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July 25
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Jeff
gave
to:
Norwegian Wood (Paperback)
by Haruki Murakami
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Jeff by:
sue, zac, karin
read in July, 2008
Jeff said:
"translator jay rubin's note at the end of _norwegian wood_ reveals his and murakami's anxiety about the novel's perceived status as "murakami lite." rubin rambles on about murakami's depression after _nw_ boosted his readership into the mi...more
translator jay rubin's note at the end of _norwegian wood_ reveals his and murakami's anxiety about the novel's perceived status as "murakami lite." rubin rambles on about murakami's depression after _nw_ boosted his readership into the millions, and protests that the book actually fields many of the complex issues abundant in other murakami novels (notably _wind up bird chronicle_).
the apologia is completely unnecessary. while _nw_ is, on the surface, a simple coming-of-age and love story set in late-1960s tokyo, it is actually rife with deeply nuanced relationships and questions of "normalcy," interpersonal obligation and the meaning of country, present and future.
while _nw_ foregoes the magical realism and long psychedlic passages of _wind up_, it is substantially more moving, and loaded with familiar murakami set-pieces: jazz, cats, wells, the "rising sun" flag -- all of which are turned to meaningful symbolic use.
i feel like i could write a book on this book, so i'll simply state that it is every bit _wind up_'s equal, if less overtly "ambitious," and a wonderful place for a murakami newcomer to start. i could not put this book down and found it as moving as ishiguro's best work....less
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Jeff
marked as to-read:
Foucault's Pendulum (Paperback)
by Umberto Eco
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Jeff
marked as to-read:
South of the Border, West of the Sun (Paperback)
by Haruki Murakami
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Jeff
marked as to-read:
Sputnik Sweetheart (Paperback)
by Haruki Murakami
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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July 21
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New comment on Anittah's review of
Introduction to Bayesian Econometrics
(see all 10 comments)
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July 18
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Jeff
gave
to:
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (Paperback)
by Mario Vargas-Llosa, Ronald Christ
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Jeff by:
karin
read in July, 2008
Jeff said:
"being obsessed with postcolonial literature, i had been looking forward to reading vargas llosa for a long time.
_captain pantoja and the special service_, a "farcical" take on religion, sex and the military, however, was an extreme disa...more
being obsessed with postcolonial literature, i had been looking forward to reading vargas llosa for a long time.
_captain pantoja and the special service_, a "farcical" take on religion, sex and the military, however, was an extreme disappointment to me.
the novel begins when pantaleon pantoja, a mama's boy and uber-obedient peruvian army captain, is given a "special assignment" in a disputed region of the amazon. soldiers at the front, isolated from female companionship, have begun a campaign of mass rape against the local women of iquitos. to appease the locals, the military assigns pantoja a super-secret mission, in which he will create, under the auspices of a "civilian operation," a traveling band of government-employed prostitutes to service the sexually-impoverished soldiers.
the central "joke" of the book is that, in true military fashion, pantoja applies an extreme degree of logistical and organizational rigor to his enterprise -- the novel is told primarily through a series of memoranda that detail items like the supply chain requirements for a maximally effective "secret service."
while i didn't find the juxtaposition of military rigor with sexual fulfillment particularly amusing -- possibly because my day job revolves around quantifying everything -- i also saw little in the way of social commentary in the novel. sure, the "special service" becomes more important than any competing army initiative, and vargas llosa draws a nice parallel between pantoja's prostitutes and a roving religious cult, which resolves in somewhat ironic fashion, but in the end _pantoja_ just struck me as a pauper's _catch-22_....less
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Jeff
added:
Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (Paperback)
by Joel Fuhrman
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended to Jeff by:
my office
recommended for: health freaks
read in July, 2008
Jeff said:
"_eat to live_ begins with the simple premise that the health quotient of a food (h) is equivalent to its nutrients (n) divided by its calories (c); by eating nutrient-rich foods -- primarily fresh fruits, raw vegetables, nuts and beans -- while consu...more
_eat to live_ begins with the simple premise that the health quotient of a food (h) is equivalent to its nutrients (n) divided by its calories (c); by eating nutrient-rich foods -- primarily fresh fruits, raw vegetables, nuts and beans -- while consuming as few "empty calories" as possible, one can stave off the long-term impact of the american diet (read: "death") and lose a ton of weight to boot. unlike calorie-restriction diets (zone, atkins, etc.), fuhrman's encourages you to eat as much as you possibly can, which is presumably why it's sustainable.
the science that underpins furhman's theories, particularly the "China Study," seems sound, and the book debunks a number of western eating myths. for example, i was under the impression that meat was essential for protein intake, milk for calcium. fuhrman shows that these are myths predicated on a "per volume" or "per weight" assessment of foods, rather than on the more appropriate "per calorie" measure. as it happens, broccoli has more calcium per calorie than milk. fuhrman goes a bit off the rails in proposing a conspiracy theory regarding the USDA's acquiescence in food providers' pro-animal products agenda, but i essentially bought the scientific argument.
unfortunately, i found fuhrman's program impossible to follow. he proposes a six-week intensive program, during which all animal products are forbidden, and one must eat two pounds of vegetables and four fruits a day; even olive oil is off limits. after those six weeks, you move on to the "rest of life" plan, which allows a serving or two of meat a week.
while many in my office lost 15-20 lbs in the first six weeks, i could only do the intensive program for about five days. i was starving all the time, and all the raw kale in the world couldn't change that. in the end, i decided to incorporate fuhrman's lessons into my diet to the extent possible, but to go on eating like a normal human being -- for example, i'll now try to eat fruit instead of a bagel for breakfast.
note that fuhrman's plan is particularly problematic for those who eat out frequently. asking for your steamed vegetables without any oil is just embarrassing....less
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June 30
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Jeff
gave
to:
Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (Hardcover)
by Chuck Klosterman
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Jeff by:
derek, chaffee
read in June, 2008
Jeff said:
"as my friend sigurdur hilmarsson always says, "one data point is only a point; two points is a line."
when i read _sex, drugs and cocoa puffs_ -- the conventionally-wise "best klosterman book" -- i couldn't discern what trouble...more
as my friend sigurdur hilmarsson always says, "one data point is only a point; two points is a line."
when i read _sex, drugs and cocoa puffs_ -- the conventionally-wise "best klosterman book" -- i couldn't discern what troubled me about his blend of hyper-citation, extreme pop-cultural literacy, and equal-opportunity satire. these are all attributes i usually admire, if not over-value.
on the second go-round, i realized that klosterman is more a pop culture comedian than critic -- at any juncture he will opt for facile humor over analytical consistency. klosterman's musings are undoubtedly riotous, and i would challenge anyone reading him to get through an essay without laughing out loud. but like the cocoa puffs klosterman is wont to deconstruct, there is something delicious but profoundly empty about his critiques.
in the service of immediate comedic gratification, klosterman will often make a hilarious point -- usually characterized by an unpredictable analogy (the US as the Wonder Years' Kevin Arnold, e.g.) -- only to directly contradict it in subsequent essays. in short, klosterman is a hilarious writer for whom nothing, including his own critical consistency, is sacred; he has nothing like a real point of view.
that being said, IV is hilarious, and not only because it apes/mocks/salutes (these lines are always blurred with klosterman) zeppelin's semi-eponymous, semi-numerical _zoso_ album in appearance and structure. broken into three parts -- "things that are true" [interviews and profiles from his journalistic career]; "things that might be true" [speculative essays in the _s,d,cp_ vein]; and "something that isn't true at all" [a misguided attempt at fiction] -- IV provides a good range for klosterman newbies. i would argue that one should read _IV_ before _s,d,cp_.
essentially a retrospective of klosterman's published work over the last decade, IV ranges in quality, from a hilarious profile of a paranoid and ingratiating val kilmer to a lame assessment, originally published in _spin_, of how zeppelin is the wellspring for all subsequent metal genres to speculation on why we are overprepared for a robot war that will never occur and that we would easily win.
though this review is somewhat critical, klosterman is essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in pop culture....less
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June 15
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Jeff
marked as to-read:
Cryptonomicon (Mass Market Paperback)
by Neal Stephenson
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Jeff
marked as to-read:
Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Hardcover)
by Salman Rushdie
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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