I’m still trying to figure out whether I like “The Tipping Point” or not.  It’s very strange to read a book that is critically acclaimed, but that somehow feels a little empty.  I’m not saying that “The Tipping Point” is a bad book, by any means.  In fact, I’m finding very entertaining, it’s well-written, and the style has a nice flow.  He goes from one idea to the next, but always brings you back to the original place.  I like that.  Gladwell’s voice is witty and intelligent; you get a real sense that he has done his research and has the confidence to articulate his interpretation.  I am looking forward to finishing it.

I’m also looking forward to his new book,  more than anything out of curiosity.  The Guardian posted an excerpt from his new book, you can click here to read the whole story.  Here’s a sampling.  Remember, some have called him a genius.

The University of Michigan opened its new computer centre in 1971, in a low-slung building on Beal Avenue in Ann Arbor. The university’s enormous mainframe computers stood in the middle of a vast, white-tiled room, looking, as one faculty member remembers, “like one of the last scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey”. Off to the side were dozens of key-punch machines - what passed in those days for computer terminals. Over the years, thousands of students would pass through that white-tiled room - the most famous of whom was a gawky teenager named Bill Joy.

Joy came to the University of Michigan the year the computer centre opened, at the age of 16. He had been voted “most studious student” by his graduating class at North Framingham high school, outside Detroit, which, as he puts it, meant he was a “no-date nerd”. He had thought he might end up as a biologist or a mathematician, but late in his freshman year he stumbled across the computing centre - and he was hooked.

From then on, the computer centre was his life. He programmed whenever he could. He got a job with a computer science professor, so he could program over the summer. In 1975, Joy enrolled in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. There, he buried himself even deeper in the world of computer software. During the oral exams for his PhD, he made up a particularly complicated algorithm on the fly that - as one of his many admirers has written - “so stunned his examiners [that] one of them later compared the experience to ‘Jesus confounding his elders’ “.

After Berkeley, Joy co-founded the Silicon Valley firm Sun Microsystems. There, he rewrote another computer language, Java, and his legend grew still further. Among Silicon Valley insiders, Joy is spoken of with as much awe as Bill Gates. He is sometimes called the Edison of the internet.

The story of Joy’s genius has been told many times, and the lesson is always the same. Here was a world that was the purest of meritocracies. Computer programming didn’t operate as an old-boy network, where you got ahead because of money or connections. It was a wide-open field, in which all participants were judged solely by their talent and accomplishments. It was a world where the best men won, and Joy was clearly one of those best men.

I have to admit that after Needful Things, I haven’t really been up to speed with the master of the macabre.  I found his novels becoming more contrived and harder to digest.  Although, the Dark Tower series has always been my favorite, and I have read everyone of the volumes.

My favorite anthologies still remain to be Night Shift, and Different Seasons, which spawned the movies Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption.  Those stories were genuinely creepy, maybe because I was in young when I read them, I found them to be so dark and unsettling.

In any case, I look forward to his new book, and I hope he still has the touch.

Bushworld: Enter At Your Own Risk by Maureen Dowd
The Bush Betrayal by James Bovard
The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception by David Corn
Warrior King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush by John Bonifaz
Cruel and Unusual: Bush/ Cheney’s New World Order by Mark Crispin Miller
Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of a President by Dr. Justin A. Frank

The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie

This “novel” written by the former ex-best friend of Paris Hilton follows the story of rich socialite Chloe Parker, the adopted daughter of a rock musician, through her ill-fated friendship with a rich heiress, love affair with drugs, brief stint in re-hab, a reality show, and once fat DJ boyfriend. But don’t be fooled, this isn’t an autobiography. To further make that point, Nicole Richie wrote herself in as the narrator and best friend of Chloe Parker. It’s no surprise this book was trashed by the critics. It’s a miracle she found a publisher at all - Nicole Richie isn’t exactly known for her intellectual insights.

The Showgirl Princess by Kylie Minogue

Celebrities sure love the children’s books. Kylie Minogue has authored a semi-autobiographical picture book about her rise to stardom. It’s self-centered, self-indulgent fluff aimed at girls six and over, with a positive message about believing in yourself and the importance of friendship and teamwork. The illustrations are really weird, and I seriously doubt this book would’ve found a publisher had it not been written by Minogue, but I guess it does help to have friends in high places.

Swan by Naomi Campbell

Even with the help of a ghost-writer this novel about a super-famous super-model cannot be redeemed. One critic had this to say about Swan:

“Readers are immersed in the internal world of modeling: the fashion designers, bookers, agencies, hair stylists, and photographers. Despite the insider perspective provided by Campbell-herself a supermodel-the narrative is somewhat disjointed, making the various stories difficult to follow. Not an essential purchase.”

Starstruck by Pamela Anderson

After dabbling in film-making the voluptuous Baywatch babe decided to try her hand at book writing. Starstruck follows Star Wood Leigh, a drop-dead gorgeous woman and her jealous rocker husband, whom she married after a bender in which he wakes up tied to the bed of a hotel room. Here we see yet another example of the narcissistic, self-obsessive celebrity dishing about their private lives in the guise of fiction. Pam Anderson has done nothing to disguise this story about her tumultuous relationship with Tommy Lee except for changing the names. Subtle? Not.

A Model Summer by Paulina Porizkova

This is the only well-reviewed book on the list, and surprisingly it was written by another super-model, sans the aide of a ghost-writer. My only gripe with this book is that it is also semi-autobiographical, to Porizkovas’s credit though it is well-written, and insightful. This novel takes the reader backstage of the catwalk, and gives us a glimpse of life as human mannequin from the perspective of a fifteen year-old accidental super-model.

Math Doesn’t Suck by Danica McKellar

They say write what you know, as has been clearly illustrated by the afore mentioned “authors”, but who would’ve known that little Winnie Cooper of the Wonder Years was a certified Math whiz? Danica is a summa cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in mathematics. She also co-authored a mathematical proof known as the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorom, which I’m sure is a fascinating read. She wrote Math Doesn’t Suck as a way to inspire girls to stop feeling intimidated by the subject and the book has received very good reviews.

Call it a slow day at the office, but I wondered out loud today how our four Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates are doing on google - which is to say, how much is being written about them and to what extent are people searching for them. Before I knew it, I was off gathering some crude ‘data’ just to see what, if any, trends emerged.

Candidate Related Content

My first question was how much information is out there about each candidate? How is it spread out across formats? To answer these two questions, I simply performed different types of searches in Google for each of the candidates/search terms and recorded the raw number of results in the table below.

So here are the raw #’s for search hits in Google:

Notes: All terms searched in Google between 3:20-3:50PM PST 10/09/2008
*Combined Total of Searches using “Joe Biden” & “Joseph Biden”
**News from last 30 days

So what does this all mean? Not much of course. However, I do think that one can safely say that there is a certain degree of Palin-mania taking place. Considering that she has only been on the national scene for a very short period, it is quite remarkable that she has earned more overall web search hits than the two presidential candidates combined.

Another possible trend: no one wants to see Joe Biden’s picture.

Most Searched Candidates

As for how popular searches are, click the graphic below to see how the candidates rate in search popularity. Once again, I think you will find that Palin-mania is real - and please, feel free to play with the numbers and inputs on this google page - I would love to hear your results!

Digg Me!

Say that five times fast and then imagine my surprise when my little Sarah Palin article got such an immediate response, and in the form of an advertisement no less! (see comment #1 in Sarah Palin’s Big Book Deal ).

Unbeknownst to me, there will soon be a ‘tell-all’ book entitled “Sarah Takes on Big Oil” hitting the stands. Boy, gosh, do I ever know about it now. The advertising wing of the publisher was kind enough to correct my oversight and plug the book in a comment.

What I found interesting is that this book is being published by none other than a group called 108 Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, a division of PNA publishing (Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska).

My question to the blogoshpere: is this as bad as it sounds? Is this the Petroleum Industry rewriting history to give a Green tint to a vice presidential candidate? All comments and/or information welcome!

Digg Me!

Today we learn that infamous Palin satirist Tina Fey has landed a book deal at a healthy $5-6 million. Naturally the buzz about this is that Fey’s excellent Palin impression had much to do with this deal (never mind that she has been a well respected rising star for years now).

All of this just makes us wonder how soon we can expect to hear of a book deal for Palin herself. Obviouly, a McCain/Palin loss would be much more likely to produce such a deal much much sooner. But we wonder what would Palin the author sound like - we can only hope that the widely spread Palin-doodles are no preview.

Charlie is a neurotic hypochondriac who becomes a Death Merchant after he looses his wife while giving birth to their daughter.  Things star getting a little weird after that. Strange names start appearing in a notebook, and people start dropping dead.  Meanwhile, he is trying to be a dad and run a second hand store in San Francisco, which is like another character of the book, along with the motley crew he is already surrounded by.  Charlie really has his hands full, to aggravate things, he also has to fight the forces of evil from taking over the world!

I love the references to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Until I read the book I had only heard about the book, since reading Dirty Job I have taken an interest in how death has been percieved and interpreted throughout history.  Clearly Moore knows something about mythology and religion and spirituality, and what I loved about this book is that it is fast-paced and full of action.  There are few moments where the book is boring or slow.  Every word is intentional and meant to stir and contribute to the flow of the story, which like I said is very funny despite the fact that it is about death.  I also loved the imagery it conjures up while reading it.  At times dark and at times dark, but cute.  You just have to read it for yourself.  Highly recommend this, especially if you’ve never read anything by Christpher Moore before.