Category Archives: books
Dialogue in examples from Thomas Metzinger’s Being No One that will probably never be spoken aloud in earnest
On the existence of first-person data ((“The epistemological problem regarding phenomenological, first-person approaches of ‘data generation’ is that if inconsistencies in two individual ‘data sets’ should appear, there is no way to settle the conflict.” p. 591)): “This conscious experience … Continue reading
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From The Possibility Of An Island
Youth, beauty, strength: the criteria for physical love are exactly the same as those of Nazism.
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McSweeney’s just suffered a disaster
It looks like their distributer went out of business and took $130k of McSwy money with them on the way down, so now might be a good time to buy some discounted backlist titles. I can personally vouch for The … Continue reading
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I’m reading a fantastic special-interest book
Founders At Work – Stories of Startups’ Early Days, by Jessica Livingston. The format is brilliant – long interviews with the founders of 28 well-known tech companies. It’s sort of like Faber & Faber’s Director On Director (Kubrick On Kubrick, … Continue reading
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Mark Haddon’s A Spot Of Bother
From the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time, if the name sounds familiar. I liked it, but it’s a romantic comedy centered around a wedding. Never have I read such a good-natured novel. I found … Continue reading
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Were I the mystery guest
I told you about this book I was excited about reading, right? “The Mystery Guest” by Gregoire Bouillier? I got it in the mail today from Amazon and just read it in one quick go and it’s fantastic, the best … Continue reading
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Amazon gift certificates
Got some Hanukkah GCs to spend here – what should I get? Here’s how my cart looks so far: Joy Williams – State of Grace: People swear by this novel Gregoire Bouillier – The Mystery Guest: I’m dying to read … Continue reading
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David Foster Wallace – Consider The Lobster
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is the DFW book of essays I’d unhesitatingly recommend to a friend; Consider The Lobster is for the more entrenched fan, because the pieces aren’t as interesting, basically. The opening bit about … Continue reading
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Bill Buford – Heat
Heat charts Bill Buford’s journey into the stomach of Italy: former fiction editor for the New Yorker*, he gave up his steady job to slave in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s Babbo, then go to Italy and learn pasta-making and … Continue reading
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I’m going to read and post about those twelve books from the NYT’s 100 best of 2006 list starting with “The Discomfort Zone”
Franzen got savaged by Michiko Kakutani in the original review of this book and then it gets included in the year-end list: either it was a weak year for non-fiction or the Times is Pitchfork-like in handing out low marks … Continue reading
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What’s up, Litwack?
Sedo.com. I own ten or so domains that need to be parked, and Sedo takes care of it. Ad revs cover my monthly ice cream budget. If you know what I should do with naturalgothic.com, email. David Allen’s Getting Things … Continue reading
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I write screenplays, books and push software; I'm a collector and indoorsman. If you have a Masonic scepter or a copy of the Boyd Philadelphia Blue Book (any year), drop me a line.