books

This week's heavy reading is Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers. I finished Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale which was fascinating but not as good as I had hoped - not that well organized, and the division into what's prologue, what's tale, is quite arbitrary. Some chapters contain more than one "tale" and many of the tales have one or two sentences about the animal in question and then go off on a tangent, never to return. The tangents are interesting, but they call into question the book's central conceit of being "tales." I also would have liked a few photographs instead of the rather sketchy line drawings of the few animals pictured - or, if photos would be too expensive, at least GOOD, detailed drawings.

In light reading, finished Charles Stross's The Family Trade and am currently in the sequel, The Hidden Family. I've posted a review of The Family Trade on Amazon.com, for those who want to check out my opinion of it.

Also leafing through Calvin Trillin's Obliviously On He Sails.

But the real purpose of this post is just to see how awful my recent attempt at making my own icon is.