Graduating in a week, time to figure out what I want to read for fun! These sound good. SUGGESTIONS WELCOME, RANDOM INTERNET PEOPLE! I need more non-fiction.
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler (nice, it’s available as a free PDF).
“In Benkler’s view, the new “networked information economy” allows individuals and groups to be more productive than profit-seeking ventures. New types of collaboration, such as Wikipedia or SETI@Home, “offer defined improvements in autonomy, democratic discourse, cultural creation, and justice”-as long as government regulation aimed at protecting old-school information monoliths (such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) doesn’t succeed.”
The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson
“This volume, his manifesto to the public at large, is a meditation on the splendor of our biosphere and the dangers we pose to it. In graceful, expressive and vigorous prose, Wilson argues that the challenge of the new century will be “to raise the poor to a decent standard of living worldwide while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible.” For as America consumes and the Third World tries to keep up, we lose biological diversity at an alarming rate. But the “trajectory” of species loss depends on human choice. If current levels of consumption continue, half the planet’s remaining species will be gone by mid-century. Wilson argues that the “great dilemma of environmental reasoning” stems from the conflict between environmentalism and economics, between long-term and short-term values. Conservation, he writes, is necessary for our long-term health and prosperity.”
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
“…a cerebral page-turner that pits corporeal man against metaphysical sharks that devour memory and essence, not flesh and blood. When Eric Sanderson wakes from a lengthy unconsciousness, he has no memory. A letter from “The First Eric Sanderson” directs him to psychologist Dr. Randle, who tells Eric he is afflicted with a “dissociative condition.” Eric learns about his former life—specifically a glorious romance with girlfriend Clio Aames, who drowned three years earlier—and is soon on the run from the Ludovician, a “species of purely conceptual fish” that “feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self.” Once he hooks up with Scout, a young woman on the run from her own metaphysical predator, the two trek through a subterranean labyrinth made of telephone directories (masses of words offer protection, as do Dictaphone recordings), decode encrypted communications and encounter a series of strange characters on the way to the big-bang showdown with the beast.
There’s echoes of Cyberpunk, Borges, Auster; there is adventure on the high seas, lost love, an exploration of what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines. “
Grid Systems in Graphic Design
“A Visual Communication Manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers. Considered by most to be the definitive book on grid systems. This book is a must for any designer. “
The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems
In this book, Josef Muller-Brockmann intends to show the nature and the meaning of the design elements in typography, drawing and photography in advertising. An important visual tool that will give open-minded designers a worthwhile survey of the fundamental problems of design.
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
“Murakami’s 12th work of fiction is darkly entertaining and more novella than novel. Taking place over seven hours of a Tokyo night, it intercuts three loosely related stories, linked by Murakami’s signature magical-realist absurd coincidences. When amateur trombonist and soon-to-be law student Tetsuya Takahashi walks into a late-night Denny’s…..”
And maybe these too:
- The Post-American World – Fareed Zakaria
- Espresso Coffee: The Science of Quality – Andrea Illy
- The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World By John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan
- How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas By David Bornstein
