- CYBERCULTURE:
- "Digital
Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs"
by Don Tapscott, David Ticoll, and Alex Lowy
God forbid that doing business and making money on the Internet should bear
any resemblance whatsoever to the past millennium of bricks-and-mortar capitalism.
That would be too easy. Nope, it's a whole different ball game now, and the
new rule is "adapt or die." At least that's the message in "Digital Capital."
From the three principal cyberconsultants at the Alliance for Converging Technologies
(one of whom, Don Tapscott, authored the bestsellers "The Digital Economy"
and "Growing Up Digital") comes a paradigm for global takeover: the business
web, or "b-web" for short.
- "Cyberselfish:
A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech"
by Paulina Borsook
Are nerds playing into the hands of the corporate elite? Commentator Paulina
Borsook examines the politically and philosophically libertarian world of
high-tech culture in "Cyberselfish" and finds it wanting a soul. Formerly
a writer for "Wired," Borsook made a career out of alienating the technology
priests and worshippers just enough to keep them reading. Now she is free
to go whole hog and say exactly what she thinks--and the techies in San Jose
won't be happy.
- "Trust
on Trial: How the Microsoft Case Is Reframing the Rules of Competition"
by Richard B. McKenzie
Is Microsoft truly a classic monopoly, whose aggressive pursuit of markets
for Internet browsers and operating systems is harmful to consumers and worthy
of government intervention? Or has it actually been a victim of aggressive
rivals (led by Sun, Novell, Oracle, and IBM) who called in high-level favors
to keep Bill Gates and company out of the lucrative market for network servers?
Richard McKenzie, a noted economist with the University of California at Irvine
and the author of more than 20 books, is convinced of the latter. He advances
a formidable argument on that theory's behalf in "Trust on Trial," which maintains
"the Microsoft case has shown--and not for the first time--how politics can
taint the antitrust enforcement process."
- "eBoys:
The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work"
by Randall E. Stross
"eBoys" author Randall E. Stross, who teaches business history at San Jose
State University, just happened to be there when a firm called Benchmark Capital
discovered eBay. Stross's book tells the story of how a group of not-quite-middle-aged
men came to make an investment that returned a Silicon Valley record of 100,000
percent.
- "Web
Rules: How the Internet Is Changing the Way Consumers Make Choices"
by Tom Murphy
A rising demand for higher-level service, better technology, and more interactivity
characterizes recent changes in the online retail climate. "Web Rules: How
the Internet Is Changing the Way Consumers Make Choices" explores this topic,
and solicits the opinions of industry magnates and other interesting parties.
- "The
Internet Edge: Social, Legal, and Technological Challenges for a Networked
World"
by Mark J. Stefik
It's hard enough keeping up with today's advances in technology without worrying
about tomorrow's--but tomorrow is always where the action is. Xerox PARC scientist
Mark Stefik gets paid to think about, and act on, future technology, and his
fascinating, enjoyable report, "The Internet Edge," shows us what we're becoming
as our information technology gets more ubiquitous and transparent.
- "The
Hundredth Window: Protecting Your Privacy and Security in the Age of the Internet"
by Charles Jennings, Lori Fena, Esther Dyson
If you use a computer and you surf the Web, the Internet's open architecture
has made you visible to the world. So claims "The Hundredth Window: Protecting
Your Privacy and Security in the Age of the Internet," Charles Jennings and
Lori Fena's expose on Internet security--or the lack thereof. Regardless of
how you feel about privacy, though, this book can help you understand the
risks of Internet use, plus suggest some precautions you can take to minimize
them.
- "True
Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier"
by Vernor Vinge and James Frenkel
In 1981, three years before the publication of William Gibson's "Neuromancer,"
Vernor Vinge's novella "True Names" invented the concept of cyberspace. This
book explores the blossoming discoveries and groundbreaking applications,
both current and future, on the new frontier of the Internet and all its subsets.
Vernor Vinge is a computer-science professor at San Diego State University
who is known for writing science fiction that combines an insightful grasp
of technology with some of the most fantastic scenarios ever imagined.
- "Telecosm:
How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World"
by George Gilder
Predicting a revolutionary new era of unlimited bandwidth, George Gilder's
"Telecosm" describes how the "age of the microchip"--dubbed the "Microcosm"--is
ending and leaving in its wake a new era, the telecosm. Gilder explains this
new stage as "the world enabled and defined by new communications technology."
- LITERATURE & FICTION:
- "Ravelstein"
by Saul Bellow
After a spate of slimmer fictions, Saul Bellow now pulls a full-sized novel
out of his hat--and proves that he's still a master of the genre. A quasi
portrait of the late Allan Bloom, "Ravelstein" is also a precision-tooled
character study and an oddly buoyant meditation on mortality.
- "Bee
Season"
by Myla Goldberg
In Myla Goldberg's first novel, the 9-year-old heroine aces a school spelling
bee and ends up driving her eccentric Brooklyn clan off the rails. "Bee Season"
is a wise and witty exploration of family life--and appropriately enough,
a hands-down linguistic triumph.
- "The
Toughest Indian in the World"
by Sherman Alexie
In "The Toughest Indian in the World," Sherman Alexie delivers another hard-edged,
grimly hilarious picture of Native American life. The author veers from realism
to surrealism and back again, and expertly detonates every cliche in sight--both
on and off the rez.
- "The
Binding Chair"
by Kathryn Harrison
After chronicling her queasily erotic relationship with her father in "The
Kiss," Kathryn Harrison gets off on the right foot with a no-less-perverse
novel, "The Binding Chair." This time, her focus is a Chinese woman with artificially
maimed feet, a taste for sexual experimentation, and a gift, alas, for suffering.
- "The
Feast of Love"
by Charles Baxter
Even in our cynical age, love remains the great linchpin of fiction. And nobody
has written about it with more tenderness and acuity than Charles Baxter brings
to bear in "The Feast of Love." Employing a tag team of narrators-- including
a hapless writer named, well, Charles Baxter--he captures the many-splendored
thing in all its delightful, delusional glory.
- "Selected
Letters of Rebecca West"
edited by Bonnie Kime Scott
Rebecca West forged some of the 20th century's greatest journalism and fiction.
Her correspondence affords us the whole woman--combative, complex, and a wicked
raconteur to boot. In "Selected Letters of Rebecca West," she weighs in on
everyone from James Joyce ("whom I think a pretentious nitwit but who has
guts, guts of the moonlight, beautiful guts, as Lewis Carroll nearly wrote")
to Ingrid Bergman, meanwhile offering us her greatest imaginative construct:
herself.
- "Another
Life"
by Michael Korda
After more than four decades in publishing, editor, author, and baby sitter
to the stars Michael Korda finally tells all. As his title suggests, Korda
doesn't exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. But "Another Life" is a virtual
gold mine of celebrity gossip, with particularly good nuggets devoted to Ronald
Reagan, Jacqueline Susann, Joseph "Joe Dogs" Iannuzzi, and Graham Greene (who
introduced the youthful author to the late-morning martini!).
- "The
Spell"
by Alan Hollinghurst
In Alan Hollinghurst's third novel, four Englishmen engage in an erotic, emotional,
and deliciously farcical round robin. "The Spell" is a masterful work of social
observation, as well as a guide to contemporary heartbreak. But Hollinghurst's
prose is the real prize--on just about every page of this stunning novel,
he casts a linguistic spell all his own.
- "Advice
to Writers"
edited by Jon Winokur
There will never be a shortage of instruction manuals for aspiring auteurs,
most of them badly written. But Jon Winokur's "Advice to Writers" is something
else entirely--an entertaining, deeply addictive compendium of anecdotes,
one-liners, and memorable mots. You'll find it all here, from Carlyle to Cheever,
Ozick to Twain (whose minimalist grammar tip is: "When you catch an adjective,
kill it").
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