Tag: Book
Kurt Vonnegut’s first public reading “Breakfast of Champions” [Audio, LInk]
This is the very first public reading by Kurt Vonnegut of the classic Breakfast of Champions, three years before it was published. Vonnegut appeared at 92Y a total of seven times and he had much admiration for the audience at the corner of 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Add 92Y to your list of sites if you’re interested in literature/ poetry/ biography etc.
NPR Interview with Cdr Chris Hadfield re his new book.
Listen to the interview. Or read the transcript. Either way, a very worthwhile investment of time talking to the man who’s the first music producer/ artist from outer space.
Scratch ‘N’ Sniff Your Way To Wine Expertise … Or At Least More Fun [Book]
For all the wannabe oenophiles out there, here’s a fun way to know/taste/smell through wine.
Knock wine off its pedestal. That’s the goal of wine expert Richard Betts. And he has come up with a brilliant way to do it: a scratch n’ sniff guide to the aromas and flavors of the wine world.
Gandhi’s printing press [Book]
Christopher Smith reviews a book by Isabel Hofmeyr, titled “Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading”.
The selection and arrangement of extracts in the Indian Opinion, as well as the pamphlets that Gandhi published, served to create a rough surface—in contrast to the smooth macadam of industrialization—that would help readers slow down and contemplate what they were reading. The content that Gandhi offered in his publications was meaty and aimed at promoting the cause of satyagraha. News stories and excerpts from authors such as Ruskin, Tolstoy, and Thoreau, whose work Gandhi saw as essential to the ethics of satyagraha, served to form a slow, attentive community that could resist the empire’s industrial pressure for speed.
Get your name into a Dilbert’ish book [Article]
Scott Adams has a book coming, titled How to Fail Almost Every Time and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (why do books always seem to have the funny Camel Case sentences?), & is looking for “author blurbs”. Here’s a chance to get your name on the back cover of his book…
My publisher has agreed to print blurbs from you, my blog readers, knowing that none of you have read the actual book. What’s in it for you is that you might see your name on the back cover of the book.
The New Digital Age: Assange & Morozov on Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen’s book
Take your time: There is more to life than simply increasing its speed [Book]
There is more to life than simply increasing its speed. ~ Mahatma Gandhi.
Deeply influenced by a meeting with Gandhi when he was a young lad, Eknath Eswaran is one of the first teachers of what is thought to be the first credit course on meditation offered at a major university in the U.S. at U.C. Berkeley in 1968. “Take your Time” is a book that I came across & read by chance a few years ago. This is not a book on time- or activity- management. Full of ageless wisdom delivered with gentle humor, this book is worth your time, & your money.
A quote:
“A slower life is not an ineffective life. It is much more effective, much more artistic, much richer than a life lived as a race against the clock. It gives you time to pause, to think, to reflect, to decide, to weigh the pros and cons. It gives you time for relationships.”