Month: May 2003

I went to the library last weekend to (finally) return my three overdue books, and I was able to pick up one more, quickly. It’s Katharine Graham’s Personal History, her Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography written in 1998. Since I read Halberstam’s The Powers That Be earlier this year, I’m interested in another perspective on the rise of The Washington Post. However, what really tipped the scale was an email exchange with someone about work. Peter A., a reader, suggested that I read this book for perspective on the early days of a successful media company. I can only hope that CNET Networks doesn’t need to lose money for a couple of decades first! (Not likely.) I’ve gotten started, and I can see it will be an interesting tale, both personally and professionally.

Fun for Benjamin, fun for Brooke, fun for me, and fun for Isabel (I hope). For Ben, Aunt Isabel is another active member of his audience. What’s he going to do when he has to share the stage with the new arrival in a few months? Anyway, she’s got him down in the yard weeding.

I want to read this quick Emerging Technology post later, especially because it has a link to the conference presentations.

Since reading the O’Brian biography, I’ve been of a mind to get back to the Aubrey-Maturin series. I had stopped with the fourth one, The Mauritius Command, a few years ago, simply because I didn’t have the next one in the series, Desolation Island. I’ve rectified that mistake, and I finished it on Wednesday.

I am glad I’ve dived back in. Even the font is deliberately of the period, at least in the W.W. Norton paperbacks here in the United States. The memorable part of the book’s tone is the consistency with which the author relies on the reader’s perceptiveness. So often, the characters say things baldly, without the leading adverbs and adjectives that are so often employed. It’s up to you, the reader, in the midst of a fine tale, to correctly interpret sarcasm, dissembling, and all the other subtexts going on. It’s especially pronounced in the back and forth between the lead characters, old friend Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey. Direct and potentially offensive comments elicit only casual response, reminding you of the depth of their friendship. I suppose it would be helpful to go get the book and find a few quotes to illustrate my words… certainly more fun to read O’Brian’s words than mine… but I’m not writing a book review, and it’s not worth my time to scan the book for a prime example. Just read it.