Book update
I recently finished “The Bourne Legacy”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?location=/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312999526/tins-20, a book I was incredibly reluctant to read. I first read The Bourne Identity in junior high school, and I have vivid memories of reading The Bourne Ultimatum while traveling in France as a high school student. Ludlum’s gift for complex plots, attention to detail, respect for his characters [...]
The Zero Game
I recently finished reading Brad Meltzer’s “The Zero Game”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446612111/tins-20, a terrific book about a game gone horribly awry in DC. For political junkies, Meltzer provides plenty of detail on the inner workings of the Appropriations Committee (quite timely, actually, considering that there’s a nice little “scandal brewing”:http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000882.php between an Appropriations Committee staffer, his boss Rep. [...]
Strangest kids book ever
Reading “Babar and the Succotash Bird”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007DB95A/tins-20 to my kids tonight, I ran across the following paragraph. You may not agree, but it strikes me as among the oddest ever committed to the English language:
“Remember, Alexander, don’t jump to conclusions. There’s more than one bird who can call ‘Succotash!’ That’s how life is - right mixed [...]
The secret to Stephen King’s writing
Revealed on “his message boards”:http://www.stephenking.com/messageboard.php, the question was “does Stephen have a writing schedule?” The answer:
bq. “He writes at his home office almost every morning for about 4 - 4-1/2 days.”
So now we know.
Cell
Just finished reading Cell by Stephen King. Definitely not my favorite of his; about 18 months ago I read through the entire Dark Tower series, and found it a masterful collection of characters, a thoroughly engrossing weaving of multiple story lines into one long arc, and an all-around enjoyable story. My favorite of his books [...]
Reading Barry Eisler’s Rain Fall
Thanks to Brad’s “glowing review”:http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/001651.html of “Barry Eisler”:http://www.barryeisler.com/, I picked up Rain Fall yesterday and am already engrossed. Eisler’s got an easy style, and speaks with authority on everything from locale (that Eisler lived in Japan for several years is obvious) to tactics (turns out Eisler was a covert operative for the CIA for 4 [...]
Talk about bad luck: Chicago police, part II
This is funny, I saw the “original post”:http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/06/chicago-police-borrow-page-from.html pointing out the “Chicago police website”:http://www.chicagopolice.org/ps/list.aspx, then made the same connection that Steven Levitt did:
In my last post, I talked about how Chicago police have begun posting pictures on the internet of johns caught soliciting prostitutes. Based on the numbers given in a Chicago Tribune article, it [...]
Ender’s Game
A while back (at least a year, probably more), “Marty”:http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/blog/ sent me a quick e-mail. “Have you read Ender’s Game?”
Ignoring the name of this blog for a moment (if you didn’t know, “tins” is an acronym for “There Is No Spoon”, a pivotal scene in the Matrix when Neo realizes that he’s in more control [...]
Back in Action: An American Hero
My good friend “Jason Smith”:http://texasrainmaker.blogspot.com/ recently “pointed out”:http://texasrainmaker.blogspot.com/2005/02/my-friend-american-hero.html that a high school buddy just published a book, Back in Action. As it happens, while traveling last week I caught a brief mention of the book on Lou Dobbs’ show on CNN. By all accounts, Captain David Rozelle is someone we should all be incredibly proud [...]
Adina Levin on Interface
Adina “recently”:http://alevin.com/weblog/archives/001498.html#001498 finished Interface by Stephen Bury (a pen name for Neal Stephenson), and wonders whether the outcome would be any different with weblogs:
bq. Will peer communication yield more information to move the boulders of distortion, or simply be turned into rivulets of spin and counterspin? Some of both, I think.
I tend to think Adina’s [...]
