Average customer rating:
- an interesting and "Smart" read
- An asset to all
- A Must Read Book
- If you focus, plan, prioritize, organize, and manage your time, then you can make up for a weak working memory.
- Next to Collins & Buckingham
|
Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success?
Chuck Martin ,
Peg Dawson , and
Richard Guare
Manufacturer: AMACOM/American Management Association
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Binding: Hardcover
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Book Description
Twelve specific and very important cognitive functions begin developing in the brain at birth. These "skills" are built in to every individual and are fully developed -- and unchangeable -- by adulthood. Everyone has these same capabilities, but to varying degrees. And it is this unique and unalterable combination of one's strengths and weaknesses that determines success or failure in any given role.
Smarts contains the groundbreaking Executive Skills Profile: a powerful self-assessment tool that will identify, once and for all, a person's innate strengths and weaknesses. The results offer tangible proof of why we gravitate to certain tasks and struggle with others. With this newfound clarity, readers will learn to play to their stronger skills, and avoid wasting time on lesser ones they can never improve upon. Most important, they will discover their own unique potential for excellence.
Supported by proprietary primary research and grounded in widely accepted principles of clinical and neuro-psychology, Smarts is a truly eye-opening book that will change how we think about ourselves -- and others.
Customer Reviews:
an interesting and "Smart" read.......2007-10-10
Ever wondered why your consistantly late to events? Or, why you are so easily distracted from tasks? This groundbreaking book helps the reader understand why they behave the way they do. The 12 executive skills profile can become an asset to anyone once they find out their strengths and weaknesses. This book teaches you how to play to your strengths while minimizing the impact of your weaknesses.
Smarts will give you the edge over all the competition and teach you how to standout in the business world or any other profession. You'll find yourself seeing these executive skills not only in yourself but your co-works and boss as well. In a competitive world Martin gives you another tool to make yourself standout from all the rest.
An asset to all.......2007-10-10
Smarts is a book that all can understand and will find beneficial in their everyday lives. Smarts is written so that it is easily interpreted and can be applied to many different situations. Whether it be delving into your own thoughts to find your strengths and weaknesses, or using the book to analyze the shopping habits of consumers, this quick read will help. It is easy to relate to and can be an asset for any person in the business world, no matter your job description. You will not be dissapointed in this purchase!
A Must Read Book.......2007-09-25
This is truly an amazing book. It delivers such simple answers for such complex problems. This book demonstrates how all people have executive strengths and weaknesses and they are the basis of who you are. Its amazing to learn that you simply cannot change. You are the way you are and this book does an extremely good job of demonstrating that.
If you ever wondered why some people are always late or why some people have a better memory then you might - this is your book. I now have a different appreciation for other people, now realizing that they cant help the way they are any more then i can. Every person has three weaknesses and three strenghts and after reading this book you can learn to strenthen your strenghts and control your weaknesses. This book is an easy read but a real eye opener to anyone out there.
I guarantee you will not look at the world the same.
If you focus, plan, prioritize, organize, and manage your time, then you can make up for a weak working memory........2007-09-13
This was a very well organized book. Its writing was clear, but at times a little repetitive. It identifies 12 traits a person can have or master in order to function in society. They are:
1. Self-Restraint
2. Working Memory
3. Emotion Control
4. Focus
5. Task Initiation
6. Planning and Prioritization
7. Organization
8. Time Management
9. Defining and Achieving Goals
10. Flexibility
11. Observation
12. Stress Tolerance
I thought all the traits were well defined and described. And the authors' description of the normal interrelationship between the different traits was consistent with what I would expect. And I very much liked the way the authors focused on how someone can evaluate himself or herself so they can better understand themselves and how they function in society. But the authors don't stop there. They then explain how a manager or leader can evaluate their subordinates' traits so they can use those subordinates in a more efficient manner and keep them happier. Good job!
If I could stop this review now, then I would give this book a 5 star rating. However, I did not like the way the authors called the 12 traits - 12 SKILLS. While I agree that #s 1 and 3-12 are skills, or at least they can be called skills. I don't agree that Working Memory is a skill. I believe it is an "ability" much like a memory chip is in a computer. Either you have the memory or you don't. Practice isn't going to make it better.
Since the authors call most of these traits skills, and I believe skills can be improved with practice, I had a problem with their assertion that adults cannot improve these skills when functioning as adults in society. The book preaches that we should figure out which of our 12 traits we are strong and weak at. Then accept that as unchangeable and play up the strong and try to prop up the weak. I think this is a bad message to send to the readers.
Throwing a baseball is a skill. If you want to throw well, then you practice throwing a baseball. Running is a skill. And if you want to run a sub-3-hour marathon, then you do a lot of running to improve that skill. Reading is a skill. And if you want to read fast, then you read a lot and you WILL get faster. In my humble opinion, the authors are plain wrong in saying that skills 1 and 3-12 cannot be improved with practice. But the book has its good points. 4 stars!
Next to Collins & Buckingham.......2007-05-24
This is the most scientific, practical and applicable management book I have read in the last 5 years. It complements the work of Jim Collins and Marcus Buckingham, and makes them more usable and implementable.
All reviewers, readers, and professionals agree that it is one of the most helpful book they read lately. I just wonder why it didn't stay for long on the top 10 and 100 bestsellers list. It is obvious that publishers, media, and marketing make the list, not: value or substance. I recommend Martin's book to all management practitioners. Even Neuroscience advocates can use it to prove their theory true.
Book Description
In many areas of modern life rapid developments in science are overwhelming established norms. Brain biology, through DNA testing and advanced brain imaging techniques, has given medical scientists new insights into the functioning of the human mind. This erosion of long-standing beliefs has many implications for understanding and treating what society considers to be aberrant or immoral behavior. What medical science is indicating is that the focus of our emphasis on mental processes--particularly free will and intentionality--is shifting to recognition of the important role the physical brain plays on human thought and behavior. In Hardwired Behavior the author argues that social morality begins in the brain, for without the brain there would be no concept of morality. Individual responsibility, therefore, must be reconsidered in the light of biological brain processes. The question of whether new scientific findings destroy the relevance of free will, placing it in the context of biological forces that may operate outside the conscious control of the actor, is one of intense debate. Hardwired Behavior takes this question and moves it into the open by clearly detailing neuroscience discoveries and explaining how the ancient precepts of "morality" that have guided mankind throughout its history must now be seen through the new lens of brain biology.
Customer Reviews:
Nature or Nurture? An Explanation of Nature's Power of Influence.......2006-09-01
Tancredi projects that by 2100 the major mysteries of the brain will be solved. He presents what is known to date. Research points to a person's moral determinism seated in the composition of the brain. While biology holds sway, nurture has a role. Connections can be built or strengthened through experience, practice or learning.
The author illustrates this research with examples from his clinical practice. If the areas of the brain that supply the emotions of compassion and guilt cannot be accessed, other passions may rule unchecked. Risk takers do not store and/or access information on past consequences, those we call accident prone are fated to be so because they (chemically) cannot learn from past mistakes and criminals do not see the lines they are crossing.
In the future, will this science be used to absolve all guilt? When sources of addiction are uncovered will we have an addiction free society? Will the brain chemistry be altered for prevention and/or rehabilitation? Voluntarily? Involuntarily?
This book gives an overview of what science is finding in how the brain prescribes the moral lives of individuals. Hopefully a society will evolve a proper ethical framework to deal with it and can keep ahead of the science.
Essential Reading for Anyone Concerned About Behavior, Responsibility, Crime and Punishment.......2006-02-26
This really is an outstanding piece of work. The author is both a psychiatrist and a lawyer who argues, quite rightly, that many of our assumptions about free will and individual responsibility must be drastically revised in the light of scientific discoveries about the brain.
This is part of a larger debate that is going on within psychiatry, psychology and the legal profession. As an example, at what age should a young person be able to drive a car or be legally liable for their decisions? The driving question comes up because the brain and nervous system of a fifteen-year-old is still far from being fully mature, and may lead to poor coordination and decision-making. Can an eighteen-year-old be held liable for his or her behavior, at a time that his or her brain is not fully formed? Yet he or she is able to fight for his or her country. Our answers to those questions are likely to be a mixture of political positions and personal experience. But now we also have to factor in our burgeoning knowledge about the brain. There seems no doubt that this explosion of knowledge about the brain will be factored into some future legal decisions.
In Tancredi's book, he applies knowledge derived from recent research to such traditional moral concerns as violence, sexual infidelity, lying and physical "excess." For anybody working in the field, it is very clear that hormones, nutritional status, drugs, genetic abnormalities, injuries and traumatic experiences all have profound effects on the structure and functioning of the brain. Therefore they may all have an impact on our moral choices. Some experimental work implies that our actions are initiated by pre-conscious and unconscious processes in the brain before we are consciously aware of them. Does that mean that our sense of moral agency is a retrospective illusion? And what about free will?? Is that an illusion too?
I very much like this book, and also the recent book by Michael Gazzaniga, entitled The Ethical Brain. But for all the research, we remain bewilderingly complex creatures, and there is evidence for the existence of systems - for instance social systems - that can interact with and over-ride some of the neurological ones. So even after reading and studying hundreds of books and scientific papers and talking to hundreds of scientists around the world, I remain convinced that free will is not an illusion, and that there really is a genuine morality which is a great deal more than the firing of neurons in the brain.
Highly recommended.
sciguy.......2006-02-09
AMAZING!
I found out about this book because, while waiting in my dentists office, I happened to read the rave review in NATURE MAGAZINE. The concepts of morality and the brain were not only revelatory and fascinating, Tancredi's writing style made them surprisingly engaging. I actually had a hard time putting it down. I question why I haven't heard more about it. I make a point to read the New York Times Book Review every week, and though I've found many books I've enjoyed that way, few have been as interesting. Perhaps this new concept of brain function and free will is a little too controversial. In any case, I'm glad I found out about it. I don't think I'll ever look at my choices/decision making in quite the same way.
Introduction to the ethics of the twenty-first century.......2005-11-20
With the rapid demise of religious ethics and the belief by many that there is a fixed, immutable human nature, it is perhaps of no surprise that some ethicists would look to the brain for answers to fundamental questions in ethics. The study of the brain has revealed, at least in the last decade, that many behaviors, if not all, can be given a causal explanation. But traditional formulations of ethics have held it to be axiomatic that if (human) behaviors are to be classified as either "good" or "bad", i.e. if a system of ethics is to be constructed, then this system must hold that human actions are the result of free will, that they be the result of free, conscious intent.
Research in neuroscience has given serious doubt as to the axiomatic status of free will. Indeed, some researchers have dispensed with the notion all together, and have spoken of the "illusion" of conscious will. If one examines this research with an open but skeptical mind, one will discover a rich source of ideas, supported by empirical data that enable one to begin the construction of a system of ethics that is grounded entirely in neuroscience. The system has been referred to as `neuroethics', and has attracted the attention of some philosophers and many in the legal profession. Neuroethics is based on a profound and some might say frightening view of human nature and personal identity. But it has so far delivered on its (unstated) promise of giving a scientific foundation for ethics.
In this book the author gives a somewhat brief but helpful overview of neuroethics. His background is in psychiatry, and therefore he is able to give a different perspective on the subject, namely of someone who is interacting with patients and therefore observes more directly the consequences of the complicated synapses of the brain. Such a perspective is refreshing, since a successful theory of ethics must address directly the problems, conflicts, and moral dilemmas of real people, and not just engage in abstract theorizing, the latter of which has been the predominant methodology in ethics, especially in philosophical circles.
No doubt there will be many who when reading this book will be aghast at the willingness of the author to question the concept of free will and to embrace the notion that ethical and moral principles are "hardwired" in the brain. It might appear that concepts such as personal responsibility cannot be contained in neuroethics, and if so this has direct consequences both politically and legally. The reader will find however that one can still have a notion of personal responsibility in neuroethics, although it will be one that is different than the ones that are found in many different ethical systems.
If neuroethics is to be comprehensive in scope it must deal meaningfully with some of the more typical issues that ethics grapples with, such as greed, deception, and sexual relations. Can neuroscience explain for example the reason(s) that some individuals crave enormous amounts of wealth, even though they would never have the time nor the energy to enjoy the things their quantity of wealth would allow them to have? The author takes on the first part of this question by identifying the regions of the brain that affect monetary decision-making: the amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and the anterior cingulate cortex. Financial decision-making does of course involve wild swings in emotion, so it is not surprising to learn these regions come into play. The amygdala for example is involved in `conditioned fear', responds sensitively to winning and losing. The author quotes fMRI studies that show how the amygdala is activated when economic losses occur. Interestingly, research of this same type indicates that economic gains do not activate the amygdala to the same extent as losses do. The author though is careful to note that there is a lot of variation in the response of the amygdala, this arising from genetics and brain biology. Some genetic abnormalities he reports can be responsible for some individuals to react with an "excess of fear" when they are confronted with financial decisions that are extremely risky. But it is the `dopamine system' that supplies the appropriate pleasure when wealth is accumulated. In this context, and this is most interesting, the author claims that the human brain loves risk taking, but that these risks are a matter of degree. A reward that is less predictable will result in a larger amount of dopamine produced, thus overwhelming the individual with pleasure. Money, the author says, acts on different pathways of the reward system than "natural rewards", such as food and water, and affects the brain in a way similar to some drugs, such as cocaine. And the pleasures of dopamine (from making money), like the pleasures of cocaine, lead to an excess of behavior in obtaining this money, which we normally refer to as greed. And this greed can result in uncontrolled compulsions with the result that lying, fraud, or embezzlement can become frequent strategies in the obsessive goal of obtaining more money.
Grounding the basis of ethics in neuronal processes raises issues in traditional (philosophical) formulations of ethics that the author does not address. He is correct to do so, since these formulations are too abstract to be of much value to the real problems of humankind. There is much that neuroethics needs to answer before it can be practical, but the author's discussion makes it readily apparent that it should be considered seriously. In addition, it brings up complex legal and political issues dealing with the genetic engineering of the brain. The author addresses the latter topic in the book by including a hypothetical debate that is set in the year 2100. In that debate certain groups of individuals are advocating brain modification in order to alleviate or eliminate negative social behaviors. The engineering of the brain may seem disquieting to some, but its consequences are awesome, and it should be pursued with cautious optimism.
Book Description
This book brings the latest thinking and practice in leadership and personality type to the general business reader.
Customer Reviews:
A Must Read for Every Manager!.......2004-01-03
Every manager should read this book to enhance his or her self-awareness, and to better understand the "hard-wired" styles of others.
Roger was the pro who trained me on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator years ago. His extraordinary knowledge was obvious then, and now it's available to everybody in this great book! I highly recommend this book!
Michael Beitler, Ph.D.
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"
A Good Read!.......2001-03-21
You can figure out who you are - and more importantly, who the people you lead are - if you have a little patience with Roger R. Pearman. The author carefully applies the Myers-Briggs personality type system to explain leadership styles. He asserts that if you understand how people behave, one personality type at a time, you can lead them more effectively. You can use this system to understand how your employees (and you) think, and to spot strengths and weaknesses. Pearman's examples, lists and charts show how to identify different personality types and how to apply this understanding in different situations. We at getAbstract recommend this excellent book as particularly helpful to those who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs system and to those who like taking an analytical approach to human behavior. (If you are less analytical, don't get testy while trying to sort out the 16 personality types - The trip is worthwhile.)
A probing exploration of leadership and the mind........1999-03-18
This book explores a fundamental paradigm for effective leadership based on Jungian psychological type theory and the sixteen personality types used in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The author's goal is to go beyond the usual human potential categorizations of the MBTI to establish a new foundation of leadership psychology based on Jung's work. Chapters focus on six building blocks of leadership psychology: communication; problem management; learning and development; blind spots; team building, and values and culture. These six blocks refer to mental processes and habits of mind (hardwiring). Key points are illustrated with real-life scenarios. This exploration of patterns of mind and how they are expressed in leadership settings proves to be a probing examination of leadership. The author argues that each person has the wiring to be leader. Recommended.
Book Description
The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God; this conviction has existed since the beginning of recorded time and is shared by billions around the world. In
The God Gene, Dr. Dean Hamer reveals that this inclination towards religious faith is in good measure due to our genes and may even offer an evolutionary advantage by helping us get through difficulties, reducing stress, preventing disease, and extending life.
Popular science at its best,
The God Gene is an in-depth, fully accessible inquiry into cutting-edge research that can change the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Written with balance, integrity, and admirable scientific objectivity, this is a book for readers of science and religion alike.
Customer Reviews:
Said it all.......2006-08-29
I was going to write a review... But, everyone else has said it already. I did, however, keep getting confused with his use of spiritual versus religious. He tended to want to fuzzy the difference and call the religious spiritual, then differentiate them again. Didn't work.
Why some seek what they cannot see.......2006-06-17
Before this, I read Sam Harris' The End of Faith polemic and Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell (both reviewed by me). While Dennett notes as an aside in his book that no such single "god gene" exists, Hamer himself early on admits the same, but acknowledges it's not as catchy a title otherwise. The subtitle needs to be changed too: "How Faith Is Hardwired--in perhaps a significant but not overwhelming percentage of our genetic makeup for some of us." God is not proven or disproven, only that some of us tend to look for the divine more than others, and that this may be biased for some in our neural transporters of monoamines.
Looking into the distinction between believing and belonging, Hamer seems to get sidetracked into other studies that he paraphrases, and finding out who tends towards the spiritual--not the same as organized religion in its more public manifestation--certainly proves elusive. Unless you're a twin, since they get to be tracked by eager technicians in labs across the globe, at least from the evidence summarized in this book, ad infinitum.
In March/April 2006, studies of twins in Minnesota by Dr. Koening seem to back up Hamer but with an added proviso: environmental tendency in childhood being a bit stronger but the genetic tendency towards the spiritual in adulthood gaining power among the admittedly small group analyzed. I have heard it summed up that one may tend to revert back to one's childhood faith as one gets older, a point Hamer brings up if at all only tangentially I reckon.
As one with theological but not biological background, I admit that the middle of the book with its exploration of brain chemistry lost me. But Hamer at other places has a knack for being straightforward and engaging. He may well be accused of dumbing down his book to reach people like me. But there's plenty of recondite knowledge I'm certain has escaped many of his peers.
His chapter linking the DNA findings of the priestly Cohen caste to their biblical time, while intriguing on its own, seems grafted into his study, however. It fits his other points, but either deserved more in-depth study as its own brief book or more integration into the wider implications of his argument. Hamer does raise a fascinating crux: if historically, Jewish women only had a 1:200 rate of exogamy outside the tribe, how did the Jews wind up looking more or less like all of the many peoples among whom they dwelt for as much as two-and-a-half millennia?
Differing from E.O. Wilson's sociobiology, Hamer argues with this Jewish example (although again I wish it was clearer) that his own findings show an inner tendency towards the divine impulse not part of transmitted ritual like circumscision or learned cultural behavior like keeping kosher. Differing from Richard Dawkins (I kept waiting for Dawkins' thesis to be confronted by Hamer, and he does not do so until well on in the book) and his attack on religion as a parasitic meme, Hamer seeks not to prove God, but merely to chart how roughly half of one's makeup might be in some cases genetically predisposed towards the spiritual search. He notes rather depressingly, although it may get lost in the whole argument, that parents have barely a miniscule influence on the religious or spiritual tendencies of their offspring. The behavior and the outward adherence can be inculcated and enforced, but not the interior tug towards what Rudolf Otto nearly a century ago called the numinous.
He does not seem to demolish Dawkins as hard as he could have. Why a parasitic meme would not die out after millenia if religion gave its bearers no advantage seems a bit overlooked. Dennett--whose earlier work on consciousness is not mentioned in Hamer, who wrote this about three years before Dennett's new book--might help. Dennett shows the social and psychological advantages and disadvantages of religious faith for human communities and the individual psyche and one's mental health and physical endurance. One disappointment: Dennett's book's chock full of careful documentation. Hamer uses no specific citations, only adding a bibliography but no end or footnotes, so his research cannot be easily traced or challenged. For such a veteran scientist, this seems unprofessional. I know this is a popular book for dummies like me with insufficient training, but these notes--as such as Harris and Dennett show--can be incorporated without overwhelming a lay reader.
Still, while Hamer's book despite its brief length feels too often padded, it does serve as a useful and at its best thoughtful summation of dopamine, serotonin, psilocybin, and their analogous feel-good detached states that meditation and prayer, arguably but intriguingly, seem to imitate. In her account (reviewed by me) "An Infinity of Little Hours," of the austere Catholic hermit order of Carthusians, Nancy Klein Maguire wonders if in every generation there's a "god gene" that impels a brave or foolish few of us to leave the herd and seek the fiery or icy mountaintop alone. It's a awe-filled question, and Hamer's book will inspire more such contemplation and wonder about why this longing persists in every corner of the world despite the secular powers of ideology, persecution, and ridicule.
A decent survey...but not a deep one.......2006-05-31
Persinger and Wilson may be deeper, but, let's face it, for most of us Hamer is probably the better guide to the new study of spirituality's biological foundations. He makes a compelling case for the existence of these, in a readable sweep of current thinking on the subject.
His writing slips up from time to time; for example, when he implies that serotonin causes depression when he really means to say the lack of serotonin does. In a survey text like this, that's a venal sin at most.
My greater complaint is that Hamer jumps to some sappy conclusions about the evolutionary advantages of religiosity, willfully dismissing its demonstrated military and reproductive effects to focus instead on the supposedly superior health and happiness of religious people. Biologically speaking, that seems a stretch.
More naturalistic nonsense.......2006-05-26
I'm unfairly selecting Hamer's book as a polemic against the recent wave of scientific and reductionist accounts of religion (neurotheology, the god part of the brain, etc.). I'm a doctoral student in philosophy/religious studies and my largest grievance against this new trend is that all of the scientists involved display a complete ignorance of the history of human religiosity in their attempts to "stuff" religion into a framework more genial to Darwinist evolution. Specifically, as Hamer does in his work, religion promotes a feeling of well-being and an assurance of our continuation after death. It seems that he doesn't take into account the history of religious conviction prior to the New Testament and certain of the later texts of the Hebrew Tanakh. Has he ever read Job, for example? Ecclesiastes? The immortality of the soul was a late development in antiquity. The Hebrews never held such a doctrine....it came into their imagination due to diffusion from Persian and LATE Greek religion. The gods previous to this could not be propitiated; their ways were capricious and a source of terrible anxiety to humans. In no way could humans join them in enjoying immortality. Even in Egypt, a person's ba (soul) only existed after death so long as people remembered his/her name. Read Bernstein's THE FORMATION OF HELL to see this development. Only with Jesus did God appear benevolent, as a Father (Abba--daddy). There was 10,000 years of human religiosity prior to that where God/the gods were hardly an assuaging reality to human beings.
Where this biological basis for religion is helpful is in its claim that religion is an irreducible sui generis--a distinct phenomenon and not an epiphenomenon of ideological or politically driven forces/factors which is the pathetic claim of postmodernism and its neo-sophistic outlook.
Entertaining, erratic.......2005-10-19
To start with, the title is misleading. The important parts of the book are about spirituality (as in what Buddhists seek), which has little connection with God or churches. He does a moderately good job of describing evidence that he has identified a gene that influences spirituality. He makes plausible claims that spirituality makes people happy (that part of the book resembles the works of Csikszentmihalyi and Seligman). He makes a half-hearted attempt to argue that spirituality has evolutionary advantages which isn't very convincing by itself, but in combination with the sexual selection arguments in Miller's book The Mating Mind it becomes moderately plausible.
About halfway through the book, he runs out of things to say on those subjects and proceeds to wander through a bunch of marginally related subjects.
His descriptions of psilocybin, prozac, and ecstasy were interesting enough to make me want to learn more about those and similar drugs.
His claims that placebos are effective seem very exaggerated (...)
Book Description
Ex-fighter pilot Cowboy, "hardwired" via skull sockets directly to his lethal electronic hardware, teams up with Sarah, an equally cyborized gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
This is one of the early cyberpunk style novels, and a fun one. A man
and a woman, with appropriate technological enhancements like sockets
to connect to computer networks, scary weaponry implants in the throat,
and other such fun toys, must try and resist the nasty depradations of
the ridiculously wealthy corporate Orbitals.
It ain't fun to be on the dirty, nasty ground, but it is an action story.
Giving sf another chance.......2007-06-24
I thought I had read all the sf/cyberpunk worth reading when I picked this book up off a going-out-of-business sale. I was drawn into Williams world - complex, believable, character-driven - and surprised that I could be surprised. I read others and it wasn't a fluke.
Left handed cyberpunk..............2007-06-18
This is one of the pioneering books in the cyberpunk genre, but is less well known than most. This is not because it is a bad book, or dull, far from it; but rather is because there are a couple of differences that distinguish it from the cyberpunk pack.
Contrary to most Science Fiction writing, cyberpunk tried to show and explicate its fictional world through the eyes of comparatively low-ranking people on the margins of their society, perhaps thrown into a situation where their actions are important to it (although not necessarily) but virtually always with the characters' mental environment shaped by, and immersed in, the larger social and physical/technical environment, and with their actions constrained by outsider and lowly status. This was a gesture towards realism, as most all people are greatly constrained by their circumstances and are much more caught up in the present than are typical characters in Science Fiction. The limited power and vantage points available to cyberpunk characters are complemented by the characteristic cyberpunk immersion into the techno-cultural environment of the story. Just as most people have more contact with DVDs, bottled water, and PCs than with nuclear reactors, so cyberpunk immerses the reader in the common environment present in the story.
By contrast, Hardwired, while utilizing the iconic technologies, imperfect world, corporate domination, assassins and smugglers of cyberpunk, is a far more traditional Science Fiction story in that the characters are that extra (unrealistically) bit mobile, are rather more powerful and connected to the center of events than is typical, and are concerned with the core issues of their world, rather than with a tiny fraction of it. In this way, Hardwired is not quite cyberpunk, and the criticism that this is "not real cyberpunk" is understandable. In a similar vein, the language, while comparatively poetic in true cyberpunk fashion, fails to completely immerse, indeed flood the reader with the world of the story (as opposed to the events of the story).
All this being said however, Hardwired is not only an entertaining and adventurous story, and a relatively "hard" one (as in "hard", meaning scientifically viable science fiction), but it also very usefully explores the stereotypical themes and characters of cyberpunk. The smugglers and assassins that populate the genre are less two dimensional, and the reader will get a much stronger feel for what such a profession or what corporate domination might MEAN. An additional bit of cyberpunk credit is due in that cyberpunk is very much about the intersection of culture and technology, and Williams has a keen sense of how future technology and trends might interact with world, particularly US culture. For these reasons, while this book differs from most cyberpunk (hence my description, "left handed cyberpunk"), I think that it is indispensable to understanding it, and this book should be considered a crucial part of the cyberpunk canon.
For those readers not interested in canonical status in their reading, I would again highlight that this is a great adventure story, and well written, with interesting characters. So long as you are not put off by a dark and gritty environment, this book has high entertainment value.
Great fun, I'd call this proto-cyberpunk.......2007-04-26
This was a really fun read for me back in the 80s, and fulfills most of the requisites for what came to be known as cyberpunk. I might make a crude comparison by saying that this book is to cyberpunk sort of as AC/DC or Black Sabbath was to punk rock. We used to joke that AC/DC is punk rock because they are punks and they rock.
What this book had that most other cyberpunk books lacked was the pulp (with the exception of Rudy Rucker.) Remember, this was almost pre-Tarantino, and that hunger for "the pulp" was a living, growing thing here in the U.S. and abroad. The characters in this novel are definitely leatherclad bad_ss fantasy creations inspired by Heavy Metal Magazine, rock videos, H.R. Geiger, and maybe the gun-crazy movies of Bronson, Eastwood and others from the 70s. All together, this novel was a real slice of the life and times that created such artistic masterworks as Doom.
Thinking about the comparisons to Gibson I'm seeing in these reviews, including the website's own, I'm vaguely offended. The claims that Williams is not "true" cyberpunk and such are hogwash. There is no "true" cyberpunk. A purist attitude regarding a subgenre like this, well, get real. Either you like it or you don't, but it's only a novel, not a religion. He may be no Gibson, but that's OK. It's only a paperback.
Re-release in October 2006.......2006-09-07
Can't wait for this classic tales re-release in October 2006. It's been too long! I haven't re-read it in a while since I lent my copy to a friend. (sigh) Oh well, soon I'll have it back. If they redo the cover art, hopefully it won't suck!
Average customer rating:
- the last puff of smoke from a dying breed
- title says it all...
- Impulse buy
- Not as interesting as the web site
- Close your eyes!
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Suck: Worst-Case Scenarios in Media, Culture, Advertising, and the Internet (Hardwired)
Manufacturer: Hardwired
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1888869275 |
Amazon.com
One of the most entertaining and important e-zines on the Web (even after "selling out" to HotWired in 1995), Suck dishes out cooler-than-thou commentary and daily unapologetic satire on pretty much any subject that deserves it. Suck: Worst Case Scenarios in Media, Culture, Advertising, and the Internet, a collection of some of the more memorable columns from the site's long (in Web years) history, marks the first foray of the Sucksters into the world of print. Can an animated musical of Terry Colon's cartoon versions of the Suck staff be far behind?
Some of the unfortunate recipients of attention in the "repurposed content" include PBS newsman Jim Lehrer, Niketown, and Slate, Microsoft's foray into the overcrowded e-zine market. Terry Colon's distinctive illustrations pepper each column, but none of the classic narrative cartoon collaborations between Colon and columnist Polly Esther are included. This omission (as well as other missing favorites) reflects the difficult task of selecting a few dozen columns from three years of daily contributions. Or perhaps the duo is simply negotiating a book deal of their own.
Suck includes hyperlinked rants as sidebars, so you can--if you wish--roughly re-create the wandering-attention-span phenomenon associated with reading Suck online. Some readers may find the collected Sucksters too clever for their own good (if you've used the term "smart alec" in a sentence recently, this may not be your cup of tea), and readers who find themselves too cool for Suck will not be impressed. Anyone who has a sense of humor, however, especially one that finds glee in the lampooning of large media conglomerations (such as the one that employs the book's authors), will enjoy the offerings of Suck.
Customer Reviews:
the last puff of smoke from a dying breed.......2006-01-03
Since the Sucksters took their eternal summer vacation in June 2001 and the Web site at last fulfilled the e-zine's running joke by changing ownership to an adult-entertainment portal in December 2005, this is all that's left of the smartest, shrewdest and funniest site to emerge amidst the hot air of the Dot-Com Rise and Fall of the 1990s.
Where else can you find an acerbic, pseudonymmed writer dismiss The Fugees as "reconstituted adult rock masquerading as hip-hop"? Or the pinpoint assertion that if you drop your kid off at any mall, "he'll quickly learn that community and commodity are not easily discernible from each other"? Or: "The only thing that kept Burning Man out of Business Week was that no one would admit to making -- or seeking -- a profit"? And really, you can find as good or better a bon mot on any of the pages of this book.
Even from the mid-1990s, this book is a breath a fresh air from today's world of multimedia mergers, where reporters chase each others' tales in conflating and inflating pre-conceived notions and prepackaged soundbytes. Who today proclaims as forcefully -- or anywhere near as literately -- that the emperor has no clothes even as the mainstream media sources compete for more vivid adjectives to describe the non-existent garments?
While the book has its faults and there were certainly better essays than some of the selections, it more than holds its own with any contemporary commentary. A full decade before VH1 announced its sure-to-be-craptacular series "Web Junk 20" as the latest lowest-common-denomination demon spawn of TV and Internet, Suck explained why attempts at merging the two media only seem to cull the worst of each and draw into sharp detail the differences -- not the similarities -- between technology's long-lost kin. With today's breathless tech reporters and hypesters trying to convince you that watching a movie on an iPod is somehow as good as enjoying it in widescreen, and a supplicant media (owned by those releasing those movies) coo their approval, the absence of sarcastic outsider wisdom by the likes of Suck is more missed than ever.
While this book will not cure what ails society, consider it a drinking binge from the fountain of knowledge that won't leave you with a hangover in a stranger's apartment. If the drink is bittersweet given Suck's fate, at least it proves satisfying.
title says it all..........2002-04-24
thought this might be an interesting book on the rise and fall of a pop-culture ezine, but I couldn't get past page 15. Save you money for n-sync's next record...
Impulse buy.......2001-07-09
Though I tend to shy away from "books", I had a burning desire to own this one. So being the impulsive youth, I am, I hit the order button. Do I regret it? No! I laughed my arse off. I guess now, I'll put it on a shelf and read it when bored, or sick or something. Yep.
Not as interesting as the web site.......2000-05-29
I guess I just don't get it. I've owned this book for years and can't bring myself to finish it. I've visited the site a few times, and the writings are good. The material seems to lose its impact in printed form, however.
Close your eyes!.......1999-03-17
Not only am I not going to read this book--which, incidently,is the best book ever--I'm not going to review it either.
Customer Reviews:
utter garbage.......2004-04-22
This book is not a parody. It is a waste of space. I'm glad this was printed on recycled paper. I was offended - as were most of the people in the counseling center where I work. We didn't even want to donate it because someone else might read it. Men should avoid leather because people will think they are gay or mentally unstable? Women must wear short skirts with a slit? Do not waste your time.
Sparkling Parody = Champagne for the Brain.......2003-09-04
-Capricorn-Aquarious 10th House Artemis Enneagram the Artist Seeks Taurus 6th House Apollo Enneagram unrepresented-
The funniest, most brilliant haute spoof I've read since Busch and Silver's stellar Why Cats Paint: A theory of feline aesthetics. From the title to the final unlikely couple (Hugh Hefner and Sylvia Plath), author Thomas David Kehoe's mostly poker-faced parody gleams with generous good-humor. If you enjoy good writing and good-hearted send-up, this book leaves no set of facile, ethnocentric, scientific-sounding, globally encompassing yet stereotypic standard theoretical relationship rocks unturned. (Hopefully he'll work the Tarot into the second edition.) All this and the author conveys some perfectly practical and practicable bits of advice, with even a warning or two. For example, that one should not date the author of relationship books.
World's most hilarious self-help book!.......2003-07-16
Get this one and read it! I just reviewed it for one of my publishers and loved every page. It had me in tears several times.
The author manages to reduce the most complex scientific terms into easy to understand language. He is skilled in explaining things in a way that makes complete sense. He offers sound, practical advice on how to overcome the obstacles in everyday life and make your relationship work. Best of all, he does it with a sense of humor. His wit will keep you in stitches.
From hormones to the life stages, he covers all the bases with this outstanding manual on love, sex, dating, and all the monkeys that can be thrown into the wrenches of relationships. This is a must read!
Intriguing Ideas & Unique Perspective.......2003-05-11
"If flirting were a car, the man has his hands on the steering wheel. The woman has her feet on the accelerator and brake pedals. He decides where they are going. She decides how fast." ~Thomas David Kehoe
Dating is a journey into the unknown. Not only do you have to access your personal beliefs, you also have to equip yourself with dating knowledge.
Men now expect a woman to call them part of the time, while some women are sometimes still waiting at home for men to call them. This can promote frustration as men and women struggle to fit into the new modern dating pattern.
Men and women are traditionally hardwired for fixed masculine and feminine roles. In "Hearts and Minds," Thomas David Kehoe shows how men and women are capable of using both masculine and feminine energy to improve their relationships.
The authors has includes some intriguing facts and concepts:
The Ancient Greeks had six words for love - we need or give various types of love in different stages of our lives.
Is he/she just your friend or are you really dating? How can you tell?
How do you play the dating game?
How do you make the object of your desire want you?
Does speed dating work?
When should you call her?
The first section of the book is essential in order to understand the terms used later and casually throughout. The writing builds upon itself in such a way that I was amazed at the organization and fluid association of thoughts.
The book is divided into four main sections:
Science:
The Evolution of the Human Brain
How Women Select Men
How Men Select Women
How Our Ancestors Lived
Monogamy and Polygamy
Hormones
Communication Styles
Life Stages:
Childhood - Seeking Unconditional Love
Adolescence-Seeking Romantic Love
Adulthood-Families and Forgiveness
Agape-Altruistic Love
Relationships:
Where Couples Met
Flirting
How to Write a Personal Ad
Dating
Sex
Becoming a Couple
Conflict in Relationships
Archetypes:
Emotional Control Systems
Zeus-Hera
Poseidon-Athena
Apollo-Artemis
Hermes-Hestia
Ares-Hephaestus-Aphrodite
Dionysus-Demeter
Hades-Persephone
The Archetypes section is fascinating. You will be able to analyze your own relationships. There are 7 couples to analyze. These personality types have become recognizable through history and here these archetypes appear in the ancient world as gods. They are amazingly true!
I also enjoyed the humor in this book. There was one point when I was laughing so hard I could hardly see the page. Thomas David Kehoe displays great creativity and has a wicked streak of wit. The scientific explanations made complete sense. You will find wonderful quotes, entire passages and bold headings that organize the thoughts beautifully.
Once I started reading, I could not put this book down. I became intellectually intrigued and learned interesting facts not found in other relationships books. This is a truly unique look at how men and women interact and how you can find a relationship of the soul.
-TheRebeccaReview.com
Amazon.com
At first glance, neuropsychologist Brian Butterworth's What Counts: How Every Brain Is Hardwired for Math might infuriate mathphobes who insist that they just can't get a handle on numbers. Could it be true that natural selection produced brains preprogrammed with multiplication tables? Read a few pages, though, and you'll see that Professor Butterworth has more than a little sympathy for the arithmetically challenged, and indeed confesses that he too has a hard time with figures. His thesis isn't that we are born doing math, but that we are born with a faculty for learning math, much like our ability to learn language. He goes on to argue that unique individual differences in this faculty combine with our educational experiences to make us either lightning calculators or klutzes who can't figure tips.
Butterworth's style is perfect for his subject, seamlessly weaving scholarly analysis with down-to-earth humor and practical examples that will satisfy the researcher and the lay reader alike. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and his own neuropsychology, he makes his case like a masterful attorney while remaining careful to leave room for scientific falsification. The history of counting is engrossing and will be new to many readers, as it has been a rather arcane field until recently--but it's just one of the many new vistas opened for the readers of What Counts. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
Without numbers, modern civilization would not exist. But until now, no one has explained where numbers exist in the mind, how they got there, or how we use them. In What Counts, Brian Butterworth combines his unique expertise in cognitive neuroscience with his broad knowledge of mathematics to offer a completely original picture of how our brains do math.
Butterworth's pioneering research into the behavior and genetics of mathematical ability has led him to discover that we all possess a fundamental number sense, which he calls "numerosity." This inherent ability is even more basic to human nature than language is. Numbers do not exist inside our heads the way words do; they are a separate kind of intelligence with their own brain module. This module, located in the left parietal lobe, is where math happens.
We all know that some of us are good at math and some of us are not. But, as Butterworth shows, the reason a person falters at math is usually not because of the wrong gene or "engine part" in the left parietal lobe, but because he or she has not fully developed the sense we are all born with. The left parietal lobe is also where fingers are registered in our brain -- a fact that Butterworth demonstrates is an important clue to the evolution of our sense of numerosity -- and, interestingly, it is the reason we count on our fingers. The non-linguistic nature of math explains why cultures that have no words for numbers have still managed to develop market economies throughout history with all the counting that buying and selling require. Butterworth argues that counting is so basic a facet of our biology that, with practice, most people could become mathematical prodigies.
Butterworth illustrates his cognitive model of math with enlightening examples from the history of mathematics and its many anomalies. He shows us the numerical world of the Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, and Stone Age peoples. He recounts the case of the Italian woman who suffered a stroke that left her unable to count beyond four, as well as the extraordinary story of zero. He describes how the great math prodigy Ramanujan emerged from a childhood of poverty and astonished the world with his brilliance. He presents surprising research demonstrating that infants can add and subtract even when they are only a few weeks old, and that people afflicted with Alzheimer's have unexpected numerical abilities.
The implications of Butterworth's advances in fundamental concepts of mathematical thinking are profound -- for our understanding of how our minds work, how we can lead our children to a deeper understanding of mathematics, and even how formal education could be better structured on the basis of what counting really is. What Counts is the first book to provide a complete picture of how and why our mathematical brain evolved and what this new knowledge means in our everyday lives. No one who reads it will ever think about math in the same way again.
Customer Reviews:
save your money.......2004-02-12
What an awful book! I started with great expectations, and got steadily more disappointed and finallly just disgusted. I have never read a book on a supposedly technical subject so disjoint and disorganized. I cannot recall the author ever finishing a concept, dotting his is, or completing a promised list of topics. In many places, he makes statements such as "There are two important topics regarding.......and he gives you number one, but try and find number two. And so on throughout the book. In the middle of a technical topic, he will wander off onto pages and pages of interesting examples of ????what ? I could not figure out. Save your time and energy and money. This is an awful book.
A Challenge to a Popular Myth.......2000-06-09
"What Counts" is a necessary rebuttal to the idea of mathematical giftedness or genius in general which pervades our culture and manifests itself in Hollywood movies like "Good Will Hunting" and, more tragically, in our system of education. The author confronts both of these issues in detail.
For example, on Hollywood's prodigy Will Hunting he challenges anyone to come up with a real life example of this character which would be a counter example to his premise which states that higher mathematical learning/ability is a result of zeal, hard work (10 years for truly great achievements), and exposure to the necessary culture, i.e. teachers and books.
As Butterworth explains, Will Hunting seemingly has no zeal for anything but girls and spends most of his time in bars yet he knows all about and comprehends arcane mathematical concepts and myriad other subjects.
Mathematicians may like to hang on to the idea of their own giftedness for the sake of their egos and most people who see "Good Will Hunting" think the character is believable so this book is a definite challenge to a popular myth.
Except for the chapters dealing strictly with mathematics which are not necessary (and hence the lack of 5 stars) this book may inspire people to work hard instead of making excuses.
Look for more on this subject from author/mathematician Keith Devlin with his book (coming out in August) "The Math Gene: Why Everybody Has It, but Most People Don't Use It."
Interesting but flawed.......1999-09-23
I'm going to assume anyone reading this has already read the other reviews in amazon.com. This leaves me free to comment on problems with the book rather than provide a synopsis.
The first two sentences in the preface to "What Counts" explain the basic fact, I am not particularly good at maths or calculation."
Butterworth proves this often enough for it to be a very good reason why he shouldn't have written of flaws, only someone who has no feel for mathematics could write a book containing many typos of the form a^2 + b^2 = (a - b)(a + b).
o He's discovered a new and amazing correspondence with any subset that is neither the whole set nor the empty set." Imagine, there's a one-to-one correspondence between the integers and the set {0,1}. Well, no there isn't.
o He's made the equally exciting discovery that the rationals between 0 and 1 are uncountable. It is revealed on page 339 that the points on the real line are uncountable "because there is points." Since the argument applies to the rationals, they too must be uncountable. Sigh.
Here are some specifics to illustrate other problems in "What Counts".
o The discussion of cognitive archaeology is highly speculative and frequently unconvincing. For example, he speculates that counting lunar phases is important to women so they'll know when their baby is due. This isn't of value without a citation of "primitive" peoples who do this.
o Butterworth seems to believe that math is the same as arithmetic, though of course he does know better. The book is almost exclusively about our "natural ability" to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Geometry, the other "basic" mathematics, is almost completely ignored. The omission is a major deficiency.
o He also has a very strong opinion that there is no such thing as a mathematical gift. Rather, it's a manifestation of interest, good teaching, and hard work. The argument is made quite intensely, but not convincingly, and probably would almost universally be disputed by mathematicians (which doesn't prove it wrong, of course). What is convincing and should have been the point of the discussion is that we could be doing a much, much better job of teaching mathematics. (The previous reviewer has correctly pointed out the value of Butterworth's critique.)
o The appendix contains a less-than-satisfying discussion of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, which has no apparent purpose other than to dazzle and confuse the naive reader.
There's quite a bit more that's objectionable, but the point should have been made adequately with this list.
On the other hand, the quote from Oliver Sacks on the dust jacket about how the book "solicits the reader's own thoughts" is correct. I came away from the book with ideas for dozens of experiments and possible research areas. Of course, since my background is mathematics and not a cognitive neuropsychology, I can't comment the non-mathematical assertions but can only hope them to be accurate.
The book is valuable as it has nuggets of great interest and the subject matter is fascinating. There aren't many popular books covering this material, so I'm giving it 3 stars. Good editing and minor collaboration with someone who is "good at maths" could turn it into a 5 star book
Simply outstanding... Could revolutionize math learning.......1999-08-06
In this highly readable book, Prof. Brian Butterworth (a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of London) argues persuasively for a new comprehension of the development and exercise of mathematical ability. Proponent of a separate center for mathematical intelligence, Butterworth nevertheless argues that the existence of a biological 'numerical center' means that nearly everyone has the capacity to become highly proficient at mathematics and mathematical thinking. Especially interesting to me was his demonstration of the futility of rote learning--and his trenchant dissection of the educational causes of most people's mathematical anxieties and related math difficulties... I've read widely on this topic, and have heretofore remained unenlightened. In addition to advancing a new basis for the way we must view math skills and teach them, Butterworth writes cogently and compellingly, adducing powerful evidence for his findings from provocative new research. This is an optimistic book. It makes clear that, Hollywood be damned, Will Hunting lives in all of us.
Amazon.com
Wired magazine's book division, HardWired, has taken the rich color process that gives their newsstand editions such impact and put it to even better use here, producing a volume of full-page photographs uninterrupted by text or the eye-candy layout that make Wired so amusing and difficult to read. This book features work by nearly a dozen photographers documenting the Black Rock Arts Festival, better known as Burning Man. This annual event draws thousands of revelers to a desolate stretch of desert for a few days of performance art, naked frolicking, and a bizarre, mock auto-da-fé wherein the giant wood and neon Burning Man is destroyed in the culmination of this festival of images. Sixteen pages of text separate the daylight photos from those taken at night, and the endpapers, prints of the cracked and empty desert surface, neatly wrap this exquisitely beautiful package.
Customer Reviews:
High school yearbook for freaks.......2003-07-14
Let's face it, when they start making coffee table books about a really cool, artsy, ostensibly underground, non-commercial event, you know the writing's on the wall for said event's hip quotient. So needless to say, I had a real negative feeling about this book before I even looked at it. I was opposed to its existance purely on principal. "Wired is trying to make money off of Burning Man," I thought, incredulous. And the Burning Man people actually approved! Travesty!
I must admit it though -- it's gorgeous. Stunning really. Beautifully designed, with huge, full-bleed photos-both color and black-and-white-on every page. Flipping through the book, there seems to be a good representative sampling of Black Rock City culture circa 1990-1996: Clichéd images of naked, painted bodies dancing. That goddamned Java Cow. Art cars. Colorfully-costumed participants. Moody black-and-whites of the Man. The usual pics of naked people caked with mud. It's even presented in somewhat of an order, with all the daytime images slowly leading into photos taken at dusk. Then there's the requisite sixteen pages of editorial pontificating, before heading off into the book's "climax," which mirrors the climax of the event itself with its final eighteen photos all taken during Burn night.
The images, for the most part, are stunning--although anyone can tell you that it seems damn near impossible to take a bad photo out on the playa. I especially liked Barbara Traub's very artful, often-posed, black-and-whites. Instead of merely documenting the event, she seems to use the playa as her own photography studio, producing incredibly unique images.
As for the editorial content, it makes for a good, hour-long read. Naturally, everyone tries to explain what Burning Man is, without ever really nailing it down. Such is the nature of the event. Larry Harvey spells it all out in his oral history of Burning Man. Bruce Sterling describes his family's vacation at Burning Man, in his hysterical, and ultimately heartwarming piece, "Variation On a Theme Park (Taking the Kids to Burning Man)" Erik Davis' "Here is Post-Modern Space" is alternately intellectual jabbering and snarky commentary. But far and away my favorite piece was "Me, I Didn't Burn A Thing," a refreshingly different perspective of Burning Man from Janelle Brown. She tells it like it is, writing: "I'm stuck in a limbo-land of exhaustion: I can't sleep because I've hardly moved all day, and I can't move because I've hardly slept. I lie in the eerie blue shade of our plastic tarpualin in a semi-lucid state, spray bottle in one hand, gin and tonic in the other." That is so it.
While certainly it's a great conversation piece for suckering in friends to go out with you to Burning Man next year, the biggest reason I like the book is because it functions as sort of a high school yearbook for all the freaks who went to Burning Man in the early to mid '90s.
Accurate, Artistic, Amazing.......2001-12-14
I've been to the event-- first as a citizen and later as part of the volunteer labor force, and I own this book. It's true (as other reviewers have stated) it is not "complete"-- in the sense that its focus is primarily visual. (There is so much more to Burning Man!) But it does a marvelous job with those visuals! Each page turned elicits one of the following thoughts: "Gad! I didn't see that! How could I possibly have missed that?" or something like "Ahhhh, I remember that evening on the Promenade-- and how mysterious the light was..."
The reader who found the images too "extreme," "surreal," and "fringe" has not been there-- or he/she forgot to look around, because this is what you will see if you venture out of your tent... It's easy to come up with remarkable images in this remarkable temporary city, and this book does a fine job of hinting at the world that is Black Rock City. Go ahead, whet your appetite...
Wild & Wacky West.......2001-05-06
When I saw this book in my school library, I thought wow--gotta go! This looks like my idea of summer camp. The photos of people covered in mud are so cool and so is the biker in a tutu. The mushroom cloud looks so real and the truck with fins really rocks. Is this another planet? I will have to find out...
Much Hype.......2000-05-29
Pseudo hipster chic is what is most notable about this book. The photographers try too hard to come up with images that seem "extreme," "surreal," and "fringe" -- and end up with what looks more like the vapid chronicles of juvenilia.
Some great images, but lots missing........1999-08-23
As a longtime participant in Burning Man, I looked forward to the publication of this book with eager anticipation. It's a lovely volume, and has plenty of dramatic and artsy images to show off to your friends who ask "What the heck is this Burning Man thing?"
What's missing however, are many aspects of individual challenge and participation that are central to life on the Playa. The Camps, the communities, the building and the clean up, and the daily life issues we all face living on a blank canvas in the desert are largely ignored in favor of the art aspect of the event. There are very few images of the Burn, the moment of release, and that makes it feel incomplete.
Now, don't get me wrong! This is a lovely book, well-photograped and well-made, it just feels to me more like a slick representation rather than an access point to the whole event. Though, with WIRED involved, that makes sense as well. I love having this book, and would recommend it to anyone who has lived in Black Rock City.
I wouldn't be without this volume on my shelves.
Books:
- Star Trek: Action!
- Star Wars Chronicles
- Starlight Surprise (My Secret Unicorn)
- Subterranean
- Subterranean Cities: The World Beneath Paris and London, 1800-1945
- The Best of All Possible Worlds: Mathematics and Destiny
- The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (James H. Silberman Books)
- The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back
- The Cereal Box Mystery (Boxcar Children)
- The Child's Story Bible
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
- Marketing: Real People, Real Choices
- Beyond Illusions : A Novel
- Dream Backyards: From Planters to Decks, Over 30 Projects to Create a Beautiful Outdoor Living Space
- Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel
- Linear Algebra with Applications
- History: Fiction or Science
- Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making
- Dear Milkman
- Dangerous Opportunity: Making Change Work
