John’s Blog

It’s been fun for me to look back over the lists of books I read/blog about each year — I always forget some that were really enjoyable and influential for me. Anyway, here’s a list of the best/most fun/most influential books for me this year. Your mileage may vary.

Most important books I read (and that I think everyone should read)

The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria, by Fareed Zakaria

The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Future of the Internet (and How to Stop It), by Jonathan Zittrain

The most influential in my own personal thinking

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

The most fun to read

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

The Raw Shark Texts, by Stephen Hall

American Creation, by Joseph Ellis

The best written book

Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

I really enjoyed this mystery — it’s a very traditional, straight-up locked room mystery, and very well-constructed. Set in modern Sweden, but with a historical crime. The first part of the book is a little slow; the last part is, too — but the middle is a fantastic page turner, and was great to read over vacation. I’m looking forward to his next book, The Girl who Played with Fire – it doesn’t come out until July here in the States, but goes on sale in the UK next week, so I’ll pick it up on my way through LHR in January.

The interesting backstory here is that Larsson submitted 3 manuscripts (the first three novels in the series) a few years back and then died a month or two later. So we’ve got 3 of his books, plus an unfinished manuscript.

Anyway, I liked this a bunch — reminded me how much fun a mystery/thriller can be.

This was an unexpectedly fun book — I noted (with some amusement) Johnathan‘s pigeon fascination during my visit to Toronto — he responded by sending me this monograph on pigeons. Books about narrow subcultures are among my favorites, and this was a great one. Fun to read, and lots about both the historical and current culture of pigeon-lovers that I had no idea at all about.

My favorite part, although by no means exactly the most animal-friendly, was the bit about the Parlor Rollers — pigeons who, when placed upon the ground, “…somersault backward like deranged, feathered gymnasts.” Not just a short way, either — but up to a couple of football fields long. Amazing. Results in paragraphs like this:

Paul’s a bit disappointed with his bird’s roll. It stops at 122 feet and 9 inches. “I just don’t think he had that many rolls in him today,” he confesses. Nonetheless, the high level of competition at the Grand Nationals invigorates Paul. “If I could have a competitive roll like this every week,” he says, “I’d be in heaven.”

And I guess I should note here that pigeons are among SPL’s favorite subject matter now, too. Consider a few of our faves:

Read through this very quickly this week — my father-in-law brought it with him for his visit. I liked it well enough — it’s a survey of all the ways that Internet people are watching and making sense of usage data, from shopping to voting to crime prevention, and some of the actual people who are doing the work. This book won’t be surprising to anyone who is involved in the Internet — it’s relatively surface level. Worth a skim for people in the business, probably worth reading the whole book for people who are not but are interested in what’s happening with their data.