About Netsurfer Books

Netsurfer Books is a bi-monthly e-zine offering short reviews of books and related items. We include listings based on recommendations from our staff and reviews from other individuals. Are we bribed to include any of these items? No. Do we receive a commission if you purchase an item through one of the links included here? Yes. Are we waiting to hear from you about what you'd like to see reviewed? Definitely.

EDITOR'S CHOICE

The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street As a World Power, 1653-2000

The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street As a World Power, 1653-2000
John Steele Gordon
Scribner; ISBN: 0684832879

Gordon's book is a gold mine of historical trivia that puts New York City, Wall Street and capitalism into context stretching back to the oddly prophetic events of 1653 that gave Wall Street its name. Somewhat reminiscent of James Burke's "Connections" series, The Great Game describes how one small happenstance, coupled with another happenstance, layered over a bit of intent, time after time, often fueling capitalism in quite unexpected ways, turned Wall Street and its hometown into the face of global capitalism 350 years later. Along the way, you'll learn how semaphore first stabilized intercity markets, how in less than 20 years Wall Street closed out all other American cities to become the pre-eminent American financial center in the mid 19th century, and how the wages of skilled of telegraph operators stymied brokers' ambitions. With lessons learned, by 1903 the NYSE housed 500 telephones just on its trading floor. Watch for the thread of communications through the story, but it's certainly not all of the story. Even if you're not fascinated by finance and commerce, this history of a phenomenon from its inception is a wonderful read.

SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY

Obsidian Butterfly

Obsidian Butterfly
Laurell K. Hamilton
Ace Books; ISBN: 0441006841

Hamilton's Obsidian Butterfly is the ninth entry in her Anita Blakeseries. It's another tale of Blake, official vampire executioner for the American midwest - even after the undead have secured their civil rights. If she sounds a bit like Buffy the you-know-what, it's only because their creators selected the same literary conceit. Anita is tough broad in a tough job, not a sensitive teen to destiny born. Well, they both sleep with vampires, yes. And, some of their best friends are lycanthropes, but really, that's where the resemblance ends. Think V.I. Warshowski meets Buffy, and you'll have a sense of what makes this tough-talkin' fantasy series so popular.

All Tomorrow's Parties

All Tomorrow's Parties
William Gibson
Putnam Pub Group (T); ISBN: 0399145796

William Gibson is among the most original writers in the crowded sci-fi field; he trumps most others, though, as the man who holds the distinction of having coined the word "cyberspace" almost 20 years ago. He's back with the third part of a troika of novels quite capable of standing on their own, even while forming a satisfying trilogy. The story centers on Colin Laney and Rei Toei, characters he introduced in his 1996 novel Idoru. Gibson also calls up NoCal and SoCal, the two states hived from California in earlier books, and marks the new novel with the claustrophobia of shrunken personal space. His decaying 21st century is hurtling toward some undefined darkness, recognized by the data-drugged Laney and involving Japanese doll singer Rei Toei. Commerce, if you can believe it, is even more ubiquitous than it is now. In this world, people live in cardboard boxes, coffin-like rooms and vans, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge no longer carried traffic but hosts a bizarre bazaar. Don't be put off by this title's place in a trilogy; it's entirely capable of standing on its own even if you're only just venturing into Gibson's universe.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

@Large: The Strange Case of the World's Biggest Internet Invasion

@Large: The Strange Case of the World's Biggest Internet Invasion
David H. Freedman, Charles C. Mann
Touchstone Books; ISBN: 0684835584

Did any of us really think that it was any more than a matter of time before the really high-profile sites like Amazon and Yahoo succumbed to hacker attacks? No, didn't think so. And, here's early proof of our lack of faith. Beginning in 1991 and for almost two years, sites like the US Department of Defence, MIT, the State of California, the National Institutes of Health, and hundreds more were invaded by a hacker known as the Phantom Dialer. The feds staked out cyberspace for nine months before they caught the guy, hoping that by the sheer magnitude of his crimes they'd have the example they could crucify in the courts as a warning to hackers everywhere. In the end, they declined to prosecute. Why? Because, it turned out, phantomd was a possible schizophrenic, marginally retarded 20-year-old who all along had been armed with little more than his modem and dogged persistence. No savant, he often hacked passwords by merely keying endless combinations, and many network guardians had ignored his slow-motion attacks simply because they were so bizarrely ill-formed. What was his motive? He freely admitted it. He wanted access. That's all, just access. Freedman and Mann don't burden readers with too much technology, knowing full well that the real story is right there in the story.

Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds

Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds
J.C. Herz
Little Brown & Company; ISBN: 0316360074

Herz' central theme is that society already smacks of "The Matrix". Video games may well have been the Trojan horse that's taking us for a ride down the slippery slope toward that place where our lives are lived entirely in virtual reality at work, at play, at school, at home, on holiday, even changing the way we view and process information. We're not prepared to concede that humans are so weak of will that video games can turn teenagers into mass murderers, but we'll agree that our moods and synapses fire in entirely different ways when we turn the pages of her book and when we navigate a Web site, despite the fact that we've played fewer video games than anyone on this planet. But, the point is that the world has changed for all of us. Herz makes many intriguing observations. "In a sense," she writes, "Nintendo does to flying and hopping what Merchant-Ivory does to drawn-out, tentative love stories among pale, repressed people. If you go to a Merchant-Ivory film, you know certain emotional cards will be played with a new set of hairdos and hats, corsets, stagecoaches, and panoramas. If you load a Mario game, you can expect the same kinesthetic conventions applied to a new set of castles, catwalks, and clouds. The geographic novelty runs up against an overwhelming sense of familiarity. It's like a Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood, where different magical celebrity objects line the walls from city to city but the menu stays the same. Only the eye candy changes. Videogames are the purest kind of entertainment architecture - architecture with no physical substance at all, just production values. These are the theme parks of the mind."

The Millionaire Mind

The Millionaire Mind
Thomas J. Stanley
Andrews McMeel Publishing; ISBN: 0740703579

From the author of the best selling The Millionaire Next Door another book probing the nature of millionaires. In this volume Stanley has surveyed over 1300 walthy individuals in an attempt to find out what makes them tick. In addition to statistics (the average millionaire had a modest 2.92 GPA in school) the book brims with anecdotes about how they live and how they spend their time. You've got to admit, you're probably already at least a bit curious about whether you fit in with the potential millionaire demographic. Which makes picking up this book a no-brainer, right?

The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers: The Foolish Guide to Picking Stocks

The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers: The Foolish Guide to Picking Stocks
David Gardner, Tom Gardner
Fireside; ISBN: 0684857170

The Foolish boys are at it again. This book is a glimpse into their investing methodology which has produced whopping gains of 650% in their Rule Breaker Portfolio since 1994. Written in their trademark amusing and irreverent style with a dash of Shakespear thrown in for good measure, the book tells you how to spot companies which transition from industry rule breakers to dominate their niche. Given that so many people are devoted followers of The Motley Fool and their Net site the book is a must read for anybody interested in modern investing, if only to understand what other investors are thinking.

BIOGRAPHY, SOCIETY, AND HISTORY

Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer

Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer
Harold Schechter
Pocket Books; ISBN: 0671025449

Harold Schechter is a professor of American culture, a man with a special academic interest in the history of violent folklore: "Our pop entertainments aren't necessarily more brutal than those of the past," he writes. "They are simply ... more state of the art." Schechter has written before about Ed Gein, the twisted template for Norman Bates of "Psycho" and Hannibal Lecter - a man who needs no introduction - and about Deranged Albert Fish, a grandfatherly old soul who pierced his own groin with dozens of unrecoverable needles and who proved to have cannibalized as many a 15 children in 1920s New York City. In Depraved, Schechter turns his attention to Herman Mudgett, America's first identifiable serial killer, who ran a small but exclusive hotel in 19th-century Chicago, with homey extras like soundproof rooms, greased body chutes, torture chambers, and personal dissection rooms. Mudgett went by the name of Holmes - oh, the irony - and in his murderous career counted among his probably 55 victims his business partner, his partner's widow (whom he married), and his five children. You ever wonder what the world is coming to? Just look where it's been.

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl
John Colapinto
Harpercollins; ISBN: 0060192119

Imagine the most horrific possible experiment in the nature vs. nurture debate. Then, see if it even approaches the nightmare of this true story. Bruce Thiessen is one of a pair of identical eight-month-old twins taken to hospital for circumcision. In a massive medical error, Bruce's operation ends badly; his penis is destroyed by the electronic knife used in the procedure. His desperate parents consult Dr. John Money, a physician who specializes in sex change and a man committed to the primacy of nurture over nature as the determinant of our sexual identity. The decision is to raise Bruce as a girl, Brenda. Thus begins 12 years of surgery, drug therapy, and psychological manipulation designed to convince Bruce of his femaleness. The case is especially attractive to Money because the existence of an identical twin brother offers the most perfect control subject any experiment could hope for. The course of therapy failed catastrophically, but Money, aware of unmitigated failure, falsified evaluations and continued to champion the case, leading every year for decades to similar sex reassignment for between 100 and 200 pediatric patients with malformed or damaged genitals. Bruce asserted himself even as a child and, without being aware of his medical history, refused further treatment when he entered his teens. Today he lives as a man, not surprisingly bitter. Colapinto tells the disgraceful story of Thiessen's use by Money. We'll also point you to this on-point article on ethics in pediatric care.

Lies We Live By: Defeating Double-Talk and Deception in Advertising, Politics, and the Media

Lies We Live By: Defeating Double-Talk and Deception in Advertising, Politics, and the Media
Carl Hausman
Routledge; ISBN: 0415922801

Now here's a timely title, just as the American political campaigns begin to turn hot and erstwhile candidates fall by the wayside. Author Hausman believes we've developed a culture of half truth; lies, he says, have become so embedded in our lives - mostly through public relations and advertising efforts -- that we barely even notice them. There are scores of situations in which people are made to feel that they're getting a great deal, when in reality, they're being ripped off. Lies We Live By is a lesson in becoming more aware of these egregious assaults on public trust. Hausman shows readers how to decode double-talk, verbal loopholes, deceptive fine print, phony statistics, and other half truths used to extract your money or your vote, and discusses how corporations, reporters, and politicians use things like the veiled variable, the tortured definition, the re-made measure, precision garbage, and other manipulative methods. By looking at mathematics, advertising, politics, and history, Hausman investigates how corporations and organizations use these techniques get away with telling lies and what the public can do to become more savvy.

NONFICTION

Erotic Art: From the 17th to the 20th Century Art the Dopp Collection

Erotic Art: From the 17th to the 20th Century Art the Dopp Collection
Peter Weiermair
Edition Stemmle; ISBN: 3908161819

Edition Stemmle, this book's publisher, specializes in art and art history books. As a result, they know precisely how to present these erotic works, both grand and simple, to show them off to their best advantage. You'll certainly recognize some of the artists like Picasso and Ernst, although you'll probably not be familiar with these particular works, all part of a massive, seldom seen, private collection of erotic art. The sources are European and the works include watercolors, drawings, and photographs, many from rare series or portfolios. Not surprisingly, alongside the famous artists, there are many anonymous ones. For the most part, the book lets the works speak for themselves, but there are a handful of fine essays on the subject.

Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing

Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing
William Irwin
Open Court Publishing Company; ISBN: 0812694090

Serious thinkers looking for ways to open serious discussions have found some unexpected entrée;s in pop culture. Is Data Human? explores the metaphysics of Star Trek's universe, for instance. In this book, Seinfeld and Philosophy, William Irwin explores the Socratic, Platonic, and Nietzschean philosophies underlying Seinfeld's comic absurdities. Was it, for instance, rational for George to adopt a strategy of doing the opposite? Did the show's closed circular structure play to Neitzche's notions of eternal return and recurrence? Jerry, what have you wrought? Not that there's anything wrong with it.

South Park: A Stickyforms Adventure

South Park: A Stickyforms Adventure
Comedy Central
Pocket Books; ISBN: 0671025996

GI Joe, surrender. Barbie, you acquisitive cow, quit trying to impress people with your teeny-tiny clothes that just don't hang right. Here's where the real action is, at Starks Pond, in the cafeteria, at the school crossing. And, the social arbiters? Why Cartman and Ike, who else? South Park's stickyform adventure offers you 14 venues from the series plus most of your favorite characters, all in a format that's not entirely foreign to the show's actual production technique. Then, it's up to you to go to (quiet little whitebread redneck mountain) town. Make up your own stories or re-live your favorite episodes. Sounds like child's play, you say? Ha! Read the customer reviews to see just exactly who's been killing Kenny. (And, isn't it cool about Blame Canada/A>? We can hardly wait for that musical interlude on Oscar night!)

Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends

Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends
Jan Harold Brunvand
W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 0393047342

The Web provides us with a lot of opportunities to test the nature of an open society and a global village. It also offers the perfect back fence over which we can gossip. Folklore has been uprooted from the previous haunts and transplanted to large centers, turning into urban legends, also alive and well on the Internet, the biggest community of them all. Brunvand has written several times before on urban legends and you'll no doubt recognize many of the 200 urban legends he recounts here. He does more than just catalogue the stories, though. He also traces their trails as close to the origin as can be found and discusses their variations. These stories also gain currency, go into dormancy, and then return in new form, and Brunvand considers the nature of their life cycles. This is just the kind of book that appeals to Netsurfer readers - a serious treatment of pop culture phenomena.

FICTION

The Conversion

The Conversion
Aharon Appelfeld, Jeffrey M. Green (Translator)
Schocken Books; ISBN: 0805241531

Appelfeld's novel of religious upheaval in Austria is especially poignant in view of current events. He tells the story of Karl, a Jewish-born Austrian civil servant who converts cynically to Christianity as a step up the bureaucratic ladder. Despite his lack of fundamental commitment to either religious choice, however, he becomes trapped in personal and cultural crises that are fundamentally driven by religion. The adopted Christian girl with whom he was raised - and whom he now loves - has become a committed convert to Judaism. Outside his window, new proposals from the city government for which he works will put Jewish shop owners out of their businesses and draw him into a role as defender of the religion and people that he abandoned in his conversion of convenience. The story happens at the turn of the century, so the heavy hand of World War II isn't brought into play, but the cultural sentiments that held sway at the time call up both the war and current events.

The Visitant

The Visitant
Kathleen O'Neal Gear, W. Michael Gear
Forge; ISBN: 0312865317

Archeologist Maureen Cole might have uncovered the scene of an 800-year-old murder in an Anasazi dig in New Mexico, but she can't be sure. Nor, apparently, is it entirely clear whether the deaths can be attributed to humans or something more otherworldly. The Gears, both archeologists, have several titles to their credit in their First North Americans fiction series. With Cole, they open the door to a new series. The mystery unravels in chapters that alternate between the present and the time of the deaths. True to their calling and subject, the authors lace the story with authentic detail and history, revealing North American society as it existed at about the same time that Ellis Peters' Father Cadfael was solving his own mysteries half a world away.

I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops

I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops
Hanan Al-Shaykh, Catherine Cobham (Translator)
Doubleday; ISBN: 0385491271

Before internecine war devastated it, Lebanon - particularly Beirut - was a country of glorious contradictions. A country steeped in tradition and at the crossroads of modern trade, much of its population, regardless of education, slipped effortlessly in and out of any of three languages, the lingering aftermath of colonial influence. Hanan Al-Shaykh, a Lebanese short-story writer, focuses on the lives of Arab women, particularly in Lebanon, but also throughout the Middle East, caught between tradition and the march of time. Her prose is as complex as the politics and cultures of the area. Her style is clearly the product of her culture, leaning to poetic fable in even her titles.

MUSIC TO READ BY

Hot Rods & Custom Classics: Cruisin' Songs & Highway Hits

Hot Rods & Custom Classics: Cruisin' Songs & Highway Hits
Various artists
Wea/Atlantic/Rhino; ASIN: B00000I5M0

Wittily packaged like a model car, replete with fuzzy purple dice, key chain, decals, and more than 60 pages of background material, this four-disc set puts you on the road to some great traveling music. "Little Deuce Coupe", "Pink Cadillac", the theme from "Route 66", and "GTO" are just four of the numbers from this 88-track collection. Rollin' down the highway, you'll get a selection of car songs in pretty much any genre. (Well, OK, the compleat Mozart doesn't include an ode to California culture.) But, you'll get a nice cross-section of mostly rock and blues, with a respectable dollop of country and rockabilly in a joyous collection that will should make those long road trips a lot more enjoyable.