http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/127027 en-US Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:46:02 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 26065122 Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:46:02 -0700
author: Joan Didion
name: Katie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/13/08
shelves:
review:
Similarly, perhaps it never did snow that August in Vermont; perhaps there never were flurries in the night wind, and maybe no one else felt the ground hardening and summer already dead even as we pretended to bask in it, but that was how it felt to me, and it might as well have snowed, could have snowed, did snow.
]]> 25098437 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:06:58 -0700
author: Donald Barthelme
name: Katie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/01/08
shelves:
review:
“Just as the white snow on the ground is loved and applauded by everyone, but would be derided if it pretended to be vanilla ice cream, so the human persona can stand only so much artificial enhancement, for instance by lies.”
]]> 27061693 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:23:24 -0700
author: A.J. Jacobs
name: Katie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/18/08
shelves:
review:
"If triangles could think, their God would be eminently triangular."
]]> 26501031 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:39:00 -0700
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Katie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 08/98
date added: 07/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 26501027 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:37:52 -0700
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Katie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1955
rating: 3
read at: 06/98
date added: 07/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 26501024 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:35:34 -0700
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Katie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 04/98
date added: 07/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 26500968 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:34:23 -0700
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Katie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at: 12/97
date added: 07/06/08
shelves: 20thcenturyclassics
review:

]]> 26500836 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:32:27 -0700
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Katie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 03/98
date added: 07/06/08
shelves: 20thcenturyclassics
review:

]]> 26498742 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:03:59 -0700
author: Barbara Ehrenreich
name: Katie
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 11/99
date added: 07/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 26497977 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:00:49 -0700
author: T.C. Boyle
name: Katie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 07/04
date added: 07/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 26496702 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:53:29 -0700
author: T.C. Boyle
name: Katie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 10/00
date added: 07/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 26174282 Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:48:39 -0700
author: Harlan Ellison
name: Katie
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/05/08
shelves:
review:
"Genuine literature should never try to explain itself."
]]> 8351088 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:38:58 -0700
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Katie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/02/08
shelves: 20thcenturyclassics
review:
"To get his mind off the subject of love and desire, he studied, becoming an omnivorous autodidact, devouring the metamorphic myths of Greece and Rome, the avatars of Jupiter, the boy who became a flower, the spider-woman, Circe, everything; and the theosophy of Annie Besant, and unified field theory, and the incident of the Satanic verses in the early career of the Prophet, and the politics of Muhammad’s harem after his return to Mecca in triumph; and the surrealism of the newspapers, in which butterflies could fly into young girls’ mouths, asking to be consumed, and children were born with no faces, and young boys dreamed in impossible detail of earlier incarnations, for instance in a gold fortress filled with precious stones."
]]> 23830171 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:56:24 -0700
author: Geoffrey Nunberg
name: Katie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/25/08
shelves:
review:
"The language has far less to fear from the crude vulgarism of the untaught than the blithe irresponsibility of the taught."
]]> 18669374 Mon, 26 May 2008 08:06:39 -0700
author: Ana Siljak
name: Katie
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/26/08
shelves:
review:
"We must pay attention to the particular characteristics of the moral nature of crimes against the state. The physiognomy of such crimes is often quite variable. That which yesterday was considered a crime against the state, today or tomorrow becomes a highly respected act of civic courage. State crimes are often just the untimely expressions of a doctrine of premature reform, the preaching of that which is not yet ripe and whose time has not yet come."
]]> 8351047 Sat, 17 May 2008 22:13:01 -0700
author: John Steinbeck
name: Katie
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1952
rating: 4
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/17/08
shelves: 20thcenturyclassics
review:
"Oh, strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!"
]]> 8351075 Sat, 03 May 2008 09:58:53 -0700
"Is it possible to describe anything accurately? That is the problem set us by the French New Novelists. The answer is, like so many answers to important questions, neither yes nor no. The treachery of words is notorious."

"It is impossible to sort out all one's feelings at any given moment on any given subject, and so perhaps it is wise never to take on any subject other than one's own protean but still manageable self."]]>
author: Gore Vidal
name: Katie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/03/08
shelves: 20thcenturyclassics
review:
"Or as Diotima said to Hyperion, in Hölderlin's novel, 'It was no man that you wanted, believe me; you wanted a world.' I too want a world and mean to have it."

"Is it possible to describe anything accurately? That is the problem set us by the French New Novelists. The answer is, like so many answers to important questions, neither yes nor no. The treachery of words is notorious."

"It is impossible to sort out all one's feelings at any given moment on any given subject, and so perhaps it is wise never to take on any subject other than one's own protean but still manageable self."
]]> 20057842 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:28:48 -0700
A typically rending, 159-word final sentence:

"And on the doorsteps of all those houses were numerous women, elderly or aged, and on the parapets, seated in a row, numerous men, old and young, all in white shirts; in the middle of those streets like stairways, the babies were playing on the ground and an older boy was lying across the path, his cheek against the step, sleeping there because it was a bit cooler and less smelly than inside the house; and everywhere, lighting or circling, were clouds of flies, and on every wall and every festoon of newspaper around the fireplaces was the infinite spatter of fly excrement; and into Usnelli's mind came words and words, thick, woven one into another, with no space between the lines, until little by little they could no longer be distinguished; it was a tangle from which even the tiniest white spaces were vanishing and only the black remained, the most total black, impenetrable, desperate as a scream."]]>
author: Italo Calvino
name: Katie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/21/08
shelves:
review:
Two or three stars for the first three quarters of this collection, a dazzling five to the final installment--the eight "Stories of Love and Loneliness."

A typically rending, 159-word final sentence:

"And on the doorsteps of all those houses were numerous women, elderly or aged, and on the parapets, seated in a row, numerous men, old and young, all in white shirts; in the middle of those streets like stairways, the babies were playing on the ground and an older boy was lying across the path, his cheek against the step, sleeping there because it was a bit cooler and less smelly than inside the house; and everywhere, lighting or circling, were clouds of flies, and on every wall and every festoon of newspaper around the fireplaces was the infinite spatter of fly excrement; and into Usnelli's mind came words and words, thick, woven one into another, with no space between the lines, until little by little they could no longer be distinguished; it was a tangle from which even the tiniest white spaces were vanishing and only the black remained, the most total black, impenetrable, desperate as a scream."
]]> 19576959 Sun, 13 Apr 2008 09:24:44 -0700
"But no good ever came of affairs with the upper classes--they'd just get you segment and dump you. With a shrill cry of 'You swine! You ought to be circumscribed!' Jubilee launched herself backwards at the intruder, intending to give him a brand new diameter."]]>
author: Ian Stewart
name: Katie
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/13/08
shelves:
review:
Ambitious mathematics tempered with abundant geometrical puns:

"But no good ever came of affairs with the upper classes--they'd just get you segment and dump you. With a shrill cry of 'You swine! You ought to be circumscribed!' Jubilee launched herself backwards at the intruder, intending to give him a brand new diameter."
]]> 18996436 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:18:54 -0700
author: Alexander S. Pushkin
name: Katie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1957
rating: 3
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/09/08
shelves:
review:
"Play interests me very much," said Hermann: "but I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous."
]]> 5020707 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:52:54 -0700
author: Robert Tavernor
name: Katie
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/03/08
shelves:
review:
"On 14 October 1960 it was agreed to return to a truly 'natural' and scientifically verifiable definition for the metre rod derived from the radiation of the orange-red light emitted by the radioactive krypton-86 isotopre, so that the metre would equal 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the levels 2p10 and 5d5 of the krypton-86 atom. Since 1983 it has been defined more simply as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in the fraction of time of 1/299,792,458 of a second."
]]> 6866332 Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:03:13 -0700
Thirty-two years later:

"But you know, if I had had a normal life, and none of this had ever happened to me, I'd probably be one of those chauvinistic kind of guys, where the guy goes to work, breaks his back, come homes, and sucks down a beer and watches sports. And if I saw someone like me out on TV, I'd sit there saying, 'Oh God that's sick.' That's how I would be. So knowing that that person is me, you can realize how sick I feel looking back on all this. You wish to God you could switch places with anybody."]]>
author: John Colapinto
name: Katie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/30/08
shelves:
review:
The horrifically botched circumcision of one of their identical twin sons leads the parents to have him surgically castrated and to (attempt to) raise him as a girl--an utter failure from the start and a gripping, visceral read.

Thirty-two years later:

"But you know, if I had had a normal life, and none of this had ever happened to me, I'd probably be one of those chauvinistic kind of guys, where the guy goes to work, breaks his back, come homes, and sucks down a beer and watches sports. And if I saw someone like me out on TV, I'd sit there saying, 'Oh God that's sick.' That's how I would be. So knowing that that person is me, you can realize how sick I feel looking back on all this. You wish to God you could switch places with anybody."
]]> 18858379 Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:35:18 -0700
author: Alexander S. Pushkin
name: Katie
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/29/08
shelves: plays
review:
"Who knows the count of days we do not own?"
]]> 18280494 Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:46:03 -0700
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Katie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/26/08
shelves:
review:
Noncoding DNA, genetic/ environmental interplay, sexual selection in primates, Munchausen's by proxy, and 1960s psychological experiments that would no longer pass ethical muster. A fast, fun read.
]]> 18280468 Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:14:45 -0700
author: Thomas Cathcart
name: Katie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/25/08
shelves:
review:
"To choose a word is to choose a world."
]]> 13660763 Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:06:16 -0700
There was a gas explosion in the home of Larrieux, in
Bordeaux. He was injured. His mother-in-law’s hair
caught on fire. The ceiling caved in.

Through chemical artifice, swindlers have been coloring
new 10-centime stamps maroon and then selling them to
suckers as rarities.

Although it had arrived at the station in Vélizy, the train
was still rolling. The impatient Mme Gieger broke both
her legs.]]>
author: Félix Fénéon
name: Katie
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/23/08
shelves:
review:
Three such novels of three lines:

There was a gas explosion in the home of Larrieux, in
Bordeaux. He was injured. His mother-in-law’s hair
caught on fire. The ceiling caved in.

Through chemical artifice, swindlers have been coloring
new 10-centime stamps maroon and then selling them to
suckers as rarities.

Although it had arrived at the station in Vélizy, the train
was still rolling. The impatient Mme Gieger broke both
her legs.
]]> 16465154 Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:42:27 -0700
author: Markus Zusak
name: Katie
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/21/08
shelves:
review:
At first I couldn't get past the author's pedantic, patronizing tone, but once I realized that this is "teen fiction" and cut him some slack, I became genuninely drawn in by his vivid imagery and cast of thoroughly memorable characters.
]]> 11028154 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:26:34 -0800
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Katie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/04/08
shelves:
review:
As gothic, as ghastly, as witty and profound as I've come to expect from Margaret Atwood--indeed, for which I've come to depend on her. This one has elements of "Moral Disaster" in sister Laura, echoes of "Lady Oracle" in the pulpy, science fiction story-within-a-story, and enough mystery and gradual revelation to deliver me engrossingly through a ten-hour international flight. Part of me wishes I'd spread it out over a few days to savor more fully, but another part is still reveling in this sweet, one-sitting indulgence.
]]> 8351109 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:19:31 -0800
author: Alan Weisman
name: Katie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/04/08
shelves:
review:
Decay, deformation, disaster, and extinction, along with what may follow--whether or not we are here to witness it.
]]> 16002734 Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:22:39 -0800
author: P. J. Huff
name: Katie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/26/08
shelves: comics
review:
Political cartoons from the Civil War era, drawn by a variety of artists and expressing a variety of viewpoints. Complete with commentary to aid those of us readers centuries removed from the subtler allusions and inside jokes.
]]> 3569905 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:06:58 -0800
author: Ralph Ellison
name: Katie
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1952
rating: 3
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/18/08
shelves: 20thcenturyclassics
review:
"I tried to speak, to answer, but something heavy moved again, and I was understanding something fully and trying again to answer but seemed to sink to the center of a lake of heavy water and pause, transfixed and numb with the sense that I had lost irrevocably an important victory."
]]> 14228556 Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:00:27 -0800
On infinite regress:

Dmitri: If Atlas holds up the world, what holds up Atlas?
Tasso: Atlas stands on the back of a turtle.
Dmitri: But what does the turtle stand on?
Tasso: Another turtle.
Dmitri: And what does that turtle stand on?
Tasso: My dear Dmitri, it's turtles all the way down!]]>
author: Thomas Cathcart
name: Katie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/03/08
shelves:
review:
A light but worthwhile mini-course on the history of philosophy, told primarily through an amalgamation of new and familiar jokes--entertaining enough that I will forgive the author for his coinage of the unfortunate term "philogagging."

On infinite regress:

Dmitri: If Atlas holds up the world, what holds up Atlas?
Tasso: Atlas stands on the back of a turtle.
Dmitri: But what does the turtle stand on?
Tasso: Another turtle.
Dmitri: And what does that turtle stand on?
Tasso: My dear Dmitri, it's turtles all the way down!
]]> 13888398 Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:29:16 -0800
author: Jay Pridmore
name: Katie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/31/08
shelves:
review:
Ok, I admit that I checked this out mostly for the old bike photos and am still salivating over the 1890s "lightweights" and the 60s-era Apple Krate, but, yes, the text is worth a look as well, although it doesn't cover Schwinn's devastating demise as thoroughly as I had hoped.
]]> 13959046 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:57:04 -0800
author: David Markson
name: Katie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 07/01
date added: 01/29/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 13575056 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:14:16 -0800 To Havens for the Indigent,
Where it was used for scouring floors
And propping open banging doors.]]>
author: Edward Gorey
name: Katie
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/28/08
shelves: comics
review:
Fruitcake was sawed in blocks and sent
To Havens for the Indigent,
Where it was used for scouring floors
And propping open banging doors.
]]> 12664522 Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:04:37 -0800
author: Tom Tomorrow
name: Katie
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/26/08
shelves: comics
review:
In full color! In full relevance!
]]> 13574639 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:19:22 -0800
gr. 4-6]]>
author: Robert Newton Peck
name: Katie
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1974
rating: 3
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/25/08
shelves: childrensbooks
review:
Funny nicknames, olde-thyme hijinks, wholesome jollity--we've got it all right here.

gr. 4-6
]]> 12963624 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:12:16 -0800
author: Steve Almond
name: Katie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/25/08
shelves:
review:
It's true: I didn't ask. Thank God he told me anyway. The wit, the insight, the despair at having finished it too quickly!
]]> 13353543 Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:51:00 -0800
author: Alan Paton
name: Katie
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1948
rating: 3
read at: 04/06
date added: 01/23/08
shelves: 20thcenturyclassics
review:

]]> 12974313 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:51:28 -0800
author: Tom Stoppard
name: Katie
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 12/99
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969930 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:56:16 -0800
author: Henrik Johan Ibsen
name: Katie
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1879
rating: 4
read at: 11/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969838 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:55:09 -0800
author: Henrik Johan Ibsen
name: Katie
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 11/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969797 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:54:14 -0800
author: Henrik Johan Ibsen
name: Katie
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 11/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969753 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:53:16 -0800
author: Henrik Johan Ibsen
name: Katie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 11/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969640 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:50:49 -0800
author: Tom Stoppard
name: Katie
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at: 10/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969579 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:49:56 -0800
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Katie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1998
rating: 2
read at: 09/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969527 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:49:25 -0800
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Katie
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 09/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12969291 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:45:57 -0800
author: Don DeLillo
name: Katie
average rating: 2.91
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 05/03
date added: 01/20/08
shelves:
review:
I remember only that it beats "Underworld" and "The Body Artist" and that it "had its moments."
]]> 12969109 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:43:09 -0800
author: Don DeLillo
name: Katie
average rating: 3.09
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 12/02
date added: 01/20/08
shelves:
review:
Can't remember it at all--a decidedly bad sign
]]> 12969044 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:41:22 -0800
author: Don DeLillo
name: Katie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1998
rating: 2
read at: 07/02
date added: 01/20/08
shelves:
review:
A lengthy let-down
]]> 6494884 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:37:49 -0800
author: Marisa Smith
name: Katie
average rating: 2.00
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 09/07
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:
Lobster Alice: Pseudo-surrealistic banter; entertaining but fluffy
]]> 12968740 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:37:23 -0800
author: Mark, S. Byron
name: Katie
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 04/01
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12968590 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:35:29 -0800
author: Arthur Miller
name: Katie
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1949
rating: 3
read at: 08/02
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12968534 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:34:37 -0800
author: David Gates
name: Katie
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 08/02
date added: 01/20/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 12968256 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:30:45 -0800
author: John Millington Synge
name: Katie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 02/02
date added: 01/20/08
shelves: plays
review:

]]> 12968298 Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:30:10 -0800