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August 13
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Jamie
gave
to:
The Obama Nation (Hardcover)
by Jerome R. Corsi
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Jamie said:
"Ballin'! I love this book.
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Jamie
gave
to:
The Camel Club (Mass Market Paperback)
by David Baldacci
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Jamie
gave
to:
The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes (Hardcover)
by Neil Gaiman (Goodreads author!)
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Jamie said:
"A friend loaned me this book. I was a little skeptical at first. Comics? But it turned out to be amazing. Gaiman's a talented writer.
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August 12
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Jamie
read and liked
Cara's
review of Desert Solitaire:
"Edward Abbey is a pompous, hypocritical ass-wipe who likes to make as if his day hikes and drives to the general store are heroic, life-altering adventures. He is also a pathetically sexist and patronizing (not only to women but to basically all peo...more
Edward Abbey is a pompous, hypocritical ass-wipe who likes to make as if his day hikes and drives to the general store are heroic, life-altering adventures. He is also a pathetically sexist and patronizing (not only to women but to basically all people but himself) author who apparently assumes his entire audience consists of suburban white males. In fact, this is one thing he may be right about.
Yes, he may be an old fart who was writing in the sixties or whenever, but his ignorance and utter lack of self-reflection are unacceptable in any age.
There are plenty of interesting, inspiring memoirs about nature and adventure to be found in our bookstores and libraries. This is not one of them....less
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New comment on Scott's review of
Desert Solitaire
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Jamie
read and liked
Scott's
review of Desert Solitaire:
"Part Walden, part Mein Kampf ... Desert Solitaire (1968) is to a certain extent sand-mad Edward Abbey's homage to the beauty of the American Southwest and to the necessity of wilderness ... but mostly, the book is an autobiograph...more
Part Walden, part Mein Kampf ... Desert Solitaire (1968) is to a certain extent sand-mad Edward Abbey's homage to the beauty of the American Southwest and to the necessity of wilderness ... but mostly, the book is an autobiographical paean to the sheer wonder of Abbey himself. Like the pioneers, prospectors, and developers who preceded him, Abbey lays claim to all the canyonlands and Four Corners region of southern Utah and northern Arizona: "Abbey's Country" he calls it, and he seeks to fill every twisting canyon and windswept plateau of his private playground with his own immense, misanthropic ego. His collected jottings form a notebook of random, often paranoid observations cast in anemic prose. He throws in everything that crosses his mind: a wearisome narrative of his float down the Colorado with a laconic traveling companion; bare, boring lists of plant names; a violent short story about prospecting; a dishonoring and disgusting story about finding the body of a lost tourist; jejune meditations on death and mortality; all of it crusted over with inane metaphysical babbling, insulting rants, and absurd polemics directed against technology, development, Native Americans, tourists, religion, the Park Service, the aged, the young, the government, and anyone or anything that is not Ed.
Yes, there are a few colorful descriptions of the scenery, but they are obscured by beer-swigging, cigar-chomping, beefsteak-chewing, bacon-burping, Bull-Durham big-mouth Ed's constant grab for attention. Abbey needs solitude about as much as a jackass needs a flush toilet. Ed's like your 10-year-old brother who torments you by jumping in front of your camera while you're trying to take a picture of a sunset or like a blathering guide who can't stem his prattle long enough to let you listen to the wind blowing through the canyons. All too often I found myself thinking, "Ed, shut up already and let me look around!" But he won't because he's got to tell me how he's crushed a rabbit's skull with a rock (it was an "experiment"), or how in a lovelorn moment he carved his name in an aspen -- graffiti that will be twice as big in fifty years, or how he tore up dirt roads in his government-owned Chevvy pickup, or how he insulted some tourist or some tourist insulted him, or how he burned everything in sight with his paraffin-coated matches.
Desert Solitaire is gonzo environmentalism, and it's showing its age. The immense majesty and haunting beauty of southern Utah's canyons deserves a far better panegyrist....less
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Jamie
gave
to:
Desert Solitaire (Mass Market Paperback)
by Edward Abbey
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2008
Jamie said:
"Science and nature lose their appeal for me when people like Abbey attach a radical political agenda to them. In Desert Solitaire, the author describes the wonderful desert environment of Glen Canyon, etc. But he does so only in order to alert reader...more
Science and nature lose their appeal for me when people like Abbey attach a radical political agenda to them. In Desert Solitaire, the author describes the wonderful desert environment of Glen Canyon, etc. But he does so only in order to alert readers to the contemporary and imminent destruction of the region. Throughout the book he decries "industrial tourism" and anything else that has to do with human development, and he also drops a few philosophical observations here and there that coincide with his atheist and anarchist beliefs.
So why do I give the book three stars? I have a bad case of grade inflation....less
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Jamie
gave
to:
On Writing (Mass Market Paperback)
by Stephen King
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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July 31
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Jamie
gave
to:
To Serve Them All My Days (Paperback)
by R.F. Delderfield
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 2008
Jamie said:
"Epic story, excellent historical detail. I don't like everything about P.J., but I grew attached to him and Bamfylde by the end.
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Jamie
gave
to:
Twelve Angry Men (Penguin Classics)
by Reginald Rose
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Jamie said:
"I read this in the fifth grade, and I've read it again because I found it straightforward and revealing when it comes to issues of justice, prejudice, and ideology.
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