Books 4 and 5
And the reading continues! I have now read as many books as I did in the whole of last year ... I can't tell you how sad that it!
5 / 50 words. 10% done!
For those interested, here is my Big Damn Book List!
4) Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Genre: Biographical Essays, Comedy
From the Publisher:
David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of "SantaLand Diaries," a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's. (It's in two separate collections, both worth owning, Barrel Fever and the Christmas-themed Holidays on Ice.) Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. [...] Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. (Note: Spoilers have be cut from the text)
Personal Thoughts:
By the time I finished this book, I had decided that I enjoyed it. I will admit that at first I decided that David Sedaris was possibly one of the strangest people I had ever read about. The first half of the book jumps around and seems to basically be a telling of strange things that happened in Sedaris' life ... a series of bizzare and wholly unrelated tales of a very strange gay man. I found some of the stories funny and some of them moving, but most of them left me thinking "Why am I reading this?"
But that all changed in the second half. The second part of the book is all about his life with his boyfriend as they lived in France. The stories were all funny, and, as an anglophone learning French, I could really relate to his problems with learning the language - especially when it came to explaining esoteric concepts when you only have the vocabulary of a child. In the end I thoroughly enjoyed Me Talk Pretty One Day even though it did take me a few hundred pages to come to that conclusion.
I would recomend this to anyone who likes dry, somewhat bizzare humour and doesn't mind a total lack of plot.
5) The Devil In Babylon: Fear of Progress and the Birth of the Modern Age - Allan Levine
Genre: 20th Century History
From the Publisher:
What should the modern world look like? Who should be its leaders? And what values should it embrace? We have never wrestled over these questions more than in the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Allan Levine’s newest book chronicles this wide-ranging emotional and moral conflict by focusing on the people who lived through this turbulent era: an array of personalities - traditionalists as well as progressives, the powerful and the powerless - who, for better or worse, shaped the contours ofcontemporary North American society. Among them were anarchist Emma Goldman, prohibitionist and creationist William Jennings Bryan, women’s rights campaigner Nellie McClung, and gangster Al Capone.
Their personal experiences are set against the heated debate about the impact of immigration, the role of women, the conflict between science and religion, the influence of Hollywood, and the changing attitudes about sex - issues that preoccupied, and even consumed, North Americans of all classes.
Personal Thoughts:
I thoroughly adored this book from start to finish. I will admit that it isn't for everyone, but for a Non-Fiction, it is very well written and I think that even a laymen with no previous knowledge of the time period would understand the subject. There is no assumption on Levine's part that the reader is a scholar of early 20th century history, nor does he "talk down" to those versed in the field.
Levine covers such subjects are the suffrage movement, prohibition, eugenics, labour politics, the "Red Scare", Hollywood morality, race relations, and the inventions that came into their own in the early 20th century (the automobile, airplane, telephone, radio, movies, et cetera). He focuses mostly on the United States and the effects seen in that country, but he does make many references to Canada and Great Britain, especially when dealing with suffrage, eugenics, and prohibition.
In the end, I found that my knowledge was expanded by reading this book, and I would suggest it to anyone interested in the era.
5 / 50 words. 10% done!
For those interested, here is my Big Damn Book List!
4) Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Genre: Biographical Essays, Comedy
From the Publisher:
David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of "SantaLand Diaries," a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's. (It's in two separate collections, both worth owning, Barrel Fever and the Christmas-themed Holidays on Ice.) Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. [...] Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. (Note: Spoilers have be cut from the text)
Personal Thoughts:
By the time I finished this book, I had decided that I enjoyed it. I will admit that at first I decided that David Sedaris was possibly one of the strangest people I had ever read about. The first half of the book jumps around and seems to basically be a telling of strange things that happened in Sedaris' life ... a series of bizzare and wholly unrelated tales of a very strange gay man. I found some of the stories funny and some of them moving, but most of them left me thinking "Why am I reading this?"
But that all changed in the second half. The second part of the book is all about his life with his boyfriend as they lived in France. The stories were all funny, and, as an anglophone learning French, I could really relate to his problems with learning the language - especially when it came to explaining esoteric concepts when you only have the vocabulary of a child. In the end I thoroughly enjoyed Me Talk Pretty One Day even though it did take me a few hundred pages to come to that conclusion.
I would recomend this to anyone who likes dry, somewhat bizzare humour and doesn't mind a total lack of plot.
5) The Devil In Babylon: Fear of Progress and the Birth of the Modern Age - Allan Levine
Genre: 20th Century History
From the Publisher:
What should the modern world look like? Who should be its leaders? And what values should it embrace? We have never wrestled over these questions more than in the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Allan Levine’s newest book chronicles this wide-ranging emotional and moral conflict by focusing on the people who lived through this turbulent era: an array of personalities - traditionalists as well as progressives, the powerful and the powerless - who, for better or worse, shaped the contours ofcontemporary North American society. Among them were anarchist Emma Goldman, prohibitionist and creationist William Jennings Bryan, women’s rights campaigner Nellie McClung, and gangster Al Capone.
Their personal experiences are set against the heated debate about the impact of immigration, the role of women, the conflict between science and religion, the influence of Hollywood, and the changing attitudes about sex - issues that preoccupied, and even consumed, North Americans of all classes.
Personal Thoughts:
I thoroughly adored this book from start to finish. I will admit that it isn't for everyone, but for a Non-Fiction, it is very well written and I think that even a laymen with no previous knowledge of the time period would understand the subject. There is no assumption on Levine's part that the reader is a scholar of early 20th century history, nor does he "talk down" to those versed in the field.
Levine covers such subjects are the suffrage movement, prohibition, eugenics, labour politics, the "Red Scare", Hollywood morality, race relations, and the inventions that came into their own in the early 20th century (the automobile, airplane, telephone, radio, movies, et cetera). He focuses mostly on the United States and the effects seen in that country, but he does make many references to Canada and Great Britain, especially when dealing with suffrage, eugenics, and prohibition.
In the end, I found that my knowledge was expanded by reading this book, and I would suggest it to anyone interested in the era.