Category Archives: Books

One-A-Day: A Crack in the Edge of the World

Posted on January 3, 2008 by Timothy Burke

Simon Winchester’s non-fiction is the equivalent of really good popular or genre fiction, it seems to me. Kind of the Stephen King of non-fiction writing. Eminently readable, a clean and accessible style, a good choice of subjects. The Professor and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, The Mixed-Up Bookshelves | 3 Comments

One-A-Day: The Traveller

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Timothy Burke

I’m going to try very hard to post a least a short commentary on books I’ve read once a day, or close to it, in part to get me away from repetitious entries on a narrow range of issues. Not … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, The Mixed-Up Bookshelves | Comments Off

Hollywood Sells Out, Makes Better Movie!

Posted on December 5, 2007 by Timothy Burke

There are a lot of interesting articles in this month’s Atlantic, but the piece on the film version of Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass drove me batty. The film looks promising, and my daughter and I plan to see it … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Popular Culture | 5 Comments

FaceBOOK

Posted on November 12, 2007 by Timothy Burke

Last spring, when I was at Google, I threw out a sort of off-the-cuff idea that what we really needed was a Facebook for books, a more intentional, extensive and non-profit-driven version of Amazon’s tools for connecting books through search … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 11 Comments

The Benefits of Resentment and Cynicism

Posted on October 11, 2007 by Timothy Burke

I really like this quote from Break Through at Kevin Drum’s site. So yet another book that I’d better read. Here’s the quote that Drum pulls out of Chapter 7 of the book: From Break Through, courtesy of Kevin Drum: … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Politics | 10 Comments

Cooper v. Rowling

Posted on August 6, 2007 by Timothy Burke

One of the reasons I’m keen to promote an “Everything Studies” approach to expressive culture is my dissatisfaction with the way that established models in cultural and media studies often (not invariably) marginalize aesthetic judgements as well as evaluations of … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Popular Culture | 16 Comments

Harry Potter as Complex Event

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Timothy Burke

I’m editing a long section of my manuscript that argues for seeing European colonialism in Africa, and specifically indirect rule, as an emergent, complex-system kind of institution. There are some really overt explanatory and causal arguments that come with this … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Popular Culture | 23 Comments

Go Ahead and Talk

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Timothy Burke

Further discussion of Harry Potter in the comments. Don’t read if you want to avoid spoilers. Good reading about the book at Russell Arben Fox’s blog and Unfogged. Any mysteries, oddities, etc. you want cleared up? Let’s work on that, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Popular Culture | 40 Comments

Liveblogging Harry Potter (No Major or Direct Spoilers)

Posted on July 21, 2007 by Timothy Burke

Creepy. Plus: he’s bad! Please, Rowling, you aren’t going to do something that cliched are you? The eye had better not be what I think it is. Hey, he’s kind of nice for once. Sort of sweet. Wow, big action … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Popular Culture | 24 Comments

Savage Pastimes

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Timothy Burke

When I started studying the history of debates over children’s television, I was struck at how the principal critics of kidvid in the 1970s and 1980s set the terms of their declension narrative. For them, Saturday morning television was destroying … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Popular Culture, The Mixed-Up Bookshelves | 10 Comments