The Signal and The Noise

The Signal and The Noise
(Nate Silver, 15:54)
Bayesian deliciousness. Sharp exposition, with a highly reliable account of how to not be numbed by numbers.

Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius

(Marc Seifer,  22:17)

A blazing start, and an ending so painful it literally felt as if Tesla was driven to incarnate Dostoevsky's Underground Man. The biography covers a great deal of his creations, although never at a level of technicality that could deceive the reader into feeling they actually understand what his work accomplished. The most acutely embarrassing dimension of Tesla's life was his dependency upon JP Morgan, with whom he signed contracts giving 51% control over significant patents. Morgan came to the conclusion that Tesla was not a profit-engine (primarily because of his tendency to over-promise, but also because of his pretension to be able to completely overthrow Edison, in whom Morgan had substantial investment). Once that moment occurred, Tesla engaged in such futile behavior as to debase himself with the aim to guilt-trip Morgan, a man without the capacity for feeling guilt. The last third was very hard to finish, but somehow, I made it to the bitter end, when Tesla was living alone in the Hotel New Yorker, viewed by most who saw him as a mad man devoted solely to late night peregrinations and pigeon feeding. Sad in so many ways.

Gerhard Richter: Panorama: A Retrospective

(Achim Borchardt-Hume,  Nicholas Serota, Mark Godfrey, Gerhard Richter; 288pp)

Beautiful book, interesting life. Best quote: "A fresh start like that is a kind of ritual, with its own order, mixing the colours, finding the right hues, the smell, all these things foster the illusion that this is going to be a wonderful painting. And then that moment of defeat, when I see that it's just not working.  That's what's going to happen here. Tomorrow, I'll try again." (p16) Another revealing biographical detail (on p86) discussed art's "fascist longings" (Susan Sontag's term), and Richter's decision "not to treat his clouds like this, but only ever to realise paintings at a scale relating to individual viewers... shows Richter's resistance to this pull, and his commitment to working on the human scale."

Hallucinations

Hallucinations
(Oliver Sacks, 9:55)
A pleasure, although it's all but impossible for Sacks to cover new neurological ground. Instead of providing a completely new vista, Sacks writes quite personally about his own drug use, for example, in his open discussion of the dependency he developed for sleeping pills. The addiction triggered hallucinatory withdrawal reactions; although that's interesting, the acid trips that Ollie went in for while it was still legal (starting in '63) are even more fascinating. Sacks apparently tripped almost every weekend, while hanging out with people around Venice Beach.

Jpod

Jpod
(Douglas Coupland, 9 CDs)
Very funny, even though the meta-structural posturing occasionally bumps its own head. Also, the lists, which index long arcane category errors, is not well-suited to audio, since the mass on the page is presumably what Coupland was aiming for. The story focuses on a group of game design employees assigned to a cubicle pod because their last names all start with J. The book etches with great clarity the soul-sucking slow death that comes with doing "knowledge work" under bosses who have neither the knowledge nor interest to supervise with intelligence. Coupland's superb at formulating little maxims of humorous insight; my favorite: "Too much free time is certainly a monkey's paw in disguise, isn't it? Most of us can't handle a structureless life." (p175) I didn't object to the fact that the narrator collides with a hateable incarnation of the actual author, although I don't know that it tickled me either.

Cheever

Cheever
(Blake Bailey, 29:44)
I picked this up once I learned that Philip Roth had chosen Bailey to be his own biographer. I've read Cheever's stories, and I wasn't the target demographic. His life, a hot mess, is quite a thing to behold. The narcissism and loneliness he exuded, combined with his repressed homosexuality and alcoholism, give the biographer much to work with. He gave love to his young children, but in a selfish way that failed to connect deeply with their true persons. His prodigious verbal gifts are well captured in an anecdote from Yaddo, where someone thought he'd heard Cheever reading aloud from a book, and turned to see that it was just the man talking.

A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties

(Suze Rotolo, 384 pp)

Delightful, yet elusive, this book captures the moment when Dylan was becoming Dylan. There's subtle indications of who Ms. Rotolo herself was, but she's not a great writer, although it must be admitted she was an astonishing looker as she walked in the snow for that fateful album cover. 

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Sein Leben in Bildern und Texten

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Sein Leben in Bildern und Texten
Teutonic archive of many relevant biographical images, along with excerpts from letters, notebooks. I don't read German, so it's not as if I could parse the 2/3 of the text that was in  German. But the era when Wittgenstein was friends with Paul Ramsey, or exhorted Alan Turing to sit in his lectures, is abundantly documented with English notes.

Parallels: A Look at Twins

The essay at the start is not particularly trenchant, and since the book was published in the 1970s, there's scant likelihood that it's discussion isn't dated and ignorant of the field of behavioral genetics. What makes this book rewarding is the photos, with brief vignettes. I was reminded of Lonny Shavelson's classic, "I'm not crazy, I just lost my glasses." While the photos are not as memorable, this book still sheds light on the experience twins share.

Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future

Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future
(Peter Senge, 2 CDs)
I am vulnerable to tautologies wrapped up in a "systems" framework, so I'd never been sure whether the 5th Discipline was baloney or brilliant. Listening to (most of) these 2 CDs, where Senge just pulls things out of his butt, rambles about Heidegger, nature hikes, and all kinds of woo-woo now tilts the pinball machine. Whatever insight he had has been squandered by wealth and whatever publisher indulged in releasing this vacuity.

Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)

Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory
(Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, 4:49)
A rewarding set of lectures, which advance the claim that Jews, from the rabbinic period until well into modernity, had no particular interest in history, since they devoted themselves primarily to remembering the Torah and Talmud, rather than the incidentals of daily political life. Harold Bloom's introduction is typically inflated, but still manages to set the stage for this wonderful little book.

Beyond Good & Evil

Beyond Good & Evil
(Friedrich Nietzsche, 8:29)
Although I've almost unalloyedly favorable memories of this book, I didn't find the version of the text, with editorial commentary, to be anything but a hindrance. It was still possible to enjoy Friedrich's points. but I strongly disliked the interpolation of a commentator between each chapter.

Fire: The Spark That Ignited Human Evolution

Fire: The Spark That Ignited Human Evolution
(Frances Burton, 7;14)
Fairly interesting, although nowhere near as valuable as Wrangham's study of how cooking transformed hominids. Perhaps because it wasn't capable of riveting my attention, I found the book's organization rather haphazard. The final chapter recaps almost every major point made before. I did enjoy the concept of calling the crucial link between humans and near humans "the Ancestor."

The Crisis of Zionism

(Peter Beinart, 7:40)

This is a love letter to Israel, strained through the deep disappointment caused by Israel's post-1967 occupation of the West Bank. I agree with a great deal of the thinking, and definitely believe that Israel's current path fails to develop a promise for liberal democracy within Israel. It's a dark topic, and even though Beinart struggles intently to hold out a way forward, it's not an actual solution, so much as an ethically defensible vision. The author's deep connection to Judaism illuminates many of the topics. His best-scenario for overthrowing the Orthodox-dominated Israel lobby in the US depends fatally on removing barriers to school subsidies for religious schools. Beinart argues that since the Orthodox already fully participate in private schooling, the new supply liberated by state subsidies would of necessity be more liberal/open minded. I'm still not persuaded that the solution isn't worse than the problem. 

Joseph Anton: A Memoir

Joseph Anton: A Memoir
(Salman Rushdie, 27 hours)
I can't imagine that a Rushdie fan could come away from reading this without a sensible diminution of their admiration for the author. The flaws that he discloses are not fatal, but the tone and petulance with which he skirts responsibility is off-putting. I was luridly drawn into staring at the disclosures he offers, but found his personality quite irritating. As one of a number of examples, he mentions a spat with Martin Amis, where Amis argued that Dostoevsky could not be considered a good writer (an argument I myself have made, contaminated as I've been by Nabokov's Lectures on Literature.) At some point, Rushdie told Amis' wife to "Fuck off." Amis insisted he apologize, and Rushdie assented, on the condition that Amis never speak to him again. Pretty squalid, and for all that, SR dispatches the whole mess as due largely to stress (from the fatwa) and excessive wine. His first wife is cast as a pathological liar; the second wife he admits to having cheated on. As for Ms. Padma Lakshmi, she appears appallingly shallow, most interested in using Rushdie to advance her own fame, and resentful of his own star eclipsing hers. So, if you've ever succumbed to envy over the talents of a writer who won the Booker of Bookers (for the phenomenal Midnight's Children), this book is your antidote. Even the core of the book, rather than the gossippy fringes that I've mentioned, is not terribly attractive: Rushdie discusses living with constant security, but fails to show any growth in his depth of understanding, either with the world that's held hostage by Islamic fanatics, nor the security team assigned to protect him, nor to the others who come into tangential contact with his protection. As much as I champion his fight for freedom of expression, I can't recommend this book to anyone but haters who crave more concrete evidence of his flaws.

Mr Penumbra's 24 hour book store

Mr Penumbra's 24 hour book store
(Robin Sloan, 7:46)
An immensely rewarding intellectual bon-bon, wrapped around a broner for building 43 (Google's HQ), all of which is driven by a love for reading, and particularly, for the old fashioned books on paper. The book is a lot of fun, with many tangents that show savvy insight into Silivalley culture. One strand of the book is a paen to Dungeons & Dragons (and within that, part of the story explicitly shouts out to audible books on tape as a secret locale for extra information, notwithstanding the actuality that spoken books are almost always lossy compressions of books on paper.) One part of the story had not quite made sense to me, namely, that although the typeface Garamond is given an alternate name, "Gerritszoon." Since Google was not encrypted under some pseudonym, I was curious why "Gerritszoon" was. Sloan answered my question by tweeting that "I came up with "Gerritszoon" fairly early on and liked the sound of it." Highly recommended.

Ready Player One

Ready Player One
(Ernest Cline, stopped after 2 CDs)
Interesting premise: a multi-zillionaire, builder of the alternate reality game Oasis in which most people spend their lives and make their livelihoods in 2044, dies without an heir. He announces a quest, delivered in the form of an arty movie, exhorting all comers to uncover the ultimate Easter egg, and lay claim to his fortune. Because he grew up in the late '80s, his worldview is baked with the fluorescent orange cheese that characterized Kraft macaroni at that time. More particularly, his favorite TV programs, music, and video games all gets escalated to near-Talmudic levels of study. I was thinking the book was implausible in ignoring the possibility that guilds would crowd-source their way to an answer, but at the beginning of disc 2, just such collectives were given a nodding acknowledgement. I couldn't listen to this fast enough to ignore the infelicities and cliches, the imprecisions and loopholes. Still, I admire the fact that someone went to the effort to build a big bazaar around pop culture.

Arcadia

Arcadia
(Tom Stoppard, 2:46)
I'm an idea guy, but I often find that Tom Stoppard's work leaves me cold. I don't really need to have someone spoon feed me an approximation of chaos theory by mixing jam into cream. This was not very engaging, although I did esteem some of the cooler phrasings exchanged between characters. But on the whole, this is not my cup of tea.

Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories

Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories
(Etgar Keret, read by a host of hipsters, 5:02)

Delightful, astonishing, inventively written stories that pull at the threads of fantasy (a world exists where our lies are instantiated), while sustaining a vivid connection to reality. Early stories made me think of the films of Charlie Kauffman, but I could also say that Keret gives me as much pleasure as I recall experiencing with the most artful of Italo Calvino's tales. Readers include many of my favorite writers: Gary Shteyngart, Michael Chabon, David Eggers, Neal Stephenson, as well as Ira Glass, Willem Dafoe and more.

Pillars of the Earth

Pillars of the Earth
(Ken Follett, punted before finishing 1 CD)
I listened to the author foreward, and was slightly off-put by the earnest tone of Follett's account of devoting himself to this historical fiction. The language is dull, and when someone in the first chapter is referred to as being an old monk of 60 (in the 11th century CE), I realized that there was no likelihood that the author had built up anything like an accurate picture of the builders of monasteries.

People of the Book

People of the Book
(Geraldine Brooks, stopped after 1 CD)
Good topics, tedious and pedestrian execution

PALO ALTO REMEMBERED: STORIES FROM A CITY'S PAST

PALO ALTO REMEMBERED: STORIES FROM A CITY'S PAST 

(Matt Bowling, 208 pp)

Nice little local history. This book doesn't currently circulate from the Palo Alto library, but if you're willing to stand and page through it, there's quite a lot of ground covered. Definitely enjoyed seeing the Old Stick, or learning about the fights between the Maoist movement "Venceremos" and the 'pigs' in the early 1970s. One of the most surprising things I learned: Cubberly High School was closed in '79, because both Paly High & Gunn are on Stanford land, and would have reverted to Leland-land had either of those two been the one shuttered.

Life Itself: A Memoir

Life Itself: A Memoir
(Roger Ebert, 12 CDs)
Ebert's lived an enviable life, watching films, drinking hard, writing with vigor. His life, for the past 5 years, has been a harsh struggle with cancer that has caused him to lose his lower jaw. Yet, that occupies very little of the book, and instead, each discusses a theme or person (Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Gene Siskel, et al). The chapters occasionally become a little repetitive, culled as they seem to have been from his blog. If I found my interest starting to wobble, I'd just jump a track. This book was the first I've read in a very long time at the speed of spoken sound, straight from the CD, rather than bothering to go through a process of ripping into Audiobook Builder so I could play it as an AAC at double speed. My new process: play music into my left ear from my ipod, and listen to an audible book with the remaining fragments of my attention.

The Great Reset
(Richard Florida, 6:53)
Interesting, non-apocalyptic point of view on what's happening. Florida's favorite solution is Rapid Rail. As persuaded as I might be that the supercities could be great engines, alas, RR ain't likely to happen. So, the salvation will have to wend through some as yet unknown path.

Star Wars Light Sabers: A Guide to Weapons of the Force
(Pablo Hidalgo, 64pp)
This is the sort of ridiculosity that I have to troll through to connect to my kids, who are fascinated with "light savers" even though the only star wars I've consented to showing them is the fan version, Star Wars Uncut.

Power of Habit

Power of Habit
(Charles Duhigg, 10:38)
Sparked by his superb chapter excerpted in the NYT on Target's data mining, I bought this book from the author at a Habit Design Meetup held on 2/22. I chipped away, but didn't make it through this Gladwellian feast until I bought a 2nd copy on audible. Duhigg tells a great story. Only occasionally does he seem to be stretching the definition of 'habit' too far.

You are not a gadget

You are not a gadget
(Jaron Lanier, 7:40)
I've wanted to read this since this came out in 2010. I recently heard Lanier speak, and while he can't prevent himself from digressing on intellectual bon bons, his basic point is quite piercing: 15 years into the web, it's time to replace hope with some empiricism. And almost no one is making a living as a digital creator. Alas, his dystopia can only be averted if we embrace Ted Nelson's trans-splendification.

Lit
(Mary Karr, second half only, 5:49 out of 11:40)
Not as good as Liar's Club, but it's still moving to hear her read her poetically refined prose. The 2nd half jumped straight into the chapter where she starts recovery, meets DFW, and eventually dates him for a summer. Because she's 12-stepping, and eventually accepts baptism as a Catholic, there's a limit to how much "horse dukey" one can tolerate.

Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America
(Les Standiford, 11;02)
Loved this. Learned a lot of early labor history, and particularly came to appreciate the flinty form of Frick, the man who amassed so much great art. Homestead strike eventually left at least 30 dead, but the strikers intimidated the Pinkertons, only to have this amount to a Pyrrhic victory. Carnegie tried too hard to be liked, but none ever said that of Frick. Also learned that Charles Schwab, who ran the US Steel Corp, was no relation to the broker of the same name.

Payments Systems in the U.S.
(Carol Coye Benson & Scott Loftesness, 166pp)
Pretty interesting, esp'ly if you're the kind of person who wonders what happens to your excreta once you flush. Or in this case, make a payment.

This moment was the perfect teacher- Pema Chodron. Yet another great oral tradition, using the bummers in life to teach us to accept the bummers in life.

Age of Empathy - Frans de Waal. Not the most precise formulation of ideas, but the numerous anecdotes about primates and other animals made this worth the time.

Books read since December
Thinking, Fast & Slow - Kahneman (superb. DK is Fast, Amos was Slow) 2x
Alan Lomax - John Szwed (Amazing struggle)
10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage - Gottman (Usable info; not quite science. It struck me that the complainer in most dialogs was gendered female, even if the complaint was one I've myself voiced.)
The Social Animal - David Brooks (Absurd narrative device flattens time; boner for behavioral economics almost laughably targeted to my own little ego)
A billion wicked thoughts - Ogi Ogas (Only skimmed, but the darkened room experiment surprised me)
Design Sponge at Home - Grace Bonney (Tabbed many pages, full of interesting decorative ideas)
Whateverland - Alexis Stewart (Yuck. Can pretty people have uglier interiority?)
Adapt - Tim Harford (Lucid, interesting; still wish I knew more about encouraging experimental approach)
Too Big to Know - David Weinberger (1st chap is good, need to go all in)
Money - Martin Amis (Stunning)
Paying for it - Chester Brown (Even in prostitution, there is authentic feeling)
Reality is Broken - Jane McGonigal (Best book on games I've read)
What Technology Wants - Kevin Kelly (Huge scope, quite engaging. Could have been abridged by 1/3)