Finally finished “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.” I really liked it. Dennett’s writing is elegant and witty, rife with metaphors and analogies (although it must be admitted that quite a bit of it was over my head).
I couldn’t possibly summarize the book, so I’ll just list some of the ideas that resonated for me:
“QWERTY phenomenom” – The [...]
Archive for July, 2006
Dennett
Posted in Science on July 11, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
New Yorker notes – May/June 2006
Posted in The New Yorker on July 10, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
I finally finished the 6/12 Summer Fiction issue, featuring soldier stories. I liked Roger Angell’s tale of protesting the Vietnam War with his daughter, but I loved Italo Calvino’s fictional “Waiting for Death in a Hotel.” It was a simple enough story, but it captured something elemental about death. When one of the protagonists realizes [...]
A fun vacation read
Posted in books on July 3, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
I usually like to read books that relate to the area I am visiting when on vacation (hence the Dickens choice for London), but since my new book about France (Suite Francais, by Irene Demirovsky) is a hardcover, I chose to read Sarah Vowell’s Assasination Vacation. I loved The Partly Cloudy Patriot and have been [...]
Dickens
Posted in books, travel on July 3, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
Just got back from vacation. I read “The Old Curiousity Shop” by Dickens, but mistakenly bought an abridged version at a book sale. It was an engaging story with a bit of bathos toward the end, but with some excellent characters, especially Dick Swiveller, the Marchioness and Sally Brass. The evil dwarf Quilp was a [...]
