Monday, December 22, 2008

Happy Nerd.

my current job leaves me plenty of time to read, which is, well, fabulous! been reading a LOT, and I couldn't be happier. i'm a happy nerd.

Still on the law kick, we've got one serious book, and one not so serious book:
With Liberty and Justice for Some, a A Critique of the Conservative Supreme Court, by David Kairys could more accurately be called "I hate William Renquist", which is okay, since the guy sounds like a total jerk. This short but heavy read offers a few supreme court cases over the last hundred years on the most controversial topics, such as privacy, freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and discrimination. I haven't yet got the education or vocabulary to understand everything Kairys was saying, but I enjoyed what I got out of it, and it's whetted my appetite to learn more about the Supreme Court, and how their decisions affect our futures. and i think, that was the point of the book.

You Can Get Arrested for That, by Richard Smith, is about two very bored Brits who come across one of those "dumb laws across America" books, and decide to break some laws! These two men are a far as it comes from being criminals, except if you include all of their illegal orange peeling in hotel rooms, and fishing while wearing pajamas, and whale hunting in Utah. it's a funny book, but I found myself skimming along quite a bit, waiting for them to break the next law. the book probably would have made a better blog.

and speaking of blogs that became books, check out Passive Agressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings, which really is all the images from Kerry Miller's blog. Now if only the chick from Cakewrecks, or the dude from xkcd would make a book, my life would be complete. But the Passive Agressive book is very funny, i'm sure everyone either knows someone who has left a note like that, or is guilty of doing it themselves. and it's all pictures, you'll get through the entire little book in like an hour.

only one fiction book today, that's odd.

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which is simply put, about a little orphan boy who is adopted by some ghosts, and they raise him in the graveyard where they live. Not having much experience with living children, the ghosts do the best they can in raising. I vaguely recall this book getting less than stellar reviews from book snobs when it first came out, and i think that critics will no longer accept bedtime stories from Gaiman. and this is a lovely, simple, elegant bedtime story about a little boy. I really like it.

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