Category: Reading

(audio) book review: Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen (narrated by Donada Peters)

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witty story, lovely prose, lovely audiobook reading

I know the story. I’ve seen a few cinematic versions (the Kiera Knightley version, the Bollywood-Hollywood fusion version, even the Mormon version), and I admit that I mostly decided to read this because I wanted to read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and one review suggested that the appreciation of that book would be much better having recently read the original, which I believe I read once, about fifteen years ago.

Donada Peters’ reading of this audiobook was just perfect. (I was missing the last CD and was unwilling to read the end, as Peters’ reading was so enjoyable.) The story doesn’t need my endorsement, and it took a little while to draw me in, but I loved it in the end.

Note on content: This book has snobby people.

(audio) book review: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordon, narrated by Jesse Bernstein

David Evans2 Comments

fun adventure, but too much like Harry Potter and annoying narrator for the audiobook

So there’s an eleven year old boy who lives with a nasty step-dad named Mr. Dursley – sorry, it’s Smelly Gabe. He learns that he is special and goes to a special school – sorry, camp – where there is a kindly teacher who likes him, Dumbledore – sorry, Kairon, and a mean teacher who doesn’t, Snape – sorry, Mr. D. He then goes on a quest to save the world with a really smart girl named Hermione – sorry, Annabeth – and a goofy friend named Ron – sorry, Grover. Of course, no adults can help save the world. It’s just these crazy kids.

What’s different? Rather than the magic of Harry Potter, we learn that the Greek gods are alive and well, working behind the veil of human vision. We meet all kinds of major gods, minor gods, demigods, mythical monsters, and other characters. It got me excited about re-reading some of the Greek mythology that I enjoyed so much as a youth.

I wish Jim Dale – the superb narrator of the Harry Potter audiobooks – had narrated these. Instead, Jesse Bernstein does his best eleven-year-old voice, aka annoying voice, and the accents are just bizarre (Zeus was my “favorite”).

This was a fun listen; it totally drew me in, despite (or maybe because of) the similarities to the little boy wizard. The gods and creatures really make the story, much more than the protagonists. It will be interesting to see that dynamic evolve over the next books.

Note on content: No sex, no strong language that I can remember (besides words like “stupid”), and the violence is pretty veiled.

reading chart & schedule for the WHOLE Old Testament

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In my faith, we will be studying the Old Testament over the course of 2010.  For those who want to plan and track your reading, here are a couple of resources:

Charts (so you can check off each day’s reading, for people like me who that helps):  Page 2 of this PDF has the whole Old Testament.  So does a chart here.

This calculator helps you figure out exactly what to read each day if you want to read the Old Testament in a year (or in two years).  Here is what it looks like for one year.

plenty of popcorn to get you through the long space voyage

David Evans1 Comment

We also spent part of one holiday season weighing the uneaten popcorn left behind (or thrown away) after the upbeat movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and compared it with the popcorn left after the gloomy “intellectual” film Solaris. Our garbology director showed that the average buckets of popcorn left behind in Solaris had 29 percent less popcorn in them than those left behind in the happy movie.

(from Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating, p144-145)

Margaret Mead leaves Samoa to sell brains and stomach to hungry Americans

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During World War II, much of America’s domestic meat was being shipped overseas to feed soldiers and allies. As a result, there was a growing concern that a lengthy war would leave the United States protein-starved. The potential solution to this problem lay in what were then called organ meats: hearts, kidneys, liver, brains, stomachs, intestines, and even the feet, ears, and head of cows, hogs, and sheep. The challenge was how to encourage Depression-era Americans to incorporate these into their diet. To do this, the Department of Defense recruited Margaret Mead and dozens of the brightest, and subsequently most famous, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, food scientists, dieticians, and home economists in the nation. Their task: to make families rush to the dinner table for liverloaf and kidney pie.

(from Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating, p134-135 – more detailed analysis is in Wansink’s “Changing Eating Habits on the Home Front: Lost Lessons from World War II Research,” Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 21:1 (Spring 2002): 90-99.

(awesome) book review: Gun, with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem

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The book is awesome, not the review.

beautifully done crime novel with a subtle-ish dose of Where Are We All Headed? I read it in 24 hours

I’m currently reading Nick Hornby’s The Polysyllabic Spree, and he mentioned reading Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude, which reminded how much several people I know loved Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, which in turn reminded me of a little science fiction (ish) novel that Lethem wrote back in 1994 which I had wanted to read. That’s the genealogy. I picked up the book last week, and I basically read it in the last 24 hours (while traveling from DC to Atlanta to Rio to Brasilia). It had me completely captivated.

A hard-boiled detective addicted to dope and flowery metaphors goes up against the institutional cops to solve a murder. And there’s a kangaroo with a gun. And a house that’s a hologram. And people getting frozen (think Han Solo at the end of The Empire Strikes Back). But before you stop, the beauty of Lethem’s novel is that it doesn’t feel like science fiction. It feels like a captivating crime noir novel. The reason is that Lethem reels you in at the first pages with the story and the character, and only bit by bit, over time, do you realize that the world is different from our own (right now). (One problem with much science fiction and fantasy is that it requires such a massive investment to start the book: the planet of what? the what-reorganizing matter machine? huh?) And the science fiction elements all feel relevant: the walking, talking animals are the result of artificial evolution processes, and everyone is taking to dope to forget their lives (think a gritty Brave New World). The crime story itself has the requisite zillion twists and turns, and Lethem leads us right up to an impressively surprising finale.

Note: Lots of strong language, a fair amount of violent, and some sexual content.

(audio) book review: The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga (read by John Lee)

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frightening, evocative, but not very sympathetic

A good friend recommended this strongly, and it won the 2008 Booker Prize, so I gave it a try. The Booker committee said “Balram’s journey from darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable.”  I agree with 1, 2, maybe 4, and 3 if you take off the “deeply” and even then only reluctantly.

The protagonist – Balram – is some kind of entrepreneur who is writing letters to the premier of China to tell him about the true India. Balram tells of his rise from poor village boy to tea shop worker to … well, I won’t give too much away. But Balram does not allow himself to be bound by traditional norms of morality around, say, killing. And other stuff. The power in the novel is demonstrating how poverty can breed an amorality that is chaotic and frightening. But I only came to find the protagonist sympathetic towards the very end, up until which I merely found him offputting (and scary). I don’t think, if I were to turn back time, that I would read it again.

Note on content: I don’t remember reading a book with more f-words. There is violence. There is significant sex talk. This is a dark world of crushing poverty and desperation.

book review: Thank You For Smoking, by Christopher Buckley

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a rollicking ride through Washington lobbying, spin-meisters, kidnapping, corporate intrigue, despite a little floundering towards the end

I read this in about 24 hours (which is fast for me). Nick Naylor is the chief spokesman for the tobacco lobby. His boss wants him out, but after an impressive showing on Oprah, he becomes the darling of the lobby’s chairman of the board. He gets kidnapped and tortured by antismoking advocates. Corporate intrigue takes place.

This was a very fun, witty ride. Naylor is sympathetic, and he has a genuine friendship with her fellow Merchants of Death, the chief spokesman for firearms and the spokeswoman for alcohol. The satire of Hollywood, of the lobbying industry, of Washington spin, is all fun. A man next to me at baggage claim said, as I laughed out loud, That must be a great book! You haven’t put it down! He was right.

In the last quarter of the book, it starts to get even a little crazy for my generous suspension of disbelief, but I still couldn’t stop reading, and the ending is satisfying (even with a several-years-later epilogue;* it’s like watching 9-to-5 with Lily Tomlin all over again).

Note on content: Some language, some sexual content, some violence. Less language or violence (and a little more sex) than Gun, with Occasional Music (but not as good as that one either). Less of everything than the White Tiger.

Continue reading “book review: Thank You For Smoking, by Christopher Buckley” →

the book-lover’s book that describes itself

David Evans2 Comments

I hadn’t necessarily expected to read every word of the Lowell biography, but … it’s one of those books you thrust on your partner with an incredulous cry of “This is me!” [Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree, p16-17]

That is exactly how I feel about many passages in this journal of Hornby’s own reading, and I’ve only read the first ten pages!  (I’ve read several Hornby books and haven’t been disappointed: About a Boy, How to Be Good, A Long Way Down. Good was the least good, but even that had value.)