write about reading

The Elegance of the Hedgehog. A nice ‘this is water’ message told by dual narrators who caused varying degrees of irritation to me as a reader. But ultimately, the message was a lovely one. Although I disagree with decision to end the book the way it was ended. Well, perhaps not the way it ended, but to me, in hindsight, the beauty of the penultimate scenes felt like an easy emotional trick.

Now, for something lighter, I’ve picked up This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust. Also, as his name has kept coming up in my life, I’m reading a biography of Frederick Law Olmstead by Witold Rybcznski. I also bought some more books during my last trip to Boston (from Rodney’s, Harvard Bookstore, Raven).

The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time. I’ve never been a huge sci-fi or fantasy reader, and have normally stayed away from ‘elf fiction’, but I’m halfway through this book and am impressed by the depth of it and the lyrical prose.

Recently I’ve finished The Best American Non-Required Reading anthology for 2008 and The Drowning Pool by John MacDonald, one of his Lew Archer books of 2nd generation L.A. noir. The anthology was amazing, and MacDonald’s writing has always delighted me.

Holldobler and Wilson’s new one The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies

and

The Best American Non-required Reading anthology for 2008.

I also scooped up my copy of Grossman’s translation of Don Quixote to bring back to the lodger’s digs.

Problem now is that I’m actively reading at least 5 books.

I have more new books.

Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” off of the free-books bookshelf at work.

“Trumpets of Jubilee” by Constance Rourke (A collection of long-form essay biographies of 19th century Americans – Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lyman Beecher, Horace Greeley, and P.T. Barnum.)

“Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier

“Experiencing Architecture” by Steen Eiler Rasmussen

“The Bird Biographies of W.H. Hudson”

I don’t think I can stop buying books.

And guess who I bought presents for at the bookstore?

_{Yes. Myself.}

In my defense, I did look for presents for other people on my list, but the books were nowhere to be found. And I didn’t want to get frustrated, so I abandoned the search early on. This gave me plenty of time to find the new translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and a copy of Godel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Also in my defense, there were many other books I could have bought.

as a interaction designer I tend to read oddball books about design and typography. This is from “Compendium for Literates: A System of Writing” by Karl Gerstner. It was written in 1970, (forgive the gender-biased pronouns) but still rings somewhat true today.

“Like Marshall McLuhan I believe in the electronic age,
but I see a slightly different version.
In my mind’s eye I see a future in which every man is free,
in which he has an option on any information he chooses.
For one thing, he would in this way be saved the trouble
of storing in his brain technical knowledge (knowing more and more about less and less),
and therefore free to make creative use of his thought.
For another he would be exempt from the compulsion to be a communications consumer
by a few public or private undertakings;
and thus be free to make creative use of his leisure.”

but not much more.

Replacement Monkey.

The form, a highly-chiseled story summary, is inspiring.

Bought another book.

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren and the complete stories of Eudora Welty right now, but that didn’t stop me from visiting my independent bookstore today and buying more books to add to my TBR pile.

Today’s guilty acquisitions: The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor; The Education of Henry Adams, and a lovely little collection of John Berryman poems.