Guns & Magic

 

Individualism and Economic Order by Friedrich A. von Hayek.

 

This collection of essays is … in a word … heavy. The reading equivalent of standing hip deep in water and trying to walk against the current. Not because I don’t agree with what the guy has to say–because I’m pretty sure I agree with most of it. But because the author uses sentence structures and word choices that are damn near opaque. Very learn-ed stuff, full of economic-ese.

 

Before that, I read an approaching worthless book called The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. I liked the premise of the book, which is that a professional manuscript reader gives tips to writers about how to stay out of the rejection pile. Had this book been a magazine article, I think I would’ve appreciated it more. As a book, though, it’s stretched too thin, with bad “bad examples” and pointless “end of chapter exercises”.

 

-David

 

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay.

 

This book was written over 150 years ago. But it’s description of the “South Sea Bubble” in England in 1724 is spot on with the Internet Bubble of the late 1990′s. It seems we humans haven’t learned as much in the last few centuries as we would like to imagine.

 

In the chapter, “The Witch Mania”, I particularly liked this:

 

“An Indian deity, with its wild distorted shape and grotesque attitude, appears merely ridiculous when separated from its accessories and viewed by daylight in a museum; but restore it to the darkness of its own hideous temple, bring back to our recollection the victims that have bled upon its altar or been crushed beneath its car, and our sense of the ridiculous subsides into aversion and horror.”

 

That’s a great summary, I think, of how/why fantasy and horror stories work.

 

I also enjoyed the chapter about the Crusades. I learned quite a bit I hadn’t realized I never knew about the Crusades.

 

I might have to find me a copy of this book someday, for my own library (since this copy has to go back to the public library very soon).

 

-David

 

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. It’s inspirational. =)

 

Also been doing reading for a new D&D campaign that I’m going to run for my son and other homeschool kids. But I’m not going to count that in my year’s total.

 

I have my requested books from the library now, and a stack of Terry Pratchett books loaned to me by a friend. So I should have sufficient reading supplies for the next 3-4 weeks.

 

-David