Ravenweb Blog

Snoop is a fascinating and readable exploration of what personal items reveal about an individual's personality. Everything from what's on your iPod playlist to how your office is organized to how you dress for interviews illuminate who you are and how you behave. The book emerged from serious academic study and experiments, but author Sam Gosling has massaged the material for a general audience. For the most part, he succeeds, and if you enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's books and Freakonomics , you'll probably like Snoop as well.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is a sad, eloquent novel about Iris Lockhart, a young Scottish woman who learns suddenly that she's been granted the power of attorney for a family relation she never knew existed -- a great aunt (Esme Lennox) who has been in a mental institution for the past 60 years. With this solid nouveau-Gothic premise, the novel proceeds by switching back and forth in time and alternating narrative points of view, between Iris and Esme. The story of both women is thus gradually revealed, and the ending, whether or not the reader guesses at the big surprise, is dramatic and powerful.

Shop Class as Soulcraft explores the value of manual competence and the rewards of working in the trades versus working as a professional or knowedge worker. From this point of departure, author and motorcycle repair-shop owner Matthew B. Crawford tackles a number of thought-provoking and culturally immediate questions. For example, is there a general under-estimation and under-appeciation of the intellectual rigor and challenges in the manual trades? Are some of the manual trades immune to outsourcing and should they be worthy of new consideration for otherwise college-eligible grads in the evolving world of outsourcing? Is there deeper personal and communal satisfaction in standards that -- in the trades -- are inherent in the work itself compared to more abstract measures of competence in other professional fields? These are hard questions worthy of deep conversations and analysis. To that end, I'm very pleased that Crawford made the attempt. As for the execution, though,...

I previously posted about how to implement expandable posts in Blogger -- that is a summary lead-in on the main page (instead of the whole post) and a link to the the rest of the post on a separate page. Well, I guess enough people were interested in this functionality that Blogger decided to add it as a standard feature, called Jump Breaks : With Jump Breaks you can show just a snippet of your post on your blog's index page. Blogger will insert a "Read more" link to the full post page where your readers can keep reading. Check out the full post about Jump Breaks from the Blogger Buzz blog .

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is all about human waste, but it's not a gross out or uncouth book. Instead, this is a very interesting and accessible survey of the state of human waste disposal across the world, with analysis of some of the long-standing social and environmental challenges that are involved. One of the major points author Rose George emphasizes is that poor sanitation is a huge problem in many parts of the world. Simply, poor santiation leads to contaminated food and dirty drinking water that, in turns, leads to disease and the deaths of millions of people each year (many children, often from dysentery).

One of the advantages of having a wife pursue a graduate degree is that you can pick the interesting books to read from her pile of assigned books while bypassing the rest. When I noticed my wife reading Fierce Conversations , I was immediately interested. The text purported to summarize author and seasoned facilitator Susan Scott's methods and best practices in helping communicate more effectively, including breaking through on tough, seemingly intractable issues. While Fierce Conversations has clearly been marketed as a business book for managers and executives, it seemed to me that at root it was about communication, and, if its message was sound, could be useful to anyone. After reading the book, I would recommend it to anyone, or at least anyone wishing to communicate and listen better. Because, in essence, Fierce Conversations is about returning to authentic conversations and really listening and giving people your full attention while communicating. It seems so simple,...

This Land Is Their Land : Reports from a Divided Nation  is a part-Swiftian and part-muckracking collection of vignettes about various specific topics affecting many Americans -- healthcare, inflation, unemployment, corporate greed and malfeasance -- that, in aggregate, all show how the gap is widening between the rich and the poor. Of course, like many books that take a stand about political or social issues, many readers will come to it with strong opinions and those predisposed to agree with Ehrenreich will probably like and praise the book more than those who don't. Political leanings aside, I thought the humor and angry in the book were well placed, and the pieces were deftly calibrated in length, tone, and to effect. Overall it was good to read Ehrenreich back in full stride. Previously, I liked Nickel and Dimed a lot but was disappointed by Bait and Switch . One caveat: the book was published in 2008 and feels just a little dated, in the wake of the recession and ho...

I don't usually makes plugs here, but I wanted to acknowledge the excellent service I received from Wee Bit Computers , a computer fix-it and software installation shop located just south of Buffalo, NY. About a month ago, I was on my computer one night when I heard the tell-tale sign that one of my hard drives was failing. The next day I phoned Roger Carron, the owner of Wee Bit Computers, and after talking to him for just a little bit, I knew my computer would be in good hands. The next day someone came to pick up my machine, and the faulty hardware was replaced and the machines was returned to me on the very same day. What's better, the price for the repair was entirely reasonable. I was very happy with the service. I definitely recommend Wee Bit Computers to anyone in Buffalo or the surrounding area with computer needs. Thanks also to my friend Gary for recommending Roger.

Prior to reading Indignation , my only exposure to Philip Roth was his classic Portnoy's Complaint -- which I strongly disliked (although I conceded that the novel is distinguished in breaking new ground for confessional prose). I ended up reading Indignation by accident. I belong to the Quality Paperback Book Club and the book came to me because I forgot to decline off one of those monthly e-cards where you receive the books if you don't tell them you don't want them. As it turned out, I thought Indignation was a tight, readable literary novel. The text is narrated by a young man -- apparently from the afterlife -- who recounts his confrontational relationships with male figures (father, fellow students, teachers) and his sexual awakening at college. It was good, not great, and engaging enough to make me consider reading some of Roth's other books.

A little over a year ago, I traveled to Japan and enjoyed my first ever visit to this remarkable country. I realized recently that I never shared any photos from that trip, and I wanted to rectify that omission. This post mostly features pictures from my visit to Kamakura . I'll follow up with a second entry with pictures of my trip into Tokyo. During my visit, I stayed in Yokahama. Here's a picture from our hotel. Below are pictures from Kamakura, including many shots of the Great Buddha .

Updates 2010-02-15 Changed song for 1974, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" by Elton John (from Caribou ) to "No Woman, No Cry" by Bob Marley (from Natty Dread ) Changed song for 1976, "Hitch A Ride" by Boston (from Boston ) to "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult (from Agents of Fortune ) Added song for 2009, "3000 Miles Away" by Star Fucking Hipsters (from Never Rest in Peace ) 2009-12-15 Changed song for 2008, "Everybody Knows" by John Legend (from Evolver ) to "Sober" by Pink (from Funhouse ) ## Just for kicks, I recently made a playlist featuring a song for each year that I've been alive. Of course, with any playlist that spans one's childhood year, I wasn't listening to all these songs when they were originally released, so there's some built-in retrofitting. A couple of caveats: This type of playlist was interesting to put together, but it was hard ...

Lush Life is a gritty police procedural novel set in New York's Lower East Side. However, that capsule summary doesn't nearly do the book justice, for the murder investigation and detective plot elements, while essential to the novel, are merely the underpins from which the author is able to evoke a fully realized tale of how a singular, even random event -- in this case a robbery that unexpectedly results in murder -- reverberates far beyond the immediate characters involved, to their families and friends, to the police working the investigation, to the nearby shopkeepers and merchants, and ultimately through the whole neighborhood and community. The text is further distinguished by outstanding characterization and crisp, authentic dialogue. Highly recommended. Note - It was only after I was finishing this post that I stumbled across this Slate piece that mentioned that Lush Life is on President Obama's Summer Reading List. I guess the secret is out, but I'd be happ...

My 20 year high school reunion was held this past weekend. Though unfortunately I didn't learn of the reunion until just last week, I was able to attend one of the three weekend events. I went to the Friday night icebreaker at a local restaurant-bar, and I'm glad I went. It was great seeing so many faces and talking to people from my formative years. What's more, most of my former classmates looked great, appeared to be in good health, and were very friendly. I talked not only with people I knew well in high school, but also some people I knew of. It was that kind of night. People were happy and really open to the event. I did attend my 10 year reunion as well, but that seems like a lifetime ago, as so much has changed in my life since then (wife, house, baby). Anyway, if anyone is oscillating about attending an upcoming reunion, I would encourage that you go. Of course, in my case, I neither loved nor hated high school and I had only a few close friends (although I was fri...

UPDATE - 12/15/2009 After some back and forth, we went with the Snow Joe Ultra 622U1 13 Amp Electric Snow Thrower. I'll be commenting about its performance as the winter progresses and we use it regularly, but we already had a chance to try it last Thursday (12/10), when the first big Lake Effect snow of the season dumped more than a foot of snow on us here just south of Buffalo. Based on the test run, the Snow Joe performed admirably, handling the one foot high snow in our driveway without issue and essentially doing everything I expected of a powerful torque but lightweight snow thrower. ORIGINAL POST - 8/17/2009 I know it's only August, but I live in Buffalo, and you always need to think ahead about snow. The last two winters, we went without any snow removal machinery, and it hasn't been fun. The first winter I just shoveled, and the second we hired a plowing service. The plow service was better than shoveling all the time, but there were still too many times ...

In Defense of Food is one of those books that right away makes you pay attention and assess your life and diet based on its message. The book's conceit and overt motto is elegantly simple: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. What this translates to is a call to replace much of the standard, additive rich fare in the Western Diet with real, traditional food, grown naturally and purchased locally if possible. In addition to converting to organic or natural food, the author suggests investing more time and resources into meal planning and eating, and consuming more vegetables (especially greens). It's hard to conceive of a reason not to read this book, unless you're someone who's already digested the message or, perhaps, you have a vested interest in the continued dominion of agribusiness.

The Prefect is big, smart, and fun -- and really has everything you'd want in a speculative fiction novel. The novel begins with Prefect Dreyfus (Prefects are like detectives) investigating the recent destruction of a habitat. The investigation ultimately leads Dreyfus to information of a takeover plot from a hostile AI that threatens the entire collection of habitats in the system. Buttressing the drama of the main plot is Reynolds' fascinating imagining of a 25th Century society of thousands of orbital habitats and evolved technology. Note: The Prefect is set in the Revelation Space universe but as near as I can tell (without having read all the other books), it's completely standalone.

Fruitless Fall explores the perilous state of honey bees, which in recent years have been dying at unprecedented levels. Jacobsen sifts through the evidence and current theories for the decline -- dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder -- and concludes that a number of factors are contributing. In addition to harmful mites, which have played a significant role in decimating hives, the author spends much of his focus on the components and byproducts of industrial agriculture, particularly pesticides and the modern apiary practice of working bees almost year-round and sending them to different states to pollinate different crops based on the season. The net result, quite literally, is sick, over-stressed bees. Jacobsen concludes the book with a skein of hope by showing what some innovative beekeepers are doing to reverse the alarming trend. These practices include re-breeding hives with hardy, Russian honey bees and allowing bees to build more natural hives.

The mother of all work projects has kept me away from this blog for about two months now, but we're nearing the end of the project, and I wanted to resurface to signal that I will be posting again soon. I've still been reading during this busy period at work and have built up quite a list of belated reviews. Below is a partial list of posts I'm planning. Books Fruitless Fall by Rowan Jacobsen The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds The Big Necessity by Rose George The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley & William D. Danko This Land Is Their Land by Barbara Ehrenreich Snoop by Sam Gosling The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Music Green Day ~ 21st Century Breakdown Computer Games Fallout 3 Neverwinter Nights 2

My friend Travis Belrose -- who I have written about previously on this blog -- has launched a new website and blog . In his own words, the site "is devoted to Ishikawa Jozan, Shisendo, and writing" and the blog "focuses on Ishikawa Jozan, Shisendo, and the odyssey of getting The Samurai Poet published". Best of luck to Travis with his new websites!

Reid Gershbein is one of my root friends I grew up and he's just released a new movie entitled Here. My Explosion... under a Creative Commons license. There's also a Boing Boing thread about film here .