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Lao Tsu posted:People go in with the wrong expectations, and I think that's why it gets hated sometimes. I agree that the final confrontation was a bit coincidental and all to perfect. It makes attempts at drama somewhat poorly. But it's message and cultural relevance make it a must read. Ya, it's a great read. I don't doubt that. But you can tell he was trying to reach a large audience and that this was his first book. I think it's a book that's in between book that will be read in the future and mainstream book. It certainly has aspects that make it seem like one that would be read years from now, but it also has elements that let it be easily read by a great deal of people.
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Aug 14, 2008 23:39
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MaC_DaDDy posted:Just finished Playing for Pizza by Grisham. Just happened to pick this one up while at Amazon, as a fictional story about an ex NFL player joining an Italian football(american) league seemed intriguing. It was a quick read and quite interesting. Turns out there actually is an American football league in Italy in which Italians play in just for the love of the game, not the money! I read this earlier in the summer. The best part about it was the descriptions of Italy. I would like to visit Italy now.
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Aug 17, 2008 22:51
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stray posted:I finally finished Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Thanks for letting us know.
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Sep 21, 2008 19:50
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Last night, I finally finished The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. The book is all about food and the issues we face with eating food. In short, it's really great. The topics he covers range from organic food to food processing, as well as talking a bit about hunters and gatherers. It's all about how we choose our food and the process the food we eat goes through to get from crops or animals to edible food. It can be quite scary at times, especially when he talks about the energy we use to create food. The environment also suffers greatly from large farms that focus entirely on one food, as the cycle is an open cycle instead of natural, or closed. I try to eat pretty well and buy local food when I can, but this makes me seem like a terrible person even when I try to buy organic food. Organic food isn't always organic.  I think he is a good writer as well. The pacing was good, and it was broken up well. It was a little long at over 400 pages, and as he only covered a few major topics, the book could have been condensed. It took me around 2 months to read it, but not because of the length. I've been busy this semester, so I didn't always get around to reading it. Luckily, it was easy to pick up and read in short chunks. I enjoyed the book a great deal, and whenever I could talk about it with my friends, I did. It will probably stick with me for a while, and I think it's a good book for anybody to read. I am definitely going to be picking up other works of his soon.
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Nov 16, 2008 01:21
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I've read some books over the past month. The first one I read was Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I loved Tipping Point and Blink, and I really liked this one as well, but it was probably my least favorite of the three. He really makes me think outside the box with his writing and his research, and I rethink a lot of common ideas when he mentions them. So this book was no different than the others in regards to that. My biggest issue with the book was that it was more anecdotal compared to the others. For some of the things he was trying to prove, there was less research than the other books. It was more of him saying something and having us read it and think of it as fact with nothing to back it up. I also thought the book could have been an article, rather than a full book. It was his shortest book already, and I think it was drawn out a bit. The second book I finished was Wages of Wins, which is a book analyzing some statistical stuff regarding sports. It was pretty fascinating, although some of the stuff I've seen about it make it seem like their research was a bit poor. It was above my level, so I couldn't analyze it like others could. I just took it for what it was and thought it was pretty neat. The third book I read in the past month was American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I really enjoyed it, although it was a little confusing at some times. It was a well written book and I am glad I finally read it. Next, I read A Clockwork Orange. I had tried to read it a few years ago, and couldn't get through the first part, as I hated Alex so much. But parts two and three were really good, and I'm glad I finally read this book. The last two chapters kinda confused me. How did he have a kid? Finally, my most recently finished book is Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. I know nothing about Indian culture, so this was a nice little crash course on it. Besides learning about things that I knew nothing about, I also really liked her style of writing. They were simple, to the point, and detailed, but the emotion expressed in each work could be felt so clearly. I really enjoyed it, and it worked quite well as a collection of short stories. None were alike, yet all were definite Lahiri works. I liked it.
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Jan 28, 2009 03:01
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I just finished The Broken Dice by Ivar Ekeland. When I picked this up, I thought it would be entirely on chance and probability, as the cover made it seem that way. Holy gently caress was I wrong. It was so complex and deep and so far above my head. I still read it for the hell of it, but I didn't really pick up much from it. Funny enough, the day after I read about Ellsberg's paradox in the book, we mentioned it in my economics course and I was the only one who knew what it was. I felt smart. I guess that was a positive of reading the book.
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Jan 29, 2009 01:08
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The other day I finished reading The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and friends. I read most of it in one day, and I enjoyed it. I liked the art direction, and I felt the narrative was alright. It was a bit confusing at times, but it wasn't too difficult to get through. I don't think the story was as good as what a novel could do, but it was more than good enough to keep my attention for the duration of the story.
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Feb 2, 2009 21:35
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Deltron 3030 posted:I have a question about the ending, though, for those of you that have also read it. In the final lines where it says "Then she lifted her head up to the sky and saw everything white, It is my turn, she thought. Fear made her quickly lower her eyes." Does that mean that the doctor's wife was stricken by the white blindness at the very end? Seems pretty likely but I'm not totally sure. Thanks to whoever can answer that. No, she's doesn't go blind. It was just a white sky, so she lowered her head because she was worried she may have become blind. uggy fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jul 3, 2009 |
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Jul 3, 2009 00:54
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Anunnaki posted:I recommend watching the movie as well, I thought it was well done. The film version of that ending will help put it into perspective for you. Ughhh, that movie was terrible, I thought. The book is just so amazing and the way he writes fits the book so well. The movie loses that, and I think it suffered. There's no good way to translate Saramago's writing style into the movie.
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Jul 3, 2009 07:02
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