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July 21
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hadashi
marked as to-read:
Carpe Diem (Hardcover)
by Autumn Cornwell
bookshelves:
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my rating:
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hadashi
gave
to:
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Paperback)
by Malcolm Gladwell
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read in July, 2008
hadashi said:
"i figured if i liked "Blink" so much, i should give Gladwell's original bestseller a try. it was interesting enough, thanks to his excellent narrative abilities -- he's able to connect anedotes in a way that illustrate his sociology points...more
i figured if i liked "Blink" so much, i should give Gladwell's original bestseller a try. it was interesting enough, thanks to his excellent narrative abilities -- he's able to connect anedotes in a way that illustrate his sociology points quite well. very similar to the idea of "Freakonomics" (which book is the chicken; which is the egg?), in which large-scale trends, including economic ones, are tipped by the actions of a few people: an intensely human basis for worldwide events.
honestly, the best thing about this book is that the ONE campaign against world poverty got its beginnings when Bono read this book -- he's pretty much a Salesman, Maven, and Connector (the three types needed for a Tipping Point) all rolled into one....less
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hadashi
gave
to:
Home is Always the Place You Just Left: A Memoir of Restless Longing and Persistent Grace (Paperback)
by Betty Smartt Carter
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read in July, 2008
hadashi said:
"i can't remember how this book was recommended to me, but as memoirs go, this is a pretty quick read written by a PK (pastor's kid) who grew up in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. her childhood memories are sharp and often quite poignant, especiall...more
i can't remember how this book was recommended to me, but as memoirs go, this is a pretty quick read written by a PK (pastor's kid) who grew up in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. her childhood memories are sharp and often quite poignant, especially as she describes how her relationship to God was formed over the years. although i could relate to some of her experiences, overall, the story lacked a certain amount of focus and narrative structure. Betty's got good stuff to say, sure, but i think only PKs/MKs/GUBAs (growing up born-again) can really appreciate the subtleties of her journey -- how one can walk all of one's life with God present but still be a broken person, as we all are, and need to come to Him on one's own unique, personal terms. ...less
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hadashi
gave
to:
West with the Night (Paperback)
by Beryl Markham
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read in June, 2008
hadashi said:
"i finished this autobiography of the first female aviator to cross the Atlantic solo before i Wikipediaed her, and somehow i’m glad i did it in that order. Beryl, an Englishwoman, more or less was African at heart; growing up in British East Afric...more
i finished this autobiography of the first female aviator to cross the Atlantic solo before i Wikipediaed her, and somehow i’m glad i did it in that order. Beryl, an Englishwoman, more or less was African at heart; growing up in British East Africa (now Kenya) she first learned to breed and train racehorses, then got interested in flying and was a freelance bush pilot during the wild crazy times of the Great White Hunters and empire-building. while she paints herself as quite the heroine, she is also honest: she says incredibly progressive things about Africa -- the land and the people -- and then in the next sentence will be such a product of her privileged station and times. her first-person narrative voice is strong and assured, and much of the book is written in present tense, giving it an immediacy and adventurousness. the descriptions of places, people, events are fresh and lyrical, and knit together in a way that makes you feel like you’re watching a life unfold, rather than simply reading it.
what’s fascinating is that Wikipedia reveals that Ms. Markham was quite the scandalous woman – not that it’s surprising, as i loved that her stories that show she lived and moved in a man’s world without apology or self-consciousness. she had plenty of lovers, and it’s even doubtful she authored this book – it’s thought her third husband, who was an established writer, ghostwrote it for her. Hemingway actually called her a “first-class bitch” in the middle of rapturous praise for the story… anyway, she lived a stunningly full life, returning to England for awhile, then living in America, but finally dying in Africa, where her heart always was.
i’d like to think that I have some of Beryl’s adventurous badassness in me, what with my upbringing and my world gallivanting and my living in Man World for most of my first career. ...less
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hadashi
gave
to:
The Uncommon Reader: A Novella (Hardcover)
by Alan Bennett
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my rating:
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read in June, 2008
hadashi said:
"this is a thoroughly delightful novella about what happens when the Queen discovers reading. there is no attempt to make this a generic Queen; it is most definitely the sturdy, sensible Elizabeth II, the current ruling monarch of good ol’ Britanni...more
this is a thoroughly delightful novella about what happens when the Queen discovers reading. there is no attempt to make this a generic Queen; it is most definitely the sturdy, sensible Elizabeth II, the current ruling monarch of good ol’ Britannia who politely borrows a book from a mobile library and discovers her world is much, much larger than she realized. as reading moves from duty to pleasure for her, and as her repertoire of books increases, she has to contend with the unpopularity of the pastime and disapproval of her staff, with a highly amusing, and surprising ending. grab this book, a cup of tea, a sunny corner, and less than an hour for yourself -- and enjoy!...less
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June 25
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hadashi
is currently reading:
The Complete Persepolis (Paperback)
by Marjane Satrapi
bookshelves:
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my rating:
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July 21
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hadashi
marked as to-read:
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (The Wingfeather Saga)
by Andrew Peterson (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
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my rating:
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March 31
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hadashi
gave
to:
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Hardcover)
by Oliver W. Sacks
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read in November, 2007
hadashi said:
"I enjoyed "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat," and so was very excited to read this book after hearing Dr. Sacks do several NPR interviews. He has a way of taking dry, clinical cases and terminology and making them very human stories....more
I enjoyed "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat," and so was very excited to read this book after hearing Dr. Sacks do several NPR interviews. He has a way of taking dry, clinical cases and terminology and making them very human stories. What is “normal” is so physiologically based, and therefore very fluid to him as a neurologist, that in reading this book, one really does start to realise that "normalcy" is easily taken for granted.
This subject is of course more interesting to me than usual, since music has been a part of my life since birth. He points out that music is hardwired into us, in very unexpected parts of the brain, and that as far as biology is concerned, music is useless and therefore even more fascinating. In addition “to this largely unconscious structural appreciation of music is added an often intense and profound emotional reaction to music. ‘The inexpressible depth of music,’ Schopenhauer wrote, ‘so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain…Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events, never these themselves.’ [And] listening to music is not just auditory and emotional, it is motoric as well.”...less
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March 30
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hadashi
gave
to:
Snow (Paperback)
by Orhan Pamuk
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read in April, 2007
hadashi said:
"This novel has won a zillion prizes, and has received deafening international acclaim for the way it takes on the clash of the Islamic fundamentalist East & secular West while retaining the humanity of its characters. I disagree.
The book sta...more
This novel has won a zillion prizes, and has received deafening international acclaim for the way it takes on the clash of the Islamic fundamentalist East & secular West while retaining the humanity of its characters. I disagree.
The book starts out fine, but it devolves into this really odd stream-of-consciousness craziness that feels like a fever dream and makes little sense of events at the end. In addition, the narrator keeps telling you what’s going to happen – big stuff, like deaths, etc. – and if it was supposed to focus me and keep me from being distracted wondering what was going to happen, it did the exact opposite. I ended up skimming the last third because I was so annoyed with how all plot tension was gone, the protagonist was quickly becoming a snivelly annoyance, and – here’s my main beef – no poems. Ka’s whole character hinges on the fact that he’s been blocked for all his years in the West, and when he comes “home” he has this rush of nineteen poems that just flow out of him. A great deal of time is spent talking about them and dissecting them, but because the green notebook he wrote them in is never found, we never get to actually read them. I find this to be a cheap, lame, cheater literary trick that shirks responsibility. The plot structure even would have allowed at least one poem to be printed, but why couldn’t Pamuk have done even that?
The one thing that struck me was listening to characters wrestle with the idea of God and His relationship to life, and even that was presented as either fanaticism or a mind-salve for miserable people – nothing joyful or life-affirming. ...less
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March 13
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hadashi
marked as to-read:
The Kite Runner (Paperback)
by Khaled Hosseini
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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