false 122 741 418 true 5642188 read 3 true 676026 currently-reading 320 true 676025 to-read 356 false 6593436 fiction 331 false 2619491 home 326 false 2619475 sony-reader 287 false 3651951 1001books 197 false 6640475 to-read-owned 173 false 3142254 non-fiction 81 false 2619490 public-library 65 false 6640490 to-read-to-borrow 61 false 6589158 science-fiction 38 false 6593560 short-stories 37 false 6589179 history 37 false 2619504 overdrive-library 20 false 6593112 philosophy 19 false 3159537 audiobooks 18 false 6593117 political-science 13 false 8871422 war 13 false 6595470 management 9 false 9093470 reality 8 false 9077862 world-war-ii 8 false 9093627 bleak 8 false 9143684 best-of-2009 6 false 8877697 magical-realism 6 false 8879113 surreal 6 false 9094240 nazis 6 false 6589411 biography 6 false 6593556 mythology 5 false 8871431 about-reading 5 false 9081398 love 4 false 9079083 moral-failure 4 false 8878560 japanese-fiction 4 false 6594960 mystery 3 false 9104759 holocaust 3 false 9081399 death 3 false 9093443 world-war-i 3 false 9078008 guilt 3 false 9142505 cookbook 3 false 9112889 lonliness 3 false 9093598 experimental 3 false 9077858 poland 3 false 8871771 about-writing 2 false 9077890 book-obsession 2 false 9081643 evil 2 false 9116043 perception 2 false 9081435 thriller 2 false 9115787 latin-america-fiction 2 false 8878587 terrorism 2 false 9070173 unorthodox-thinking 2 false 9116063 german-fiction 2 false 8908215 california 2 false 9078593 meaning-of-life 2 false 9078244 memoir 2 false 9077979 dictatorship 2 false 9113659 art 2 false 9093464 crazy 2 false 9104417 story-within-a-story 1 false 9142560 asian-cuisine 1 false 8872862 metafiction 1 false 9077974 carribean 1 false 9143773 oppression 1 false 9094241 cabaret 1 false 9115658 pakistan-fiction 1 false 9115469 iraq-war 1 false 9079060 buddies 1 false 9115238 indian-fiction 1 false 9115134 independance 1 false 9113424 post-apocalpytic 1 false 9104830 post-colonial 1 false 9115131 post-colonial-africa 1 false 9104922 post-modern 1 false 9078241 primitive 1 false 9143360 immigration 1 false 9143294 race 1 false 9105283 racism 1 false 9105280 imaginary 1 false 9143359 chinese 1 false 9115136 revolution 1 false 9115405 school-shootings 1 false 9093447 consensually-accepted-reality 1 false 9105861 money 1 false 9105828 french-literature 1 false 9070168 statistics 1 false 9143667 food 1 false 9115231 stream-of-consciousness 1 false 9070169 success 1 false 9115470 surge 1 false 9115249 fidelity 1 false 9104046 swiss-literature 1 false 9142659 farmers-market 1 false 9115764 existentialism 1 false 9115130 african-literature 1 false 9113428 england-fiction 1 false 9143141 end-of-the-world 1 false 9104841 true-crime 1 false 9104977 distopia 1 false 9081716 vietnam-war 1 false 9115404 violence 1 false 8871947 9-11 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24934047 The Double (Hardcover) by José Saramago
bookshelves: 1001books, currently-reading, home, magical-realism, to-read-owned
...the home of a secondary school teacher who doesn't earn very much, a fact that may be capricious pigheadedness or the result of a historical penalty as yet still unpaid.11

The wheel was invented and stayed invented forever and ever, whereas words, those and all the others, came into the world with a vague, diffuse destiny, as highly provisional phoenetic and morphological clusters, howeveruch, thanks perhaps to the inherited glow of their glorious creation, they may insist on passing themselves off, not so much in their own right, but on behalf of the thing they vaiably mean and represent, as immortal, undying, or eternal, depending on the taste of the person doing the classifying. P 56

...it's not every day that someone turns up and tells us that common sense is nothing but a chapter from a statistics book and that what every libraryin the world lacks is a history of common sense from the time of Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise. P 61 ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/80190348 Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Hardcover) by Nicholas D. Kristof
bookshelves: non-fiction, oppression, to-read, women
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79860274 Your Face Tomorrow: Fever And Spear (Hardcover) by Javier Marías
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79692774 Chronic City (Hardcover) by Jonathan Lethem
bookshelves: fiction, science-fiction, to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24492666 Heart of Darkness (Green Integer) by Joseph Conrad
bookshelves: 1001books, currently-reading, evil, moral-failure, sony-reader, to-read-owned




And for a moment it seemed to me as if I was also buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night...p. 170

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79571373 Under the Dome: A Novel (Hardcover) by Stephen King
bookshelves: fiction, thriller, to-read, to-read-to-borrow
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79462798 Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change (Paperback) by Walt Crawford
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/2051.50_Books_A_Year Jeff joined the 50 Books A Year group. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79459952 Outliers (Hardcover) by Malcolm Gladwell
bookshelves: currently-reading, non-fiction, statistics, success, unorthodox-thinking


Everything we have learned in Outliers says that success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed. If it were, Christ Langan would be up there with Einstein. Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities--and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. For hockey and soccer players born in January, it's a better shot at making the all-star team, For the Beatles, it was Hamburg. For Bill Gates the lucky break was being born at the right time and getting the gift of a computer terminal in high school. Joe Flom and the founders of Wachtell, Lipton and Katz got multiple breaks. They were born at the right time with the right parents and the right ethnicity, which allowed them to practice takeover law for twenty years before the rest of the legal world caught on. And what Korean Air did, when it finally turned its operations around, was give its pilots the opportunity to escape the constraints of their cultural legacy.

The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the muths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth...To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success...with a society that provides opportunities for all. p. 268, conclusion. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/60775685 to: California: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) by Kevin Starr
bookshelves: california, history, home, non-fiction
California by Kevin Starr is the primer on California history. It covers every facet of the state in a clear and readable history. I love these kinds of histories because he doesn't cover just the political and geographic history but the social history as well. He covers art and literature that reflected the history of the state, something I really enjoy in a history.  It doesn't gloss over anything either from race issues to the dillusionment of California. This is also a great book to focus in on aspects of California history that may be of interest. It covers all of California as well even to parts of the state that are typically glossed over. An excellent history.  ]]>