Last week I re-read Ender’s Game. Excellent book, though I have trouble suspending my disbelief to the extent of buying in to the idea of kids under the age of 10 discussing such deep topics. I’m left assuming that Ender and his peers were the result of a program aimed at producing geniuses, but such is never actually stated. Despite this quibble, the book is all in all a most excellent read. (This would be a great opportunity to include a link to the extra copy I put on PaperBackSwap, but it was gone within 24 hours.)
The idea of Locke and Demosthenes makes some degree of sense within the context of the book, and I can sort of imagine a variation of Peter’s gambit playing out in the scope of today’s blogosphere. (There are after all a few “superstars” out there, but they’re mostly bloggers, not commenters.)
Through a fluke of excellent timing, I finished reading Ender’s Game on Monday and on Friday, XKCD had a strip based on one of Valentine’s and Peter’s discussions. (The squirrel in the strip fared much better than any of the ones in the book however.)
Tag Archives: Books
Books for Trade
Back in August, I found about PaperBackSwap from a post on Marauder’s blog. So far, I’ve only managed to send out 17 books, so it’s not done a great deal to help in my efforts to disenclutter, but at the same time, I’ve also received 8 books I’d never read before. So in that regard, it’s at least helping me save a little money as part of my personal economic stimulus plan.
A couple days ago, The Washington Post ran an article about PaperbackSwap. My only fear is that as Spider Robinson pointed out some years ago, being “discovered” is the worst thing that can happen to local bars and restaurants. What I’m hoping though is that more publicity perhaps means more people requesting books and thereby helping with my efforts to disenclutter.
Can I interest you in a book? 🙂