book
Rated The Incendiaries 8/10
I liked this book a lot. I stayed up too late reading this both odd and true-feeling tale of the lengths to which people will go to feel whole again.
Rated The Haunting of Tram Car 015 9/10
<div>Loved this novella, the second book set in this world by Clark that I've read. Great ending.</div>
Rated Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law 7/10
<div>I don't know if I liked this one as much as the other two of hers that I've read. The first half was more interesting than the second, and her light tone is a little incongruous with some of the subject matter. Still, I learned something!</div>
Rated Let the Great World Spin 10/10
This book is well worth the time, cover price, and its National Book Award. Circling around Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers, McCann weaves together the fragile connections between eleven New Yorkers. It is both a story of its time and a thoughtful 9/11 allegory in which grief, passion, and observance are at the root of every character.<br><br>I read a lot of great books this year, but only a few did I know I would love from the first page, more than one set in New York City. Maybe at times sulking naysayers like to disparage the “New York Novel,” claiming that it’s all been done before, but I don’t know how anyone could reasonably believe that. In the United States’ most populous city, how could you possibly think that every story has been told? When the world is filled with short story collections depicting the most microscopic of events in two-bar towns, how is the expanse of five boroughs and 8.4 million people “overrated?” How is it any less real?<br><br>If anything, Let The Great World Spin is an antidote to that kind of contrary thinking. Whether or not we know it consciously, we are all connected. We share the same air — spouses, subway riders, café frequenters, best friends, and drunks — and somewhere there is a common thread. For as big as the world is, sometimes it doesn’t take much bring us together.<br><br>(Full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2010/12/let-great-world-spin-by-colum-mccann.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated Homie 10/10
<div>Love, lust, loneliness, and longing. Friendship, family, fear. All the good, hard, exultant stuff is here.</div>
Rated Doctor Who: Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code 7/10
<div>Nothing amazing, but it's pretty good, and Lisa Bowerman is a better Companion Chronicles narrator than some.</div>
Rated Whiteout Volume 1 – The Definitive Edition 8/10
Rated The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 8/10
<div>I turned 42 recently, and I'd never read this book (though I have seen the movie). If it is indeed my Life, The Universe, and Everything Year, then I'd better have some context for that saying.<br><br>Anyway, it is very British Silly, and that's not for everyone, but it made me laugh.</div>
Rated The Iliad 8/10
<div>4 is sort of rounding up for my reading/listening experience (I did the audiobook), but that might be because I had to take a break from this when a library hold came in. I did find The Odyssey a little easier to follow, though I read Wilson's translation rather than listened.<br><br>This is still a very listenable and clear translation of a story with a zillion characters. I admit to sometimes thinking that it is very much like listening to a relative or a guy at a bar going, "You know, [Guy]. So-and-so's son. Remember he could do [notable skill?]" And that's why this text has inspired so many subsequent books and poems and everything else. Lots of people involved in a massive war, after all!<br><br>Anyway, if you're going to read any translation of The Iliad, make it this one. Audra McDonald narrates the audiobook.</div>
Rated The Invisible Library 7/10
<div>Pleasantly surprised by this one, as it was suggested to me by someone I don't really know, but we are in the same Bluesky book group. It's fun. Sort of reminds me of a Doctor Who audio adventure I heard once (which now I can't remember the title, sorry. Vibe-based memory), but is an interesting premise in its own right. I'll probably read the next in the series. </div>
Rated A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living 6/10
Accessible book, but not necessarily for the beginner either. I was semi-familiar with the subjects, and I still glazed over at times. Perhaps not the book for me, but it has its moments.
Rated The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy 4/10
Ugh. This could have used some.... strong guidance from an editor as to what was necessary to include. The times that the author references herself could have worked if this was written as a mix of analysis and memoir, but instead, it was more like an uneven mixture of decent analysis paired with conjecture with the occasional, "And then I did this/liked this/talked to this person." It was really uneven, and I wanted to be charitable and give it three stars because music commentary is indeed subjective. There was so much padding in here that was -supposed- to be cultural context, but it felt tacked on as an "Oh shit, gotta make this book a certain length" at the end. <br><br>There are strong bits, and I love this album, but overall I don't recommend buying this book.<br><br>(Full disclosure: I received this book for free via NetGalley.)
Wants to read The Journals of John Cheever
Interesting reading. Though not as personally satisfying as <i>Why We Need Love</i>, <i>Why We Fight</i> is still a thought-provoking counterpoint and even the words from thousands of years ago still hold their relevance in our current culture.<br><br>(Full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-we-fight-by-simon-van-booy.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Finished reading How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment
Finished reading Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You