I just finished reading "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century," by George Friedman, and I hope he is wrong about nearly everything. His thesis is that we humans don't have much choice in our international politics, that we are guided by geopolitical considerations, and that armed conflict is inevitable. The book is an odd mix of plausible scenarios and wacky Star Wars fantasies.
Read MoreI'm happy to report that I finally finished the 900+ page "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, just four months (!) after starting it. I have to admit that I took breaks to read a few other things. I previously posted about the difficult, otherworldly vocabulary that Stephenson made up for this book. (For example, the "Reticulum" is similar to what we call the Web or the Internet, though you have to figure that out based on the description of a narrator who is basically a cloistered monk who never uses technology. "Jeejahs" are smart phones or mobile devices of some sort. Videos are "speelies" recorded with "speelycaptors." Those are some of the neologisms that feel apt. Not all of them do.)
Read MoreOnce upon a time, a bunch of writers and editors who found themselves working quite by accident for newspapers in a small town in Pennsylvania decided to have a party. A 20-something native of the town found himself among them, and as he listened to the conversation, about the news of the day, and books, and movies, and politics, and culture, his face grew more and more pinched, until finally he confided in the woman who had invited him, "Your friends sure do know a lot of words." Wherever he is now, I am sure he knows a few more words, but sometimes I recognize the sentiment. Most recently I experienced a similar befuddlement after slogging through 114 pages of the book I am supposedly reading, "Anathem," by the uber-nerd Neal Stephenson.
Read More
I tend to whip through the graphic books and plod through the text. Don't expect a review soon.