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The Best American Essays 2004 (The Best American Series)
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The Best American Essays of the Century (The Best American Series)
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My Comment:
"best" essays. yikes! that would require some serious thinking; I choose to outsource this to people smarter than me and working from a much larger dataset than me
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The Best American Essays 2005 (The Best American Series )
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My Comment:
information gatekeepers rule
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In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction
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My Comment:
creative nonfiction is a large field; choosing an information gatekeeper is time well spent
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The Best American Magazine Writing 2005 (Best American Magazine Writing)
, Nicholas Lemann
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My Comment:
information gatekeepers rule
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The Best American Magazine Writing 2004 (Best American Magazine Writing)
, American Society of Magazine Editor
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My Rating:
My Comment:
information gatekeepers rule
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The Best American Magazine Writing 2003 (Best American Magazine Writing)
, American Society of Magazine Editor
(More book details)
My Rating:
My Comment:
information gatekeepers rule
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The Best American Magazine Writing 2002 (Best American Magazine Writing)
, American Society of Magazine Editor
(More book details)
My Rating:
My Comment:
I am a great believe in information gatekeepers. I think this series does a wonderful job of identifying the minuscule set of essay from which I will derive the greatest value.
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The Best American Magazine Writing 2001
, The American Society of Magazine Editors
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1998 Best Newspaper Writing: Winners : The American Society of Newspaper Editors Competition (Best Newspaper Writing)
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Best American Magazine Writing 2002
, Harold Evans
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Best American Magazine Writing
, Nicholas Lemann
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My Comment:
gatekeepers rule
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Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age
, Duncan J. Watts
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The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics
, William Easterly
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Informative. Interesting how not toeing the party line at the World Bank will get you canned.
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The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (P.S.)
, Virginia Postrel
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My Comment:
I've had umpteen years of Maslow and his hierarchy; alternative perspectives are most needed
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Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
, Suketu Mehta
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My Comment:
My view of the Indian diaspora has been all about model citizens (Fiji, Silicon Valley). The idea that some of them are the most heavy duty crims you can conceive of really opened my eyes.
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Shot in the Heart
, Mikal Gilmore
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My Comment:
I knew about Mikal Gilmore years before I knew about his brother Gary. The whole thing about blood atonement and one of the executioners has a blank cartridge (so you never know for sure if you are a ...
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Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
, Michael Lewis
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My Comment:
Stats analysis to identify and arbitrage underpriced assets.
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Everything Bad is Good for You
, Steven Johnson
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My Comment:
Articulated beliefs I have had about TV not necessarily being an unmitigated bad. Informed about the cognitive benefits of gaming.
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The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story
, Michael Lewis
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Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
, Malcolm Gladwell
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My Comment:
I have an overly data-driven, rational analysis world view. Any counterweights suggesting things I consider suspect (snap judgments, intuition, hunches) probably helps me to see the world more clearly...
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Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
, Michael Lewis
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High Fidelity
, Nick Hornby
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My Comment:
self-absorbed, immature, elvis-costello loving protagonist; who me?
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Shantaram: A Novel
, Gregory David Roberts
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My Comment:
Good novel. Some of the vignettes - standing babas, the highly stratified social order in the hellhole prison - I will never forget.
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The Wisdom of Crowds
, James Surowiecki
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My Comment:
Like "tipping point," the phrase has been subverted by people too stupid to read the book; as far as I can see, it now refers to the wisdom of the apple fanboiz and the digg bury brigade
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The Design of Everyday Things
, Donald A. Norman
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My Comment:
For me, a bit dated now. His later ideas about how the Google homepage is *not* the be-all and end-all of user interfaces resonates with me more.
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Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
, Steven D. Levitt
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My Comment:
the overlap between economics (incentives, decision science) and sociology is providing some of the most compelling non fiction I have read
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How to Be Good
, Nick Hornby
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My Comment:
female protagonist; attempting not to be a cynical shit; can't relate
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About a Boy
, Nick Hornby
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A Long Way Down
, Nick Hornby
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Fever Pitch
, Nick Hornby
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My Comment:
don't know much about soccer (sorry, the beautiful game, football), but do know a bit about obsession
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Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
, Jon Krakauer
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My Comment:
I used to live near Hill Palmyra, and I always thought the inability to unearth even a smidgen of archaeological evidence a tad suspect.
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The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
, Barry Schwartz
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My Comment:
Having been exposed the the work of Herbert Simon and the ideas of search cost and limits of cognitive power, I found this was very similar to my existing worldview.
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Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means
, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
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The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
, Malcolm Gladwell
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My Comment:
Most interesting thing about this is that it has entered the popular vernacular and has been stripped of its meaning. Now "tipping point" refers to any point in time any person deems as relevant. My u...
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The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
, Thomas L. Friedman
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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
, Chuck Klosterman
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My Comment:
So dense with pop culture references especially from TV and rock music, that I found I was missing his cleverness and nuance.
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The Kite Runner
, Khaled Hosseini
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My Comment:
As a novel I did not think it was so wonderful. But the setting (Afghanistan) and subject matter (Afghanis) made it hugely educational and humanized people who I have primarily been exposed to by TV i...
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