I've Been Reading

I've always enjoyed having eclectic tastes, and as I get back into the habit of reading and expanding my library, I'm finding that this habit is spreading to that area, too. Books that I'm planning on buying in the future run the gamut from Richard Stallman's Free Software Free Society to Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic series to Aquinas' Suma Theologica to the complete writings of A.A. Milne to the Feynman Lectures on Physics to The Tale of Genji.

On the immediate list of summer reading, though, we have:

Free Culture (completed)

The Geek Gap, (completed)

The Life of Pi

Neverwhere
edit 7-3-08: (completed)

WLT: A Radio Romance

Atomic Robo & The Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne

And probably a few others that I either haven't thought of yet or have momentarily forgotten my desire to read.

That said, I thought I'd share some brief thoughts on the first two on the list, as they're the headiest of my currently planned reading...you know, and the two that I've finished.

Free Culture is a very interesting read. Through stories and examples, Lessig shows us the history of copyright law, the challenges it faces from P2P file sharing and the internet in general, and how publishers and major content owners have encouraged law makers to completely overreact to these threats in an effort to even further expand the power of copyright holders over the development of culture. Being written in 2004, it displays remarkable foresight about how the internet and user generated content could affect the mainstream culture, but it's a bit out of date, too, with most content providers have learned to work with the internet. Copyright is still a major issue, but at least the potential of the internet as a means of distribution has been embraced. These days, I'd be interested in hearing more of what Prof. Lessig would have to say about the DMCA (which is only discussed briefly) and Net Neutrality.

Obviously, I'm more than a bit of an academic and something of a Lefty Lucy; so I tend to be a major supporter of the concept of the public domain. Those of you who are more artistically inclined may be interested to see how things like the current Orphaned Works legislation draw directly from Lessig's ideas for "improving" copyright.


The Geek Gap has been similarly enlightening. It says a lot of things about technologists that I've been noticing a lot lately, but wasn't certain how universal they were (for instance, a general tendency to focus on process over product). If you want to better understand the geeks in your life, you may want to check it out. It could be helpful for geeks trying to understand the business environment, too; but most of the geeks I know tend to be able to comprehend that mindset, it just takes a conscious refocusing.

That's about it, I guess. If you have any suggestions for reading, I'd love to hear them.

edit 7-3-08:
Additions to the list:
Brave New World
Snow Crash
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom