15 posts tagged books

I’ve been listening to a lot of people talk about literature recently. When I hear/think of the word literature I think of leather or canvas bound dusty books, with their distinctive smell of paper, glue, & dust. I love the smell & texture of old books, especially if you’re in a grand library. 

I also think about my education. I think I’ll blame Political Correctness. In my high school & university there was a major push for diversity, especially by the English departments. Whether they were tired of teaching the classics or it was a personal matter I’m not sure. 

In my high school, they barely taught any of the classics: Shakespeare, Keynes, Faulkner, etc. Instead we read books about poor ethnic Americans; though limited to Mexican & black Americans.. (My school was made up of people from many ethnic, religions, & economic backgrounds.) Being that we were already a diverse group & some of us, like myself, had traveled a lot into diverse zones. It was almost like the English teachers themselves had the ethnic blinders on. 

Interestingly in my lower school (at the same school), I read more classics. Such as I read Ulysses in 4th grade. I’ve read most of the classics on my own, but I do blame my school for not teaching them. As much as I believe all art is what you choose to make of it, often having a discussion with others (in a class room or dinner party) can increase your appreciation of it. 

Here are the books which I read this year, I read less than normal; but I did speed up once I got a kindle. Those in italics & bold were favorites. In no particular order. All with Amazon links. [Idea came from Apsies.]

1. The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World … via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes by Carl Hoffman
2. The Ridiculous Race by Steve Hely & Vali Chandrasekaran
3. Naked in Dangerous Places: The Chronicles of a Hungry, Scared, Lost, Homesick, but Otherwise Perfectly Happy Traveler by Cash Peters
4. The Doom Pussy by Elaine Shepard
5. To Hellholes and Back: Bribes, Lies, and the Art of Extreme Tourism by Chuck Thompson
6. Peking to Paris by Luigi Barzini
7. Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin
8. Write me from Rio by Charles Edward Eaton
9. Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne
10. The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski
11. Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel
12. The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: “On Robustness and Fragility” Nassim Nicholas Taleb 
13. Borderless Economics: Chinese Sea Turtles, Indian Fridges and the New Fruits of Global Capitalism by Robert Guest
14. Diary of a Very Bad Year: Interviews with an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager by Keith Gessen, Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager, & n+1 
15. Don’t Look Behind You!: A Safari Guide’s Encounters with Ravenous Lions, Stampeding Elephants, and Lovesick Rhinos by Peter Allison
16. A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East by Tiziano Terzani
17. The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, and Ambition by Graydon Carter & John DeLucie
18. How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely
19. An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington by Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais, & Stephen Merchant
20. In The Plex by Steven Levy
21. Netherland: A Novel by Joseph O’Neill
22. The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab Are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives by Frank Moss
23. The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations by Paul Carr
24. The Urban Hermit: A Memoir by Sam Macdonald
25. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage
26. The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City by David Lebovitz