Started: Tuesday April 24
Finished: Saturday April 28
Pages: 431
Disappointing. I'm fond of V.I. Warshawski, but the ending on this one was lame. It reminded me of classic 1920s English detective fiction, where the detective calls everyone into the library to review the investigation, complete with a few revelations, in hopes of startling the prime suspect into a public confession. The "solution" was almost as convoluted and implausible too, even if Paretsky didn't quite resort to making the murderer the least likely suspect.
The problems don't end there. It would have been much more satisfying and topical to have her bad guys brought low by a Chicago version of the British phone hacking scandal of 2011. And appropriate too, given that V.I. is facing down members of a right wing media empire who seem suspiciously well-informed of her movements and seem likely to be hacking into her cell phone.
But overall I think the main issue is that the series is getting tired. V.I.'s sidekicks are a little old to be performing their normal supporting roles in her investigations. Would a Holocaust survivor like Lotty still really be doing surgery into her....at a rough guess, late 70s or 80s? Is it likely that anyone on the police force would still remember V.I.'s father given that V.I. is herself in her 50s? And let's not start in on her dogs, Peppy and Mitch, who at a conservative estimate are 22. I"m all for willing suspension of disbelief, but...author, baby, you've got to work with me.
Sara Paretsky: you've still got it. The story was gripping, the characters and situations interesting. But please, as much as we've all loved her, you have to stop writing about V.I. before all of the good memories are gone.
Sunday 29 April 2012
Monday 23 April 2012
Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger
Started: April 5th
Finished: April 22nd 2012
Pages: 260
Everything is Miscellaneous features the kind of writing about the internet that's been driving me away from reading writings about the internet since....oh, about 1993. You know the kind of thing. The INTERNET CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!! Everything internet is cooler and more revolutionary than anything invented anywhere anytime before, and everything non internet is....just hooey. (insert additional exclamation marks here if you like. I'm all out.) Ho hum. Sandy and I were forced to write a letter to As It Happens back during the 1997 election campaign to point out that political parties creating websites that were online versions of their party brochures ..... wasn't actually that significant. And the only reason the letter was written in the first place was that I was sick and tired of the "INTERNET CHANGES EVERYTHING" then already.
So, why am I reading an "INTERNET CHANGES EVERYTHING" book in 2012? Well, it didn't happen exactly on purpose.
One of my "resolutions" upon returning from Mexico was that I was going to give in and spend a bit more of my own time outside of work thinking about and reading about stuff that relates to my work. I've resisted in the past because it seemed like yet another intrusion of work into my personal time. But...I am interested in my work, and subjects relating to my work. So I decided to change my attitude and resist less.
So when Everything is Miscellaneous appeared as a must-read in an article from a professional organization and it was available from the library, I decided to give it a go.
The book does have a few core points that are interesting. People invent taxonomies to bring order to knowledge. Taxonomies help make sense of information by exposing important relationships between items. However, items can usefully exist in multiple taxonomies because there are many many possible inter-relationships between any two items. With digital copies, it's possible to add essentially unlimited amounts of metadata to any item, or even to treat the entire contents of a digital item as metadata in that you can categorize or search for an item by any element of its contents. These two properties potentially give end-users the power to create their own taxonomies, or for taxonomies to emerge from the collective action of large groups of users who individually tag the digital items. These "folksonomy" taxonomies can permit hitherto unsuspected relationships, or even purely personal relationships between items to become visible. This can be powerful and useful, and could permit users of information to derive new levels of meaning from data.
Okay, fine. But why did you have to spend most of the 260 pages at your disposal exclaiming that expertise was an obsolete concept, amongst other hyperbole? For example, as the creator of technical data with an interested but limited audience (currently at a career level high in the thousands or even tens of thousands), this is interesting, but not decisive. Jakob Neilson has found that perhaps 1% of users will be regular contributors to a site, and perhaps 9% more will contribute occasionally. The remaining 90% simply consume the content. Who do you think would do a better job of tagging this technical content so that it can be easily found and used by others: someone who has a pretty good idea of the overall scope of a particular subject area and the relative importance of its various parts, or a random collection of 10 people who happen to look at some subset of that information? I'd argue that for collections of information with audiences smaller than that of Wikipedia, and where the consequences of failure are larger than a failed Wiki search, expertise can definitely add value. But that would make me boring and obsolete, apparently. Because with the internet, expertise is obsolete. Unless it's contributed by someone on the internet, of course. :-)
Okay, enough already. An annoying book with a few kernels of interest. Now if only someone would explain to me why books about the internet feel compelled to present their ideas in simplistic and bombastic ways. I might enjoy reading a book about that.
Finished: April 22nd 2012
Pages: 260
Everything is Miscellaneous features the kind of writing about the internet that's been driving me away from reading writings about the internet since....oh, about 1993. You know the kind of thing. The INTERNET CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!! Everything internet is cooler and more revolutionary than anything invented anywhere anytime before, and everything non internet is....just hooey. (insert additional exclamation marks here if you like. I'm all out.) Ho hum. Sandy and I were forced to write a letter to As It Happens back during the 1997 election campaign to point out that political parties creating websites that were online versions of their party brochures ..... wasn't actually that significant. And the only reason the letter was written in the first place was that I was sick and tired of the "INTERNET CHANGES EVERYTHING" then already.
So, why am I reading an "INTERNET CHANGES EVERYTHING" book in 2012? Well, it didn't happen exactly on purpose.
One of my "resolutions" upon returning from Mexico was that I was going to give in and spend a bit more of my own time outside of work thinking about and reading about stuff that relates to my work. I've resisted in the past because it seemed like yet another intrusion of work into my personal time. But...I am interested in my work, and subjects relating to my work. So I decided to change my attitude and resist less.
So when Everything is Miscellaneous appeared as a must-read in an article from a professional organization and it was available from the library, I decided to give it a go.
The book does have a few core points that are interesting. People invent taxonomies to bring order to knowledge. Taxonomies help make sense of information by exposing important relationships between items. However, items can usefully exist in multiple taxonomies because there are many many possible inter-relationships between any two items. With digital copies, it's possible to add essentially unlimited amounts of metadata to any item, or even to treat the entire contents of a digital item as metadata in that you can categorize or search for an item by any element of its contents. These two properties potentially give end-users the power to create their own taxonomies, or for taxonomies to emerge from the collective action of large groups of users who individually tag the digital items. These "folksonomy" taxonomies can permit hitherto unsuspected relationships, or even purely personal relationships between items to become visible. This can be powerful and useful, and could permit users of information to derive new levels of meaning from data.
Okay, fine. But why did you have to spend most of the 260 pages at your disposal exclaiming that expertise was an obsolete concept, amongst other hyperbole? For example, as the creator of technical data with an interested but limited audience (currently at a career level high in the thousands or even tens of thousands), this is interesting, but not decisive. Jakob Neilson has found that perhaps 1% of users will be regular contributors to a site, and perhaps 9% more will contribute occasionally. The remaining 90% simply consume the content. Who do you think would do a better job of tagging this technical content so that it can be easily found and used by others: someone who has a pretty good idea of the overall scope of a particular subject area and the relative importance of its various parts, or a random collection of 10 people who happen to look at some subset of that information? I'd argue that for collections of information with audiences smaller than that of Wikipedia, and where the consequences of failure are larger than a failed Wiki search, expertise can definitely add value. But that would make me boring and obsolete, apparently. Because with the internet, expertise is obsolete. Unless it's contributed by someone on the internet, of course. :-)
Okay, enough already. An annoying book with a few kernels of interest. Now if only someone would explain to me why books about the internet feel compelled to present their ideas in simplistic and bombastic ways. I might enjoy reading a book about that.
Sunday 22 April 2012
Great Houses of England and Wales by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd and Christopher Simon Sykes
Started: Feb. 25th
Finished: April 20th, 2012
Pages: 235
I bought this book back in 2002 on a trip to Britain and I found it on my shelf while I was looking for some bedtime reading. It's published by the National Trust and features photos and a brief history of 25 of the most splendid historic houses in their collection.
Between classic British mysteries and classic British fiction, I've spent a lot of literary time in English Country houses. This book helps put a face to those bland mentions of East Wings, libraries, withdrawing rooms, and drafty Great Halls. So this is what"classic" wealth looks like.
Finished: April 20th, 2012
Pages: 235
I bought this book back in 2002 on a trip to Britain and I found it on my shelf while I was looking for some bedtime reading. It's published by the National Trust and features photos and a brief history of 25 of the most splendid historic houses in their collection.
Between classic British mysteries and classic British fiction, I've spent a lot of literary time in English Country houses. This book helps put a face to those bland mentions of East Wings, libraries, withdrawing rooms, and drafty Great Halls. So this is what"classic" wealth looks like.
Sunday 15 April 2012
The Complaints by Ian Rankin
Started: April 11th
Finished: April 14th
Pages: 381
I needed a break from the intensity of Half-Blood Blues, so I took a detour into a mystery novel. Mystery novels are relaxing because they have a strong plot and the bad guy always gets caught. And Ian Rankin avoids the two great sins of mystery: he's a good writer, and he doesn't sacrifice plausibility for the sake of proving how clever he is. The special bonus feature of this book (for those of use seeking a novelistic respite from Nazism) is that the guy who gets murdered isn't very likeable. So The Complaints turns out to have been a perfect choice.
Thank you Ian Rankin, and thank you for not making Rebus's retirement an excuse for quitting yourself.
Finished: April 14th
Pages: 381
I needed a break from the intensity of Half-Blood Blues, so I took a detour into a mystery novel. Mystery novels are relaxing because they have a strong plot and the bad guy always gets caught. And Ian Rankin avoids the two great sins of mystery: he's a good writer, and he doesn't sacrifice plausibility for the sake of proving how clever he is. The special bonus feature of this book (for those of use seeking a novelistic respite from Nazism) is that the guy who gets murdered isn't very likeable. So The Complaints turns out to have been a perfect choice.
Thank you Ian Rankin, and thank you for not making Rebus's retirement an excuse for quitting yourself.
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Started: April 2nd
Finished: April 15th
Pages: 311
When I was in Saskatoon I decided that I was in the mood to read some current "literary" fiction, so I bought two Booker-nominated novels, both Canadian: Half-Blood Blues and the Sisters Brothers.
I've just finished Half-Blood Blues. The books that made last year's Booker shortlist were selected for "readabilty". But readable fiction isn't necessarily easy to read. Half-Blood Blues is wrenching. Nazis may make the best villains (a la Raiders of the Lost Arc), but there was nothing cartoonish about Berlin in the 40s or the fall of Paris near the beginning of the war.
But overall I enjoyed the book. The tone is convincing: you believe that you are hanging out with black jazz musicians, and feel the joys, demands, and disappointments of trying to make great music. And the period and the characters are fascinating. Who knew that for a black man Hitler's Germany of the 1930s was an easier place to live than the Southern US?
The fact that the author is Canadian shows up only as an Easter egg: Our Narrator shuts up an inquisitive cab driver by telling him that he's travelling to London Ontario. No one's curiosity extends to trips to Canada.
Finished: April 15th
Pages: 311
When I was in Saskatoon I decided that I was in the mood to read some current "literary" fiction, so I bought two Booker-nominated novels, both Canadian: Half-Blood Blues and the Sisters Brothers.
I've just finished Half-Blood Blues. The books that made last year's Booker shortlist were selected for "readabilty". But readable fiction isn't necessarily easy to read. Half-Blood Blues is wrenching. Nazis may make the best villains (a la Raiders of the Lost Arc), but there was nothing cartoonish about Berlin in the 40s or the fall of Paris near the beginning of the war.
But overall I enjoyed the book. The tone is convincing: you believe that you are hanging out with black jazz musicians, and feel the joys, demands, and disappointments of trying to make great music. And the period and the characters are fascinating. Who knew that for a black man Hitler's Germany of the 1930s was an easier place to live than the Southern US?
The fact that the author is Canadian shows up only as an Easter egg: Our Narrator shuts up an inquisitive cab driver by telling him that he's travelling to London Ontario. No one's curiosity extends to trips to Canada.
Tuesday 3 April 2012
My new blog
Okay, I don't actually know why anyone would be interested, particularly, but I've started a new blog.
Like my last blog, I decided to write a few articles to see if I'd continue before launching it to "interested" parties. This one is simply a record of everything that I read from February 2012 until February 2013. Why? Well, here's my "intro" post where I explain my rationale and blog title.
What have I read so far? Here's the list as of April 3:
Tommy Douglas by Vincent Lam
Elements of Style by Strunk and White
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stig Larssen
Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott
After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn
Memory's Daughter by Alice Major
Great Houses of England and Wales by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd and Christopher Simon Sykes
Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Allan Bradley
I've labeled the various articles by type of book (SF, nonfiction, work) in case that helps you understand which books you might be interested in. If there is no end date listed I haven't finished it yet. And yes, I'll admit it if I don't get through something.
Feel free to add your own comments about books you've read, or suggestions for things that I ought to read.
Like my last blog, I decided to write a few articles to see if I'd continue before launching it to "interested" parties. This one is simply a record of everything that I read from February 2012 until February 2013. Why? Well, here's my "intro" post where I explain my rationale and blog title.
What have I read so far? Here's the list as of April 3:
Tommy Douglas by Vincent Lam
Elements of Style by Strunk and White
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stig Larssen
Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott
After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn
Memory's Daughter by Alice Major
Great Houses of England and Wales by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd and Christopher Simon Sykes
Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Allan Bradley
I've labeled the various articles by type of book (SF, nonfiction, work) in case that helps you understand which books you might be interested in. If there is no end date listed I haven't finished it yet. And yes, I'll admit it if I don't get through something.
Feel free to add your own comments about books you've read, or suggestions for things that I ought to read.
Tommy Douglas by Vincent Lam
Started: March 26th
Finished: April 2nd
Pages: 235
Penguin's Extraordinary Canadians series is a series of brief biographies, generally written by someone who is also well-known, who can perhaps bring an interesting personal perspective to the biography. In this case the author is Vincent Lam, an award-winning author who happens to be an emergency room physician.
Unfortunately, the book feels formulaic. For example, it's strictly linear. But the backstory of Douglas's life before his political career lacks interest told out of context. If Lam had started with, say, the story of the 1944 Saskatchewan election and then gone back to explain how Douglas got to the point where he was being greeted everywhere by cheering crowds while in the background a national committee of corporate presidents coordinated opposition to his campaign and every mainstream paper in Saskatchewan printed stories headlined things like "Socialism Leads to Dictatorship" and "All Opposition Banned if CCF Wins Power"-- well, I'd have gobbled it up instead of thinking "la la la....immigrant Scottish boy, small town preacher, la la la" as I did for the first 100 pages.
Don't get me wrong: I picked up the book because I wanted to learn more about Tommy Douglas. And I ate up the story of his political career: 17 consecutive surplus budgets implementing a progressive social agenda, culminating in the introduction of Medicare, all in one of the poorest provinces in Confederation....bam! Take *that* you sad sorry excuse for a federal conservative government. Stop bleating about "fiscal responsibility" while cutting programs and running up big deficits.
Ah hem. I digress. I guess my point was that Douglas's story could have been better told. I'll give Lam the benefit of the doubt and believe that he was constrained by the format of the series.
Finished: April 2nd
Pages: 235
Penguin's Extraordinary Canadians series is a series of brief biographies, generally written by someone who is also well-known, who can perhaps bring an interesting personal perspective to the biography. In this case the author is Vincent Lam, an award-winning author who happens to be an emergency room physician.
Unfortunately, the book feels formulaic. For example, it's strictly linear. But the backstory of Douglas's life before his political career lacks interest told out of context. If Lam had started with, say, the story of the 1944 Saskatchewan election and then gone back to explain how Douglas got to the point where he was being greeted everywhere by cheering crowds while in the background a national committee of corporate presidents coordinated opposition to his campaign and every mainstream paper in Saskatchewan printed stories headlined things like "Socialism Leads to Dictatorship" and "All Opposition Banned if CCF Wins Power"-- well, I'd have gobbled it up instead of thinking "la la la....immigrant Scottish boy, small town preacher, la la la" as I did for the first 100 pages.
Don't get me wrong: I picked up the book because I wanted to learn more about Tommy Douglas. And I ate up the story of his political career: 17 consecutive surplus budgets implementing a progressive social agenda, culminating in the introduction of Medicare, all in one of the poorest provinces in Confederation....bam! Take *that* you sad sorry excuse for a federal conservative government. Stop bleating about "fiscal responsibility" while cutting programs and running up big deficits.
Ah hem. I digress. I guess my point was that Douglas's story could have been better told. I'll give Lam the benefit of the doubt and believe that he was constrained by the format of the series.
The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White
Started: March 9th
Finished: March 31st
Pages: 85
My excuse for taking so long over this one is that it's a little book. It vanished for over a week at one point because it was skinny enough to hide under a single piece of paper.
Summation: it's prescriptive, it's funny, and it's out of date. Or at least the edition that I read is. Time has passed by many of the specific usage rules. Imagine describing Web 1.5 without using the word "personalization".
On the other hand, the advice about clarity and brevity is timeless. "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines or a machine no unnecessary parts." "...although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one."
There, saved you from having to read the whole 85 pages. :-)
But seriously, despite the criticism I've been newly conscious of my writing ever since I finished it. I think that's actually a good thing. It's never a mistake to check that you're saying what you mean, clearly.
Finished: March 31st
Pages: 85
My excuse for taking so long over this one is that it's a little book. It vanished for over a week at one point because it was skinny enough to hide under a single piece of paper.
Summation: it's prescriptive, it's funny, and it's out of date. Or at least the edition that I read is. Time has passed by many of the specific usage rules. Imagine describing Web 1.5 without using the word "personalization".
On the other hand, the advice about clarity and brevity is timeless. "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines or a machine no unnecessary parts." "...although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one."
There, saved you from having to read the whole 85 pages. :-)
But seriously, despite the criticism I've been newly conscious of my writing ever since I finished it. I think that's actually a good thing. It's never a mistake to check that you're saying what you mean, clearly.
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