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[Mar. 12th, 2008|10:47 pm] |
I may be posting more at GoodReads for the mo'. Not sure what the ultimate fate of this thing is going to be.
Stuff I'm not sure got on the 2007 list (although I know I didn't make my 50 books goal... sigh.):
Station X Read after another Cryptonomicon reread when I was craving more codebreaking stories. Non-fiction, history. Pretty cool.
...and there are others, but I think I've lost the list. Oh well. |
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[Sep. 29th, 2007|04:05 pm] |
Jeez louise. I read about 15-20 books in the last month or so of summer, but I seem to have forgotten to write most of them down. One new, and a partial list.
Hogfather (29 Sept 07)
Terry Pratchett (God, how much do I hate typing his name.)
Fairly interesting, in a Pratchetty way, but not all that funny. Pratchett is a good way to turn your brain off at night, though, and we have a huge number of fans in the house I'm living in.
And now the list. Ish.
Codex -- Weird. Didn't like the end. Wtf.
Blue Blood (?) -- Some kind of mystery about Yale. Very enjoyable. Funny how some mysteries are, and some aren't, and you can totally tell in the first two pages which is which.
Ballet Shoes -- Adorable little children's book that we used to read. Nicely written.
Freakonomics -- Really interesting; much moreso than I expected.
How Soccer Explains the World -- Awesome. Aweseomawesomeawesome. I approve.
Since returning to school:
Fellowship of the Ring; about bloody time, too, as I've been inching my way through it for over two years. Something relaxing about his prose; it's better if you don't imagine it as a book so much as a myth or something like the Iliad.
(the second temeraire book) (7 Oct 07), a reread. Still good. But jeez, how everybody read so much into such tiny mannerisms and things, and they kept getting insulted and het up over single sentences or words. I think the time period would drive me slowly nuts.
Crap, this is pathetic-- I'll have to track down a couple of my partial lists. Laterz... homework tiem nao. |
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[Jun. 24th, 2007|05:27 pm] |
I had a two day gig answering phones. I got an extraordinary amount of reading done, and $200 to boot. Yes!
Quick reviews, because I have to do some other stuff. Maybe more later.
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Ex Libris (21 June 07)
Anne Fadiman
Nice little book of essays about books and reading. Really well written; I think I like essay collections! Fadiman is an essayist; I'm going to have to get more of her books.
Cobweb (22 June 07)
Neil Stephenson and someone else
Stephenson is weird; his writing is sometimes hard to get into, but usually captivating once you do. He has a distinct style, too; not quantifiable, but like a taste in your mouth.
A mystery; political/historical thriller centering around the Gulf War. Very struck by how corrupt he sees all organizations as being, most especially academics. I was really sad when one of the characters got a faked doctorate. It was like, nooooo, you are so close, don't do it!
Going Postal (22 June 07)
Terry Pratchett
One of my favorite Discworld books, not least because of all the stuff about the clacks. I love the clacks. If I was in Discworld, I'd be one of those small-town kiddie clacks operators; no joke.
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (22 June 07)
Paul Zindel
Well, it was short. It's one of those things, however, that really has no outstanding qualities unless you analyze it to death, and I'm not in the mood for that. I liked Tillie waxing eloquent about science, because it's so much what I feel. Other than that: whatever. |
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| Summer Reading, Happened So Fast.... |
[Jun. 14th, 2007|04:17 pm] |
Woo, summer! I'm doing things other than reading (job searching, for one: ick), but I do have a pleasantly large but not yet overwhelming pile of library books, too.
I've been on a strong non-fiction (and especially science) kick recently, though there are a couple of DWJ rereads and of course the first six Harry Potter books that I also want to get to. We're already on week 24; I've got some catching up to do!
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"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (14 June 07)
Richard P. Feynman
I really enjoyed this one, and I think the way I read it may have helped; but more about that later. This one's non-fiction; an autobiography by one of the physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project. I know that sets a certain standard for tone, but really I'm just saying that because it gives you a starting place for who he is: a really top-notch physicist who grew up in the Depression and was at his prime in the '40s through '70s. The essays (or stories, or whatever you want to call them) are written in a very conversational manner, so they're easy to read and more absorbing than you initially expect. Almost all of them are completely fascinating, and most are humorous; Feynman is thoroughly eccentric but not overly wacky or off the wall. He really enjoyed messing with people's heads, and his pranks are a constant theme, especially in the first two parts.
Two of my favorite stories actually occurred at Los Alamos; "Los Alamos From Below," (which at 30 pages was one of the longest) a general romp through the quirks and excitement of the time he spent there, and "Safecracker Meets Safecracker," which in addition to recounting the stories of the safes he had cracked and the jokes he'd played on people with it gives an in-depth description of how to pick locks and open safes. "Los Alamos From Below" doesn't talk too much about the implications of the Bomb; Feynman captures the tremendous excitement and energy of scientific discovery that infused LANL, but only at the very end does he brush upon the horror of the results. For me, this story goes a long way towards explaining how people could get so excited about the Bomb even though they also knew it was, well, a bomb.
I only got this book last night and finished it this afternoon, and I think that may have been part of why I enjoyed it so much. I can really devour a book, and when I was younger I'd do it all the time. More recently, especially at college, I've been trying to train myself into a more genteel manner of reading a couple of chapters at a time. I think it doesn't work as well; I get all meta about "oh, look, I'm reading a book, I feel good for taking some time out to read," and then I can't concentrate on what I'm actually reading, and get bored, and stop in the middle; and eventually I'm in the middle of fifteen books and they're all due at the library tomorrow. As some people can probably tell you, *cough*, I go into a sort of trance state when I read, and it's very hard to get my attention. So the question is, keep working on more genteel reading, or just go back to devouring? Since it's summer right now, I figure I may as well devour. It just works better that way.
The Game (May 07)
Diana Wynne Jones
The new DWJ book, woo! I really liked the setup; the resolution was pretty good, but went by way too fast. ( a few spoilers ) Overall? Worth reading, especially at its length.
Cart and Cwidder (May 07)
Diana Wynne Jones
Mixed Magics (May 07)
Diana Wynne Jones
These are both rereads (I've decided rereads count as long as I haven't read them in the past year!); I can't think of much to say about them other than that I still enjoy them. Both quite solid DWJ. |
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[Jan. 31st, 2007|11:30 pm] |
I finished the former towards the end of break and the latter sometime last week.
A Wrinkle In Time
Ursula K. LeGuin
LeGuin isn't the first author who comes to mind when I think of favorite authors, but I almost always enjoy those books of hers I do get around to reading. The last time I read the Wrinkle series was probably five or six years ago at the least, so I found I remembered surprisingly little. Still, what a wonderful book. *smile* I had forgotten all about Aunt Beast, but I still think she's probably one of the most wonderful people ever, edging out Meg. So anyway, I want to get around to rereading the rest of the series sometime this year.
Fermat's Enigma
Simon Singh
I've been reading this a bit at a time at night. What most impressed me about it was actually the sheer readability; I am a known math-afficionado, but it still takes me a little while to get into the flow of the narrative when I pick up a math book, and especially when stopping in the middle. Nothing of the sort here! So if you've seen the NOVA documentary, it's pretty much the book of that. The sheer, complex elegance and beauty of the math is represented without being overly detailed.
One thing that did strike me was the slight unlikability of Andrew Wiles-- not to mention his unusually awful fashion sense (he looks like a half-bald Ken doll and dresses in these sweaters that are five sizes too large; I think even your average absentminded professor can usually do better than that), he just came off as a bit of a jerk. I can't even quite remember why now... so obviously it was pretty minor. Anyway, that's not a complaint about the book; neither it nor NOVA ever does much more than sing his (admittedly worthy) praises.
I have a cold, so I am going to bed. Damn you, 8:30 classes! I don't know if I can survive this. |
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[Jan. 11th, 2007|01:56 pm] |
Yay, new year!
( Stats for 2006 )
I think I might try doing ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) 50bookchallenge. Hm. So "x/50" will be my "location."
In no particular order, but all since the new year (I fail at recording dates...):
Airborn
Kenneth Oppel
One I've had my eye on for a while. Turned out to be fun; sort of one of those Boy's Adventure stories, but nicely written and set aboard a dirigible. I might read future ones, but it's not at the top of my list. Anyway, a nice one if you need something to do.
His Majesty's Dragon
Naomi Novik
Finally finished this-- brilliant. You know Pern? You know how everybody and their Auntie Gertrude has written a Pern knockoff? This is the first original dragonrider story in... well, possibly ever. The writing is nice, and the characters are awesome, and their world just... blows my mind. Dragons don't just exist to bond to humans; they're as much people as (and in some notable cases, much more than) any human. Issues like patriotism, political rights, and quality of life are debated as they apply to dragons. One of the myriad interesting ideas is that dragons (which aren't even as large as McCaffrey's improbably sized golds) are quite reasonably treated more like warships than bicycles: they each have their own crew, and the crew have guns, can bandage the dragon in the air, board other dragons... etc, etc, etc. It's fantastic. Highly reccommend it.
The Pinhoe Egg
Diana Wynne Jones
Oddly, no one seemed to have this, and I had to order it from another library system. But still, yay! Chrestomanci! I... I don't know. I think I liked this possibly about as much as Conrad's Fate, but the latter improved vastly upon later read-throughs. Possibly I'm just too close to the first time. Anyway, the characters are wonderful, as always (heh, especially Gammer and the difficulties she causes), and overall I really enjoyed this. I guess the only slightly "off" things about it were the unusually strong denunciation of organized religion towards the end (... not like I don't agree with the points made, but it felt awkward) and Cat's developing dwimmer talent, which I don't think was clearly shown or explained. Possibly it will make more sense with a later read-through, so I'll probably be buying this once it either comes down in price on the used book sites and/or comes out in paperback; probably the latter. All in all? DWJ is still solid among my favorite authors ever.
Fire and Hemlock
Diana Wynne Jones
A reread, but (unusually) only for the second time so far. I think I liked it more this time around; the narrative is purposely vague, of course, so it helps to have an overall idea of what is what. It's a retelling of Tam Lin, but not in the usual obvious way that fairy tales are retold. Fire and Hemlock has a lot of depth, and in no way is it simplistic or easily understandable. The cover is still hideous; Polly is bizarre and pouty, and I have no idea who the dour man in the background is. Is that supposed to be Tom? Augh. If I could draw people....
jPod
Douglas Coupland
Someone on the DWJ mailing list recced this, so when I saw it on the shelf, I figured it was worth a try. Definitely enjoyable; not a new favorite, but good. I wasn't really sure about some of the meta aspects (the first line is "'Oh God. I feel like a refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel.'" Oy); but fortunately, while they end up being a part of the narrative, they don't ruin the whole thing. So anyway, the story is the insane life of a downtrodden video game programmer and his fellow inmates at their insane company and how he deals with his insane life, which involves such things as helping his mother with her marijuana garden, burying (and later digging up) dead bodies, housing illegal immigrants, and going to China to rescue his former boss from a sweatshop.
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I went skiing earlier, and I am currently in unbelievable pain. So my (hopeful) goal for the rest of break will be to pop lots of pills finish Collapse, which is interesting but intimidatingly long. It might happen, it might not. Oh well. |
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[Dec. 30th, 2006|12:23 am] |
I've read quite a bit this break. Wootness!
Rereads:
Night Watch (28 Dec 06)
This is a good one, but never as good as the first time. The first time was definitely *squee!*-worthy, as Vimes teaches himself the fine art of Being A Copper. I'll admit it's not as much a satire as a nearly fanservice-y revisiting of favorite characters, but it's still very enjoyable.
So You Want to Be a Wizard (27 Dec 06)
In contrast to Night Watch, I actually liked this more than the first time. I think it's one of those books you have to be in the right mood for. Deep, as all of the series is, which is why you need the mood.
First Test (26 Dec 06)
Decided I didn't remember enough of Tamora Pierce's Keladry series, so I'm going to reread them. It's not deep (none of Pierce's stuff is exceedingly so), but it's enjoyable, and provides a satisfying level of detail on training for knighthood.
Conrad's Fate (25 Dec 06)
The more I reread this one, the more I like it, oddly enough. The first read gave me the impression that it wasn't quite up to par as far as Diana Wynne Jones (one of my very favorite authors) goes, but more and more the characters and setting are engaging and occasionally hilarious.
I should probably also note that I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at school, and more slowly than I am accustomed to: one or two chapters a night. I still like it. Yay!
Didn't Finish:
Warriors: Into the Wild
I keep seeing these (there are a lot of them now), and they looked fairly interesting, so I figured it would be a good way to keep myself in books if they turned out to be any good. Sadly, they're not. I read about two chapters, and was put off by the slightly stilted writing and the easy way that the main character makes what should be major emotional decisions. Might be a passable children's book, but do not reccommend for anyone over the age of about twelve.
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And finally, *drumroll, please* the new fodder!
Dragon and Slave (26 Dec 06)
Third in a mildly entertaining series I've been reading recently. Essentially, space-age ex-con man (boy?) and dragonlike alien warrior-knight that can turn into a tattoo on his skin rove the galaxy while debating morality. They've got good action sequences, even if Draycos (the dragon... surprise, surprise) can sometimes make it way too easy, especially as the books progress.
In this one, Jack (the ex-apprentice con man) sells himself as a slave in order to access some computer systems. As usual, the ostensibly simple ultimate goal of the operation gets completely lost for most of the book, suddenly resurfacing in the last couple of chapters. One thing that set off my radar were the sudden instances of Jewish words and culture... hm, used by slavers? It's quite possibly a coincidence, since the books are drowning in space-age colloquialisms, to which Draycos inevitably responds "What?" and Jack answers "Skip it." But really... did the phrase "You've got to smoke fish to make lox, and you're the fish who gets smoked" really need to be imposed upon the universe?
The Wizard's Dilemma (28 Dec 06)
Rereading So You Want to Be a Wizard inevitably sent me on a frantic search for the other books in the series. The fifth was the only one I could turn up, even though I really wanted the third one. Well, didn't hurt-- this has been half-finished for ages.
While the books can be heavy at times, The Wizard's Dilemma is fully a tragedy. Nita and Kit are forever just a little out of sync with one another, which the reader sees even as the characters don't. Nita's mother's story is worse. That's not to say it's not a good book: it is. Diane Duane handles seriously heavy-duty subjects with beauty and courage. But overall, despite the way the author wants the end to feel, I couldn't see it as anything more than plain depressing and miserable. [highlight for possible spoilers.] |
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[Dec. 22nd, 2006|06:04 pm] |
I must have been deprived, because I read two books in the space of less than 24 hours. Haha, it's good to be home.
Tangerine (21 Dec 2006)
I picked this one up as a prize for one of those summer reading contests about five years ago and never got beyond the first few pages. I admit the cover is really what attracted me, and it still does. Well, I finally finished it, and it is good. It's ostensibly a childrens' book, but really dark-- and at the same time, kind of lit by an internal light.
Tangerine is a place where even the weather has a memory. The narrator is Paul Fisher, who is deathly afraid of his older brother, the football star Erik, and can't remember why he wears coke-bottle glasses. The book addresses racism, classism, violence, crime, environmental problems, and parents' failures; and several characters are killed violently. For all the darkness, Tangerine can also be very poetic, especially in the parts where Paul outlines his theories on memory and fear.
Orchid Beach (21 Dec 2006)
Standard-grade mystery novel, featuring the new, female police chief, who arrives at her new job the day her boss is murdered. She acquires a brilliant Doberman whose oft-repeated party trick is to get beer from the refrigerator. Ends with the police force plus the FBI storming a paramilitary gated community. Fairly amusing, but not outstandingly well-written and has very little substance. Oh well. |
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[Dec. 17th, 2006|09:45 pm] |
Giving up the Gun (15 Dec 2006)
Okay, so I read this for an essay. It's still an interesting book. Around a hundred pages, I'd say? Anyway, it's about how Japan gets, improves, and then gives up the gun in the 16th-18th centuries. A very easy and rather interesting read. It also speculates, at the end, about humanity's ability to put technology "back in the box." I'm not entirely sure I agree, but it's worth an argument, I suppose.
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So I'm leaving tomorrow on winter break, having survived my first semester of college! Yes! I'm way excited to go home, and I plan to do lots of reading over the break, perhaps starting with the new Tamora Pierce book. Woot! |
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[Nov. 11th, 2006|01:57 pm] |
Count Down (13 Aug 06)
Fairly enjoyable non-fiction about teens at a math competition. Chapters about the origins of the various competitors and speculations about why they turn out to be so talented in math alternate with descriptions of various problems and the ways each of these different people tackle them. Interesting, but not exactly life changing.
The Big U (7 Aug 06)
This was part of my “read every book published about college because actually going there is way too far away right now” kick. Not exactly reassuring about every-day college life (one of the main characters buys a gun after repeated attempts at gang rape; the cleaning service kills kittens; the campus eventually degenerates into a literal war zone with mutated, man-eating rats in the basement), but pretty fun to read. I think the point where it markedly got strange was when several members of a LARPing group get eaten by radioactive rats while playing a game in the sewers.
After the college’s one, consolidated building literally becomes a war zone, however, it was so far beyond believable that it seemed almost ordinary, and the plot gets freed up a lot to draw philosophical connections about what people do when order breaks down. Also interesting was the ultimate theme that loving something unreasonably is the path to its destruction, and that at some point it’s better to just start over because there’s too much bound up in the issue.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (5 Nov 06)
Okay, so actually this was my second read-through, at a much more leisurely pace-- two or three chapters a day, which is a lot slower than I read almost anything. I enjoyed it, and I still love JKR's writing. Ron's achievement of maturity once he realizes what it is that he really wants is well written and enjoyable, as well as very true. Harry is becoming a stronger and more sharply defined character, too; he has formed strong opinions and morals, which, in JKR's favor, do not always turn out to be correct. He's really growing up, and it's beautiful to watch. (Especially love the scene where he tells Scringeour that he's "Dumbledore's man," of course!) It's hard to believe there's only one more... egads! |
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[Nov. 11th, 2006|01:33 pm] |
Woo, been neglecting this log a bit. I'm in college now, and while I'm in possession of several highly interesting books, getting them finished is not as much of a priority as it could be. Here's some old writeups I found on my computer; don't know why they never got posted.
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Cryptonomicon (4 Aug 06)
This was quite long, but honestly interesting (and even strangely hilarious) at some points. I must agree with my dad; it gets exponentially more improbable after about three-quarters of the way through. Still… the math! The random interjections of miscellaneous facts! The happy that is Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, ultimate absent-minded scientist! I thought it was worth my time.
The Ogre Downstairs (5 Aug 06)
I forgot I’d read this until about a third of the way through. Still, enjoyed it the second time just as much. The Ogre is a father of two and a stepfather of three, and this mashing together of two large families is in no way simplified by the fact that all the kids think the Ogre is really evil. He buys two of the boys (one in each half of the family) a chemistry set that turns out to have magical chemicals in it, and the way the two families compete ends up realistically helping them understand and come to terms with each other. Even the Ogre is revealed as human eventually, though it takes his wife walking out on him and various of the kids trying to murder him before anyone really understands him.
It’s incredibly well-written, and all the characters stay true to themselves even as they change. Even so, there’s some rather disturbing physical abuse and stuff like that… it’s interesting that a lot of DWJ’s stuff is about families that are screwed up in various ways, and seems to support the theory that her childhood was less than happy.
Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors (5 Aug 06)
I didn’t actually intend to read this, but I ended up doing so. Frankly, it sucked; but not more than a magnitude worse than her other books. Jenny Nimmo’s writing style is incredibly stilted and difficult to read, not to mention the plot points (and plots). It generally seems about as well-thought out as my little sister’s kindergarten story about Starfish and Unicorn, with the added bonus that she liberally rips off other well-known childrens’ books.
I’ll pass up the Harry Potter rips, but when (in the fifth book, actually) the Bad Guys call a meeting to brag about their evil deeds and plots, wherein Obnoxious Bone is conveniently listening, it was winceworthy. It actually got even worse, if you can believe it: one of the Bad Guys claims he can “smell boy.” If you just pictured Roald Dahl spinning in his grave, then bullseye. The entire, 30-page episode became increasingly obviously a rip of the entire chapter(s?) of Witches.
But actually, the thing that annoys me most about the books is Nimmo’s thoroughly disgusting view that some people are just ‘born evil;’ and sadly, that’s the basis of the entire plot. I’ve been thinking about writing a fanfic in which the so-called good guys are real bastards, too (the only reason I keep reading these books, actually); but I’m not sure how worth it it is. Just to show that it’s not the premise that’s bad, it’s the author? Who knows. I probably shouldn’t waste my time, though. |
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[Aug. 3rd, 2006|10:58 pm] |
Letters to a Young Mathematician (3 Aug 06)
Ms. Rubino, one of the best math teachers I’ve ever had, recommended this one to me. The premise is that the author, a mathematician, is writing to a young friend who is becoming one. The letters follow her from the time she starts college to the point where she gets tenure as a math professor at a university. The book talks about math more than it actually presents problems, which is kind of a good take on the subject because it allows people who aren’t really into math to enjoy it without having to skip large sections. It also gives a lot of advice about pursuing an academic career, especially in math and the sciences.
Personally, this book both inspired me and gave me a few reservations. I don’t know if I want to be an academic any more, much less if I have the right kind of mindset or intelligence—but I feel more as though I can just stay in the moment, and use whatever advice applies for that one moment. Right now, I’m going to go to college, and seeing what I want to study, and I’ll take it from there.
Wild Robert (3 Aug 06)
This was actually kind of “eh” for a Diana Wynne Jones book (my favorite author in the multiverse, of course!). I mean, obviously it’s directed towards children: the entire book is exactly 100 pages long, and took me about half an hour to read. However, I still found it kind of lacking in any consistant underlying theme or message. It starts out as sort of a “be careful what you wish for” story, as a disgruntled girl who lives in what is essentially a tourist trap accidentally calls up Wild Robert, a magician, by wishing the tourists would go away, among other things, and Wild Robert obligingly commences wreaking havoc. The end seemed to leave a bit to be desired, however, as W.R. is cursed to return to the mound he was buried in at sunset anyway. The girl has gotten a liking for him and promises to call him out again tomorrow, and nobody is much the wiser about what actually happened over the day. Maybe a little bit of hopelessness? She vows that tomorrow she’ll keep him from causing trouble, and be able to explain him to her parents, and so on. Seems a bit dark for a children’s book, but that’s about all I can think of. |
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| My Final Foray Into the Denver Public Library |
[Aug. 1st, 2006|06:09 pm] |
This is the list of books I have out of the library at the moment (not including one or two (!) on hold and a fantasy book I decided it wasn't worth it to read). They are organized roughly by subject and then the degree to which I want to read them. For instance, I need to reread Tracy Kidder's book for Bowdoin's orientation; the three below that are the ones I've promised myself, come hell or high water; and it goes on down from there, to the two that I own (but probably won't be able to take with me). The authors are often partial, so expect that if you're interested in obtaining any of these for yourself.
There are also a lot of books being suggested by Letters, but I can't even let myself think about them right now.
To boil it down, I want to finish as much of this list as possible in the next fourteen days. The list is for the ones I don't get to, so I can come back to them if I ever have any leisure time again.
Mountains Beyond Mountains :: Tracy Kidder
Cryptonomicon :: Neal Stephenson (5 Aug 06)
Letters to a Young Mathematician :: Ian Stewart
Count Down :: Steve Olson (13 Aug 06)
Six Degrees :: Duncan J Watts
A Mathematician's Apology :: GH Hardy
Introduction to Graph Theory :: Richard J Trudeau
Five More Golden Rules :: Casti
Alpha to Omega :: Nicholas Humez
Who Killed Homer? :: Hanson & Heath
The Mother Tongue :: Bill Bryson
Genius Explained :: Michael Howe
Simple Buddhism :: Simpkins
Soul Music :: Terry Pratchett
The Ogre Downstairs :: Diana Wynne Jones (5 Aug 06)
Wild Robert :: Diana Wynne Jones
Okay, I said no more, but I failed to keep my promise. :P
The Big U :: Neal Stephenson (7 Aug 06)
Defining the Wind :: Scott Huler
The Iliad
Fermat's Enigma :: I don't even remember.
Finished :: 6/20 (as of 14 Aug 06)
Writeups to follow; I don't really have time right now. *runs around like a headless chicken* |
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[Jul. 19th, 2006|09:11 pm] |
A College of Magics (17 July 06)
This is definitely one of the better fantasy books I've read in a while. The characters are startlingly alive and compelling; villains, heroes, and sidekicks alike. Faris, the main character, is very fun-- she can be very, very bad, and you exult with her all the way. I actually put it down for a little while right after she turns out to be... well, it's a majorly sue-ish trait, I'll say that much. Somehow I managed to forget how much fun she is, and when I picked it up again, I remembered why I liked it so much: the next thing you know, she's getting into a childish shoving match with her evil uncle (who I just adore-- he's way too awesome). There's tragic love, of course, but it still manages to be only realistically soppy. All in all, awesome. I can't believe I've seen it before and never picked it up. The writing is fantastic, not to mention the world (an alternate Europe made up mostly of tiny little countries, where the main transportation is the Orient Express). And I think there's a sequel! Woot. :D |
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[Jul. 13th, 2006|02:33 pm] |
Got done with a couple of books, but more by skimming than anything else. One was I am Charlotte Simmons, which I got out of the library to feed my college obsession. It turned out to be three inches thick and not very pleasant-- one of those ones where you can just tell that the author doesn't like any of the characters and the reader is hard-pressed to care about them. (Plus it suffers badly from AUTHOR syndrome-- the author's initials take up the entire front cover of the book and his full name covers every square millimeter of the spine, while the actual title is (literally!) about two inches square and delicately superimposed on top. I can think of nothing more absurd than the fact that almost all books devote more cover-space to the author's name than the actual title. It's like you're supposed to pay more attention to the author than the actual content of the book...?)
So anyway, I finished one of about four that I'm returning. Which is probably good, as I have way, way too many going right now.
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The Case of the Missing Marquess (13 July 06)
I fully admit that it's a kids' book. I pulled it off the shelf because I liked the look of the mildly Victorian-y cover. And it's dreadfully cute. The main character is Sherlock Holmes' little sister, Enola (which is "alone" backwards, which actually spawns some not-very-Victorian angst towards the beginning). Her mother disappears (it turns out, at the end, that she ran off to join a Gypsy caravan. [highlight to read spoiler] I mean, what the fuck?), and Enola must run off, against her brothers' (yes, there's a rotund investment banker named Mycroft-- he's not canon, is he?) wishes, to find her. The main plot is supposed to be the rescue of the Marquess, who ran away from his Fauntleroy-obsessed mother; and which is mildly entertaining. If I admit it, however, the most interesting thing about it is this version of Sherlock, who is very crush-worthy in a strongly Chrestomanci-like way. (Very unlike the canon one, of course, who is quite literally an insufferable know-it-all. :} ) |
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[Jun. 26th, 2006|10:31 am] |
Went to the library two days in a row, which is a new record; one on which I got a lot of nonfiction, and one on which I retaliated against... myself... by getting a load of fiction.
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Hit the Road (24 June 2006)
Okay, so it's a kiddie book. I actually got it out in expectation of zany mafia grandmothers, which I still think would have been awesome. It's a bit tamer, though. Essentially, Brit is just about the worst licensed driver in the universe (seriously, I am at a loss as to how she passed her test, no matter how "new" her license is. You'd still have at least your 50 hours, wouldn't you?), which is exacerbated by an absurd addiction to talking on her cell while driving, despite the fact that half the time she's driving in New York and worries constantly about how it's illegal. Anyway, most of that is besides the point.
To move on, her grandmother is tiny and slightly mad and wants to go to her college reunion in Maine (gasp! But they never actually specify what college, other than the name of the grandmother's dorm) along with her three equally ancient friends, who are all different levels of weird. Brit is driving, because no one else can (or will, in the case of the rest of the quartet's descendents). The main plot device is that one of the friends has been put in a nursing home by her son so that he can take her money. They "kidnap" her from the nursing home, and Brit all the while goes back and forth about whether she's doing the right thing, exacerbated by the son's charisma and his assertion that she has Alzheimer's. It's actually quite good in that respect, and there's a lot of realism. In the end, though, I was a little disappointed in the way the son turns out to be uncompromisingly evil. So much for that great gray area they spent so long maintaining. You can't have everything, though, I guess. Anyway, the philosophical parts and most of the middle are very good.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves (25 June 2006)
I've been looking forward to this for a while, and I would have liked it even if it was all philosophical musings on punctuation, which is generally what it is promoted as. But interspersed, and in very good novel form, is one of the best stylistic guides to punctuation I've read. A lot of authors might overlook the effect punctuation has on style, which is what this book aims to correct: offering both purely technical advice and discussions of the difference in effect between things such as asides contained within dashes-- like this-- versus parentheses (like so). I actually might have to buy a copy as a style guide, because it's fantastically useful.
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I'm currently working on (among other things, because I have the terrible habit of reading about six books at the same time) one called Gods of Aberdeen, which is not terribly good. I'm surprised how far I am, though, so I figured I might as well finish it. |
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[May. 30th, 2006|12:53 pm] |
Mountains Beyond Mountains (26 May 06)
I had to read this for Bowdoin's orientation thingy, and I'm going to consider it my first foray into my resolution to read more nonfiction this summer. Frankly, the summary made it sound dreadful: This Doctor Farmer guy is awesomeness incarnate; worship him, bitches! It was all right when I read it, though.
Basically, the story is that Dr. Farmer is a crazy, crazy guy who has literally devoted about 95% of his life to improving medical care/conditions (one of the main points the book makes is that these are intrinsically related) for poor people, originally in Haiti and with the help of his organization speading out to Boston, Peru, and Russia. A lot of the time he doesn't actually sleep, just works; and he spends a considerable portion of his life jetting around between these four places and a couple more. The interesting thing about his personal philosophy, and another of the main points the book makes, is his total focus on the individual to the exclusion of the whole. It's definitely not your traditional economics, and yet despite the permanent money crisis his organization is in, it winds up getting real results. It's pretty crazy.
Most of the second half of the book is about MDR-TB (multi drug resistant tuberculosis), and I now know more about MDR-TB and its treatment than you can shake a stick at. But that's one of the things I like about nonfiction; coming out with detailed knowledge about something you never even considered. I admit Mrs. Clark is one of my heros, because she's so intelligent and well-read. I would love to be like her. And that's a large part of why I'm making this resolution to read more nonfiction-- I'm not abandoning fantasy novels by any means, but I also want to expand my mind like that.
Anansi Boys (28 May 06)
It was okay, and there were parts that were quite funny, but also some where NG seemed to be trying a little too hard (parts of the internal dialogue during the mother-in-law visit, for example). He's really good at the dark stuff, and like he said at that book signing, this book makes a lot more sense if you consider it as his attempt to write more humor than dark. I'm not a big fan of dark stuff, and I found this book okay and thought there were some fairly interesting ideas, but the end was just... giddy or something. Honestly, happy sunlit children?
The shift from a traditional sort of "doppelganger taking over my life" tale to a hero story was sort of interesting. And really, there were some fairly awesome parts towards the end. But the end was uninspired, and it kind of reflects back on the whole thing.
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(Among the) next up: Winnie Ille Pu, which is Winnie the Pooh in Latin and which my mom found for me at the Tattered Cover when we went to get Mountains Beyond Mountains. I've read a few random paragraphs, and been delighted to understand things, but there are also some parts that are heavy on vocab I don't know, and I think this is going to be an excellent opportunity to really get my Latin into working shape.
One of the most interesting things I read about Latin was in a math book I was using last year for my paper about Euclid. The author decried the downfall of Latin as the language of all scientific papers, because now you often have to know English, German, Russian, and all kinds of other languages to read them, instead of a single lingua franca. It really struck a chord with me, and as I really want to become a research scientist of some sort, I've made a resolution to publish all of my papers in Latin. :D |
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| Used book fairs are like flytraps for money.... |
[Apr. 24th, 2006|10:32 am] |
... but at least they're cheap.
There's one in the library at DSA, with an entire table made up mostly of books I feel as though I should read. Therefore,
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The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds because a girl told me I should read it.
A Streetcar Named Desire (3 May 06) because it's one of those books (like Catcher In the Rye) that I feel as though I should read.
The first one I finished, I must admit partly so that I could have the option of using it for the canon essay question on the AP Lit test (tomorrow, bright and early...). My impressions... I don't know; it wasn't bad, and I didn't have any trouble keeping focused (nice thing about plays: they're so short! It couldn't have taken me more than an hour or so, total), but it's not a new favorite. I haven't so far managed to put my finger on precisely why. Well, I am glad I read it, for 25 cents.
Julius Caesar because I've read parts of it and don't remember the rest.
Under Milk Wood because it looked interesting (GASP!), even though I've never heard of it (and probably should have).
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>>total: $1.00<< I am teh win.
Am to be editing with impressions. |
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