http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/1096210 en-US Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:45:12 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 20521907 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:45:12 -0700
The first few chapters are a brief survey of the history leading up to the current U.S. economic situation and are a bit of a slog (a useful slog, but a slog nontheless). However, once Reich hits his stride and begins to introduce his "Supercapitalism" model--a model which encapsulates the current forces at play in the United States and, indeed, most developed economies worldwide--the book's inherent value to every American citizen who cares to read it becomes apparent.

-JF]]>
author: Robert B. Reich
name: James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/01/08
shelves:
review:
Robert Reich has a slam-dunk in this economic tour-de-force, describing with alacrity and convincing logic the overarching problems which ail American politics and enable our economy's characteristic shortsightedness.

The first few chapters are a brief survey of the history leading up to the current U.S. economic situation and are a bit of a slog (a useful slog, but a slog nontheless). However, once Reich hits his stride and begins to introduce his "Supercapitalism" model--a model which encapsulates the current forces at play in the United States and, indeed, most developed economies worldwide--the book's inherent value to every American citizen who cares to read it becomes apparent.

-JF
]]> 27935960 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:15:40 -0700
author: R. F. Delderfield
name: James
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1982
rating: 3
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/28/08
shelves:
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]]> 27330252 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:54:40 -0700
author: Salman Rushdie
name: James
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/22/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20528322 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:01:05 -0700
author: Edvard Radzinsky
name: James
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/15/08
shelves:
review:
Edvard Radzinsky is a stellar biographer whose dramatic background shines through in this work. It doesn't hurt that his subject matter is the life of one of Russia's most enigmatic autocrats.
]]> 20528588 Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:17:58 -0700
author: Bryan Sykes
name: James
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/13/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20521993 Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:13:32 -0700
author: Alex Ross
name: James
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 06/12/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20521854 Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:12:40 -0700
- Eric D. Weitz, "Weimar: Promise and Tragedy"

I found this book to be an excellent survey of Weimar history, which encourages the reader to shed the perception of post-World War I Germany as a hopeless deathmarch -- a perception that arises from our knowledge of the republic's eventual collapse and the horrors that ensued. For those who lived in Germany during the Weimar years, the future was anything but a foregone conclusion and, as the title relates, Weimar's eventual collapse was not due to a lack of societal potential.]]>
author: Eric D. Weitz
name: James
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/12/08
shelves:
review:
Democracy can be fertile soil for all sorts of interesting debates and for the efflorescence of the cultural spirit. But when virtually every debate become a live-or-die question about the essential features of human existance, from intimacy in the bedroom to the structure of the business world, when every issue is seen to carry earth-shattering significance, when there is no overarching system of belief to which most people giver their loyaly, a democracy cannot long endure. And it especially cannot endure when powerful groups in that society seek at every turn to undermine and destroy its very being. The threats to democracy are not always from enemies abroad. They can come from those withn who espouse the language of democracy and use the liberties afforded them by democratic institution to undermine the substance of democracy. Weimar cautions us to be wary of those people as well. Waht comes next can be very bad, even worse than imaginable.

- Eric D. Weitz, "Weimar: Promise and Tragedy"

I found this book to be an excellent survey of Weimar history, which encourages the reader to shed the perception of post-World War I Germany as a hopeless deathmarch -- a perception that arises from our knowledge of the republic's eventual collapse and the horrors that ensued. For those who lived in Germany during the Weimar years, the future was anything but a foregone conclusion and, as the title relates, Weimar's eventual collapse was not due to a lack of societal potential.
]]> 20610244 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:14:34 -0700
author: Bryan W. Van Norden
name: James
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 04/06
date added: 04/20/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20521959 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:15:55 -0700
author: Mark Dunn
name: James
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 03/08
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
Clever idea and pretty damn funny. A good, quick read.
]]> 20521549 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:09:36 -0700
author: Karl Jaspers
name: James
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
A very provocative survey of those Jaspers considers to be the four paradimatic figures of the human tradition. My sister had this book when I was down in Florida over Easter and let me start reading her copy. Thanks Linda!
]]> 20521446 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:07:17 -0700
author: Hermann Hesse
name: James
average rating: 3.25
book published: 1906
rating: 3
read at: 01/97
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
One of my favorite books growing up. Best way to describe it is a coming-of-age book for the creatively inclined. I imagine it would be a wonderful short read for adults too.
]]> 20520871 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:04:05 -0700
Favorite scene? I don't have a copy on me right now, but its that one short chapter where the Jode's leave that diner after begging for food and the truckers come in and order pie and coffee. That scene is pure Americana and I love it. Perhaps the best stand-alone chapter I've read.]]>
author: John Steinbeck
name: James
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1939
rating: 3
read at: 08/00
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
My vote is for East of Eden when it comes to Steinbeck's greatest work, but this one ain't no chopped liver as I'm sure anyone who's read it know and who's heard about it can guess. My only 'criticism' is that when I went back to re-read Grapes of Wrath, I actually thought I was reading it all the way through for the first time as I couldn't remember the ending. Turns out I DID remember the ending, it's just that this book doesn't contain a whole lot of closure, haha.

Favorite scene? I don't have a copy on me right now, but its that one short chapter where the Jode's leave that diner after begging for food and the truckers come in and order pie and coffee. That scene is pure Americana and I love it. Perhaps the best stand-alone chapter I've read.
]]> 20520130 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:54:13 -0700
Now whenever people joke about how long it is (what are you reading there, War and PEACE?) I just remind them that an 1100 some-odd page novel doesn't get to stick around and be translated into all kinds of other languages unless it's really, really good. Apparently, Tolstoy din't like it when folks referred to War and Peace as a novel: he believed it was something too all-embracing in terms of fiction/ history/ historiograpy/ philosophy/ epic prose to be considered a mere novel.

He was probably right.

If I were to rate the edition I read (this one, Barnes & Noble Classics), I'd give it three stars tops. They obviously used an old translation which reads like Henry James (not that that's a BAD thing. . .) and don't you ever f*cking look at the footnotes unless you really need to know who this dude Napoleon was.

If you're gonna read or reread it, get the new, Pevear-Volokhonsky version (ISBN 0307266931). These are the couple who have done other famous translations of Dostoevsky etc. and its a really fantastic edition from what I was able to ascertain browsing through it.]]>
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: James
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1869
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
War and Peace is an amazing work of art that I couldn't put down once I got rolling.

Now whenever people joke about how long it is (what are you reading there, War and PEACE?) I just remind them that an 1100 some-odd page novel doesn't get to stick around and be translated into all kinds of other languages unless it's really, really good. Apparently, Tolstoy din't like it when folks referred to War and Peace as a novel: he believed it was something too all-embracing in terms of fiction/ history/ historiograpy/ philosophy/ epic prose to be considered a mere novel.

He was probably right.

If I were to rate the edition I read (this one, Barnes & Noble Classics), I'd give it three stars tops. They obviously used an old translation which reads like Henry James (not that that's a BAD thing. . .) and don't you ever f*cking look at the footnotes unless you really need to know who this dude Napoleon was.

If you're gonna read or reread it, get the new, Pevear-Volokhonsky version (ISBN 0307266931). These are the couple who have done other famous translations of Dostoevsky etc. and its a really fantastic edition from what I was able to ascertain browsing through it.
]]> 20519568 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:38:41 -0700
This book was great. I found an old Modern Library edition lying around one summer and picked it up, but I don't think I actually got around to reading it until during the school year.

Favorite scene? The 'cigarette scene' four or five pages into chapter four. You'll know it when you see it.]]>
author: John Steinbeck
name: James
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1936
rating: 3
read at: 01/06
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
One of Steinbeck's more 'radical' books, in that he recognizes the existence of communism as an early 20th-Century American political entity and fails to take a McCarthyan stance on it.

This book was great. I found an old Modern Library edition lying around one summer and picked it up, but I don't think I actually got around to reading it until during the school year.

Favorite scene? The 'cigarette scene' four or five pages into chapter four. You'll know it when you see it.
]]> 20519032 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:25:14 -0700
author: Herman Melville
name: James
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1851
rating: 4
read at: 07/98
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
Can't remember the edition I read the first time around -- I guess one could call it the old and musty edition :) I know a lot of peeps knock on Melville for going into so much detail about the life aboard a ship in the 19th Century, but I really love this classic and enjoyed it just as much (plus understood more) when I had to read it again for my American Romanticism class in college.
]]> 20518914 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:20:30 -0700
author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
name: James
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 07/05
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20518851 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:19:16 -0700
author: Anonymous
name: James
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 04/05
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20518812 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:18:26 -0700
author: Joseph Roth
name: James
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 03/05
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20518716 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:16:21 -0700
author: Walt Whitman
name: James
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1855
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20518681 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:15:46 -0700
author: Reza Aslan
name: James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 06/06
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20518584 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:13:53 -0700
author: Sun Tzu
name: James
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 08/05
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
Ralph D. Sawyer did an excellent translation that reads well.
]]> 20518509 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:10:56 -0700
author: David Edmonds
name: James
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20482476 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:58:14 -0700
author: John Steinbeck
name: James
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 07/04
date added: 04/18/08
shelves:
review:
East of Eden, centennial edition or otherwise, is simply put one of the best novels ever written.
]]> 20482048 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:55:46 -0700
author: Aldo Leopold
name: James
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at: 03/06
date added: 04/18/08
shelves:
review:
A beautifully written book by one of the great fathers of conservationism in the early 1900s. Aldo Leopold traces his life in the Sand Hills of Wisconsin month by month and finds both wide ranging concepts and elegant microcosms to explain the ways in which nature molds his life's progression through the year.
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