Books I've Read This Year
(Last update 11/27/98)
Currently Reading:
Books are listed in reverse chronological order
-
Life on the Screen,
by Sherry Turkle. I
expected a lot from this book after reading about Turkle's background in
Wired
magazine, and I was not disappointed. She is well-versed in depth psychology
and French postmodernism, and she has a ton of experience with computers
and the internet. She understands life on the internet, both experientially
and theoretically. The only problem I had with the book is that the amount
of content didn't seem to justify the length of the book. Instead of many
insights, Turkle presented only a few and then stretched out her treatment
of them.
-
Darwin's
Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, by Daniel
C. Dennett. Despite the fact that I had expected merely
to have my existing views reaffirmed, I had been meaning to read for a
long time what Richard Dawkins called "a surpassingly brilliant book."
Finally on a visit to my father-in-law last year, he loaned me his copy
with his highest recommendation. After reading the book, I can report that
indeed my biases werecomfortably reinforced, and also that Dennett writes
with great style. My four favorite sections of the book are as follows:
(1) his argument against skyhooks (mind-first explanations of apparent
design) and for cranes (efficient, but mindless, motiveless mechanistic
processes behind design); (2) his defense of good reductionism as opposed
to greedy reductionism (3) his speculations on Stephen Gould's religious
yearnings and description of Gould's political biases; and (4) his argument
for the sentimental value of, and plea for the preservation of the traditions,
rituals, ceremonies, and symbols of religion, even though gods do not exist.
Books DrJ read in 1995
Books DrJ read in 1996
Books DrJ read in 1997
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John A. Johnson