Book roundup - nonfiction
by rrusczyk, Dec 26, 2008, 6:30 PM
Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt. A whole book about Traffic. I'm not kidding. And it was fascinating. The book should be required reading for anyone who's about to start driving (particularly if the soon-to-be driver is self-aware enough to see that empirically revealed failures held by most people are likely to be help by themselves). The book has affected my driving. OK, not as much as racking up 7 moving violations in 7 states in 7 years (a long time ago -- I haven't had one for almost 15 years now). But still, had I read a book like this when I was 21, I might have been a better driver. A couple interesting tidbits from the book:
1) How long would you guess the dashed white lines on the highway are? And how far apart?
2) In a few towns in Scandinavia, they've gotten rid of traffic signs entirely. The result: traffic moves much more smoothly and quickly, and is much safer. But people think it's less safe. Wonderful. Trust people to their own devices, and they do better, but think it would be better if someone told everyone what to do. Sounds like life, to me.
Reporting by David Remnick. This is a collection of articles Remnick wrote for the New Yorker. They're mainly biographical sketches of notable recent figures, with emphasis on Russia, Israel, and boxing (quite a mix). I've enjoyed several other books by Remnick (most notably Lenin's Tomb, on the last days of the Soviet Union). This book was more uneven than the others, but that's to be expected from what's essentially an anthology. Curiously, the articles on the lesser-known people were more interesting than those on more famous people. In general, though, I'd say that it's a shame more journalism isn't like this---greater depth, less shouting and politicizing.
Freedom for the Thought we Hate by Anthony Lewis. This book is a history of the first amendment, focusing a great deal on the Supreme Court cases that have gradually expanded the power of freedom of speech to what it is today. Two main points that this book illuminates are the facts that freedom of speech has grown immensely here in the United States, and that freedom of speech is much greater in the US than basically anywhere else in the world. Two points I think most Americans don't appreciate.
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I read this before the Obama folks pushed the book back into the limelight to advance the Obama=Lincoln meme (which this book renders a fair amount laughable). This book mainly traces Lincoln's biography as intertwined with those of his key advisers. It was a very interesting look at how some of the political decisions of the time were made, but the book was excessively fawning of Lincoln, and greatly undermined its case in doing so. That said, anyone who can read Euclid for fun is all right by me!
No True Glory: Fallujah and the Struggle for Iraq by Bing West. An up-close account of the Americans' struggles in Fallujah and a few other areas in Iraq. I'm not really sure what to make of this book, and I'm not really sure what the author intended. The first few chapters were very choppy and disorienting, as the author hopped around in time without making it clear he was doing so. Once he settled down and found his narrative, the book was much more interesting. Like most accounts I've read of the Iraq war, this book presented Iraq as a very human endeavor. Some great heroes (both soldiers and leaders) undermined by fate or politics. Some great fools. Some great cowards. A lot of misery with some bright lights here and there. Not much room for hope, but not much clarity why -- is it shortsightedness on the part of the American leaders? The Iraqi leaders? The inability of Iraqis to stand up to the thugs in their communities? Who knows? In the midst of all this, teenagers run around shooting each other. (If anything, the book was overlong in its description of actual combat, but I think it's a good thing for people to appreciate the position we place these soldiers in when we go into conflicts like these. Perhaps it will make us more serious when electing leaders to prosecute, or not prosecute, these types of conflicts. Yeah, I'm dreaming.)
1) How long would you guess the dashed white lines on the highway are? And how far apart?
2) In a few towns in Scandinavia, they've gotten rid of traffic signs entirely. The result: traffic moves much more smoothly and quickly, and is much safer. But people think it's less safe. Wonderful. Trust people to their own devices, and they do better, but think it would be better if someone told everyone what to do. Sounds like life, to me.
Reporting by David Remnick. This is a collection of articles Remnick wrote for the New Yorker. They're mainly biographical sketches of notable recent figures, with emphasis on Russia, Israel, and boxing (quite a mix). I've enjoyed several other books by Remnick (most notably Lenin's Tomb, on the last days of the Soviet Union). This book was more uneven than the others, but that's to be expected from what's essentially an anthology. Curiously, the articles on the lesser-known people were more interesting than those on more famous people. In general, though, I'd say that it's a shame more journalism isn't like this---greater depth, less shouting and politicizing.
Freedom for the Thought we Hate by Anthony Lewis. This book is a history of the first amendment, focusing a great deal on the Supreme Court cases that have gradually expanded the power of freedom of speech to what it is today. Two main points that this book illuminates are the facts that freedom of speech has grown immensely here in the United States, and that freedom of speech is much greater in the US than basically anywhere else in the world. Two points I think most Americans don't appreciate.
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I read this before the Obama folks pushed the book back into the limelight to advance the Obama=Lincoln meme (which this book renders a fair amount laughable). This book mainly traces Lincoln's biography as intertwined with those of his key advisers. It was a very interesting look at how some of the political decisions of the time were made, but the book was excessively fawning of Lincoln, and greatly undermined its case in doing so. That said, anyone who can read Euclid for fun is all right by me!
No True Glory: Fallujah and the Struggle for Iraq by Bing West. An up-close account of the Americans' struggles in Fallujah and a few other areas in Iraq. I'm not really sure what to make of this book, and I'm not really sure what the author intended. The first few chapters were very choppy and disorienting, as the author hopped around in time without making it clear he was doing so. Once he settled down and found his narrative, the book was much more interesting. Like most accounts I've read of the Iraq war, this book presented Iraq as a very human endeavor. Some great heroes (both soldiers and leaders) undermined by fate or politics. Some great fools. Some great cowards. A lot of misery with some bright lights here and there. Not much room for hope, but not much clarity why -- is it shortsightedness on the part of the American leaders? The Iraqi leaders? The inability of Iraqis to stand up to the thugs in their communities? Who knows? In the midst of all this, teenagers run around shooting each other. (If anything, the book was overlong in its description of actual combat, but I think it's a good thing for people to appreciate the position we place these soldiers in when we go into conflicts like these. Perhaps it will make us more serious when electing leaders to prosecute, or not prosecute, these types of conflicts. Yeah, I'm dreaming.)
February 2012
January 2012