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Netsurfer Recommendations

Wired - A Romance
Gary Wolf
Random House; ISBN: 0375502904

Wired, the magazine, is so intertwined with the Internet madness of the '90s that it seems difficult at times to know when one ends and the other begins. Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalf started the magazine to be the voice of the Net revolution, as much an evangelical call to arms as an attempt to cover the story of the new Internet culture. Ironically, in so many ways the magazine's story paralleled that of the companies, ventures, and institutions it covered. Gary Wolf was one of Wired's writers and in his book, he tells the by-now familiar story of boom and bust, the bust heavily influenced by the power struggles and battles over money that scuttled the magazine's planned IPO. Eventually, Wired was split in two parts and sold. Conde Nast got the print magazine and Lycos got the HotWired Web site. These days both are doing a reasonably good job of covering the post-boom scene - we happily and often point our readers their way - though with not quite the same fervor and day-glo hues of the original publication. This book is an essential read for anybody who lived the '90s Net madness. While you're at it, you should also check out " Starving to Death on $200 Million", a not-dissimilar tale of the rise and fall of the Industry Standard, a business-oriented counterpart to Wired's cultural perspective of the supremacy of the Net.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land
Subhankar Banerjee
Mountaineers Books; ISBN: 0898864380

First off, this is a terrific book, with great wildlife photos and numerous essays by the likes of Jimmy Carter, Peter Matheson, and Allen Sibley. It's also clearly a piece of skillful advocacy - some would say propaganda - extolling the virtues of the vast and spectacular Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Which is fine, since there's no rule that says skillful propaganda can't be entertaining, and even beautiful. Even if it also happens to be at the center of a nasty political controversy. Subhankar Banerjee, an engineer from India, decided to put together the book to raise awareness of the refuge and make a case for protecting it from development. He spent his own money and traveled to the refuge to take the superb pictures published in the book. The book was mentioned on the floor of the US Senate during a debate on the status of the refuge, and next thing you know, an exhibition of Banerjee's photos at the Smithsonian was buried in the basement and expunged from the Smithsonian Web site and schedule of exhibits. Accusations of political blackmail of the federally funded Smithsonian by the current environmentally unfriendly administration are now flying thick and fast. As you may imagine, the book has only benefited from all the publicity.

This Business of Music (with CD-ROM)
M. William Krasilovsky, Sidney Schemel, John M. Gross (Contributor), Tad Lathrop
Watson-Guptill Pubns; ISBN: 0823077284

We'll be upfront and admit that this is essentially a boring book. So why recommend it? Because if the music business can be said to have a single bible, this would be it. In 526 dense pages, this tome covers the music business from every conceivable angle. Here is all the in-depth information about intellectual property laws, contract practices, financial issues, how the record industry works, government regulation of the business, the interaction between music writers and publishers, and myriad modern distribution technologies and the emerging legal issues that impact them. If there's one word which sums up the book, that would be "deep". The reference section and enclosed CD-ROM are equally stuffed, with lists of key Web sites, primary source documents (international copyright treaties for example), and examples of numerous forms, agreements, and licenses. This is the ninth updated edition of the book, which was first published in 1964, so you know that something's right. Boring it may be, but if you're in the music biz and are interested in more than just playing for fun, this is an essential reference.

The Pirates and the Mouse: Disney's War Against the Underground
Bob Levin
Fantagraphics Books; ISBN: 156097530X

We have no proof, but we kind of think that Disney does not want you to know this book exists. In 1971, a group of San Francisco Bay underground cartoonists who called themselves the Air Pirates published a series of comic-book parodies with Disney cartoon characters. That would have been bad enough in the eyes of the famously protective giant, but worse, the parody versions of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and others behaved in very un-Disney ways. They had sex, used bad language, and were not averse to the occasional joint - or worse. The mammoth lawsuit that ensued lasted for ten years and wound its way up to the US Supreme Court. This is not a book about the lawsuit as such, though it certainly plays a prominent role. No, this is a book about how a bunch of weird and wacky characters - the cartoonists, just for the record - decided to sabotage a pillar of popular culture. It's a great story with plenty of wit, humor, and reproductions of several of the offending comic strips. If you have even an ounce of counter-culture revolution in your heart, how can you possibly resist this marvelous tale?