Books – Impedance Mismatch

Hardcover warning sticker

Yesterday I received a brand new book that I plan to use as reference for my work for a long time. This is a 1000+ pages hardcover, and after unwrapping it from its plastic protection, I immediately open it. At the exact time I let the two sides of the book fall on the table, I new that I will break the spine, but it was too late. Here’s what the book looks like now:

Now I knew the right way to open an hardcover book the first time, but as I buy perhaps one or two each year, it’s difficult to remember it in the excitation of having new stuff to play with.

What is done is done, and it will be a good exercise to rebuild the book one day (I am slowly investing in bookbinding tools), but seen the cost of of this kind of books, here’s a suggestion for publisher: The book was wrapped in plastic, so why not inserting inside an explanation similar to the link above or at least putting a warning sticker on the wrapping? Or perhaps Amazon can just just add this kind of sticker automatically.

A Well-Regulated Militia

I just finished to read “A Well-Regulated Militia : The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America”, a very good book about the history of the Second Amendment. At the difference of the Wikipedia page on the same subject, this is very readable and entertaining. Highly recommended.

Vacation readings

Vacation is more or less the only time I can read books. My Kindle 2 made it easy to carry them around and read them on planes, trains and metro during my last vacations in France:

Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously (William Gurstelle):
A short and interesting book, but I would not put drinking absinthe in the list of dangerous things – well at least in my opinion it is way less dangerous than eating fast food regularly. I will probably write a bit more about the ideas on this book, as there is some that are related to something I will spend most of my time for the next year.
Daemon (Daniel Suarez):
An excellent novel that is, a the difference of most novels about technology, completely realistic. I cannot wait for the sequel.
Thomas Jefferson (R. B. Bernstein):
Thomas Jefferson is probably, with Benjamin Franklin, the most interesting of the Founder Fathers. This biography was so interesting that I found it way too short and I will try to find something that would go deeper in the life of this extraordinary person.
Declare (Tim Powers):
There is no such thing as a bad Tim Powers book and there is no such thing as an easy to read Tim Powers book. My favorite is still Last Call but Declare was really captivating after I managed to read pass the first one hundred pages.
Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon (Chuck Palahniuk):
Well, I read everything from Palahniuk (*cough* Haunted *cough*), so I had to read this one, even if it is not a novel but a travel guide. As always, extremely entertaining.