clock … watching time, the only true currency

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam might also have been subtitled “the forgotten war.” Vietnam dominates modern political and military history in this country. Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan elicit comparisons to Vietnam time and again. But Korea provided an earlier example of what happens when political and military [...]

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In contrast to Murakami, I’ve read most of Wallace Stegner’s fiction, and embraced his non-fiction, too. So, finding a new-to-me slim 1987 volume of three lectures thrilled. The American West as Living Space at its heart explores how water — and its absence, often enough — defines the region. We’ve endured our third dry winter [...]

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I clicked on Seth Godin’s head long ago. Given all he’s shared online, I haven’t spent much time with his books. But The Dip was front and center at the library last weekend, and admirably small and brief, so it was an impulse read. With the goal of being the best in the world, with [...]

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Phoebe Damrosch somehow found time while serving as a backserver and waiter at Per Se to write a book about the experience. Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter is her journal of the years during the opening of the top-notch Thomas Keller restaurant. It’s highly personal, and includes her growing relationship with a [...]

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After an endorsement from Neal Stephenson in Anathem, I pulled Julian Barbour’s The End of Time out of the San Francisco Public Library. Subtitled “The Next Revolution in our Understanding of the Universe,” this book made me work hard. Barbour tells you what he’s going to tell you, and then he tells you. He encourages [...]

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After many Wallace Stegner novels, finding his non-fiction Discovery! The Search for Arabian Oil at the library saved me money at Amazon. First noted last year, Discovery! was written in 1956, but the Selwa Press edition from 2007 is the first time it’s been published in America. A straightforward, somewhat glossy take on history, written [...]

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Indi Young’s Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy With Human Behavior dives into an approach to building products to solve the right problems. In Young’s words: Mental models are simply affinity diagrams of behaviors made from ethnographic data gathered from audience representatives. [page 2] I’m more familiar with personas. Young positions personas as an output of [...]

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Perhaps you can’t judge a book by its cover. But the title of this demure black hardcover distinguished itself enough that I plucked it off the shelf and kept it in the pile of things I might read someday. That was several years ago. Last month, I finally read You Can’t Do Business With Hitler [...]

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Racing Tactics for Cyclists by Thomas Prehn entertains with its anecdotes about the author’s racing experience. The lessons build slightly on Bike Racing 101. The crosswind echelon described in Chapter 5 was the truly new tactic for me, though I’ve rarely ridden in groups large enough or experienced enough to practice this energy-saving technique. The [...]

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Bike Racing 101 details about what the title promises. I’m foolish enough to read this near the end of my first season of bicycle racing. (I finished the book maybe a fortnight ago.) If I’d read it at the beginning, I might have saved Ken a few questions during the year. Still, even though the [...]

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