Friday Reads: Range

This week's Friday Reads selection is shared by Kelly Clever, who has been reading Range by David Epstein.

Kelly Clever with Range by Daivd Epstein

Academic librarians are generalists in an environment of highly-specialized specialized experts. When I heard about this book, which claims to prove that "generalists triumph in a specialized world," I knew I had to read it.

Conventional wisdom tells us that we need to pick our specializations early or else we'll be left in the dust by all of our competitors who do. Epstein shows that this can be the secret to success in "kind" environments, like the world of chess players, where learning a lot of information that responds consistently is important. In an information-saturated, ever-changing, uncertain world, however, most decisions and actions need to be made in a "wicked" environment. It is in these "wicked" environments that those with wide-ranging interests and experiences come into their own.

Range reads a bit like Freakonomics or Outliers, even though it turns one of Outliers' much-touted truisms (the 10,000-hour rule) upside down. It's an engaging and fascinating look at how some of the most successful and well-known athletes, artists, musicians, prediction-casters, and scientists dabble in a lot of things instead of hyper-focusing on one area. After all, if the only tool you have is a hammer, things tend to start looking like nails... but if you have a well-stocked toolbox with a variety of tools, you're more likely to find a better solution. While the book hasn't talked about the value of the liberal arts (yet, anyway; I still have 100 pages to go!), that has been on my mind as I consider our university goals of educating students to be "fit for the world in which they will live." Critical thinking, problem-solving, ethical reasoning, and more are skills we seek to cultivate in our students, and they are abilities and mindsets that Epstein finds, again and again, were vital ingredients in major discoveries and accomplishments.

Copyright and... Baby Shark?

While the article claims that "Baby Shark" is in the public domain, it look more like a case of an orphan work to me. I remember singing a more gruesome version of this back in the day at Girl Scout camp.

What do you think? https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/08/26/baby-shark-copyright-infringement/

The real case here rests upon whether or not Pinkfong's version really did take significant elements from Johnny Only's recording/interpretation of the song, since the song itself obviously "belongs" to neither of them.

Friday Reads: The Honourable Schoolboy

We're back to Friday Reads for fall! Our Cataloging & Acquisitions Librarian, Adam Pellman, is reading The Honorable Schoolboy by John Le Carré, and says "Sorry for the serious look on my face in the picture, but I'm reading a spy novel, and espionage is no laughing matter."

Adam Pellman with The Honorable Schoolboy

"The Honourable Schoolboy is a spy novel, written by the great British spy novelist John Le Carré, who worked in the British intelligence service before becoming a best-selling writer. His books reveal a real knowledge of the inner workings of the intelligence trade, and focus more on the bureaucracy and day-to-day fieldwork of spycraft, rather than the action-packed, globetrotting adventures of many other spy novels. You can think of Le Carré's works almost as the anti-Mission Impossible, but they are just as thrilling in their own way. His novels have an intelligence and complexity that requires close attention, but they are usually riveting, and they always excel at showing the ways in which matters of global importance can hinge on the very personal vagaries of the human heart.

This is the second novel in a trilogy, and follows members of the British Secret Service who are still reeling from the betrayal of a Soviet double agent in the previous novel in the trilogy, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The hero of that novel, George Smiley, is back in charge of the service, and has sent sometime agent and news reporter Jerry Westerby to Hong Kong to ferret out a possible Soviet spy and defector. There, under pressure from Smiley, Westerby becomes embroiled in blackmail, murder, and a complicated attraction that may jeopardize the operation.

I'm looking forward to finishing this novel, and moving on later to read the third novel in the trilogy, Smiley's People."