Quote of the Week

"Ad Graecas literas totum animum applicui; statimque, ut pecuniam acceptero, Graecus primum autores, deinde vestes emam."

"I have turned my entire attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes."

-Desiderius Erasmus, Letter to Jacob Batt, April 12, 1500

The Long Read

I like to read an epic every year or so, too; then I pace myself and knock it out in about a year. In 2009, I read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, which by the way, is a great book about codes (both computer and signals intelligence). There are three or four main stories, but they take place in the present day world of computer programming and the World War II era at Bletchley Park and in the Philippines.

For a variety of reasons, I kind of fell away from that last year, but have picked up again recently. I am currently reading Stephen King's The Stand, with a projected end date of December 2011. It's good so far. I'm about a third of the way in. I'm way too busy to read only The Stand. If I tried to tackle it all at once, I'd probably get bored and abandon it. But I really want to finish it - both because I really want to read it, and I really want to feel that sense of accomplishment.

Currently Reading

Currently Reading: VALIS by Philip K. Dick. I read the first chapter tonight. It really got my attention.

I've read a lot of Dick this year. Besides VALIS, I have read The Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik. He is officially one of my favorite writers of science fiction, maybe of any genre of fiction.

Just Finished: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

November 17, 2010 - I just finished The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. This was an intriguing, yet somewhat unsatisfying true story of John Gilkey (the man in the title) and Ken Sanders, the former head of security for the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America. Gilkey would obtain books through...unconventional means. Sanders was responsible for putting him in jail. It was a riveting story 75% of the way through. The end of the book lacked the solid resolution I was hoping for. A fascinating look at the seedy underside of the rare book trade.

Favorite Quote: "...Gilkey is typical of many book collectors. It is his crimes and his unwavering, narcissistic justification of them that sets him apart."

I'm not entirely certain what I'm going to read next.

Book Review: 1984

Book Review: 1984

I was a lousy student in high school. I won't say how long ago that was, but it was a while ago. I got decent grades - decent enough to get me into college. But the tragedy of it was I never really applied myself. If I had applied myself, I might have made the leap from being an adequate student to being an outstanding one.

For the last three or four years I have been playing catch-up, trying to get to everything I was supposed to read years ago but never actually did.

I just finished reading George Orwell's 1984 for the first time last Wednesday night. I found it to be prescient, internally logical, and convincing. It is, as of last Wednesday, my very favorite book. I hope to return to it again, and I hope the world around me when I do bears less of a resemblance to the world of 1984, but only time will tell.

Favorite quote: "But after reading it he knew better than before that he was not mad. Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad." George Orwell, 1984

Currently Reading

Currently Reading: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett