Anyone interested in a free hardback copy of Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (the first book in his series The Baroque Cycle)? I'm trying to pare down my bookshelves, and although I'm hoping to expend minimal effort—the recycle bin would be a last resort, but I don't care about getting any money for them—I thought this one in particular might be desirable to some of my friends.

Update: Taken!

• An Ocean in Iowa
  
• Women with Attention Deficit Disorder
  
• The Feast of Love
  
• Blink!: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
  
• The Tipping Point
  
• The Lathe of Heaven
  
• Small Things Considered: Why There Is No Perfect Design
  
• Oryx and Crake
  
• Stumbling on Happiness
  
• Burn
  
• The Secrets of Mariko: A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and Her Family
  
• The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle
  
• Freakonomics
  
• Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
  
• Thoughts Without a Thinker
  
• Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You
  
• The Areas Of My Expertise [free audiobook on iTunes last time I checked which apparently was before they ended the offer]
  

My favorites were the Malcolm Gladwell books and Before the Dawn. I actually "read" most of the above books by listening to their audio versions, which, I admit, is cheating. That said, the author's voice often brings a certain vividness to the text, particularly in the case of Gladwell and humorist John Hodgman, though particularly not in the case of science fiction author James Patrick Kelly.

Launched at the beginning of this year, mihow's Spread Reading book club has been quiet lately, but here's hoping for a revival in 2007!

If you enjoy reading and talking about books but book clubs aren't your style, take a look at a new project called Spread Reading.

Spread is our version of a book club. Each month, we will choose a few members at random and buy them a book. They can come back here, and discuss the book. The only thing we ask is that when they are finished with the book they pass it on to another person. It's like a book club without the deadlines or cookies or weekly meetings.

You don't have to be “chosen” to participate; just get your hands on a copy of the current book and join in.

Plus, their logo no longer looks like a butt!

• Hokkaido Highway Blues, by Will Ferguson
• A Deepness In the Sky, by Vernor Vinge
• The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• The Long Run: A Tale of the Continuing Time, by Daniel Keys Moran
• Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis, by Eric Berne
• Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair, by Miriam Greenspan
• Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood, by Edward M. Hallowell and John Ratey
• Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, by Cory Doctorow
• Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
• The Art of the Obvious: Developing Insight for Psychotherapy and Everyday Life, by Bruno Bettelheim

Feel free to share your thoughts on any of these books that you've read or about which you're just curious.

I recently read Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, a modern fantasy novel by Cory Doctorow, who has made it available for free. It was a decent read, if a little disturbing. It's like early Neal Stephenson with absurdist elements and sadism mixed in. But the main purpose of this post is to ask a question to anyone else who has read it: how do Lara and Trey relate to the rest of the story? The passages where they appear seem to be complete non sequiturs. I've never seen an author splice in a subplot, if we can call it that, so nonchalantly, and thus disorientingly.

Games People Play: A Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis was a quick read, but it will take more readings and plenty of thought to fully digest. Written in 1963, it's a classic of psychoanalytic writing; in it, Eric Berne inaugurated his theory of transactional analysis.

I didn't know any of that going in. I was just interested in this idea that people communicate on different levels at the same time, sometimes with subconscious ulterior motives.

Berne starts out by explaining transactional analysis: the Parent–Adult–Child model, strokes, various types of transactions, and the definitions of “game,” “pastime,” “procedure,” and “activity.” I'm still not entirely clear on those distinctions. Games People Play is considered a layman's book, but I think many parts of it aren't accessible to someone without psychiatric training; it isn't pop psychology in the sense we know today.

The fun part of the book is the “thesaurus of games,” some of which are more recognizable than others. The names themselves sometimes evoke that recognition: Kick Me; Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch; If It Weren't for You; Let's You and Him Fight; I'm Only Trying to Help You. Included in the analysis of each game is an especially helpful antithesis—a way to break out of the game. The Freudian “dynamics” given for each game were mostly a mystery to me, though.

I was struck more than once in the course of reading by the difference forty years has made in our social environment. From this distance, 1963 doesn't look much different from 1903. I found the book's treatment of homosexuality… odd. (“One of the most unfortunate and acute forms of Third-Degree ‘Rapo’ occurs relatively frequently between homosexual strangers, who in a matter of an hour or so may bring the game to a point of homicide.” Maybe that's a subculture I've just never heard of?) Berne's games are set in a world where ladies lunch with their “lady friends,” do not talk about sports or cars, and cry, “Oh my, I have a run in my stocking!” I'm sure Berne's analysis is just as valid today as it was then, but it would be easier to recognize examples set in today's world.

I've finished reading The Long Run: A Tale of the Continuing Time. It's good, solid, fun cyberpunk that deserves a better binding than it's got. (Seriously, after one reading, pages are coming out everywhere, and it could use a good typesetter too.) It's more comprehensible than Neuromancer, lighter on its feet than Neal Stephenson's work. Our young and ridiculously clever cyberpunk hero plays mouse to The Man's cat, skirting death and leaving a wake of sardonic wit. I think it should share a soundtrack with Cowboy Bebop.

I hadn't realized it was part of a series, but it seems to be the second in the Continuing Time saga by Daniel Keys Moran, after Emerald Eyes and before The Last Dancer. At least I don't feel so bad for being confounded at the epilogue now. It's a credit to the author that I didn't feel more lost, really. Now I have to choose whether to read its predecessor or successor next. And by "next" I mean after The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime, and probably The Light of Other Days. Hmm. So much excellent science fiction!

Based on the poll results, I chose to read The Handmaid's Tale, which I've just finished. Initially, I was leery of what seemed like a heavy-handed approach to feminist dystopia. Also, I thought it was irrelevant as a cautionary tale; since when has (Western) society ever regressed so much?

Maybe it was Atwood's writing style that won me over. It has a poetic rhythm; it flows. It's full of clever turns of phrase. I guess I was just eventually too drawn into the story to keep objecting to it. I intend to read some more of Atwood's work.

To answer the question I posed in the first paragraph, during the Third Reich, for one. And why limit the question to Western society? Look at Iran, look at the communist revolutions. The but-we-couldn't-possibly-be-like-that argument doesn't keep 1984 from being relevant.

So, a few of you warned me against this book. Could you explain what it is you don't like about it?

Oh, I see a movie adaption of the book was produced a while ago. I think I'll skip that out of a deep suspicion of movie adaptions in general.

I just finished reading A Deepness in the Sky, a science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge. Predictably, I loved it, even though it took me several months to finish. I've got to get my hands on more of Vinge's recent work; happily, more will be forthcoming. I'd already read A Fire Upon the Deep, but I wonder whether his mid-1980s books like The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime will seem dated to me.