The 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.” I’ll be honest, I’ve got nothing on this one. Anyone who knows anything about his work, please tell me about it in comments. My… Continue reading Literature Nobel to…. French Guy
Category: Books
Everything and More by David Foster Wallace
The best way– really, the only way– to sum up David Foster Wallace’s Everything and More: A Brief History of ∞ is by quoting a bit from it. This comes from the middle part of the book, after a discussion of Fourier series, in one of the “If You’re Interested” digressions from the main discussion:… Continue reading Everything and More by David Foster Wallace
Longitude by Dava Sobel
Jennifer Ouellette’s pop-science book project post and the discussionaround it reminded me that I’m really shockingly ill-read in this area. If I’m going to be writing pop-science books, I ought to have read more of them, so I’ve been trying to correct that. Hence, Longitude, which I actually read a few weeks ago at the… Continue reading Longitude by Dava Sobel
David Foster Wallace, RIP
One of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace, apparently hung himself yesterday. His thousand-page novel Infinite Jest puts the magnum in magnum opus, but it’s a spectacular piece of work, and in some ways, his nonfiction was better than his fiction. Wallace was always a dangerous writer for me– one of those people whose style… Continue reading David Foster Wallace, RIP
Physics for Future Presidents by Richard Muller
Every time I mention the idea of teaching physics to a wider audience than just physics majors, somebody brings up Richard Muller’s course, “Physics for Future Presidents,” at Berkeley. So, I was pleased to find out that he has turned the course into a book, also titled Physics for Future Presidents, with the subtitle “The… Continue reading Physics for Future Presidents by Richard Muller
Science Outreach Through Fiction
Over at Tor.com, David Levine describes a really cool event he went to just before Worldcon: a crash course in modern astronomy for SF writers: The idea behind Launch Pad is Gernsbackian: getting good science into popular fiction as a form of public education and outreach for NASA. SF writer and University of Wyoming astronomy… Continue reading Science Outreach Through Fiction
Free Books Reminder
First of all, if you’re Tony DeCapio, you need to send Kate an email address so she can contact you regarding the free book offer. Leave it in a comment at her LiveJournal– she’s screening the comments, so there’s no chance that spammers will get it. If the previous sentence doesn’t make sense to you,… Continue reading Free Books Reminder
Last Chance for Free Books
As part of the library cull that accompanied moving our books to make room for SteelyKid, Kate and I are giving away some of our duplicate/ unlikely-to-be-read books. On Saturday, whatever is left will be donated to our local library book sale, but if you’d like to spare us the work of carting all those… Continue reading Last Chance for Free Books
Butcher-esque Books?
I’ve been on a big Jim Butcher kick recently, re-reading most of the Dresden Files books. This is largely because holding a regular book is still uncomfortable with my bad thumb, and I have electronic copies of the Dresden books that I can read on my Palm (well, Kate’s old Palm, which I just use… Continue reading Butcher-esque Books?
What Humanists Think
Last weekend’s post, The Innumeracy of Intellectuals, has been lightly edited and re-printed at Inside Higher Ed, where it should be read by a larger audience of humanities types. They allow comments, so it will be interesting to see what gets said about it there. I may have some additional comments on the issue later,… Continue reading What Humanists Think