Category: Uncategorized

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 neglected to blog in 2009 may get a single wrap-up post in the new year, and then I’ll reconsider my policy of capturing my major media consumption. Creating rather than consuming matters to me, but I want this blog to be fun to write again, not a duty. And I want to think about things beyond books and movies. I do, but you wouldn’t know it from what’s here recently.

Happy New Year a bit early. Here’s to an engaging Twenty10.

(This is the last post of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

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 hints of the delicious fun of The Firm and others, but not quite there. I suppose the best part is that Grisham keeps writing, and isn’t paralyzed by trying to match some of his early success.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

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 Donovan finding a way to play the game and put the previous year — with all its now-public dirty laundry — behind them. True professionals, after all.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

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 audio books I’d prefer to catch up with, but actual physical CDs are hard to beat in the cars I drive.

Still, I would not go out of my way to listen to W.E.B Griffin again.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

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 necessary — or it may mislead, but it’s 100% real.

Lehrer writes differently from Malcom Gladwell (to Lehrer’s credit), but this kind of science survey falls firmly into the same genre. I’m quite sure every publisher has an eye out for similar work. A Lehrer strength, I found, is that he’s stayed in the same area of neuroscience and its implications for several articles and books. How We Decide illuminates one area of the study of the mind, both biological foundations and real-world actions. But there’s plenty of other tacks to take, and Lehrer’s demonstrated fascination should lead to more shared insights. I’ll be following his blog from now on.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

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. I read the paperback mid-year, after the New Yorker article which walked through different models for national health care. This topic won’t go away, so I hope Gawande keeps chiming in.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

Until this summer, I never picked up any of the “50 million copies in print” of W.E.B. Griffin’s novels. In Danger’s Path is one of The Corps series, and the American military in World War II is able to get some people and radios into the deserts of China. There’s a lot along the way, but honestly, I finished this one (on August 15th) only because I’m stubborn about finishing books I start.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

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 don’t want to make the mistake of reading this one again. A weak James Bond wannabe tale, Pirate doesn’t have much beyond the clichés. Oh well. I won’t pick up any of Bell’s other single-word titles.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was Cory Doctorow’s first novel. More famous (to me) for being given away for free in many digital formats, Down and Out appeared to me in physical form, as a paperback I picked up off a neighborhood book table this fall.

Imaginative story, more of a novella than a novel, this story — like most science fiction — depends on its readers being willing to extrapolate in a few different ways from where we are today. In a down economy, we can only dream of a world where Whuffie (akin to egoboo) is the scorecard instead of money and material needs. Doctorow’s world is that dream, but he demonstrates it’s not all pleasant musing. A reasonable read, if not a classic.

(This is part of my end-of-the-year rush to capture my major media consumption before the year actually comes to a close.)

Sitting on the shelf at a quiet moment this summer, Assembling California by John McPhee beckoned once again. (My first read was before I started clock.) McPhee’s quiet, steady gaze at a topic feeds a similar curiosity in the reader, even about topics previously unconsidered. This story is how California arrived at its current physical state, through plate tectonics and other geologic theories writ large.

McPhee’s “drive” through the geology of Route 80 is one I’ve made many times, in both directions. Having his eyes on the side of the road, where mine rarely stray, teases out the cause and effect in a process moving too slowly to witness. Because McPhee knows that people may be more engaging than rocks (!), we learn much about Eldridge Moores, the geologist who guides the author and readers through the evidence and the evolving story of what the rocks tell us about the state’s formation. The impact of the earthquake isn’t forgotten, but it’s just the surface expression of the larger forces, however important the “surface” is to those of us living in harm’s way.

On the physical book

The front of the hardcover, beneath the dust-jacket, carries an indelible outline image. This filled lined drawing demonstrates the coastal range, the pool-table flatness of the Central Valley, and the jutting slab of the Sierra Nevada — all in almost iconic form. But it’s not the dust-jacket image so easily found on McPhee’s website or in every other presentation of the book, so it’s not as well-known as it should be. If I had a scanner here, I’d add it.

The frontispiece, I notice this morning, crops from Raven Maps: Landform and Drainage of the 48 States. I own their large map of California, but not this starker, broader representation. I recommend their maps to anyone, and have given some as gifts.