Fiction
Non-Fiction
TheMost Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means toBe Alive By Brian Christian
Very Honorable
Mention
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2014
TheMost Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means toBe Alive By Brian Christian
What I’m Reading and Listening To Now
Highly recommended books of 2014 (descriptions from Amazon).
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Station Eleven may
take place during the end of civilization, but don’t make the mistake of
discounting it as just another apocalyptic tale. The narrative shifts between
past and present and follows five characters, each connected in some fateful
way. We begin on a stage, where a world-famous actor suddenly dies while
performing King Lear, and jump to Year 20, where a group known as the Traveling
Symphony Orchestra travels between settlements, performing Shakespeare to
captivated audiences. The result is a fascinating, suspenseful story that,
despite its setting, is anything but bleak.
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism and Michael
Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman
On November 21, 1961, Michael C. Rockefeller, the
23-year-old son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, vanished off the coast
of southwest New Guinea when his catamaran capsized while crossing a turbulent
river mouth. He was on an expedition to collect art for the Museum of Primitive
Art, which his father had founded in 1957, and his expedition partner - who
stayed with the boat and was later rescued - shared Michael's final words as he
swam for help: "I think I can make it."
Despite exhaustive searches, no trace of Rockefeller was
ever found. Soon after his disappearance, rumors surfaced that he'd been killed
and ceremonially eaten by the local Asmat - a native tribe of warriors whose
complex culture was built around sacred, reciprocal violence, head hunting, and
ritual cannibalism. Combining history, art, colonialism, adventure, and
ethnography, Savage Harvest is
a mesmerizing whodunit, and a fascinating portrait of the clash between two
civilizations that resulted in the death of one of America's richest and most
powerful scions.
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