Bobulating

The Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:45:06 -0500

The Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds

Gavin Pretor-Pinney

Now in paperback: the runaway British bestseller that has cloudspotters everywhere looking up.

Where do clouds come from? Why do they look the way they do? And why have they captured the imagination of timeless artists, Romantic poets, and every kid who’s ever held a crayon? Veteran journalist and lifelong sky watcher Gavin Pretor-Pinney reveals everything there is to know about clouds, from history and science to art and pop culture. Cumulus, nimbostratus, and the dramatic and surfable Morning Glory cloud are just a few of the varieties explored in this smart, witty, and eclectic tour through the skies.

Illustrated with striking photographs (including a new section in full-color) and line drawings featuring everything from classical paintings to lava lamps, The Cloudspotter’s Guide will have enthusiasts, weather watchers, and the just plain curious floating on cloud nine.

Find at “Daylit astronomy”

Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:56:00 -0500

Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein

Shel Silverstein

Enter the world of Shel Silverstein… To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Shel Silverstein’s most popular book, Where the Sidewalk Ends is now available in a special edition containing the classic hardcover book and a CD of highlights from his Grammy Award-winning album. This is a wonderful gift and keepsake for Shel Silverstein fans, old and new. From the outrageously funny to the quietly affecting — and touching on everything in between — here are poems and drawings that illuminate the remarkable world of the well-known folksinger, humorist and creator of The Giving Tree.

Find at “Every life thing”

Salt: A World History Mark Kurlansky Mark Kurlansky, the...

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:00:00 -0500

Salt: A World History

Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World, here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky’s kaleidoscopic history is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.

Find at “Lessons according to salt”

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York Robert...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:39:00 -0500

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Robert A. Caro

One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city’s politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.

In revealing how Moses did it—how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force—Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars—the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were—even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him—until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own.

Find at “Field-Tested on the F-Train in New York City, New York”

The Image of the City Kevin Lynch What does the city’s form...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:38:00 -0500

The Image of the City

Kevin Lynch

What does the city’s form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city’s image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities.The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.

The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:35:00 -0500

The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Life while Corresponding about Math

Steven Strogatz

The Calculus of Friendship is the story of an extraordinary connection between a teacher and a student, as chronicled through more than thirty years of letters between them. What makes their relationship unique is that it is based almost entirely on a shared love of calculus. For them, calculus is more than a branch of mathematics; it is a game they love playing together, a constant when all else is in flux. The teacher goes from the prime of his career to retirement, competes in whitewater kayaking at the international level, and loses a son. The student matures from high school math whiz to Ivy League professor, suffers the sudden death of a parent, and blunders into a marriage destined to fail. Yet through it all they take refuge in the haven of calculus—until a day comes when calculus is no longer enough.

Like calculus itself, The Calculus of Friendship is an exploration of change. It’s about the transformation that takes place in a student’s heart, as he and his teacher reverse roles, as they age, as they are buffeted by life itself. Written by a renowned teacher and communicator of mathematics, The Calculus of Friendship is warm, intimate, and deeply moving. The most inspiring ideas of calculus, differential equations, and chaos theory are explained through metaphors, images, and anecdotes in a way that all readers will find beautiful, and even poignant. Math enthusiasts, from high school students to professionals, will delight in the offbeat problems and lucid explanations in the letters.

For anyone whose life has been changed by a mentor, The Calculus of Friendship will be an unforgettable journey.

Find at “In fluxions” and “Take it to the limit”

In Search of Time: The Science of a Curious Dimension Dan...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:31:00 -0500

In Search of Time: The Science of a Curious Dimension

Dan Falk

Time surrounds us. It defines our experience of the world; it echoes through our every waking hour. Time is the very foundation of conscious experience. Yet as familiar as it is, time is also deeply mysterious. We cannot see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it. Yet we do feel it—or at least we think we feel it. No wonder poets, writers, philosophers, and scientists have grappled with time for centuries.

In his latest book, award-winning science writer Dan Falk chronicles the story of how humans have come to understand time over the millennia, and by drawing from the latest research in physics, psychology, and other fields, Falk shows how that understanding continues to evolve. In Search of Time begins with our earliest ancestors’ perception of time and the discoveries that led—with much effort—to the Gregorian calendar, atomic clocks, and “leap seconds.” Falk examines the workings of memory, the brain’s remarkable “bridge across time,” and asks whether humans are unique in their ability to recall the past and imagine the future. He explores the possibility of time travel, and the paradoxes it seems to entail. Falk looks at the quest to comprehend the beginning of time and how time—and the universe—may end. Finally, he examines the puzzle of time’s “flow,” and the remarkable possibility that the passage of time may be an illusion.

Entertaining, illuminating, and ultimately thought provoking, In Search of Time reveals what some of our most insightful thinkers have had to say about time, from Aristotle to Kant, from Newton to Einstein, and continuing with the brightest minds of today.

Find at “Time as material” and “Time passes”

Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950 ...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:28:00 -0500

Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950

Toward the Open Field brings together many of the great prose pieces—essays, letters, declarations, defenses, manifestos, and apologia—by the most influential European and American poets from the Romantics to the Symbolists, Surrealists, and Moderns. Hitherto uncollected and all in English, the work in this anthology follows the changing notions of what a poem is, what a poet is, and why we read a poem, tracing the development of stylistic and ideological strategies that have spawned our current, conflicting understandings of verse.

The book begins with Wordsworth’s 1802 “Preface” to the Lyrical Ballads and proceeds through 150 years of English language tradition, including the European poetries which greatly influenced it. These prose works allow the reader to share one of the great extended conversations by poets about poetry during a dynamic period of literary experimentation.

Includes work by Charles Baudelaire, Andre Breton, Aime Cesaire, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Langston Hughes, John Keats, Federico Garcia Lorca, Mina Loy, Stephane Mallarme, Marianne Moore, Charles Olson, Ezra Pound, Arthur Rimbaud, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Paul Valery, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, William Wordsworth and Louis Zukofsky.

How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One Stanley Fish Some...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:16:00 -0500

How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One

Stanley Fish

Some appreciate fine art; others appreciate fine wines. Stanley Fish appreciates fine sentences. The New York Times columnist and world-class professor has long been an aficionado of language: “I am always on the lookout for sentences that take your breath away, for sentences that make you say, ‘Isn’t that something?’ or ‘What a sentence!’” Like a seasoned sportscaster, Fish marvels at the adeptness of finely crafted sentences and breaks them down into digestible morsels, giving readers an instant play-by-play.

In this entertaining and erudite gem, Fish offers both sentence craft and sentence pleasure, skills invaluable to any writer (or reader). His vibrant analysis takes us on a literary tour of great writers throughout history—from William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Henry James to Martin Luther King Jr., Antonin Scalia, and Elmore Leonard. Indeed, How to Write a Sentence is both a spirited love letter to the written word and a key to understanding how great writing works; it is a book that will stand the test of time.

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us James...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:16:00 -0500

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us

James W. Pennebaker

We spend our lives communicating. In the last fifty years, we’ve zoomed through radically different forms of communication, from typewriters to tablet computers, text messages to tweets. We generate more and more words with each passing day. Hiding in that deluge of language are amazing insights into who we are, how we think, and what we feel.

In The Secret Life of Pronouns, social psychologist and language expert James W. Pennebaker uses his groundbreaking research in computational linguistics-in essence, counting the frequency of words we use-to show that our language carries secrets about our feelings, our self-concept, and our social intelligence. Our most forgettable words, such as pronouns and prepositions, can be the most revealing: their patterns are as distinctive as fingerprints.

Using innovative analytic techniques, Pennebaker X-rays everything from Craigslist advertisements to the Federalist Papers-or your own writing, in quizzes you can take yourself-to yield unexpected insights. Who would have predicted that the high school student who uses too many verbs in her college admissions essay is likely to make lower grades in college? Or that a world leader’s use of pronouns could reliably presage whether he led his country into war? You’ll learn why it’s bad when politicians use “we” instead of “I,” what Lady Gaga and William Butler Yeats have in common, and how Ebenezer Scrooge’s syntax hints at his self-deception and repressed emotion. Barack Obama, Sylvia Plath, and King Lear are among the figures who make cameo appearances in this sprightly, surprising tour of what our words are saying-whether we mean them to or not.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Nassim...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:15:00 -0500

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”

For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.

Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. **The Black Swan **is a landmark book–itself a black swan.

*2nd Edition, With a new essay: “On Robustness and Fragility”

Find at “Books furnish life” and “Broken windows work” and “The swingset manifesto”

Self-Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson Redefining the classic...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:13:04 -0500

Self-Reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Redefining the classic essay, this modern edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s most famous work, Self-Reliance, includes self-reflections from both historical and contemporary luminaries. With quotes from the likes of Henry Ford and Helen Keller to modern-day thought leaders like Jesse Dylan, Steve Pressfield, and Milton Glaser, we’re reminded of the relevance of Emerson’s powerful words today. Emerson’s words are timeless. Persuasive and convincing, he challenges readers to define their own sense of accomplishment and asks them to measure themselves against their own standards, not those of society. This famous orator has utter faith in individualism and doesn’t invoke beyond what is humanly possible, he just believes deeply that each of us is capable of greatness. He asks us to define that greatness for ourselves and to be true to ourselves. At times harsh, at times comforting, Emerson’s words guide the reader to challenge their own beliefs and sense of self. This modern edition of Self-Reliance is ideal for graduates or those who are in the midst of a career or lifestyle change. Emerson’s sage guidance wrapped in modern-day reflections is a great reminder about the potential within us all and that life is what you make of it.

Style: The art of writing well F. L. Lucas “The best book on...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:12:00 -0500

Style: The art of writing well

F. L. Lucas

“The best book on the art of writing that I know is F. L. Lucas’ Style”. (Joseph Epstein, “New Criterion”, June 2011). This is one of the greatest ever guides to writing well. Legendary among writers and critics, but lost for almost 40 years, it is now back in a beautiful new edition, and remains as entertaining and informative as ever. There’s no better companion for exploring just what it means to write stylish prose - and how it can be achieved.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Anne...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:11:00 -0500

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Anne Lamott

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

Find at “You need your broccoli” and “Broccoli” and “Histories of the traveling libraries”

Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:10:56 -0500

Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York (Vintage)

Adam Gopnik

Not long after Adam Gopnik returned to New York at the end of 2000 with his wife and two small children, they witnessed one of the great and tragic events of the city’s history. In his sketches and glimpses of people and places, Gopnik builds a portrait of our altered New York: the changes in manners, the way children are raised, our plans for and accounts of ourselves, and how life moves forward after tragedy. Rich with Gopnik’s signature charm, wit, and joie de vivre, here is the most under-examined corner of the romance of New York: our struggle to turn the glamorous metropolis that seduces us into the home we cannot imagine leaving.

Managing Oneself (Harvard Business Review Classics) Peter...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:06:49 -0500

Managing Oneself (Harvard Business Review Classics)

Peter Ferdinand Drucker

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: with ambition, drive, and talent, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession regardless of where you started out.

But with opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren’t managing their knowledge workers’ careers. Instead, you must be your own chief executive officer. That means it’s up to you to carve out your place in the world and know when to change course. And it’s up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive during a career that may span some 50 years.

In Managing Oneself, Peter Drucker explains how to do it. The keys: Cultivate a deep understanding of yourself by identifying your most valuable strengths and most dangerous weaknesses. Articulate how you learn and work with others and what your most deeply held values are. Describe the type of work environment where you can make the greatest contribution.

Only when you operate with a combination of your strengths and self-knowledge can you achieve true and lasting excellence. Managing Oneself identifies the probing questions you need to ask to gain the insights essential for taking charge of your career.

Peter Drucker was a writer, teacher, and consultant. His thirty-four books have been published in more than seventy languages. He founded the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, and counseled thirteen governments, public services institutions, and major corporations.

On Natural Selection (Penguin Great Ideas) Charles...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:02:30 -0500

On Natural Selection (Penguin Great Ideas)

Charles Darwin

Published amid a firestorm of controversy in 1859, this is a book that changed the world. Reasoned and well-documented in its arguments, it offers coherent views of natural selection, adaptation, the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, and other concepts that form the foundation of evolutionary theory.

Art Talk: Conversations With 15 Women Artists, Revised And...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:00:44 -0500

Art Talk: Conversations With 15 Women Artists, Revised And Enlarged Edition (Icon Editions)

Cindy Nemser

Interviews with 15 important women artists reveal insights on art and feminism in a book that “fills an important gap in contemporary art critical scholarship” (Howard Conant, New York University). This revised edition features 3 new artists.

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art Scott Mccloud Praised...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:00:00 -0500

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Scott Mccloud

Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, this innovative comic book provides a detailed look at the history, meaning, and art of comics and cartooning.

Here is New York E.B. White Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic,...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:58:26 -0500

Here is New York

E.B. White

Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, E.B. White’s stroll around Manhattan remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America’s foremost literary figures. The New York Times has named Here is New York one of the ten best books ever written about the metropolis, and The New Yorker calls it “the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.