"Euclid in the Rainforest" has been cast aside in favor of the (promises to be better) "Euclid's Window" (by Leonard Mlodinow). (However, there are some negative reviews on Amazon, so I don't know. Then again, books like "Middlemarch" get negative reviews on Amazon, so it may be partly a Problem of Trolls.)

One big difference? "Euclid in the Rainforest" is heavily travelogue - "Look at where *I*, the Author, have Been!" "Look at what *I* the Author, have Done!" "Look at the people *I* the Author have Met!"

"Euclid's Window" starts out talking about the Egyptians and how they needed some basic geometry for pyramid building. No mention of "*I* the Author" (other than a brief shout-out to his two sons, where he uses their names as variables, which I find completely forgivable and even quite charming.)

Excessive ego in a published author bothers me, almost as much as sloppiness in published (and paid-for) writing bothers me. I can forgive ego and even some sloppiness on a blog; for one thing, it's stuff I can read for free. But I get irked when an author is making bucks for writing something that's not as good or not as enjoyable as what someone else might write for free on the Internet.

I think also part of it is the "validation" issue. Any Joe or Jane can do their scribblings on a blog. Some Joes and Janes write quite well, others not so well. But often it seems that the ones who write well labor in relative obscurity (NOT REFERRING TO MYSELF HERE though I have used that phrase in the past; I think the quality of my writing is debatable). But other people who aren't that "great," at least not by my standards, get book contracts because they're good at being twee or outre or something else that a publisher decides the public will eat up. (And often they do). And so a lot of bad books get published, and once in a while I get rooked into buying one. (Fortunately, my prejudicial avoidance of "modern novels" seems to help me avoid a lot more of the depressingly bad ones.)

I suppose it's because I ultimately tend to believe in a meritocracy - I think the people who are the "best" at what they do should be the most-rewarded. But sadly, often in this day and age, it's less what you can do as it is who you know. Or how much of a stir you can make about yourself.