Category: Books
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The 10 Best Books I Read in 2011
This is a list of the best books I read in 2011. The list is not a Top 10. For one thing, it's not in order. Also, not all of the books were published in 2011, though more of them were recent than is typical for me. All of these are books I read for…
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What I’m thinking about this week
Boots! In January 1996, I was in London briefly, following a semester at Glasgow University. I bought a pair of Dr. Marten’s boots from the flagship store in . They were a sort of wingtip half boot, and I loved them. That’s them up on the right there. I’ve owned various boots over the years,…
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Bits and pieces from Reality is Broken
Another book finished: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they can Change the World by Jane McGonigal. I've seen Jane speak at SXSW — she's phenomenal. The core ideas are not new to me (because I've seen her speak), but she fleshes them out in more detail & adds some nuance…
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Bits and pieces from Empire of Liberty
I just finished Charles S. Wood's Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815. It's an awesome book, and since I don't think any American history from this period stuck in my head from school more than "blah blah XYZ affair blah blah Hamilton Burr duel blah War of 1812" I really needed…
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Thief, thief, thief! Baggins!
I'm slowly reading "The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion" by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. It's a dense exegesis of LOTR and clearly for pretty obsessive Tolkien fans only. It's a lot of fun, though. My favorite so far is finding out that baggins is, among other things, English country speak for…
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MMO subscription charts
I’m reading a few books on online gaming, starting with Edward Castronova’s Synthetic Worlds. It’s mostly about MMORPGs, or MMOs as we’ve thankfully started to call them. I’m about halfway through the book, which was published in 2006, and it’s startling how much has changed in a few years. As the book was written, World…