peterme.com		Thoughts, links, and essays from Peter Merholz
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Home Archives Archives before June 13, 2001 RSS Feed Adaptive Path (my company!) About peterme Coordinates Most of the Time Oakland, CA Interests Current American history around the time of the Revolution, figuring out how to marry top-down task-based information architecture processes with bottom-up document-based ones, finding a good dentist in San Francisco Oakland Perennial Designing the user experience (interaction design, information architecture, user research, etc.), cognitive science, ice cream, films and film theory, girls, commuter bicycling, coffee, travel, theoretical physics for laypeople, single malt scotch, fresh salmon nigiri, hanging out, comics formalism, applied complexity theory, Krispy Kreme donuts. surf Click to see where I wander. Wish list Show me you love me by buying me things. Spyonme Track updates of this page with Spyonit. Clickee here. Essays [Editor's note: peterme.com began as a site of self-published essays, a la Stating The Obvious. This evolved (or devolved) towards link lists and shorter thoughtpieces. These essays are getting a tad old, but have some good ideas.] Reader Favorites Interface Design Recommended Reading List Whose "My" Is It Anyway? Frames: Information Vs. Application Subjects Interface Design Web Development Movie Reviews Travel		Book plug 3: Iceland Posted on 09/26/2002. I can hear the public thinking, "Oh dear god. Is Peter talking about a work of fiction? A novel? You mean, he occasionally allows himself flights of fancy?" Yes. Occasionally. There's a little to story as to why I read Iceland. I know the author, Jim Krusoe. Not well, and not for a while--he was the stepdad of one of my best friends in elementary school. But I've always had a fondness for him, and when I saw he had written his first novel, and I saw that I had a lot of travel ahead of me (this was a couple months back, yo), I went ahead and purchased it. And it's very good! Jim has spent the bulk of his writing years as a poet, and it shows. His narrative is ethereal yet vivid. Surreal, though it makes sense. I could rehash the plot, about a man, with a defective organ, and his meandering journey, meeting beautiful women, carpet cleaners, and visiting Iceland, but, well, it's kind of not the point. The point is in the telling, which is evocative, funny, and delightfully off-center. You never know quite where you're standing in the flow of the story, yet you're effortlessly guided forward by Jim's feverish turns of phrase and elliptical storytelling. This book makes for *excellent* lazy Sunday reading. Enjoy! 0 comments so far. Add a comment. Previous entry: "Book plug 2: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition" Next entry: "The best essay I read this week." Add A New Comment: Name E-Mail (optional) Homepage (optional) Comments Now with a bigger box for text entry! Whee! All contents of peterme.com are © 1998 - 2002 Peter Merholz.