Sunday, December 17, 2006

Beach Reading

I'm off for a week. I might write and I might not. Here's what I'll be reading, when my 6 year old gives me the chance.

Denise Caruso's Intervention. A look at the challenges we've created through genetic engineering. Caruso, who founded Hybrid Vigor, an institute devoted to interdisciplinary thinking, brings an unparalleled wisdom and way of thinking to this important debate. And Steven Johnson agrees.

John Maeda's Simplicity. In some ways this is the opposite of Intervention. And in many ways one creates the need for the other. Maeda is a brilliant multi-disciplinary thinker who impresses upon us the need for making the complex simple. His book, a 100 page wonder, (which I discovered post-purchase was edited by Jesse Scanlon, friend of a friend and a great writer on innovation at BusinessWeek.com) is 1) a model for me in terms of what a book needs to be nowadays and 2) one I will read and re-read. Plus:
Claire Messud, The Emperor's Children.
Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
Elizabeth George, What Came Before He Shot Her.

Because life needs fiction.



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