Books | Steven Pinker Pinker, S., & Mehler, J. (1988). Connections and Symbols. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Abstract Does intelligence result from the manipulation of structured symbolic expressions? Or is it the result of the activation of large networks of densely interconnected simple units? Connections and Symbols provides the first systematic analysis of the explosive new field of connectionism that is challenging the basic tenets of cognitive science.
Five Books That Changed My Life | Remy Carreiro I was incredibly lucky that my Mom owned a beautiful second-hand book store throughout my adolescence, because I constantly got to reap the reward of having amazing literature at my finger tips. Whatever I wanted to read, I was lucky enough to get to read. And as a result of the store taking second-hand books, can you even grasp how many amazing books must I got to read, that I never would have known about otherwise? Every few days, I was switching out. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran The Prophet is a book you do not keep. The book is too powerful to cherish it secretly. The leather-bound, hardcover edition is quite breathtaking in itself, even before you open it. I shalln’t tell you anything about this book, lest I ruin it. Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk When people ask me, this tends to be the book I most recommend most. Everyone cites Fight Club as Palahniuk’s seminal work, but that is not fair, nor is it accurate. It was this book that reignited my love of writing. Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Books: The Whole Horror The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 By Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins, 870 pp., $39.95) With the publication of The Years of Extermination, Saul Friedlander adds to his already well-established reputation as one of the world's pre-eminent historians of the Holocaust and of its place in modern European, German, and Jewish history. In this synthetic work that draws on scholarship of recent decades, Friedlander integrates a history of German official decision-making-- from Hitler down through his various chains of command-- with the observations, chronicles, and analyses of Jewish diarists. Friedlander's evidence comes from official documents, but also from numerous eyewitnesses whose personal chronicles are, in his words, "like lightning flashes that illuminate parts of the landscape." The Years of Extermination rests on a career of scholarship nearly half a century long. Then there appeared the first installment of Friedlander's grand culminating project.
New Year's Resolution Reading List: 9 Essential Books on Reading and Writing by Maria Popova Dancing with the absurdity of life, or what symbolism has to do with the osmosis of trash and treasure. Hardly anything does one’s mental, spiritual, and creative health more good than resolving to read more and write better. If anyone can make grammar fun, it’s Maira Kalman — The Elements of Style Illustrated marries Kalman’s signature whimsy with Strunk and White’s indispensable style guide to create an instant classic. The original Elements of Style was published in 1919 in-house at Cornell University for teaching use and reprinted in 1959 to become cultural canon, and Kalman’s inimitable version is one of our 10 favorite masterpieces of graphic nonfiction. On a related unmissable note, let the Elements of Style Rap make your day. Anne Lamott might be best known as a nonfiction writer, but Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life affirms her as a formidable modern philosopher as well. On the itch of writing, Lamott banters: On why we read and write: On feedback:
The Online Books Page Teacher's Top 100 Books for Children The following list was compiled from an online survey in 2007. Parents and teachers will find it useful in selecting quality literature for children. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults In History [Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published June 19, 2011.] Sigh. Authors just don’t insult each other like they used to. Sure, Martin Amis raised some eyebrows when he claimed he would need brain damage to write children’s books, and recent Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan made waves when she disparaged the work that someone had plagiarized, but those kinds of accidental, lukewarm zingers are nothing when compared to the sick burns of yore. It stands to reason, of course, that writers would be able to come up with some of the best insults around, given their natural affinity for a certain turn of phrase and all. 30. “A great cow full of ink.” 29. “…like a large shaggy dog just unchained scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon.” 28. “A hyena that wrote poetry on tombs.” 27. “How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’? 26.
City Map of Fictional Streets and Landmarks This is a map that contains “over 900 film titles including cinema classics such as Lost Highway, On the Waterfront, Jurassic Park, Reservoir Dogs, Carlito’s Way, Nightmare on Elm Street, Valley of the Dolls and Chinatown.” (via We are Dorothy) I don’t know if it’s included on the map, but I’d really like to live at “P. Sherman Wallaby Way, Sydney”. Otherwise, I’ll settle for “The Polar Express” because I hear they have fantastic hot chocolate there, and I’d also be right next to “Forrest Gump” and “Animal Farm” which is great because I hear country air is good for you. {Map by We are Dorothy, £25}
30 Books Everyone Should Read Before Their 30th Birthday The Web is grand. With its fame for hosting informative, easy-to-skim textual snippets and collaborative written works, people are spending more and more time reading online. Nevertheless, the Web cannot replace the authoritative transmissions from certain classic books that have delivered (or will deliver) profound ideas around the globe for generations. The 30 books listed here are of unparalleled prose, packed with wisdom capable of igniting a new understanding of the world. Everyone should read these books before their 30th birthday. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse – A powerful story about the importance of life experiences as they relate to approaching an understanding of reality and attaining enlightenment.1984 by George Orwell – 1984 still holds chief significance nearly 60 years after it was written in 1949. Related True Measure of Understanding: Ignorance Generates Negativity In the absence of understanding human reaction is generally negative. August 27, 2007 In "Aspirations"
Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2012 Book Preview 2012 has already been a rich year for books, with new novels from Toni Morrison, Richard Ford, and Hilary Mantel and essay collections from Marilynn Robinson and Jonathan Franzen, to name just a fraction of what we’ve featured, raved about, chewed on, and puzzled over so far. But the remainder of this year (and the hazy beginning of next year) is shaping up to be a jackpot of literary riches. In just a few short months, we’ll be seeing new titles from some of the most beloved and critically lauded authors working today, including Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz, Alice Munro, Ian McEwan, George Saunders, and David Foster Wallace. Incredibly, there’s much more than that to get excited about, but, were we to delve into it further up here, we would risk this introduction consuming the many previews that are meant to follow. July: August: September: The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: The Life of David Foster Wallace by D.T. San Miguel by T.C.
A List of Books | 623 of the Best Books Ever Written My Virtual Bookcases in Evernote Some time back, I wrote a Going Paperless post called “Creating a Digital Version of Your House” in which I described how I use tools like Skitch and Penultimate to capture floor plans and measurements around the house that might be useful to have when I am away–say at the hardware store. While I was away on my Internet vacation, it occurred to me, as I was measuring my bookshelves, that it might be equally useful to have a digital version of my bookshelves in Evernote. With something like 1,100 books, I can’t always remember if I happen to have a particular book or not, and it might be useful to have a quick reference. Let me back up a moment and admit that yes, I still have paper books. The books on my bookshelves are part of a collection of books I’ve been growing since high school. They consist of science fiction books, books on science, and history books, as well as some miscellaneous books thrown in for good measure. Take a picture of each shelf on my bookshelf. Other uses