worth the time and effort: Shapin, Auletta, Anderson

If you still have your innovations issue of The New Yorker about, you might read Steven Shapin on use and invention. He starts with the old phenomenologist's trick of describing the room he's writing in and it only gets better from there. And is the cartoon that illustrates the article supposed to be a representation of Shapin himself? Adorable. May 14 seems like just yesterday but I don't remember hearing too many rave reviews of this. Am I the only one?

I also read Auletta on the Wall Street Journal. It took 3 sittings! But I learned a lot. From July 2.

And I started Jon Lee Anderson's Letter from Afghanistan, which had a long, rather gratuitous action sequence. At least, I think the play-by-play of gunfire, etc was gratuitous, I haven't actually finished the article yet. Maybe it becomes relevant. In the July 9 issue. Less sure if this last one is worth the time or effort, but I'm intrigued by the familiarity its politics and imagery thus far . . .

UPDATE: New Yorker Comment is swept up in the action, too.

UPDATE 2: Comments turn towards fiction (gasp!), "If I Vanished" by Stuart Dybek, and a film called Open Range.