Dead Trees: A Book List for 2008 (Update VIII)

Books are men of higher stature;
the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.
~ E.S. Barrett ~

This is my compilation of Dead Trees for the year 2008. The books I’ve finished reading this year. This is a follow up to my previous post, Dead Trees: A Book List for 2007. Hopefully I’ll get more reading done this year, seems there’s never enough time.

Update VIII : December 30th 2008

The Book of Fail

Well kinda. The 3rd part of the year has been such a fraking circus (and I mean that on so many levels) that I sort of dropped on my reading. I moved back to Canada, dropped out of my contract. Almost lost my job because of the global financial crisis, pulled all my resources and got another mandate which qualifies as a major upgrade for my career, yada yada yada and well I should be back to reading soon.

Update VII : July 24th 2008

Letter to a Christian Nation (Vintage)

by Sam Harris

“I dare you to read this book…it will not leave you unchanged. Read it if it is the last thing you do.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion

And I did and so should you. It’s a smart short and lethal blow to organized religion in America. It’s another rock solid argument on why religious faith is a clear and present danger to civilization and what I retained the most from this book is this. Religion ends where intellectual honesty begins.

Update VI : July 14th 2008

Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry

by Ian Stewart

A crash course in Mathematical history focusing on symmetry told by a mathematician with an actual sense of humor and an ability to make all the in depth historical tidbits very interesting. A must read for all geeks.

Update V : April 3rd 2008

The Bush Tragedy
by Jacob Weisberg

An amazingly centrist look at the failure of the 43rd presidency of George W. Bush. The book explains how Junior is just a broken man trying to desperately prove that he’s better than the expectations set upon him, better than 41, Dad and that his presidency’s failures weren’t all his, but his closest allies personal agendas that also interfered. I came in thinking Dubya was just a dumbshit and I came out thinking he was a dumbshit still, but now I understand why.

On a sadder note, the book is written by the editor of Slate and was also revised by other editors and contained an inexcusable amount of typos, misspelled and even undeleted words that had escaped the editors’ eyes. So interesting, still a 4 outta 5

Update IV : February 21st 2008

Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit
by Laura Penny

This book could have easily been called “The Leftist Primer” because it is a compilation of effortlessly accessible information using Google and to anyone who keeps up in the news. The author seems to aim for Naomi Klein depth hybridized with Michael Moore’s dry sardonic wit. Though she succeeds at times, she cannot reach the heights of either. Klein’s books are far to researched and Moore’s humour is tainted by his experience. The book is worth the read if only for the recap of current events.

Update III : February 12th 2008

Le Cirque du Soleil: La creation d’un spectacle : Saltimbanco (Les cahiers du Centre de recherche en litterature quebecoise de l’Universite Laval)
by Julie Boudreault

This book was obviously written by a first time author with the amount of “I” statements when the subject matter does not concern the author. But what most irritated me was that in the preface of the book the author complains of the lack of books written on the Cirque du Soleil and then proceeds with the most pedantic wordsmithing I’ve witnessed since reading Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, making her book barely accessible to the lay-person. Also the book lacks depth in depicting the creative process of Saltimbanco since as an intern she was not permitted to assist in those meetings.

It was funny reading about people I now work with and the tour on which I work.

Update II : February 6th 2008

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things
by Barry Glassner

A mind-opening book into the culture of fear, a culture that is fed by power-hungry politicians, greedy editors and lazy journalist, and advocacy groups lobbying for your mindshare through mongering. Some chapters were so shatering in reorienting my perspective on certain issues that I had to put the book down as I let the information re-write everything. It was a strong , very strong book, which oddly I thought was too accessibly written at first.

5 mindwarps out of 5.

Update I : January 7th 2008

The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition–with a new Introduction by the Author
by Richard Dawkins

It’s Richard Dawkins. Can we just give him 5 stars right away? A challenging book to read that makes you re-evaluate many things you thought you understood but you didn’t about biology and evolution and the human species. While Dawkins doesn’t have the poetic flair that Carl Sagan, he remains extremely captivating with every little bit of information he reveals.