DAILY PHOTO: Vaidyeshvara Mandir, Talakadu
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BOOK REVIEW: Stephen King by Bev Vincent
Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences by Bev VincentMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Release Date: October 18, 2022
This book offers one-stop shopping for anyone who wants to know about the life and works of one of the most popular and prolific genre fiction writers ever, Stephen King. The book is built around decade-by-decade examination of the books that King published as well as the adaptations that those books spawned (film, tv, comic book, theater, etc.) It’s arranged in an encyclopedic fashion (though chronologically) with entries on all of King’s titles, and has many textboxes about niche subjects including: King’s side hustles (e.g. owning radio stations, playing in a rock bank, etc.,) major events in King’s life, fictional places and characters that grew lives of their own, adaptations other than film and tv [film & tv adaptations are presented in the body of the text,] and various other quirky King-related topics.
The book is illustrated with a large collection of photos of King from various time periods and engaged in various activities.
Many fascinating insights can be discovered throughout the book. I learned, for example, that the Richard Bachman alias resulted from King’s prolific nature (and because BTO was playing at the time.) Publishers thought that readers would only buy one or two titles from a given author per year, but King had a back log of unpublished material – so he started publishing books under the Bachman persona. King was ever experimenting with various approaches to publishing and that makes the book potentially interesting for those with a curiosity about publishing innovations. The book is forthright about King’s alcohol and drug addictions and the influence they had on his work.
Oddly, I’m not the target audience for this book. I’ve only read a couple of King’s books (and one of those was “On Writing,” his nonfiction guide to writing.) That said, I found the book quite interesting.
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Westward Run [Free Verse]
Put the sun at your back and run headlong toward the darkness. Killing days at record speed, leaning into the terminus, and you wake up in the light and prepare for another westward run.
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Stowaway [Limerick]
There once was a mischievous macaque with a knack for invading knapsacks. When a zipper stuck, 'twas his terrible luck to get locked in a trunk & run out of snacks.
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Quick Peek [Kyōka]
a weaver pokes its head from the nest, looks both ways, & decides to stay in. i know the feeling.
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DAILY PHOTO: Barid Shahi Memorial Park Mosque
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Hyderabadi Limerick
There was a plump man of Hyderabad who was known to be quite a tightwad, but he ate his biryani and never was scrawny. He had a Hyderabadi biryani bod-y.
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Mind in the Cloud [Limerick]
There was a man who moved into the Cloud, being the first machine-mind, he was quite proud. Until someone tripped, and his switch was flipped. "Tape that cord down, for cryin' out loud!"
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DAILY PHOTO: Barachukki Falls Overbrimming
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BOOK REVIEW: The Information by James Gleick
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James GleickMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Information is one of those topics that remains obscure not because it’s rare or hidden, but because it’s everywhere and the term is used for so many purposes it’s not thought of cohesively. It might seem like a book on this topic would be hopelessly boring by virtue of the fundamental meta-ness of the material. Instead, Gleick had a vast sea of topics and stories involving intense stakes for humanity from which to choose, e.g.: how did we learn to communicate and advance said capability until it was arguably the most important feature of our species, by what instructions are people “assembled,” might the most fundamental layer of reality be informational, and – in recent decades — will our species drown in flood of cheap information?
Given the vast sprawl of the subject matter, organization becomes a crucial question. In a sense the book is chronological, presenting humanity’s experience with information in more or less the order we came to think about the subject. I think this was a wise move as it starts from what most people think of when they think of information – i.e. language and its communication. That makes it easier to wrap one’s head around what comes later, and to see the conceptual commonalities. This approach might seem self-evident, but an argument could be made for starting with information as the word is used in Physics (as addressed in Ch. 7 – 9,) an argument that that approach is more fundamental and generically applicable, and while it might be both of those things, it wouldn’t be as easily intuitively grasped.
I found this book to be fascinating and easily followed — even though it covers some conceptually challenging topics, it does so in an approachable manner. It is over a decade old, but holds up well – though I think there is much more to say these days about the detrimental effects of information overload, a topic discussed at the end of the book. I recommend it for nonfiction readers.
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