randy > Recent Status Updates

"The smell was awful, nose-filling, the smell of a dirty toilet and rancid steamed beans and boiled eggs gone bad." Up there with the most physically revolting sentences I've ever read. Brilliantly descriptive and perfectly apt, but I think I may have enjoyed my day more without reading it. Also, you are gonna want & need to read this book, just saying....

There is nothing quite like being repulsed by complacent, 1960s era, racism on the page then only to hear the same type in a cafe, living on strong, some 45-50 yrs later. So far this is an astonishingly written book where everyone's flaws suffocate them & their dreams, very much echoing the aspirations for Biafrian independence. Awful to see the worst elements still living on strong though.

This is so masterfully written that I savor each sentence. Though the repugnant social views of the characters cause me more pause and force me to take breaks from reading it. Not that I don't believe these were not the prevalent views of the day, nor that they have totally evaporated. It is just an affront to feel them so vividly.

Life becomes "meditation, for meditation is not separate from life but a part of life. Life is meditation and meditation is life. Creative intelligence will begin to operate in your body, mind and consciousness... Keep in mind, however, that the above-described results in meditation are the fruits of committed and regular practice." To which I can only add: YES!!!!!

a whole lot to get behind in this one. especially with zingers like this one: "There is a lot of talk about the standard American diet (SAD), but the reality is that there is no standard. More than anything, diets in America ate substandard, lacking essential nutrients due to soil depletion, unnatural growing conditions, and global toxicity."

Oh dear lord. I am pretty sure this is not the book I should be reading right now, but I am too far in and invested to stop.

This is getting great reviews, but I admit the idea of a book about living in remission is the bigger draw here. As I read I will do so in hopes of some sort of digital osmosis is possible.

My friend Denis really loved this book and suggested I should read it.
My friend Denis also likes the movie Brasil and the band LCD soundsystem.
I need to remember this when he recommends things to me, as this is the first book in years that I am seriously considering not finishing. If your near future world is gonna only be populated by narcissistic anxietynauts, at least make them interesting.

all i want to do is read this book. everything else is inconsequential at the moment. holy amazingness!!!

now this is the kind of dystopic fiction i can surely get behind. also, as an aside, just when did the literary end world become far more likely to happen via environmental change vs global thermonuclear war?

this is a reread of a book that blew my mind, perhaps as much as the lsd, was back in 1988 (dating me: in the summer before high school). i was in a conversation about it last year and realized i remember next to nothing outside the big plot & character names.
since it may have been one of the things that changed the way i view the world, that seemed unacceptable.
the first line was like magic all over again...

More genius within in the absolutely extraordinary, absolutely essential, absolutely mind blowing book: Keep a positive attitude. Don't rely on the hope or expectation that your wish will be fulfilled for your positive attitude. Stay positive as a policy, not as a barometer.

this is nothing less than an exploration of anger down to the subatomic level. i am amazed how easily and simple he lays out his case, yet how earth shattering it is. GREATNESS abound

this is AMAZINGLY readable so far
and for the subject matter, that is a huge boon
and a very nice way of using bhuddism & psychotherapy to view how anger ravages ourselves as well as those around us
enjoying immensely

The cover of this sort of fills me with shame but my friend misha raves about this series so I'm giving it a go.

With quotes like this: "Sometimes it feels as if it's only books that make life worth living," and the amount this is a story about other books and just the utter, unadulterated love of reading and the written word, it would almost make more sense if this was titled The Loneliness of the Middle-distance Reader.

With a dedication like "for my daughter Maryam, born in the Arab Spring," you just know you ate gonna love this book. And so far I can not remember a book with as much kinetic energy and imaginative enthusiasm since I read snow crash for the first time. Very good times indeed!

"I sometimes feel that those around me will judge my success or failure depending on how long I live, rather than on how I live. Of course I want to live a long time, but if it's short, I don't want to be judged a failure." THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS!!!

At first, I blew through this book. Some 70 pages flew by before I put it down the first time. It is compelling to say the least. But as the talk more and more centers on chemo and chemo and more chemo, I can not read with anything like that same fever. It is not that it is not good, it really is, but it stirs so many memories and I find some days I can only read a few sentences before I have to put it down.

It is not very often the first page, let alone the first paragraph, of a book can bring you to tears. This did that to me today. Wilber writes an amazing tribute to love and his late wife that is beyond moving. If only experience this profound was universal.... Extremely powerful stuff exploding off the page so far & no sense of it letting up.

It is hard to dislike a book with quotes like this:
"If you're too loyal to your own suffering, you forget that others suffer, too."
Cole's language reverberates at a frequency rarely seen. It is not that it is crisp, though it is. It is something else I keep trying to decipher.
Enjoying quite a bit.

It is hard not to be completely smitten on this book w/ passages such as this: Sometimes the rain clouds that gathered in the afternoon refused to break and the skies stayed dark and cobalt-colored, and the day turned into a long purple dusk that hastened the arrival of darkness. Living in SE Asia, I know this too well & this is easily the best description of it I've ever come across. Aw is winning me over w/ this.

Much better in story than the harmony silk factory. And lyrically beautiful. But Aw simply lets his characterization slumber. I really want to adore this, but the best character, Neng, disappeared only after 20ish pages. Still quite good and impressively audacious. When Aw gets character he will be a literary juggernaut. I'm eagerly awaiting that day.

Like with The Harmony Silk Factory, he beguiles you with his craft, but you stand staring at his plot and characters like you would at a dud firework, waiting, expecting, for it to go off.

Not even a 10th into this & I feel like I keep falling down a well where 1 brings up tremendously written sentences rather than water. Aw's skill at creating a sentence is a marvel to behold. I only wish the same could be said for his creation of characters.

Muralami totally confirms his genius with lines like: Imagine The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin minus 'Mack the Knife'. That's what my life would be without you.

Took a bit to get into, but has taken a very welcome jump in to the unputdownable, well aside from making notes here. And those times I have to look up words or customs, which has been enjoyable. Really makes Egypt seem like a remarkable, yet offensively oppressive place.

i was 3 pages away from throwing this book down in awe. awe that so many people i respect & trust seemed to love it, but i have found it as inspiring and as interesting as scanning binary code for a single misplace 0. I can not say I am enjoying it, but I feel I need to know what happens/ed. I also, more importantly need to know who I should be far less trusting of in the future about book recommendations.