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Longer and brighter days that come with Spring and Summer months have always driven an increase in my reading time. Something about reading in natural light makes the experience imminently more enjoyable for me, while the inverse, reading via artificial light, often sees me drift off to sleep. This year is no different, and accordingly I’ve had a chance to consume several fine texts over the last few weeks.
Tipping Point
Tipping point authored by Malcolm Gladwell, discusses the seemingly biological nature of modern society’s trends, which is a great dose of non-fiction that’s extremely relevant to modern life. The concepts and hypothesis laid down in Tipping Point are very well suited to the trends we see on the internet, where a web 2.0 service like YouTube can be an interesting gimmick one day, and a foundation of digital zeitgeist the next.
The Culture Novels
My counter balance to the deep, yet somewhat dry discussion of Tipping Point has been a pair of novels by Iain M. Banks, which concerns his fictional space fairing society known as “The Culture”. So far the biggest draw for me has been Banks’ postulations on the integration of Artificial Intelligence into not only our everyday lives, but also our society. In essence, once a device built by “The Culture” exceeds a certain amount of complexity or capacity, it is granted sentience, and therefore is allowed all the liberties and rights of a biologically sentient being. Essentially Banks envisions AI that could inhabit something as vast as a planetary network, or something as narrow as an environment suit that allows a human to expose themselves to the crushing pressures of a gas giant like Jupiter. In a culture novel though, each of those AIs would have every right to quit their job or position, and set off on their own to, I don’t know, open a coffee shop or something. It’s a fascinating idea of the roll that AIs will play, and even draws parallels to the civil rights movement here in the US.
I highly recommend Tipping Point, and thus far, any of the Iain M. Banks culture novels. What else are crashnauts around the web reading?
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I’ve probably mentioned these before, but I haven’t gotten any new books since I started giving my paychecks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
(Please imagine me on the set of Reading Rainbow)
I like Bret Easton Ellis. He’s funny and sick. His book American Psycho is about a yuppie without a soul. This yuppie likes to kill people, because killing people is funny. So if you’re looking for a good laugh, and lots of bloodshed, look no further than “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis.
Also our favorite Head Nerd, Neal Stephenson has a wonderful trilogy out called the Baroque Cycle. It’s about (drumroll)… Money and… science. A description beyond that escapes me, but it does feature a large part of Isaac Newton’s life, as well as a cameo by the Sun King Louis 14. Also if you’ve never read Snow Crash… you’re weird. A bit of trivia, his webpage is http://www.nealstephenson.com and it’s gray and crappy.
Pretty much anything by David Sedaris will suffice for a quick read. Me Talk Pretty One Day is my favorite of the bunch. His Santaland Diaries are aging, but still fresh, even in the summer heat. For those of you who don’t know, he is the sister of that weird woman who played the really weird woman on Strangers with Candy.
Finally you might not have been paying attention, Stephen King finished his Dark Tower series with the most predictable ending ever. Sorry if that wrecks it for you.
Feel free to send me books, I’ll read them and let you know how crappy they were.
Did you finish the whole Baroque cycle Skettibot? I liked Quicksilver, but sometimes I just want to punch Stephenson in the face as I scream GET TO THE @#$%& POINT!
I miss reading novels, lately I’ve only found time time to skim read text-books, which often leaves me falling asleep after a few chapters.
Did you ever read ‘The Wasp Factory’? That’s always been one of my favorites. Ian banks without the ‘m’ at his most sadistic.
I’d definitely recommend anyone read Will Christopher Baer - his first novel ‘Kiss me, Judas’ is a real treat., the story reads like a graphic novel.
I have ‘me talk pretty one day’ on itunes if you want to grab it tomorrow.
I only just remembered ‘The Dark Tower’ yesterday as I perused my bookshelf, I only got into book 3 before deciding to wait a while until the series was complete. I hope the ending is not as predictable as all that, that would suck.
So far this summer I’ve read a couple of non-fiction books that I can heartily recommend and I’m currently deep into some 19th century Russian literature.
Bad News by Tom Fenton
* Former CBS news correspondent Tom Fenton takes on the increasingly poor foreign news coverage that we have access to in America. Very interesting interviews with broadcast network heads, anchors and others to determine why it has gotten so bad and if there is any chance it will get better.
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
* Economics whiz Steven Levitt joins forces with New York Times reporter Stephen Dubner to apply the powers of economics in an attempt to understand the world around us. He studies issues such as “Did Roe v. Wade end the crime wave of the 1990’s?” “Which is more dangerous to children, guns or swimming pools?” and “Does standardized testing entice teachers to cheat?” among others. It’s a fascinating read and is sure to make you think about the world differently.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
* “The best novel of all time” according to Sigmund Freud, The Brothers Karamazov is a story of three brothers in 19th century Russia that become implicated in the murder of their father. Many literary experts believe that Dostoyevsky used the three brothers to paint the different ideologies that Russia was struggling with at the time. It’s Dostoyevsky’s last novel before his death and widely believed to be his greatest.
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