Patrick Galbraith wants you to know that otaku isn’t just Japanese for "nerd." The Alaska-born ethnographer and journalist has spent over a decade studying the subculture, from cosplayers to Continue reading…
Every few years, critics wonder anew whether young adult (YA) fiction, particularly science fiction, has become “too dark.” If such a cultural shift actually happened, it was long before I learned Continue reading…
This past Tuesday, Apple released another set of quarterly financial results that were well beyond what any other technology company is achieving right now. It's become a running joke amongst those Continue reading…
Hordes of young school children march up the steps to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC on a cloudless Friday morning. As they run around yelling and chasing one another, the Continue reading…
I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-By Essays on American Dread, American Dreams Mark Dery (April, 2011) University of Minnesota Press, 304 pages “I do believe it's the political business of the Continue reading…
THE IDEA FACTORY: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation Jon Gertner The Penguin Press; March 15; $29.95 Last fall, in an essay titled "Innovation Starvation," sci-fi novelist Neal Continue reading…
In the introduction to Distrust That Particular Flavor, a collection of nonfiction pieces written over the last two decades – autobiographical essays, travelogues, speeches, prefaces, even a Continue reading…
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs is in some ways another product created from the mind of its subject. Though Jobs was insistent that he wouldn’t interfere with the writing of the book Continue reading…
Ghost in the Wires Kevin Mitnick with William L. Simon (August, 2011) Little, Brown and Company, 413 pages Kevin Mitnick is a liar. In fact, he wrote the book on lying (well, a book on lying, called Continue reading…
