Rating: 2/5 David Skinner, The Story of Ain’t: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published (New York: Harper, 2012). It’s books like this that make me question my sanity. I read the jacket and promotional copy, I read the reviews, and I have to start to wonder if it’s just me. This book...
Rating: 2/5 Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan (New York: Random House, 2007). This book was a disappointment. It started off OK, but it became apparent quite quickly that Taleb is—how should I say this?—arrogant and a bit of a jerk. The main thrust of the book (in itself interesting) could have easily been conveyed...
Rating: 2/5 Ian Hamilton, The Water Rat of Wanchai (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2011). Yawn! This has to be one of the most boring “action stories” I’ve ever read. I hate to break it to you, but this story about a forensic accountant is exactly as exciting as it sounds. I get that Ava was conceived as a continuing...
Rating: 2/5 This past weekend I had the opportunity of visiting with a brother- and sister-in-law, their daughter, and their newborn son. My brother-in-law also went out and bought Assassin’s Creed III (AC3) the day we arrived with the hope of getting at least part way through it over the weekend. We only played the...
Rating: 2/5 Lee Child, Die Trying (New York: Berkeley Books, 1998). I give the first book of a series a lot of leeway, especially if it’s early in an author’s career. But I expect a lot more from the later books. Child disappointed me, I’m afraid. (I suspected as much after reading the cover and fly pages. The “advance...
Rating: 2/5 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002). Herman and Chomsky assert that the best way to understand modern mass media and how it operates is using a “propaganda model.” They introduce the model and then give a slew of...
Rating: 2/5 Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games (London: Orbit, 1989). Being a gamer myself, I had high hopes for this book. I was a little disappointed. It was pretty good overall, but the specific game aspects were highly romanticized and frustratingly non-specific. I did find his views on randomness in games...
Rating: 2/5 William Gibson, Neuromancer (Ace, 1984). I’ve always been a fan of the “cyberpunk” mythos, but I have just never gotten around to reading the archetypal book that really started it all, Neuromancer. I finally did. It’s a pretty quick read (250ish pages in the Ace special edition). It’s written in a gritty,...