Reading Log

I will put the books I read here. I don't read very often, but I want to remember what I read, and share it with others.

If you are going to read a book, check your library first. If you are going to buy a book, check your local bookstores first.

2022

September

• Started: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980) by Seymour Papert.

  It is about teaching kids to use learn in a way that makes them feel powerful, and how computers are uniquely set up to do this well... if we do it right. It is such an interesting combination of 1980 computer history and extremely relevant ideas about education. It talks a lot about turtle graphics.

  So many parts of this book are extremely relatable to me as someone who started to program young in a non-academic environment. All of my early programming experiences were physics simulations and art, usually in combination, which I'm sure Papert would have approved of. Lego Mindstorms is actually named after this book.

August

• How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (2019) by Jenny Odell.

  This book takes the conversation that's built up around "unplugging" from social media and grounds it in history, philosophy, and our relationships to nature. It is written by an art professor who likes to bird watch.