Books Read

[minouette]

So there's a new LJ community devoted to posting one's effort to read 50 books in a year. While I applaud the goal, I find the journal awfully dull. I think reading should be about quality over quantity. Nevertheless, I think 30 to 50 books this year would be a good start. I'm starting with xmas, since it's a big source of new books. So far I have

Comments

50 books per year

[blythechild]

people who read quantity over quality strike me as persons who want to be distracted ALL THE TIME, and therefore, most likely have sizeable mental issues.

As per your comment on your 4th book choice: I love Poe. I hate Lovecraft. And I don't care for "magical realism" in my fiction, which is the real reason why I wouldn't like that book.

I wholeheartedly agree with your dystopian film assessment, and I for one, think that it's ABOUT BLOODLY TIME.

What's "Galileo's Daughter" about?

Re: 50 books per year

[minouette]

Ah. See, I love magical realism, so perhaps you wouldn't like Taibo as much as I either, though I think it should appeal to a fan of V.

At the risk of sounding bloody obvious, "Galileo's Daughter" is about Galileo's daughter. More precisely, Sobel uses the correspondance between father and daughter (who was a cloistered nun, a logical career choice for thinking women who weren't thilthy rich in those days) as a means of describing his life and the more complex interplay between science and religion than is usually acknowledged in discussions of his life. It's very readable!

Re: 50 books per year

[blythechild]

oh. I thought that it'd be about her not her perspectives on him via letters. maybe not for me then........

Re: 50 books per year

[minouette]

Well ostensibly it is about her... it is told from her point of view, but really, he was the interesting thing in her life. What is knowable about her come from her correspondance, most of which I gather was with him. She was clearly very bright and more diplomatic than dear papa, who had a tendency to be unbending and piss off the wrong people. There's actually a 2nd book, which I wouldn't have bought, but Di gave to me and it sits there on the shelf saying "Read me, I'm a nice book." It's called "Letters to Father." I guess it's the complete collection, unedited.