evka b's blog

Sketching User Experience

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design (Interactive Technologies

This book is great. Except that I think it is great for executives and other non-designers to understand design and the value it can offer. This title, however, is not going to get those people to buy this.

I initially bought the book for the bibliography (its fabulous) then I heard Buxton speak a and decided to read the book for the front and it was great (and Buxton was even more fabulous).

Away

Away: A Novel

This book was good but much like the series of books that I've read lately, it seems to have very little hope. This is not to say that nothing good happens, it just doesn't make me want to live very hard. 

Cracking The Whip, Caplan

Cracking The Whip: Essays On Design And Its Side Effects

I loved Caplan's book by design so could not resist this one. This is a collection of previously published essays, in I.D., Print, and other sources. They are gathered gently around topic, cover many years, and are mostly quite short.

He is as always insightful, well written,curious, and personal in his touch.

What really fascinates me is that I could not write these essays, as he does. Part of it is the topics he choses - he is not digital, as a different flavor of context, and weaves in and out of the world in a way that I do not think of. Why does this fascinate me? Most writers style, tone, voice, particularly essays on design, I find easy to step in to. As I read I absorb their flow, I can produce sentences, structures, thoughts, in their manner. I have the same ability with foreign languages. It is as though I absorb them through my skin and can become them. Caplan's essays are not in this realm. It is as though they have non-permeable edges. It is rare to read something that I cannot climb inside of and become part of, should I so desire. I don't feel anything negative for this, I feel no envy for his beautiful style and vision, but I feel grave curiousity for who this man is that controls his world in this way, his vision, his design principles and his words.

The book is beautifully designed, as was by design, and the framing of his photo, the straightforward image, the expression, the eyes, it engages me further into this world that is, so oddly, simply not mine, except to borrow.



A link to my comments on by design http://karenh.vox.com/library/post/by-design-why-there-are-no-locks-on-the-bathroom-doors-in-the-hotel-louis-xiv-and-other-object-less.html

Faust in Copenhagen,Segre

Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics

Segre is a great writer. [how do i make an accent for his name? the poor man, i am misspelling him. he needs an accent grave on the final e.]  The book would be a pleasure to read, even if I weren't in love with physics, physicists, and history.

This book is set around the 1932 annual gathering at Bohr's institute in Copenhagen. It is a year of amazing breakthroughs in quantum mechanics, a year of upheavals in European history, and the beginning of paths that were not considered. War, holocaust, nuclear capabilities. The group splits - some escaping the nazi's, some working with them.

Threaded through the stories of individual lives, physics, and love, is the telling of a skit of Faust, recreated by the younger physicists, and a retelling of the brilliance of Goethe.

Highly recommend this one.




n.b. there are a few new physics books out, one on uncertainty, one or two on einstein, etc. i have them all but have only read this one so far.

In A Different Voice, Gilligan

In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development

This book is a few decades old. 80s I believe.

Psychology and development studies having been historically based on male development and Gilligan addresses this, as well as the differences in moral development which tend to show that women are less developed. Women tend to make decisions based on relationships and an attempt to keep all involved parties from being hurt, whereas men tend to make decisions based on logic and rules and justice.

Intertwined with her discussion of the above is a discussion of women and their responsibility for self, for identity, for voice, in an environment where self-sacrifice by women tends to be a priority.

Fairly theory heavy and not an easy read though once I got in to it I read the entire book in one sitting and took a great deal of notes on some of her theories, to consider when I have a bit more time.

The Unknown Terrorist, Flanagan

The Unknown Terrorist: A Novel

 Just didn't really feel like it hit the mark. It is the story of a woman who is misidentified as a terrorist and the media frenzy that destroys her life. It is some what purposefully started by a man who is angry at her, but he too soon believes as most everyone else that this woman must be an evildoer.

Tepid.

The Welsh Girl

The Welsh Girl

This book says 'Long Listed for the Booker Prize' on its little sticker. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

Probably not short listed because it lacked the requisite incest. Long-listed because it does include rape. What is up with the Commonwealth?

There is a really nice word in this book, welsh, cynefin. It applies to sheep that know where they belong and do not go outside of that space. It is apparently matrilineal in these sheep. (I do not know if this is true.)

It was an enjoyable book that sort of slides to an end in a comfortable space. As though there is a simple rightness to having a place that you belong and finding yourself in it.

On Love and Loneliness, Krishnamurti

On Love and Loneliness

Krishnamurti's books tend to be collections of conversations or lectures he has given. As such they are often very repetitive.

This book considers our relationship with ourselves as the basis of our relationships with others, as well as directly considering the relationships we have with others.

I'm tempted to leap into a philosophical discussion on his topics, but shall refrain! (You are thanking me, even if you are unawares.)

Krishnamurti is almost an acquired taste I think. Perhaps it simple requires a desire to think, reflect, and evaluate. No real reason to read him otherwise.

A House of Meetings, Amis

House of Meetings (Vintage International)

I'm a bit stumped as to what to write about this book.

I am as always impressed with Amis as a writer. His books are so very diverse in topic, structure, style, in a way that is not often seen.

There is a bluntness in this book, on the part of the narrator, who is an unabashed rapist at war, because that is what was done at war. He is recounting at the end of his life, all of the things that he has done, as he travels through place back to where the ending began.

A Final Exam, Chen

Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality (Vintage)

Similar books are much more readable. Particularly brought to my Atul Gawandes' books, which were much better done.