book review roundup - non-fiction edition

 Ice T - This autobio was interesting because I knew nothing about him or the scene he developed in, but he takes an awful lot of credit for being the first to do X or Y in a jealous sort of way. And given how proudly he quotes his lyrics, which he seems to think are pretty poetic, you feel kinda bad for him, like he's a mentally retarded kid having trouble using a pencil. Because his lyrics are embarrassingly underwhelming. :/



Shania Twain - I only read the Mutt Lange chapters, in which she is so eager to clarify that SHE DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL RECORD PRODUCER IN ROCK EVER that it becomes apparent that she did know. Also, she married the husband of the (unattractive) woman Mutt cheated on her with, only a year after the affair came to light! The impression I got was of a woman who uses sex and love as a weapon for revenge and power.  :/



WAR - Sebastian Junger's masterpiece is a brutal, honest look at life for an Army platoon in the Korengal Valley, surrounded by enemies, tasked with making friends of the locals, attacked daily, fighting in flip-flops and shorts... the companion film, Restrepo, is also worth checking out.

Oh and lots of cool vocab, which is the second best part about soldiering. :)



Why Shit Happens -- Explains stuff. Like glass is NOT a liquid -- old window panes are thicker on the bottom because hundreds of years ago they were made in a spinning-umbrella sort of way, and usually (but not always!) installed with the thicker base at the bottom for stability

A lot of the stuff was obvious, or at least familiar (you'll know of the phenomenon but maybe not the why behind it)... so it's an interesting book but not a fascinating one. And the presentation feels padded. So, eh. :/



Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman! - Seriouly, there's more pickup artist advice in here than science --and there's a lot of science! Fantastic book about being really smart in the mid-20th century, hanging out with Nobel laureates and Vegas showgirls, fighting stupid bureaucracy in ways big and small, and travelling around the world (Brazil, Japan, various American Universities of Note...).

My only complaint stems from the fact that he worked on The Bomb (several good chapters about life at Los Alamos, btw)... and then visited Tokyo less than two decades later later, and he loved it there, but he didn't draw any conclusions or express any regrets or make any salient observations from his unique A-bombering perspective at all!   :)

~