On January 20, 1961, John Kennedy gave what some consider to be the greatest presidential inaugural speech of the twentieth century. What made it so effective rhetorically? Max Atkinson identifies several key techniques:
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I Have Two Sons in Tucson
I have two sons in Tucson. Dave and Phil have been deeply touched by the recent violence that rocked that Southwestern city. Such tragedies have hit our country before. With all their heartbreaking similarities, each is unique. For my sons, this one felt different. Closer to home. They, as I, have many times driven by that Safeway and been in the McKale Center where the memorial was held.
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In Praise of Lists
Reasons to Make Lists
– My work swarms with miscellany—large and small.
– Emails, phone calls, meetings, interruptions, text messages and more are all coming at us faster and faster.
– Multitasking [doesn’t actually work](http://andyunedited.ivpress.com/2010/08/the_shallows_4_the_net_effect.php).
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The 2011 Andys
You’ve been waiting anxiously for a year since the last awards were given out. Who will receive the coveted 2011 Andys for the books from my reading list? Who will walk on stage to claim the prize, to thank their parents, their mentors, even their editors? Well, the wait is over. The winners are . . .
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What I Read in 2010
Maybe you’ve noticed the “What I’m Reading” list on the right-hand column of the Andy Unedited homepage. Of those books I finished this year, by the numbers they represent fourteen novels, seventeen nonfiction books, eleven audio books, six books purchased, one given to me as a gift, seventeen from the library, one borrowed, five read for our neighborhood book club, four I blogged about and five published by InterVarsity Press (books I read off the clock after publication).
Here’s the full list for the year:
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When Smart People Say Stupid Things
I’m always amazed when very intelligent people say very stupid things. But it’s happened again. This time it’s in The Grand Design, the latest book by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge for thirty years, a chair held by no less than Sir Isaac Newton, himself no slouch. Mlodinow has his own pedigree to be proud of. So what did they say?
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Unpaid Critics
A friend, David Horton, once said, “Some get paid to be critics. Everyone else does it for free.”
We, like any organization or business, get our share of criticisms and complaints. How do we deal with it? Here are my guidelines.
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Google Editions Is Here
With almost as much delay and anticipation as the launch of Kindle, the Google e-bookstore opened its virtual doors yesterday.
When I met with Google at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, they gave me chocolate, smiled broadly and said it was really, really coming after months of delay. But they still wouldn’t give me (or anyone) a date. Now it’s here.
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Five-Year Plans Are Ridiculous
Can we possibly be serious about creating a five-year plan? In an era of breakneck changes in technology, cultural tastes, the economy and 24-hour news cycles, futurists look suspiciously like palm readers.
Just some of the recent, and massive, changes in book publishing we are all familiar with include
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No Ordinary People
While sitting in a limo in Manhattan wondering if she is overdressed for the party, Jeannette Walls looks out the window and spots her homeless mom rummaging through garbage in an alley.
Walls’ astonishing memoir, The Glass Castle, begins here and then chronicles a childhood in which alcohol, dysfunction and bad choices conspired to keep her whole family
destitute. After she and her siblings moved to New York City and clawed their way out, her well-educated parents continued to live in poverty. And when the pair moved to New York to join their children, ultimately the two of them were without a home.
The book contains one incredible episode after another of pain, hardship and disappointment. Yet one that struck me the most took place after Jeannette had scraped together enough funds to go to college. There she took a course from a professor she enjoyed who began teaching about the effects of economic and social forces on people.
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