Booklist version X.n
Trying hard to avoid the "can't deal with things ending and change and stuff" rant, so instead, the books i've read over the summer. Don't know if I can remember all of them, I kept forgetting to make the list
Everything is Illuminated.
Double Cross Blind
Boomsday
Fight Club
A Tale of Two Cities
Apathy
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer, I think this time through I finally understood the ending, at least more than I did before. Although, of course, since that list was in order, I don't remember what it was (that's why I should keep this list more updated, so I know my thoughts). I do know that it was one of those things that reminds me that there can never be too many holocaust stories. It is something that must be remembered. And it kind of terrifies me that the last of the primary witnesses are dying out, that its down to 3rd generation like Foer to tell the story. Who will tell the story next generation? who will remember? 3rd is already pretty far removed.
Double Cross Blind, don't remember who its by, I got it out of the library. I saw it, it had a swastica superimposed on a union jack on the cover, i thought it would be interesting. Thoroughly mediocre, I would not reccomend it. a surprisingly short story about a double agent for the nazis and england. the twist at the end wasn't all that clever, and the writing leading up to it was not all that good.
Boomsday, Christopher Buckley. a Hilarious book. The plot: tax incentives to commit suicide at the age of 70. Its a political satire on the current state of the national healthcare system, specifically benefits to the elderly. its A Modest Proposal in novel form, and about the old instead of the young. I strongly recommend it, especially if you think you are political.
Fight Club, Chuck Palahunic or something liek that. I finally got around to reading the book. its surprisingly similar to the movie. the narration style is very...narrative, the movie emulated it well. The book sort of bashed you over the head more...its not often that a movie is more subtle, but fight club was. the book made it pretty obvious from the beginning that [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER]. Also, it reminded me a lot of The Wave (that 7th grade book about fascism and how it can take over) in that the biggest takeaway message I got was "sometimes you'll start something, and it will fly out of your control, and even though you started it, you can't control it anymore, and that is bad news". A decent read, makes you think a little bit, not too much.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens. I just wanted to finish it, because I never had before. I don't know. I think I'd put it in with Great Gatsby, in that you sort of tolerate the beginning because the end is so moving. the diference is, Gatsby's beginning is 100pages long, while a tale of two cities beginning is 500 pages long. I think it would be more effective, the ending would be more moving, if Sydney Carton was more a character in the beginning, so that his transformation was more profound. Overall, not bad though, a decent story.
Apathy. Paul Neilan. Kind of awkwardly-told story, about a guy who is incredibly apathetic, and his life. Well written in the sense that its told in the first person, and the narrator seems bored with narrating even. It is amusing. I don't know if i'd call it funny, but it is defintely amusing. A nice quick short little story about how insanely apathetic one can get.
Coming soon: I'm in the middle of Blink, a book about "rapid cognition" i think they call it, thinking spontaneously as opposed to slowly and analytically and rationally. its a nonfiction book that i'm enjoying, rare (written very similarly to Freakonomics). I also just got from the library Something Wicked This Way Comes on audiocd, as well as a nonfiction book about the origin of HIV, Anthem by Rand, a random book that looked interesting, and this year's freshman summer reading book, because it looked better than Things Fall Apart.
Reading a lot, being near books, always makes me wish I could make something. I resigned myself to the fact that its not going to happen the other day. perhaps the first time ever i've reached this conclusion. but today the delusions of grandeur were back as big as ever. Maybe a distopia, similar to Idiocracy, where people are imprisoned, not by the fascist government, but by their own stupidity and cultural devices. Its probably been done already, and I don't have the abilities to make it go, but I can think about it.
Everything is Illuminated.
Double Cross Blind
Boomsday
Fight Club
A Tale of Two Cities
Apathy
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer, I think this time through I finally understood the ending, at least more than I did before. Although, of course, since that list was in order, I don't remember what it was (that's why I should keep this list more updated, so I know my thoughts). I do know that it was one of those things that reminds me that there can never be too many holocaust stories. It is something that must be remembered. And it kind of terrifies me that the last of the primary witnesses are dying out, that its down to 3rd generation like Foer to tell the story. Who will tell the story next generation? who will remember? 3rd is already pretty far removed.
Double Cross Blind, don't remember who its by, I got it out of the library. I saw it, it had a swastica superimposed on a union jack on the cover, i thought it would be interesting. Thoroughly mediocre, I would not reccomend it. a surprisingly short story about a double agent for the nazis and england. the twist at the end wasn't all that clever, and the writing leading up to it was not all that good.
Boomsday, Christopher Buckley. a Hilarious book. The plot: tax incentives to commit suicide at the age of 70. Its a political satire on the current state of the national healthcare system, specifically benefits to the elderly. its A Modest Proposal in novel form, and about the old instead of the young. I strongly recommend it, especially if you think you are political.
Fight Club, Chuck Palahunic or something liek that. I finally got around to reading the book. its surprisingly similar to the movie. the narration style is very...narrative, the movie emulated it well. The book sort of bashed you over the head more...its not often that a movie is more subtle, but fight club was. the book made it pretty obvious from the beginning that [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER]. Also, it reminded me a lot of The Wave (that 7th grade book about fascism and how it can take over) in that the biggest takeaway message I got was "sometimes you'll start something, and it will fly out of your control, and even though you started it, you can't control it anymore, and that is bad news". A decent read, makes you think a little bit, not too much.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens. I just wanted to finish it, because I never had before. I don't know. I think I'd put it in with Great Gatsby, in that you sort of tolerate the beginning because the end is so moving. the diference is, Gatsby's beginning is 100pages long, while a tale of two cities beginning is 500 pages long. I think it would be more effective, the ending would be more moving, if Sydney Carton was more a character in the beginning, so that his transformation was more profound. Overall, not bad though, a decent story.
Apathy. Paul Neilan. Kind of awkwardly-told story, about a guy who is incredibly apathetic, and his life. Well written in the sense that its told in the first person, and the narrator seems bored with narrating even. It is amusing. I don't know if i'd call it funny, but it is defintely amusing. A nice quick short little story about how insanely apathetic one can get.
Coming soon: I'm in the middle of Blink, a book about "rapid cognition" i think they call it, thinking spontaneously as opposed to slowly and analytically and rationally. its a nonfiction book that i'm enjoying, rare (written very similarly to Freakonomics). I also just got from the library Something Wicked This Way Comes on audiocd, as well as a nonfiction book about the origin of HIV, Anthem by Rand, a random book that looked interesting, and this year's freshman summer reading book, because it looked better than Things Fall Apart.
Reading a lot, being near books, always makes me wish I could make something. I resigned myself to the fact that its not going to happen the other day. perhaps the first time ever i've reached this conclusion. but today the delusions of grandeur were back as big as ever. Maybe a distopia, similar to Idiocracy, where people are imprisoned, not by the fascist government, but by their own stupidity and cultural devices. Its probably been done already, and I don't have the abilities to make it go, but I can think about it.