I’ve got to finish listing all the books I read last year before I can start writing about this year’s books, and this one has been a tough one to write about. I’m very deeply ambivalent about *Atlas Shrugged*, more so than about *[The Fountainhead]([canonical-url:2008/07/05/second-handers-news])*. *Atlas Shrugged* is Rand’s later work, written and published almost a decade and a half after *The Fountainhead*, and the scope is far grander. Whatever virtues and faults can be … Read the rest
The sixth book on my list in 2008 was *Born Standing Up*, Steve Martin’s memoir. Best-known for his comedy in the seventies and comedic movies in the eighties, by the nineties he allowed his intelligence to eclipse his over-the-top antics for older audiences with subtler tastes. *Born Standing Up* takes us farther back. And no, he wasn’t born a poor black child.
I enjoyed Martin’s novella *Shopgirl* (never did see the movie, but it really didn’t look like it would be … Read the rest
The fifth book I read this year was Candice Millard’s River of Doubt, the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1914 exploration of uncharted territory in South America. Both Obama and McCain have invoked Roosevelt’s name (and no, Obama wasn’t talking about FDR though I’m sure he has good things to say about him as well) in the current campaign for president, and bully for them. You don’t get much better than Theodore Roosevelt.
Here’s a guy who ran a campaign … Read the rest
Stephen King’s On Writing was the fourth book I read this year. I really do seem to be reading less than ever this year. Though I am behind in writing my «book reports» I don’t think my total now in the latter half of September reaches over a half-dozen. I’ve got a few that I’m nibbling on, but this is where I am.
On Writing was a mostly clear-headed musing on the subject of writing by someone who makes a darn … Read the rest
How things have changed since my first reading of *The Fountainhead*! I haven’t read Rand since my very early twenties, possibly my very late teens. I found the central theme of Rand’s work in *The Fountainhead* to run parallel to my maturation in the time between the first reading and today. The older I get, the less I care what other people think.
I tend to distrust those who claim not to care about other people’s opinions. It’s a facile claim, … Read the rest
The Parker ‘51’ is in many ways the pinnacle of fountain pen design. The ’51′ looked forward in a way the industry has not seen since. Yes, there have been steps forward, but many of those technological advancements have furthered older designs rather than reinventing the fountain pen, the way Parker did when it developed the ‘51’ in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. So it should be no surprise that the … Read the rest
Inadequacies of Writing Instrument Design and Manufacture is the follow-up to Geoff Roe’s earlier Technical History. Similarly to that book, this one is quite brief. The material originated as a lecture to the Writing Instrument Society in London. Not only do I have a late start on my challenge to read fifty-two books this year, I’m also quite a bit behind in getting these reviews out. So here in the end of March I’m reporting the first of fifty-two … Read the rest
This was the last book I read in 2007, making it number 22. I fell short of my goal for the year by a full thirty books! Clearly in 2008 I need to spend more time reading.
You’d probably have to be a pen nut to finish reading this book, originally a paper titled An Engineer’s View of Writing Instruments, but as I qualify for the title of pen nut, I enjoyed reading this quite a bit. … Read the rest
A friend told me about this series, that these books fascinated her in her early teens. She bought one to see if it would hold her interest in adulthood, and reported back that it was a guilty pleasure. So one morning I decided to read it over coffee.
It’s definitely kids’ fare. The spooky story was predictable even to the twist ending. It was an easy read without any pesky character development or subtext. Here is the equivalent of a … Read the rest
Tom Clancy novels’ strengths and weaknesses are pretty much the same. Depending on where you’re coming from, endless minute details of military technology and culture can be fascinating or tedious. While this was turned into one of the stronger of the Jack Ryan movies, the novel itself didn’t hold together all that well. The technology was all there, but even the characters regular readers have come to know and love seemed dead and two-dimensional.
In Hunt for Red October, Clancy … Read the rest