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282 books
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107 voters
Ensiform’s Profile
Ensiform's Recent Updates
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Ensiform
is now friends with Biswanath Senapati
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Ensiform
rated a book 2 of 5 stars
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| I suppose it should be noted that this book is not by Susan Meddaugh, but "based on the characters created by" her, an "adaptation" by Jamie White, based on a TV script by Matt Steinglass. A book written by a committee in pieces, for the purposes of...more | |
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Ensiform
rated a book 4 of 5 stars
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| A collection of essays and autobiographical pieces by the veteran character actor, amounting a book that is both memoir and pop philosophy. He’s a witty and self-deprecating story-teller who seems to have an inexhaustible cache of bizarre anecdotes,...more | |
"As with everything, it's not the nature of the content but how the story is told. You can find the whole panoply of human endeavor and drama in an hou...more
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Ensiform
rated a book 2 of 5 stars
The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You'll Never Read
by Stuart Kelly
read in November, 2012
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| A chronological survey of lost books and books that never were, from ideas for novels that never materialized on paper to valuable manuscripts burnt or censored or mislaid, from the anonymous ancients who assembled Gilgamesh and possible attribution...more | |
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So, like, I have a fetish, and it's becoming a problem. If someone told me there's a book out there and it's composed entirely of punctuation - no words, just 900 pages of exclamation marks, full-stops, and commas - I'd totally be there. I seem to...
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Ensiform
rated a book 2 of 5 stars
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| The author, a mathematics and philosophy professor, writes about the basic concepts of simple arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), starting with the premise that numbers exist outside of human endeavor, then on to the definit...more | |
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Ensiform
rated a book 3 of 5 stars
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| Ray Smith (a stand-in for Kerouac himself), an itinerant poet, and his friend Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder) search for an affirmative way of life in the mindless bustle of the modern era. Preferring cabins and hiking to cities and desk jobs, the two live...more | |
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Ensiform
rated a book 4 of 5 stars
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| The author trained to be a surgeon in the Navy and worked with Special Operations and attached to a SEAL team, as well as working as a trauma surgeon in El Paso. He describes his medical training, which took place in the days when interns were on cal...more | |
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Ensiform
rated a book 4 of 5 stars
More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics
by Steven E. Landsburg
read in August, 2012
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| The author, an economist and columnist, uses cost-benefit analysis to tackle some thorny social issues, from the polygamy of the title to such varied topics as giving to charity, overpopulation, euthanasia, the global preference for baby boys vs. gir...more | |
“Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives? And that if we have experienced this much, then perhaps we haven’t lived in vain? Is passion so deep and terrible and magnificent and inhuman? Is it indeed about desiring any one person, or is it about desiring desire itself? That is the question. Or perhaps, is it indeed about desiring a particular person, a single, mysterious other, once and for always, no matter whether that person is good or bad, and the intensity of our feelings bears no relation to that individual’s qualities or behavior?”
― Sándor Márai, Embers
― Sándor Márai, Embers
“Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
“Perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; a hill of many invisible crests; doors that open as in a dream to reveal only a further stretch of carpet and another door; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
“Indeed, a faint hypnopædic prejudice in favour of size was universal. Hence the laughter of the women to whom he made proposals, the practical joking of his equals among the men. The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self-consciously on his dignity.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.”
― George Carlin
― George Carlin
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