http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/115717 en-US Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:12:11 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 25996683 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:12:11 -0700
**********************************

Having finished the book, I now have a slightly different perspective. First of all, Pantani's "career" is more or less over by the middle of the book. I never really realized that there was 1 year around 94/95 when he was good and about 1 1/2 years 98/99 that he was phenomenal. I thought there was more. The rest of the book is his descent - well, actually wallowing ... he went down quickly and stayed down - into cocaine abuse, crack abuse, nymphomania, bipolar disorder, megalomania, etc. It's more tragedy than glorifying. Even his greatest feats are more than tarnished; they're made spectral. The most interesting facet (to me) are a few tossed off remarks; one, that he was a media event, the product of a change in technologies (slo mo, camera bikes, etc) and an attempt, by him/media companies/sponsors/race organizers, to create "spectacles" rather than human sports heroes; two, that his approach to life, including his sport, was lyrical rather than tactical/strategic. To some degree, we all still long for those irrational/arrational lyrical moments. I guess that's why I can still watch Pantani's great rides with some sense of awe knowing the chemicals that enabled them. Perhaps the chemicals were necessary, but not sufficient?]]>
author: Matt Rendell
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/23/08
shelves:
review:
I had to put more serious reading aside - if you can call Dune serious - to dig into this in preparation for Le Grand Boucle. So far, good choice; this is like sports writing (epic feats! brutal competition! the flamboyant arrogance that comes from victory and the degradation and fragility of defeats!) merged with tabloid topics (filthy bald man trashes hotel room, snorts mountains of cocaine, dies broken and alone ... but, hey, at least we can talk to his psychoanalysts to see "what went wrong"). But the writing is good. One can't help missing the crazed personality. The 90s was a good time ... between Il Pirata, Super Mario, the Tashkent Terror, etc., there were some true weirdos on wheels. Not sure how this compares to Graham Watson's book, but I'm enjoying it thus far.

**********************************

Having finished the book, I now have a slightly different perspective. First of all, Pantani's "career" is more or less over by the middle of the book. I never really realized that there was 1 year around 94/95 when he was good and about 1 1/2 years 98/99 that he was phenomenal. I thought there was more. The rest of the book is his descent - well, actually wallowing ... he went down quickly and stayed down - into cocaine abuse, crack abuse, nymphomania, bipolar disorder, megalomania, etc. It's more tragedy than glorifying. Even his greatest feats are more than tarnished; they're made spectral. The most interesting facet (to me) are a few tossed off remarks; one, that he was a media event, the product of a change in technologies (slo mo, camera bikes, etc) and an attempt, by him/media companies/sponsors/race organizers, to create "spectacles" rather than human sports heroes; two, that his approach to life, including his sport, was lyrical rather than tactical/strategic. To some degree, we all still long for those irrational/arrational lyrical moments. I guess that's why I can still watch Pantani's great rides with some sense of awe knowing the chemicals that enabled them. Perhaps the chemicals were necessary, but not sufficient?
]]> 24967287 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:22:24 -0700
author: Frank Herbert
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 5
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/15/08
shelves:
review:
This is a totally genre based 5. Some books transcend genres, others are content to stay in the silo. Not a flaw, but I wouldn't recommend this to people that don't like science fiction. I wasn't aware going in how much Islam there was in the book. Sure, I was familiar with the basic contours via the David Lynch flick, but I'd never even skimmed any of the book. The confluence of late 60s drug culture, cult culture, and western dependence on middle eastern oil make it strangely a vessel of its time and remarkably relevant today.
]]> 24967233 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:39:47 -0700
I love that many of the old books of Italian poetry I've picked up - Saba, Montale, Ungaretti, Quasimodo, Compana, etc - all have the Italian on the facing page. Though my understanding is limited, I can gain some appreciation of the structure and music, how they have been resurfaced in translation.]]>
author: Salvatore, Quasimodo
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 06/08
date added: 07/02/08
shelves:
review:
He puts so much weight on words, I find it a bit hard to penetrate and to accept translation. Not to say they aren't moments of limpidity and beauty or truly moving laments ... but I didn't plunge beneath the surface. That's a loaded sentence considering his affiliation with Hermetism and his Sicilian heritage, with the affinities for omerta (in a non-criminal way) and dietrologia that this implies.

I love that many of the old books of Italian poetry I've picked up - Saba, Montale, Ungaretti, Quasimodo, Compana, etc - all have the Italian on the facing page. Though my understanding is limited, I can gain some appreciation of the structure and music, how they have been resurfaced in translation.
]]> 20571638 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:49:37 -0700
author: Henri Michaux
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/25/08
shelves:
review:
The "writer takes drugs and tells the tale" summary does not do this justice, particularly if that conjures visions of Hunter S. Thompson. This reads almost more like travel writing where the space is internal and the behavioral/built culture is formed from the pharmacological/philosophical aspect of a given drug ... comparative ethnography of Mescaline and Hashish. Hardly surprising since Michaux has also written some excellent travelogues. The writing is occasionally terrifying (and terrifyingly beautiful) ... I get glimpses of Lovecraftian architecture, of Kafkaesque labyrinths, and, yes, of Burrough's more cerebral passages, but all tempered by a very modern poetic respect for the stark, the simple, the clean. Surrealist line drawing, and the drawings in the book, are apt visual metaphors. He manages to capture the infinite, uncomposed nature of Mescaline in with concision and form. No small accomplishment. And kudos for giving me my new favorite word: ruiniform.
]]> 22801822 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:35:13 -0700 And what pleasure it was to be there! To be one of that host!
Greek, and as naked as God! naked as bride and groom!
Exulting for battle!

There is beauty and ferocity and music in it. Every age can be written in myth and write myth. This is all the poetry that was missing from the bombast of 300.]]>
author: Christopher Logue
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/16/08
shelves:
review:
Blue heaven above, Mount Ida's snow behind, Troy in between
And what pleasure it was to be there! To be one of that host!
Greek, and as naked as God! naked as bride and groom!
Exulting for battle!

There is beauty and ferocity and music in it. Every age can be written in myth and write myth. This is all the poetry that was missing from the bombast of 300.
]]> 5289941 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:28:38 -0700
Can't wait for 2666.]]>
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/16/08
shelves:
review:
She tasted like cigarettes and expensive food. I tasted like cigarettes and cheap food. But both kinds of food are good.

Can't wait for 2666.
]]> 23514778 Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:55:07 -0700
author: Greg Rucka
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 05/08
date added: 06/02/08
shelves:
review:
It's no Queen & Country, but it'll do in a pinch.
]]> 22218752 Fri, 23 May 2008 05:29:43 -0700
author: Erika Andersen
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/23/08
shelves:
review:
It's a self-improvement style business book ... can you really ever give such a book more than three stars? Yet you may get something useful from it, an a-ha, a shift in perspective (or, if on a more profound topic than this or from a more profound writer than Erika Andersen) a complete paradigmatic twisting 1/2 pike ... but it's never a great "book." I guess what I'm getting at is that these types of books are judged very pragmatically. Do you manage people? Do you feel like there are skills involved in that, things that you actually need to formalize and practice? Do you feel like relationship oriented stuff in the workplace interferes with your ability to get right traction ... either too much friction or to much slippage? Then read it ... it'll take four hours to read and absorb and then as many hours to actually practice as you care to devote.
]]> 20571614 Wed, 21 May 2008 04:20:40 -0700
author: Osamu Tezuka
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/21/08
shelves:
review:
Never read anything by Tezuka, but this had far less of that polychromatic bubbles feeling that I expected ... I was thinking wholesome Astro Boys fighting nefarious mustache twisting arch villains, but I got a medical mystery and a social critique of power & appearances. A page-turner despite its girth. Now I'm intrigued by his 7 volume life of buddha ...
]]> 22218731 Wed, 14 May 2008 05:12:13 -0700
author: Galway Kinnell
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/14/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 16986351 Sun, 04 May 2008 17:59:09 -0700
I'm now fantasizing about an Asian parody in which Rice9 creates perfectly perfumed, sweet and subtly toasted onigiri.]]>
author: Kurt Vonnegut
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at: 03/08
date added: 05/04/08
shelves:
review:
I never really read Vonnegut. Just Slaughterhouse. This is an inexplicable gap in my youth. Actually, I take that back ... it's not inexplicable at all. I blame my parents.

I'm now fantasizing about an Asian parody in which Rice9 creates perfectly perfumed, sweet and subtly toasted onigiri.
]]> 20571624 Thu, 01 May 2008 04:39:00 -0700
author: Kermit Lynch
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/01/08
shelves:
review:
More travel writing than a "wine" book ... though you will get a very distinct perspective on what wine should, but often fails, to be. And the writing is good ... irreverent and intelligent. For example: "Aside from bombing runs and the local little cheese biscuits called gougeres, wine is the only reason to go to Chablis. [...] Loving Chablis is like falling in love with a frigid floozy. You begin to wonder if the rewards are worth the heartbreak and deception." Much better than discussions of which obscure berry something supposedly tastes of or what elaborate dish it should be served with.
]]> 1654224 Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:52:41 -0700
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 04/27/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20571581 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:05:10 -0700
author: Keiji Nakazawa
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/20/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 20571278 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:04:26 -0700
Also a little disappointing that he doesn't talk at all about running besides "sprint" training. ]]>
author: Donald A. Chu
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/20/08
shelves:
review:
A good starting point for plyometrics, but by no means comprehensive. Rather than a simple list of 100 exercises, I'd like to see more information on diagnostics - how do you identify issues, particular weaknesses, etc - and how do the exercises work together to address them. There's also no information in the "building a program" section about balancing stresses for particular muscles/muscle groups ... Chu gives a number of "contacts" (jumps/foot contacts) as a guide, but that doesn't seem sufficient; what if all the contacts are focused on the same muscle group? Seems like overkill ... like dudes that go to the gym and do dumb bell bench, bench, incline bench, decline bench, presses on a swiss ball, etc. It may only be 6 or so exercises, but they're all trying to achieve the same thing ... overkill.

Also a little disappointing that he doesn't talk at all about running besides "sprint" training.
]]> 17368880 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:59:11 -0700
author: Knut Hamson
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/20/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 19519951 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:04:53 -0700
author: Chris Anderson
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 04/05/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 19519847 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:02:44 -0700
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/05/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 19519749 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:01:20 -0700
author: Eugenio Montale
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/05/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 16198425 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:00:08 -0700
author: Juan Garcia Ponce
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1989
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 04/05/08
shelves:
review:
One for the lover of elliptical, vaguely erotic, short stories. These are explorations of "the mysteries" of existence, attraction, etc., that arrive at the banal ... but somehow leave it tasting enigmatic.
]]> 18520923 Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:43:41 -0700
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 04/08
date added: 03/24/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 18520597 Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:42:25 -0700
author: Tim Harford
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/24/08
shelves:
review:
Not profound but enjoyable. He makes his one point over and over again, but each time with a new, entertaining, and often sordid story. If you're the kind of person that thinks it's not absurd to search for a balance of economic incentives behind the increase in teenage blow jobs, look no further; this is your book.
]]> 18520370 Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:38:17 -0700
author: John Battelle
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/24/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 15123654 Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:37:37 -0700
I'd resent it more if it'd taken more than a couple hours to read. Lightweight.]]>
author: Michael Pollan
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/24/08
shelves:
review:
A regurgitation of some of the more tiresome parts of Omnivore's Dilemma. I really enjoyed that book. The time invested in the mission, the fact that he had really lived with the idea, traveled with it, let it germinate (ruminate), the people met along the way, the stories it generated ... these were a big part of the joy of the book. An entire journalistic process. That is all absent here; it's a break from the (successful and enjoyable) mold of Omnivore's Dilemma, Botany of Desire, etc. If one was generous, one would say this is Pollan's attempt to distill a core message from Omnivore's. If one was more cynical, one might feel that this was his attempt to cash in on his newfound fame by securing a better deal from publisher's and foisting a slim, redundant volume with no additional reportage on the buying public.

I'd resent it more if it'd taken more than a couple hours to read. Lightweight.
]]> 17367390 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 09:29:51 -0700
Anyway, the Italian is on the verso, translation on the recto. Nice. The difference in line breaks and sonority is good to see ... as is his occasional use of terza rima (showing his "radicalism" was backward looking for sure). Another interesting point on his nostalgia is the inclusion of one of his poems, the final poem in the volume (Il di da la me Muart - The Day of My Death) in his native Friulian dialect, hinting at his longstanding opposition to the disappearance of the various Italian dialects. Based on this small sample, it's incomprehensible based on standard Italian, a palimpsest of the ancient and fractious history of Trieste/Udine/Suditrol/Friuli-Venezia.]]>
author: Pier Paolo Pasolini
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/09/08
shelves:
review:
A small book, forty or so poems, with an introduction by Alberto Moravia. My "amazement" is a minor kind, in fitting with the tenor of the poems, with Pasolini's lines spent in a nostalgic reverie recalling the light or smell of Fruili. As he says in the opening poem, Diario, "like existence itself [...] I can only stay true to the stupendous monotony of the mystery." Though you can't get away from the scandal with Pasolini - hey, the poems were written in Rome, between his "exile" from Friuli for a frolic in the bushes with a couple young boys and his suspicious demise at the hands of a Roman hustler - the poems seem to be an attempt to ... some about the rage of being trapped in this persona, having to speak through the thick mask of "avant-garde marxist homosexual", but most are about nostalgia for his youth, the little bit of sweetness and order required for his work, having the world before his eyes and "not just in his heart," about what Italy was attempting to become - or what people were trying to make it - at the time ... with "becoming" not an idea he was fond of.

Anyway, the Italian is on the verso, translation on the recto. Nice. The difference in line breaks and sonority is good to see ... as is his occasional use of terza rima (showing his "radicalism" was backward looking for sure). Another interesting point on his nostalgia is the inclusion of one of his poems, the final poem in the volume (Il di da la me Muart - The Day of My Death) in his native Friulian dialect, hinting at his longstanding opposition to the disappearance of the various Italian dialects. Based on this small sample, it's incomprehensible based on standard Italian, a palimpsest of the ancient and fractious history of Trieste/Udine/Suditrol/Friuli-Venezia.
]]> 15123655 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:39:26 -0800
author: Georges Perec
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/03/08
shelves:
review:
Love is the wrong word, not least of all due to the presence of an "e". Wavering between significant and insignificant, which is precisely where Perec seemed to want it. Life A User's Manual is more pleasurable and more sustained ... but this is just brazen, whimsical, erudite (often pointlessly), bibliophilic and logophilic ... the book a linguistic idiot savant would write after reading The Maltese Falcon if his mom had attended lit theory classes in 68 at Nancy when he was in utero.
]]> 15123657 Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:29:09 -0800
That said, I think there's something slyly contrarian in the idea that a powerful idea is one that resonates, "sticks," is effective/affective rather than one that is well packaged. If you've ever sat through an executive presentation skills workshop where you're drilled on stupid shit like hand gestures and how many bullet points are ideal for a slide without any objective gauge of how much of your message is actually getting across you'll find this refreshing ... or you'll wish it talked more about hand gestures. ]]>
author: Chip Heath
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/19/08
shelves:
review:
The 4 star rating is not meant to imply that this book is profound. It is not. It falls more into the realm of the useful. It states its goal and it meets the stated goal. Sometimes that's enough.

That said, I think there's something slyly contrarian in the idea that a powerful idea is one that resonates, "sticks," is effective/affective rather than one that is well packaged. If you've ever sat through an executive presentation skills workshop where you're drilled on stupid shit like hand gestures and how many bullet points are ideal for a slide without any objective gauge of how much of your message is actually getting across you'll find this refreshing ... or you'll wish it talked more about hand gestures.
]]> 15123617 Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:21:51 -0800
author: Pierre Klossowski
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/19/08
shelves:
review:
Really wanted to enjoy it much more than I did. Couldn't get into the complete abstraction of it ... I guess homo-erotic Templar porn just isn't my genre.
]]> 15123622 Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:18:42 -0800
author: Mark Verstegen
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/11/08
shelves:
review:
I wouldn't say this is a book that is really "read." The text can be skimmed in an hour or so. But the philosophy of it, that "pillar strength" is critical to a well-functioning body both in day to day life and in athletic performance, is critically important. I've always scoffed at the people that advise runners, cyclists, soccer players, etc., that they need to strengthen their cores, and then have them doing crunches and some small number of lower back exercises. Ridiculous. The variety in this and the categorization of activities into different functional areas - e.g. movement prep, prehab, strength, etc - are useful. And, as goofy as this sounds, I think the swiss ball stuff is fun.
]]> 13891932 Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:13:55 -0800
author: Steve Erickson
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/11/08
shelves:
review:
Ugh.
]]> 13151246 Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:13:28 -0800
author: Walker Percy
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/11/08
shelves:
review:
I'm beginning to formulate a rough theory on Southern authors ... and I'm not just thinking Southern U.S., but that swath of the globe between temperate zones and equatorial zones that seems to incubate so much great writing. Something about - to use a word from this book - its cultured 'malaise'. The geography makes it out to be a marginal zone where transmissions between a more "productive" north and a more "primal" south intermingle ... almost as if miscegenation were something in the thinking. Or maybe this is just my mind wandering as I bounce between writers from Southern Italy/Sicily and the Southern U.S. ... but it may have merit.
]]> 13892116 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:49:39 -0800
author: William Gibson
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at: 01/90
date added: 01/28/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13892064 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:47:50 -0800
author: Steve Erickson
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 01/28/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13151294 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:44:27 -0800
author: David Lapham
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/28/08
shelves:
review:
Pulp violence. It's not profound, but every once in a while you need some pill-popping harlots shanking clowns.
]]> 13521941 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:26:54 -0800
author: Tony Kushner
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1994
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 01/25/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13521934 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:26:52 -0800
author: Tony Kushner
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 01/25/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13521914 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:26:46 -0800
author: Tony Kushner
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1993
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 01/25/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13521904 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:26:44 -0800
author: Tony Kushner
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1993
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 01/25/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13521712 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:26:25 -0800
author: Tony Kushner
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1992
rating: 2
read at: 02/94
date added: 01/25/08
shelves:
review:
Tony Kushner never met a word he didn't like or a phrase that couldn't be bettered through expansion.
]]> 12578285 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:24:52 -0800
author: Gesualdo Bufalino
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/25/08
shelves:
review:
Wow. Where do these Sicilian authors come from? Nowhere near as dour as the descriptions make it sound. There's humor here, an intelligence with a body, an amorality with an ethic ... wistful melancholy? What sad days those were, the happiest of my life ... espying in the heart of the blaze the hidden gray of future ashes.
]]> 13151266 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:16:28 -0800
author: Keiji Nakazawa
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 01/22/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13150969 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:15:22 -0800
author: Severo Sarduy
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/22/08
shelves:
review:
An interesting book by an interesting literary figure. Few people ever really took the medium of the radio play seriously as dramatic art. I can only think of Beckett and now Sarduy. The text shares some similarities to Beckett, but perhaps I'm just reading the medium rather than the form, though I'd put stronger influence in the Burroughs cut-up camp. That Sarduy is Cuban is almost unimportant; this belongs much more to experimental literary traditions, French for the most part, than to any Latin American traditions ... it wears none of the tropical trappings.
]]> 12689825 Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:01:00 -0800
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 01/16/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 12391306 Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:58:20 -0800
author: Wolfgang Koeppen
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/13/08
shelves:
review:
Koeppen seems to be somewhat forgotten ... or overlooked. I suppose you could call him a contemporary of Gunther Grass, though if I'm not mistaken his life reaches back a little further (to Wiemar) and terminates a little sooner. This book, as well as his other supposedly great book (Hothouse - which I haven't read) were written over a short period of time during Germany's economic miracle. You could call this an allegorical look into the German heart/soul/brain/body through the lives of a four related men - a bureaucrat, an artist, a priest, and a composer. Koeppen was a great admirer of Joyce, so that gives you some idea of the literary stream.
]]> 11024012 Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:37:23 -0800
author: Kim Deitch
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 12/07
date added: 12/26/07
shelves:
review:
Definitely in the indie comic vein, but a little bit more deranged with a little bit more fabulist imagery. For lovers of Crumb, Pekar, Spiegelman, and those with a love of early animation and comic/animation insider tales. Thankfully, eschews a lot of the overly confessional & personal purging elements that ruin so many independent comic works. Deitch can keep himself in check and poke his neurosis with a sharp stick.
]]> 11023764 Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:33:26 -0800
author: Howard Phillips Lovecraft
name: Ryan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at: 12/07
date added: 12/26/07
shelves:
review:
With all the anthologies of Lovecraft out there, it's hard to pick one to start (or end) with. This contains most of what Houellebecq, in his book format essay "Against the World, Against Life", identifies as the "major" works: The Call of Cthulu, The Colour out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Dreams in the Witch-House, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Shadow out of Time. The only "major" work that it does not contain is the indispensable At the Mountains of Madness ... though I'm also a fan of Under the Pyramids/Imprisoned with the Pharaohs and The Doom that Came to Sarnath.
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author: Algernon Blackwood
name: Ryan
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 12/26/07
shelves:
review:

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