Kay Cunningham's List: Book Reviews

'But his book is ultimately less about that devotion than the realities that test it. In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic (Viking) tells of the author's experiences teaching at two decidedly non-elite colleges -- a four-year private institution he calls Pembrook and a community college he calls Huron State. The book grew out of a much-debated 2008 article with the same title that Professor X published in The Atlantic.'

Book about digital connectedness

'But as modern as the problem may seem, information overload wasn't born in the dorm rooms of Larry Page and Sergey Brin (let alone Mark Zuckerberg). In fact, says Ann M. Blair, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Harvard University, the idea that more textual information exists than could possible be useful or manageable predates not only Project Gutenberg, but the printing press itself. In her new book, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age (Yale University Press), Blair cites sources as far back as Seneca -- "the abundance of books is distraction" -- to show that the notion dates to antiquity.'

Book reviews for American Grace and To Change the World.

'Many of us—especially those of us who claim to be insanely busy—probably aren’t quite as overworked as we claim, and that it is in fact possible to fit in most of what you actually want to do during the typical week.'

'Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews is entirely devoted to publishing substantive, high-quality book reviews (normal length: 1500-2500 words). Our goal is to review a good majority of the scholarly philosophy books issued each year and to have the review appear within six to twelve months of the book's publication. The journal will be published only on-line (available free, both through e-mail subscription and on this website). '

reviews and lists of books

Newscast on new book collecting the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II

Top 40 Bad Books list

'“There’s a hazy line between ‘truth’ and invention in creative nonfiction, but good writers don’t have to make things up,” Jeffrey Porter, an associate professor of English and nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, wrote in an e-mail message. In the case of Mr. Pellegrino, whose book claimed to expose a secret accident with the first atomic bomb, Mr. Porter wrote: “Maybe the idea of a scoop was irresistible. But somebody should have been skeptical.” '

'THESE NEW BOOKS share a concern with how digital media are reshaping our political and social landscape, molding art and entertainment, even affecting the methodology of scholarship and research. They examine the consequences of the fragmentation of data that the Web produces, as news articles, novels and record albums are broken down into bits and bytes; the growing emphasis on immediacy and real-time responses; the rising tide of data and information that permeates our lives; and the emphasis that blogging and partisan political Web sites place on subjectivity. '

'In his new book, On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science (Princeton University Press), David Goodstein explores seven cases of purported scientific misconduct, from Nobel Laureate Robert Millikan's work on electron charge to the still-controversial issue of cold fusion. Goodstein examines the evidence in each case to determine whether or not fraud occurred, and ultimately arrives at his own unambiguous definition of scientific fraud.'

'In 26 chapters varying from 2 to 42 pages, from “Air” to “Zen” and “The Art of ZZZs,” with “Chernobyl,” “Fever/Dream,” “Kafka,” “Sex,” “The Sound of Global Warming” and “Ex Libris, Exempla” in between, he takes us on a delirious journey, zooming in and out from the microscopic to the global, from the titillating to the profound, from Niger to China, from one square mile above Louisiana to the recesses of his own mind'

'The book’s main point is simple: no matter how expert you may be, well-designed check lists can improve outcomes (even for Gawande’s own surgical team). The best-known use of checklists is by airplane pilots. Among the many interesting stories in the book is how this dedication to checklists arose among pilots.'

'As Kevin frets his way through the single day on which “Next” takes place, he envisions many different threats. But the true stealth attack in “Next” is the one launched at the reader by Mr. Hynes. This is a book that begins innocently and is careful not to tip its hand, even though there’s something very unusual at work. The title signals nothing. The cover art depicts an empty sky. Blurbs on the back allow four very different writers to skip the hosannas and cut to the chase. They find roundabout ways to say that “Next” took nerve to write, is much more potent than it may initially appear and has an ending that beggars description. That ending will not be given away here.'

'One of the Internet’s great promises is a universally accessible library of all human knowledge and culture that could be made widely and freely available for education, entertainment and research. But Lanier appropriately questions what happens to the incentives for artistic and scientific creation in a system where every knowledge-based product is free. '

'As David Brooks has observed in Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (Simon & Schuster, 2000), middlebrow culture "seems a little dull and pretentious but well intentioned, and certainly better than some of the proudly illiterate culture that has taken its place." "Masscult" has triumphed over "midcult," coinages of Dwight MacDonald in a 1962 essay, and hardly anyone feels guilty about being entertained all the time.
The most comprehensive recent analysis of the cultural turn is Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason (Pantheon, 2008). In one chapter, Jacoby remembers the 1950s as a brief moment of intellectual aspiration among many Americans: "I look back on the middlebrow with affection, gratitude, and regret rather than condescension," she writes, "not because the Book-of-the-Month Club brought works of genius into my life, but because the monthly pronouncements of its reviewers encouraged me to seek a wider world."'

Book about physics in layman's terms

'In her avid book-length essay on the roots, ethics and methods of the detective story, P. D. James places an imaginary traveler in a hotel room where there are two books beside the bed. One book is a prestigious literary prizewinner; the other is an old chestnut by Agatha Christie.'