I’m disappointed to say that this is the first of the Library of Congress Crime Classics series that is a major fail for me. The basic setup of a New York-based Sherlock Holmes knockoff with some added detective rivalry is all well enough, and the first story or two are decent, if not quite as well crafted as one expects from Conan Doyle himself.
But then there’s the story in which one of the detectives himself turns out to be the killer (which could be a good twist), but because the victim is someone considered sub-human, it’s perfectly okay with all our heros that he strangled her and cut off her head, hands, and feet. That’s a major no for me. Also, there was a talking chimpanzee, so take that for what you will.
Mark Twain’s wit and charm are enough for me to enjoy just about anything he’s ever written, but with my own upcoming trip to Hawaii(!), it’s especially fascinating to to hear his account of the archipelago as it was a century and a half ago. And Twain gives a fantastic accounting of the land, the politics, the culture, the history, and the native mythology.
Of course, as I’d say about so much of his writing, Twain was a man of his time, and his prejudices and limitations are sometimes uncomfortable to read. But at times it’s also remarkable how progressive and sympathetic to the natives he can be.
Dickens is so good at prose, at characters, and at crafting a narrative that you just fall into his novels. A Tale of Two Cities is epic, even for him. The French Revolution and The Terror become a proving ground for human nature; all that is good, all that is vengeful. It’s heart-rending, suspenseful, and feels oh so true.
I love Michael Pollan books for his honest and curious attitude as he flits after whatever topics catch his fancy, as enthusiastic as a bee in his garden. In The Botany of Desire, he buzzes around the stories of four plants, rather loosely tied together by the idea that the way we typically talk about domestication is rather too anthropocentric. It’s certainly fascinating and fun to read, if perhaps a little unfocused at times.
I didn’t finish this one. There’s something of an irony when a book about good writing isn’t itself all that well written. Sure, the author has some great explanations of how to make a weak sentence stronger, but his voice isn’t all that compelling. And the endless writing examples pulled from contemporary news sources may represent the journalistic world Evans represents, but they sure don’t make the reading experience very fun.
I was hesitant to pick up a vampire book, even though I know Martin is a fantastic writer. It’s not that I don’t love vampires; it’s just that it seems very difficult to do much that’s very original with the genre. Well, I needn’t have worried, because Georgie R’s deft hand at creating compelling characters and an immersive world kept me turning page after page.
Compared with A Song of Ice and Fire, this story is remarkably focused, with only two protagonists and a narrative that drives straight forward. There’s a clear subtext, but it’s never front and center to the point of becoming crass allegory. And Martin certainly knows how to make you care about what happens next.
A lot of very fascinating perspective on the infrastructure that we all rely on but tend to take very much for granted. It’s less technical than I anticipated, and more about the role infrastructure plays in our society.
I confess that I skimmed over some long sections about climate change and the threats it poses to our aging and under-maintained systems of infrastructure. Not because it isn’t very good material, but because I just can’t face any more climate anxiety.
An interesting little procedural. Not one I’m sure will stick much in my memory.
Though the stated premise is a history of the American dialect of English, this book is really more of a ramble through various interesting factoids about American history. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—most of those factoids are pretty darn interesting.
Chandler just has such a talent for mood and turning a phrase. His narrative style has been parodied to death, but no one has ever really captured the essence of what makes it so great.
Reading this novel was very different for me from the first one because I’ve never seen the film this time. It really allowed me to let Chandler paint the pictures without any existing images getting in the way.
A very good overview of typography for digital media, especially the web. So much so that I’m going to use it as the new textbook for my Typography for Digital Media course.
The succinct, clear explanations of concepts are great. The only downsides are that the organization feels a little haphazard and it occasionally presupposes prior knowledge. But the good by far outweighs those nitpicks.
I’ve read a lot of books that give advice on my various creative pursuits, but I think this one does the best job of any of them when it comes to truly capturing my experience as a creative person. The book is filled with simple, clear perspective for the internal struggles that I’ve faced a million times over, and I believe I shall reference it for years to come.
In a few places, Rubin gets a bit too woowoo spiritual for my taste, but in most places where he talks about things like energy and universal source, I can choose to take it as metaphor for the complex intangibles of inspiration.
I’m probably not the first person to say that what makes this book special is the characters. They’re especially effective because of McMurtry’s skill at setting up pairs of dramatic foils and playing them off of one another.
It’s sweeping, funny, tragic, and unforgettable.
I don’t typically read memoirs, but the college where I teach handed this one out at an all-hands event as a way for us to better understand some of the challenges our students face. On that score, I’m pretty disappointed. Sure, here and there Land makes a few decent points about the hurdles and indignities of living in poverty, but it’s hardly the focus of the story.
But if I was looking for focus, I was quite mistaken; there is none. The chapters meander between the random occurrences of her life, and any hints of theme that manage to flit by are often contradicted in the next turn. And Land’s depiction of scraping through college as an underemployed single mother is sullied in its heroism by the depiction of her poor choices and general immaturity. (So much so, that the part of me that’s very close with my own impoverished childhood finds itself wildly speculating that Land is some sort of plant meant to convince readers that the poor really are what the right wants us to believe.)
Still, there might be something redeeming if the prose were beautiful or her ability to draw a scene arresting, but it’s all very casual and unadorned.
I hope the next memoir I pick up will be better.
Each story is like a little puzzle that seems at first almost simple but holds a lot of big ideas about technology, logical reasoning, and unintended consequences. Asimov’s characters are very 1950s, but within that scope they are quite entertaining, especially the two beleaguered robot troubleshooters who play off of riff on each other as they rack their brains to overcome each new problem they face. True comfort reading.
A decent but sometimes confusing overview of vanilla javascript programing. I confess that I rather gave up on some of the later chapters.
This book has a lot of ideas, many of them particularly progressive for the 1980s, in which the novel was penned. And I respect that, I really do. But the storytelling is meanderingly awkward, the prose is often hard to follow, and the character motivations are just bad. I’ll be honest, I quit reading when the “liberated” sexual politics of the book lead to actions that were perplexing at best and terribly exploitative if we’re honest about it. Yuck.
Nick and Nora Charles are a charming (and surprisingly progressive in their relationship) couple of protagonists, which is why the film adaptation of The Thin Man spawned several sequels and even a TV show, not to mention lent their names to a style of cocktail glass.
Comparing this to Dashiell Hammett’s only other novel, The Maltese Falcon, it’s interesting how it is so much more lighthearted in tone, and yet so similar in its hard-boiled oeuvre at the same time. Without at all reading like a parody, it manages to place a pair of rye bon vivants right in the middle of a corrupt and morally grey noir world. Nicely done.
This novel is epic, complex, humorous, and full of character. And tragic, very, very tragic. Hugo excels at depicting the ways in which we project our own needs and desires onto other people, and especially how that can become obsession. Occasionally, the book escalates into true melodrama, but not enough to detract from the scale of its achievement.
