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Author Topic: Rate the last book you read.  (Read 194191 times)

alexarch

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #360 on: January 25, 2010, 03:01:10 PM »
Olive Kitteridge

It's sold as a series of unrelated short stories with Olive acting as merely a connecting character throughout. That's not entirely true. It's really a novel or novella told episodically with Olive as the central character and regular dalliances into other characters' stories. That's a fine point, sure, but I wasn't expecting Olive to be so front-and-center throughout the book.

As a character, Olive was amazing — upright, imposing, candid with a vein of vulnerability —  and I really liked the structure of the book. I liked reading about all these interesting people with Olive always, at the minimum, in the background. After Olive, my favorite character was the piano player who has to get a little tipsy in order to lose herself in the piano.

The story-telling and prose is solid, but the prose is not exemplary. I expect exemplary, florid or exacting prose in a Pullitzer Prize winning book. I expect to be in awe, surprised or delighted by an author's use of language, and I didn't get that. It may be that, coming off of The Stone Diaries, my expectations were too high, but I don't think so.

I definitely recommend it for the stories and characters, and I recommend it for the story-telling. Just not the prose. Or go in not expecting to be wow'd.

Steven O. Selsnik

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #361 on: January 25, 2010, 03:08:25 PM »
LAST WORDS - George Carlin

the last few chapters I could have lived without but the rest was great. He writes about his life from birth to just before he died. It was terrific to see the process he went through to become the comedian and political satirist he was known for being. If you are a fan I would suggest it. If not probably it would bore you quickly.

Tequila

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #362 on: January 25, 2010, 03:20:21 PM »

Not sure exactly what peaked my interest about this but those houses sure looked impressive. Then I came across the photo of a half-naked Charlton Heston and lost interest.
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Junior

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #363 on: January 25, 2010, 03:29:01 PM »
Inquiring minds want to know! Which half?

Anyways...

The Weir by Conor McPherson

This is just four guys and a girl sitting in a pub in the middle of Ireland. They tell stories about the town and then leave. And it's pretty damn good. It's a play and I really felt the differences between the four guys quite easily, which I guess means that it's well written. I have no idea if it's close to how Ireland really is/was in the 90's, but it worked for me. The bulk of the story is four monologues, three from the guys at the bar and one from the girl. They all are somewhat supernatural, but also concerned with death and all that. It's funny and poignant without being anything more (or less) than bar talk. All in all a good time.

A-.
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Tequila

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #364 on: January 25, 2010, 03:37:38 PM »
See for yourself, it's a very intellectual pose

I can't believe I just googled that.
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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #365 on: January 27, 2010, 10:22:24 AM »


I enjoyed this book a fair amount but not as much as Sex, Drugs, and CocoPuffs. It contains a few brilliant essays and several rather slight and easily forgettable ones. The great include essays on Errol Morris, Kurt Cobain and laugh tracks. Perhaps the most interesting essay is about the philosophical value of Theodore Kaczynski's (Unibomber) manifesto.

There are also some great ideas about Herzog.

Grade: B+

I pretty much agree with this. This was my first Klosterman and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The Football one was interesting to me because I didn't know much about it going in. I'll have to seek out some of his other stuff, likely that one Clovis mentions.

B+.
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saltine

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #366 on: January 29, 2010, 03:50:49 AM »
I am wondering if anyone has read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, and if you have, what you thought of it?

Clovis8, I imagine it's too elementary for your knowledge base, but anyone else interested in the rise of human societies?

I was impressed with it, especially the section on domestication of animals.
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Clovis8

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #367 on: January 29, 2010, 10:42:37 AM »
I am wondering if anyone has read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, and if you have, what you thought of it?

Clovis8, I imagine it's too elementary for your knowledge base, but anyone else interested in the rise of human societies?

I was impressed with it, especially the section on domestication of animals.

I really love that book. It caused quite a stir among anthropologists at the time because it is squarely in the environmental determinism camp (which I fall into to). Many anthropologists like to think that internal factors are far stronger forces than external. I have always been a externalist (environment, war, etc), mostly because these things are MUCH easier to study and far less random. Internalists tend to focus on things like "Big men", history, and invention.

The most interesting idea, although not original, in Guns, Germs and Steel, was the idea that the Americas could never develop the same level of technology as the Old World simply because the continents are oriented N-S and not E-W, therefore making it much more difficult for agriculture to move, once invented.


smirnoff

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #368 on: January 29, 2010, 10:51:28 AM »
When I was 18 or 19 I bought it out of casual interest. I never did finish it though. I've always meant to reread it. Maybe this year I will.

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #369 on: January 29, 2010, 11:30:03 AM »
I find it every so often at the thrift store but it still sells for enough ($10+) on Amazon I can never resist the temptation to sell it and read it "next time I find one".

 

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