Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
My first time reading Doctorow and I’m a fan. Dutch Schulz, New York in the early 20th century, and great writing. What’s not to like?
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Author: dave
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A cognitive linguist analyzes the metaphors which underlie liberal and conservative politics in the US. This is fascinating and enlightening stuff and I won’t look at US politics in the same way again.
Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game by Dan Barry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The true(ish) story of the longest baseball game ever played and the subsequent lives of some of the people who played and watched it. Great sportswriting and a fascinating story. By a weird coincidence, there is a recent article in the NY Times by Barry about the same franchise. The new owners are moving the team out of Pawtucket. No joy in Mudville, but I guess that’s baseball.
Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty by Vikram Chandra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lovely meditations on the beauty of literature, the beauty of code, and what they might or might not have in common. Chandra also writes about the differences between Western and Indian aesthetics.
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Review: Means of Ascent
Means of Ascent by Robert A. Caro
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had heard that LBJ stole the 1948 Texas Senate election, but I had no idea about the astonishing (and pretty much irrefutable) details. Unbelievable. What a strange, strange man he was.
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Review: TransAtlantic
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Love McCann’s writing. This novel uses Atlantic crossings to knit together the stories of people over time.
More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor by George Lakoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lakoff argues that poetic metaphor is not essentially different from our everyday language or thought processes. And the metaphors in any poem are largely the metaphors of the culture it was composed in, only elaborated, extended, and wielded by an expert. Lakoff analyzes a number of poems and shows how they can be understood only by making use of a great many metaphors so basic and automatic that we barely notice them at all. Great stuff.
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Review: In the Woods
In the Woods by Tana French
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Whoah. Very intense (and good) detective novel. I’m glad I read it and I’m glad I finished!
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Review: Metaphors We Live By
Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
How metaphors structure our language, perception, thoughts. I absolutely love this stuff, so glad I finally got around to reading Lakoff.
Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great book. It’s not an easy read, but it was well worth it for me.
How do we think? From whence do our concepts come and how our they structured? Is language a separate, independent “module” in the brain or is it tied into our other concepts and vice versa? How does syntax relate to semantics? How does semantics relate to truth? How does the body relate to the mind? How well does the traditional view of logic and truth match up with our lived experience?
Lakoff explores all of these questions in a densely argued critique of traditional philosophical approaches to syntax, semantics, and truth and then presents a new approach in a review of (relatively) recent research into cognitive linguistics. The review includes three case studies of different aspects of English grammar and semantics.
The result was an eye-opening experience for me. There’s some really interesting work going on here these days, must read more!