this period in history. +Read because even this much I did not know! + diff --git a/books/2020.page b/books/2020.page new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16a321f --- /dev/null +++ b/books/2020.page @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ + + +Tai Pan +======== + + +The Nobel House +================= + + +Patience and Fortitude +======================== + + +Looking For a Ship +===================== + + +Edition of One (Eugene Powers, University Microfilms) +========================================================= + +WWII; intelligence work. + +ARL meeting sealed fate as sole provider of dissertation publishing in USA. + +Regant of U. Michigan. + + +The Moon is a Harsh Mistress +================================ + +Decent. + diff --git a/books/to-read.page b/books/to-read.page index c8b5f3c..72cc4ff 100644 --- a/books/to-read.page +++ b/books/to-read.page @@ -10,9 +10,9 @@ Novels * The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen * The Magic Mountain, thomas mann * Grapes of Wrath -* The Illuminatus! Trilogy * The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen -* Red Plenty (historical fiction) +* Midnght's Children by Rushdie +* Big Sur by Jack Kerouac Old Classics: @@ -29,6 +29,8 @@ Science/Tech * War in the Age of Intelligent Machines by Manuel De Landa * Nonlinear Time Series Analysis, Holger Kantz Thomas Schreiber * Field Notes on Science & Nature +* The Nature of Mathematical Modeling +* Spacetime and Geometry by Sean Carroll Philosophy =============== @@ -44,9 +46,12 @@ Philosophy History and Politics ======================= +* Origins of Totalitarianism by Arendt +* Swaraj, Gandhi * Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke * The Art of Intelligence by Henry Crumpton (CIA history) * The Conscience of a Conservative "by" Barry Goldwater +* The City in History by Lewis Mumfordk Chinese History: @@ -58,5 +63,6 @@ Other Non-Fiction ===================== * Looking for a Ship, John McPhee (merchant marine) -* Uncommon Carriers, John McPhee (shipping) -* The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes +* The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding +* The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan +* A Sand Country Almanac by Aldo Leopold |