A fun and easy read about a wealthy man’s wager to tour around the world in eighty days through Asia, America and Europe. Verne brilliantly captured the excitement, the drama, the determination and resourcefulness required to complete a tour around the world, although he painted a negative picture of Asian and native American cultures. “Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?” You bet […]
Read moreCategory: Art
“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne
An Eye-opening, Jaw-dropping Book I remember watching a movie production (1954) of the book as a child. I loved it so much that I wished the movie would not end. Listening to the audiobook years later brings back all the wonders and much more. Imagine you can explore the width and depth of all the oceans at will, all the marine species, all the natural wonders that have never been […]
Read more“From the Earth to the Moon” by Jules Verne
Verne’s humor shines brightly all the way through this book. He makes good-humored fun of almost everybody and every nation under the sun. For a while, I thought I was reading a political satire. So funny and yet so true. But of course, it’s no laughing matter to send men to the moon. Verne again impresses me with his detailed scientific knowledge, his prophetic and poetic vision of men’s relation […]
Read more“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Listened to an audiobook version of the novel, narrated by Alexander Scourby. A story about dashed American dreams and lost love, written in a crisp, wisecracking style. Rich imagery, but vacuous content. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . So we […]
Read more“The Nature of Order: A Vision of A Living World” by Christopher Alexander
The last of Christopher Alexander’s books that I read. It left me in a somewhat melancholy mood. In this book, Alexander gives a few examples (mostly from classical cultures and his own works) of buildings and neighborhoods that have life in them. I catch a glimpse of the “vision of a living world”, but also realize for the first time how fragmented and unwholesome the modern buildings are. Just as […]
Read more“Notes on the Synthesis of Form” by Christopher Alexander
A Real Design Problem “We are searching for some kind of harmony between two intangibles: a form which we have not yet designed, and a context which we cannot properly describe.” The harmony / good fit between form and context can be regarded as the total absence of potential misfits, which can be represented by a finite set of binary variables all taking the value 0. A Homeostatic Form-Making Process […]
Read more“Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain” by Oliver Sacks
A comprehensive overview of the various aspects of musicality and the relationship between music and the mind, especially emotion and memory. Although I didn’t gain any further insights into the neural correlates of musicality (than what I’ve already learned from his other book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat”), I enjoyed stories of people whose lives are intimately bound with and affected by music. Links Oliver Sacks […]
Read more