A reading list

I started this list of "good books I've read recently" back when the web was nearly new, and then got distracted... by the web, eh. Most of the titles are linked to more complete descriptions and reviews from Amazon.com. It's pretty much the only sort of advertising on my site, a reasonable quid pro quo that you're free to take or leave as you see fit. Recently, I'm looking for ad-free pointers, perhaps the publisher, perhaps a good review. My idea is to have only what I see as first-rate work here, in most recently read order. (Someday I'll tidy up the style, but think of it as a 1990s period piece until then.)

Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind, Sarah Posner, 2021

I read the 2020 hardcover original borrowed from the library, subtitled "Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump," and put it in December 2022 context in my blog. The story's roots go back to the 1960s; "God's Strongman" (as chapter 2's title labels him) became the man of the hour by "loudly and fearlessly [and sociopathically] articulat[ing the] shared grievances" of evangelicals, "that alien anti-Christian, anti-American ideologies have taken over the government, judiciary, media, education, and even popular culture and forced edicts upon a besieged white Christian majority, cowing them into submission by invoking “political correctness” that aims to censor, silence, and oppress them." One of several actors who had been below my radar was Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, and ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, deemed "the architect of the antiestablishment New Right that rose up in the 1970s."

There Is Nothing For You Here, Fiona Hill, 2021

Hill went viral (as we say) thanks to her frank, detailed testimony before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees, in the run-up to the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump, in late 2019. As Julian Borger's review for The Guardian headlines it, "more than a White House memoir": "Trump’s former Russia adviser charts her journey from County Durham to DC, showing how populism thrives when communities are abandoned." Terry Gross interviewed Hill on Fresh Air, Oct. 6, 2021, when the book was just out.

Two Wheels Good; The History and Mystery of the Bicycle, Jody Rosen, 2022

From a fellow who loves bicycling and bicycles; what's not to like? From origin stories to trick riding, good storytelling made it an easy roll into the chapters contemporary to my life and times, including the 1976 Bikecentennial (that helped inspired my own cross-country jaunt), Bangladesh, China's story from the Tiananmen uprising to yet another overthrow-by-car, to his personal story, and ending with building a better future. Through bicycling, of course.

Midnight in Chernobyl; the Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, Adam Higginbotham, 2019

A masterwork of historical reporting, a book that's earned its considerable accolades. Almost 100 pages of notes, and more than 80 "author interviews" listed in the bibliography, along with archival materials, books, and memoirs. Higginbotham takes us inside the control room, inside the dark corridors of the exploded and collapsed Reactor Number Four, on top of the roof of Number Three, in the helicopters flying through (and stirring up) the radioactive debris. Part 2 (of 2) is "Death of an Empire," the late 1980s end of the Soviet Union that is breezily attributed to the debacle in Afghanistan, or the apotheosis of Ronald Reagan in the west. Reading it in early 2022 was remarkable, as Vladimir Putin attempts to resurrect the Soviet corpse with war on Ukraine, pushing troops through the very same territory.

Orwell's Roses, Rebecca Solnit, 2021

Wonderful writing and a remarkable examination of Orwell's life and work, perambulating through the English countryside on a botanically-themed personal archaeology expedition. I feel like some of my sentences run long, and can get away from me, but Solnit illustrates the way forward to enjoy splendid complexity. She's been on my radar, but I'm not sure from whence. There are two dozen (!) "Also by" works listed in the frontispiece, and just reading through the titles sounds like adventure. "A Field Guide to Getting Lost." "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster." "Men Explain Things to Me." "The Mother of All Questions."

Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine, Anna Della Subin, 2021

Blogged my reading of an excerpt that ran in The Guardian, early February 2022: Apotheosis. The excerpt is most of the final chapter, but it won't spoil the reading of this fascinating history of conflict, conquest, deification, and dedeification.

Utopia for Realists; How We Can Build the Ideal World, Rutger Bregman, 2014.

Subtitle as on my borrowed copy of the 2017 edition of the 2016 translation; another's subtitle comprises what's inside: "The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek," "a practical approach to reconstructing modern society to promote a more productive and equitable life." Who knew Richard Nixon had a plan for a basic income for Americans back in 1968? It was news to me. There's a TED Talk, of course, from 2017. At a moment when we really need to be rethinking everything, informed by the experience of a two-year old and still-raging global pandemic, we should be talking about "essential work" and just compensation, and how we can reorient economies to sustaining our planet rather than destroying it. Also how to break out of the rut of rewarding capital to the detriment of labor (which is to say, wealth over humans) that is steadily increasing inequality. This is a good start, and a worthwhile read.

Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics, Nicole Hemmer, 2016

A history of the mid-century origins of "conservative media," beating the drum of "liberal bias" incessantly all the while they established themselves as an alternative, unashamedly biased to even the score, and eventually rising to the "truthiness" of "fair and balanced" Fox News. From the early version of conservative radio, hamstrung by fragmented markets and the Fairness Doctrine, rarely breaking even, to the ubiquitous profitability of what we have now, Hemmer describes the foundation underpinning the present mayhem. There are a lot of names new to me in the early parts, but the storytelling is good, and I stuck with it to lows during the Reagan years (oddly enough), to the "Comeback" in the 1990s, led by Rush Limbaugh (in her telling, which seems accurate enough). What next?!

Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service A Year Spent Riding Across America, James McCommons, 2009

It took me more than a decade to stumble on to this account of a year-plus of riding on passenger trains in the US, gauging their decline, hoping for their future, chronicalling the charm of a mostly bygone era. Published as the Great Recession bottomed out, "gas prices reached $4 a gallon," and it seemed a trend. Definitely wanting an update now; I don't imagine things are much more hopeful, but either way, his keen observations, cheerful writing, and dogged research would be well-applied. My only complaint is that he spent too much time trying to assure us he wasn't a foamer. (Of course he is.) With an Amtrak-loving President coming on board next month, the future might be brighter for passenger rail. (Except... gas is still cheap.)

Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell, 2008

"The Tipping Point" is down the list, added many years ago, but I cooled a bit on his work when I read "Blink." Now I'm warmer again. It has the feeling of a series of "just so" stories, even as he's unwinding some of the ones we've been telling ourselves. In any case, it's an interesting read about good fortune, cultural legacies, summer vacation, and, in his epilogue, the unexpected story of "his people."

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States", Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014

Just this spring (2020), our Attorney General answered a question about history, regarding the Department of Justice dropping charges on someone who had admitted his guilt—twice—in open court, by saying "Well, history is written by the winners, so it largely depends on who's writing the history." William Barr's self-serving and fatuous notion notwithstanding, the truth is, as Jonah Goldberg says Vincent Cannato told him, "Much of the historical profession today is dedicated to recovering the voices of [formerly] marginalized groups." Barr's cliché suits his sense of privilege, to be sure, and is a confession from the man who pre-emptively rewrote Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. But he won't be having the last word. Dunbar-Ortiz's book garners criticism in the Amazon reviews from various winners, and historians, perhaps the most succinct of the 1-star takes puts it in one word: "Biased." (under the headline, "Biased"). Indeed. Also, some of the statements of fact might be wrong. Ironically. It's good exercise to (a) understand a different point of view, and (b) assess your own biases as you measure those of others. This is a good start on a re-overview of the last half millennium.

The Weather Machine; A Journey Inside the Forecast, Andrew Blum, 2019

As we experiment with the one and only inhabitable planet we know, it's good that we have the capacity to make careful measurements. Blum tells the story of how the laboriously assembled 20th century art and science met the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, and made history—and forecasts—more accessible to everyone, in an engaging way. For reasons spelled out in the blog, I'm not an impartial audience, but what I said there: I recommend the book for its big picture view of weather forecasting, from its early days of careful, tedious observation, to the inception of analytical methods that were far ahead of their time (and the computing hardware to carry them out), to the present day, in which we benefit from "the most successful international system yet devised for global cooperation for the common good in science or in any other field," as John Zillman, former director of Australia's Bureau of Metrology put it.

Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology, Lisa Margonelli, 2018

Termites always seemed to me creepy, and something to avoid, but that I didn't had to worry about, much, because I live "up north." The clever, "termite-eaten" dust jacket on this book caught my eye on the new books shelf at the library, and what a lucky find! A smart and funny science writer, an engrossing subject, and wonderful descriptions at the frontier of our biological knowledge. These little buggers are generally tiny, but with guts enough for a Matryoshka community that does things we can't figure out. Yet. Her skill at explaining complexity made me think of Michael Lewis, and the story she unfolds reminds me that I need to finish reading David Quammen's The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life. And Margonelli's (ten years' older) first book sounds good too, Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank.

The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing, Merve Emre, 2018

Extravert or introvert? Feeling or sensing? Believer or skeptic? There's something for everybody, no matter which one of the 17 cells you inhabit. (#17 = It's more complicated than a 4x4 matrix.) The good news is, you're not actually confined in one box, now and forever, never mind what Carl or Katherine or Isabel had to say. Emre took the trouble to sit through the training, sift through what archives she could get in to, and assemble a fascinating and very readable biography of the mother and daughter who concocted the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, setting it into the context of the 20th century growth industry of personality assessment. Jessica Gross' interview with the author for Longreads provides a more in-depth review, and an introduction to the author to get you going.

A Girl's Guide to Missiles: Growing up in America's secret desert, Karen Piper, 2018

Smart, funny, observant, well-written, beautifully constructed, engaging, personal, surprising, amazing, and remarkably interwoven with the Zeitgeist of the last half-century. And yes, poignant, especially for those of us coming of age with missiles, if not quite as personally as she and her family did.

Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, Michael Isikoff and David Corn, 2018

The story is still unraveling in the summer of 2018, but this first draft of history explains an awful lot about the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, from two investigative reporters who were at the leading edge while it was happening.

Time Travel: a history, James Gleick, 2016

A good book to wander through at leisure, connecting one's past, present, and future with the genre of considering how those jots and tittles are lined up, looped through, and tangled in the telling. Ursula K. LeGuin's quip for the Chapter 11 epigram: "Story is our only boat for sailing on the river of time." And as Gleick wrote, so do I: Your now is not my now. You're reading a page on the web. I'm updating that page. You're in my future, yet I know what comes next—some of it—and you don't. "If this seems a bit meta, it is." But it's fun to poke around in the haunted house of the not-now.

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger, 2016

A compact, powerful, compelling read about the attractions of war, and how we might live better without it (or after it, at least). Junger's a good storyteller, with life experience and journalistic skill to make this more than just a good story. Longer response on the blog: Tribal wisdom.

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, Dan Lyons, 2016

Bleached White Male washes up into the fascinating, horrific, funny, strange, frothy world of a tech bubble #2 startup and lives to collect a small slice of IPO pie (and a little bottle of Brut) and tell the tale in a most entertaining fashion. Fuller review on the blog: MAKE.MONEY.FAST

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, Michael Lewis, 2011

If you've been following Michael Lewis' writing for Vanity Fair you might have seen some or all of the five pieces he assembled to make this book, but 5 years on, it might also be fun to revisit them, especially when cheered by the fact that the global economy hasn't cratered as badly as you would have inferred from his take of the bleak houses of April 2009 (Iceland), October 2010 (Greece), and 2011 (Ireland, Germany, and California). Lewis' knack for observation and storytelling make for superb, and instructive entertainment.

Where Land and Water Meet: A Western Landscape Transformed, Nancy Langston, 2006

If something good can come out of the gang of Bundy-clan led idiots occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and its expression of inchoate rage against the government forces preventing the return of the western glory, it could be more attention for this superb environmental history of the Harney Basin, and by extension, the competing forces for resource exploitation and protection in the intermountain west. The Amazon link is to the reasonably priced paperback, rather than the $90 (!) hardcover edition (2003), which I enjoyed on loan from my library. The quality of the writing and references make it worthy of being a college textbook, which seems to be how the University of Washington Press priced it. But it's eminently readable, and efficiently covers the last century and a half, from pushing the natives out of the way, to the age of the cattle barons, a homesteader getting away with murder (of a cattle baron), the rise and fall of irrigation systems and lake levels, the CCC, the chemical warfare of the mid-20th century, and the unending battle over turf, water, and the riparian zone between them.

Things were looking up in the early 2000s, as compromises were being found among disparate stakeholders, goaded by politics and threat of litigation where necessary. The latest round of resource planning for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was the next, big step forward in the "pragmatic, adaptive management" she describes in the concluding chapter. And then the wingnuts showed up... (More about the book a Jan. 17, 2016 blog post, The big picture of Harney County's History, and lots more about the wingnuts in the January edition.)

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, David Eagleton, 2011

Prompted by the first episode of the outstanding series narrated by neuroscientist David Eagleman (The Brain which has a presumably fine companion book, The Brain: The Story of You), I borrowed a library copy of this earlier book, and found it be a fascinating, provocative, and wonderful read. Eagleman is brilliant, entertaining, and superbly talented at explaining both the explicable and the inexplicable. The latter remains the larger part of the story, tidily noted "as the quip goes" at the very end of it: If our brains were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them. That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile to give it a try, even if, as he so persuasively shows, we are and will remain largely incomprehensible to ourselves. (More in my Dec. 4, 2015 blog post, Welcome to the machine.)

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015

Toni Morrison called it "required reading," it won the National Book Award, and was named one of the ten best books of the year, all for good reason. Power, personal, direct, and as Michiko Kakutani put it for The New York Times "a searing meditation on what it means to be black in America today." For those of us who are not black, who have never been suspected of anything or pulled over or arrested or beaten because of the color of our skin, it's a giant step toward understanding.

One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, Kevin M. Kruse, 2015

History that started just before I arrived, and the cultural milieu in which my early childhood swam in. Public expressions of piety and religiosity seemed like a good and decent thing in the Cold War against godless Communism, even if ok, they ran a little roughshod over the brilliant idea our founders had to try to keep religion and politics at arm's length. The May, 2015 NYT Sunday Book Review from Michael Kazin includes a perfect historic image of Billy Graham and Dick Nixon at prayer, precious for its juxtaposition with the sound track that came out in Watergate. We were one nation, mostly united, in willingness to provide lip-service to religiosity for all the good it could provide. There's an author interview, and link to an excerpt on NPR, from March, 2015.

The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq, Emma Sky, 2015

The very personal, very inside look at life and work in Iraq in the initial "direct rule" of 2003 to 2004, the "surge" in 2007, the 2008-2010 drawdown, and "Things Fall Apart" in 2012-2014. Embedded with, but not part of, the Coalition Provision Authority in Kirkuk, and the military in Baghdad, Sky had a unique point of view, and has written a fascinating book. A bit longer description, and a couple brief excerpts in my 17.Sept blog post.

The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information, Frank Pasquale, 2015

Just as the Terms of Use have no choices beyond "Agree" and "Cancel," end users (as it were) have no power for negotiation in the explicit contracts we make for being the subjects of Big Data, data mining and the algorithms of reputation management, search, and finance. (And oh, there is no full-on "Cancel" to speak of, either.) I wrote a short review of this important book.

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, Mike Brown, 2010
Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life, Tom Robbins, 2014
Even This I Get to Experience, Norman Lear, 2014

Three memoirs from shall we say astronomically different lives, each an entertaining adventure in its own right. A star scientist, a star novelist, and a star director walk into a bar... My February, 2015 blog post gives the longer outline and motivation.

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, Rick Perlstein, 2008

Filled in and fleshed out the history from before I showed up to my teen years, the making of a president and the breaking of two countries to get the job done. Perlstein details the range and depth of lawlessness employed, from the "black bag" jobs, right up to treason and war crimes. It was worse—far worse—than I knew, or could have remembered. Longer review, links, and some pushback from one of the cast of characters in an August, 2014 blog post.

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, Michael Lewis, 2014

A spell-binding tale of the varieties of human depravity capable of being spawned by greed, and about problem solving. It has a happy ending feel in that some of the problems have been identified, and maybe even solved. But solutions are conditional, and almost certainly temporary. Regulatory responses to abuse lead to modified forms of abuse; tactical gains in speed and strategy get replaced by new advantages, and new strategies. The lure of money for (next to) nothing is durable, if nothing else. A great story, well-told. (Longer version of my quick review in the July, 2014 edition of my blog)

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, Eli Pariser, 2011

A lot more has happened in technology, politics and the world since he wrote the book, but it remains timely, I think, as what he describes in process has added still more capability, engagement, and become still more pervasive. "While the Internet has the potential to decentralize knowledge and control, in practice it's concentrating control over what we see and what opportunities we've offered in the hands of fewer people than ever before." A readable and durable start toward understanding and overcoming the "personalization" aimed at us for others' pecuniary interests, and motivation at overcoming the default choices and easy distractions in today's media. (Longer bit on the blog: Outside the bubble)

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, Kathryn Schulz, 2011

We all had the experience of realizing we were wrong about something, but as Schulz points out, that's not quite the same as experiencing being wrong; when we're actually wrong about something, it's because we think we're right when we aren't. There are more paradoxes along the way, and she does a fine job of teasing them apart and finding interesting ways of seeing what we thought was all-too familiar. You can sample some of the good stuff in her 2011 TED Talk, although I will say her writing style is more engaging than her speaking and presenting was for me. From "Wrongology" to considering how we obtain, test (or don't test) and lose beliefs, through heartbreak and to transformation, she does a nice job of turning the pessimism of inevitable error inside out and into "the optomistic meta-induction from the history of everything," that by getting things wrong, we give ourselves the possibility of being right.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, Matthew B. Crawford, 2009

Waxing philosophical about working with one's hands, as that kind of occupation becomes ever less common. Crawford's an entertaining writer, with a life journey to inform a fine book. His work as an electrician, an abstracter, and a tank thinker provide contrast from the bare knuckled (and yes, also intellectual) contest of man vs. machine. You don't have to have read Zen and the Art... beforehand (or recently), but it would be a nice way to set the stage.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, James Gleick, 2011

From talking drums, to reeds poked in wet clay, the secret of life, making and breaking codes, words on a wire, quantum computing, the energy in forgetting, Wikipedia, overload and the sum total of information in the universe, Gleick carves up a complete history in a masterful drive from start to finish.

Above the Clearwater: Living on Stolen Land, Bette Lynch Husted, 2004

A memoir from north Idaho, connecting the land with the history of the succession of people who have lived on it and made claims against it. When I was new to this part of the world, I had a weekend adventure at a friend's ranch, riding horses in the Clearwater breaks, and reading this felt like filling in the color of my line-drawing of that distant memory. Ursula K. Le Guin's friendly blurb is featured on the cover, and having read the book, I see it's spot-on: "Like the river of its name, Bette Husted's book runs with clarity and passion. Complex, harsh, and tender, never taking the easy way out, this memoir is beautiful in its honesty. I never read anything truer to the Western land and its people."

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt, 2012

A masterpiece by a social psychologist who brings his own life experience, work, and the work of many others (ethnography, evolutionary theory and experimental psychology) together to describe and explain the important differences motivating people of opposing political views, where they came from, why they matter, and what we might do to move beyond division. His book's organization and readability demonstrate his skill as a teacher, and researcher.

An excellent review by William Saletan in the NYT, and plenty of other views of it in various media, including the author's book website, TED Talks, an interview with Bill Moyers, and one on Politifact. You can play along at YourMorals.org, "where you can learn about your own morality, ethics, and/or values, while also contributing to scientific research, and CivilPolitics.org, to "find and promote evidence-based methods for increasing political civility."

Searching for Whitopia An Improbably Journey to the Heart of White America, Rich Benjamin, 2009

An amazing cross-cultural exploration from a man with a rich background and a remarkable capacity to ignore the boundaries that most of us observe by predilection, habit or both. The author has a book website with lots of entertaining photos to make up for the unillustrated text. I knew some of the places he describes before the changes of the last two or three decades, and appreciated his descriptions of things that have changed as well as where they came from, from a unique perspective. I finished the book the same month that the U.S. Census Bureau reported that our younger-than-one population is now majority minority, foreshadowing the overall population shift forecast to arrive in 2042.

We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (American Empire Project), Peter Van Buren, 2011

The subtitle provides a succinct summary: the personal account of an experienced Foreign Service Officer's 12 month stint in Iraq, near the end of our military occupation, 2009-10. The author's first book is a collection of vignettes of his direct experience, short on embellishment, and long on punch. The mayhem is relatively limited, but one wounded and one "non-combat" killed are expressive enough, as is his account of the myriad ways we dumped money on problems in the course of doing almost nothing useful. Required reading for any leaders who think we need another preemptive war.

Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition, Michael J. Mauboussin, 2009

A generalist's summary about common errors in thinking, with a focus on business, but general applicability. Among the topics covered: confirmation bias (evidence that supports us gets our attention, evidence that contradicts us gets discounted); unrecognized bias from the environment ("How accordion music boosts sales of burgundy"); anchoring (unrelated information can create a default starting point); affect (what we expect, how we feel, how much stress we're under all modify our decision-making); the halo effect (general impressions lead to improbably correlated specific assessments); the pull of conformity (the pull of majority opinion); and the ways we resolve cognitive dissonance (self-justification, hindsight bias, etc.).

The title alludes in part to the two systems of decision making described by 2002 Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, most recently in his 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow: System 1, the experiential system, is 'fast, automatic, effortless, associative, and difficult to control or modify.' System 2, the analytical system, is "slower, serial, effortful, and deliberately controlled.'"

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, Timothy Egan, 2009

A tremendously moving account of the epic forest fire of 1910, assembled from copious research, and set in the context of the political transformation started by the first Roosevelt. A hundred years later, we're still trying to sort out the issues of resource use, conservation, fire management, and political bounders.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Michael Lewis, 2010

Lewis is a great storyteller, and a strong researcher, makes a fascinating and horrific story even more so. You hardly mind that somebody's been picking your pocket the whole time.

The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, Guy Kawaskai, 2004

The time and battle testing always remains to be seen, but Kawasaki does distill his own experience of starting and funding a variety of things into a readable book and a nice collection of pithy advice, from how to design and deliver a presentation with slides ("ten slides, twenty minutes, thirty-point-font text"), to the larger picture of doing what's right ("the art of being a Mensch"). He mentions non-profits several times, and I perked up for specific advice in that realm, but didn't find much. The emphasis on making meaning (instead of, you know, money) is a useful touchstone for every human enterprise (beyond subsistence, anyway).

Fiasco, Thomas Ricks, 2006

Detailed and well-documented account of how the Iraq war was lost. The disproportionate response to what proved to be a completely non-existent threat came with almost no planning for "Phase IV," and certainly no contingency planning for anything going wrong after "major combat operations" were complete. Three years on, the one word of Ricks' title is the succinct characterization of what we have wrought.

In Pharoah's Army and This Boy's Life, two memoirs by Tobias Wolff, 1995 & 2000.

Maybe I can still remember my own essential stories this clearly (but more likely I can't), and I wish I could write about them in as interesting a way as Wolff does. Pharoah's Army is the snapshot of his experience fighting in Vietnam, newly relevant with Pharoah's Army off on another adventure.

Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!, Michael Moore, 2001

Even for a sympathetic reader, his attitude can get in the way at times; it's better suited to film, perhaps. This book was written before 9/11, before the latest war in Iraq, so it seems dated in some ways, but the collection of facts he had to work from into early 2001 were damning enough. Read the details of how Jeb delivered Florida to W. (it was more than just the Supremes), the Wars on intelligence, Drugs, poor people, and on and on. He doesn't spare the Democrats, or Clinton/Gore, either; the last minute barrage of Executive Orders from their administration was more of an indictment for what they didn't get done, than a grand finale. (Lest we forget, however, 3/4ths of the Clinton administration was post-"Contract with America"; they had a lot of help.) The book has a lot of funny stuff in it, but not so much funny ha ha when it's all said and done.

Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, Robert Park, 2000

A readable journey through the hinterlands of pathological science, junk science, pseudoscience, and of course, fraudulent science. Park describes the "belief engine" that makes us think A caused B when B follows A in our experience, and how that has given life to homeopathy, perpetual motion shams and scams, cold fusion, vitamin O, scares of microwaves and powerlines, and assorted hoaxes such as X-ray lasers and magnetic cures. He's got the background to explain it all succinctly, and the personal anecdotes to make it interesting.

A Shortcut Through Time, George Johnson, 2003

Progress reports about quantum computing seem to make a big deal about a very small number of qubits. Johnson explains why that should be: a very small number of quantum computing elements would make for a very powerful computer, able to do things that are impractical or impossible with the machines we have today. It's not an easy subject to make understandable at the popular science level; Johnson does a good job of it in a short book.

The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong, 2000

An important book for understanding the historical roots, the rise, and the consequences of fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. After the horrific events of September 11, 2001, this book provides an exceptional overview of history we'd be better off not repeating.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper, 1999

Answers to the riddle of why so much software is so bad, and what can be done about it. His list of "polite" characteristics for software interactions applies to interactions in general: "Polite software is interested in me, deferential to me, forthcoming, has common sense, anticipates my needs, is responsive, taciturn about its personal problems, well informed, perceptive, self-confident, stays focused, is fudgable, gives instant gratification, and is trustworthy."

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcom Gladwell, 2000

Epidemics are characterized by contagious behavior, little changes that have big effects, and changes that happen rapidly. That moment in the spread of an epidemic when a little change precipitates a big effect in a hurry is "the tipping point." Gladwell's very readable exploration tells us more about the way we think and the way our thoughts get transmitted in social groups. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to change the world.

My Year of Meats, Ruth L. Ozeki, 1998

Everything else on this list is non-fiction, but my sister gave me this novel for Christmas. I may not be qualified to review fiction, given how little I read, but I found this to be a gripping piece of work. Ozeki's experience with two different cultures, the technology of videography and the industry of meat are an incredible combination.

The Cluetrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, 2000

The Manifesto's writing is an amusing travel book for some, lightning bolts of insight for others (I don't know "them" personally), and an odd treatise in a foreign language to still others. It's sort of a midterm paper on what the web is all about, and what it's going to mean for the future of commerce. As reviewer Laurie Kalmanson wrote on Amazon, "reasonably butt kicking ... and a breath mint, too." I have an extended response to this book.

Dialogue and the art of thinking together, William Isaacs, 1999

Isaacs' principles of dialogue are participation, unfolding, awareness and coherence, and he teaches how to put these principles in action. A profound handbook for kindling the fire of conversation into a productive energy. I have an extended review of this book.

How We Know What Isn't So, Thomas Glovich, 1991

Some patterns of misbelief are predictable, and knowing about them may help us avoid them. Each chapter has multiple useful nuggets, grouped in provocative categories like "Something out of nothing," "Seeing what we want to see," and "The imagined agreement of others." Nice companion to Why People Believe Weird Things, a few items down.

Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer, 1997

The story of the 1996 Everest disaster that killed 12 people, from one of the climbers. Intense, gripping adventure into the "Death Zone" at the top of the world. Krakauer's attempt to document what happened, and who made what mistakes became a lightning rod for the pain and grief of survivors, but I understand his need to do it. The truth of it is that at these kind of altitudes, even the best humans are slow, weak and stupid; single-minded purpose is required to get there, but even with incredible mental and physical conditioning, the margin for error is tiny.

Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street, Lee Stringer, 1999

What it was like to be a homeless crack addict in New York. A powerful story, well told, and (most likely!) an opportunity to see the world from a new perspective.

Why People Believe Weird Things: pseudoscience, superstition, and other confusions of our time, Michael Shermer, 1997

By the editor of the Skeptic Magazine, most of it is "What Weird things do people believe, and why they are wrong." Alien abduction, Creationism, the cult of Ayn Rand, Holocaust denial, transcendant Physics. I clipped and saved his 25 fallacies in thinking, grouped into scientific, pseudo-scientific, logical and pyschological problems.

The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher, Lewis Thomas, 1979

A collection of eclectic essays; just my thing. "Debating is what committees really do, not thinking. Take away the need for winning points, leading the discussion, protecting one's face, gaining applause, shouting down opposition, scaring opponents, all that kind of noisy activity, and a group of bright people can get down to quiet thought." Entertaining, witty, learned, insightful. His earlier collection, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, won the 1974 National Book Award.

Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley's Cutting Edge, Geoffrey A. Moore, 1995

Some business fad books don't deserve a fad. This one does, and it's a good whack upside the head for marketing in the 90's and beyond.

Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure, Jerry Kaplan, 1994

The rise and fall of GO Corporation, told by its founder. Some of why pen-based computing hasn't hit the big time, and a look inside IBM, AT&T and Microsoft. Not always pretty, but a real page-turner. There may be a new epilogue soon, with reports that Kaplan now has evidence of Microsoft's malfeasance.

The Edge of the Unknown: 101 Things You Don't Know About Science and No One Else Does Either, James Trefil, 1996

Artful, 3-page descriptions of the frontiers of science. Now out in paperback.

Time: The Familiar Stranger , J.T. Fraser, 1987

Did you know that not all living things age and die? Sexual reproduction introduced that little side effect, with the benefit of speeding up the pace of change. What's the connection? Time looks different when you age and die, eh? Great book.

A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia , Blaine Harden, 1996

If you want to understand the Pacific Northwest's "east side," this book is a fine start. Harden looks at the Columbia basin through the eyes of his father, who worked on Grand Coulee dam, irrigation farmers, barge pilots, windsurfers, Native Americans and more. Let's hope that we can figure out a way to keep this from being an epitaph.

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner, 1986

The definitive history of water in the West; power, politics, and dams.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are; The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology, Robert Wright, 1995

If we evolved, that implies quite a bit about the way we are. Wright uses biographical material about Charles Darwin to tie his exposition together in an entertaining way.

Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations, Al Franken, 1999

I read the paperback, which has a few new chapters. FunNEE! He doesn't limit himself to the obvious target, either. A local author wrote "The Bum's Rush" a few years back detailing the deceptive techniques that Rush uses, but Franken makes it a lot more entertaining.

The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself, Daniel J. Boorstin, 1985

We have the paperback, but the local library now has two copies of the illustrated edition. Might be worth re-reading, I enjoyed his grasp of history so much.

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, J Gleick, 1993

Well written biography, with 48 pgs of notes, a Feynman bibliography, index. The story of a remarkable man in the center of 20th c. particle physics.

Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly over the Edge, Ed Regis, 1990

Great title, huh? You hope a title like this won't be en empty tease. It's not. Read Howard Rheingold's review for a succinct invitation to a wonderful book.

Life in Moving Fluids: The Physical Biology of Flow, Steven Vogel, 1996

Less technical than engineering texts, this gives a better introduction to fluid mechanics, by being less obsessed with mathematical analysis (and yet doesn't skip the math).

Tools for conviviality, Ivan Illich, 1973

I found this book stunning, and hard to put down. I'd like to find a copy to put in my library and go back to it again, after the ideas percolate for a while.

Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine, Donald A. Norman, 1994

A proposal to have technology serve humans, rather than the current situation. Don Norman was briefly head of HP's Advanced Appliance Design Center in the Consumer Products Group, but doesn't really seem like a corporate guy.

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