Category: books

David Foster Wallace – THIS IS WATER

On By Rick McIn books, education, philosophy2 Comments

Brilliant.

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College.

However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested. However, we encourage everyone to seek out the full speech (because, in this case, the book is definitely better than the movie).

-The Glossary

It’s no finger wagging Dr Laura sermon. 🙂

Here’s the full speech.

David Foster Wallace committed suicide September 12, 2008. He had suffered depression for over 20 years.

Dan and Audrey. RTW travel.

On By Rick McIn books, movies, travelLeave a comment

Warren recommended a travel blog called Uncornered Market.

south african kids

Check a sample – South Africa: From in the Books to on the Ground

Daniel Noll & Audrey Scott are the husband-and-wife storytelling and photography team behind Uncornered Market. They travel deep and off-beat, aiming to connect the world through people, food and adventure. Six years and 75 countries later, they are still going…and still married …

I’m looking at a couple of future Round The World trips right now.

reading PDFs on an iPad mini

On By Rick McIn Apple, audiocasts, booksLeave a comment

I’ve pretty much given up reading long form, preferring aural. Audio books. Audiocasts.

But when I had an original screenplay to review, I tried reading it on iPad.

Seems iBooks is the best app.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Why don’t apps have a required HELP function?

I had to experiment to discover the various swipe functions for navigation.

Anyway … it worked great. I may try an entire book on Mini next.

related – I get the entire issue of Economist magazine in audio podcast format. Weekly. Free.

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

On By Rick McIn books, ethicsLeave a comment

Disgrace is a novel by J. M. Coetzee, published in 1999. It won the Booker Prize. The writer was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature four years after its publication.

David Lurie is a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his own daughter. …

His “disgrace” comes when he almost forcibly seduces one of his more vulnerable students which is thereafter revealed to the school and a committee is convened to pass judgement on his actions. David refuses to apologize in any sincere form and so is forced to resign from his post. …

… he takes refuge on his daughter’s farm in the Eastern Cape. For a time, his daughter’s influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. Shortly after becoming comfortable with rural life, he is forced to come to terms with the aftermath of an attack on the farm in which his daughter is raped and impregnated and he is violently assaulted. …

disgrace

Dark.

Thought provoking.

Very well written.

Fast paced, succinct and compelling to read.

I wouldn’t recommend you read it, however. Pick a more uplifting book.

The Power of One, perhaps.

related – The film Disgrace, starring John Malkovich as the professor, premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Prize of the International Critics.

Roger Ebert on travel

On By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

I came across a statistic the other day that claimed only about ten percent of Americans have traveled outside their country. There is no reason for this. The recession is not an explanation …

… I count among my friends the most-traveled man in history, Paul Theroux. Not only has he written many wonderful novels and short stories, but a shelf of travel books. …

He is the most widely-read man I know, and he suffers my company because I have heard of Mrs. Gaskell and Oliver Onions, and I share his opinion that for a book to read on a journey, nobody beats Simenon.

I told him one quiet afternoon that with his eyes he had seen more of the surface of the earth at ground level than any other man had, and any other man ever would. He said he had never thought of it that way. …

Has travel broadened him? He says not. He is rather notorious for having written, “Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation; and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.” …

Why then, does Theroux travel? “The greatest justification for travel,” he wrote in Dark Star Safari, “is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace. …

A slow boat to anywhere (2009)

I rather doubt that Theroux, one of my favourite writers, is the most traveled man. But he’s up there.

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Life of Pi

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

Great book.

And a remarkably skillful film adaption by Ang Lee.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Life of Pi 4 out of 4 stars, referring to it as “a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery” as well as “one of the best films of the year.” He particularly praised the film’s use of 3D that he described as “deepen[ing] the film’s sense of places and events.”

I was enthralled the entire time. The CGI didn’t bother me even once.

Hoping to see it again, but next time in 3D. 🙂

your life story in print – $1350

On By Rick McIn books, friendsLeave a comment

Anne Farries will interview you — or more likely one of your parents or grandparents — and write up a biography. And print 6 copies.

Great idea. 🙂

confidentialinquiries (a) farriesbiographies.ca
1-855-756-9185

Details on her new website – FarriesBiographies.ca

Farries

I see she’s already got the cover photo for my own life story. 🙂

the truth about Jessica Lynch

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

In war, truth is the first casualty.

Aeschylus

41606996-jessica-lynch

Jessica Lynch (born April 26, 1983) is a former United States Army soldier who served in Iraq during the 2003 invasion by U.S. and allied forces.

On March 23, 2003, Private First Class Lynch was serving as a unit supply specialist with the 507th Maintenance Company when her convoy was ambushed by Iraqi forces during the Battle of Nasiriyah. …

… Actually, she was in a convoy of cooks and mechanics who got lost driving at night, sadly driving right into the heart of Iraqi controlled Nasiriyah. By accident.

Many were killed unnecessarily. Her friend, Lori Piestewa, leading the convoy was one of them.

Lynch was seriously injured and captured. Her subsequent recovery by U.S. Special Operations Forces on April 1, 2003 received considerable media coverage and was the first successful rescue of an American prisoner of war since Vietnam and the first ever of a woman.

Of course the rescue wouldn’t have been necessary if a U.S. convoy could read a map. Follow the GPS.

Bush press aid Jim Wilkinson was blamed for spinning and exaggerating the story. Later he was cleared of most of the blame for headlines like this.

Lynch kept firing until she ran out of ammo

lynch_headline_post

The media, quick to accept unsubstantiated reports, are more to blame.

… On April 24, 2007, she testified in front of Congress that she had never fired her weapon; her M16 rifle jammed, and that she had been knocked unconscious when her vehicle crashed. Lynch has been outspoken in her criticism of the original stories reported regarding her combat experience. When asked about her heroine status, she stated “That wasn’t me. I’m not about to take credit for something I didn’t do… I’m just a survivor.” …

I believe she’s a teacher now. And a Mom.

Don’t trust politicians. Especially in times of war. Especially this guy.

Bush catapulg

Catapult the propoganda. (VIDEO)

In war, casualties are the second casualty.

related – I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story

Krakauer – Pat Tillman and American Wars

On By Rick McIn bad news, books, economics, governmentLeave a comment

Tillman500Pat Tillman, a free-thinking, hard-hitting safety for the Arizona Cardinals, walked away from a multimillion-dollar contract after 9/11 to enlist in the Army.

He joined an elite unit, the Rangers, and was killed on April 22, 2004, in a canyon in eastern Afghanistan.

The story did not end there: Tillman’s commanders and possibly officials in the Bush administration suppressed that he had been killed accidentally by his own comrades. They publicly lionized Tillman as a hero who died fighting the enemy and fed the phony account even to Tillman’s grieving family. The sordid truth, or most of it, came out later.

The best-selling author Jon Krakauer … told the full story in “Where Men Win Glory.” …

read more in the NY Times review by Dexter Filkins, author of “The Forever War.”

I read everything Krakauer writes. An odd guy, he’s one of our best living writers.

Why did Krakauer pick Tillman?

PAT TILLMAN

The story is symbolic of the disaster of the USA invading the Middle East.

What did cost?

What did the American people gain from invading Iraq and Afghanistan?

It’s unlikely the USA will ever again have enough money to engage in a war that ineffective.

I recommend the book. Especially for any young people considering joining any Military.

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Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

related:

Pat’s brother Kevin wrote an anti-war essay titled Revisiting ‘After Pat’s Birthday’

Pat’s Mom Mary Tillman – Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman

Pat’s wife Marie Tillman – The Letter: My Journey Through Love, Loss, and Life

whither Lonely Planet?

On By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

I’m gone again

MARCH
14-15 – London, England
18-22 – Nigeria
23-30 – Senegal

APRIL
1-17 – South Africa (holiday)
6-10 – Otter Trail
18-21 – NCAA WAG Championships, Los Angeles

3596-Southern_Africa_Travel_Guide_LargeI’m traveling with Lonely Planet South Africa. The book, not the downloadable PDF chapters.

… Up until 2008, the guidebook industry had few signs that the bottom would soon fall out of their business. Sure, website usage was up — both on some of their own sites and digital-only competitors — and user-generated sites like TripAdvisor were eating some of their cake, but sales were solid.

In 2007, combined U.S. sales from the big five travel publishers that represent over 80% of the market (Frommer’s, Dorling Kindersley, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s, and Avalon’s Moon/Rick Steves) were just over $125 million, according to Stephen Mesquita’s “World Travel Guides Market” report for Nielsen BookScan. The following five years were tough, to say the least: By 2012 combined sales had dropped nearly 40% to $78 million. …

gb-revenues

Lonely Planet and the rapid decline of the printed guidebook

Exclusive: BBC selling Lonely Planet to Kentucky cigarette billionaire Brad Kelley:

… What Kelley and his team plans to do with Lonely Planet is confounding insiders — including the irony that a historically environmentally forward-thinking brand like LP will now be owned by someone who made a fortune with cigarettes and now is a land-buying environmental conservationist.

Who knows?

I’m a lot more excited about Google buying Frommer’s for $23 million.