From the back cover: Warning! This book is not to be used in any way, shape, or form as a design manual. Rather, like the documentary about youth crime Scared Straight, it is meant as a caution of sorts, a warning against any lingering nostalgia we may have for the 1970s, a breathtakingly ugly period when even the rats parted their hair down the middle. What does this … [Read more...] about Interior Desecrations by James Lileks: B+
Humor
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin: A-
From the inside flap: In the midseventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Review: Having heard that Steve Martin is somewhat of a difficult person, I had some trepidations going … [Read more...] about Born Standing Up by Steve Martin: A-
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome: B+
From the back cover: "There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency." Three men, and a dog, in a boat on one of the prettiest waterways in the world—the Thames—in summer. Idyllic, wouldn't you say? Perhaps, if George hadn't insisted on camping, and if someone had remembered the can-opener, and if... well, maybe not idyllic, but … [Read more...] about Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome: B+