Stacey's bookshelf: read en-US Mon, 01 Jul 2024 19:33:17 -0700 60 Stacey's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Computer Organization and Embedded Systems (Int'l Ed)]]> 21042435 832 V. Carl Hamacher 0071089004 Stacey 2 gamedev 2.88 1980 Computer Organization and Embedded Systems (Int'l Ed)
author: V. Carl Hamacher
name: Stacey
average rating: 2.88
book published: 1980
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: gamedev
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity]]> 615570 The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.]]> 237 Julia Cameron 1585421464 Stacey 0 to-read 3.93 2002 The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
author: Julia Cameron
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump]]> 34640861 In The Reactionary Mind, Robin traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution. He argues that the right was inspired, and is still united, by its hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market; others oppose it. Some criticize the state; others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality -- while simultaneously making populist appeals to the masses. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society -- one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention have been critical to their success.
Written by a highly-regarded, keen observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia and Donald Trump, and from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all right-wing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back. When its first edition appeared in 2011, The Reactionary Mind set off a fierce debate. It has since been acclaimed as "the book that predicted Trump" (New Yorker) and "one of the more influential political works of the last decade" (Washington Monthly). Now updated to include Trump's election and his first one hundred days in office, The Reactionary Mind is more relevant than ever.
]]> 330 Corey Robin 0190692006 Stacey 0 to-read 4.05 2011 The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
author: Corey Robin
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Golden Girl 55758388
Golden Girl follows Nantucket novelist Vivi, who gets one final summer -- after she is killed in a hit-and-run accident -- to protect her secrets and learn from her mistakes while her loved ones still on earth try to solve the mystery of her death.

Vivian Howe, author of 13 beach novels and mother of three young adults, is killed in a hit and run car accident while jogging near her home in Nantucket. She ascends to the Beyond where she's assigned to a Person named Martha, who agrees Vivi's death was unfair. Martha allows Vivi to watch what happens below with her children, her best friend, and her ex-husband.

Martha gives Vivi the use of three "nudges" so that she might influence the outcome of events in the world of the living. Vivi discovers her children's secrets, watches the investigation of her death (headed by Chief Ed Kapenash from The Perfect Couple) and worries about a secret from her youth, fictionalized in her novel, coming to light.

Combining Elin's trademark beach scenes, mouth-watering meals, picture-perfect homes and other Nantucket landmarks with a heartfelt message -- the people we lose never really leave us -- Golden Girl is a beach book unlike any other.]]> 485 Elin Hilderbrand 0316256668 Stacey 0 4.36 2021 Golden Girl
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/05
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Project Hail Mary 54906250 An impossible mission.
An ally he never imagined.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it's up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery-and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he's got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 549 Andy Weir Stacey 0 currently-reading 4.57 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/05
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Midnight Library 53568397
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559485 Stacey 0 4.16 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/06
date added: 2022/01/06
shelves:
review:

]]> The Programmer's Brain 57196550
In The Programmer’s Brain: What every programmer needs to know about cognition you will learn:

* Fast and effective ways to master new programming languages
* Speed reading skills to quickly comprehend new code
* Techniques to unravel the meaning of complex code
* Ways to learn new syntax and keep it memorized
* Writing code that is easy for others to read
* Picking the right names for your variables
* Making your codebase more understandable to newcomers
* Onboarding new developers to your team

Learn how to optimize your brain’s natural cognitive processes to read code more easily, write code faster, and pick up new languages in much less time. This book will help you through the confusion you feel when faced with strange and complex code, and explain a codebase in ways that can make a new team member productive in days!


about the technology

Understanding the cognitive functions that govern the way your brain thinks about coding will help you work smarter, not harder. You’ll improve your productivity, reduce your need for constant rewrites, and say goodbye to spending late nights struggling with new languages.


about the book

The Programmer’s Brain explores the way your brain works when it’s thinking about code. In it, you’ll master practical ways to apply these cognitive principles to your daily programming life. You’ll improve your code comprehension by turning confusion into a learning tool, and pick up awesome techniques for reading code and quickly memorizing syntax. This practical guide includes tips for creating your own flashcards and study resources that can be applied to any new language you want to master. By the time you’re done, you’ll not only be better at teaching yourself—you’ll be an expert at bringing new colleagues and junior programmers up to speed.]]> 256 Felienne Hermans 1617298670 Stacey 0 to-read 3.84 The Programmer's Brain
author: Felienne Hermans
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA["Burnout" syndrome: How to detect and fix it: Burnout or burn syndrome is a psychological disorder that affects workers. (SELF-HELP AND PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT Book 21)]]> 59424216 10 Alberto Moriano Uceda Stacey 0 to-read 0.0 "Burnout" syndrome: How to detect and fix it: Burnout or burn syndrome is a psychological disorder that affects workers. (SELF-HELP AND PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT Book 21)
author: Alberto Moriano Uceda
name: Stacey
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It]]> 58090428
We tend to think of burnout as a problem we can solve with self-care: more yoga, better breathing techniques, and more resilience. But evidence is mounting that applying personal, Band-Aid solutions to an epic and rapidly evolving workplace phenomenon isn't enough—in fact, it's not even close. If we're going to solve this problem, organizations must take the lead in developing an antiburnout strategy that moves beyond apps, wellness programs, and perks.

In this eye-opening, paradigm-shifting, and practical guide, Jennifer Moss lays bare the real causes of burnout and how organizations can stop the chronic stress cycle that an alarming number of workers suffer through. The Burnout Epidemic explains:

What causes burnout—and what organizations can do to prevent it
Why traditional wellness initiatives fall short
How companies can build an antiburnout strategy based on prevention, not perks
How leaders can measure burnout in their own organizations
What leaders can do to develop a healthier culture that prioritizes resilience and curiosity
As the pandemic has shown, self-care is important, but it's not a cure-all for burnout. Employers need to do more. With fascinating research, new findings from the pandemic, and interviews with business leaders around the globe, The Burnout Epidemic offers readers insightful and actionable advice that will empower them to help themselves—and their employees—feel healthier and happier at work.]]> 256 Jennifer Moss 1647820367 Stacey 0 to-read 3.71 2021 The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It
author: Jennifer Moss
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Burnout Fix: Overcome Overwhelm, Beat Busy, and Sustain Success in the New World of Work]]> 57015546
In The Burnout Fix, the award-winning psychologist and board-certified leadership coach Dr. Jacinta M. Jiménez shows you how to harness science-backed resilience strategies to survive, and thrive, in today’s “always on, always connected� world—where a reported 60% of employees report being stressed out all or most of the time at work.

Packed with compelling, real-world stories from years of coaching and the latest research in positive, social, and motivational psychology, The Burnout Fix shows how neglecting to nurture your personal pulse can undermine all your efforts at working harder and “smarter.� You’ll learn how integrate healthy personal “PULSE� practices into all aspects of your life, from pacing for performance and leveraging leisure time to securing a support system and evaluating how to regain control of your time and priorities.

Whether you are an individual who wishes to build out a set of lasting resilience capabilities, a leader dedicated to keeping your team or organization engaged and flourishing, The Burnout Fix will reshape the way you think about success while giving you—and your people—the tools and strategies you need to thrive.]]> 339 Jacinta M. Jiménez 126046458X Stacey 0 to-read 3.71 The Burnout Fix: Overcome Overwhelm, Beat Busy, and Sustain Success in the New World of Work
author: Jacinta M. Jiménez
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> HBR Guide to Beating Burnout 50674360 192 Harvard Business Review 1647820006 Stacey 0 to-read 3.57 2020 HBR Guide to Beating Burnout
author: Harvard Business Review
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle]]> 42397849
Burnout. Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body� when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self�? How do you “lean in� at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?

Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back. In these pages you’ll learn

� what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation
� how to manage the “monitor� in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration
� how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it
� why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnout

With the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.� Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.]]> 277 Emily Nagoski 198481706X Stacey 4 3.93 2019 Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
author: Emily Nagoski
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma]]> 18693771 A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.]]> 464 Bessel van der Kolk 0670785938 Stacey 0 currently-reading 4.36 2014 The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
author: Bessel van der Kolk
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy]]> 42973186 This thrilling critique of the forces vying for our attention re-defines what we think of as productivity, shows us a new way to connect with our environment, and reveals all that we've been too distracted to see about our selves and our world.

When the technologies we use every day collapse our experiences into 24/7 availability, platforms for personal branding, and products to be monetized, nothing can be quite so radical as . . . doing nothing. Here, Jenny Odell sends up a flare from the heart of Silicon Valley, delivering an action plan to resist capitalist narratives of productivity and techno-determinism, and to become more meaningfully connected in the process.]]> 225 Jenny Odell 1612197507 Stacey 3 3.64 2019 How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
author: Jenny Odell
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2021/12/02
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> How To Get Over A Boy 50550743 Are you fed up with thinking about that guy every minute of every waking hour, when he doesn't even reply to your texts?

Are you reeling from the pain of a break-up, unsure of where to turn?

Are you single and looking to be happy with your choices in the face of society's constant questioning?

In How to Get Over a Boy, bestselling author Chidera Eggerue will show you, once and for all, how to reframe the stale goal of finding a man. She will equip you with tangible and applicable solutions for every part of your dating life, helping you recognise that men hold as much power in our romantic lives as we grant them.

In the past, dating books tend to lean more into the territory of ‘how to make him find you hot!�, ‘how to make him jealous!�, ‘how to get him to propose!�. But these how-tos are placing men on a pedestal of being ‘the prize�.

Men are NEVER the prize. You are. Let The Slumflower show you why.]]> 199 Chidera Eggerue 1787134814 Stacey 5 4.10 2020 How To Get Over A Boy
author: Chidera Eggerue
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/16
date added: 2021/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]> The Guest List 52656911
The bride � The plus one � The best man � The wedding planner � The bridesmaid � The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 319 Lucy Foley Stacey 4 3.82 2020 The Guest List
author: Lucy Foley
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/22
date added: 2021/09/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Such a Fun Age 45163258
But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.

With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.

]]> 320 Kiley Reid 0525541926 Stacey 5 3.89 2019 Such a Fun Age
author: Kiley Reid
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/03
date added: 2021/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games]]> 2966354 Master the craft of game design so you can create that elusive combination of challenge, competition, and interaction that players seek. This design workshop begins with an examination of the fundamental elements of game design; then puts you to work in prototyping, playtesting and redesigning your own games with exercises that teach essential design skills.

Workshop exercises require no background in programming or artwork, releasing you from the intricacies of electronic game production, so you can develop a working understanding of the essentials of game design.

Features:
* A design methodology used in the USC Interactive Media program, a cutting edge program funded in part of Electronic Arts.
* Hands-on exercises demonstrate key concepts, and the design methodology
* Insights from top industry game designers, including Noah Falstein, American McGee, Peter Molyneux

]]> 496 Tracy Fullerton 0240809742 Stacey 5
Fullerton focuses on designing games with the constant goal of vigilantly keeping the player experience at the center of the design process. Everything should be prototyped iteratively. Repeatedly. The upbeat tone encourages experimentation, failure, and revision, reassuring budding designers that games are not some divine inspiration that happens perfectly the first time around. For someone with little experience, this was exactly what I needed to hear, and Fullerton is sure to repeat the message through examples and anecdotal interviews from some of the biggest names in the field.

I also found the exercises in the book extremely helpful for thinking about games, but more importantly for thinking about how I was thinking about games.

Fantastic and inspiring.]]> 4.06 2008 Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games
author: Tracy Fullerton
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2013/01/07
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: research, game-design, gamedev
review:
Like most people of my generation, I have been playing video games since I can remember. I've read bits and pieces of other game design books, but none have been as clear or as aligned with my own vision of games as this book. It helped me really make the transition from thinking like a consumer to thinking like a creator. It is indispensable for designers of paper and digital games alike.

Fullerton focuses on designing games with the constant goal of vigilantly keeping the player experience at the center of the design process. Everything should be prototyped iteratively. Repeatedly. The upbeat tone encourages experimentation, failure, and revision, reassuring budding designers that games are not some divine inspiration that happens perfectly the first time around. For someone with little experience, this was exactly what I needed to hear, and Fullerton is sure to repeat the message through examples and anecdotal interviews from some of the biggest names in the field.

I also found the exercises in the book extremely helpful for thinking about games, but more importantly for thinking about how I was thinking about games.

Fantastic and inspiring.
]]> Pilgrim in the Microworld 1366788 David Sudnow 0446512613 Stacey 5 research, gamedev
Following in the style of Ways of the Hand, Sudnow's deeply detailed exploration of the phenomenology of playing jazz piano, Pilgrim in the Microworld provides an equally detailed account of Sudnow's quest to master Breakout on the Atari--from the physical feeling of the controls to the subtle changes in his strategy of where to look on the screen. The book follows his transition from bemused to curious to obsessed and back, all the while revealing the most subtle changes in outlook and strategy, changes that most of the rest of us would never consciously stop to think about.

Sudnow is clearly catering to a high brow audience. His descriptions are peppered with references to classical music, and never misses an opportunity to name drop Debussy, Lenny Bruce, Nietzsche; but his tone only serves to legitimize the deep study of games at a time when they were regarded as low brow entertainment. As you might expect from the title, the writing recalls Thoreau or Dillard in its tone and approach--carefully balancing obsessive detail with a narrative arc whose drama you only appreciate when you've finished the book. At times the depth of his analyses of the most trivial functions of the hand or the eye can become exhausting, as--no doubt--his frustrating play sessions were, and these sections toward the middle are best handled by giving the book a rest. While others might complain about the pace of the middle chapters, to me, these sections only further highlighted the experience of Sudnow's frustration, and as a whole the book is engaging, thought-provoking, and masterfully written.

As a game studies text, this is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in phenomenology or player experience. No other personal account of playing games has come close to this level of thought and analysis. At times his descriptions teeter on the edge of what might be considered obsessive mental illness, but Sudnow's perspective is entirely unique among the field, and this level of detail will be incredibly hard for most researchers to duplicate.

A must-read for game studies researchers, obsessive gamers, and gamers who also happen to be musicians.]]> 4.57 1983 Pilgrim in the Microworld
author: David Sudnow
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2013/01/30
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: research, gamedev
review:
Jazz pianist David Sudnow didn't play video games until he went to retrieve his teenage son from an arcade in the early 80s, and he immediately dismissed them as a silly money-sink designed to keep teenagers occupied. When an Atari 2600 ruined a party of academics, however, he decided to give games another shot and try the Atari for himself. Thus began his decent into obsession.

Following in the style of Ways of the Hand, Sudnow's deeply detailed exploration of the phenomenology of playing jazz piano, Pilgrim in the Microworld provides an equally detailed account of Sudnow's quest to master Breakout on the Atari--from the physical feeling of the controls to the subtle changes in his strategy of where to look on the screen. The book follows his transition from bemused to curious to obsessed and back, all the while revealing the most subtle changes in outlook and strategy, changes that most of the rest of us would never consciously stop to think about.

Sudnow is clearly catering to a high brow audience. His descriptions are peppered with references to classical music, and never misses an opportunity to name drop Debussy, Lenny Bruce, Nietzsche; but his tone only serves to legitimize the deep study of games at a time when they were regarded as low brow entertainment. As you might expect from the title, the writing recalls Thoreau or Dillard in its tone and approach--carefully balancing obsessive detail with a narrative arc whose drama you only appreciate when you've finished the book. At times the depth of his analyses of the most trivial functions of the hand or the eye can become exhausting, as--no doubt--his frustrating play sessions were, and these sections toward the middle are best handled by giving the book a rest. While others might complain about the pace of the middle chapters, to me, these sections only further highlighted the experience of Sudnow's frustration, and as a whole the book is engaging, thought-provoking, and masterfully written.

As a game studies text, this is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in phenomenology or player experience. No other personal account of playing games has come close to this level of thought and analysis. At times his descriptions teeter on the edge of what might be considered obsessive mental illness, but Sudnow's perspective is entirely unique among the field, and this level of detail will be incredibly hard for most researchers to duplicate.

A must-read for game studies researchers, obsessive gamers, and gamers who also happen to be musicians.
]]> <![CDATA[Game Feel (Morgan Kaufmann Game Design Books)]]> 3385050 Game Feel exposes feel as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet. The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse)—no matter the instruments, style or time period—these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks where game design is concerned. They create the meta-sensation of involvement with a game.

The understanding of how game designers create feel, and affect feel are only partially understood by most in the field and tends to be overlooked as a method or course of study, yet a game's feel is central to a game's success. This book brings the subject of feel to light by consolidating existing theories into a cohesive book.

The book covers topics like the role of sound, ancillary indicators, the importance of metaphor, how people perceive things, and a brief history of feel in games.

The associated web site contains a playset with ready-made tools to design feel in games, six key components to creating virtual sensation. There's a play palette too, so the designer can first experience the importance of that component by altering variables and feeling the results. The playset allows the reader to experience each of the sensations described in the book, and then allows them to apply them to their own projects. Creating game feel without having to program, essentially. The final version of the playset will have enough flexibility that the reader will be able to use it as a companion to the exercises in the book, working through each one to create the feel described.]]> 376 Steve Swink 0123743281 Stacey 4 Game Feel is an interesting look at the phenomenon of controls in video games having "feel," whether they feel "floaty", "heavy", etc. Swink discusses at length what each of these descriptors means and how they are achieved. By examining these phenomena and illustrating his points with several case studies of popular games, Swink is able to construct metrics for defining game feel and ideas for how game designers can best use it to create their desired user experience. The book is filled with insightful non-digital analogies of how we control objects and utilize proprioception, and how we might relate those experiences to the game world.

Despite very readable prose and colloquial examples, I was tempted to read this as an academic book. That's not how it was intended, so I caution any game theorists approaching the book from that position. If you read this as an academic book, you will find several "holes" in Swink's "argument," particularly his theories about the extension of self that connects the player with their avatar. Keep in mind that this is a book for designers, and as such it is extremely useful: "feel" is certainly an observable phenomenon in games, and Swink's examination is thoughtful and could indeed serve as the basis for more "academic" inquiries into the nature of feel and the extension of the self into the game world.

]]> 3.91 2008 Game Feel (Morgan Kaufmann Game Design Books)
author: Steve Swink
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2013/02/05
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: research, game-design, gamedev
review:
Game Feel is an interesting look at the phenomenon of controls in video games having "feel," whether they feel "floaty", "heavy", etc. Swink discusses at length what each of these descriptors means and how they are achieved. By examining these phenomena and illustrating his points with several case studies of popular games, Swink is able to construct metrics for defining game feel and ideas for how game designers can best use it to create their desired user experience. The book is filled with insightful non-digital analogies of how we control objects and utilize proprioception, and how we might relate those experiences to the game world.

Despite very readable prose and colloquial examples, I was tempted to read this as an academic book. That's not how it was intended, so I caution any game theorists approaching the book from that position. If you read this as an academic book, you will find several "holes" in Swink's "argument," particularly his theories about the extension of self that connects the player with their avatar. Keep in mind that this is a book for designers, and as such it is extremely useful: "feel" is certainly an observable phenomenon in games, and Swink's examination is thoughtful and could indeed serve as the basis for more "academic" inquiries into the nature of feel and the extension of the self into the game world.


]]> <![CDATA[The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work]]> 9484114 Our most commonly held formula for success is broken.
Ìý
Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn’t just an empty mantra. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.
ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS and KPMG—to fix this broken formula. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work.
ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý
Isolating seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, he shows us how we can capitalize on the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential. Among the principles he outlines:
Ìý

ÌýÌýÌý•ÌýThe Tetris Effect: how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see—and seize—opportunities wherever we look.
ÌýÌýÌý•ÌýThe Zorro Circle: how to channel our efforts on small, manageable goals, to gain the leverage to gradually conquer bigger and bigger ones.
ÌýÌýÌý•ÌýSocial Investment: how to reap the dividends of investing in one of the greatest predictors of success and happiness—our social support network

Ìý
A must-read for everyone trying to excel in a world of increasing workloads, stress, and negativity, The Happiness Advantage isn’t only about how to become happier at work. It’s about how to reap the benefits of a happier and more positive mind-set to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 272 Shawn Achor 0307591565 Stacey 5
This is a great example of the rare pop-psychology book without very much “fluff�. It is up there for me with James Clear's Atomic Habits and Brene Brown's Dare to Lead as books that really have probably changed my whole outlook on life and have certainly changed the way I approach my work.

My only complaint is a small one, that Achor's constant references to being a grad student at Harvard do come across as increasingly insecure after the fourth or fifth mention. Still, this is a relatively small gripe for a book that has probably changed my whole outlook on life.]]> 4.11 2010 The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work
author: Shawn Achor
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/01
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: leadership-teambuilding, gamedev
review:
In his first book, Achor argues that although we normally think of happiness arising as a result of success—common wisdom holds that if we just get that promotion, lose a few pounds, reach our goals, then we’ll be happy—the opposite is actually true: success follows happiness. He details seven different principles of positive psychology, recounts various psychological studies that led to these insights, and then connects these principles to how they might translate into success in the workplace. Interesting insights include the idea that people who believe they are lucky actually are better attuned to seeing opportunities than the average person, that having strong social bonds predicts success and ability to cope with stress, that with effort and gratitude we can literally rewire our brains to be more optimistic, and that positivity is a greater predictor of success than skill or intelligence.

This is a great example of the rare pop-psychology book without very much “fluff�. It is up there for me with James Clear's Atomic Habits and Brene Brown's Dare to Lead as books that really have probably changed my whole outlook on life and have certainly changed the way I approach my work.

My only complaint is a small one, that Achor's constant references to being a grad student at Harvard do come across as increasingly insecure after the fourth or fifth mention. Still, this is a relatively small gripe for a book that has probably changed my whole outlook on life.
]]> <![CDATA[Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being]]> 35758073
“A vibrant book on how to bring out the best in others—and how they can bring out the best in us.â€â€”Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast WorkLife

In a world that thrives on competition and individual achievement, we’re measuring and pursuing potential incorrectly. Pursuing success in isolation—pushing others away as we push ourselves too hard—not only limits our potential but makes us more stressed and disconnected than ever.
Ìý
Harvard-trained researcher Shawn Achor reveals a better approach. With exciting new research combining neuroscience and psychology with Big Data, Achor shows that our potential is not limited by what we alone can achieve. Instead, it is determined by how we complement, contribute to, and benefit from the abilities and achievements of people around us.
Ìý
When we—as individuals, leaders, and parents—chase only individual achievement, we leave vast sources of potential untapped. But once we put “others� back into the equation, and work to make others better, we ignite a Virtuous Cycle of cascading successes that amplify our own.

The dramatic shifts in how we approach work today demand an equally dramatic shift in our approach to success. In Big Potential, Achor draws on cutting-edge original research as well as his work with nearly half of the Fortune 100 and with places like NASA, the NFL and the NBA, and offers a new path to thriving in the modern world.]]> 240 Shawn Achor 1524761532 Stacey 4 The Happiness Advantage, Achor argues that although we learn from a very young age that success is the result of our individual efforts, this is actually only our “small potential,� and real achievement or “big potential� is the result not of a star that shines especially brightly, but of star systems, productive communities that influence each other for the better. Achor discusses how to foster such communities—both for individuals and for companies. He argues that every person we’ve considered a lone genius was actually surrounded by a community of achievers that fostered them, and he presents compelling evidence that even a team of modest talent can outshine the most brilliant individual contributors. At just over 200 pages, this book is a pretty breezy read. Still, for as impressed as I was with the lack of fluff in The Happiness Advantage, this one felt bloated in places, and there's some repetition from The Happiness Advantage. The core ideas are interesting, but they probably could have been distilled into a long journal article.]]> 4.14 Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being
author: Shawn Achor
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: leadership-teambuilding, gamedev
review:
Continuing his explorations into what makes us happy and successful that he began in The Happiness Advantage, Achor argues that although we learn from a very young age that success is the result of our individual efforts, this is actually only our “small potential,� and real achievement or “big potential� is the result not of a star that shines especially brightly, but of star systems, productive communities that influence each other for the better. Achor discusses how to foster such communities—both for individuals and for companies. He argues that every person we’ve considered a lone genius was actually surrounded by a community of achievers that fostered them, and he presents compelling evidence that even a team of modest talent can outshine the most brilliant individual contributors. At just over 200 pages, this book is a pretty breezy read. Still, for as impressed as I was with the lack of fluff in The Happiness Advantage, this one felt bloated in places, and there's some repetition from The Happiness Advantage. The core ideas are interesting, but they probably could have been distilled into a long journal article.
]]> Dare to Lead 40109367 In her #1 NYT bestsellers, Brené Brown taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead.

Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.

When we dare to lead, we don't pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don't see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don't avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into the vulnerability that’s necessary to do good work.

But daring leadership in a culture that's defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty requires building courage skills, which are uniquely human. The irony is that we're choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the same time we're scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines can't do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection and courage to start.

Brené Brown spent the past two decades researching the emotions that give meaning to our lives. Over the past seven years, she found that leaders in organisations ranging from small entrepreneurial start-ups and family-owned businesses to non-profits, civic organisations and Fortune 50 companies, are asking the same questions:

How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders? And, how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?

Dare to Lead answers these questions and gives us actionable strategies and real examples from her new research-based, courage-building programme.

Brené writes, ‘One of the most important findings of my career is that courage can be taught, developed and measured. Courage is a collection of four skill sets supported by twenty-eight behaviours. All it requires is a commitment to doing bold work, having tough conversations and showing up with our whole hearts. Easy? No. Choosing courage over comfort is not easy. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and work. It's why we're here.’]]> 332 Brené Brown 147356252X Stacey 5 Dare to Lead promotes strong leadership through soft hearts, which is, frankly, exactly the leadership book we need in 2020. Topics include how to be vulnerable as a leader and why you should, how to lead difficult conversations and elicit vulnerability from your team to get to the heart of issues, and how to avoid common pitfalls that make people “armor up� and fall into unhealthy patterns.

Like many, I first came to Brown’s work through her TED Talks on shame and vulnerability. If you’re wondering whether you’ll like this book, those talks are fabulous, and will let you preview some of the book's underlying themes. The energy she brings to her talks practically leaps off the page with a written voice that mirrors her lecturing voice almost exactly. Brown is engaging and insightful in a way that feels earnest and open, but never feels cloying or aggressive. She’s not asking you to Lean In; she’s asking you to bring your “whole heart� to the table. And she’s got practical, data-driven reasons why you should.

The book claims to be a quick read, one which could be devoured “cover-to-cover in one flight�. And by the numbers and tone, that should be true. But I confess it took me a considerable amount of time to get through it, largely because some off-handed remark would literally completely change my worldview and I would have to put the book down to reflect on it. For example “resentment is almost always related to a lack of boundaries� was a half-sentence that was not even the main point of that sentence, much less that section, but it was a profound enough point that I had to step away. And these moments happened so frequently that the book was actually pretty slow to digest for me. So while I think this could be a breezy read, I also don’t think that’s the most product way to consume it.

The content itself is a nice balance of theoretical research and actionable takeaways. Brown has done the research, collected the data, and interpreted its results—then gone a step farther into translating those into actionable takeaways. This is Brown’s fifth book, and like most researchers, her work has built on itself cumulatively for years. Though Brown repeats extended sections from her previous books, she does a good job of highlighting how this work builds upon and extends the previous work. It didn’t feel overly repetitive for me, but I also haven’t read the entirety of her catalog.

It’s rare for me to say that a book has changed my life, but this book has shifted my approach—not just to leadership, but to communication as a whole—so fundamentally that it would be remiss of me to undersell its impact. But that said, due to the subject matter, this book rewards introspection and reflection even more than most self-help books, and you get out of it what you put in. Brown asks you to dive into uncomfortable places with yourself and with others, and while the rewards are great, the process is unapologetically brutal. But as she says, courage requires vulnerability, and “who we are is how we lead.â€]]> 4.17 2018 Dare to Lead
author: Brené Brown
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/13
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: favorites, leadership-teambuilding, gamedev
review:
Brené Brown is a researcher of shame and vulnerability, and while that might seem like an odd fit for a book about leadership in the workplace, Brown brings her usual energy and winsome earnestness to a compelling argument that vulnerability is indeed at the heart of all courageous leadership. Dare to Lead promotes strong leadership through soft hearts, which is, frankly, exactly the leadership book we need in 2020. Topics include how to be vulnerable as a leader and why you should, how to lead difficult conversations and elicit vulnerability from your team to get to the heart of issues, and how to avoid common pitfalls that make people “armor up� and fall into unhealthy patterns.

Like many, I first came to Brown’s work through her TED Talks on shame and vulnerability. If you’re wondering whether you’ll like this book, those talks are fabulous, and will let you preview some of the book's underlying themes. The energy she brings to her talks practically leaps off the page with a written voice that mirrors her lecturing voice almost exactly. Brown is engaging and insightful in a way that feels earnest and open, but never feels cloying or aggressive. She’s not asking you to Lean In; she’s asking you to bring your “whole heart� to the table. And she’s got practical, data-driven reasons why you should.

The book claims to be a quick read, one which could be devoured “cover-to-cover in one flight�. And by the numbers and tone, that should be true. But I confess it took me a considerable amount of time to get through it, largely because some off-handed remark would literally completely change my worldview and I would have to put the book down to reflect on it. For example “resentment is almost always related to a lack of boundaries� was a half-sentence that was not even the main point of that sentence, much less that section, but it was a profound enough point that I had to step away. And these moments happened so frequently that the book was actually pretty slow to digest for me. So while I think this could be a breezy read, I also don’t think that’s the most product way to consume it.

The content itself is a nice balance of theoretical research and actionable takeaways. Brown has done the research, collected the data, and interpreted its results—then gone a step farther into translating those into actionable takeaways. This is Brown’s fifth book, and like most researchers, her work has built on itself cumulatively for years. Though Brown repeats extended sections from her previous books, she does a good job of highlighting how this work builds upon and extends the previous work. It didn’t feel overly repetitive for me, but I also haven’t read the entirety of her catalog.

It’s rare for me to say that a book has changed my life, but this book has shifted my approach—not just to leadership, but to communication as a whole—so fundamentally that it would be remiss of me to undersell its impact. But that said, due to the subject matter, this book rewards introspection and reflection even more than most self-help books, and you get out of it what you put in. Brown asks you to dive into uncomfortable places with yourself and with others, and while the rewards are great, the process is unapologetically brutal. But as she says, courage requires vulnerability, and “who we are is how we lead.�
]]> <![CDATA[Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)]]> 20091348 Computer Organization and Design is accessible to the beginner, but also offers plenty of valuable knowledge for experienced engineers.]]> 800 David A. Patterson Stacey 4 programming-tech 4.00 1993 Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)
author: David A. Patterson
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: programming-tech
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Introduction to Computing Systems: From Bits & Gates to C & Beyond]]> 368783 656 Yale N. Patt 0072467509 Stacey 3 programming-tech 3.90 1999 Introduction to Computing Systems: From Bits & Gates to C & Beyond
author: Yale N. Patt
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: programming-tech
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Building HTML5 Games with ImpactJS]]> 13227077 137 Jesse Freeman 1449315178 Stacey 3 programming-tech, gamedev 3.22 2012 Building HTML5 Games with ImpactJS
author: Jesse Freeman
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2013/03/27
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: programming-tech, gamedev
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming]]> 17084501
JavaScript is the language of the Web, and it's at the heart of every modern website from the lowliest personal blog to the mighty Google Apps. Though it's simple for beginners to pick up and play with, JavaScript is not a toy--it's a flexible and complex language, capable of much more than the showy tricks most programmers use it for.

"Eloquent JavaScript" goes beyond the cut-and-paste scripts of the recipe books and teaches you to write code that's elegant and effective. You'll start with the basics of programming, and learn to use variables, control structures, functions, and data structures. Then you'll dive into the real JavaScript artistry: higher-order functions, closures, and object-oriented programming.

Along the way you'll learn to: Master basic programming techniques and best practices Harness the power of functional and object-oriented programming Use regular expressions to quickly parse and manipulate strings Gracefully deal with errors and browser incompatibilities Handle browser events and alter the DOM structure

Most importantly, "Eloquent JavaScript" will teach you to express yourself in code with precision and beauty. After all, great programming is an art, not a science--so why settle for a killer app when you can create a masterpiece?]]> 224 Marijn Haverbeke 1457100339 Stacey 5 programming-tech, gamedev experiences this text bring this book from a great beginner's guide to the formally best ebook I've read. With mouse-over definitions, interactive code examples, and relatable prose, Eloquent JavaScript isn't just a model for what all programming books should be; it's (formally) a model for what all ebooks should be.

That said, though the book is designed for beginners, I can't speak to how well it imparts the basic principles of programming to those who don't already know what, say, recursion is supposed to do. It seemed like the prose might be too shallow for that kind of thing, but it did offer great metaphors for those principles, so it might be fine. As someone coming to JavaScript with a light background in other languages, it was exactly what I needed. ]]> 3.60 2010 Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming
author: Marijn Haverbeke
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: programming-tech, gamedev
review:
God is in the details, and the details of how the user experiences this text bring this book from a great beginner's guide to the formally best ebook I've read. With mouse-over definitions, interactive code examples, and relatable prose, Eloquent JavaScript isn't just a model for what all programming books should be; it's (formally) a model for what all ebooks should be.

That said, though the book is designed for beginners, I can't speak to how well it imparts the basic principles of programming to those who don't already know what, say, recursion is supposed to do. It seemed like the prose might be too shallow for that kind of thing, but it did offer great metaphors for those principles, so it might be fine. As someone coming to JavaScript with a light background in other languages, it was exactly what I needed.
]]> <![CDATA[Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives,and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form]]> 12538914 Ìý
Rise of the Videogame Zinesters is a call to arms for anyone who's ever dreamed of making their own games. Anna’s guide to game design encourages budding designers to bring their unique backgrounds and experiences to their creations and widen the playing field of an industry that has for too long catered to an adolescent male consumer base. Anna’s newest game, Dys4ia , an autobiographical game about her experiences with hormone replacement therapy, has been featured in The Penny Arcade, IndieGames, and TigSource.
Ìý]]> 208 Anna Anthropy 1609803728 Stacey 4 3.85 2012 Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives,and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form
author: Anna Anthropy
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/02/15
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: game-design, research, gamedev
review:

]]> Challenges for Game Designers 4726656 352 Brenda Brathwaite 158450580X Stacey 4 game-design, gamedev Challenges for Game Designers uses to encourage designers toward brilliant games, since most people, given a problem, will naturally tap into creative insights to find a solution. Designed for beginner to intermediate designers, each chapter focuses on certain aspects of game design: genre, manipulating mechanics, drawing from personal experiences, and so on to explore design problems and help the reader understand how designers think. The challenges are interesting and themselves creative.

The chapters are structured such that they provide a short introduction--usually only a few pages--to basic game design ideals. Each chapter then provides 5 design challenges, complete with concept, goal, and expected deliverables. Additional challenge ideas are available on the last page of the chapter. Though not as fleshed-out (which comes with pros and cons), these are also great motivators for designers to think of solutions to interesting problems.

Mostly, the challenges serve as the boundaries and starting point; designers have enough of an outline to avoid the anxieties that come with a blank page, while still having enough open-endedness to allow for innovative design.]]> 3.97 2008 Challenges for Game Designers
author: Brenda Brathwaite
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: game-design, gamedev
review:
Most creative professionals understand that constraints foster creativity, and this is the approach Challenges for Game Designers uses to encourage designers toward brilliant games, since most people, given a problem, will naturally tap into creative insights to find a solution. Designed for beginner to intermediate designers, each chapter focuses on certain aspects of game design: genre, manipulating mechanics, drawing from personal experiences, and so on to explore design problems and help the reader understand how designers think. The challenges are interesting and themselves creative.

The chapters are structured such that they provide a short introduction--usually only a few pages--to basic game design ideals. Each chapter then provides 5 design challenges, complete with concept, goal, and expected deliverables. Additional challenge ideas are available on the last page of the chapter. Though not as fleshed-out (which comes with pros and cons), these are also great motivators for designers to think of solutions to interesting problems.

Mostly, the challenges serve as the boundaries and starting point; designers have enough of an outline to avoid the anxieties that come with a blank page, while still having enough open-endedness to allow for innovative design.
]]> <![CDATA[How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care]]> 36137561
In her workshops on healing and creative process, Grace helps people acknowledge their blocks and address them by setting distinct parameters that change their behavior. Now, she brings her methods and ideas to the wider world, offering all of us concrete ways to break free from our devices and focus on what's really important-our own aliveness.

Part workbook, part advice manual, part love letter, How to Not Always Be Working ventures into the space where phone meets life, helping readers to define their work-what they do out of sense of purpose; their job-what they do to make money; and their breaks-what they do to recharge, and to feel connected to themselves and the people who matter to them. Grace addresses complex issues such as what to do if your work and your job are connected, provides insights to help you figure out how much is too much, and offers suggestions for making the best use of your time.

Essential for everyone who feels overwhelmed and anxious about our hyper-connected world-whether you're a corporate lawyer, a student, a sales person, or a yoga instructor-How to Not Always Be Working includes practical suggestions and thoughtful musings that prompt you to honestly examine your behavior-how you burn yourself out and why you're doing it. A creative manifesto for living better, it shows you how to carve sacred space in your life.]]> 103 Marlee Grace 0062803697 Stacey 0 to-read 3.30 2018 How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care
author: Marlee Grace
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet]]> 6489716
The modern economy is reliant on economic growth for stability. When growth falters, politicians panic, businesses fail, people lose jobs, and recession looms. Tim Jackson argues, however, that continual growth is just not possible, not sustainable—to believe so is ignoring our knowledge of the finite resource base and fragile ecology in which we live.

The book starts with a compelling analysis of the consequences—for the planet and for people’s wellbeing—of the relentless pursuit of economic growth and material goods. It illustrates why a return to business as usual after the current financial crisis is not an option. Prosperity for a few founded on ecological destruction and persistent social injustice is no foundation for a civilized society.

The current economic crisis presents a unique opportunity to invest in change and a future that delivers lasting prosperity for the predicted 9 billion people who will inhabit the earth in 2050. The author—a leading expert and advisor to the UK government—concludes by outlining pathways towards a sustainable economy. It involves radically changing our “shop until you drop� mentality, as well as engaging other disruptive economic practices. Jackson doesn’t claim this will be easy, but points out that while action is urgent, it is possible.

The book opens up dialogue on the most urgent task of our times—the challenge of a new prosperity encompassing our ability to flourish as human beings—within the ecological limits of a finite planet.]]> 286 Tim Jackson 1844078949 Stacey 0 to-read 3.95 2009 Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet
author: Tim Jackson
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change]]> 10839083 344 Robin Norwood 1101222417 Stacey 5 4.31 1985 Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change
author: Robin Norwood
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2020/12/24
date added: 2020/12/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)]]> 2495567 My name is Kvothe.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

So begins a tale unequaled in fantasy literature--the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man's search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.

]]> 722 Patrick Rothfuss 0756404746 Stacey 0 to-read 4.43 2007 The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)
author: Patrick Rothfuss
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/09/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Beloved 18003014
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Her new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.


Audiobook Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins]]> 275 Toni Morrison Stacey 0 currently-reading 4.01 1987 Beloved
author: Toni Morrison
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The New Wilderness 51652830
Across the country is the Wilderness State, a huge swath of protected land, remote and unwelcoming, a refuge for wildlife with nowhere else to go. It is a place of open spaces and clean air, wild animals, trees, forests, desert plains. No people have ever been allowed into the Wilderness State.

Until now. Bea and Agnes will be among the first. Along with a handful of others, they are invited into the Wilderness State, to live as nomadic hunter gatherers. This motley group of twenty people are part of a study to see if humans can co-exist with nature and not just dominate it as they have always done. Can they be part of the wilderness and not put too heavy an imprint on the land? They spend their days wandering through this grand country, hunting, gathering, avoiding animal attacks, bickering among themselves, and doing a surprising amount of paperwork. Their nit-picking overseers, The Rangers, wrangle with them and badger them into adhering to the rules of the Government, the most important being Leave No Trace. They slowly learn how to live, and survive, on the unpredictable, often dangerous land, and they build a new kind of community, fighting among themselves for power, betraying and saving one another. Each day they will walk to another point on the horizon and try to make sense of new lives they now spend closer to their animal soul.

Bea discovers that fleeing to the Wilderness State to save Agnes means that she loses her in a different way. Agnes grows wild and belongs to the landscape while Bea, raised in the City, will always be of that place and drawn to it, no matter how many deer she skins. The real bond between mother and daughter will be tested by their growing difference.

As these modern nomads come to think of the Wilderness State as home, this land will come under attack from the Government which plans to develop it. Do the Settlers stay on as renegades, or move back to newly created urban areas?]]> 384 Diane Cook Stacey 0 currently-reading 3.90 2020 The New Wilderness
author: Diane Cook
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Girl, Woman, Other 41081373
Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.

Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.]]> 453 Bernardine Evaristo 0241364906 Stacey 0 to-read 4.27 2019 Girl, Woman, Other
author: Bernardine Evaristo
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Celestial Bodies 49382648 256 Jokha Alharthi جوخة الحارثي 1948226944 Stacey 0 to-read 3.34 2010 Celestial Bodies
author: Jokha Alharthi جوخة الحارثي
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> The City and the Stars 250024
Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar. For millennia its protective dome shut out the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rule the stars.

But then, as legend has it, the invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, a Unique, to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.]]> 255 Arthur C. Clarke Stacey 4 4.08 1956 The City and the Stars
author: Arthur C. Clarke
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/21
date added: 2020/03/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Lady of Mazes 34009
Brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly is Teven's only hope against invaders both human and superhuman who threaten the fragile ecologies and human diversity. Filled with action, ideas, and intellectual energy, Lady of Mazes is the hard SF novel of the year.]]> 384 Karl Schroeder 0765350785 Stacey 0 to-read 3.81 2005 Lady of Mazes
author: Karl Schroeder
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Artificial Kid 3364305 The Hacker Crackdown, & the cyberthriller, Islands in the Net, presents a seminal, vivid & turbulent future. The Artificial Kid is a work of satirical social commentary with the breakneck pace of a Hong Kong action film.]]> 245 Bruce Sterling 0140073353 Stacey 0 to-read 3.60 1980 The Artificial Kid
author: Bruce Sterling
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pretty Girls 25574782
Now another girl has disappeared, with chilling echoes of the past. And it seems that she might not be the only one.

Claire is convinced Julia's disappearance is linked.

But when she begins to learn the truth about her sister, she is confronted with a shocking discovery, and nothing will ever be the same...]]> 432 Karin Slaughter 0062430874 Stacey 0 3.99 2015 Pretty Girls
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2017/04/24
date added: 2017/04/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots]]> 25964915
A classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook’s Plotto is one writer’s personal method, painstakingly diagrammed for the benefit of others. The theory itself may be simple—“Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflictâ€â€”but Cook takes his “Plottoistâ€� through hundreds of situations and scenarios, guiding the reader’s hand through a dizzying array of “purposesâ€� and “obstacles.â€� The method is broken down into three 1. The Master Plot 2. The Conflict Situation 3. Character Combinations In the first stage, Cook demonstrates that “a character with particular traits . . . finds himself in a situation . . . and this is how it turns out.â€� Following this, each Master Plot leads the reader to a list of circumstances, distributed among twenty different Conflict Groups (these range from “Love’s Beginning,â€� to “Personal Limitations,â€� to “Transgressionâ€�). Finally, in Character Combinations, Cook offers an extensive index of protagonists for what serves as an inexhaustible reservoir of suggestions and inspiration.]]> 506 William Wallace Cook Stacey 0 3.29 1928 Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots
author: William Wallace Cook
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.29
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at: 2017/04/24
date added: 2017/04/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Memory Machines: The Evolution of Hypertext (Anthem Scholarship in the Digital Age)]]> 34340806
‘Memory Machines� offers an expansive record of hypertext over the last 60 years, pinpointing the major breakthroughs and fundamental flaws in its evolution. Barnet argues that some of the earliest hypertext systems were more richly connected and in some respects more flexible than the Web; this is also a fascinating account of the paths not taken.

Barnet ends the journey through computing history at the birth of mass domesticated hypertext, at the point that it grew out of the university labs and into the Web. And yet she suggests that hypertext may not have completed its evolutionary story, and may still have the capacity to become something different, something much better than it is today.]]> 193 Belinda Barnet Stacey 0 currently-reading 4.75 2013 Memory Machines: The Evolution of Hypertext (Anthem Scholarship in the Digital Age)
author: Belinda Barnet
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion: The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, Volume Two]]> 18077946 The essential teachings on the bodhisattva path of wisdom and compassion, presented here in volume two of Chögyam Trungpa's magnum opus, which offers a systematic overview of the entire path of Tibetan Buddhism.

The second volume presents the bodhisattva teachings of the mahayana. At this point, having trained and seen the benefits of looking within, the student begins to shift their focus outward to the broader world. Formal entry into the mahayana occurs with taking the bodhisattva vow. Mahayana practitioners dedicate themselves to the service of all sentient beings, aspiring to save them from sorrow and confusion, and vowing to bring them to perfect liberation. This stage of the path emphasizes the cultivation of wisdom through the view and experience of emptiness, or shunyata, in which all phenomena are seen to be unbounded, completely open, ungraspable, and profound. From the ground of shunyata, compassionate activity is said to arise naturally and spontaneously. In addition to mindfulness and awareness, the mahayanist practices lojong, or "mind training," based on the cultivation of the paramitas, or "transcendent virtues": generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and prajna, or "knowledge." As a component of lojong, tonglen, or "sending and taking," is practiced in order to increase maitri, or loving-kindness.

The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma represents meditation master Chögyam Trungpa's greatest contribution to Western Buddhism. This three-volume collection presents in lively, relevant language the comprehensive teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist path of the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana. This work will resonate with new students of Buddhism as well as the most senior students.

Topics covered in detail in this volume include:
Bodhichitta
Loving-kindness, or maitri
Compassion, or karuna
Skillful means, or upaya
Buddha nature and basic goodness
The four limitless ones
Bodhisattva vows
Emptiness, or shunyata
Madhyamaka
Relative truth and ultimate truth
Prajna
The paramitas
Lojong training
Tonglen meditation
The ten bhumis
Dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya
And more]]> 528 Chögyam Trungpa 1611801052 Stacey 0 to-read 4.84 2013 The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion: The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, Volume Two
author: Chögyam Trungpa
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.84
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/06/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> Double Star 175324
Suddenly he found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who had been kidnapped. Peace with the Martians was at stake � failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary war. And Smythe's own life was on the line � for if he wasn't assassinated, there was always the possibility that he might be trapped in his new role forever!]]> 243 Robert A. Heinlein 0345330137 Stacey 0 3.90 1956 Double Star
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at: 2016/05/21
date added: 2016/05/21
shelves:
review:

]]> The Witches: Salem, 1692 27400581 The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials.

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.

The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic.

As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, THE WITCHES is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story-the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.]]> 18 Stacy Schiff Stacey 5 favorites 3.23 2015 The Witches: Salem, 1692
author: Stacy Schiff
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/03/08
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry]]> 12391521
The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath.

Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.]]> 275 Jon Ronson 1594485755 Stacey 3 3.97 2011 The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
author: Jon Ronson
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Iron Dragon's Daughter (The Iron Dragon's Daughter #1)]]> 25781 424 Michael Swanwick 0380972336 Stacey 4 3.72 1993 The Iron Dragon's Daughter (The Iron Dragon's Daughter #1)
author: Michael Swanwick
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2015/11/21
date added: 2015/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Theory of Mind and the Novel (Theory and Interpretation of Narrative)]]> 9220302 220 Lisa Zunshine Stacey 0 3.73 2006 Theory of Mind and the Novel (Theory and Interpretation of Narrative)
author: Lisa Zunshine
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2015/11/21
date added: 2015/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> The Filth 22356 313 Grant Morrison 1401200133 Stacey 0 3.73 2004 The Filth
author: Grant Morrison
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 2015/11/21
date added: 2015/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ontology, Epistemology, and Teleology for Modeling and Simulation: Philosophical Foundations for Intelligent M&S Applications (Intelligent Systems Reference Library, 44)]]> 15911196 392 Andreas Tolk 3642311393 Stacey 0 to-read, research 5.00 2012 Ontology, Epistemology, and Teleology for Modeling and Simulation: Philosophical Foundations for Intelligent M&S Applications (Intelligent Systems Reference Library, 44)
author: Andreas Tolk
name: Stacey
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/11/12
shelves: to-read, research
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence)]]> 1705962 416 Ronald J. Brachman 1558609326 Stacey 0 to-read, research 3.70 1992 Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence)
author: Ronald J. Brachman
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/11/12
shelves: to-read, research
review:

]]> Housekeeping 11741 Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.]]> 219 Marilynne Robinson 0312424094 Stacey 4 3.82 1980 Housekeeping
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Lila (Gilead, #3) 20575411
Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security.

Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.

Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson's Pulitzer Prize–winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic.]]> 261 Marilynne Robinson 0374187614 Stacey 4 3.95 2014 Lila (Gilead, #3)
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[28 Days to Hope For Your Home (Not For the Mildly Disorganized)]]> 17234406 If, at the end of a long day, you mindlessly put your dirty clothes in the laundry hamper and hang your jacket neatly in the closet . . . DON’T buy this e-book.
If you’ve never experienced heart palpitations at the sound of an unexpected doorbell . . . DON’T buy this e-book.
***
28 Days to Hope for Your Home is for people like me. People who dream of an orderly home, but truly don’t understand what happens in the three days between Party Ready and Disaster Status.
That was me. I’m definitely still not perfect, but I’m no longer bewildered.
I know what it takes to maintain a livable home.]]> Dana White Stacey 1
So I’ll save you having to read: each day involves doing the dishes and the point of the book is that there’s no magical secret to cleaning beyond doing the work and honestly assessing when the mess around you has grown to feel normal.

The prose will entertain a certain demographic, but the entirety of the book contains less information than a single well-written blog post. Self-help books often suffer from repetition and verbosity, but this book is by far the worst I’ve seen. I left offended, feeling like the book was a money-grabbing ploy.

Save your money and just read the blog; it’s more entertaining and you’ll get more out of it.]]> 3.73 28 Days to Hope For Your Home (Not For the Mildly Disorganized)
author: Dana White
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.73
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2015/03/24
date added: 2015/07/01
shelves:
review:
I came to this book after reading a few entertaining blog posts by Dana White, over at �.� The ebook is only $5, and I needed to kill a couple of hour so I figured “why not.� I read the whole book in 30 minutes.

So I’ll save you having to read: each day involves doing the dishes and the point of the book is that there’s no magical secret to cleaning beyond doing the work and honestly assessing when the mess around you has grown to feel normal.

The prose will entertain a certain demographic, but the entirety of the book contains less information than a single well-written blog post. Self-help books often suffer from repetition and verbosity, but this book is by far the worst I’ve seen. I left offended, feeling like the book was a money-grabbing ploy.

Save your money and just read the blog; it’s more entertaining and you’ll get more out of it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game]]> 17978108 The Monopolists reveals the unknown story of how Monopoly came into existence, the reinvention of its history by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the game, and one man's lifelong obsession to tell the true story about the game's questionable origins.

Most think it was invented by an unemployed Pennsylvanian who sold his game to Parker Brothers during the Great Depression in 1935 and lived happily--and richly--ever after. That story, however, is not exactly true. Ralph Anspach, a professor fighting to sell his Anti-Monopoly board game decades later, unearthed the real story, which traces back to Abraham Lincoln, the Quakers, and a forgotten feminist named Lizzie Magie who invented her nearly identical Landlord's Game more than thirty years before Parker Brothers sold their version of Monopoly. Her game--underpinned by morals that were the exact opposite of what Monopoly represents today--was embraced by a constellation of left-wingers from the Progressive Era through the Great Depression, including members of Franklin Roosevelt's famed Brain Trust.

A fascinating social history of corporate greed that illuminates the cutthroat nature of American business over the last century, The Monopolists reads like the best detective fiction, told through Monopoly's real-life winners and losers.]]> 313 Mary Pilon 1608199630 Stacey 0 to-read 3.70 2015 The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game
author: Mary Pilon
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/06/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> We Were Liars 16143347 A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.

And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.]]> 242 E. Lockhart 0385741278 Stacey 3
I picked this up for a breezy airport read, and it was perfect for that. E. Lockhart writes well, the mystery is intriguing, and the prose is often surprisingly lyrical for YA. Layers of summer romance, a family that doesn't understand, and coming-of-age narratives weave seamlessly into the mystery. Much of the intricacy of the family's power dynamics are conveyed through allegorical fairytales

"Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters"

which become increasingly more heavy-handed and literal as the book resolves. While others have cited this heavy-handedness and the similarly unnuanced treatment of race, class, wealth, and privilege as failings of the book, I can excuse these as YA elements peeking through what is otherwise a well-developed and intriguing mystery. Themes of narrative crafting, perception vs reality, and the rewriting of history serve as interesting balances to the heavy treatment of class and race.

That said, I found the end of the book inexcusable. The excellent pacing and development for most of the book is destroyed by a twist in the last 20 pages that is both overdone and incompatible with the world that Lockhart has built for us. The climax feels too abrupt, like too hostile of a "gotcha", and the denouement does little to smooth how jarringly the twist is executed.

Overall, We Were Liars is a charming experience rooted as much in power fantasy, lyricism, and romance as it is in mystery, that I loved up until the mystery was unsatisfyingly resolved.]]> 3.65 2014 We Were Liars
author: E. Lockhart
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/25
date added: 2015/03/28
shelves:
review:
Cadence Sinclaire comes from old money. She spends her summers with family and friends on a private island off The Cape. Then one summer something terrible happens. She can't remember it and nobody wants to talk about it; even her youngest cousins are instructed to politely change the subject.

I picked this up for a breezy airport read, and it was perfect for that. E. Lockhart writes well, the mystery is intriguing, and the prose is often surprisingly lyrical for YA. Layers of summer romance, a family that doesn't understand, and coming-of-age narratives weave seamlessly into the mystery. Much of the intricacy of the family's power dynamics are conveyed through allegorical fairytales

"Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters"

which become increasingly more heavy-handed and literal as the book resolves. While others have cited this heavy-handedness and the similarly unnuanced treatment of race, class, wealth, and privilege as failings of the book, I can excuse these as YA elements peeking through what is otherwise a well-developed and intriguing mystery. Themes of narrative crafting, perception vs reality, and the rewriting of history serve as interesting balances to the heavy treatment of class and race.

That said, I found the end of the book inexcusable. The excellent pacing and development for most of the book is destroyed by a twist in the last 20 pages that is both overdone and incompatible with the world that Lockhart has built for us. The climax feels too abrupt, like too hostile of a "gotcha", and the denouement does little to smooth how jarringly the twist is executed.

Overall, We Were Liars is a charming experience rooted as much in power fantasy, lyricism, and romance as it is in mystery, that I loved up until the mystery was unsatisfyingly resolved.
]]> Computers as Theatre 18635269 270 Brenda Laurel 013339087X Stacey 4 research 4.00 1991 Computers as Theatre
author: Brenda Laurel
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2014/12/19
date added: 2015/03/28
shelves: research
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America]]> 647801
Gamson examines the contemporary "dream machine" that publicists, tabloid newspapers, journalists, and TV interviewers use to create semi-fictional icons. He finds that celebrity watchers, for whom spotting celebrities becomes a spectator sport akin to watching football or fireworks, glean their own rewards in a game that turns as often on playing with inauthenticity as on identifying with stars.

Gamson also looks at the "celebritization" of politics and the complex questions it poses regarding image and reality. He makes clear that to understand American public culture, we must understand that strange, ubiquitous phenomenon, celebrity.]]> 270 Joshua Gamson 0520083539 Stacey 3 3.54 1994 Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America
author: Joshua Gamson
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/22
date added: 2015/03/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Night Circus 13330943
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 516 Erin Morgenstern 0307744434 Stacey 4 4.05 2011 The Night Circus
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2015/03/28
date added: 2015/03/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Anathem 6250159 981 Neal Stephenson 006147410X Stacey 0 to-read 4.23 2008 Anathem
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/01/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature]]> 60071 216 Espen J. Aarseth 0801855799 Stacey 0 research 3.88 1997 Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature
author: Espen J. Aarseth
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at: 2014/12/19
date added: 2014/12/19
shelves: research
review:

]]> Fangirl 16068905 A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan.... But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she's really good at it. She and her twin, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?]]> 483 Rainbow Rowell Stacey 4 Fangirl was recommended to me by a mentor who has now recommended several books in a row about young writers coming into their own voice—I think he’s trying to tell me something.

Subliminal messages from mentors aside, Fangirl is a quick and fun read, a touching coming-of-age story, and one of the most honest accounts of social anxiety I’ve read. We see the story from the perspective of Cath, a young writer and twin transitioning to college and independence from a complicated home life and emotional reliance on her twin sister Wren. Despite growing tension between Cath and Wren, a newfound interest in boys, and a tumultuous relationship with her roommate, Cath’s most interesting and difficult struggle is to find her own writing voice after years of successfully authoring popular fan-fiction for Simon Snow stories, a parodic take on Harry Potter with a bit of Twilight mixed in.

The plot is fast-paced and engrossing, but perhaps the book’s strongest asset is the narrative voice, told from Cath’s perspective. Cath is clearly a writer, and focuses on the small details of a person’s hairline or a dramatic mannerism and mentally catalogues dozens of ways to describe them. There’s a fantasy here of playing a writer just as much as actually being one, and while it comes off as a slightly juvenile fantasy, that works for a character who is not yet fully comfortable with her writing.

The unreliable narration has shining moments, including fantastic bits of character development, particularly for the things that go unsaid. We can see things our narrator doesn’t tell us, probably because she’s not ready to face them herself. Our narrator doesn’t think she’s unreliable, but her characterizations of some other characters manage to be subtle and charming without slipping into caricature. Other characters do occasionally fall flat, but it’s possible that our young writer sees them not as people but as characters to write later.

Each chapter ends with a Simon Snow excerpt. These are great in small doses to give depth to Cath and to show parallels in the evolution of her relationships and writing. Several chapters, however, contain extended excerpts which get a bit long and feel more like an interruption than an addition.

I wanted to nitpick the writing since so much of the book focuses on craft, from Cath’s mental notes of words to the feedback her writing teacher gives. But the writing, though clearly YA in form and voice, holds up under scrutiny and offers breezy read that I’d recommend to most of my nerd and writer friends.]]> 3.93 2013 Fangirl
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2014/09/05
date added: 2014/09/15
shelves:
review:
Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl was recommended to me by a mentor who has now recommended several books in a row about young writers coming into their own voice—I think he’s trying to tell me something.

Subliminal messages from mentors aside, Fangirl is a quick and fun read, a touching coming-of-age story, and one of the most honest accounts of social anxiety I’ve read. We see the story from the perspective of Cath, a young writer and twin transitioning to college and independence from a complicated home life and emotional reliance on her twin sister Wren. Despite growing tension between Cath and Wren, a newfound interest in boys, and a tumultuous relationship with her roommate, Cath’s most interesting and difficult struggle is to find her own writing voice after years of successfully authoring popular fan-fiction for Simon Snow stories, a parodic take on Harry Potter with a bit of Twilight mixed in.

The plot is fast-paced and engrossing, but perhaps the book’s strongest asset is the narrative voice, told from Cath’s perspective. Cath is clearly a writer, and focuses on the small details of a person’s hairline or a dramatic mannerism and mentally catalogues dozens of ways to describe them. There’s a fantasy here of playing a writer just as much as actually being one, and while it comes off as a slightly juvenile fantasy, that works for a character who is not yet fully comfortable with her writing.

The unreliable narration has shining moments, including fantastic bits of character development, particularly for the things that go unsaid. We can see things our narrator doesn’t tell us, probably because she’s not ready to face them herself. Our narrator doesn’t think she’s unreliable, but her characterizations of some other characters manage to be subtle and charming without slipping into caricature. Other characters do occasionally fall flat, but it’s possible that our young writer sees them not as people but as characters to write later.

Each chapter ends with a Simon Snow excerpt. These are great in small doses to give depth to Cath and to show parallels in the evolution of her relationships and writing. Several chapters, however, contain extended excerpts which get a bit long and feel more like an interruption than an addition.

I wanted to nitpick the writing since so much of the book focuses on craft, from Cath’s mental notes of words to the feedback her writing teacher gives. But the writing, though clearly YA in form and voice, holds up under scrutiny and offers breezy read that I’d recommend to most of my nerd and writer friends.
]]> Salinger 17334220 For more than fifty years, the ever elusive author of The Catcher in the Rye has been the subject of a relentless stream of newspaper and magazine articles as well as several biographies. Yet all of these attempts have been hampered by a fundamental lack of access and by the persistent recycling of inaccurate information. Salinger remains, astonishingly, an enigma. The complex and contradictory human being behind the myth has never been revealed.

No longer.

In the eight years since Salinger was begun, and especially in the three years since Salinger’s death, the authors interviewed on five continents more than 200 people, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger’s World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his New Yorker colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Shields and Salerno illuminate most brightly the last fifty-six years of Salinger’s life: a period that, until now, had remained completely dark to biographers. Provided unprecedented access to never-before-published photographs (more than 100 throughout the book), diaries, letters, legal records, and secret documents, readers will feel they have, for the first time, gotten beyond Salinger’s meticulously built-up wall. The result is the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.]]> 700 David Shields 1476744831 Stacey 0 to-read 3.80 2013 Salinger
author: David Shields
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/09/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History]]> 16241158


In this informative and highly entertaining account, intrepid science reporter Florence Williams sets out to uncover the latest scientific findings from the fields of anthropology, biology, and medicine. Her investigation follows the life cycle of the breast from puberty to pregnancy to menopause, taking her from a plastic surgeon’s office where she learns about the importance of cup size in Texas to the laboratory where she discovers the presence of environmental toxins in her own breast milk. The result is a fascinating exploration of where breasts came from, where they have ended up, and what we can do to save them.]]> 352 Florence Williams 0393345076 Stacey 0 to-read 3.75 2012 Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History
author: Florence Williams
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/06/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players]]> 7088435 252 Jesper Juul 0262013371 Stacey 4 research 3.50 2009 A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players
author: Jesper Juul
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2013/03/10
date added: 2013/03/29
shelves: research
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction]]> 12636547 336 Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen 0415896975 Stacey 3 3.92 2007 Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction
author: Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2013/03/01
date added: 2013/03/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories]]> 15798669 432 Kelly Link 0763657972 Stacey 0 to-read 3.94 2011 Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
author: Kelly Link
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 234225 Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the "spice" melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul's family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.]]> 604 Frank Herbert 0340839937 Stacey 5 favorites 4.21 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/02/13
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)]]> 375802
But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.]]> 324 Orson Scott Card 0812550706 Stacey 5 favorites 4.31 1985 Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/02/13
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds]]> 50933 223 Jesper Juul 0262101106 Stacey 4 research Half-Real remains a landmark moment in the development of Game Studies as a field. Juul's approach to games bridges a formal analysis of their rules and systems with a nuanced approach to their fiction. Half-Real offers several useful, citable definitions and concepts and provides good outlines and approaches to exploring games, particularly through their formal qualities.

That said, the book is not without problems. As with any book in which the primarily goal is establishing definitions and boundaries, edge-cases are many, and the categories are sometime contradictory. Juul, a staunch ludologist, does not examine the fiction of games in anywhere near the depth that he explores their systems. Still, from the approach of both a researcher and a designer, having formal boundaries is useful for understanding where games still need exploration. There are a few places where his categorizations could have used a little more defense and insight into his methodology, which particularly stand out since many other arguments seem watertight. As a whole, however, his explanations are interesting and provocative.

The tone of the book is very academic, and as such I wouldn't recommend this book to a casual reader, or even to most (non-academic) designers. To a researcher, however, this book is an indispensable resource. It points to intersections with many disciplines and offers great references for further exploration. Juul's definition of what a game even is, a question that has been explored for centuries, remains one of the more convincing definitions in the field.]]> 3.87 2005 Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds
author: Jesper Juul
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2013/01/22
date added: 2013/01/22
shelves: research
review:
Even 7 years after its publication Half-Real remains a landmark moment in the development of Game Studies as a field. Juul's approach to games bridges a formal analysis of their rules and systems with a nuanced approach to their fiction. Half-Real offers several useful, citable definitions and concepts and provides good outlines and approaches to exploring games, particularly through their formal qualities.

That said, the book is not without problems. As with any book in which the primarily goal is establishing definitions and boundaries, edge-cases are many, and the categories are sometime contradictory. Juul, a staunch ludologist, does not examine the fiction of games in anywhere near the depth that he explores their systems. Still, from the approach of both a researcher and a designer, having formal boundaries is useful for understanding where games still need exploration. There are a few places where his categorizations could have used a little more defense and insight into his methodology, which particularly stand out since many other arguments seem watertight. As a whole, however, his explanations are interesting and provocative.

The tone of the book is very academic, and as such I wouldn't recommend this book to a casual reader, or even to most (non-academic) designers. To a researcher, however, this book is an indispensable resource. It points to intersections with many disciplines and offers great references for further exploration. Juul's definition of what a game even is, a question that has been explored for centuries, remains one of the more convincing definitions in the field.
]]> George Orwell Diaries 13367134 Animal Farm and 1984 (which have now sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author). Personal entries cover the tragic death of his first wife and Orwell’s own decline as he battled tuberculosis. Exhibiting great brilliance of prose and composition, these treasured dispatches, edited by the world’s leading Orwell scholar, exhibit “the seeds of famous passages to come� (New Statesman) and amount to a volume as penetrating as the autobiography he would never write.]]> 598 George Orwell 0871404109 Stacey 4 3.87 2009 George Orwell Diaries
author: George Orwell
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2012/12/13
date added: 2013/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2)]]> 13507212 9780805090031)

Though he battled for years to marry her, Henry VIII has become disenchanted with the audacious Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son, and her sharp intelligence and strong will have alienated his old friends and the noble families of England.

When the discarded Katherine, Henry's first wife, dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice, setting in motion a dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over a few terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally himself with his enemies. What price will he pay for Annie's head?]]> 412 Hilary Mantel Stacey 5 favorites 4.26 2012 Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2)
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2012/09/18
date added: 2012/09/18
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Blood Tide (Never Land, #3) 3246035 0 Dave Barry 1423309685 Stacey 3
Blood Tide is actually the third in a series of Neverland books. I hadn't read the first two, but it wasn't a hindrance. The action starts with Peter Pan away on business and Neverland Island shaken up by an earthquake that sets everything amiss. Captain Hook has a mysterious plan, surely up to no good as usual, and the Mollusk tribe and Lost Boys discover that the mermaids have turned vicious in the wake of a new blood-red tide that has swept into the lagoon. The action moves swiftly and gives enough wind-up to each main story event that children should have no problem following along.


Jim Dale's lively narration paces the story well and provides wonderful depth to the characters. Smee and Hook offer great comic relief and deliver the humor one would expect from Dave Barry.]]> 3.83 2008 Blood Tide (Never Land, #3)
author: Dave Barry
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2012/08/17
date added: 2012/08/26
shelves:
review:
A cross-country move left me searching for a decent audiobook in an Iowa truckstop, where this stood out like a pearl in an ocean of generic crime thrillers and bodice-rippers. I knew it was for younger readers, but I over-estimated the age of intended audience by a few years. Still, this was a fun diversion that left me thinking about the possibilities for adult Neverland stories.

Blood Tide is actually the third in a series of Neverland books. I hadn't read the first two, but it wasn't a hindrance. The action starts with Peter Pan away on business and Neverland Island shaken up by an earthquake that sets everything amiss. Captain Hook has a mysterious plan, surely up to no good as usual, and the Mollusk tribe and Lost Boys discover that the mermaids have turned vicious in the wake of a new blood-red tide that has swept into the lagoon. The action moves swiftly and gives enough wind-up to each main story event that children should have no problem following along.


Jim Dale's lively narration paces the story well and provides wonderful depth to the characters. Smee and Hook offer great comic relief and deliver the humor one would expect from Dave Barry.
]]> The Brothers Karamazov 9999675
"It may well be that Dostoevsky's [world], with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only now--and through the medium of this translation--beginning to come home to the English-speaking reader." --John Bayley, The New York Review of Books

"Heartily recommended to any reader who wishes to come as close to Dostoevsky's Russian as it is possible."--Joseph Frank, Princeton University

"Far and away the best translation of Dostoevsky into English that I have seen . . . faithful . . . extremely readable . . . gripping."--Sidney Monas, University of Texas

From Barnes & Noble
This turbulent story centers on the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a corrupt, loutish landowner, and the aftermath for his sons: the passionate Dmitri, the coldly intellectual Ivan, the spiritual Alexey, and the bastard Smerdyakov.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky were awarded the PEN/ Book-of-the-Month Translation Prize for The Brothers Karamazov and have also translated Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, Demons, and The Idiot.]]> 849 Fyodor Dostoevsky Stacey 5 4.38 1880 The Brothers Karamazov
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1880
rating: 5
read at: 2012/08/12
date added: 2012/08/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)]]> 7151101 604 Hilary Mantel 1429943289 Stacey 5 favorites
Wolf Hall is brings life and drama to the politics of Tudor England. Written in present-tense episodic sections, the prose is a little jarring at first, but settles into a rhythm quickly. The tense is not distracting, and the prose sparkles (as one would expect from the Booker winner). The cast is a little confusing, but family trees and an itemized cast at the beginning help things immensely. With a lack of dialogue tags, a shortage of nouns in favor of pronouns, and a propensity for stream-of-consciousness, this is not the easiest book to read, but it's not the hardest either. And it is entirely worth the effort.]]> 3.71 2009 Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2012/06/18
date added: 2012/08/26
shelves: favorites
review:
During the reign of Henry VIII, rose from a common birth to become one of the most powerful men in England. As Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's right-hand man, Cromwell learns the intricacies of the court, and begins to successfully navigate its politics. When Wolsey fails to produce the divorce the King demands and falls from Henry's favor, Cromwell's talent as a diplomat allows him to eventually rise to succeed where his former master couldn't.

Wolf Hall is brings life and drama to the politics of Tudor England. Written in present-tense episodic sections, the prose is a little jarring at first, but settles into a rhythm quickly. The tense is not distracting, and the prose sparkles (as one would expect from the Booker winner). The cast is a little confusing, but family trees and an itemized cast at the beginning help things immensely. With a lack of dialogue tags, a shortage of nouns in favor of pronouns, and a propensity for stream-of-consciousness, this is not the easiest book to read, but it's not the hardest either. And it is entirely worth the effort.
]]> The Lost World 11052224 170 Arthur Conan Doyle Stacey 4
Malone, the young, lovesick narrator of the story, seeks a great adventure to win the heart of his beloved and advance his career as a journalist. His search for adventure leads him to the bombastic Professor Challenger, one of the most vivid and interesting characters in science fiction. In an effort to corroborate Challenger's claim of a lost prehistoric world hidden deep in the Amazon; Malone, Challenger, bold adventurer Lord Roxton, and contentious skeptic Professor Summerlee embark on an adventure into the unknown.

Like many novels of its period, many aspects are problematic when viewed through the lens of our current cultural sensibilities. Women seem to be largely absent from the novel, save Malone's object of desire--the motivator for the whole adventure--who is flighty and inconstant. The local Amazon guides ("Indians," "half-breeds" and the "faithful Negro") are given the expected treatment, and the warring red-skinned "savages" on the prehistoric plateau face supposedly equal opposition from the "ape-men," missing link figures that the expedition encounters. While it's important to maintain cultural relativity in understanding the period in which the book was written, a modern audience might find these points occasionally jarring.

Still, even if the cultural attitudes and scientific practices (and for that matter presumptions of how dinosaurs look and act) are questionable today, the vivid and timeless personalities written into the main characters make up for it. Each is, in his own way, larger than life such that they should all be unrelatable, but somehow it works in the context of this fantastic setting.

Once the action got going, I found it a hard book to put down.]]> 4.14 1912 The Lost World
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1912
rating: 4
read at: 2012/07/11
date added: 2012/07/12
shelves:
review:
Interesting, well-formed characters carry the plot through some lulls in the beginning, but the pacing picks up as the novel progresses. A few conspicuous points date the novel, but overall its a quick and interesting read, the prototypical action/adventure that set the tone for the genre that emerged from it.

Malone, the young, lovesick narrator of the story, seeks a great adventure to win the heart of his beloved and advance his career as a journalist. His search for adventure leads him to the bombastic Professor Challenger, one of the most vivid and interesting characters in science fiction. In an effort to corroborate Challenger's claim of a lost prehistoric world hidden deep in the Amazon; Malone, Challenger, bold adventurer Lord Roxton, and contentious skeptic Professor Summerlee embark on an adventure into the unknown.

Like many novels of its period, many aspects are problematic when viewed through the lens of our current cultural sensibilities. Women seem to be largely absent from the novel, save Malone's object of desire--the motivator for the whole adventure--who is flighty and inconstant. The local Amazon guides ("Indians," "half-breeds" and the "faithful Negro") are given the expected treatment, and the warring red-skinned "savages" on the prehistoric plateau face supposedly equal opposition from the "ape-men," missing link figures that the expedition encounters. While it's important to maintain cultural relativity in understanding the period in which the book was written, a modern audience might find these points occasionally jarring.

Still, even if the cultural attitudes and scientific practices (and for that matter presumptions of how dinosaurs look and act) are questionable today, the vivid and timeless personalities written into the main characters make up for it. Each is, in his own way, larger than life such that they should all be unrelatable, but somehow it works in the context of this fantastic setting.

Once the action got going, I found it a hard book to put down.
]]> <![CDATA[If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler]]> 374233 If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration�"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next.

The real Calvino intersperses 10 different pastiches—stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition—with explorations of how and why we choose to read, make meanings, and get our bearings or fail to. Meanwhile the Reader and Ludmilla try to reach, and read, each other. If on a Winter's Night is dazzling, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. "What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space."]]> 260 Italo Calvino Stacey 0 to-read 4.05 1979 If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
author: Italo Calvino
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pale Fire 7805
Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.

Part of a major new series of the works of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pale Fire, in Penguin Classics.]]> 246 Vladimir Nabokov Stacey 0 to-read 4.17 1962 Pale Fire
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Stacey
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Use and Abuse of Literature]]> 9648164 Contents

Introduction
1. Use and abuse
2. The pleasures of The Canon
3. What isn't Literature
4. What's love got to do with it
5. So you want to read a poem
6. Why Literature is always contemporary
7. On Truth and Lie in a literary sense
8. The impossibility of closure

Notes]]> 320 Marjorie Garber 0375424342 Stacey 0 to-read, research 3.37 2011 The Use and Abuse of Literature
author: Marjorie Garber
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/04
shelves: to-read, research
review:

]]> Frankenstein 18490 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780141439471

'Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart ...'

Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.

Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's 'The Vampyre: A Tale'.]]> 288 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Stacey 4 3.77 1818 Frankenstein
author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
name: Stacey
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1818
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2012/06/04
shelves:
review:

]]>