Wow- this looks like fun. I'm putting my lists together of what I've read, and I'll be posting them up here in sections.
The list-making is pretty fun, if a bit time-consuming. Posting in sections is a good idea, because otherwise the touchstones don't work very well. I wish I had posted mine in smaller sections.
Yeah, I noticed that as I started putting mine together. And, without further delay, here we go...
Just finished for 500:
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. This book is basically a social history of the history of science and technology. Bryson describes the history behind the major scientific discoveries from the Enlightenment to the present. He focuses on how scientists have come to understand significant natural processes, from volcanoes, to galaxies, to DNA. It's quite a long book (nearly 500 pages), but clearly written in Bryson's voice. As with Bryson's other books, he's interested in people and their experiences, so he brings much of the style and the humor of his travel books to bear on science. This book is best read as a chapter a day book- you won't want it to be the only book you have going, but it's most certainly funny and interesting.
It's interesting that two people in this group completed a Bill Bryson book for the challenge today!
I wonder what author has written books in the most categories?
>16
I don't know if it's true, but I remember hearing somewhere that
Isaac Asimov was the only writer to write a book in each of the ten categories.
Edit:
And that's apparently not true at all. Carry on. Nothing to see here.
Mensagem editada pelo autor, Ago 28, 2008, 2:22am.
I don't know if I'd say not true *at all*.... I think all but the 100s is still pretty good!
I have no idea who's written in the most categories, but I do know that
A Short History of Nearly Everything taught me that Bill Bryson is ridiculously versatile. The amount of science he had to learn to write that book was pretty astonishing.
Mensagem removida pelo autor.
070: Journalism, Publishing, Media
Wife in the North by
Judith O'ReillyThis book is actually a publication of O'Reilly's blog covering her move from London to the north of England. It's a funny, engaging memoir, and a very easy way to get a book in a category that's mostly reference books.
19>
The amount of science he would have had to learn to write that book, if all the science in the book were correct, would be moderately impressive.
However a lot of the science is flat wrong (he actually even vectors the old "glass flows" nonsense), and the book is much more usefully thought of as capsule biographies of scientists fleshed out with some half- or wrongly- remembered science tidbits. It's amusing enough, but don't trust everything in it.
302: Social Interaction
The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things by
Barry GlassnerThe basic point of this book is to show how the news media creates hysteria around things that are either not dangerous or so statistically unlikely to happen that they bear little thought. The most insidious of these media-created hysterias create and contribute to destructive prejudices, such as those against black men. Glassner argues that all of the attention paid to these pseudo-problems detracts from truly destructive social problems which, if solved, would truly benefit large numbers of people.
Overall, an interesting read, though I suspect that many people who are taking the time to read books about current issues (rather than watch Dateline 24-7) are probably already skeptical of much of the hysteria they see in the media. The book was written in 1999, so it's a bit dated now, but there's much that still resonates.
Ah, poor Dewey decimal challenge, I abandoned you for awhile while I was trying to get other challenges done at the end of the year, but I am now back, and have read:
179: Other Ethical Norms
Sloth by
Wendy Wasserstein. This book comes from the New York Public Library's Annual Lecture Series, which in 2002-3 focused on the seven deadly sins. Each sin was tackled by a particular author and published in book form. Wasserstein's meditation on sloth takes the form of a mock self-help book, sellng sloth as the solution to life's problems. It's rather funny, and the last chapter, on uber-sloths, is a poignant (thugh still funny) social critique.
641: Food and Drink
Tea: Essence of the Leaf by
Sara Slavin and
Karl Petzke- a basic primer covering how tea is grown, processed, prepared, and drunk. While nothing in the book was really news to me, the photographs were absolutely beautiful.
Wow- haven't posted here in awhile.
I've recently read:
553: Economic Geology-
Jewels: A Secret History by
Victoria Finlay - a very readable history of how various peoples have valued jewels. I quite enjoyed it.
(voltar ao começo)
