My reviews of books in reverse chronological order (i.e. most-recent-first) of date-of-review (which is not necessarily the same as the date-read).
Title: The Great American Tax Dodge
Author: Donald Bartlett, James Steele
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 9 December 2001
The Bartlett and Steele team have collaborated on many books on what might loosely be called The American Dream (i.e. aspects of American life, society, law, and government). Their latest book The Great American Tax Dodge is, obviously, on the second inevitability of modern life.
Bartlett and Steele expound on the very many fraudulent practices in common use, among both rich and poor, to avoid paying US individual income taxes (as they themselves say, documenting corporate tax evasion is the subject of a whole 'nother tome). The frauds include: offshore bank accounts, Internet and electronic money laundering, outrageous expense accounting, and of course, the utter criminality of the Congress in giving out tax breaks to its campaign contributors.
The authors also excoriate the IRS for not enforcing tax laws uniformly on the rich and poor: it is, after all, easier to prosecute the non-rich and the non-well-connected.
The book closes with one of the best epilogues for tax reform. The book is worth reading for these 3 pages alone. The authors call for a tax system that:
An excellent book.
Title: Necessary but not Sufficient
Author: Eliyahu M. Goldratt
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 19 November 2001
Eliyahu Goldratt is a physicist who seems to have cult-following in the ERP, Optimization/planning, and Supply-chain worlds. His books are required reading for new employees at atleast one major supply-chain company in the US.
Necessary but not Sufficient is the fictionalized parable (hence my seemingly misleading classification of this book as non-fiction) of an ERP company that has grown too large too fast, and is facing all the problems that one expects from such exponentially explosive growth: saturated markets, increased competition, software bloat, organizational turf-wars, waning enthusiasm---all symptoms of the systemic disease of software rot.
The company, BGSoft, does pull itself out of the mess it is in, and the story of how it does so is Goldratt's focus in this book.
Goldratt is an evangelical proponent of the Theory of Constraints method of optimization, planning, and scheduling---not surprisingly, use of TOC is what saves BGSoft from disaster.
However, every software engineer will recognize in this book the pervasive problem of the entire field---bad software design and premature optimization leading to cascading problems. Ironically, non-software aspects of a manufacturing company (the primary target for BGSoft's ERP software) suffer from a tragedy of success---almost everything that seems to be implemented to ease the operations of a factory end up worsening the situation.
Anyone who is enamored with technology, and especially with new-fangled business models, value-add, e-economy, Internet revolution, this time is different should read this book if only to appreciate that software very rarely produces actual bottom-line savings for a company, and it does so best only when it replaces human beings who were formerly doing a bad job and when the software forces those humans remaining to learn radically new ways of thinking and working. Not a comforting message for status quoers.
Title: Motherless Brooklyn
Author: Jonathan Lethem
Category: Fiction
Review written: 9 November 2001
Lethem is one of those rare visceral writers, at least in my opinion, since I appreciate the verbal play and word-mangling that seem to be a characteristic of Tourette's---I do this myself all the time, only I have enough voluntary control that prevents me from blurting out my rambling for the world to hear.
Motherless Brooklyn is the story narrated by Lionel Essrog, an orphaned Tourette boy who is rescued, along with a few of his fellow orphans, by Frank Minna. Minna starts a detective agency and car service, and keeps the boys occupied, but there is something not quite right about the whole thing---Minna's shady past, the mobster-connection of the business, his mysterious brother, his distracted wife, and so on.
The book starts off with Minna getting killed, and then follows Lionel as he solves the mystery of the killing.
Not only is the detective writing superb, but Lethem manages to create for us a touching and vivid picture of what it is like to be a Tourette's sufferer. Lionel's verbal ticcing, his obsessive compulsion with ritual, and yet his cold, calculating dedication to his task and clarity of narration are what make this book a great read.
Title: K-PAX
Author: Gene Brewer
Category: Fiction
Review written: 7 November 2001
Mental disease, as an escape from trauma, manifests itself in many ways---delusion of being an alien from another planet is one of them. This is the plot of K-PAX.
The novel features a semi-autobiographical psychiatrist Gene Brewer who meets a strange patient named prot (claiming to be) from the planet K-PAX in the constellation of Lyra. prot eats fruit, hold forth on cutting edge physics, and has a therapeutic effect on the other mental patients at Brewer's hospital.
As Brewer investigates the strange man further, he comes to believe that prot is really an alternate personality of a man named Robert, who had killed the murderers of his wife and daughter, and then attempted suicide. Robert concocts prot to help him imagine a Utopia free of the troubles that plauged his own childhood and adult life---K-PAX has no government, property, work-for-earning-a-living, crime, poverty, disease, or sex.
Although the novel (bowing to the demands of fiction) does leave open a tiny bit of room for prot to really be an alien inhabiting a human body, Brewer presents a reasonable psychiatric analysis of how alien visitation may be just another form of coping that a traumatized mind uses.
A readable novel.
PS: And no, I have not yet seen the movie. The book does not seem to be as sugar-coated, feel-good, and smarmy as the reviews say the movie is. We shall see!!
Title: Fooled by Randomness
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 6 November 2001
It should be plainly obvious to intelligent, rational humans that the vast majority of humanity is stupid and incapable of careful mathematical thinking. It should also be just as obvious to these intelligent people that the stupid ones are incapable of understanding their own stupidity.
Taleb's Fooled by Randomness is a quirky, idiosyncratic, curmudgeonly, rant-and-rave take on the concept of probability and its importance in human affairs. Think of the book as John Allen Paulos's innumeracy series without the politeness.
Taleb also goes into some discussion of the philosophy of inductive skepticism, a la Hume and Popper, as well as the fact that human thought seems highly compartmentalized---those who are extremely rational in one walk of life are just as extremely stupid in others. Our genes have not constructed brains that can appreciate and accomodate logical thinking.
A very entertaining book.
Title: Dave Barry Hits Below The Beltway
Author: Dave Barry
Category: (Non-)fiction??
Review written: 26 October 2001
Dave Barry is a national treasure; and I am not making this up.
In his latest book (that is not a collection of his newspaper essays but manufactured entirely out of thin air, bogus research and all) Dave Barry Hits Below The Beltway, Barry aims his punches at Washington and the farce that is the US federal government.
In the second half of the book, Barry explains why South Florida should be expunged from the Union if we are to avoid the 2000 presidential election fiasco. His descriptions of the constant shenanigans going on all the time in this Cuban infested rat-hole make the pregnant chads pale in comparison.
Dave Barry is just the thing for your winter SAD blues. Do not miss this or any other of his books.
Title: In Search of Lake Wobegone
Author: Garrison Keillor
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 16 October 2001
Lake Wobegone has joined Atlantis, Timbuktu, and the rest of the pantheon of lost, mythological cities that nevertheless ought to exist---they seem to satisfy some primal urge in the human psyche.
In the case of the little town in Minnesota, it is probably the recollection of childhood memories of living and growing up in a small town and a closely knit, tight-lipped, emotionally withdrawn, community.
In Search of Lake Wobegone is a delightful photo essay of images of Stearns County, the alleged home of Lake Wobegone. Keillor modelled his stories on the people and places he himself saw there, and, of course, the resemblance is striking. But, even more remarkable, just change the German Catholic names, blonde hair, and blue eyes as appropriate, and you have Anytown, Anywhere, Anyplace, Anytime---we, the reader, fill in the details with our own fondest memories. Richard Olsenius's blank-and-white photos heighten the effect of another time and place.
Title: The Grand Complication
Author: Allen Kurzweil
Category: Fiction
Review written: 12 October 2001
The Grand Complication is primarily an old-fashioned mystery, and I mean old-fashioned in the best sense of the word: exotic locales, purloined treasure, clues that misdirect, intellectual sleuthing, and a beguilingly fast pace beneath a surface of glacial calmness.
The book is about books (a thematic joke that runs through the story). The book is also about time (the story is divided into 60 chapters, running over 360 pages, and comes full circle at the end to where it began).
The protagonist is Alexander Short, a librarian with a really shitty life: his boss gets on his nerves, his job isn't interesting or well-paying, and worst of all, he is married to a Gallic woman who taunts him in, get this, French!!!! But, oh, for pity's sake let us move on.
Short meets Henry James Jesson III, a mysterious stranger, and they both set out on a quest to recover an antique timepiece supposedly made for Marie Antoinette, but never given to her due to her untimely decapitation.
Obviously, I am not going to give away the ending or the plot twists or the myriad word-play and jokes in the story. An extremely well-written novel.
Title: Lake Wobegon Summer 1956
Author: Garrison Keillor
Category: Fiction
Review written: 6 October 2001
Garrison Keillor is a genuine American icon. But his talents as a writer and humorist have not been appreciated as much as they should be.
Now this statement may seem surprising for those familiar only with A Prairie Home Companion. But Keillor's humor in his books are far more risque and scatalogical than most listeners to his radio show would guess or care for.
Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 is the story of Gary (supposedly autobiographical, but, of course, completely made-up), a horny 14-year old with a healthy interest in fart-taxonomy, booger-jokes, and badly written pornography. Gary gets a typewriter as a present from an Uncle, and discovers his aptitude and love for writing.
Keillor's writing is simultaneously funny and touching, and describes to a T the life of a small-town, closely-knit community. A very satisfying read.
Title: This Shape We're In
Author: Jonathan Lethem
Category: Fiction
Review written: 5 October 2001
This Shape We're In is Osmosis Jones on LSD. An aging militaristic homunculus takes over the pineal gland, the supposed seat of the soul, of an implied human being, and goes to metaphoric war in an amusement park.
I don't think Lethem deserves too much credit for writing neurologically deranged characters as in Motherless Brooklyn since the man himself seems equally deranged.
This 55 page short story is hyper-surreal.
Title: How to Read a French Fry
Author: Russ Parsons
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 2 October 2001
Cooking is applied chemistry. How to Read a French Fry is an explication of that dictum.
Russ Parsons interleaves cooking-science tidbits with recipes to make for a book that will interest a large audience. I, for one, just read the science and skipped over the recipes; I assume many others will do the converse.
Parsons does not deal much with direct experimentation (unlike Harold McGee in The Curious Cook), but he does an excellent job of explaining how a little bit more or less of a certain ingredient, or a change in the manner of preparation can change the texture and flavor of a food item. There is ample information in the book for almost anyone to begin experimenting themselves with basic recipes.
Title: A Shortage of Engineers
Author: Robert Grossbach
Category: Fiction
Review written: 30 September 2001
In A Shortage of Engineers, Robert Grossbach combines the humor of Scott Adams's Dilbert with Joseph Heller's chilling view of the stultifying boredom and madness of bureaucracy in Something Happened.
The novel is the story of Zach Zaremba, an engineer struggling against the bullshit of the corporate world. All engineers will see a little bit of themselves in each of the characters in the book.
A wonderful read. Do not miss this book.
Title: Thinks ...
Author: David Lodge
Category: Fiction
Review written: 20 September 2001
It is rare these days to find an intelligent book on artificial intelligence; and even rarer to find a work of fiction that elegantly expounds on the issues in AI, philosophy of mind, consciousness, evolution, and science.
The cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett once said that for the last 400 years, the greatest purveyors of the human mind have been authors of literary works---literature being the medium through which they have explored the workings of the human self, starting from the humble beginnings of folk psychology. Dennett also points out that the implicitly stated goal of literature is that the human psyche is infinitely varied (why would people otherwise write novel after novel about the same damn thing).
In Thinks ..., Lodge opposes the scientific and the literary approaches to the study of mind using the vehicles of his two leading characters. Ralph Messenger is the scientist: consistently and unapologetically rational throughout (it gives me orgasmic pleasure to read sentences like Since the Enlightenment [...] science has established itself as the only true form of knowledge); Helen Reed is the author: a jumble of emotions and passions more complex than that of the characters in her novel.
Apart from the supertext of conflict between the rational and the irrational, there is a subtext of the intrigues of the community of a sleeply little academic enclave (a la The Wonder Boys). There is plenty of snogging and shagging (Lodge is a Brit), providing more confirmation of the dictum that adults have more fun in adultery than infants do in infancy.
And there is humor aplenty. The section where Helen's students do an imitation of the style famous Brit authors (Martin Amis, Irvine Welsh, Salman Rushdie, Samuel Beckett) expounding on Nagel's famous question What is it like to be a bat? is hilarious.
This is a not-to-be-missed book from a extremely talented author.
Title: Celebrating Time Alone
Author: Lionel Fisher
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 13 September 2001
Fisher's book Celebrating Time Alone is a collection of stories about solitude: the conscious decision by people to be alone.
Solitude as exemplified in the book ranges from complete lack of contact with other humans, to lack of mere physical contact (letters, phone calls, email, are still around).
Two common threads in many of the stories of many of the seekers of true solitude are: (1) a desire to simplify their lives (seeing aloneness as the best way achieve it), and (2) a genuine desire to avoid the company of other humans.
However, many of the people featured in the book are alone merely because of a divorce or a series of failed relationships. These are, in my not-at-all-humble-opinion impostors who do not deserve any of the respect accorded to the true seekers of solitude.
The book would have been much better and much more useful had it just stuck to the true seekers of solitude and not wasted much of its time and space on the touristy arrivistes, since the psychological motivations that drive the two categories of people are very different and deserve independent study.
Title: Napalm & Silly Putty
Author: George Carlin
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 6 September 2001
How does one really review a man who immortalized: shit, piss, fuck, cock, cunt, cocksucker, and motherfucker.
I read somewhere that Carlin's seven forbidden words of the 1970s are the most popular and heavily used words in movies and cable shows as we march boldly into the new millennium.
Napalm & Silly Putty is a collection of Carlinesque humor: witty observations, rants and raves, word play, and off-the-wall zaniness.
Carlin's plan to save Social Security is alone worth the price of admission into this extremely enjoyable book; beware of reading it in public, those around you may not really appreciate the drool and snot pouring of you as you convulse in laughter.
Title: The Hacker Ethic
Author: Pekka Himanen (with Linus Torvalds and Manuel
Castells)
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 3 September 2001
Linus has been attributed with the quote: `Software is like sex; it is better when it is free'.
I would extend that by saying: `Software is better than sex; it offers way more pleasure with way less messiness, and you can do it all by yourself'.
Anyone who does not feel a deep, orgasmic pleasure creating software does not qualify as a hacker. In particular, those who say that they program for money are among the worst, most despicable whores in the profession (and are also the most likely to produce crappy software).
The Hacker Ethic consists of the Pekka Himanen's attempt as a philosopher to link the modern hacker ethic as manifested in software engineering to similarly motivated quests for knowledge, and to attitudes towards creativity and work of the past.
Pekka mostly succeeds in his attempt. For example, of the three bedrocks of the hacker ethic: (1) the work ethic, (2) the money ethic, and (3) the network ethic, both the work ethic and money ethic have their antecedents in the past in other fields of endeavor.
The hacker work ethic is distinctly a rebellion against the Protestant work ethic (a la Max Weber) of the late 19th century, and harks back to a much more Utopian and earlier view of labor as a source of pleasure than as a moral duty.
The hacker money ethic emphasizes sharing of knowledge and quest of knowledge for its own sake rather than for purely material rewards, which has been the primary motivation for almost all of science, philosophy, and the creative arts since time immemorial.
Himanen however fails to deliver in two ways. First, he is unable to relate the hacker network ethic, the obsessive demand for privacy in the network age, to any movement or thought that came before.
Second, he does not address the question of whether the hacker ethic arose as an evolutionary product of its predecessors, or if it is an independent re-discovery of the same ethic---an important question since it allows us to gain a better understanding of how such ethics come to be. A cursory study of hacker history seems to suggest independent re-discovery (since the Model Railroad Club at MIT did not consciously attempt to recreate an idyllic past), but one can never dismiss the power of zeitgeist in academia.
Still, the book is a fast, interesting, scholarly, and mostly well-written read (it is also easy to skip over the boring parts, esp. those written by Manuel Castells, a sociologist who solidifies his profession's reputation for vacuous prosody).
Title: How to be Good
Author: Nick Hornby
Category: Fiction
Review written: 28 August 2001
The only part of High Fidelity, the movie, that I like is the part featuring Tim Robbins. Think of How to be Good, Nick Hornby's latest novel, to be the story of the Tim Robbins character.
The basic plot for the novel is quite ordinary: a family that should, by all rights, be happy, breaks apart because the wife is bored; she wants her husband to change because he is always angry, and when he does change, she wants him to change back to what he was before, and so on.
But where High Fidelity, the movie, and Bridget Jones failed, How to be Good succeeds because unlike the former which attempted to portray irrational people doing stupid things w.r.t. relationships in a sympathetic light, Hornby whiplashes and excoriates the despicable self-interestedness of his characters. This dope-slapping makes Good a superbly dark and funny novel.
Also, this being a Brit-book, we have references to Salman Rushdie and Jeffrey Archer, the Beatles, Catherine Zeta-Jones and the Spice Girls (including this gem: "Is it possible to want to divorce a man simply because he doesn't want to be rude to Ginger Spice?"). I was rolling on the floor with laughter through most of this novel.
An excellent read, unless you are one of the ponces featured in it.
Title: The Betrayal of America
Title: Outrage
Author: Vincent Bugliosi
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 25 August 2001
Vincent Bugliosi's article in The Nation magazine, written in early 2001, elicited the largest reader response in the magazine's history. In the article, Bugliosi pulled no punches and called the 5 majority justices of Bush v. Gore "criminals in the truest sense of the word who belong behind bars, being guilty of treason".
Betryal is an expanded version of the article. Bugliosi is devastating and entertaining in his prose, and certainly has no use for false politeness or euphemism.
Outrage is Bugliosi's take on the O.J.Simpson fiasco. The book is primarily an analysis of the stupidity and incompetence of Judge Lance Ito, and of the prosecuting attorneys, but Bugliosi also takes the time and effort to point to the moronicity of the: media, analysts, the defense team, and has nothing but the deepest contempt for Simpson.
I had great pleasure reading someone who believes, as do I, that a vast majority of humanity is both (1) inherently depraved and selfish, and (2) stupid and incompetent. Go, Bugliosi, go!!
Title: Symphony in the Brain
Author: Jim Robbins
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 23 August 2001
It seems a priori reasonable to expect that changes in brain electro-chemistry (and hence changes in one's personality, and health/disease states) can be achieved not only by chemical means (i.e. drugs), but also by conscious psychological means (i.e. through willpower or bio-feedback).
Symphony in the Brain starts off well as a book on brain bio-feedback, but quickly degenerates into a description of the personalities involved in the field, their quarrels with academia and the medical establishment (and how the unpopularity of brain bio-feedback is a conspiracy of the drug companies), and the wonderful anecdotal miracle-cures effected by the technique.
Robbins occasionally includes skeptical viewpoints in his book, but it is a complete waste of time reading this pile of nonsense. Whatever truth there may be in brain bio-feedback, it will have to wait for rigorous double-blind, placebo-controlled research before it deserves any serious attention.
Title: Investment Madness
Author: John R. Nofsinger
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 19 August 2001
Books on behavioral finance come in two flavors:
I have nothing but contempt for the second category of books, but the first are interesting to read, because they do serve a useful educational purpose: to help us understand that even seemingly small, trivial decisions we make in our day-to-day lives can be improved for our own long-term benefit.
Nofsinger's Investment Madness is in the first category of behavioral finance books, although he does make the obligatory venture into the second category in a few places.
If you have already read 20 other books on behavioral personal finance, there is probably nothing new in this book. If, on the other hand, you are not familiar with this field, check out this book---you are almost certain to learn something about you, or someone near and dear to you (but who has money-problems).
Title: Investment Titans
Author: Jonathan Burton
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 16 August 2001
Investment Titans is supposed to be a popularization of the thoughts and ideas of 9 people in the investment and financial fields---almost all of them are either professors of finance/economics (Harry Markowitz, William Sharpe), or else practioners of the highest caliber and integrity (John Bogle, Peter Bernstein).
And yet, Burton manages to mangle this wonderful oppurtunity by constantly interjecting with his own opinions, and attempting to reinterpret and qualify the statements of the people he is supposed to be interviewing.
The book ends up being a ridiculous insult to its principal characters. I suggest going directly to the sources: almost everyone featured here has written their own books---read those instead.
Title: The Ape and the Sushi Master
Author: Frans de Waal
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 12 August 2001
Frans de Waal is supposed to be a great primatologist, but there is not a shred of evidence of his intellect in this book.
The Ape and the Sushi Master is supposed to be about animal culture (i.e. learned, non-genetically based behavior). But instead of talking about how a scientist distinguishes between instinct and learning, how such effects are isolated, and how they are transmitted among the animals of a group, we are instead subjected to a rambling biography (even hagiography) of supposedly famous scientists who had something to say on the topic of animal culture.
All of the cliched canards about behaviorism are there in this book. de Waal hits rock bottom when he attempts to explain the dualism between "nature" and "nuture" as a contrast between the reductionism of the West vs. the holism of the East, between the knife-and-fork of the Occident vs. the chopstick elegance of the Orient. This is nothing but pure shit.
Avoid this crapfest.
Title: Choke
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Category: Fiction
Review written: 8 August 2001
Victor Mancini is a sex addict who goes to recovery meetings to learn new perversions and meet willing women.
Victor goes to restaurants to deliberately choke on food, get saved by another patron, and touch them for money on a regular basis from then on. He uses this choke-money to care for his Alzheimer's ridden mother, who labors under the delusion that Victor was immaculately conceived and is the second coming of the Lord.
"Dr".Paige Marshall tries to get herself impregnated by Victor, so that she can abort the fetus and use its tissues to treat Victor's mother's dementia.
Denny is Victor's friend who obsessively collects rocks to distract himself from his sexual obsession, and accompanies Victor to his chokings.
These are the type of characters who populate Choke: humanity in all its glory and without any makeup.
Chuck Palahniuk has done it once again, with an extremely black, dark, and hilarious book. Get all of his books and have a reading spree.
Title: Banvard's Folly
Author: Paul Collins
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 8 August 2001
What is success? Despite speculation and theorizing since time immemorial, the best definition for success that we can come up with seems to be that success is what succeeds.
Banvard's Folly is about 13 unfortunate individuals whom success eluded. Some of them were quite famous during their days, but are now almost lost from the annals of history. Others labored in obscurity all their life.
Some had great ideas that were merely ahead of their time, while others were certified cranks.
And yet, it seems like the caprice of fate that these anti-heros are unsung while many of their lesser contemporaries are hailed as pioneers and masters.
Paul Collins's book is a delightful collection of little morsels on the lives and times of each of these failures: a great read.
Title: In Code
Author: Sarah Flannery, David Flannery
Category: Non-fiction
Review written: 4 August 2001
In 1999, the then 16-year old Sarah Flannery published a candidate public-key cryptosystem based on the Caley-Purser algorithm. This work won her several awards and catapulted her into world-wide media attention. While the cryptosystem was later proved to be insecure, it is hard to not stand in awe of the achievement of this youngster who, at the age when most girls think of nothing but makeup and prom, investigated cutting-edge ideas in number theory and cryptography.
In Code is Sarah's description (co-written with her father, David) of the events surrounding her study of Caley-Purser. It is clear that Sarah's aptitude for math comes from her father: himself a mathematician and someone who encourages his children to play with puzzles at the family kitchen every night.
The book is also a superb exposition of some of the math that underlies modern cryptography.
It is a real delight to read about Sarah's adventure, and appreciate why mathematics is the greatest tribute to the human mind.
[ Book Reviews | Reviews | Krishna Kunchithapadam ]
Last updated: Sun Aug 29 17:59:30 PDT 2004
URL: http://www.geocities.com/krishna_kunchith/reviews/books/books-02.html