Yes, we all know how Kin­dle & Co. are going to steal bud­gets from paper presses, yet while books are still a com­mon cul­tural good, I want to rec­om­mend three read­ings which recently filled my days with joy and the price­less gift of offline infor­ma­tion. It’s not that price­less, though: Ama­zon quickly has to get rid of tons of books before every­one switches to eInk As the avid reader might notice, Thomas Pynchon’s “Inher­ent Vice”, Tara Hunt’s “The Whuffie Fac­tor” and the infa­mous pic­ture book “This is why you’re fat” do have noth­ing in com­mon. Just saying.

Thomas Pyn­chon: Inher­ent Vice

Thomas Pyn­chon wrote many great clas­sics. His lat­est Oeu­vre Inher­ent Vice describes the post-hippie, drug-rich era of the early ‘70s in Cal­i­for­nia. In between smok­ing his beloved joints, Larry “Doc” Sportello wades through a myth­i­cal surfer-paradise try­ing to make his liv­ing as a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor. Pynchon’s novel is rich with cliché and fea­tures almost any stereo­type one can imag­ine about the psy­che­delic set­ting. Even though “Inher­ent Vice” dis­guises itself as a story of crime, Pyn­chon takes the reader into a labyrinth of plots and sub­plots. Pimps, narcs, super-villains and a mythic entity called the “Golden Fang” pop­u­late a col­or­ful, yet some­times frus­trat­ing set­ting. Thomas Pyn­chon is a genius when it comes to play­ing with lan­guage, yet still his new book con­tains too much arti­fi­cial fla­vors for my per­sonal taste — yet still it’s a fas­ci­nat­ing joyride through a fas­ci­nat­ing era.

Tara Hunt: The Whuffie Factor

I’ve men­tioned The Whuffie Fac­tor: Using the Power of Social Net­works to Build Your Busi­ness by Tara Hunt on Twit­ter before — it’s def­i­nitely one of my favorite books on the “econ­omy of atten­tion”. “Whuffies” is the name Tara chose for the “cur­rency of atten­tion” — using exam­ples from Mole­sk­ine to Willit­blend, Tara out­lines the fun­da­men­tal mar­ket change fueled by new media. If you ever won­dered what all the buzz about crowd­sourc­ing, trust-agents and word-of-mouth effect really means, this book is for you. Even more so if you are plan­ning to include social media chan­nels in your own mar­ket­ing strat­egy: Tara not only offers in-depth the­o­ret­i­cal insights, she also shares a hand­ful of prac­ti­cal strate­gies which might give you the edge over your competitors.

Var­i­ous Authors (and pho­tog­ra­phers): This is why you’re fat

I admit: this one is not a good read. It’s all about the pic­tures of the gross­est, fat­test calory-packing fast food you could ever imag­ine. This Is Why You’re Fat: Where Dreams Become Heart Attacks does fea­ture a cou­ple of recipes, but if you’re order­ing this book, you bet­ter hide it from your nutri­tion­ists ever-critical eyes. He might not be too fond of “Corn dog pizza” or the infa­mous “Bur­rito Cake”. The richly illus­trated book also fea­tures a cou­ple of recipes, but the truth is: you can also find these pic­tures online at thisiswhyyourefat.com — but a true fan of mega­lo­ma­nia burg­ers and not-so-mouth-watering food pho­tog­ra­phy will warmly wel­come this new guest on the book­shelf titled “weird”. The NYT rec­om­mended not read­ing this dur­ing, before or after meals — the faint of heart shouldn’t take a look between meals either.