What I'm Reading Now: The Picture of Dorian Gray

I think I'm going to be reading very old books for awhile, as most titles published before 1914 are in the public domain so I can legally download them for free.

Wikipedia says that the Picture of Dorian Gray was very different in it's 1890 publication and 1891 forms; I wonder which copy I have.

What I'm Reading Now: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

I didn't realize how much of a Cory Doctorow fan I was until my friends & I were discussing a Larry King interview question "Who are your heroes?". My friends had a hard time thinking of heroes for themselves, but they all quickly told me that, for me, it's Cory Doctorow. I didn't realize :)

I won't argue, though - a former EFF staffer, tireless defender of our digital rights, and just a nice guy (he signed my book at this SF reading), Cory is certainly a better hero than the average professional athlete.

What I'm Reading Now: The Hacker Crackdown

Non fiction about AT&T, the secret service, Steve Jackson, the BBS community, and the creation of the EFF. Audiobook ready by Cory Doctorow, downloadable for free, no less!

What I'm Reading Now: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

This will be my second Cory Doctorow book (the first was pretty great).

Cory was nice enough to podcast it for free! Audio books can be expensive, so this is a good deal. Of course he'll let you download a non-audio copy for free as well.

I just finally finished Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, and it was surprisingly great, and I just skimmed the last couple of chapters of Niel Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and it was unsurprisingly bad.

Fractally Weird: Cryptonomicon

So I really like this concept from Cryptonomicon that the narrator calls "fractally weird". To paraphrase, his friends life is so odd that you could isolate & examine any small part of it, and it would be equally as strange as his life as a whole.

Clever.

What I'm Reading Now: Cryptonomicon

All I have left on my Sansa MP3 player is Niel Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and a very fuzzy copy of Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James. Cryptonomicon wins on the basis of audio quality.

What I'm Reading Now: Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Here we go again with more PKD fare: Transmigration is full of religion, insanity, scizophrenia, narcotics. At least this time the narrator is generally reliable - it's the surrounding characters with questionable sanity.

What I'm Reading Now: The Yiddish Policeman's Union

Kavalier & Clay was meh, and I put The Final Solution down before chapter 3. This one starts with a murder. We'll see if it works.

What I'm Reading Now: The Sirens of Titan

I'm ready The Sirens of Titan now. Yeah, I know. More Sci-fi. I try to keep the sci-fi to a minimum, especially when they have terribly cheesy covers like "Sirens" does, but it turns out I'm a Kurt Vonnegut fan, so I'm probably going to read all his works.

EFF event details and my picture with Cory

Follow up to this post: http://www.111minnagallery.com/2009/03/eff/

I had a great evening at the EFF fundraiser. BART made it easy to get there on time, and both the EFF staffers and I were glad about my donation to their cause. Minna gallery filled up slowly, but by the time Charlie Jane Anders started reading, seats were long gone and many were on their feet.


It may have been Senior Staff Attourney Fred Von Lohman who introduced the authors. (That's right! The Fred Von Lohman).


Going first, Charlie Jane Anders read an interesting story of a girl researching her biological father on the internet, and left it with a cliffhanger (i.e. - plz buy the book), but I spent too much time being disturbed by the broad shoulders, large adams apple, and deep voice this lady had. I guess I should be more open. This is SF after all.

Analee Newitz was less complicated and read a more playful story, and I considered picking up a book. My reading list is long, though, and I have yet to do so.


The third reader, Rudy Rucker, started by taking a pic of the audience, then starting an audio recording to blog later. You get bonus points if you can find me in the audience.


Rudy went on to tell a story that made me keep checking my watch. It was a monotonous delivery of an oddball fantasy of a postal worker in a weird living dreamscape. He got some laughs out of the audience, but it was lost on me.


Finally Cory Doctorow read from Little Brother, and made some noise. He selected a passage depicting civil unrest, and was animated & engaging in his delivery.


Afterwards, I took a pic with Cory.


I was interested by the different texts the authors used to read from: Charlie had a bunch of wrinkled printed 8.5x11 sheets. Analee used an ultra-thin notebook (macbook air). Rudy used a bound prinout. Cory brought a published hardcover.

It was a fun night, but after an early day at work in Hayward, a jobsite walk in Santa Cruz, a night in San Francisco and a long BART ride home, I was pretty beat. It was worth it to get Little Brother signed by Cory, though.

What I'm Reading Now: All The Kings Men

I keep trying to read books at random, not judging by genre, author, description. It's helped me find gems I otherwise wouldn't. This book, unfortunately, is really boring me. Maybe it gets better after 1st 5%.

What I'm Reading Now: The Graveyard Book

I'm reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, because I enjoyed Coraline so much. Opening line: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Wikipedia calls the genre "Fantasy, Horror". I wonder what the expected age of the audience was.

What I'm Reading Now: Paycheck

Paycheck, by the insane, but talented Philip K Dick.  Good or bad, I don't have any intention of watching the Ben Affleck movie based on the plot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BOOQdiGVCo

What I'm Reading Now: The Invisible Man

I think the problem with H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man is that it's called The Invisible Man.  This spoiler in the title removes the authors ability to build suspense and slowly reveal clues to the reader as to the curious condition of the oddly behaving protagonist.  My review so far: boring.

What I'm Reading Now: Snow Crash

I'm trying my 2nd Neal Stephenson book (1st: the command line), the iconic 1992 Scifi "Snow Crash", of which I know very little. The introductory chapter is apparently an in-depth look at the fictional armed mafia-based LA pizza delivery monopoly. Very strange, indeed.

What I'm Reading Now: Coraline

After reading the dubious-quality post and checking out the trailers, I decided to pick up the audiobook (I don't get to the theatres much).  It's disappointingly short at 160 pages, but think it'll be plenty of fun for a book actually targeted at "Young Adults".  Too bad my kids aren't old enough for this yet.

What I'm Reading Now: VALIS

Most every Philip K Dick book I've read has had some combination of:

• Insanity/hallucination
• Wacky invented religions
• Technology

...generally in that order.  For a scifi author, the technology is really at a minimum.  Perhaps we should re-assign PKD's genre.

So far, VALIS takes the prize in making the insanity+religion the entire plot of the book, instead of a mere influence.  In fact, a large percent of the book is occupied by a full text of the main character's "exegesis", which sounds like the insane ramblings of a nutcase's belief in humanities intelligent design by aliens.

This is probably my least-favorite PKD book yet.

What I'm Reading Now: Nothing, dammit

So I've been without an audiobook ever since I finished Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, which I really liked and my wife really meh'd*.

This was the last audiobook I had burned, and I haven't made it to the library for another. This is driving my crazy on my commutes. I'm spending 1.5+ hours on the road daily with nothing but the radio, and the radio is failing me.

My sports radio station (KNBR680) is full of commercials and often letting idiots call in with terrible stories. I like NPR a lot, but they frequently decide to do long stories on obscure, uninteresting topics. ...or they'll review some weird musician that blends african drums with banshee screams and computer-generated white noise - and they will love it, which has to be a blatant lie. I'm still waiting for them to review a plain old rock band or pop artist and say it's fun to listen to.

I need some audiobooks.

*Yes, you can meh nouns. See wiktionary. She meh'd this book as she called each outcome predictable, which spoiled all the tension & mystery, but then admitted she may have read it a previous time in her youth.

What I'm Reading Now: Rebecca

When I started this book, I was a bit worried it'd just be girly book about romance & relationships - I'm unfamiliar with author Daphne du Maurier - but the author hints in the first chapter that it may turn out to be a thriller.

I guess we'll see. So far there is little action, but the narrative is still good enough to keep me reading even as the main character spends pages on introspection and observation of still life.

What I'm Reading Now: David Copperfield

My current book is very famous, and very boring. Most of it seems to be summed up by: David settles in to a new home, meets some uninteresting people, has to leave for some reason. Then repeat ad nauseam.

It also doesn't help that David isn't that likable. He makes friends with people in difficult situations, and makes no effort to help them. He just moves on to the next location, not fretting much about his friends problems.

What I'm Reading Now: My American Journey

I'm reading "My American Journey", and I hope it's unabridged. It's marginally entertaining, but mostly is just a history of Mr. Powell getting military promotion after military promotion, with little else of note.

There's a little detail of the Iran contra scandal, some discussion of the gulf war (Desert Shield), but I'd like if it were written later and talked more about the GWB WMD crusade.

What I'm NOT Reading Now: The Narrows

I try to read lots of different audiobooks; often I don't even look at a cover or synopsis before I try a book. This plan can have big pay-offs; some of the best books I've read are those that I would have skipped if I had seen the covers first.

I tried to get through Michael Connelly's The Narrows, I really did. I think I just don't like the popular modern genre of "crime drama", and I don't understand why they sell so well.

I was actually laughing when, for the half-dozenth time, the investigator stopped a line of questioning and said to himself "I knew I'd visit this later, but ... [insert excuse here]." It's ridiculous that the main character was flagging at his duties in an obvious attempt to unfold secrets to the reader at an appropriate pace to maintain reader interest. Then when you throw in the first-person view of the homicidal maniac getting sexually aroused from the thought of the torture he'd perform, and I was done.

I put this one down after a few chapters, and it's pages won't occupy my shelf nor will its digital audio dwell on my hard disk like the rest of my collection.

What I'm Reading Now: If Death Ever Slept

I like finding unread Rex Stout books at used bookstores. This copy of If Death Ever Slept is my 29th jaunt through 1930's New York City, solving crime with slick Archie Goodwin and brilliant, but grouchy Nero Wolfe. I wonder when I'll have exhausted every title written.

What I'm Reading Now: Born Standing Up

I've started an audiobook of Born Standing Up, Steve Martin's autobiography, read by the author.

I'm already 2 hours in to an unfortunately short 4 hour production, but enjoying it a lot. I recommend.

You can hear Steve Martin talk about his book on NPR, too, which I also enjoyed, and it won't set you back $20.

What I'm Reading Now: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

I've started yet another PKD book after enjoying many previously. This one, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, seems to be navigating through familiar PKD themes: odd religious/spiritual activity, narcotics & hallucinations, confusion regarding identity, and insanity. PKD must have been a strange man.

What I'm Reading Now: Diaspora

A friend gave me a copy of Diaspora, by Greg Egan.

I'm only on page 40 (10%), but skimmed most of pages 1-20 when I realized it was a long description of one of the authors imagined future technologies at work.

I think this is a mistake. Good books start with action that draws the reader in, introduces characters that the reader cares about, and explains things like technology, setting, and others mostly in context of a more interesting storyline. I don't think narrating concepts directly to the reader works as well.

I get the author's purpose: the first chapter lets the reader experience the narrator's growth from creation to independence (the narrator is an AI). ...but it's hard to get through 40 pages where the narrator is not yet even sentient.

Anyway, I am interested to see what would happen next, now that I have some characters to watch. ...but I needed the wikipedia page to get some clarity on just what's happening.

Todo: Books, games, gadgets

I just realized today that I can actually buy a copy of Spore now. I've got to get that in my list of games to play.

Then I learned Cory Doctorow likes The Armageddon Rag, by George R.R. Martin. I've liked GRRM's series A Song of Ice & Fire a lot, but I'm not sure about a book whose genre is fantasy/horror/alt history. I guess I have another for my to-read list.

John Hodgeman has gone and released a new book, too, as though I'm just swimming in money and time to buy & read new books. I suppose I have little choice.

Finally, I may have found the answer to my iPhone/Sprint problem. Specifically, that the iPhone I crave will never run on the carrier my company provides. The Sprint Instinct tries to emulate the iPhone. I wonder if it's worth the investment? When it comes to UI, I'm very picky. If they have the iPhone features but not the polish, I could go insane trying to use it.

Man, these books are long

I can't believe I'm still reading A Feast For Crows. I was reading one or two books a week before I started A Song of Ice & Fire, and now I just can't complete this last volume.

I'm still not taking back my previous rant against abridged books, though.

What I'm reading now: A Feast for Crows

I'm addicted to George R. R. Martin' medieval fantasy series "A Song of Ice & Fire" ever since I started reading it out-of-order with volume 2: A Clash of Kings. I'm now on volume 4 (of 7),
"A Feast for Crows".

It's as good as the first three, but they swapped a great audiobook voice actor Roy Dotrice, who read the first three books, for John Lee, which is a great disappointment. Not only was Dotrice excellent, but John Lee isn't merely mediocre: he's bad. John Lee seems to be trying to inject drama & anger into everything that every character ever says. I may have to drop the audiobook and read the hardcopy if I can't get used to it.

What I'm reading now: The Tipping Point

I just wrapped up an audiobook of Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point". I really enjoyed my last read by the author ("Blink"). However, this one ended too fast - and the credits revealed that it was an abridged copy. I can't ever understand why people abridge books. Wikipedia takes a stab at it, claiming that a book might take 40 hours to listen to, where it can be abridged into a handy 2 hours. This makes no sense to me. I could spend less time on any task if I do a half-ass job of it. Why bother reading a book if not enjoy the whole thing?

The wikipedia article shows an example of what text is abridged:

A passage such as "John sped away in his automobile, a red 1967 Mustang he'd purchased from a junkyard and spent most of his college years restoring with his father" could be abridged to "John sped away in his car."

To me, this is a travesty. Those details are important. They help us learn who the characters are, what their history is, and that's what engages the reader to care about what happens to them. Everything interesting about a story can be abridged out, while they refine it down to just the actions people take and the words they spoke. It's the difference between reading Brideshead Revisited vs. a high school history book.

Now I'll have to get the hard-copy of The Tipping Point and re-read it, else feel I only skimmed a few pages.

What I'm Reading Now: A Storm of Swords

I'm currently reading A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin. When I picked up a book in this series, I didn't realize it was growing into a 7 volume, 6,000 page epic. I wonder if it will stay interesting to the end.

What I'm Reading Now: A Game of Thrones

I'm currently reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Score & review posted to my audiobook list soon. My review so far: kick-ass.

What I'm Reading Now: Little Brother

I'm currently reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Score & review posted to my audiobook list soon.

Est ce que tu parles francais? Entiendo une poco castellano.

My daughter has been picking up a few Spanish nouns from Dora and her friends lately. She's still young enough that she thinks her parents know everything. I'd like to keep this going for a few more years, so I started listening to the Pimsleur Spanish audio CDs while I drive to work.

They've started teaching me basics like "Good Morning", "Do you speak English", and "I am American". These are obviously useful to the novice Spanish speaker.

What's funny is that, when I previously tried the Pimsleur French package, it seemed like they were quickly teaching me things like "Can I buy you some wine" and "Would you like to come to my apartment" instead. Is there some statistic that shows that Americans learn French to pick up chicks but only learn Spanish for more traditional conversation?

I've got my work cut out for me

I was looking at my cached copy of unread mp3-encoded audio books, thinking I should finish reading these before I acquire many more.

I figured I could work that out in a couple of months, but decided to do the math. I have 756 hours of audio and 90-minutes of driving time each workday to listen - but I use some of that time for phone calls.

756 hours distributed over 1 hour/day, 5 days/week, gives me over 2.9 years of audio to cover before my cache is empty! That's pretty wild. I wonder how many new books that I'll want to read will be released in the next 3 years while I'm catching up.

Little Brother & mp3 tagging

So I just bought [boingboing editor] Cory Doctorow's new book Little Brother as a DRM-free digital MP3 download. Have a look at how they ID3-tagged the file:

No ID3v1 tags, almost empty ID3v2 tags. Digital downloads save publishers money in that they don't have to print CDs & packing material, assemble it, ship it, and suffer reduced profit from the retailers markup. I'd hope they would at least make the digital package complete before selling it. (I'd also prefer the MP3 be divided by chapter).

A Good Find

I stopped by a used bookstore called the Book Stop near my office at lunch today. A tall blond woman offered to help me navigate their tightly-packed, sparsely-labeled shelves, which I needed. I requested political books, mysteries, sci-fis, classics, and a fantasy book: a wide arrange of genres. She told me something about each author I named, as though they were all acquaintances of hers. When I asked for Evelyn Waugh, she even drew in a breath, then quietly retrieved it.

The world would be a lot more fun to live in if every worker was so devoted to his craft.

I picked up 7 books, 2 of them hard-back, and paid $20. I hadn't even gotten started going through my list of books to buy. If this bookstore had more square footage, it would be perfect. As it is, it looks under 500 square feet, and a healthy portion of that is dedicated to romances, which doesn't do anything for me.

I bought the only Kurt Vonnegut Jr book they had (it was $1) - but the girly artwork on the cover, the silly title ("The sirens of Titan") and the description by wikipedia ("A comic scifi") makes me worry about it's quality. Yet it was nominated for a Hugo award - are those easy to get?

Reading a lot of bad books lately

If you ever look at my audio book review list, you know I flag new reviews with an 'N'.

I just noticed the booklist has a glut of new books (six) that scored at the bottom 10% of the list. This is disappointing. I must be choosing a lot of bad books lately.

Picking audiobooks is a mixed affair - there's a limited selection available, so you can't always get that gem you want to read. However, the cost of recording a book is high enough that only popular books will ever be recorded, guaranteeing some amount of quality.