Stephen Baker's The Numerati

Stephen Baker’s The Numerati, which I first wrote about here.

The book is organized into seven chapters which describe ways that data is being analyzed in mass quantities: Worker, Shopper, Voter, Blogger, Terrorist, Patient, and Lover.

You'd think that Lover would be the most interesting but it had the least substance; Voter (about Josh Gotbaum of Spotlight Analysis) was by far the most interesting chapter.

The Numerati was such a quick read that I finished it in just a few short disappointing hours.

I felt Baker was stretching to fill out his book with examples of how mathematicians are dangerously invading our privacy by quantifying and analyzing our lives.

Still, it was entertaining; just keep your expectations low.

Untying the Knot

Re-reading Lori Gottlieb's March 2008 Atlantic article about settling -- after being reminded of it by reading Caitlin Flanagan’s recent article in the Atlantic about being reminded of female adolescence and re-reading Lisa Belkin’s October 2003 New York Times Magazine cover story about highly educated women choosing to leave their careers for the joys of motherhood -- has reminded me of yet another article: "Untying the Knot" by Melanie Thernstrom, published August 23, 2003 in the New York Times Magazine.

This article tells the sad story of the courtship, marriage, and divorce of Max and Kate to discuss marriage, divorce and love in modern times.

The truth is that most Americans do not marry for power, money and status. Nor do they marry out of social and economic necessity, as in an earlier era. They marry for love. Yet an enduring truth of our time is that marriage dissolves as often as it holds. So how is it that ordinary love ordinarily fails? If love is, as Wallace Stevens suggests, a dwelling ''in which being there together is enough,'' how does silence fall on a thousand evenings and the possibility of intimacy flicker and die? How do lovers become lonely?

It's a very sad article, but worth reading. A friend sent it to me when it was first published and I've kept it and re-read it about once a year since then.

Friends' Recommendations

Got more recommendations from friends this week:

• Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
• University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education by Jennifer Washburn

Gender equality seems to be on people's minds -- maybe it has to do with Sarah Palin? -- and a friend recommended Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever to learn about why women don't earn the same amount as men. Using research and interviews, this book answers these questions and more:

• Why do most women see a negotiation as an automatic fight instead of a chance to get what they deserve?
• Why are women afraid to ask for what they want in the workplace?
• And perhaps most importantly, why don't women feel entitled to ask for it?

A friend who knows I'm an alum of MIT recommended University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education by Jennifer Washburn. Washburn argues that American universities have discarded the very values and practices that have made them so successful asthey have made secretive connections with private industry that have begun to "undermine the foundation of public trust on which all universities depend." Janet Rae-Dupree quotes Washburn and mentions this book in this September 6, 2008 New York Times article "When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder," which I found to be an interesting critique of unversity technology licensing.

So much to read...

Friends' Recommendations

Three friends each recommended a book this week:

• Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Farmer by Tim Stark
• One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century by Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
• I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire

The first book is a memoir about producing organic veggies on a small farm in Pennsylvania Dutch country, after giving up his city life in Brooklyn, NY.  Using an old Toyota pickup, he transported his first auspicious crop of Hill Billies, Tiger Toms and Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifters to the Union Square Greenmarket and soon began to sell his produce to New York's posh kitchens.

Considering my ongoing interest in gardening, and my enjoyment of books related to organic food, I think I would rather enjoy this book. Though I'm not sure I've got time for it.

Click here to read an excerpt of Heirloom.



One Party Country is by two The Los Angeles Times journalists -- Wallsten covers the White House and national politics and Hamburger is an investigative reporter.

The author's premise is that despite the Bush Administration's current unpopularity, the Republican domination of American politics is unlikely to end anytime soon due to the powerful Republican machine. Thanks to Karl Rove and others, the Republicans have identified and commodified every potential vote in the nation through large-scale fundraising, targeted single-issue marketing, manipulative gerrymandering, and more.

Definitely relevant to this year's presidential election and possibly worth reading, but not sure it'll jump to the top of my list of books to read.

Click here to read an excerpt.



And the last book is about the history of marriage from Adam and Eve to modern times. In irreverent laugh-out-loud-funny prose, Squire argues that marriage was developed to establish paternity by controlling the sex life of women. It received a favorable review from Slate's Dahlia Lithwick in her New York Times book review "I Now Pronounce You Totally Confused" published September 5, 2008.Click here to read an excerpt of I Don't.

I'm always interested in learning about the history of our traditions so I Don't is definitely my kind of book. I'll have to put it on my list to read next year.

Funny that all of these books were featured on NPR -- guess that's what everyone's listening to these days.

NYTimes.com Book Review - Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis by Kingsley Amis

Dwight Garner's "Toasting the Joys of Imbibing Properly" published in the New York Times on June 4, 2008 reviews Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis by Kingsley Amis.

Everyday Drinking is a compilation of Amis's out-of-print classics on drinking alcoholic beverages, its history, social mores, and etiquette: "On Drink" (1973), "Everyday Drinking" (1983) and "How's Your Glass?" (1984).

Garner's review has pretty much sold me on this book.

I'm not much of a drinker and I haven't read any of those three books and still I may purchase a copy of Everyday Drinking for my ever expanding personal library.

Though I've had Stuart Walton's Out of It: a Cultural History of Intoxication on my "Books to Read" list, I haven't read any books on nor do I own any on drinking and Garner makes Everyday Drinking sound witty and delightful (more so than Out of It). Garner writes:

These books are so delicious they impart a kind of contact high; they make you feel as if you’ve just had the first sip of the planet’s coldest, driest martini.

Click here to read an excerpt of the Introduction and click here to read an excerpt of Chapter One.

Earth Day Books

I don't consider myself an environmentalist.

But I do love being outdoors, particularly being in the ocean so in honor of Earth Day (April 22) and Earth Week, here are the eco-themed books I recommend:

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond - Jared Diamond is a professor of geography and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles and the writer of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.

Diamond lists eight factors which, based on his analysis, have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies: 1. Deforestation and habitat destruction; 2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses); 3. Water management problems; 4. Overhunting; 5. Overfishing; 6. Effects of introduced species on native species; 7. Human population growth, and; 8. Increased per-capita impact of people.

He further isolates four new factors that may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies: 1. Human-caused climate change; 2. Buildup of toxic chemicals in the environment; 3. Energy shortages, and; 4. Full human utilization of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity.

Some of the collapsed societies Diamond discusses are Easter Island, Anasazis (Southwestern US), and Maya (Central America). He also compares modern day Haiti to the Dominican Republic, which share the same island but have vastly different economies.

Click here to read the first chapter on washingtonpost.com.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Yes McCarthy is the author of No Country For Old Men. I promise this book isn't nearly as violent as that book/movie. The Road was deservedly awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also a selection of Oprah's Book Club. The NYTimes Book Review writes a good summary of this book.

I really liked the Road -- I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting -- though it's one of those books that I won't re-read it (I frequently re-read my favorite books, but this one is just too sad).

I don't like to read or watch a lot of violence so I found some of the scenes a bit nauseating. However, McCarthy seems purposeful in writing the scenes of violence so you don't feel like he's just trying to shock you just for the sake of sensationalism.

The conclusion was reassuring with it's idea that mankind could not only survive nuclear destruction but do so without every person resorting to looking out just for themselves (as most of the folks the father and son encountered on the Road seemed to). It seems to be part of the moral of the story; not just that nuclear war cannot be an option but also that we need to work together towards a better future.

Click here to read an excerpt on the Random House website.

Happy Earth Day!