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April 03
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Brian
is currently reading:
A Bend in the River (Paperback)
by V.S. Naipaul
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in April, 2008
Brian said:
"I'm ust 18 pages in, and I've found myself lingering over a couple passages. Maybe my mindset right now is ripe for it, but every couple graphs or so I find myself latching onto an idea, either expressed or implied.
I look forward to getting furth...more
I'm ust 18 pages in, and I've found myself lingering over a couple passages. Maybe my mindset right now is ripe for it, but every couple graphs or so I find myself latching onto an idea, either expressed or implied.
I look forward to getting further into it....less
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March 05
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Brian
gave
to:
Vellum: The Book of All Hours (Paperback)
by Hal Duncan
bookshelves:
sci-fi-fantasy
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Brian said:
"More than any book I've read, "Vellum" left me feeling as if I dreamed a dream of significant importance and depth ... but upon waking couldn't remember what it was about.
I suspect this is going to be an important book in the genre of f...more
More than any book I've read, "Vellum" left me feeling as if I dreamed a dream of significant importance and depth ... but upon waking couldn't remember what it was about.
I suspect this is going to be an important book in the genre of fantasy, but I'm not about to proclaim it as such — yet. "Vellum" disorients as the story unfolds. I'm hopeful that its sequel — "Ink" — pulls the story together and delivers on the promise of this debut, but until I read that book, I have to give this only two stars.
Two?! Yep. On its own, the novel confuses like none other. Given the scope and subject matter (I'm sorry, but I don't feel I can adequately describe the plot), I can understand if that's the author's intention. If the glimpses of presumed brilliance pan out in the sequel, I'll be more than willing to bump this up to 4 or 5 stars; if not, two might prove to be bit generous.
However it turns out, though, I can't deny that this novel is a brash original in a genre that sorely lacks orginality. Whether the gamble fails or not, I won't regret the time spent with it....less
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March 04
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Brian
gave
to:
The Bourne Identity (Paperback)
by Robert Ludlum
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Brian said:
"Usually it makes sense to compare books to other books, and even then it can be a case of comparing apples to oranges. But given the popularity of the movie trilogy, it makes better sense to compare this novel with the films that likely introduced Ja...more
Usually it makes sense to compare books to other books, and even then it can be a case of comparing apples to oranges. But given the popularity of the movie trilogy, it makes better sense to compare this novel with the films that likely introduced Jason Bourne to readers well before they get to the book's opening sentence. Apples to pomegranates? Maybe.
Anyway, on to the source material.
The book isn't nearly as fast-paced as the movie, and that's a bad thing. Though Ludlom perfected the process to create a Jason Bourne, the trilogy's directors (Liman and then Greengrass) perfected Jason Bourne. Their cinematography emphasize a fast-moving, fast-thinking amnesiac super spy. In the films, Bourne's reflexes and insight inspire awe; in the books, they're slowed down and dissected. Though the attention to detail isn't entirely unwelcome, it does go too far. I felt the book dragged in sections. Hmmm ... I wonder if the fact that the characters in the book are dealing with less convenient 1980 technology (pay phones vs. cell phones, in-person banking vs. online transactions) has something to do with that.
I know that this genre demands believable cause-effect explanations of events that advance the plot (How were they alerted? A fiche, of course!), but it was a bit too detailed for my tastes. (Caveat: I don't regularly read spy novels, so my criticism here may be more with the genre than Ludlom.)
I loved the movie. The book? Not so much ... but I still enjoyed it, especially when I realized that the source material gives Jason Bourne a very different genesis than the movies.
As for plot, it's drastically different from the film. Though Bourne is still trying to discover who he was, in the book he is driven by the need to kill the most notorious assassin in the world. It's an addition layer of plot that is missing from the movie.
*** SPOILER comments from while I was still reading the novel SPOILER ***
I'm about halfway through this paperback and am finding it an interesting study in the changes necessary to turn a 1980 novel into a the first in a series of critically acclaimed action movies.
Two things stand out so far:
1. The character of Marie.
In the book, she's a doctor of economics who helps Bourne navigate the intricacies of international banking so as to uncover information about both himself and the people who are after him. In the movie, she's a vagabond-ish expat who serves as a humanizing influence on our amnesiac hero. Given that the intricacies of international banking would make for a very boring first hour of the film, I can see why this move was made, but it's an interesting switch.
2. The presence of real-life assassin Carlos the Jackal.
I'm only halfway through the book, so I'm not sure how big a nemesis Carlos ultimately is in it, but his inclusion created a problem for the movie production. Though the novel takes place in 1980 (when it was published), the movies definitely take place in the 21st century (a notable early indication: in the book, a microfilm slide — which included a Swiss bank account number — was found to have been surgically implanted in Bourne's body; in the movie, a tiny electronic device that, like a laser pointer, projected the account info). And that's a problem if Carlos is included — after all he was sentenced to life in prison in December of 1997.
Other impressions: I loved all the Bourne movies for the brilliant filmmaking. Though I find some of the book's financial insight to be interesting, so far I give the edge to the film....less
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March 03
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Brian
made a comment on
The Bourne Identity:
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February 29
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Brian
gave
to:
The Names of Things (Paperback)
by Susan Brind Morrow
bookshelves:
pages-read-chunks-at-a-time,
science_anthropology_history
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Brian said:
"An interesting read that weaves the study of language, egypt and hieroglyphics with personal narrative. I found it to be OK ... for me, the highlight is on pages 5 & 6:
"The flamingo is the hieroglyph for red. All red things: anger, bl...more
An interesting read that weaves the study of language, egypt and hieroglyphics with personal narrative. I found it to be OK ... for me, the highlight is on pages 5 & 6:
"The flamingo is the hieroglyph for red. All red things: anger, blood, the desert are spelled with the flamingo. The Red Sea Hills are mostly red. The red rock is vibrant in the changing light.
Near here are lavender mountains with cranberry cliffs. Silver and blue and green wadis wind around them. But the true red of the Eastern Desert, the red of Wadi Baramia, of Nugrus, is an intense color, harboring little plant life except the sweet-smelling selim that grows straight up in branches from the ground making the best walking sticks. It is a painful color, harsh to the eyes.
Flamingo, flaming. In Greek its name is phoenicopteros, phoenix, with feathers of fire. The riddle extends: the delicate, breakable flamingos breed on ash cones in the evaporate bed of Lake Natron in Central Africa. The new birds arise from the ashes. Fee waqt el mattar, in the time of rain, they arrive in the thousands. Last February there were twenty thousand flamingos on Lake Bardawil in North Sinai.
Red and green define the environmental extremes of Egypt. The desert is red. The sea is the great green. The sweet sea, the Nile, was once clotted with papyrus, thriving, gigantic, mobile, filled with animal and bird life, as it is today only in the Sudd, the great marsh in South Sudan. In Egypt the plant no longer exists. It survives only in the hieroglyph for green."
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I just think that's a brilliant piece of writing....less
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Brian
gave
to:
Genesis (Memory of Fire Trilogy, Part 1)
by Eduardo Galeano
bookshelves:
the-greats
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in January, 1994
Brian said:
"With the skills of a historian, journalist and poet, Eduardo Galeano kicks of his masterful "Memory of Fire" trilogy with "Genesis."
Others have compared this series to John Dos Passos' "newsreels," and it's a valid r...more
With the skills of a historian, journalist and poet, Eduardo Galeano kicks of his masterful "Memory of Fire" trilogy with "Genesis."
Others have compared this series to John Dos Passos' "newsreels," and it's a valid reference; but I prefer to approach this as a collection of prose poems. Each volume of "Memory of Fire" is made up of hundreds of datelined vignettes that rarely exceed a page. Meticulously researched, they offer a beautiful, rich account of the Americas from prehistory through the 1980s.
Taken as a whole, Galeano's vignettes offer a wide and deep view of American history; taken individually, many of them are nothing less than art.
As one would expect, "Genesis" focuses on the preconquistador Americas ... its pages are alive with the people, the creation myths and the gods of the early western hemisphere.
Unless you've the soul of dictator, you'll often will find yourself pausing after a passage, marveling at Galeano's words and the emotions they've stirred....less
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Brian
gave
to:
Working with Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors (Plastic Comb)
by Brian S. Brooks, James L. Pinson, Jean Gaddy Wilson
bookshelves:
the-greats
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: writers, editors, copyeditors, journalism students
read in January, 2007
Brian said:
"A fantastic resource for anyone who writes for a living or aspires to. This would be a must-have book even if it contained only the chapter with a list of words that often cause people to wonder if they're one word, two words or hyphenated.
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February 21
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Brian
gave
to:
Atlas Shrugged (Paperback)
by Ayn Rand
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my rating:
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Brian said:
"I really don't know how to rank this book. The dialog is terrible, the characters one dimensional, the writing bloated (and that's putting it kindly) and the plot exists almost solely to advance Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.
But ...
It ...more
I really don't know how to rank this book. The dialog is terrible, the characters one dimensional, the writing bloated (and that's putting it kindly) and the plot exists almost solely to advance Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.
But ...
It forced me to think about some things I otherwise wouldn't have considered. While I cringe to think of what Rand and Co. would do to the environment (and no, I'm not a tree-hugging hippie), I admire her defense of honest work and excellence in thought.
And though it's a small example of Rand's terrible speechified dialog, I did marvel at the thought behind Francisco d'Aconia's "money speech" (you can find it here: http://www.working-minds.com/m...
And, somehow, despite the terrible dialog, despite the overwritten drama (hmmm, was she paid by the word?), I found myself rooting for Hank Reardon and John Galt.
Still, be warned. John Galt's speech, which is the core of the novel has, in some versions, taken up 56 pages. And no, I'm not kidding.
Despite its artistic flaws, it really challenged me to think ... and even though I find myself not agreeing with Rand on several points, I appreciate the fact that this book made me think through my positions on them.
And so, after starting by saying I don't know how to rate it, I'm settling on four stars. Despite it's flaws, it is — like Reardon — a true original....less
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December 27
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Brian
gave
to:
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Edwin A. Abbott
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Brian said:
"A curiously odd little book from the late 1800s. Part novella, part geometry textbook, it explains how life in a two-diminesional world might take place. Interesting.
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Brian
gave
to:
Reporting for the Media (Paperback)
by Fred Fedler
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my rating:
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Brian said:
"This is the best introductory journalism textbook I've encountered. Includes several great assignments for in-class work; also drives home the importance of factchecking (many of the assignments feature mispellings/contradictions that force students ...more
This is the best introductory journalism textbook I've encountered. Includes several great assignments for in-class work; also drives home the importance of factchecking (many of the assignments feature mispellings/contradictions that force students to verify the info). Effectively teaches nuts & bolts journalism while encouraging students to develop their news sense.
An all-porpose text for an intro class....less
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