Booooooks...
It's been a long time since I've poted about books, but I actually read some this summer:
Fiction
4. "The Ruins" by Scott Smith (319 pages). OK, really I re-read it, but I originally bought it because Stephen King reviewed it and said it scared the bejeezus out of him. Who can resist a review like that? I read it once when it was new, loaned it to a friend who promptly "forgot" I ever loaned it to her, then finally got it back. So it called for a re-read. A great horror story, but doesn't hold up as well the second time since the effect of a lot of the foreshadowing is lost. Skip the movie. Seriously.
5. "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (278 pages) Barongiles mocked me for reading this one since he said he couldn't finish it when he tried. I slogged through it based on the premise as given on the back cover-in a post-apocalyptic world an order of monks keeps all the written knowledge of previous centuries alive (because the "Simpletons" have apparently inherited the earth) but when they uncover a grocery list it throws the world into a quandary because they don't understand what it means. I thought it had the potential to be both deep and hilarious but unfortunately it was written in the '50's at the height of the Cold War, so it's trying Very Hard to be Very Meaningful. The back cover was misleading since the grocery list thing was a minor blip in the whole tale. Too bad. I remember my grandmother (who was a huge Sci-Fi fan) loving this book.
6. "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin (835 pages) I almost didn't make it through this one (which is the size of a brick) because it violates my 50 page axiom and the Agatha Christie corollary:
-50 page axiom: If I don't like it in 50 pages, it goes.
-Agatha Christie Corollary: If it introduces more than 10 main characters in 50 pages, forget it.
But I was seriously interested in one or two of the characters and I started to get sucked in. Now I'm in the middle of the second book (also brick-sized) and it's interesting. The guy is a heck of a writer-certain turns of phrase are just beautiful-and the way he draws characters is very non-standard fantasy. Hardly anyone is purely good or evil-they're all very human and very flawed. Epic.
Non-Fiction:
6. "The Tipping Point-How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcolm Gladwell (280 pages) This was all the pop-culture rage awhile back, and I finally got around to reading it. It's interesting, but I seriously disagree with some of his logic. For example, he discusses kids and smoking and how peers are a much larger influence on people than family. He even quotes several studies downplaying the influence of nurture. OK, but once people get through the teen years, they become more like their parents than they ever imagined. And I see tons of parental influence in my students. So I think it's hard to say nurture has no influence.
Now I must go to my classroom and see if I can get the computer to talk to other computers. Whee!
Fiction
4. "The Ruins" by Scott Smith (319 pages). OK, really I re-read it, but I originally bought it because Stephen King reviewed it and said it scared the bejeezus out of him. Who can resist a review like that? I read it once when it was new, loaned it to a friend who promptly "forgot" I ever loaned it to her, then finally got it back. So it called for a re-read. A great horror story, but doesn't hold up as well the second time since the effect of a lot of the foreshadowing is lost. Skip the movie. Seriously.
5. "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (278 pages) Barongiles mocked me for reading this one since he said he couldn't finish it when he tried. I slogged through it based on the premise as given on the back cover-in a post-apocalyptic world an order of monks keeps all the written knowledge of previous centuries alive (because the "Simpletons" have apparently inherited the earth) but when they uncover a grocery list it throws the world into a quandary because they don't understand what it means. I thought it had the potential to be both deep and hilarious but unfortunately it was written in the '50's at the height of the Cold War, so it's trying Very Hard to be Very Meaningful. The back cover was misleading since the grocery list thing was a minor blip in the whole tale. Too bad. I remember my grandmother (who was a huge Sci-Fi fan) loving this book.
6. "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin (835 pages) I almost didn't make it through this one (which is the size of a brick) because it violates my 50 page axiom and the Agatha Christie corollary:
-50 page axiom: If I don't like it in 50 pages, it goes.
-Agatha Christie Corollary: If it introduces more than 10 main characters in 50 pages, forget it.
But I was seriously interested in one or two of the characters and I started to get sucked in. Now I'm in the middle of the second book (also brick-sized) and it's interesting. The guy is a heck of a writer-certain turns of phrase are just beautiful-and the way he draws characters is very non-standard fantasy. Hardly anyone is purely good or evil-they're all very human and very flawed. Epic.
Non-Fiction:
6. "The Tipping Point-How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcolm Gladwell (280 pages) This was all the pop-culture rage awhile back, and I finally got around to reading it. It's interesting, but I seriously disagree with some of his logic. For example, he discusses kids and smoking and how peers are a much larger influence on people than family. He even quotes several studies downplaying the influence of nurture. OK, but once people get through the teen years, they become more like their parents than they ever imagined. And I see tons of parental influence in my students. So I think it's hard to say nurture has no influence.
Now I must go to my classroom and see if I can get the computer to talk to other computers. Whee!