Master and Commander - by Patrick O'Brian
Forced myself through 116 pages of it but cannot get any further, as that I have no particular interest in sea-faring stories, the British Navy, or technical details of sailing. It's like Call of the Wild for the navy, complete with the hanging and the swearing. This is actually one story that I believe may be more interesting as a movie if only so I can skip over all the details about the length of the main-mast and staysail.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Cheating Culture
The Cheating Culture by David Callahan (hardcover 295pages)
...is one of those books that I picked up to get an idea of what's going on in the society right now. It's got a lot of interesting (but mostly depressing, as you might've guessed from the title) information and was a surprisingly good read, considering its genre and prose style. The opinion part, of course, has to be taken with a grain of salt. It made me think. It also made me feel somewhat paranoid but for all that most of it is about things that would make me more cynical, it ended on a surprisingly positive note -- mainly consisting of the author saying: okay, we have all these problems, but this is what we can do about them and it can be done.
That being said, Lucy, if you're still reading this, I'd like it if you read this book some time, so we can talk about it. A lot of its premises are based on socioeconomic paradigms and I'm curious to see what someone who actually knows something about economics can say about it. (Like I've said, I've mostly read it for the facts and I don't know enough to evaluate the opinions.)
...
In other news, started Master and Commander but don't like it much right now.
...is one of those books that I picked up to get an idea of what's going on in the society right now. It's got a lot of interesting (but mostly depressing, as you might've guessed from the title) information and was a surprisingly good read, considering its genre and prose style. The opinion part, of course, has to be taken with a grain of salt. It made me think. It also made me feel somewhat paranoid but for all that most of it is about things that would make me more cynical, it ended on a surprisingly positive note -- mainly consisting of the author saying: okay, we have all these problems, but this is what we can do about them and it can be done.
That being said, Lucy, if you're still reading this, I'd like it if you read this book some time, so we can talk about it. A lot of its premises are based on socioeconomic paradigms and I'm curious to see what someone who actually knows something about economics can say about it. (Like I've said, I've mostly read it for the facts and I don't know enough to evaluate the opinions.)
...
In other news, started Master and Commander but don't like it much right now.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
The Bluest Eye
By Toni Morrison, 216 pages with afterword.
In terms of shock value it's up there with A Million Little Pieces. I like it much better than Song of Solomon though -- the structure and style is a little different (I would say it's more lyrical both in terms of word usage and in the way it's fragmented) and it really worked for me. There are lots of themes and ideas in the book and it's definitely not a light read, or a happy read. That being said, it's also a surprisingly fast read (I started reading at around 11am and finished by 2pm, even with flipping back and forth a few times). As much as the book is about racism in the days just before WWII, it's also about people. The children's voice is astonishing accurate and that makes the story all the more stark and just...it's an amazing book. Not what I usually would go for, but wow.
In terms of shock value it's up there with A Million Little Pieces. I like it much better than Song of Solomon though -- the structure and style is a little different (I would say it's more lyrical both in terms of word usage and in the way it's fragmented) and it really worked for me. There are lots of themes and ideas in the book and it's definitely not a light read, or a happy read. That being said, it's also a surprisingly fast read (I started reading at around 11am and finished by 2pm, even with flipping back and forth a few times). As much as the book is about racism in the days just before WWII, it's also about people. The children's voice is astonishing accurate and that makes the story all the more stark and just...it's an amazing book. Not what I usually would go for, but wow.
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