A Modest Construct

¶ Ghost in the Wires

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick: Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; Year: 2011; Pages: 432

Social Engineering was my hobby horse as an undergraduate IT major; I say this as though I’m an old veteran of the IT industry, but I’m not—I’m a fresh-faced, startup-mentality programmer. One of the reasons I always focused on social engineering in my various papers and projects, however, is I was exposed early to the idea of Kevin Mitnick. This isn’t to say I was particularly familiar with his exploits, or even well-versed in the technology of his area, but the notion that you could con your way into systems without necessarily programming or “hacking” was easy enough to understand.

¶ Krakatoa

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester: Publisher: Harper Perennial; Year: 2005; Pages: 464

I’ve been familiar with Simon Winchester only for his two books about the Oxford English Dictionary, namely The Professor and the Madman and The Meaning of Everything. I’d made the lazy assumption that Winchester major field of interest was, therefore, dictionaries and language in general. It wasn’t until I picked up Krakatoa that I noticed his bibliography is not only voluminous, but multifarious as well, spanning people, major events, and obviously major publications.

¶ Salt

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky: Publisher: Penguin; Year: 2003; Pages: 498

The proposition to create a whole book about what appears a simple and straightforward substance may seem rather daunting. Certainly, one expects that salt could provide a number of amusing or amazing anecdotes, but 500 pages worth? In Kurlansky’s defense, he manages to tell a tale more full-figured than a smattering of interesting errata, but I can’t help but feel as though there was at least 75 pages worth of fluff.