Why Young People Don't Read Newspapers
Posted on May 8, 2005
Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News
David T. Z. Mindich
Oxford University Press (March 1, 2005)
172 pages
What the Dormouse Said
Posted on May 8, 2005
What the Dormouse Said
How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry.
By John Markoff.
Illustrated. 310 pp. Viking. $25.95.
Waiting for Godel
Posted on May 7, 2005
"Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel"
Rebecca Goldstein
Norton/Atlas Books
296 pages
Nonfiction
Rats
Posted on April 30, 2005
Rats
A Year with New York's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
Robert Sullivan
Bloomsbury USA (April 11, 2005)
256 pages
First Sentence: WHEN I WROTE the following account of my experiences with rats, I lived in an apartment building on a block filled with other apartment buildings, amidst the approximately eight million people in New York City, and I paid rent to a landlord that I never actually met-though I did meet the superintendent, who was a very nice guy.
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Posted on April 30, 2005
Genghis Khan
and the Making of the Modern World
Jack Weatherford
Three Rivers Press (March 22, 2005)
Cork Boat
Posted on March 30, 2005
Cork Boat : A True Story of the Unlikeliest Boat Ever Built
John Pollack
Anchor (April 12, 2005)
304 pages
From the Cork Boat website:
In the late 1990s John Pollack was working as a Washington speechwriter when, frustrated by the cynicism and hypocrisy on Capitol Hill, he quit his job to pursue a boyhood dream: to build a boat made entirely of wine corks and take it on an epic journey.
Cork Boat tells the story of Pollack's improbable quest. Overcoming one obstacle after another, he convinces skeptical bartenders to save their corks, corrals a brilliant but headstrong partner, and eventually cajoles more than 100 volunteers to help build the boat - many until their fingers bleed. Ultimately, Pollack completes his vessel of 165,321 corks and sets sail on a fantastic voyage down the Douro River in Portugal, where the Cork Boat becomes a national sensation.
Equal parts memoir, adventure story and travelogue, Cork Boat ferries the reader on an unlikely, inspiring journey from the corridors of power to the windswept gorges of northern Portugal, all aboard an absurd yet beautiful vessel. Written with unusual grace and disarming humor, Cork Boat is a buoyant tale of whimsy, adventure, and the power of imagination.