Tuesday, August 29, 2006

10: The Starship and the Canoe, Kenneth Brower

Touted as a double biography on the back cover, it's a collection of stories, mostly about George Dyson, Freeman Dyson's son. The author is openly more sympathetic to George than to Freeman and seems ignorant when it comes to Freeman's work. The science writing is fluff, making the canoe bits more interesting than the spaceship bits.

9: A Smattering of Ignorance, Oscar Levant

I bought this though I already had Memoirs of an Amnesiac sitting around mostly unread. (Almost no book in my apartment is entirely unread; I usually browse the first few pages immediately after purchase.)

8: This Thing Called Swing, Christian Batchelor

The one book I bought while in Europe in July. I also read it that very month, mostly on the return transatlantic flight.