Reading List
Bremmer, Ian. The J Curve. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2006. ISBN: 0743274717
A fascinating look at political stability and instablity over the past 50 years. It also presents some surprising foreign policy suggestions for what countries can do to help promote peaceful regime changes. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I had the fortune of seeing Ian Bremmer speak, and he is an excellent public speaker. I suggest seeing him if you get the chance.
[ 2007-May-23 22:24 | Permanent Link ]
Levitt, Steven D. and Dubner, Stephen J. Freakonomics. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2005. ISBN: 006073132X
This is a well-deserved best seller. It is both entertaining and revealing. I think the most interesting thing is that it shows good examples of how it can be possible to measure and evaluate processes which people typically consider impossible to quantify. This is a useful perspective, as measuring things is critical when to improve them.
[ 2007-May-08 19:24 | Permanent Link ]
Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas. New York: Random House, 2004. ISBN: 0375507256
A clever piece of metafiction. The story itself is entertaining, but less then observing the author have fun with language.
[ 2007-May-08 19:24 | Permanent Link ]
Feathers, Michael C. Working Effectively with Legacy Code. Upper Sadle River, NJ, USA: Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN: 0131177052
This should really be called "how to unit test legacy code." However, despite the misleading title, I found it to be a useful read. It discusses many tools and techniques for how to write tests for legacy code, so you can make changes to it with confidence that you have not broken everything. As such, it is a very practical complement to Refactoring, which assumse that you already have tests in place.
[ 2007-May-08 19:23 | Permanent Link ]
Palahniuk, Chuck. Invisible Monsters. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999. ISBN: 0393319296
Bizarre yet engrossing. I enjoyed it. Palahniuk is, at the very least, a creative storyteller.
[ 2007-May-08 19:20 | Permanent Link ]
Hébert, Chantal. French Kiss. Toronto: Random House, 2007. ISBN: 9780676979077
A summary of the rise of the Conservative party in Québec, but it does a good job summarizing the federal political scene from the end of Chrétien's Liberal party through to Stephen Harper's government. I was quite surprised: I actually found it quite fascinating.
[ 2007-May-08 19:18 | Permanent Link ]
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Random House, 2003. ISBN: 0375422307
A French-style bande dessinée written by an Iranian now living in Paris about growing up at the time of the Iranian revolution. Satrapi's simple, minimalistic drawings and basic writing still manage to evoke powerful emotions. I loved both Persepolis and Persepolis 2.
[ 2007-May-08 19:13 | Permanent Link ]
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. ISBN: 0060838582
Absolutely fascinating and scary. While I disagree with the author's bias against big businesses, it is amazing what evil things some of the big food companies have done. How can the people who work for and run some of these organizations sleep at night?
[ 2007-April-25 06:54 | Permanent Link ]
Gopnik, Adam. Through the Children's Gate. New York: Random House, 2006. ISBN: 0676978266
This is a set of short stories and essays about living in New York. The quality of them ranges from outstanding to merely good. The ones I found less interesting tended to be too cerebral, and used (to me) obscure references to music and art that I was not familiar with. "The Last of the Metrozoids" is heartbreaking and brilliant.
[ 2007-April-17 23:21 | Permanent Link ]
Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat's Cradle. New York: Dell, 1963.
I finished this book about a month or two before Kurt Vonnegut passed away. I found it humorous and entertaining and, of course, bizarre. It is one of his better books.