I was introduced to Tufte’s work by JP, a former co-worker, and design enthusiast. Tufte is also used by Carl, who currently runs our creative department.

With graphic design being so much more in demand in today’s labor market, Tufte seems to be increasingly relevant.

Maybe someday I’ll even change the design of this blog away from its default.

Ro, I absolutely loved Lies My Teacher Told Me and was actually surprised by it. I was expecting it to be an earnest attempt at a warts-and-all telling of American history, which in itself would have been worthwhile. Instead, it turned out to be an analysis of twelve popular history textbooks, what they get wrong, and why, organized by category of the errors. It was a real wake up call as to how textbooks get selected in our country, and the slipshod scholarship that gets passed along in the name of patriotism.

Now I’m thinking we should have a semi-regular book thread here.

Cynthia, I must confess I’ve never read any Didion, and The White Album has only Beatles-related meaning for me. Perhaps today’s Condundrum should be Beatles-related…

DeLisa, I’m with you - I’d rather read non-fiction than fiction. It’s so much more interesting. The selection of economics texts you mention sound very interesting, especially the naked one. Or the dead one. Or The Naked and the Dead one. Good luck on the play!

Sometimes Sebastian, welcome to the blog! If you are who I think you are, I think we can count the comic books as work-related.

Waiting to be Finished = Harlan Ellison’s “Edgeworks 3″

Guilty Pleasure = The latest stack of new comic books.

Pleasurable Guilt = More than a back month of the New Yorker.

Work = They don’t pay me enough to read.

As for non-fiction, I’m flipping back and forth from sections of Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital, The Conservative Mind, Naked Economics and New Ideas from Dead Economists to inspire the writing of that play I told you about…. I read, then write, then read, then write….

Didion is my sigh of relief.

I’m also enrolled in graduate classes in the hopes of (rather sooner than later get an ED.D in Culture and Language). Because of this, I’m doing a little more “dutiful” reading for the classes I’m taking. These are all required texts for my classes (linguistics, latin and medieval history).

I won’t bore you with the titles, as these are more dissertations than actual books.

And they’re in Italian.

Joy.