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July 26
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Ted
gave
to:
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (Paperback)
by Michel Foucault
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in July, 2008
Ted said:
"While it seems that Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 are widely considered Foucault's great achievements as a philosopher-cum-social-scientist, Madness and Civilization is the most enjoyable and coherent book, and it's also ...more
While it seems that Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 are widely considered Foucault's great achievements as a philosopher-cum-social-scientist, Madness and Civilization is the most enjoyable and coherent book, and it's also the least pretentious. It's straight social history with an eye to modern-day relevancy, and it does an amazing job of showing how our ideas about reason and unreason were formed in the 17th and 18th centuries. But most importantly -- for the enjoyment level -- the great poet and translator Richard Howard created this English version, and it's simply gorgeous. It reads like great literature, which it is....less
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July 17
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New comment on Karen's review of
Hero
(see all 8 comments)
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July 05
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Ted
gave
to:
Hero (Hardcover)
by Perry Moore
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in June, 2008
Ted said:
"I loved this book. Yes, it is Harry Potter, gay, with super heroes, but that's why I loved it. It was exciting, adorable, and satisfying. It was a wee bit predictable in places, but, dude, it's a YA novel. As Rob said, "Oh, wow. This is like a b...more
I loved this book. Yes, it is Harry Potter, gay, with super heroes, but that's why I loved it. It was exciting, adorable, and satisfying. It was a wee bit predictable in places, but, dude, it's a YA novel. As Rob said, "Oh, wow. This is like a book you would write." Well, I'd hope my book would be the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell version, but, yeah, Hero is so me. ...less
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Ted
gave
to:
Oh the Glory of It All (Paperback)
by Sean Wilsey
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in June, 2008
Ted said:
"Having worked in publishing, I too often asked myself while reading Oh the Glory of It All, "How the Hell did this get published?" And I did not ask this question because I thought the book was bad. No, it's great. It's weird and fun...more
Having worked in publishing, I too often asked myself while reading Oh the Glory of It All, "How the Hell did this get published?" And I did not ask this question because I thought the book was bad. No, it's great. It's weird and funny and engrossing and moving and it takes you to places mostly everyone has never been to. But American publishing doesn't like 450 page memoirs that are weird and long, and this one was published by a major house. I guess the child of famous people gets a leg up in the memoir world, but, really, Sean Wilsey's parents are only famous the readers of San Francisco's society columns. So, I don't get it. But I'm glad someone did. I was totally enamored by Sean Wilsey's voice, and his life was so odd, yet believable, and it was nice to see that he understood it--he is enormously self-aware. There are some problems with the book. First and foremost, it needs editing. And it runs out of steam at the end. And he seems to settling old debts and little too obviously. But those are also reasons to love the book. It's art, awkward and good, not focused group Oprah bait that the publishers are obsessed with putting out nowadays. So, yay....less
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Ted
gave
to:
Medicine, Magic and Religion (Routledge Classics) (Routledge Classics)
by W.H.R. Rivers
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in July, 2008
Ted said:
"A classic. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to glean from it other than "It's a classic. It's old. It was the first real medical ethnography." But Rivers does a great job of explaining why those nutty Melanesians think that they're sick...more
A classic. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to glean from it other than "It's a classic. It's old. It was the first real medical ethnography." But Rivers does a great job of explaining why those nutty Melanesians think that they're sick because of some meanies' witchcraft -- they don't know any better, because of human evolution. Yeah, I'm oversimplifying, and Rivers' logic, research, exposition, and, amazingly, relativism, are all quite persuasive. And I'm not complaining about its length: 146 pages!...less
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Ted
gave
to:
Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (Paperback)
by E. E. Evans-Pritchard
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in July, 2008
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June 08
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Ted
gave
to:
A Thousand Splendid Suns (Hardcover)
by Khaled Hosseini
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: no one.
read in June, 2008
Ted said:
"I was forced to read this for my book group, and I took my sweet time starting it, because I was adverse to reading such a "book group book." I started on Friday and I finished on Saturday. It has a narrative drive based on some skillfully ...more
I was forced to read this for my book group, and I took my sweet time starting it, because I was adverse to reading such a "book group book." I started on Friday and I finished on Saturday. It has a narrative drive based on some skillfully placed foreshadowing and a slow character change -- basically, you're waiting to see if one woman escapes from her hideous husband and another woman ends up with her sweetheart. Sadly, Hosseini is a mediocre stylist and with the exception of a few passages, the writing is stolid. The plot devices and characterizations are, for the most part, clichés -- stock Dickens characters with Muslim names. Throughout reading it, I kept thinking, "This could have been so much better." Over and over, I thought this. Granted, I was sucked in. But I was sucked into "Melrose Place," too. On a big picture level, however, I'm glad that a zillion people have and will read this book, because more people need to know about Afghan history and the plight of women under Shari'a law....less
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May 30
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Ted
marked as to-read:
The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire (Hardcover)
by Matt Taibbi
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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July 26
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Ted
installed the Goodreads Facebook Application 
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July 05
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Ted
gave
to:
Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective (Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures)
by Byron J. Good
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in July, 2008
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