SPOILERS TO FOLLOW:

It does seem like it couldn't have ended any other way, but I was just a bit thrown off by it. I don't think his actions are completely wrong (with respect to using the graduate's work without giving him credit). The reason is that, the work is more important than who gets credit and Beard certainly deserves a lot of credit for making it work. If the incentive of fame was necessary for him to do the work, then it is worth it.
He should have done it through the organization though. His ego hindered a true breakthrough for the world. Hopefully, people in the book will be able to use those achievements for the better of humankind (even if it only is fiction)

Just got 5 books from the library:
We / Yevgeny Zamyatin
2001 A Space Odyssey / Arthur C Clarke
Armageddon's Children / Terry Brooks
Neuromancer / William Gibson
The Day of the Triffids / John Wyndam

We'll see how it goes...

It seemed to me that the central point was that despite our idealistic view of how life should be conducted, such things as scientific research get driven by--and distorted by--personal ego. No matter how much is at stake. It's a cynical view and not always true, I'm sure--but Beard epitomizes the dangers of that happening.

Reading Zadie Smith's essays on Wallace, Nabokov, Kafka, etc.

When she's not obtuse and doesn't strain for effect (the aforementioned being maladies that afflict approx. 1/5th of her sentences), she is absolutely excellent. She's British, so I audialize her words in a British accent.

---

Also, Phillip Larkin's poems.

Finished Never Let Me Go...so amazingly written. It's incredibly sad and hopeful. I've never seen anyone get so right the reality of relationships between friends/lovers/family. How we're mostly alone in the world and even the ones who love us don't really understand or fully know us.

I'm about half way through Joe Posnanski's book on Buck O'Neil (The Heart of Baseball). It's very good.

A big fan of the tv series, I'm working my way through the Dexter books. I'm about halfway through Darkly Dreaming Dexter and feel very pleased. The television show changed just enough that the book offers quite a few different plot twists. I can't wait to get to Book III, what it seems all fans judge as one of the worst books they've ever read.

Agree, the books are fun. Good, light reading. But seriously just run from book 3, its quite possibly the worst thing I've ever read.

You realize, of course, that now there's no way I can stop myself?

i think you can skip book 3 and go straight to book 4 and not miss anyting linearly

Seriously: skip book 3. It is not worth it. I am a big fan of the TV show and also of the books. And I never made it through book 3 because it sucks too much.

How odd. Book 4 picks back up in quality? Why do you think he had such a sudden spike? Don't give away what's so horrible about it. I'm looking forward to finding that out myself. But any speculation as to why the book sucks would be appreciated. Maybe he felt affected by the sudden success of the TV show?

To me it seems like if he wanted to reach a new audience - and failed miserably.

i believe he just didn't put any effort into book 3. or he got so far into it with a bad idea, he didn't have the will to change or tell his publisher it wouldnt be ready in time.

i'm 99% sure jeff lindsay regrets putting out book 3. its like he wrote it while drunk or something

I just finished The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk. This is a re-read by me from about twenty years ago. It is a biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the preeminent philosopher of the twentieth century.

What has sort of been lost with time is that Wittgenstein had his day in the sun last century with respect to non academia culture. He had poems written about him, was the subject of several TV programs and was the subject of a reasonably successful fictionalized novel (The World as Found It by Bruce Duffy). Various memoirs were written about him, some by people who barely knew him.

And all of this hubbub about a philosopher who published maybe 75,000 words in his lifetime some of which consisted of a children's dictionary. This biography not only covers his life but is also serves as a primer of his philosophy and seeks to show the connection between his life and his philosophical work.

Where this book fell down for me was I don't think the author connected Wittgenstein's work with the impact that he had on philosophy very well. When the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was published (all 75 pages of it) Wittgenstein immediately became the central figure in philosophy. But this is not fleshed out very well in the book.

It is highly readable book and I recommend it. It does expose Wittgenstein's warts and shows him to be far from a perfect, happy human being. A fair and balanced look at a very interesting and strange genius.

In light of recent events unfolding in Pakistan, I decided to re-start Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory.

I can't put it down now for two reasons - the Tillman story is fascinating, and it alternates that with a very decent background of the region's history as well.

Nice post. I'll add to your observation about their being a novel about Wittgenstein (what is it called, by the way?), by observing that there are two novels with his name in the title. One is Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988), by David Markson, which has been recommended by posters in this thread and is said to be one of the important experimental American novels. The other is Wittgenstein's Nephew (1982), by the Austrian author Thomas Bernhard. I read that a few weeks ago, curious about Bernhard chiefly because of the way he's alluded to in Franzen's Freedom. I didn't like it much, though some regard it, and more generally the very bitter Bernhard, highly.

Reading Ishiguro's the Remain of the Day now....not sure if I'm going to like it - I want to slap the main character repeatedly.

Since I recently bought the B&N Nook, I've started to really go after the public domain books, in particular I'm going to make an attempt to clean up the B&N "Classics" list, which is about 180 books, of which I have already read maybe 25. With that in mind I started with:

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. Now, I read books for lots of different reasons. Sometimes I read to learn. Sometimes I read so that I have some awareness of a book which is a fundamental part of the culture in which I live, or because it is a milestone in some form of writing, an "experience not to be missed." Sometimes I read for fun. Maybe 3-4% of the time I find a book that meets just about every category. This book does that in spades. What an amazing book. It takes maybe 30-40 pages to get over the translation effects and the cultural aspects of reading a book written >150 years ago, in a country I've never been to. But even that adjustment period flies by as you get to know one of the most fascinating characters in literature, Raskolnikov. It maybe says something about me that I identify with this character so much, but he really is fantastically deep, and certainly not a "protagonist" or "antihero" or anything as succinct as that. I'm really not sure at all, after reading it once, if he is the good guy or the bad guy (although I am sure he is not purely either) but I guess I'd say something like 60/40 bad guy? Certainly pathetic, weak, bright, vicious, inconsiderate. Great book.

While plowing through that I read Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer, which is a nonfiction tale about the world of Memory Competitions, which is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds. Also The Name of the Wind and The Wise Mans Fear by Patrick Rothfuss on recommendations from this thread. Everything is Obvious...once you know the answer by journalist Duncan Watts is a really good primer into why common sense is really misleading in specific, but crucial, circumstances.

And currently reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, since I enjoyed C&P so much, and havent read any Russian literature, figured I'd give it a shot. Not grabbing me like C&P did, at least not through the first 150 pages, but I'll finish it up.

Great reading list. But loving Dostoyevsky doesn't necessarily mean you'll love Tolstoy. Indeed, it's been argued (though I don't really buy it) that you must choose one or the other--and that they represent a fork in the history of fiction ...

I'm the Markson fan although a couple of others may have read it too. I also recommend the film Wittgenstein by Derek Jarmon.

[QUOTE Nice post. I'll add to your observation about their being a novel about Wittgenstein (what is it called, by the way?) QUOTE]

http://www.amazon.com/World-As-I-Found/dp/0899194567

I haven't read it so I can't say how it is. Four and half stars on Amazon for whatever that is worth.

I will be reading The Shining soon. Someone tell me it's good stuff.

Thoughts? I absolutely loved these 2 books.

It's good stuff.

Minor Disclaimer: I haven't read it.