2 posts tagged “weekly reader”
I read a lot of different things, books, magazines, newspapers, short stories, and web articles. I thought I'd try keeping track of what I read each week and each Monday post about what I read the prior week.
This week's books:
- Hell to Pay by George Pelecanos
I started reading Pelecanos because of his work on the phenomenal TV series The Wire. Pelecanos' books take place in D.C. neighborhoods very reminiscent of the Baltimore neighborhoods he wrote about for the wire, and deal with the same issues of race, crime, drug, and police work. Hell to Pay is the second in a series featuring detectives Derek Strange and Terry Quinn.
They're great reads, not too dense, but full of brilliant observation surrounded by quickly moving plots. I can't wait to read the next in the series, and the rest of Pelecanos' works.
- Imbibe! by David Wondrich (reading)
- Flight by Sherman Alexie (reading)
I didn't get around to many articles this week.
- 'The Uses of Adversity' by Malcolm Gladwell for The New Yorker
I try not to miss any of Gladwell's writing, he writes brilliantly through anecdotal evidence about a variety of topics. This piece covers the rags to riches story, that someone from a poor, minority background was once able to "end up on top, by starting at the bottom" versus todays version of sucess seens as "a matter of capitalizing n socioeconomic advantage, not compensating for disadvantage."
- 'The Oval Office Facebook Group' by Dr. Mark Drapeau for Science Progress
An insightful look about how government intranet sites based on popular social networking platforms like Facebook and Google Docs are changing the way our government shares information.
I read a lot of different things, books, magazines, newspapers, short stories, and web articles. I thought I'd try keeping track of what I read each week and each Monday post about what I read the prior week.
First up the books:
- Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (finished)
- Imbibe!
- Hell to Pay by George Pelecanos
Short Stories:
- The Stone-Hearted Queen by Kelly Barnhill
I finally started reading my way through the Jul/Aug issue of Weird Tales. My favorite story of the issue so far is Kelly Barnhill's 'The Stone-Hearted Queen'. It's a fantasy piece, which I've never been a fan of, but this one is different. It doesn't get caught up in the fact it is a fantasy piece and just tells the story. Barnhill is also a Minnesota author, so I intend to seek out more of her work.
- How I Got Here by Ramsy Shegadeh
This one came highly reccomened by Jeff VanderMeer. It's almost too weird, but proved interesting.
- All In by Peter Atwood
Meh.
Articles:
Michael Pollan, one of the smartest writers I've read, penned this powerful letter to the next president. In it he explains why food policy will be one of the most important issues of the next presidency. He manages to tie energy policy, foreign policy, and environmental policy to food policy in ways that make sense. This is the one must read from my list this week, even if you aren't going to be the next POTUS.
A great article about game design focused on Epic, the creators of Gears of War for the XBOX 360.
Restauranteur Joe Bastianch reconciles his passion for food with his new found desire to run the New York Marathon.
From McSweeney's Internet Tendency comes this funny and very accurate (hopefully) fictional account of a man, his Warcraft addiction, and his girlfriend.
