People sometimes ask about the Goofy Foot Press creative process... I usually work on 4 to 5 books at a time. Most of the titles are mind-numbingly academic. They are often painfully difficult to read, because academic writers equate sentence length with penis size. However, these books tend to include interesting insights. The challenge is in translating academic-speak into English.
I also listen to taped lectures, but even the best of those have me contemplating suicide if I listen for more than 45 minutes.
At the end of each month, I'll give a brief review of each book/resource. Here's what's on tap for August and September:
"Sex Objects--Art and the Dialectics of Desire" by Jennifer Doyle, University of Minnesota Press (2006)
"The Victorian Internet--The Remarkable Story of the Telegraphy and the 19th Century's On-line Pioneers" by Tom Standage, Berkley Books (1998)
"Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines--Representing Technology in the Edison Era" by Lisa Gitelman, Stanford University Press (1999)
"New Media--1740-1915" edited by Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey B. Pingree, MIT Press (2004). You've gotta love how they include the "B" in co-editor Geoffrey Pringree's name; phone books apparently have pages of "Geoffrey Pingrees" and this keeps us from confusing him with all of the others!
"Prefiguring Cyberculture--An Intellectual History" edited by Tofts, Jonson and Cavallaro, MIT Press (2003).
Taped Lectures from The Teaching Company (www.teachco.com):
"The Book of Genesis" taught by Gary A. Rendsburg, Rutgers University
"Tocqueville and the American Experiment" taught by William R. Cook, State University of New York at Geneseo
"Joy of Science" taught by Robert M. Hazen, George Mason University
"Science and Religion" taught by Lawrence M. Principe, Johns Hopkins University
