Year: 2009
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Book: Pirate
I should be ashamed to admit that I read Ted Bell’s Pirate. And I am, mildly. Still, I bounce around in my reading, and candy has its place among the food groups, too (or something like that). If I’m going to record the books I’ve read, I want to capture all of it. I certainly…
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Book: The Devil in the White City
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson lay around the house for years before I read it this summer. The subtitle “Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America” underlines the book’s strength and weakness. Larson is telling two stories, and I found his weaving a bit crude and forced. The…
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Book: Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance
Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande displays the same quiet curiosity and caring that carry his writing in the New Yorker. When health care stays top of mind, it’s pleasant and reassuring to have some honesty about the ways we can improve and which problems really are hard for us to solve.…
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Book: How We Decide
Deflating the myth of rational choice, Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide runs through the research about decision-making and decisions, and comes out with the perhaps refreshing news that we go with our gut feelings most of the time. Depending on the type of decision we’re making, that emotional tilt may be helpful — or even…
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Book: The Hostage
While I panned In Danger’s Path, I enjoyed The Hostage from W.E.B. Griffin for one reason: I listened to it. As an unabridged audiobook which doesn’t demand much attention, nor require a constant memory of the previous character “development,” The Hostage swallowed many boring driving hours for me this summer and fall. I have other…
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Book: The Beckham Experiment
I read the excerpt of Grant Wahl’s article in Sports Illustrated first. After that appetizer, I was grateful to my brother for providing the full book of The Beckham Experiment. Not much to add here, so many months after the fact, except that I’m amazed the Galaxy played so well this season, with Beckham and…
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Book: The Associate
Another one from my brother, The Associate by John Grisham, doesn’t stick in my mind at all. I know I read it this summer, but until I dug up the website right now, I didn’t remember a fraction of the story. Now that I’ve refreshed my memory, well, it’s an airplane book, with a few…
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Last two books of 2009
There are two more books I read in 2009, but I’m not going to record them tonight. Soldiers of Reason, a history of the RAND Corporation, and The Contractor, a spy novel, were both library pickups, and interesting in different ways, but I’ll give them their own posts soon. The many movies I saw but…
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Book: Eastern Standard Tribe
Another Doctorow paperback pickup, Eastern Standard Tribe thrilled me more than his earlier novel. With a simple yet imaginative idea, Doctorow makes corporate espionage seem like a new story. The concept — that allegiances and tastes run by time zone, not nation-state — is presented as fact, not explained…which is for the best. Just set…
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Book: Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?
This business book was a freebie, and I got little more than what I paid for it. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing just isn’t new stuff after a decade-plus of different people (notably Seth Godin) telling us how marketing is changing. I suppose the lessons and anecdotes presented…