I am half way through "We the Media", by Dan Gillmor. It's a good read and it makes me think that I should be taking my blogging a little more seriously. The entire book is available for d/l free and it's licensed under a CC License. There is also a related blog.
I often censor my thoughts about politics and life when I post. After reading this book, I am considering being much more open about what I write about. Don't worry, this blog won't become a political screed, but perhaps I'll post a few more serious items from time to time, with a little less navel gazing.
Books: August 2004 Archives
I am currently not reading any books. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Here are some books that I think I should read at some point. Items with a star are books that would probably be good for me to read, and have been on my mental to-do list for some time. This is in no special order.
- A Fire Upon The Deep (Zones of Thought),Vernor Vinge
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss
- Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History,George Crile
- * Lolita, Vladamir Nabakov
- * Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
- * Wealth of Nations,Adam Smith
- * The Fedalist Papers, Hamilton, Jay, Madison
- * Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevski
- A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present, Howard Zinn
- Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Howard Rheingold
- The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, Dianna Ortiz
- * Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
- Nostromo Joseph Conrad
- Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman
- The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom
- * The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
- * To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
- The Soul Of A New Machine, Tracy Kidder
I finally got around to reading "The Da Vinci Code". I am just now reading it as I get to a point where I don't want to read the book because everyone else has. I even feel like the author has likely made enough money and I don't really want to contribute. I know it's wierd and snarky, but that's me.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it as a thriller, but was dissapointed in a few ways.
- I didn't enjoy the ending.
- I guessed the plot a few too many times. (Please go to the next painting/church/temple/gallery and stop discussing it ad naseum. The riddles were pretty obvious.I had the solution to the bank account number problem immediately.)
- I felt like certain items, like the development of the christian cannon, were dropped into the story without their full historical complexity. A person who doesn't know the full story could really have a skewed view of history.
