50 to Publish Books

Finnally

 

Strega and Paul Revere

Went to a trendy little italian place last night on Hanover, Strega. Great food, odd liquor license. Apparantly Mass laws make beer, wine and cordials a common setup in restaurants in Boston, but exactly what classifies as a cordial is interesting, at the Waterfront on commercial av they can’t have vodka, but they can have vanilla vodka. Weird.

Some loud and drunk lawyers from Chicago (aren’t they all?) Sat near us and discussed, loudly many things including Paul Revere as analyzed in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. At least they weren’t talking about Freakonomics. We wondered if they knew how close they were to the famous statue in the Paul Revere mall. I wonder if they’d care.

 

on The Russian Guide Book and Footnotes in The Tipping Point

I just finished Vladmir Vasiliev’s small book on Systema (Russian Combat Martial Arts), called the Russian System Guidebook. As I said its small and quick to read. I wish it had more specifics about systema training and techniques, but thats what classes, seminars and videos are for I guess. It had some interesting ideas about the Russian Health System, including pouring a bucket of cold water over yourself twice a day (always outsite, even in the snow) and fasting for 24 to 42 hours a week. I like to eat so perhaps I’ll try the cold water stuff for a little while, see how it works. I guess the body reacts to the cold shock by quickly raising core tempature, which then kills off pathogens.

And I read the footnotes to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point yesterday, and the best example of his whole concept is a footnote. So make sure to read about the Candian Flu Epidemic story. 

 

on The Tipping Point

Just about finished Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “The Tipping Point”. Nice, fast read that covers some interesting areas, but I often found myself confused as to how what he was writing about related to the topic he was covering. He explores much of the science of social epidemics in a fragmented way, detailing examples of bits of the larger puzzle and rarely fits it all together. And often her presents information and a conclusion, only to contradict himself 2 paragraphs later. But again, overall, I very much enjoyed the book and have come away with a better understanding of how ideas “Tip”, that is turn into raging trends and memes.

 

on Freakonomics

I read Freakonomics. I bought it at the Harvard Coop and it has been much lauded so I expected it to be incredible. It wasn’t. I guess some context is in order though. I normally read mostly non-fiction, heavily footnoted, Ward Churchill-type history or dense, abstract situationist-type stuff. Tends to be slow and grinding sometimes, but the arguments, logic and references are very tight. I’m not a fast reader like my mom or girlfriend, so I plod through these books. Freakonomics I flew through. Half the book is spent condeming “conventional wisdom” as being self serving and based on shoddy causational correlations, and the other half is spent proposing self-serving causational arguments. Like attributing the dramatic crime-rate-decline in the 90’s to Roe v. Wade. Lots of interesting anctedotes and ideas, seemed poppy and sloppy tho.

I’m now reading “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. I found this book through Gladwell’s endorsement of Freakonomics, but so far it seems much better. Different topically and almost as quick and easy of a read, but much smarter. 

 

Get Rich or Die Trying

Arianna reaffirmed her status as the best girlfriend ever yesterday and procured me a copy of the soundtrack to 50 Cent’s movie on the day it was released. So far its very good, much better than his last album. I read the book a few weeks back and it was entertaining, not like, pulitzer prize winning stuff, but better than I expected a book by a gangsta rapper to be. (I’m currently reading the Wu-Tang Manual) Today the movie comes out, which reminds me I have to buy tickets now, because I’d imagine it will be selling out.