SuperFreakonomics

These guys are good. As always, I love the random connections they made. I found the section on global warming especially impressive and interesting.

Sometimes I wonder if they manipulate their statistics a bit, but it's entertaining nonetheless.

Favorite Quotes:
The entire section on prostitution

Eating the Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman!!!!!!! Okay, this was a good one. There was a lot of randomness, but there were also plenty of pearls of wisdom thrown in. His essay about the Unabomber was genuinely outstanding, on many levels.

Favorite Quotes:

"Nader's reasons for running in 2000 (and in 2004) were unvarnished extensions of what he claimed to represent. He was not psychologically troubled. He was literal, which is received by the public as the same thing."

"Not all crazy people are brilliant, but almost all brilliant people are crazy."

"If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self aware! And this is idiotic."

"I love the internet. And I will probably love whatever technological firebomb comes next. My apologies, Ted. Your thirty-five-thousand-word document makes sense to me, but I cannot be saved. You'll have to blow up my hands."

Another PostSecret Book (!)

Favorite Secrets:

"I used to tell myself I was helping my patients end the pain... Now I think I just wanted to play God."

"I resolve to be brave, and strong, and proud of my life."

"I already knew your secret. Everything is going to be alright."

"Since life is so short, I feel like I need to be active all the time. I feel guilty for taking time to relax."

"I meditate on the tiolet. (You should try it sometime.)

Creepy Stories

Just finished 'The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales," which is a collection of, duh, Gothic short stories. As messed up as it is, Gothic fiction is fascinating on many levels, and this collection was especially interesting. It's a good read if you're looking for twisted psychology, entrapment, and/or patriarchal oppression. Enjoy.

Favorite Stories:
Goat Girl
Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin
If You Touched My Heart

The Mysteries of Udolpho

Meh. Gothic fiction is always interesting, but I prefer the really messed up, perverted Gothic fiction to mere ghost mysteries.

Nice try, Radcliffe. I know you're a pioneer in Gothic fiction, but Austen was right to make fun of you.

Northanger Abbey

I really love Jane Austen, and Northanger Abbey is a keeper. It is a parody of Gothic Fiction (specifically, The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe) and it was clever.

Favorite Quotes:

"What ideas, Miss Morland, have you been admitting?"

"The heroine's father did not lock her away in the cellar as is the custom of one such story as this."

My First Complete Book in Months

Yes, I read this book for a class, my freshman seminar, "Dealing with the Global Financial Crisis." And then the author (Amity Shlaes, who has been on the Daily Show) came and spoke to our class. And then we had refreshments at Professor Ken Rogoff's house. With his wife Natasha (a former NBC producer), the chief economist from Kuwait, and the editor of the Wall Street Journal.

It was so awesome.

Only at Harvard.

Oh, and the book was outstanding too.