(no subject)
So I happened to see the 50 Books in a Year challenge group on LJ a while back, & it got me curious about how many books I read per year. So far, the count's up to 15.
I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe - Kinda difficult to read, because the first half of it was like re-living all of the painful parts of my freshman year - how a 65-year-old man can capture college from the perspective of a painfully naïve 17-year-old girl so exactly is beyond me. Although his obsession with status gets exhausting after a while.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - Excellent. My favorite of his. Leaves you weighing whether the kid (this sort of throwback Whitman/Thoreau back-to-nature rootless idealist) is something society could use more of, or just a selfish asshole, without giving a decisive answer either way.
The Book of the Courtesans by somebody - Yay girl-power.
The Looming Tower: al Qaeda and the Road to 9-11 by Lawrence Wright - Guy does a really good job of presenting facts without any editorializing. Recommended.
Queen of Dreams by Chitra Chatterjee Divakaruni - Obnoxiously preachy.
Michelangelo and The Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King - If you’ve got any kind of interest in art history, you’ve got to read his stuff. On par with Daniel Boorstin (The Creators) in the level of detail & research, but a smoother, more compulsive read. Fascinating.
Into Thin Air: a Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer - I’M COLD.
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis - What can I say? I need to reread the rest of these...
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton - Don’t agree with everything he says, and sometimes his logic feels a bit circular, but he has a refreshing way of looking at/reasoning about religion & spirituality.
Paint It Black by Janet Fitch - Woman’s a poet. Can make you feel loss like no other author I’ve come across, and with just exactly the right word every time. Only odd thing was that one of the main characters (who commits suicide) reminded me astonishingly of Mexico Chris, so now I get all sad when I think of him.
The Pulitzer Prize by J. Douglas Bates - Reporters kicking ass. AWESOME.
When They Were 22 by somebody - At age 22, apparently everyone is somewhat pathetic and haphazard, from J. Edgar Hoover to Pamela Anderson. Good to know. (Except Condoleezza Rice. She was still all Ivy-League-concert-pianist-woman. *kicks Condoleezza Rice*)
Fraud by David Rackoff - FUNNY. In a wry, snigger-and-a-half-smile kind of way. Like hearing Lord Peter Whimsey read aloud his reflections on life.
The Judgment of Paris: the revolutionary decade that gave the world Impressionism by Ross King - Slightly bored in the middle, then suddenly realized he’d finally made me see the Impressionists as something other than humdrum prettiness. Again, this man is goooooood.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho - Meh.
Fiction: 5
Non-fiction: 10
Will update periodically. You should all do it, too; I get the feeling it'll be interesting to look back on at the end of the year, & it's always fun to see what everybody else is reading. Pretty please? ;)
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I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe - Kinda difficult to read, because the first half of it was like re-living all of the painful parts of my freshman year - how a 65-year-old man can capture college from the perspective of a painfully naïve 17-year-old girl so exactly is beyond me. Although his obsession with status gets exhausting after a while.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - Excellent. My favorite of his. Leaves you weighing whether the kid (this sort of throwback Whitman/Thoreau back-to-nature rootless idealist) is something society could use more of, or just a selfish asshole, without giving a decisive answer either way.
The Book of the Courtesans by somebody - Yay girl-power.
The Looming Tower: al Qaeda and the Road to 9-11 by Lawrence Wright - Guy does a really good job of presenting facts without any editorializing. Recommended.
Queen of Dreams by Chitra Chatterjee Divakaruni - Obnoxiously preachy.
Michelangelo and The Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King - If you’ve got any kind of interest in art history, you’ve got to read his stuff. On par with Daniel Boorstin (The Creators) in the level of detail & research, but a smoother, more compulsive read. Fascinating.
Into Thin Air: a Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer - I’M COLD.
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis - What can I say? I need to reread the rest of these...
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton - Don’t agree with everything he says, and sometimes his logic feels a bit circular, but he has a refreshing way of looking at/reasoning about religion & spirituality.
Paint It Black by Janet Fitch - Woman’s a poet. Can make you feel loss like no other author I’ve come across, and with just exactly the right word every time. Only odd thing was that one of the main characters (who commits suicide) reminded me astonishingly of Mexico Chris, so now I get all sad when I think of him.
The Pulitzer Prize by J. Douglas Bates - Reporters kicking ass. AWESOME.
When They Were 22 by somebody - At age 22, apparently everyone is somewhat pathetic and haphazard, from J. Edgar Hoover to Pamela Anderson. Good to know. (Except Condoleezza Rice. She was still all Ivy-League-concert-pianist-woman. *kicks Condoleezza Rice*)
Fraud by David Rackoff - FUNNY. In a wry, snigger-and-a-half-smile kind of way. Like hearing Lord Peter Whimsey read aloud his reflections on life.
The Judgment of Paris: the revolutionary decade that gave the world Impressionism by Ross King - Slightly bored in the middle, then suddenly realized he’d finally made me see the Impressionists as something other than humdrum prettiness. Again, this man is goooooood.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho - Meh.
Fiction: 5
Non-fiction: 10
Will update periodically. You should all do it, too; I get the feeling it'll be interesting to look back on at the end of the year, & it's always fun to see what everybody else is reading. Pretty please? ;)
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