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Because Nancy is Inspiring
Jan. 23rd, 2008 05:14 pmCoupla Early 2008 reads
Dealers of Lightning: XEROX PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (by Michael Hiltzik). I only read this because I finished a book on a trip and had no other, so I had to swipe what my husband was reading. What a happy accident that was. This book was excellent. It's about Xerox' Palo Alto Research Center and their early developments in the areas of computer design, graphical computer interface, the ethernet, hypertext, and other things we now take for granted. I was not terribly interested in the topic, but Hiltzik is just a bang-up writer. The guy won a Pulitzer at some point. I'd never thought much about some of the decision-making that went into making computers the way they are now, so that was intriguing. The real kicker of the story is that XEROX assembled this great team of genius thinkers, threw money at them, and then set them loose...but never adequately appreciated what they accomplished. XEROX certainly brought little of it to commercial market. It was one of the better books I've read in awhile.
The Man of My Dreams (by Curtis Sittenfield). Shorter than Prep, similar writing. A main character you understand even if you don't find her wholly sympathetic. The book does a great job spanning a number of years of her life in a relatively short number of pages.
Dealers of Lightning: XEROX PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (by Michael Hiltzik). I only read this because I finished a book on a trip and had no other, so I had to swipe what my husband was reading. What a happy accident that was. This book was excellent. It's about Xerox' Palo Alto Research Center and their early developments in the areas of computer design, graphical computer interface, the ethernet, hypertext, and other things we now take for granted. I was not terribly interested in the topic, but Hiltzik is just a bang-up writer. The guy won a Pulitzer at some point. I'd never thought much about some of the decision-making that went into making computers the way they are now, so that was intriguing. The real kicker of the story is that XEROX assembled this great team of genius thinkers, threw money at them, and then set them loose...but never adequately appreciated what they accomplished. XEROX certainly brought little of it to commercial market. It was one of the better books I've read in awhile.
The Man of My Dreams (by Curtis Sittenfield). Shorter than Prep, similar writing. A main character you understand even if you don't find her wholly sympathetic. The book does a great job spanning a number of years of her life in a relatively short number of pages.
