More Reading List
More new arrivals from the library reserve list:
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick (1999).
One of the first to popularize the idea that the rate of change has changed. Proves its own point in that, only 7 years later, some of the observations already feel dated. Still valuable though.
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations (2004) by James Surowiecki.
While it may sometimes may be presented that the future will come about because of a few insightful people, it is actually the mass of humanity who will steer the course (in part, by reaction). Not everyone follows, and even if they are following how they follow matters. I at first cynically dismissed the premise of this book, but as I am striving to assume nothing my dismissal in fact triggered me to pick it up and give it a chance.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder (2005) by Richard Louv.
Disturbing trend: young people feel less comfortable, and spend less time, in the great outdoors. The result: less independence and a greater reliance upon externally-structured activities. This book is making me pay more attention to my perception of how young people perceive being outside. The Blair Witch Project, of arguable value as a motion picture, nonetheless nailed one thing cold: it "worked" largely because it was urban youth in the woods, an alien and puzzling environment for them, and for the audience with whom it was most popular.
Related reading to the above, good companion volumes:
The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things (1999) by Barry Glassner.
The preceding book examines a growing agoraphobia in youth and reveals it is largely due to changing perceptions not only on the part of youth but also in their parents, as to how dangerous is the world at large. This book discusses how the mass media exploits unease over poorly-understood potential dangers to instill fear into the masses, so that the same media may flourish by justifying their fears. Media spin and exaggeration indeed have many Americans flinching at the wrong shadows. (Halloween just past brings to mind the annually-recurrent scares about razorblades in apples, Satanic abductions, and temporary tattoos laced with LSD -- all "commonly-known" folklore which at one time or another has been presented as straight news.)
And right on the heels of those books, another which discusses some of the reasons we are willing to believe in folklore and the boogeyman:
Killing Monsters: Why children need fantasy, super heroes, and make-believe violence (2002) by Gerard Jones.
Kids understand there are monsters out there. They are more real for them than they are for adults, and kids have to deal with their monsters in the face of adult derision. Children also have to deal with the same social stresses which their parents deal with, but with less grasp of the concepts or power to respond. Children also have to deal with the sometimes-atrocities dealt upon them by adults who should be protecting them. Any wonder, then, that children often utilize violent fantasy play to act out their stresses and allow them to cope with what they cannot control? A fascinating study.
Nanotechnology for Dummies (2005) by Richard Booker and Earl Boysen.
I've got other books on nano ordered, both classics and cutting-edge. But say what you like about the "For Dummies" books, they are good overviews, and before I proceed I want to make sure my absorbed presumptions about the field are correct.
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick (1999).
One of the first to popularize the idea that the rate of change has changed. Proves its own point in that, only 7 years later, some of the observations already feel dated. Still valuable though.
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations (2004) by James Surowiecki.
While it may sometimes may be presented that the future will come about because of a few insightful people, it is actually the mass of humanity who will steer the course (in part, by reaction). Not everyone follows, and even if they are following how they follow matters. I at first cynically dismissed the premise of this book, but as I am striving to assume nothing my dismissal in fact triggered me to pick it up and give it a chance.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder (2005) by Richard Louv.
Disturbing trend: young people feel less comfortable, and spend less time, in the great outdoors. The result: less independence and a greater reliance upon externally-structured activities. This book is making me pay more attention to my perception of how young people perceive being outside. The Blair Witch Project, of arguable value as a motion picture, nonetheless nailed one thing cold: it "worked" largely because it was urban youth in the woods, an alien and puzzling environment for them, and for the audience with whom it was most popular.
Related reading to the above, good companion volumes:
The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things (1999) by Barry Glassner.
The preceding book examines a growing agoraphobia in youth and reveals it is largely due to changing perceptions not only on the part of youth but also in their parents, as to how dangerous is the world at large. This book discusses how the mass media exploits unease over poorly-understood potential dangers to instill fear into the masses, so that the same media may flourish by justifying their fears. Media spin and exaggeration indeed have many Americans flinching at the wrong shadows. (Halloween just past brings to mind the annually-recurrent scares about razorblades in apples, Satanic abductions, and temporary tattoos laced with LSD -- all "commonly-known" folklore which at one time or another has been presented as straight news.)
And right on the heels of those books, another which discusses some of the reasons we are willing to believe in folklore and the boogeyman:
Killing Monsters: Why children need fantasy, super heroes, and make-believe violence (2002) by Gerard Jones.
Kids understand there are monsters out there. They are more real for them than they are for adults, and kids have to deal with their monsters in the face of adult derision. Children also have to deal with the same social stresses which their parents deal with, but with less grasp of the concepts or power to respond. Children also have to deal with the sometimes-atrocities dealt upon them by adults who should be protecting them. Any wonder, then, that children often utilize violent fantasy play to act out their stresses and allow them to cope with what they cannot control? A fascinating study.
Nanotechnology for Dummies (2005) by Richard Booker and Earl Boysen.
I've got other books on nano ordered, both classics and cutting-edge. But say what you like about the "For Dummies" books, they are good overviews, and before I proceed I want to make sure my absorbed presumptions about the field are correct.
posted by InsightStraight @ 9:39 PM
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