false 8 47 44 true 6097739 read 0 true 1088167 currently-reading 3 true 1088166 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/17863754 Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Paperback) by Douglas R. Hofstadter
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/17816116 to: The Phantom Tollbooth (Paperback) by Norton Juster
We're reading this book with the second graders right now, and hearing it as an adult is making me realize how formative this book was in my tastes now: it uses its absurd, whimsical, unabashedly intellectual humor to playfully examine the world actually in front of our eyes - and the worlds behind them.

And it's fun, too. I'm enjoying it as much now as when I was the students' age. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/17815933 to: The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse: A Novel (P.S.) by Jonathan Selwood
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14065065 to: The Omnivore's Dilemma (Hardcover) by Michael Pollan
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9523852 to: Life of Pi (Mass Market Paperback) by Yann Martel
I'll be honest...I haven't been able to finish this book, despite the fact that it's been gifted to me twice. Usually, I love bizarre transrealistic scenarios like this, but Martel's narrative style simply never captured me. Part of it, I know, was the whole premise of it being "a real story" which unnerved me for some reason.

I may pick it up again on the suggestion that the whole scenario is an allegory of what it means to emigrate, since I'm such a sucker for those intercultural identity clashes. It may be one of those books I need to push myself through because I appreciate the idea behind it rather than the experience of the text itself, and will give me some good talking points on a subject I enjoy rambling on about. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13042647 to: Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books (Paperback) by Francesca Lia Block
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13042311 to: Echo (Paperback) by Francesca Lia Block
This book is pure poetry. Where Block lured me in with her quirky matter-of-factness with Weetzie Bat this takes her unique way of finding magic in the everyday and turns it into a modern fairytale, with or without the moral, but definitely with the transcending magic and subversive surrealism. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10861998 Grace's review of Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society
by Adeline Yen Mah

Well, that's the real Chinese Cinderella story - they make reference to it in this one, which takes place during WWII. "Chinese Cinderella" is the English name given to the main character by a friend of her aunt's, though her situation - triumph over wicked stepmother, etc. bears similarity to that traditional legend. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10861998 to: Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society (Paperback) by Adeline Yen Mah
because sometimes you need to read young adult kung fu novels... ]]>