Tag Archives: Short

The Medium is the Massage, by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore (1967)

Marshall McLuhan is the guy Woody Allen pulls from offscreen to prove his point to the pretentious academic in Annie Hall.  His work in the 1960s tackles the power of media and its ability to deliver information in different forms; this book is a short, coherent explanation of how media affects us, assembled by graphic designer Quentin Fiore with black and white photos to enhance McLuhan’s points.  There are comics, two-page spreads, ‘60s pop culture, and a page printed in backwards text to keep things interesting, pushing the limits of what the printed form can do.  Very cool.

Rating

Where I Got It

Found in a free box outside my apartment building with a bunch of other textbooks and books on programming, sometime in the fall of 2015.  This was the only one that looked interesting.

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Official site

Aphorisms on Love and Hate, by Friedrich Nietzsche (1878)

This pocket-sized British edition of Nietzsche reflections is pretty awesome: it’s more manageable than the full-length essays by Nietzsche I’d read previously, but more substantial than the 140 character Nietzsche Twitter feed.  The editors picked 55 pages of reflections from Human, All Too Human that tackle such truths as how we despise the people we pretend to like, how we can’t ever really promise to always love someone, why rich people just don’t understand their own cruelties, and why those who seek to understand life will always undergo struggle.  Nietzsche’s ideas are relatable and real, so check ‘em out.

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Where I Got It

Picked up from the break room free table at the university press where I used to work, sometime in the spring of 2015.

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Nietzsche quotes on Twitter

Nietzsche on Love (essay)

The Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BC), translated by N.K. Sanders (1972)

I like reading myths from other cultures because they capture the familiar spirit of the Greek myths with new sets of heroes.  Ancient Sumer’s Gilgamesh is no exception: our hero befriends a sidekick from the wilderness, journeys through forests to slay a deadly monster, grapples with a jealous goddess, and seeks the prize of eternal life.  There’s even an ancient flood that shares more than a few similarities with the Biblical one.  Editor N.K. Sanders also provides a lot of textual background in her introduction, padding out the Penguin edition since the myth itself is so short (60 pages).

Rating:

3-kafkas

Where I Got It

Bought used at a local book sale, October 2012, making it one of the longest-running books in the stack.

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Background to the Epic of Gilgamesh on Wikipedia

The entire Epic of Gilgamesh in PDF form