Adam Shields

More Best of 2012 Books Lists

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Slate posted their Best Books of 2012 and then the Most Overlooked Books of 2012.  That along with the New York Times Lists of Best Children’s Books and 100 Notable Books of 2012, The 2012 National Books Award Winners and the Amazon Lists of Best Books of 2012 and Best Children’s Books of 2012.  There are some … Read more

The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation

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The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks InnovationSummary: Fascinating look at creative areas of the economy where copyright and patent law do not apply.

According to the common line of thinking, without copyright and/or patent law there would be no incentive to create.  The authors of this books are not completely dismissing this claim.

Instead they are following creative industries where copyright and patent law legally are not applicable.  The areas explored are fashion (you cannot copyright a ‘useful object’), food (you cannot copyright a series of instructions), football (theoretically you can copyright choreography  but no one has tried to do this in football), open-source software, magic and comedy.

All of the areas are very creative, and all are thriving.  The authors look at the way that alternative means are used to reward creativity and limit inappropriate copying.

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Offsite Review: Keeping the Feast

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This seems like an appropriate book topic for Thanksgiving. In Keeping the Feast: Metaphors for the Meal Milton Brasher-Cunningham draws on his gifts as a writer, chef, minister and teacher to explore the meaning of “˜the meal,’ relating his reflections on food (and cooking) with the central meal of the Christian faith, Holy Communion. Brasher-Cunningham presses … Read more

Posting Schedule

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Over the next couple days I will be visiting my family and not be posting a regular schedule.  There will not be a book review posted on Wednesday-Friday.  And free book posts will be a bit erratic.  I hope to get them posted, but they will likely be later in the day. I will try … Read more

Offsite Review: The Evolution of Adam: What The Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins

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The Christian understanding of creation, original sin and our first parents is very controversial.  Peter Enns has been at the center of the controversy for the past couple of years.  Brian LePort has a short review of Enn’s recent book The Evolution of Adam.  But he also links to a long series of posts that … Read more

Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

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A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle)Summary: A young wizard must find himself to make right a wrong he created.

Wizard of Earthsea is one of those classic books that I remember reading as a young teen. Like An Abundance of Katherines, it is a coming of age story. But unlike the other two books that I read this past week from the same era (Goldfinger and Stainless Steel Rat) it did not feel dated.

At the end of the book, Le Guin commented about the history of the book. This was the first book that a publisher had asked her to write, and she was reluctant. She had not written a book specifically for teen before this. And while she had written fantasy, the idea of fantasy as a genre was very new.

Lord of the Rings had only recently been published in the US. And the idea of young adult fantasy was just getting started. Lloyd Alexander had won the Newberry Medal for the High King the year before A Wizard of Earthsea was written.

In Le Guin’s little history she noted that she was subtlety trying to tweak the establishment. She followed the basic structure of a young adult version of a wizard, but she made him non-white. In fact all of the good characters in the book are not white. The only explicitly White main character is one that we see as a young girl and later as a young woman. And both times she betrays Ged to try and steal his power.

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