My last book of 2007 was Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, one of the CIA books recommended in the comments of my post History of the CIA.  I read it on my Kindle, which I love.

I’ve read a lot of books in my life.  I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that was as profoundly negative and damning on any organization.  The author – Tim Weiner – is a well regarded Pulitzer Prize-winner New York Times correspondent so this book is the real deal.

Weiner approaches this as a pure history book.  He starts at the beginning and marches all the way through to the end without slowing his pace at any point.  In addition to the endless stream of people involved, he covers in depth a number of the major CIA initiatives over the years, the vast majority of them ranging from "botched" to "debacle."  Along the way he lists the ever escalating number of people, dollars, and deaths that result.

I don’t think I really know how to lie or be deceitful.  I like to think my parents did a great job with me on that front.  I value honesty, directness, and forthrightness.  I even feel compelled to correct myself when I’m wrong (which happens often.)  I’m cynical about plenty of things, including government and religion, and often feel that many political leaders are fundamentally not trustworthy.  Legacy of Ashes beats you over the head with this message – over and over again.

This is a chewy and long but if you are looking for an exhaustive, comprehensively researched, and completely negative view of the history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes is the one for you.

Now for some mental floss via David Balducci to clean the mind as we start the 2008 reading list.

I’m looking for a great book on the history of the CIA.  Any recommendations from out there in the blogosphere?

If you’ve noticed that I haven’t been blogging, it’s because I went off the grid for my Q4 vacation with Amy.  As is our habit, we checked out completely, spent a week at the beautiful Palmilla One & Only in Cabo, and did our normal quarterly vacation thing, which includes reading a bunch of books.

I started off with William Gibson’s latest – Spook Country.  It started off slow – possibly because I kept comparing it to his last book, Pattern Recognition, which  was amazing.  I almost gave up but Amy encouraged me to stick with it.  After 100 pages Gibson clearly established three parallel stories that clearly were going to converge at some point and I got sucked in.  Around this point, the amazingness of Gibson also kicked in.  The end result – great book, highly recommended, but be patient with the set up.

As is my way, I switched to non-fiction next. King of the Club – the story of Dick Grasso’s rise and fall at the NYSE – was recommended to me by someone so I picked it up.  It’s a well written and detailed account of the whole Grasso thing, albeit from the perspective of the author playing investigative reporter.  I don’t really care much about the public markets, investment banking, and the omnipresent backroom politics, but I learned a lot from this book and developed a different impression than I previous had.  If Grasso’s story and/or the history of the NYSE interests you, this is well worth the time.  If you prefer simple gossip, stick with BusinessWeek or People Magazine.

After Spook Country and King of the Club, I needed a small, short book.  During the commercials on Monday night football I read The Tao of Warren Buffett.  I’m a huge Buffett fan and this was a juicy little morsel of his aphorisms with a brief explanation by his ex-daughter-in-law Mary Buffett.  Yum.

It was 80 degrees in Cabo and sunny. It’s 15 degrees in Boulder today with a foot of snow on the ground.  I’m procrastinating going on my 10m+ run.  Shocking.

I’ve been in a reading slump lately – I just haven’t felt like reading.  This happens sometimes and whenever I break my "at least two books a week" rhythm, I just roll with it until it changes.

Yesterday was a three book day.  I absorbed the books into my brain as though it was meant to be.  All three were non-fiction, although only one was "challenging non-fiction" (in a good way.)

Math You Can’t Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software by Ben Klemens was superb.  This is a detailed, thoughtful, comprehensive, and (other great adjective goes here) book about why patents are completely fubared for software.  Ben has created the End Software Patents Coalition and this book could easily be its manifesto.  While I put it in the "challenging" (e.g. you have to actually read it vs. skim it) category, it’s extremely well written and a pleasure to read.  If you are in the software industry in any role and have ever encountered software patents, this is a must read.

Next up was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.  I met Tim at the predinner for the New New Internet conference in DC last month.  It appeared I was the only person at dinner that hadn’t heard about Tim and his revolutionary idea to have a 4-Hour Workweek which is apparently the rage in Silicon Valley right now.  Tim’s a fun character and his story is very entertaining.  I thought the first half of the book was a blast and the second half (where he gets deeper into the "how to" mechanics) became tedious and overwrought.  Tim – you need a better editor (yeah – I know, so do I.)

I usually don’t call out crummy books on this blog, but since the third one – Make The Right Choice – was part of my Saturday reading trifecta, I thought I’d mention it.  I can’t remember who recommended it to me (I would have never bought it without a recommendation) but I thought it was silly and dull.  After about 30 pages I skimmed it looking for some meat, but never found it.

Every now and then I read a book that is so delicious that I savor it.  Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was one of those books.  I finished it over the weekend on a run through the mountains.  A number of folks have recommended The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.  It’s up next. 

At least two of the people who recommended The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay told me they couldn’t get through The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.  This perplexed me. As I read through the Amazon and Shelfari reviews of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, I realized the disconnect.  While I read 99.9% of the books, I listened to The Yiddish Policemen’s Union on my iPod over the course of a month while running.  I’ve been trying to find the right books to listed to while I go for my long runs (I often run naked – with no headphones) and I’ve only found a few that I really enjoyed.  The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was one of them.

Amy told me she loved reading the book.  I loved listening to the book.  I tried to craft a good summary, but I couldn’t top Elizabeth McCracken’s description from the Washington Post so I’ve copied it here (I’m sure this is illegal in some countries, but my guess is that Meyer Landsman would give me a pass on it.)

“Reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is like watching a gifted athlete invent a sport using elements of every other sport there is — balls, bats, poles, wickets, javelins and saxophones. The book begins with the introduction of a hung-over detective to a gun-shot corpse in a fleabag hotel. Classic noir, except that the detective drinks slivovitz instead of bourbon: He’s Jewish, a kind of Philip Marlovsky named Meyer Landsman, though Landsman is a cop — a “noz” in the yiddisher slang of the book — not a PI. The whole local police force is Jewish: The book is set in a present-day alternate reality in Sitka, Alaska, a safe haven set up for Jewish refugees after World War II and the collapse of Israel. Now, after nearly 60 years, the Federal District of Sitka is about to revert to American rule. There are elements of an international terrorist thriller, complicated by religious conspiracy and a band of end-of-the-world hopefuls, and yet the book has a dimly lit 1940s vibe. Maybe that’s just because of what Jews and movie dicks have always had in common: felt hats and an affinity for bad weather.”

Like all good detective stories, there are multiple stories within the story.  We get chess, Alaska, Jewish food (shocking, I know), yiddish, love, self-loathing, murder, power, relationships, Alaskans, mysterious deaths, messianic shit, end of the world crazies, and occasional complicated sex written in a way that shows up the craft (writing and sex) magnificently.  I thought Chabon’s storytelling was brilliant.  On top of it, the reader of the book on tape (Peter Riegert) was ridiculously good.

You don’t have to be Jewish to love this book.  It helps, but it’s not necessary.

Ahhhh.  That felt good.  In my ongoing commitment to my marriage, I give Amy one solid week a quarter of uninterrupted “Brad / Amy time.”  This quarter I handed my handheld to her as we boarded the plan in New York on Monday the 10th and she returned it to on Monday the 17th when we disemarked in Minneapolis.

We had a glorious and much needed vacation together.  2007 has been an intense year so far – one that I’m very pleased with – but has demanded (and required) unyielding focus.  Amy has been amazingly patient with me but some serious together time was in order.

We spent a great week in Rome and Venice, but enjoyed the semi’s and final’s of the US Open with my brother and his wife before we disconnected completely from our daily life.  We love to watch tennis and Amy rewarded us with unbelievable seats (row 3 for the semis; row 8 for the finals.)  Federer (and the entire experience) was magical.  We even enjoyed the trips back and forth on the #7 train.

We’re huge Italy fans so Rome and Venice were fun, although I don’t like boats so Venice was a little tough at times.  Vacation for us is a lot of eating, sleeping, relaxing, reading, doing some husband/wife stuff (feel free to use your imagination), sleeping some more, walking around, a few runs, and a lot of chilling out.  No computers.  No cell phones.  No work.  Rome and Venice, especially the superb San Clemente Palace, provided a great environment for this. 

As usual, we both consumed about a book a day.  My list – which is heavily slanted toward Italy and Venice this time – follows.

Japan and the Internet Revolution – I’m not really sure how this ended up in my reading pile.  While a lot of it was dull and tedious, it has a few fun sections, including about a dozen pages on Softbank, Masayoshi Son, and a handful of things I saw first hand between 1996 and 2000.

Category 7 – I needed some fiction after that one and picked this up in the airport in Amsterdam.  The subtitle “It’s The Biggest Story in History” set the stage.  Pretty good – especially if you are curious about how a weatherman (Bill Evans) would construct a novel about the world’s worst storm and the evil genius that creates it as it is about to wipe out New York City.  Good mental floss.

Italy: A Short History – I’ve never been good at geography and I’m even worse at history.  After reading this book, I realized how completely clueless I had previously been about the history of Italy.  This was a great primer and should be read before you head over there – superb context in an easy to consume package.  Man that place has had a lot of governments.

Growing Up Guggenheim: A Personal History of a Family Enterprise – I love the Guggenheim.  While one of my unsuccessful dotcom-era investments was one curiously called Guggenheim.com (and rated a paragraph in Peter Lawson-Johnston’s memoir), the experience did not diminish my fascination with all things Guggenheim.  We went to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice (wow! what a collection) and I picked up this book while I was there.  Lawson-Johnston tells a good story.

Since the Layoffs – Time for some more fiction.  I spent an afternoon by the pool at the San Clemente Palace and polished this one off.  Iain Levison is fucking hysterical.

The City of Falling Angels – While I inadvertently saved the best for last, I should have read this before I went to Venice rather than on the plane on the way home.  John Berendt wrote a beautiful book that uses the backdrop of the Teatro La Fenice Opera House fire of January 29, 1996 to describe Venice in intricate and glorious detail.  I rarely think of a book as “luscious” but that’s the best word for this one.  Yum.

I’ve been back for about 48 hours and am finally caught up just in time to head to San Francisco tomorrow.  It’s great to be back on the grid, but it was superb to check out for a week.

My march through Vonnegut continues.  Cat’s Cradle was the best yet – as predicted by everyone that saw me carrying it around the past few days.  Ice-Nine was not a new concept for me, but I was unaware of its melting point (114.4 degrees.)

While I often ponder how busy, busy, busy my world is, I’ve been noticing a lot of foma’s lately, especially being spewed by several wrang-wrangs.  Sometimes they are sin-wat’s; other times they simply want to try to provoke pool-pah’s for no particular reason.  Most of these people are granfalloon’s, which is just fine by me since I’m very happy with my karass.

Heh.  Just read it.  Guess what’s next?  The same book that eight million other people are reading: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I paid $34.11 (including tax) today at the Boulder Bookstore when I could have just ordered it on Amazon for $17.99.  Oops – poor impulse control.

Shelfari is running a great competition called Seven Days of Harry Potter.  The grand prize is a signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  First prize is five tickets to see Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix.  Second prize is a broomstick.

As you know from reading this blog I’m a huge reader.  I tend not to be a trendy reader so it surprised even me that I’ve loved the Harry Potter books (as is Amy.)  Today is the day it begins again.  I’m pretty sure I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

And – for all you readers out there, the New York Times has a fun article today titled C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success.

Every now and then I read a book that terrifies me.  The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor is one such book.  I’m not entirely sure why I grabbed it at the bookstore last week – it might have been that I recognized the author’s name (William Langewiesche) or that it wasn’t a very long book. 

I sat outside yesterday afternoon and read it as the sun went down and my dogs played.  As I turned each page, I felt myself getting more and more anxious.  The core story is that of Abdul Qadeer Khan and Pakistan’s rise as a nuclear power, but all the usual characters (Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Russia) are a deep part of the story.  Oh – and the United States.

Langewiesche is an incredible storyteller.  This could easily have been a tedious book.  It moved along more rapidly than most of the junk nuclear crisis fiction crap that I read as part of my mental floss program.  I was also introduced to a new journalistic hero – Mark Hibbs.  Hibbs writes for McGraw-Hill / Platts publications such as Megawatt Daily, Emissions Daily, and Dirty Tankerwire.  While these could be the titles of porn sites, they are most definitely not.  Hibbs has been digging in the nuclear dirt for a long time and some of his discoveries are amazing.  Frightening, but amazing.

This book reinforces that it could all be gone in a flash.  Langewiesche does an awesome job of not being alarmist – he’s very pragmatic – both about the underlying facts around the global nuclear weapon industry as well the challenges of “bad guys” creating an atomic bomb.  At the same time, he shows how utterly chaotic, messed up, and bureaucratic the existing global nuclear infrastructure is and why the dynamics that the US and Russia have unleased on the world – first in World War II – and then during the cold war – is outside our fundamental control (and containment) at this point.

Langewiesche has written a balanced, detailed, riveting, and terrifying book that should be read by any child of the atomic age who hid under his desk at school during an atomic bomb drill.  Wow – boom.  Time to go for a run and enjoy this planet.