Still here, still reading

I have not really had much inspiration to write anything lately. But, I have read some good books!

"The Partly Cloudy Patriot", Sarah Vowell
I enjoyed this one much more than "Assassination Vacation." "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" is pretty much a number of short stories detailing what a nerd Vowell is. I love nerdy exploits, and I loved this book.

"Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11", David Friend
Friend sets out to not rehash the day, since the events of 9/11 have been written about extensively in other books. Instead, Friend looks at 9/11 from a photographic and media persepctive. The book focuses on the week of 9/11 in pictures, and the effects that the media had on the day. The chapter on the actual day of September 11 did go into great detail on both professional and amateur photography, and I wish the rest of the book had followed suit. Subsequent chapters seemed a bit unfocused, and I had a hard time following them. The last chapter chronicles the famous flag-raising photograph taken at Ground Zero on the evening of September 11. Friend explains how the photo came to be taken, and the impact it had on the world. If Friend had focused the whole book in this format, I think it could have been a great book. Despite this, I still really enjoyed the book, and it is definetly worth reading for a different perspective on September 11.

"The Know It All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World", A.J. Jacobs
Wow, I loved this book. Jacobs decides that over the span of one year, he will read the entire Encylopedia Britannica, cover to cover. The result is a hilarious mini-encyclopedia. Jacobs does intersperse actual defintions of what he is learning about. However, the book is more of a biography/ what is going on in his life during his year-long reading quest. My only complaints of the book were that he talks a bit too much about trying to get his wife pregnant, and there were a lot of spelling typos (ironic since Jacobs is an editor for Esquire.) Despite this, I was sad when I was done with the book, and will probably even read it again.