No, Really!

  • Adam Greenfield, Radical Technologies This work overviews emerging tech through a politically-conscious perspective. Greenfield leans left – this is Verso after all – so there are no shortage of clever references and connections to other spaces in academia, to be certain. He takes care to explain in great detail complex concepts such as automation and The Internet of Things. The clearest understanding of the Blockchain I’ve come across. A nice way to frame my state of mind before applying the tenants of another emerging technology: digital literary methods.

  • Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps and Trees …Methods of which Moretti sets out to convince you are valid. For me, this work declined chapter by chapter. Great prologue, though. Moretti puts himself on a positive trajectory in this space, which catapaults him to high-flying professorships at places like Stanford.

  • Selected pamphlets from the Stanford Literary Lab Indeed, Moretti and the gang (including friend-of-the-project Matthew Jockers) began the “Stanford Literary Lab” in 200x. I read a couple of the essays the group put out. The seventh installment, written by Holst Katsma and well deserving of its high praise tackles “Loudness in the Novel.” The close analysis of the verbs connected to dialogue in works by Austen, Doestoevsky and others is downright fascinating. Fertile inspiration for my work and easily worth a read.

  • Herman Melville, Moby Dick My second time reading Moby Dick. Ahab and the whale become great friends) when you read it the second time…In seriousness, a wonderful way to dive back into fiction. Melville’s command of prose certainly qualifies for a “lyrical” accolade. Plus it’s the gold-standard for inspecting whether or not the reader remembers their Bible stories (I fared poorly). I am very excited to read criticism on the work. I am more excited to rip the text apart. I’ll be back soon, RStudio…

In general, my approach has been to read a differing set of materials every week and a half or so. This keeps what’s on my plate fresh. The rotation also helps fill my “bank” – of potential ideas and avenues of study – filled in a multifarious fashion. My schedule varies based on what they hand to me at my internship. But most lunches and nights I can steal away time to read. The World Cup throws a kink into that – my productivity prior to late evening, Moscow time is far from impressive – but it’s every four years. What can you do?