The Idiot Board Readers Corner - General Discussion

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Just finished Irvine Welsh's If You Liked School, You'll love work. Four short stories and a novella to finish it off. Not his tour de force, but entertaining, and easy to read. I'm always impressed when reading him at his ability to nail dialects, whether it's a southern drawl, Scottish whatnot, or valley girl.

Thinking of starting the trilogy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Anyone here recommend it?

 

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Purple Cow by Seth Godin. If you have an interest in marketing or business this is a good, quick read. He basically says that the days of spending money on TV advertising to generate revenue are over and you have to be remarkable at whatever it is you do. It was written in 2002, so some of the internet examples he mentions are outdated, but he presents good ideas in a unique way. You could also read this as an introduction to marketing, because he talks about strategies, fast-adopters, and basic concepts, but he uses his own vocabulary for some of it.
Thank God for the Atomic Bomb Paul Fussel. This is a collection of essays and articles written by Fussel over the years, mostly dealing with World War 2. I picked it up, thinking it would be similar to other collections I've read. It's not. Fussel has a unique voice, and you'll be able to tell by the end of the first article if you're willing to continue. Highly touted, but....meh.
The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. This book is physics written for philosophers. I am not very far into it, but it's enjoyable. It demands your attention or you find yourself lost. I have never re-read so much of a book because I suddenly didn't know what he was talking about. This, however, is not the author's fault (it's physics without math, which is difficult at best).

 

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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

I became aware of this book after randomly watching the trailer for the movie this morning on imdb. It was shortlisted fort the Booker Prize in 2005 and was written by the same guy who won the Booker in 1989 for The Remains of of the Day.

I found a copy of it online, started it immediately, read pretty much throughout the day and finished it about twenty minutes ago. This book was great. I was a little wary because it's written in female first person and I find that hard to connect with at times, but the book is crafted wonderfully. Ishiguro found a way to deal with heavy themes such as love, memory, and death without being overly sentimental or cliche. I'm half tempted to type out a whole bunch of lit major bullshit, but I'm not sure that anyone would care.

At the end of the day I was totally immersed in the story being told, the characters, and the world Ishiguro created.

9.5/10

 

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I never found length to be an issue when I was reading anything by Dumas. He does a fantastic job of building suspense, and I always get to a point where I have to force myself to put the book down so I can get other things done. You also have to consider that his novels where originally printed in magazines as serials. Can you imagine only being able to read a chapter a month? Actually now that I've thought about it, maybe I go pick up a three musketeers book, and try to do that.

 

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Well, its time that I get away from reading all this bullshit science fiction (Read: Star Wars EU novels) and get back into the habit of reading some diverse stuff, both fiction and non fiction.

Made a trip to B&N last night and picked up Happy Hour is for Amateurs, Freakonomics and The Tao of Pooh. Freakonomics is pretty popular from what I understand and I'm pretty sure most people around here have read PhilaLawyers book, so I probably won't say too much about those. I am interested in The Tao of Pooh though so I will probably pop back in when I'm done with it with some thoughts.

Also got onto Amazon.com today and ordered a few more things:
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - I've heard some pretty good things about Malcolm Gladwell and I'm interested to read all of his stuff, so I thought I would start at the beginning.
13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time - Always been a bit of a science nut and this one just caught my interest right off the bat so I'm looking forward to reading it.
The Wisdom of Crowds - One of my professors at SMU that I really respected suggested this book and I'm just now getting around to checking it out. From what I gather the overall premise of this book is explained with the quote "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." Human behavior and intelligence has always fascinated me, so I think this should be a good one.
The Modern Drunkard - This one is pretty obvious.

Those four should all arrive tomorrow and once I read them I'll come back and post some thoughts. I've got a couple more on my wishlist for later like Metamagical Themas by Douglas Hofstadter, I've really liked him since I read GEB (or at least tried to read it, I keep coming back to it and then moving on to something else). Also The Society of Mind and On Intelligence, as I mentioned before I have an interested in Intelligence, Both human and artificial, and human behavior, so I'm hoping those will be interesting reads.

And of course, I'm always looking for suggestions.

 

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I have been working an extremely boring third shift temp job, so have been reading a lot and figured now was as good a time as ever to contribute to the board.

Ender's Game and Gates of Fire were recommendations from the old board which I finally got around to reading, and both lived up to the hype. I was unsure of what to expect from Ender's Game, but once I started I couldn't put it down and finished it in a single night of neglecting work duties. If you are at all interested in Science Fiction, this got me excited about diving deeper into the genre. Gate's of Fire was just pure awesome. I read this on a flight home from Vegas and by the time I finished I wanted to start a riot on the plane. I can't think of any other book which was such an adrenaline rush.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! – This is an autobiographical collection of short stories about Richard Feynman. Although Feynman was an incredibly brilliant physicist, most of the stories don't really focus on science. He was obviously a passionate person, and talks about everything from the Manhattan Project to playing bongo drums in Brazil. His stories are often pretty funny, but also enlightening and in a way motivating. Very much recommended.

Cosmos – This is the book written by Carl Sagan, another physicist, based on the now famous PBS television series of the same name. Sagan discusses everything from the big bang, some history about past scientists like Kepler and Newton, to the possibility of intergalactic travel. Instead of focusing on the fine details, Sagan sticks to the big questions. The part that made this book so enjoyable was that you could almost feel Sagan's enthusiasm for the subject, and how much he wanted to share all this information with the world. This easily sits atop a short list of the best books I've ever read. Pick it up.

Like everyone else the next book on my list is The Moral Animal, which I am really excited to read because of all the praise it has been given around these parts. Also if anyone has some suggestions in the line of physics/astronomy, please suggest away.

 

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Superfreakanomics

This is the sequel to the first book. This one is more entertaining but it doesn't do such a great job of explaining the science behind the research as the first one did. It's still very interesting, full of historical examples (the history of the seatbelt, the history of hand-washing in hospitals, and the antique solutions to whale shortages and horse shit on the streets), and it makes you re-think some "givens" about our lives. I'd recommend it highly.

 

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That's curious; the biggest criticism my friends and I had of the first book was that it didn't show ANY of the supporting statistics or econometrics behind his conclusions and arguments. How can the sequel have less than zero? Anyways, sounds interesting enough to check out.

Focus

For fun, I decided to check out The Compleat Strategyst, an introduction to game theory for the layman. I had this book at home when I was 8-9 years old, and back then, was too young to comprehend it. Now, of course, it's way too simple, and lacks too much mathematics, but with all that said, it's still a good read.

It does an excellent job of building a conceptual framework, and being entertaining in the process. It's a work to popularize the subject among people who only know arithmetic as well as a good game theory primer. Worth a read for everyone.

 

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More Sex is Safer Sex by Steven E. Landsberg

I picked this up thinking it would be like Freakanomics. It's not. The author uses economic theory to make a ton of suggestions about social issues. For example, he suggests a program that would exchange used condoms for a reward of some kind to encourage use. This, in purely economic terms is viable, because it's creating incentives for use. But in real life, it has some insurmountable problems. Another example had to do with punishing juries for making bad decisions. Again, he's trying to alter the system of incentives to improve results. It just wouldn't work in the real world-who would become a juror if there is a chance your altruism (giving up your time to perform a civic duty) would result in punishment?

He does make some very good arguments about unpopular topics, like why we spend $200,000 to free a single kid trapped in a well and not a highway device that would save 10 lives a year for the same amount. He does implement some biological and evolutionary theory towards explaining our behavior. The chapter on altruistic giving was interesting (making a choice between giving $100 to CARE vs. Cancer Research), but on the whole it didn't change my outlook on donating money.

I got the sensation that the author used this book as a sort of collection of his arguments that he's had over these topics, as he constantly referred to "correspondents", "readers" and colleagues that have tried to disagree with him. Overall, pass. I won't be reading this twice, unlike most of the econ books I encounter.

The Dancing Wu Li Masters
This book is a good, math-free, model-intensive introduction to the modern era of physics. It's hard to follow at points, but on the whole I am very happy I read it. It does dip a little too often into the philosophical, but that made it a little more tolerable and philosophy is a lot easier to follow than sub-atomic physics.

 

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Generation Kill by Evan Wright

I watched the miniseries on HBO before reading this book. I highly recommend them both. Wright is allowed front-line access to the Marine's First division Marine Recon assault force in the invasion of Iraq. What this means is, when the Recon Marines (the elite Marines, along the same lines as Navy Seals, Army Rangers, etc) crossed into Iraq, they were carrying this reporter with them.

This book (and series) is a really good look at Iraq and the blitzkrieg style attack. Lone Survivor left a bad taste in my mouth, but this is a 100% no bullshit look at how modern warfare malfunctions, and it's not a pretty picture. It's a look at the Marines similar to Jarhead, it tells about miscommunication, unprofessional leadership, incompetence, misdirection, and nepotism in the chain of command. It details what could constitute war crimes, and the cloudiness of combat when it comes to identifying targets, occupation, civilian vs. military and how the PR gets consistently used against the men in uniform. It describes the incredible power, technology and indiscriminate force of artillery and air attacks brought to bear on the Iraqi populace. When he described a weapon's "lethal radius of 15 kilometers", he also mentions that half the cities he mentions are no more than 6 km across. I also enjoyed the portraits he painted of the Marines. Each new soldier is introduced by why he joined the Marines, where they came from and what their families are like. He illustrates their prejudices, philosophies, diversity and how they reconcile themselves to the atrocities they witnessed, and in some cases, caused. He turns them into characters, making the professional, humble soldiers into heroes and the ineffectual, reckless, or stereotypical leaders into antagonists.

Keep in mind, he doesn't necessarily maintain the perspective of what Recon Marines were intended to do ("fuck this place up."). There were a lot of tragedies in their actions, many of which the men believe will haunt them, but they were sent there to do the Iraqi people few favors. The Marines in this force demolished a military force, invaded a country and did so with maximum speed and minimum casualties. By all accounts, the invasion of Iraq was militarily successful, and astonishingly so. This book (and series) simply shows the costs of that success.

 

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The Stand: by Steven King

One of my goals this summer was to tackle some heavy, reading. You saw I already read Count of Monte Cristo, up next on my list was 1100 pages of Steven Kings masterpiece.

This was an amazing story about civilized life, turned into an epic battle of good and evil, that ended up being a tale of God vs. the Devil.

Spoiler

A so called "super-flu" is accidentally released by the government and it takes all of three weeks to wipe out the entire worlds population except about 1%.

The only flaw is the King goes way to in depth with character development. He will spend four pages on explaining a guy only to kill him on the fifth page. The person will also have no real part in the plot as well.

He does such an excellent job of creating this post appocolyptic world that you truly get lost in the book. It does a great job of stripping people down to the core and showing you what human beings really actually "need."

Heavy read, if you like Mr. King it's a MUST read.

8.25/10

 

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The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen. This book is fucking hilarious. The author gives almost no detail or background on the main character and contains the thoughts of the main character about his relationship and the women he encounters in every day situations. He is constantly on the look out for women and the opportunity to hook up with them. This book is a fun and easy read and alghouth it's a novel, it reads like a journal/memior. If you liked I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and/or Happy Hour is For Amateurs you will definitely like this book.

 

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I read most of the Ian Fleming James Bond books as a teenager, but decided to check out one that I ignored, but which is supposedly the best;

From Russia with Love

So far, so good. It has a more conventional, omniscient third person narration style than other Bond works, which are partially told from the first person. It starts out introducing us to the various SMERSH (a real-life Soviet anti-spy organization, disbanded after WW2, contrary to the book's premise) villains of the novel first, and only then switches to the protagonist.

Each of these baddies is interesting and menacing, with a solid backstory. It's a big improvement over some of the early Bond book, which concentrate too much on the minutia of the agent's life, actions, or history at the beginning. This is the fifth entry in Fleming's series (among fourteen total), and he really hits his stride here.

Nothing special or amazing here, but worth checking out if you want a decent, straightforward adventure story.

 

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Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Interesting book about ultra-running, running, happiness, and living differently. The book talks a bit about evolutionary biology and some theories behind why some people, in this case Tarahumara indians, have less incidence of cancer, heart disease and injuries than us gringos do. I don't know enough about evolutionary biology to know if what is said inside is true, but it is thought-provoking for sure. Definitely led me to think about my existence, and what it means to be happy with my own path and understanding of others. I'd highly recommend it if you're interested in running, biomechanics, weird diets and feats of endurance. It gets rather interesting after the first 100 pages or so. If anyone has read this book and has issues with it, I'm always interested in hearing about them.

Off to start The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee

 

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The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. This is the definitive book on Osama Bin Laden, the formation of Al-Quaeda and the fundamentalism of the Islamic faith. It's a very interesting book, giving personalities to bin Laden, his family, and the people behind not only the attacks but the adoption of fundamentalism in the Arab world. In a lot of ways, I am astounded by this book. Highly recommend.

 

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The Passage by Justin Cronin
I'd never heard of Justin Cronin before I picked up The Passage on a whim. I'm about 3/4ths of the way through the book and I can't put it down. It's a bleak/apocolyptic novel with a tinge of science fiction in there. I you liked reading I am Legend, or zombie movies even, chances are you will love this book. It does get a little bit jumpy moving forward in time with loose transitions, and at times is confusing telling the stories of different characters, but ultimately has been fantastic thus far.

 

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I'm partway through Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov now. I enjoyed Pale Fire an awful lot, so I decided to check out his most famous work. So far, I have been very impressed; Nabokov's characters are all very unorthodox, and have bizarre psychologies which most people would be unable to relate to.

Nabokov describes their senses and perceptions in a highly exciting and thoughtful manner, making it an interesting thing to follow and learn more about. It's outstandingly paced and has Nabokov's usual excellent language to go along with a magnificent story. It's considered a classic of world literature, and absolutely deserves that reputation.

 

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For others that haven't read the Millenium Trilogy, I would say they live up to the hype. Obviously opinions vary, but the characters are all 3-dimensional, and all are interesting. Both the male and female protagonists are very strong, especially the female ones. Lisbeth Salander is fucking awesome.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the most standalone book in the series. It's essentially a "locked-room" mystery where all the suspects are on a single island. It's a good book, but many would argue it pales in comparison to the next two, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The latter two are basically a single novel split in two, while Dragon Tattoo is its own story.

Plotting is very strong in every book. There are shortcomings with each work. People familiar with the genre (I'm not one of them) have said that it follows familiar tropes, and from what I've read, this is a valid complaint, especially with Dragon Tattoo. Some have said that Larsson is a closet misogynist; I think this is bullshit. Just because someone understands and can therefore write something convincingly doesn't make them what they write.

Long story short, I would strongly recommend all three of the books. Entertaining, well-written, solid.

 

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I've just started reading this and I'm about 100 pages in. Enjoying it immensely.
The tension is building up , characters are well developed and it seems like the kind of book that could very well be turned into a film.

 

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Just finished reading 70% of Orson Scott Card's stuff. Rereading, I should say. He seems to have a theme of highly intelligent kids, antagonistic siblings, and the future expanding past Earth.

Anyway, I just reread the Homecoming Saga, and the entire Ender ouvre.

Can anyone recommend anything in a similar vein?

Already read most of Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffery, not to mention the classic Sci-Fi authors like Aasimov, Bradbury, Heinlein... Also already read George R. R. Martin, Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, all of Tolkein, etc...