Katherine Boo is a great journalist. I’ve read some of her work in the New Yorker and have enjoyed everything she has done. When I’ve shared her pieces with friends they’ve always enjoyed her work as well—which is shocking only because the pieces are long and not everyone enjoys long form journalism. 

Recently read an article in the New Yorker about brainstorming, which I think it a great read for anyone who thinks brainstorming is a bunch of people getting into a room to talk about ideas with no dissension. 

A New York Times article from Christopher McDougall, who is also the author of “Born to Run,” November’s reading selection.

At the very least, check out the video at the top of the article to learn about the lost secret of perfect running.

Over dinner the other night, the linked New Yorker article, which none in the party had read, became part of the discussion. Have you read the article? What do you think? 

Vegetarian joke. Something I saw on facebook.

Vegan joke. Courtesy of the New Yorker magazine.

NPR put out a list of best sci-fi and fantasy books based on votes from readers and SF Signal, a blog, created a flow chart to represent the books as readers might view them.

• NPR’s List of Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books
• SF Signal’s Flow Chart

What have you read from the list? What’s on your must list?

Recently the Economist came out with some interesting articles on the book industry. And today, Amazon introduced some new Kindles, which caused Barnes & Noble stock to plumet. So, for those interested in the demise of paper and ink, check out the perspective of the economist.

Great digital expectations

Digitisation may have come late to book publishing, but it is transforming the business in short order

and

Disappearing ink

Readers have never had it so good. But publishers need to adapt better to the digital world

An excerpt from a book titled “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness,” which was posted on The Atlantic’s website. Take a look.

The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know about food, how it’s grown, and how it affects our bodies. For consumers, it’s so costly to ensure the foods we eat are pesticide free, and yet, the poison’s cost to our lives can be grave.

According to Pesticide Action Network, exposure to the stuff “causes late term miscarriages, contaminates groundwater and is so reliably carcinogenic that it’s used to create cancer cells in laboratories.” Since it is applied to soil before plants even go into the ground, it poses little risk to consumers of strawberries. But for the farmworkers who apply it and the people who live near treated fields, it’s a different story, because of its “tendency to drift off site through the air,” the group warns.

And this seems a common reaction:

The US government’s official opinion on methyl bromide has been: We can’t fully ban it until we find a suitable alternative.