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| 1473595134
| 9781473595132
| 4.64
| 4,274
| Jan 06, 2022
| Jan 06, 2022
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really liked it
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The militancy of Veganism is interesting. I have been bemused to read that Vegans in the UK get marginalised in such exaggerated fashion. This book, '
The militancy of Veganism is interesting. I have been bemused to read that Vegans in the UK get marginalised in such exaggerated fashion. This book, 'This is Vegan Propaganda', turned me into a vegan. My family didn't even bat an eyelid. It helped that my parents are vegetarians. I have got the point, and the driving force, of the movement. My problem now is to write a review that is definitely spoiler free. Non fiction that is not history poses such a challenge. When I was 13 years old, I attended a Hindu religious ceremony. The officiating priest was from India, i.e. not from my country. At the end of the shindig, he made us all swear before the sacrificial pyre that we would not eat any more meat. In his words, we would not 'make cemeteries out of our bellies'. This part I remember to this day. All of us who swore were not going to be deterred from our meat eating habits. So what did this book do that connected with me? It made me recognise that every animal was a sentient being, which I would not acknowledge, especially in regards to fish. I know that it was forbidden for Hindus to eat cattle. From this stance, or this thoughtless habit rather, I thought that I was doing something right. With time, I decided to never eat mammals. This made me feel better. I was on the right track, but I didn't know why it was right. This book told me what I had been wanting to hear since my early teens. It showed me too, how much is sacrificed to please our taste buds. Part of the reason why I managed to give up on meat, eggs, and milk, is that our household made delicious veggie meals everyday, without being prompted. This aspect was never explored by Ed Winters, though he had other fish to fry. It is easier to barbecue beef than to make lentils taste delicious, but from the quick way we make the latter at home, you wouldn't think so. If someone is making vegan meals and is dissatisfied with it, I believe that there needs to be minor tweaks to make the unpalatable to be delicious. One of the things that delayed my conversion to the cause, is that I thought eating meat was to live in the future. My rationale was like this : In the future people will be able to duplicate the taste and texture of meat in labs. They would be able to do this via nonviolent means and even non-organic materials. My convoluted thought was that I couldn't give up meat eating because it would exclude me from enjoying what future generations would enjoy without guilt. Every time I had contact with Hindu scripture, it failed to spark that Vegan revolution in me. This is because scripture does not make one think. And to convert to Veganism needs the opposite of brainwashing. It requires honesty and critical thinking. This book though convince me it did, it didn't make me give it 5 stars. I reserve 5 stars for books that are effortless to read, almost always. This book was 320 pages long but felt lengthier. Part of this was the necessary baggage in the form of cross referencing. But it was also because the chapters were too long. I read this book in 3 weeks, and was quite surprised to know that it consisted of just 320 pages. Having said that, I did give it 4 stars. And I think that it deserves it. Its cutting edge and up to date research is exemplary. It encompasses the entire world of animal agriculture, and it simply took away my desire to consume meat without replacing it with guilt as a chaperone. Realising the point of this book is like the cleanest and most perfect brain surgery you'll ever witness; it doesn't even leave scars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 26, 2022
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Dec 26, 2022
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Dec 26, 2022
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ebook
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| 2253006963
| 4.27
| 291,468
| Jun 07, 1926
| Jan 02, 2007
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it was amazing
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I decided to write a spoiler free review. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a book that is cleverer than its creator. Agatha Christie must have toiled da
I decided to write a spoiler free review. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a book that is cleverer than its creator. Agatha Christie must have toiled day and night to come up with the plot. It must have been the result of hard work. Else how do you explain the sheer audacity of the premise? I have read some quotes by the Dame herself and she comes across as sharp and unfoolable. That's just the reason why she outdid herself and wrote this book in her prime. She wrote a story she had no business creating. Poirot's detective work is sometimes shoddy and melodramatic and unrealistic in lesser books. Though, even in those latter books Christie could insert a great idea. In Roger Ackroyd, the Poirot we love comes across as the Poirot we want to admire, the hero we ought to respect. Nothing in the entirety of the book is of shoddy craftsmanship. There are two detectives that are given to interact with Hercule Poirot somewhat during the case. Inspector Davis was a cameo. Inspector Raglan, he is the one who missed all the clues and noticed all the false indices. We must forgive Christie for cramming all the eggs in one basket, and in producing, with a flourish, all the various cogent acts of survival during that one night when Roger Ackroyd dies. This is a liberty that Christie has to take. There are so many coincidences in the book. Not bad ones, mind. But with all the instances of the convergence of different people's will, one has to forgive the author because this flaw enhances the book manifold. Hercule Poirot's acts in it are awe inspiring. He came to King's Abbot to enjoy his retirement. Instead he finds himself neighbour and guest to James Sheppard, and his equally spinster elder sister, Caroline. I enjoyed Caroline's character immensely. When the siblings along with a faux army officer, and a Miss Gannett play Mahjong, the setting and playfulness of the flowing dialogue are of the finest realism. This instance must be an example where Christie observed the way people interacted in her days. As a result, this chapter where the game takes place is perhaps the finest illustration of colourfulness in the book. While some characters feel alive, others are mere pawns in the complex game that Christie sets for us readers. Personally, I think that what betrays Christie's hand here is the fact that some people do not care if this person is married or that person (view spoiler)[had a child out of wedlock (hide spoiler)]. This is the most dated of Christie's writing, apart of course, from her world famous antisemitism. But this is closest to perfection one can get, and get away with, as a woman writing in the 1930s, a woman of limited education, and an Englishwoman. Once again, the thought comes to me how often does England produce phenomenal writers each 40 or 50 years. Let's hope that this theory stays true and we are regaled once more in the near future. I never took to And Then There Were None. For me, the definitive Christie books are the Marple ones, closely followed by Poirot's . Marple ought to have got more love from Christie. But Poirot was the star pupil of the writer and the latter had to bow to the public stampede for more Poirot and less Marple. I remember too, the first time I read Murder on the Orient Express. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the book I have read only twice ever. I will let it simmer for a decade or so before taking up the book once more. A word about Mrs Ferrars. I loved her to bits. I have absolutely no sympathy for her drunkard husband. This is echoed in the same way that the murderer has no sympathy for Mrs Ferrars. The latter is a victim of one of the lowest forms of crime. Mrs Ferrars, as far as I recollect, has no first name. Her deceased husband's first name is 'Ashley'. It is as if Mr Ferrars has usurped his wife's identity as well as her happiness. I know that crimes similar in cruelty to those in the book, exist in real life. If only we had an Hercule Poirot. If only we had an Agatha Christie still now. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 05, 2022
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Dec 05, 2022
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Dec 05, 2022
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 1250861500
| 9781250861504
| 1250861500
| 4.11
| 12,518
| Sep 20, 2022
| Sep 20, 2022
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it was ok
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I wonder what motive will it take for Neil deGrasse Tyson to motivate him to write a really thick book about the most interesting things he has seen,
I wonder what motive will it take for Neil deGrasse Tyson to motivate him to write a really thick book about the most interesting things he has seen, studied, and analysed in his life. Maybe he has such a project in mind. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we? If his magnum opus will be mind blowing, supposedly, then Starry Messenger is a scant offering that casts shadows over how people more dumb, more cruel, more narcissistic, than Tyson can write books that outstrip his 20 or so books, regularly. I mean, is this all? Are the musings of a gifted mind this stuffy? Is there a shallow end to the depth of Tyson's mind? Or, as I have hazarded in the opening paragraph, is it only the tip of the iceberg? I am left totally unimpressed by this book that will at most enrapture kids and teens. I am left scratching my chin, wondering who is the target audience of this book. And by the way, I refuse to believe the astrophysicist's words in the Acknowledgements section. a) I refuse to believe that this is a work that took a lot of energy to write and b) that it needed the collaboration of a team of well meaning and hard working sympathisers and colleagues for it (this book) to see the light of the day. The best thing that can be said about this book is that its data is very fresh. The stats don't lie until they do, or until they are updated and their numbers and data, superseded. This book was edited as 'recently' as April 2022. I appreciated some of the answers to my inquisitiveness. Beyond that, there is not a lot of positive stuff to be said about Starry Messenger. The moral laziness of this book is what is salient. E.g. when Tyson is pro-'let's remove the offending southern based statues'. For someone who is capable of so much more scientific thought than I, his lack of justification for upending Confederate statues is bewildering. It is so bewildering that I began to think that Tyson is either lazy, or dishonest, or takes pleasure in bamboozling his audience with Sokal-like demonstrations. I am not an inhabitant of Republican states, let alone anywhere in the Western hemisphere. Yet I do call out the nonsense rhetoric in Starry Messenger's pages. In a fetid desire to pay back lip service to his right leaning chums, Tyson went to contortionist lengths. This is not more apparent than when he tries to confuse the differences between Democrats and the GOP. While I agree that racists abound in blue states, red ones really take the cake in intellectual dishonesty and fearmongering. Tyson stops when it is politically convenient to do so. When analysing divorces and cheating, he did not go the whole hog. He ought to have briefed his audience on single mothers, tax evasions, perjuries etc. He is loyal to George W. Bush, who is an even bigger military chieftain than the drone-using Obama. Someone please tell Tyson that eating plants is not even close to eating meat. Plants are without brains and a nervous system. This simple fact was surreptitiously ignored, leaving a gaping hole in the scientist's efforts to pardon the sins of the meat eaters. Perhaps Tyson is playing a political game now that his limits have reached in terms of his presence, his appeal, and his influence. I fully expect Tyson to keep churning out diplomatic mushy books like Starry Messenger for the rest of his life. Apart from the above, I was just, underwhelmed by what was in the book. I wanted to know more about who got predicting the 'future' right, any time in history. I wanted to know about the percolating experiments that are, soon, to translate to concrete and wonderful inventions. I wanted Tyson to tell us the geopolitical and historical underpinnings of why Africa is often poor. Tell us why all the oil operations in Africa are privately owned, while Norway's oil industry is nationalised. Can you do that, Tyson? All of the facts that can ruffle the mighty further are left half hanging, e.g. the many complex moral issues of abortion in the US. This book could have been written by a YouTuber like Rationality Rules, and I would not have known the difference. Where is the communication of the wonders of life, which Tyson touched on only in his epilogue? Where is the dissecting, the analysing, the invoking, of extensive biological and chemical, and even physical realms? To summarise, I have benefited but little through reading this book. Yet its sales not exceeding A Brief History of Time (among other science books) comes as no surprise. Tyson is preaching to the converted. His colleagues would not gasp with realisation on reading his book, which is unfortunate. Tyson did not try to reach the college students, the housewives, the crowd reading nothing but romance. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I expected knowledge from this book. Maybe that is my problem. I expected something that would not crop up in Tyson's podcasts. Maybe that was asking for the moon. The only active change in me is that the book increased my desire to learn Latin. It's just slightly worrying that Tyson will probably - judging from his current trajectory - pass on receiving the torch when the likes of Richard Dawkins fade in time. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 19, 2022
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Nov 19, 2022
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Nov 19, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 2266107534
| 9782266107532
| 2266107534
| 4.25
| 7,712
| 1985
| Oct 01, 1998
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really liked it
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I am one with the poor of The City of Joy. My ancestors came from Bihar. And it is from this province of India that many of the poorest line up for a
I am one with the poor of The City of Joy. My ancestors came from Bihar. And it is from this province of India that many of the poorest line up for a life of hardship in Calcutta. My blood is one with these people. My skin colour is dark brown, just like the colour of my eyes. I have no epicanthic eyes of the Chinese, no flat nose of the Bedouin, no cheekbones of the Sub-Saharan. I am from the same human roof as these people who know what it means to live and who do not know what it means to live without pain. I'd like to register one grievance against Lapierre in this book of his. He often takes artistic license with the translation of Hindi or Bengali monikers. E.g. 'Chomotkar' does not mean 'Son of miracle'. It means simply, 'miracle'. So even in this type of no holds barred book, inaccuracies will sprout. There must be many more errors that have passed unnoticed by people like me, who is a stranger but who has one foot jammed in the Indian door, culturally and also in terms of language. Having said that I loved reading about this fabled city, in which a French priest, Paul Lambert, will find riches beyond the most fantabulous imaginings of El Dorado. Lambert is the dominant POV in this book. He is joined by Hasari Pal. The similarities in the names of Paul and Pal did not escape my attention. Max Loeb, a third actor in this book of wonders, blurs the line between fiction and reality. He is a doctor who responded present to the call for help from Lambert. Loeb is the only Jew in this book (apart from a brief cameo from his father). And he is the richest person in these pages. Is this being typecast? The poorest are the Hindus. It seems like the Hindus - regarding their pantheon of Gods - having in recent times deified the second version of the cult guru, Sai Baba, might, in poverty, adopt even more gods the poorer they become. This is the 3rd time I'm reading this book. I had forgotten how it ended. My feeling of forlornness at nearing the end of said book matched my melancholy in reading the ending of the beloved fairy tales from my childhood. Partly this is because I had forgotten how exactly, and on what note, does the seemingly everlasting effusion of words, stop. When I read how Paul Lambert feels at the end, I felt a great sense of fulfillment. I felt a great sense of joy. These characters, who live in squalor, whose lifelines get shortened because of pollution, of danger, of disease, they all participated fully in the maddest of games, that of the game of life. There have been, here and there in the book, a sentiment of duplicity on behalf of the author. True, without him, we would not have this story to read. But there are a few cracks, nay, pinpricks rather, where one has the unshakeable sense that Dominique Lapierre is poking fun at the poor of Calcutta. His rhetoric of relativism and of comparison sit ill with his subject matter and he seems to have a laugh and a wink to share with his fellow Frenchmen and Europeans in general. But this should not matter really. Lapierre, we must remember, is a product of his time. However open minded he might be, he remains from a time when whistle blowing was the affair of either the indolent or the militant. In these times an author in Lapierre's place would treat the horrific poverty of Calcutta with a different prehensible grasp. Reading this book revealed how laughable poverty was pictured in Indian movies from the same time where the story is set. The City of Joy is blessed as far as I am concerned, because it helped me in deciding how to live my life. The merits of the book though, are varied. The relationship between members of different religions has been written with great diplomacy. Nobody reading this book could lambast Lapierre with playing favourites in this respect. The variety in the words of the author is very diverse. The latter is obviously a bilingual at the very least. There is also the love/hate duality that the writer treats with candidness. To summarise, I'd say that I can see myself reading this book again in 10 years, luck willing. This is a tale of woes, of dirt, of corruption, but it is also a tale of humanity, dignity, compromise. Anti-natalism is a word that took root in my mind after reading The City of Joy. Life and Death are cliched dualities. But it bears mentioning that with life gone, Death would be dead. It would cease to exist. Lambert's rationalising of sufferance is a tough exercise. It is a series of improbable gymnastics to keep believing that God is both infinitely benevolent and also infinitely powerful. Thus, I carry part of the poverty of India in my mind, which paradoxically seems the better for it. I recommend this book to anyone who has forgotten how powerful a rush worth its salt can be. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 16, 2022
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Nov 16, 2022
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Nov 16, 2022
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0593158687
| 9780593158685
| 0593158687
| 4.21
| 578,578
| Aug 30, 2022
| Aug 30, 2022
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liked it
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**spoiler alert** Carrie Soto is Back is a very good book. There are many instances showing the sharp mind of Reid. I tried to guess how Carrie, or Ca
**spoiler alert** Carrie Soto is Back is a very good book. There are many instances showing the sharp mind of Reid. I tried to guess how Carrie, or Care, as her father once jokingly called her (the best joke in the book for me) ... I tried to guess how much success she would have. I did not foresee what happened and I did not expect this punch lifted straight out from Rocky III. By that I meant the surprise ending of the book. I am very grateful to Reid for making me feel emotions about a book. That has not happened since a long time, perhaps since I read Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole. I desperately wanted to go to this Tennis Land and console Carrie, and Javier, and Bowe, not to forget every single good character in the book. I kid you not, this book has attributed every single character with a personal tragedy. The girls and the boys who tried to bully Carrie were handed their lesson. If I wrack my brains, I can think of only Gwen's husband who is not chastened within these relevant pages. Although I am sure that he and Naomi will need to reengage more upscale lawyers to handle their future divorce. I am thrilled that the guy called Marco did not bounce back into the story. In this too I was wrongfooted by Reid. Marco was a reason for Carrie's stunted and distorted maturity and I am glad that Reid did not use him again. OTOH, I thought that Huntley would be getting just a footnote in the book. I liked how his handsomeness is hinted at, other times blatantly harped on. This is the best of both worlds. Bowe is one of the reasons why I consider Tennis Land with a twinge, a hunger and sadness in the same way I regret Hogwarts is not real. The writing is ordinary, but these ordinary words were arranged by an extraordinary author. Taylor Jenkins Reid makes Colleen Hoover seem like her day job is that of a cleaning lady who practises writing 2 hours every twilight. Reid makes J.K. Rowling seem like Ilona Andrews and makes Ilona Andrews seem like Jen Campbell. I need to read all of TJR's books, because life is short and I want to draw a balance between having fun and saving time for future plans. The matches are brilliantly narrated. I must tell you what I thought would happen. I glanced at the chapters when I was in the middle of the book. I saw that there is a SOTO vs CHAN at the penultimate stop. I thought that Soto would lose her first three Slams and win against Chan. Then Carrie Soto would mellow and see Chan win against Cortez, was it? Yes. I was not enjoying the first third of the book. The start, despite a tragic death, was not very emotional. This was not compensated by anything agreeable. No game plans for dealing with loss, no self deprecative jokes, no struggle to overcome except for the death and the Tennis. This is the major reason why I gave this book 3 stars only. The humourless and heartless, ultra competitive main character felt recognisable to me. Though... she did feel stripped of part of what would make a real person like her. We do not get to hear her thoughts a lot. Not really. But I settled for this zombie woman on steroids - figuratively. I thought that I can like this book if this woman keeps up the hubristic shtick and be a second Raging Bull. I would not have enjoyed the book but I might have given it 4 stars. It would have been a case study of a sportswoman sketched by a gifted author. In the first half of the book Carrie Soto's tale reminded me of the movie Best. It was about a telefilm in all but name only about a former footballer called George Best. The Carrie Soto in the book initially was as charmless of a train wreck as the character in that movie. But it would still feel real. It would have been an exercise in detachment from me. Reid had other ideas. The blooming of Carrie was late, all after her retirement. I felt for Javier Soto, because if we are frank, Javier died partly because of his row with her daughter, along with neglecting his health. I have a theory that says that nobody can change after they turn 14 years old. The older I get, the more often this gets validated. Carrie Soto seems to have metamorphosed. But all that happened to her is that she made peace with her hurts and her limits, which are only human, and which, in turn render herself human. I need to cut this review short now. To summarise, I loved this book because of Tennis Land and its secret, and native inhabitants. This world is not real. It is a fake but skillful take into the minds of people who live for a passion. I loved the ending a lot. Maybe I'll reread this book someday and give it 5 stars. Bowe Huntley is the glue that holds this book together though. Without him, I would have been glad to have seen the back of Carrie Soto. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 02, 2022
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Nov 02, 2022
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Nov 02, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 1789318599
| 9781789318593
| B096Y1DSGN
| 4.23
| 1,422
| Aug 30, 2012
| Jun 08, 2021
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it was ok
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This review cannot help but be brief. I gave this book, The Blood of Crows, 2 stars. The book made a mistake by hyping up the plot's later revelations
This review cannot help but be brief. I gave this book, The Blood of Crows, 2 stars. The book made a mistake by hyping up the plot's later revelations. When the moment came to deliver, this reader was let down big time. The book was slightly boring, and slightly exciting. That is what allowed me to continue reading to the end. Another mistake that Caro Ramsay made was to have a total lack of red herrings. Everything that had a role had something hidden about it. So though you never know what is happening, you know something illegal is afoot. Take any example in the book, whether it is Anderson's case, or Costello's assignment, everything clicked, though they made little sense in the big picture. This book dulled my senses. I felt frustration while reading it. I don't recommend it. The 2nd book in the series is the best so far. And I can say that with experience, Singing to the Dead, is probably better than all other books in the series. This book's lack of suspense doesn't mean it cannot be enjoyed. Simply put though, it is a book that can find fans only among those young and those gullible. The latter being people who have not read groundbreaking thrillers in their lives. The book lured me with the promise of thrills. At first I was rewarded by the dramatic close shave with the dead regarding Anderson. It was skillfully written. The lack of consistent quality was a mystery. Or rather I could discern that the author had run out of ideas. The good stock of printable and solid ideas had to be rationed. This also meant that the author's sense of humour too had to be rationed. In fact most of the jokes were barely chuckle worthy. If this author can make a bibliography out of half baked ideas, then there is hope yet for people like me, who want to be an author, even if in name only. The author's downfall is that she does not have a supply of plots. She cannot generate good ideas for 10 or 15 books. Unlike Agatha Christie, Caro Ramsay does not have that longevity. My big finding from this book is that all of the authors who are churning books to the rate of 1 per year are running the same level of storytelling as Ramsay. That is why I no longer consider myself a fan of thrillers. The bestselling thrillers are on par with The Blood of Crows. Dugoni, Leigh, Swanson, Ware, you name it, they are all on par with Ramsay's most lackadaisical form. By the way, the Viking way of killing in the book is not grounded in reality. There have been rumours of such means of torture, but it has not been confirmed by scholars or archeologists. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 27, 2022
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Oct 27, 2022
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Oct 27, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| 2012092160
| 9782012092167
| 2012092160
| 3.87
| 2,713
| Aug 12, 1966
| unknown
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it was ok
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I have few things to say about this one. It has a high enough rating on this site, but a few of the prominent reviewers have given it about the same r
I have few things to say about this one. It has a high enough rating on this site, but a few of the prominent reviewers have given it about the same rating as I. I am distracted from writing a good review because of the sudden change in format in the Goodreads interface. I will get used to the new arrangement in the browsing experience. But for now I need to get to grips with this unexpected and sinking feeling. This book was well conceived. There were a few things that IMHO left me dissatisfied with the read. First of all there was a lot of darkness and serious elements in the book. Two of the detectives were contemplating death in the near end of the tale. They ought, also, to have been mentally scarred by this mortal peril. But they shook off their pain too easily for my liking. The writer wanted to present real danger to increase the suspense but at the same time wanted an upbeat ending. You can have both, but maybe for this writer that was too big a thing to ask. I guessed two things. First I guessed that the crowd in the museum and who were in it, was relevant. Secondly I realised the reason for the apparitions at the good kind old lady's house. What I didn't realise was where the burglars had hidden the treasure. I also did not know how the latter was stolen. There was simply not enough quality in the writing of the book. The old lady disappeared without striking a denouement of sorts, a kind of cathartic moment of closeness to her deliverers. I would also have welcomed a more active participation of the parents of the detectives. It would have been a choice that was more alluring and would have helped in the pacing of the book. It is possible to write well in the choices and the risks that the writer took, but here he couldn't pull it off. I have had a clearer image of what I wanted from this book and what was denied to me. So writing a review was useful. This type of book formed part of the 'lost tapes' of my childhood. I am reading this series because I would not do so when I was a kid. I recognise the flawed writing that still exists today in children's literature. At least this series is better than Nancy Drew and many of the mysteries penned by Enid Blyton. It was interesting to catch Hannibal being insecure about doing nothing to help the adventure to a safe port. He shone late, but had to go through uncertainty and self questioning before his crowning moment arrived. This worked well and is commendable. Maybe the choices the author made screwed with the structure of the book. I will keep on reading these books, because it is like gazing at the stars at night and gazing at part of the sky that existed 30 years ago, but is now just a memory in my head. ...more |
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1
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Oct 21, 2022
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Oct 21, 2022
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Oct 21, 2022
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Paperback
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| 4.62
| 269,845
| Nov 14, 2017
| Nov 14, 2017
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really liked it
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I read most of this book over a period of a month or more time. It left me exhausted, partly because this book would exhaust anyone sane. Also I did n
I read most of this book over a period of a month or more time. It left me exhausted, partly because this book would exhaust anyone sane. Also I did not temper the reading experience with the enjoyment of a second (and much less voluminous) book. I must belabour the point that I fell at the last hurdles. I could not bear to persevere with this book to what would be a bitter end. Thus the removal of one star from my rating. What is utterly bizarre is that this reading acted like a quantum phenomenon. First, I was enjoying it. Secondly, I had given the initial reading of Oathbringer 5 stars. But since that time I had been reviewing the book in my head and decided that the book merited 1 star. The fun does not end here. I also was shocked to discover that this so-called 1 star material had lots of moments that I had forgotten, most of them moments of gem-like brilliance. Even after these volte-faces, I felt my brain being lobotomised to a slush while reading this book which to my senses, was an excellent read. I do not know why I was enjoying it and hating it at the same time. Maybe my quantum comparison was inaccurate. After all, Feynman himself claimed that if you think you understand quantum theory, then you don't understand it at all. But though I digress, this is no joking matter. I got severe reading block when reading Oathbringer. I had to take a break from reading, a 4 day hiatus. When I went back to the book, I used my last strength to read up to the last quarter. After that I said 'no more'. This book broke me. And here I thought we were going to get along. The magical stuff in the book is not magic. It narrates the reintroduction of 'magic' in the book, but there is a fuel of sorts in this book which powers most awe-inspiring acts. That fuel is Stormlight, which occurs whenever a 'highstorm' falls on a settlement or city. We get the same characters who we had cared for in book 2. They are all struggling with their troubles. Shallan, she of unspeakable sense of humour was different here. Did I say this book was rocambolesque? It was indeed. Before picking book 3 up again, my preferred characters were 1) Kaladin 2) Adolin 3) Dalinar 4) Shallan. Now, this order is upside down and reversed completely. Shallan as Veil was my favourite because of her adventures. They were the best. I always feel good when a male author writes about a female character with care, and skill. The world building was, as to be expected, elaborate in the merest details. Sanderson turns into a world beater when writing this series. I was particularly avid for any info about the unmade. And I was glad to hear one of them (nine Unmade in total here) talk, and have an individuality and a sense of right and wrong. This is one correct way to render supernatural beings. The Unmade are powerful and mysterious beings. They feel so much more unbeatable than good old dragons (which are not in this universe). By reading patiently and turning back pages, I managed to piece together a lot of details that had been missed by me all these years ago. Oathbringer was my Moby Dick. I'm glad not to have gone to the bitter end with it, though, and to have cut it loose. The structure of this book was intelligent. There was no big reveal at the end (I checked coppermind, a wiki of the Stormlight Archives), but each adventure in the book brought new knowledge to the fore. Though I almost became an Unmade with the perusal of this book, I gleaned a sense of appeasement reading it. Now I can resume my activities as a reader with my regular earthly, and 'Newtonian' (read Unquantum) small tasks. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Oct 18, 2022
not set
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Oct 18, 2022
not set
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Oct 18, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| 0063017504
| 9780063017504
| 0063017504
| 4.30
| 106,627
| Jun 01, 2021
| Jun 01, 2021
|
liked it
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I'll be my harshest and then I'll move on. This book gamed the system. It is very tempting to give it 4 or 5 stars, even if one has not found the book
I'll be my harshest and then I'll move on. This book gamed the system. It is very tempting to give it 4 or 5 stars, even if one has not found the book to be that good. The way it has been written asks a high score from us as if it were its due. The beginning is very good. The large parts of the body of the book are woolly and isolating. It is a sappy read, and the sadness in some of the prose is defeated by the characterisation in the story. I know for a fact though, that what most of the people gain from reading this book, was never offered to me by my brain. I was never bored, but I felt dissatisfied. I felt fidgety. I felt as if I am listening to an audiobook, and the narrator is telling me to pay close attention to this or that. I feel that I was being patronised, and it was a feeling that would never attenuate or go away. The book had connectivity in it, but it was all about artificial light, stars, paintings of the sky, paintings of red hearts. In themselves these are worthy explorations. But bound together in a book that tentatively means to be deep; collectively the book does not gel well. From the first, I wanted to see as much of Lenni's life as that of Margot. I guess one should not ask for the impossible. Lenni is 17 years, while Margot is 83 years. Most of the book is about Margot's life. So I settled down, and, to tell you the truth, I found, at first, the book to be agreeable. And indeed, I can say honestly, that the book was readable throughout its duration. I felt little though. I also felt that a few of the jokes were flying over my head, which is what will happen if one is trying to relive the life of a Scotch woman born in 1931. This book deals with illness, mental illness, terminal illness, and it never makes you uncomfortable. If it had, I would have DNFed it. The words were like garlands, like leis that are adorning the bleak hospital sheen and scruffiness. To reminisce is to escape this reality. And the book takes us throughout the lives of our main characters, and I forgot that these two people were ill. We people take life for granted sometimes, which is how nature made us. This leads to the certain conviction that when we turned from primates into humans in the past, at some point, the sentience we gained was a side effect of being human. When in fact it was the most precious gift that God has given us. The most precious gift a planet can give a species. Speaking of God, there is a lot of religion here. And this being a spoiler free review, I cannot reveal the last chapter's contents. But the latter was disappointing. This book was written during the rise of conservatism in the world, which is still ongoing. The book's ending feels like a triumph of nonsecular ideas. I don't mind Father Arthur, though the way he (view spoiler)[loves life enough to allow silverfish to pullulate in his bathroom (hide spoiler)] is an unhealthy practice. Some of the book reminds me of the movie Elizabethtown (2005). The difference between the two is that Lenni and Margot are sympathetic people you want to root for. The regretful similarity between the aforementioned movie and the book, is that they both offer you solace to your problems. And they both seem to offer you a worldview to make your own. This, together with the ending, made me disappointed in the author. So, to summarise, this is a book that is sweet but if you have your critical wits about you, you'll find that the book has a message, and that the book is sickly sweet, no ghoulish pun intended. I love Lenni and Margot, but I also know that wishing them well, pitying them, even thinking about their lives too much is not desirable. I hope I have conveyed my feeling about this book correctly, and I will modify this review if I am not done with it yet. I liked the book enough to continue reading it to its finale, and it felt like a 320 paged novel. My disappointment is not the only reaction to the read, but it is the major one. However, I wouldn't mind flipping through the book and rereading parts of it. I still wish you give the book a whirl. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 05, 2022
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Nov 05, 2022
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Oct 02, 2022
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Paperback
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| 1569473412
| 9781569473412
| 1569473412
| 3.80
| 2,560
| 2002
| Sep 01, 2003
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it was ok
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This book was frustrating to read, but not to get into. It was a book that started off with a mystery begging to be solved. The hero of this series is
This book was frustrating to read, but not to get into. It was a book that started off with a mystery begging to be solved. The hero of this series is Inspector Chen Cao. He has to liaise with foreign US Marshals official Catherine, who also doubles as a feigned romantic interest. If it acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, but lays a chicken egg, then it is not a duck. This book is not romance related. Though, by the way, it does not pass the Bechdel test. A river is in constant flux. People who want to impress the economic progress of China, compare Shanghai from 1990 to the skyscrapers and huge mills of 2018-20, at a time when the reputation of China's prosperity had become common knowledge. But from the perspective of someone living in Shanghai in 1990, their 'current' timeline was as if the money, industries, co-operations, and infrastructure had been boosted and implemented and built almost overnight. So in the 90s, Chen Cao, the fictitious hero of the novel, is in a privileged place. I liked most of the novel. By that I mean 75%. The book is overlong. Yet it is only 351 pages. But it has been written in a so hectic and lumbering way that the gears grind to a stand still and the pacing is way off. For the first time in ages, I decided to stop reading the book at night, and to give my moods and biological clock a reset. But all of this was to no avail. Parts of this book were like a rotten egg. A neat balance between mystification and convolutedness had, it seemed to me, never been attempted in this book. It is easier to think of such a surprising plot and enact it with suspense than to think of a difficult plot (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) and write it in an easy manner. I took to the simple and fragile beauty of Chinese poetry translated in English with reason and no rhyme, in book 1 of the series. But here there was too much poetry. If I wanted to read about T.S. Eliot I would have cracked open the spine of my Daiches book of history of poems. Joking, Daiches deals in British poetry only. Catherine Rohn, one of the main characters in the book, is insultingly two dimensional. She has no character to her form. She is pretty, is not fluent in Chinese, apparently has average reflexes, has no great memory, and is as green behind the ears as they come. And she does not learn anything newish from her stay in China. Admittedly, she stays in China for only a few days, but her helplessness is so frustrating because it stands out during the entire time she says something. At least she and Cao did not share a one night stand. But I gloomily predict that that will happen more often than not in this series. Having a love interest without consummation, I mean. Many might consider this book an upgrade over the previous one. I do not think so personally. The first book had less twists but had better rounded characters. I miss Peiqin, the model wife of Yu, who is himself Chen's assistant. Peiqin was fun to be with. As were the meals to which the various people were treated to in that far away time, in book 1! How I miss their behaviour. In this book the meals are always between two people. And there is not a childlike wonder at the Chinese gastronomy, because the romantic tension between Chen and Rohn overcast both the culinary adventures and the solvable mystery. I had to flip to the later chapters, so I cannot give this book a high score in good faith. The author could have sensed that his book was being fattened. He might have sensed so, and had theoretically done nothing about it. This book would be perfect at 285 pages. It would have been a thought process that comes to those who are both prolific and expert at their craft. Most of Agatha Christie's books are under 350 pages... with more than 50% of them under 300 even. Many of the songs of the Beatles are under 3 minutes. The nature of the investigation dictated that there was not a list of suspects to be drawn. That is understandable. However I hope that there is a remote Ming dynasty mansion waiting for Chen and Yu to knock at its massive doors at one point in one of the subsequent books. Wishful thinking aside though, I hope there is enough wisdom in Qui, the author, to cut his indulgences short in this series. Basing your mystery book on gourmet food needs more bookish elements to feel replete. What's the point in curling up on the couch with a good book and a cup of tea, if you are struggling to keep up with what tea the people in the book are drinking and do not know what the hell they taste like? ...more |
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1
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Sep 16, 2022
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Sep 16, 2022
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Sep 16, 2022
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 178931819X
| 9781789318197
| B0947D445K
| 4.38
| 2,321
| Aug 2010
| May 04, 2021
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really liked it
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Dark Water is a crime thriller. I had to think to remember this subgenre term. I have rarely read books of that type. I have read plenty of spy thrill
Dark Water is a crime thriller. I had to think to remember this subgenre term. I have rarely read books of that type. I have read plenty of spy thrillers from the previous decade and also a few uncategorised books that were hybrids of sorts. Dark Water is a proper crime book. It is frighteningly good. Literally. I was reading this at a point where the suspense was ramping up, reading it late night to early morning, and I was very jumpy. This book gets to you. I read it purely on my Kindle - no accompanied audiobook - and each of the chapters that mattered were 1 hour or 50 minutes. All of them savoury, and also criminally sickly sweet. The secret ingredient of such a mystery book is finely seasoned crime. This book found an unlikely fan in me. I have been acquainted with the Anderson and Costello detective duo, assisted by a brilliant supporting cast. I usually do not enjoy grisly murder inquiries, but Dark Water was so well written, it seemed like Ramsay, the fine author of the book, had only me in mind when penning it. This book speaks to you. I have DNFed a lot of hyped procedurals in the past. Heavy hitters like J.D. Robb, Mel Sherratt, and faceless others who simply were not my cup of tea. They seem like weird stepsisters compared to Ramsay. The prose behind the plot and the crime in the book is old fashioned storytelling. Soon this type of writing will become extinct. The new authors out of Creative Writing classes either use romantic tropes disguised as Fantasy, or use heavily borrowed research as the voice in their crime books. In Ramsay I found an able writer. A writer who knows how to crank up the tension effortlessly. Ramsay's red herrings are like chameleons camouflaged an inch away from your eyes. This book was terrific fun to read. I did not solve this serial killing case. Cold cases butted in with current ones. The body count was unobtrusive but very prolific. One of the temporary characters, DS Lambie's relationship with the cold cases ended up in a very surprising twist. I will not divulge further, except that his thread in this tangled knot was a perfectly startling and natural reveal. I thought that one of the well off people committed the crime. This book has no cheap thrills in it. And the way with which it sketched each character was pleasing to the mind. The big disappointment here is the identity of the murderer - or one of them. I expected someone with a high IQ, like a pocket Moriarty. Someone with a philosophy related to his drive, his motive. I wanted the murderer to be someone who simply did not exist in this book. And deep down, I knew I was going to be disappointed. To meet my childish and exuberant expectations of the big reveal would need to involve quasi supernatural touchups. This book, I decided, while being a bit classic prose, was also dynamic. The timelines are sporadic. The previous book happened a couple of years before this one. Then the duration of the book occurred in mere days, with hours of police work squeezed into pages of action. I have no idea who will appear in the next novel... some people are going to recede beyond the background. Others will be transferred. Indeed both Anderson and Costello were removed from Partickhill (the detectives' headquarters) for stints on consulting or detective work in exile, so to speak. It seems like the book heralded the end of an era. The next one will be with different protagonists but hopefully with the same grungy energy as this one. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 10, 2022
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Sep 10, 2022
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Sep 10, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| 1524760374
| 9781524760373
| B077RG422Z
| 4.18
| 45,412
| Aug 21, 2018
| Aug 21, 2018
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it was amazing
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Foundryside is a damn good book. Though I give books a perfect 5 stars, every book is flawed in one way or another. I was debating whether to give the
Foundryside is a damn good book. Though I give books a perfect 5 stars, every book is flawed in one way or another. I was debating whether to give the book 4 or 5 stars. I settled on 4. But at the last moment, I give it an unconditional 5 stars. It would be ridiculous to give it a lower rating than some of the embarrassing books that have got 5 stars from me. Basically, if a book fulfills its potential of wowing me, or presenting me with a story to whose narration I nod pleasantly and docilely to, and against which I can find no harsh words to utter, I give that book 5 stars. Bennett, the author, seems to have read a lot of books set in the 90s. I can distinctly recognise the makings of a storyteller from that decade. Only he is much cleverer than the soulless copycats that plague and choke this genre broadly called Fantasy. Bennett is not made of inferior stuff, and he proved his mettle, his worth, what he was made of, time and time again in this book. I know almost nothing about the author... his age, race, experience, his career... I know nothing about him. I only know that despite the flaws of his book, I got curious enough to consider reading the second book in this trilogy, knowing only with the certainty that comes with bitter experience, that the sequels will not be equal. The heroine of this novel is Sancia Grado. She is not described beyond her thinness and litheness. Somehow I got the impression that she was black. But her appearance is quite in question, if you consider such trivialities. I mean, these things are worth considering. The Hermione character from Harry Potter could become attractive by simply applying a potion to her hair and having her teeth reduced. Sancia is a main character whose appearance is not important. Just like one knows that the detective character John Rebus is handsome simply because he attracts females, so one might suppose so with Sancia, because she too has a female love interest. So we have a male author in the Fantasy genre who provides us with a trio of dominant characters, where the male persona is the third wheel. That took guts. That must have irked a few of the males reading this book. But the male character is romantically neutral. He is important to the plot, but mainly to hide facts and to provide misdirection. Any bearing on the main plot is not of his dominion. This book does a lot of good things, but from the melodramatic fashion it ended made me get the idea that the author wanted us to be attached to certain people in the book. Bennett did not do enough to make that happen in my case. I did not care for anybody in the book. That is the biggest flaw here. No matter. The book is simply aching fun to read. It begins with what the late author Douglas Adams would describe as a big bang. There is almost no pause in the book's pacing. Pacing in Fantasy is usually tempered with excuses of world building. That latter cardinal sin is indulged in by every Fantasy writer I have read; they use world building as an excuse to delay the gratification of the plot's revelation. There is a joyful conundrum that obfuscates the plot of this book. So many people around, some of whom can fly, while others can defy reality itself. I enjoyed being mystified by the naturally progressing affairs of the book. What we seem to deem as pithy and yawn inducing clichés are in fact cleverly concealing plot points. The ultimate reason, the motivation for going through this adventure for Sancia is broken up into tiny McGuffins and spread all over the book's narrative structure. So one can forgive the reader to think that there are no plot coupons in this. There are, but they are concealed. The author has my admiration and I am in good and numerous company where this brilliant book is concerned. In the hands of a subtle and talented writer like Bennett, the story reaches 500 pages, and that is how things would be in an ideal world. A denser writer like what Jordan was would have added a further 200 or 300 pages of public caning or sexualised stabbing. But here, the cursing seems natural, yet the author exercised discretion. This book has stuff that could have gone wrong, which is why I suspect it was written in years rather than months. To summarise, this is a Fantasy book, set in a world that is magical, a steampunk novel. A novel that is not boringly set in a pseudo medieval world. The judgment of Bennett is spot on. The magical system is inherently exposed yet reveals its secrets continuously. That alone would have made this book interesting. But the conception of a heist book makes the reading experience very special. Despite the lack of characterisation worth the name, despite the lack of audible gasps from this reader, I have no trouble in cataloguing this book as among the 100 best ones I have ever read in my life. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 31, 2022
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Aug 31, 2022
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Aug 31, 2022
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ebook
| ||||||||||||||
| 9780786886999
| 0786886994
| 3.98
| 3,785
| 1996
| Jan 16, 2002
|
it was amazing
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**spoiler alert** One of the first things I did when I read Ice Bound was to check on Nielsen's wiki page. I thought she would not have one. But she h
**spoiler alert** One of the first things I did when I read Ice Bound was to check on Nielsen's wiki page. I thought she would not have one. But she had a wiki entry. And though I was temporarily monumentally gutted about Nielsen dying as far back as in 2009, I was glad because she beat her cancer the first time around, and was ready for the cruel and fated rematch where the cancer took her on her terms. She and death went from this mortal world hand in hand. I took my time reading Jerri Nielsen's memoir. It is a superb book. It is a direct, touching, and humane story of a self imposed exile to the South Pole for a woman who was a tough customer and who was adventurous to her bones. Antarctica is the remotest, coldest, and loneliest place on earth. The continent thought, " well, I can't count on malaria and dengue to discourage visitors, let's mess with their minds directly through cold". Cold like the South Pole is beyond cold such as what is found in your freezer. Cold in the South Pole is probably - and I am relying on my imagination here - like fire and knives combined. I was sad that Nielsen did not survive, but I thought that I would rather die at the age of 57, the age when the cancer in the doctor metastasised to her brain, rather than die at the age of 85, with all my kin (or almost) dead before me. How sweet would it be, to have my parents and brother surrounding my deathbed, while I drifted to a morphine induced unconsciousness, safe in the knowledge that my sight had transferred the most comforting and perfect image from my life to my dying brain. After I had started reading the book, I found that I was getting affected by it. I felt numb as if I was getting cold. I felt solitude like I was in a slum or a cell or a maze. I decided to read the book only when there was someone in my room. This way the book lasted longer and I was pitched into the thoughts of Doctor Jerri Nielsen and Big John, and Roo, and Lisa the woman who for April Fool raided the store of their base at Antarctica with a fellow female (excuse the contradiction). There was no bugs or animals of any kind in the bottom of the world. The elements and the Circadian rhythm of the inhabitants there though, got messed up. Though there was law active on the continent, there were only the customs that the Polies (as they called themselves) made up on the spot. There was the regression of Jerri and Big to a more primitive state. They became closer to their neighbours. They became feral, and they didn't mind not speaking for hours. The group of well drilled and physically and mentally tough people, all of them carrying experience and skills such as medicine (for Jerri only, the sole doctor in that group) engineering, science, and astronomy among many other skills such as polymathy, multilingualism, and artistry, turned into a stone age tribe. The group of Polies had to contend with loneliness, yet Jerri had been looking forward to the temp workers leaving the place so as to winter during the ultimate of all winters. For the companion of Jerri was to be the Dark, and the Cold, where the Sun would not appear for months. No wonder the group became like cave dwellers. No wonder Jerri felt reluctant to return to civilisation as we know it. For Nielsen has tasted the loneliness and the silence of a bare world. She could not get enough of it yet. So you see, the taught and received ideas of comfort, safety, and communication that seemed so natural in the here and the now, vanished there. Nielsen had realised the blinding thought that by domesticating animals and cultivating grain, humanity had domesticated itself. By refraining from nomad status, humanity has farmed out intellectuals and labourers alike. Humanity had made a social ladder to climb. And Nielsen was not eager to return to the rat race, to the corporate ladder and all that it meant. Who can blame her? So Jerri Nielsen, after a clean bill of health from her clinic, got waylaid by breast cancer in a place and at a time cut off from the rest of the human population. She had not the personnel nor even the tools to cure her. She had to be evacuated. She performed a biopsy on herself and underwent chemotherapy while the US was corralling a couple of high tech planes to reach and rescue her. The book, apart from the experience that it sprang upon you, was an account of adventure and hope. Jerri survived for enough time to make her life a success. I have so much more to say on this book, but it will have to suffice that the memoir changed me. Death has fear over me but no longer holds thrall over me. That has changed for the better. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 21, 2022
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Aug 21, 2022
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Aug 21, 2022
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1440631697
| 9781440631696
| B001BPYD2O
| 3.98
| 199,630
| Jan 01, 2001
| Jan 01, 2001
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it was amazing
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The Dresden Files have always been unbeatable among the Urban Fantasy books of their contemporaries. Fool Moon was a book I read in 2014. I gave it 4
The Dresden Files have always been unbeatable among the Urban Fantasy books of their contemporaries. Fool Moon was a book I read in 2014. I gave it 4 stars back then. Now I am giving it 5 stars. What has changed? I got to appraise the book in its structure, and found it very solid. The second half seems to be full of action. But these set pieces are dotted with lulls that are crucial to the pacing of the book. I really think that Fool Moon is a book that has made us fans respect it by the force of its imagination. Take the example of how much awareness Jim Butcher puts in his books. He constantly compares his story to 'real' life. But then, after that, Butcher goes back to his story and promptly writes stuff that is true only in fiction. An example of this type of subversion is the way dialogue is written in the book. The sentences are short. Verily so. And everyone at the beginning of the book speaks economically. This is just the author choosing a conscious decision. There is nothing wrong with it. I was fascinated by how open the evildoers were, and how easy it is to solve the mystery of the murders by choosing your culprits early and sticking with them through thick and thin. Butcher openly reveals the conundrum. Such simplicity is wonderfully implemented. It teaches us about daring in writing books. Jim Butcher was such a phenomenal writer back then. I am grateful to have read his books at a time when he was so beast. Now his powers are waning like the proverbial moon with no cyclic turnaround of course. I am a bit sore about the fact that books like Fool Moon are so unknown to the general public. And it need not have been so. The abortive and low budget TV adaptations of Dresden came at the wrong time, when TV was a backwater swamp and was still figuring out how to outpace cinema. Jim Butcher was a writer who seems to have more sense of humour than men (and women) who write Fantasy, and women (and men) who write romantic Fantasy, YA Fantasy and stuff like that. Fool Moon, apart from its misdirection and humor, is also stellar because of the way tension is ramped up. Not only that, but the usual haunting past of the main character is better than the usual examples. Plus whenever Harry does magic we are eager to know what he can do. The world of Dresden here is yet to cast powerful actors like the Fae and other vituperative beings. The universe of Dresden in this book seems to be both hot and cold, humid, full of unpredictability, and with a large, bare arena primed to allow Butcher to weave his only too real magic. This reread reminded me of the fact that Butcher is better a writer than the old guards such as Stephen King, Terry Brooks, Bernard Cornwell et cetera. Butcher is also a better writer than Brandon Sanderson - who I am beginning to think is overrated - and Robin Hobb, and the likes of N.K. Jemisin, and Patrick Rothfuss. To think that success and renown has graced lesser writers than Butcher is not quite the tragedy that it hints at, though. Butcher will neither win a Hugo or Edgar, nor will he make news on the internet. But us fans know the worth of Dresden. It is just a fact of life that this series has never penetrated popular culture. To conclude, one crucial aspect of the series that Butcher has nailed, is its hero. J.K. Rowling wrote a serviceable hero in Harry Potter (the character). Potter is too artificial. He is too pristine. Dresden is believable in a way rarely seen in Fantasy characters. Whenever Harry Dresden talks to people other than his well wishers, we hold our collective breaths in anticipation. This is easily illustrated in the extract where Chauncy the demon is conversing with Harry and giving information for a price. Harry here has chauvinistic edges, self absorbedness, and a patchouli of doubts. Unlike many heroes from the authors mentioned in the previous paragraph, Harry can, and does, piece together the puzzle and reaches the right conclusion more often than not. This makes for interesting dynamics in the series, because Harry keeps getting pitted against supernatural beings. Him thinking on his feet, using his mortal brain to do battle with immortal and godlike beings, gives us a message about the powers of the human brain. You cannot ask more of a hero. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Aug 10, 2022
not set
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Aug 10, 2022
not set
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Aug 09, 2022
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eBook
| ||||||||||||||
| 0486444074
| 9780486444079
| 0486444074
| 3.65
| 46,989
| 1871
| Nov 08, 2005
|
really liked it
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Lady Susan is a very artful book, where its artfulness lies in the author's understanding of the mechanism of Regency society. I have the feeling that
Lady Susan is a very artful book, where its artfulness lies in the author's understanding of the mechanism of Regency society. I have the feeling that the me from 5 years ago would not have appreciated the book as much as me now. The novel is almost a novella. It is rueful to realise that books with more ambition than this one have all been half forgotten by all but the most immersed of proponents. Lady Susan, her daughter Frederica, and Reginald form a love triangle that makes us want an ending that, when it finally arrives, is excellently delivered. The bit part players in the book have more voice in it because of the nature of its epistolary structure. People who see through Lady Susan's wiles are given a stage to punctuate Lady Susan's web of lies with a running commentary that lends weight to the book. I gave this book 4 stars because I was not half pleased with the ending. Endings like this do not hurt as much as they would in the hands of a lesser writer. But this is a book written by a young Jane Austen. She is young, but still her talent is evident. The ending is made of the stuff of Victorian commonality. I loved the book because of it. The first two thirds of the book make the third act a desirable outcome. This is because so much worse could have occurred. I have yet to read All of Jane Austen's bibliography. I worried before reading Lady Susan. My wavering hopes tussled with my acquired pessimism and the thirst for more of Austen finally won out. I understand those who, like me, have taken a star from their ratings. Comparisons with Pride and Prejudice, are inevitable, though unfair. I have, however, no illusions as to one of Austen's books. Turns out even the most unique voice from Victorian literature is not infallible. We will have to take proof of the pudding, won't we? I am slightly indignant by the low rating for this classic. Some may have felt cheated by all these letters and maybe they felt being robbed of witnessing the craftiness of the titular character. The skill of Austen patches up these deficiencies and even in this less ambitious form shows more than glimpses of the author's genius. I was thoroughly entertained by Lady Susan. This is the type of book that deserves to be called a classic. It is a book that has a prepossessing sketch of human nature, with the reader being delighted by the duplicitousness of one and the reactiveness of others. Lady Susan won me over, and that is reflected in my rating, and review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 07, 2022
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Aug 07, 2022
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Aug 07, 2022
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 9515015502
| 9789515015501
| 9515015502
| 4.03
| 18,590
| 1945
| 2006
|
did not like it
|
This book is not atrocious. It is simply a book devoid of curves, and you cannot have twists without a curve. The book is both an exercise in oversimp
This book is not atrocious. It is simply a book devoid of curves, and you cannot have twists without a curve. The book is both an exercise in oversimplification and an exercise in the absurd. But when a story is both banal and nonsensical, a little sense begins to creep in it. What little sense crept in made, predictably, little sense. There is just one part of the book that resonated humanly with me. That was when the stork said "it is nice to help people". The comparison of Moomin #1 with Alice in Wonderland must have appeared in the papers of that time, all the way in Finland. I say papers, because I doubt whether there were magazines back then devoted to such topics and writing of critical analysis and reviews and whatnot. Alice in Wonderland had a structure. This book was like the types of books written by a 13 year old. A clever one, but still limited by experience and artfulness and sheer inexperience. Tove Jansson was born one year later than Albert Camus, and died a full 41 years later than the man. If only it was known what kind of loss has been suffered by such vicissitudes of fate. I am reading The Myth of Sisyphus and though I am dismayed to find it obscure as most modern philosophy books ( and as obscure as ancient texts too to be fair), the glimmerings of reason and imagination exceed Moomin 1's offering. There is one real danger in Moomin's book. There is only one display of real evil. But it came in the form of a serpent, which made sense but was disappointing all the same. Tulippa the flower child was ahead of her time - the sixties - but she had little to contribute to the book. I say book only, because it has no plot worth weighing. The most enigmatic creature is the little creature. He sounds displeased with the story he has been thrown in and I totally sympathise with him. Moominmamma and Moomintroll are bland but perhaps characters cherished by children who grew up reading this series. I got to read this book because of a challenge, a prompt in it. It did not make a strong case for continuing the challenge next year (a country based one). If I am to be coaxed in reading fluff like this, then I would rather be rudderless in my journey in the domain of books and literature and reading and leisure. The last word trumps every other consideration. I do not suffer books like this because I can afford to dispense with any meaning I may have missed - and the odds say I have - with examining The Moomins and the Great Flood. To conclude, I would rather welcome other books that will expand my horizons in literature, but I have by now discounted swathes of the latter discipline. I am done with 99 % of Victorian literature, because I cannot maintain my joie de vivre in the face of such rigid and immutable structure. I am done with science fiction and YA Fantasy and horror and Westerns. And I have been a non participatory frigid neutral where Romance is concerned. Romance leaves me cold and I feel manipulated whenever I read most of the books in that genre. So the number of books is being constantly limited to me. This is a plus as well as not one. It is a plus because I am getting refined in my search for a good book to read. Like all worthy readers, I am a creature of habit. And the more the habit grows on me, the more certain I am of what I want in a book that will please me. It is a misfortune - i.e. not a plus - to me because entire genres of the system of reading are now off limits. But it is a fact of evolution that the creatures that specialises most, that deviates most from its ancestors, evolves fastest, though in totality few options are available for its next step. I have been puzzled by my own choice in giving this book 1 star. I did not hate it. I was disappointed in it, but was not displeased by it. That is probably because little time has been expended in reading the book. It is disarmingly short and harmless in its indulgence. I do not hate Tove Jansson and this series has the reputation of being the most popular children's literature from Scandinavian countries. That is a blurb from the Afterword of the book and I must consider it true at face value. Though I wonder if Finland is part of Scandinavia. That is the type of negationism that has dogged my steps in one of the most eclectic and unsatisfactory reads of the year. Definitely short but certainly not sweet. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 31, 2022
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Jul 31, 2022
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Jul 31, 2022
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 006441034X
| 9780064410342
| 006441034X
| 4.29
| 381,446
| Apr 1986
| Aug 01, 2001
|
it was ok
|
The book's vitality lies in it being a big jumble and a big Capernaum. It is full of life. Unbridled, savage, and wondrous urgency. I have not much fl
The book's vitality lies in it being a big jumble and a big Capernaum. It is full of life. Unbridled, savage, and wondrous urgency. I have not much flattering to say about Howl book 1, but what little I said, I meant every word. The book seems like its 330 pages were linked together by the words in a complex and fragile waltz. Yet I give only 2 stars (see my rating system) to this book because of what it is, and because of what I am. I am a reader who does not take notes and who plows on most of the time. Maps from Fantasy books are wasted on me. Lists of characters in their relevant books, I skip like Lyme disease. Various editions of books mean little to me, because I avoid the prefaces, forewords, forewords to the 30th anniversary edition, and Acknowledgments without afterthought. The book gave me a lot to unpack, about half of which you will read and the rest will be forgotten before I am done reviewing, so sorry about that. Howl's Moving Castle is the 8th book that I have read in which a major character has jet black hair, and bright green eyes. This possession of said colour is common enough in the West, except in fiction. Thing is, among all of these 8 books, this one has appeared in print earliest. So something must have influenced someone. I'll say no more about that. I have had the blessed luck of being a fan of the anime version, and I realised that the book would be different. The curse to be divined was the major hook by which I was pulled through the narrative. I wanted to know if the eldest of the Hatter sisters (a trio of young women, more or less magical, maybe it rings a bell) was to guess correctly at Howl's affliction. Sadly, she - Sophie is her name, doesn't. And that far-reaching writing permeated my lack of enjoyment of this wonderful book. The plot maybe was plot proof, but the plot was rendered alive due to the stupidity of Sophie. She facilitates small explosions of tragic deaths everywhere she goes, until she accidentally solves the adventurous puzzle of who will win of the two, the self absorbed yet vulnerable hero, or the very bad witch. Sophie is given lots of clues but does not show trepidation when Time, fatherly and yet almost as old as her, comes a knocking. Due to this mechanism, the book drags instead of canters. It is challenging to portray fights in the magical realm, none more when they grace a middle grade book. Jones superbly avoids this challenge by stopping us from seeing both of the fights between Howl and the Witch. In the second fight, there is a cartoonish cloud that hides the epic battle. It all was very hush hush. What was the author thinking? Was she paying an homage to Looney Tunes? The magical system is fraught with missing pieces. We do not know how this magic works. There is no Latin gibberish, and there are no wands. So the magic is mysterious, which would have made sense and would have prettied the proceedings. One is born a witch. We do not know that Sophie, the MC, is one, because she is the eldest and therefore according to the beliefs on this Land, boring. There is no fate, only magic and those interesting enough to possess it. The fire demon side of the book was problematic but saying more would be revealing. All things considered I would recommend this book as a palate cleanser if you had an overdose of Lugosi type vampires and heroes endowed with a magic sword. I have respect for the author, because her voice is unique. But I also feel that the book does not help itself with its lame glissandos and anti climaxes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 23, 2022
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Jul 23, 2022
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Jul 23, 2022
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 006074068X
| 9780060740689
| 006074068X
| 3.88
| 38,964
| Jun 19, 1992
| Jul 27, 2004
|
it was amazing
|
Guido Brunetti is a police officer in Venice. His title is that of Dottor. He is a high ranking officer. Hi there, my name is Troy McClure. You may re
Guido Brunetti is a police officer in Venice. His title is that of Dottor. He is a high ranking officer. Hi there, my name is Troy McClure. You may remember me from movies such as This Book is Wonderful, and Donna Leon is Completely Fine. The latest thing I realised before starting this review is that there is a massive clue of the murder in the title of the book itself. That took a lot of nerve. I have never seen a mystery book do that before. There is little stuff like that in the book. Donna Leon trusts her readers. Or perhaps she has no time for the more obtuse among us. Donna Leon seems to know a lot about the higher echelons of Venetian society. Her writing for parties or group activities is beyond reproach. There was, however, a strange monologue in the party given by one socialite. The conversation between the guests was like from a 19th century novel. That is not because there is a relapse into archaic language, but because of its long tirades and unfunny jokes. Donna Leon cannot write a good joke. I liked Brunetti's in-laws more than his kids. I mean, the kids are less sympathetic to me than the elders. Italy is the land where men and women are prized for their beauty. There is a scent of scandal and a deepening of tragedy as Brunetti takes on the case of the murdered conductor, Wellhauer. The victim is German. The author comes very close to revealing how handsome Wellhauer was. But she did not at all reveal why such an eligible woman like Paola got tied to Guido Brunetti. There are authors who will never directly reveal how good looking their characters are. That means that less facts are told, and also less facts are shown. Venice is a very old city, heavy with history, and proud of it. Among all the details of the streets, walls and huge windows, there was one thing that new nations do not have. The wearing down of the stone steps that have been there for centuries. The steps are worn down because so many people have walked this way. This was a powerful image. The book is sordid in its resolution, but though things go macabre very swiftly in the denouement, the graphic details of the misdeeds are veiled prudishly. Leon knows when to pull back, and when to pull no punches. So there are a lot of elements to underpin when writing a novel of this type and the writer got most of it right. The character of Guido's son, however, did not work for me. He seemed even more despicable than the wrongdoer. This type of treatment would be endearing in a child, not a young man. As I said before, the author left a few things to the reader. She did not spell out everything. What she did mention more than a couple of times was Guido's totally carefree disposition to accept drinks from everyone. Mostly strangers. This was cultural, but then Italy is both the country of knifing and poisoning, so I was left wondering what was happening with those pegs. The chief of Guido was nicely made up. In more ways than one too. He is a narcissistic, impatient, stupid, selfish, and lazy officer who got his job because he knew the right people. I find it interesting that among all these characters, Leon made this minor one the best looking one in the book. The character, called Patta, is very vivid to me. I pictured a middle aged Brandon Quinn as him. To wrap things up, I must say I look forward to the rest of the series. That is mostly because the book felt like there was more to tell. That is intriguing. The book showed us all that there are many more people in Venice who might fancy a stab in the dark, though I admit that what I did is just that. I will be on cloud nine if there are fewer and less voluble red herrings in book 2. Once of this treatment is enough. Let's see if Leon knows about that aspect of her writing. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 20, 2022
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Jul 20, 2022
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Jul 20, 2022
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0752224417
| 9780752224411
| 0752224417
| 3.86
| 161,002
| Oct 05, 1995
| 1995
|
it was amazing
|
The Lost World was a book that I read at the end of the 90s. It was a phenomenal read, by my standards back then, when I was a student and in my lates
The Lost World was a book that I read at the end of the 90s. It was a phenomenal read, by my standards back then, when I was a student and in my latest teens. It made me feel smart. It made me feel good. When I read it, Michael Crichton, the author, was still alive. Now, there have been two things that I realise. First, it is a real pity that Crichton died. It was cruel that he was taken off the face of the Earth so quickly. Second, this book and Jurassic Park are for me, by far the best books that Crichton has written. My mind was blown when I took up this reread in this year 2022. The book held up incredibly well. There were a few details that sadly were past sell by date. One of them was that it was stated the human race arose about 35,000 years ago, when now science tells us that it was so 250,000 years ago. Crichton also sadly got the innovation of the Internet as a doom mongering warning. This was I suspect not a really personal crusade to the author. He was perhaps merely playing us along. The internet is one of the best inventive revolutions to have happened to the human race. Unlike other breakthroughs, like writing, or fire, its good use far outstrips any bad use. IQ levels are skyrocketing around the world. Atheists movements, climate change movements, feminist movements and others are making the rounds round our planet at the speed of light. This is not the atomic age, as 50s scientists have tried to label us. This is the digital age. The book was both light and strong, just like the vehicles and equipment that in the book, Doc Thorne had to custom make for the rich bratty Levine. The book deserves a lot of success. The only reason why it was not such an influence on Sci Fi writers is that it is inimitable, and, unlike Fantasy successes, couldn't be replicated and imitated by lesser or even writers of equal talent as Crichton. The science monologues that are mostly the dominion of Ian Malcolm in the book are brilliant! The thoughts behind these hugely entertaining talks seem Socratic in nature. And they are intaglioed on the book in a way that is perfectly believable. This Sci Fi discourse is not info dump. This is a way of entertaining the masses, and perhaps even, opening them to the possibilities of science. I was less pleased with the way both the baddies and the good guys got messed up by the dinosaurs. It was as if each of the future dead carried a death wish. It was very unbelievable how Dodgson, Baselton (his death was funny as hell though), and the poor Howard King hopped, skipped, and jumped their way into the jaws of death. The jaws of creatures coming back from extinction. The lord of the planet falling into the maws of his predecessor. The two kids too had to be included, yet no responsible adult would have agreed to bring them along, so they must help themselves. Arby and Kelly were terrific characters with motives, creativity, and moments of pathos and heroism of their own. Sarah Harding, the African plateaus connoisseur, was also a problem. Nobody knows why her career was viable or interesting or worth funding. She kept observing hyenas and lions hunt and her raw data was not bringing anything new. But those are mere trifles. I have my reserves about the book, one of which is self inflicted. I skipped some pages to reach the end. When I first read the book, decades ago, I didn't understand the ending. I didn't understand why the dinosaurs were in such queer patterns on Isla Sorna. I didn't understand about the prions and what they spelled out. This mystery stayed with me, though I had forgotten about it. But once the book was in my hands yet again, I immediately remembered this gap in my knowledge and hurried to find out and was rewarded by the answer the book provided. It is strange how old eyes sometimes see better than juvenile ones. This book was not perfect. Its current rating is the dubious result of the revival of the Jurassic franchise. The big studios will never let a series die, even if there is no new Crichton on the horizon to lead the way. I loved Lost World. Its science is in itself a Lost World of ideas, because when the sequel to Jurassic Park was scripted, the producers went for action oriented stuff. Good. Only the people who read the book, instead of watching the movie, know how precious this book was. It was a book that was not only scientific, but also philosophical. But they have little to do with practical life sadly. I mean imagine a world where the dinosaurs never got extinct. We would never be there to inherit the Earth from these mighty monsters. So be it; we are here, until the next change in chaos. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 15, 2022
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Jul 15, 2022
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Jul 15, 2022
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 2012003419
| 9782012003415
| 2012003419
| 3.88
| 64
| 1968
| Apr 05, 2000
|
did not like it
|
It had to come to this book, of a beloved series, to find myself with the thankless task of giving one star to Les Six Compagnons, book 3. Like most o
It had to come to this book, of a beloved series, to find myself with the thankless task of giving one star to Les Six Compagnons, book 3. Like most one star books, this one started well, and as I found myself delving in this middle grade tale, I got more concerned about the quality of the story and the clumsy devices used to keep our interest in this blustered spiel. There is little to say, except that I almost wanted to fake a rating for this book. Its average score is at 4 stars. Many people have rated it a perfect 5. But I have to disagree with their opinion. Let me rephrase that. I must differ from their opinion. This book for me was thrash from top to toe. The adventure turned out to be ordinary fluff. I think I now have a better idea of why Bonzon, the author, is so ill known. The writer may come up with the goods and redress his error of this book and then it will be forgotten by all. But more than not, it is likelier that the rate at which the better books are present in this series will be confirmed or even rarified. It might be that there are 2 good books to 5 bad ones! This is something that I imagined at the back of my mind. The adventure concerns Tidou and his gang of fraternal friends and a dog, with Mady, the now healthy convalescent, playing a key role in this quaint but mediocre adventure. Whenever a middle grade book disappoints, it will wake up better memories of one's childhood. Therefore, I cannot help but compare this installment to the Famous Five series. This book was more violent, and there is an example of a trauma for Loulou, the boy through whom the author wants to heighten the stakes but also put us readers on his side. The Famous Five have better ways of bringing the baddies and the Five together at a given point. Here the schema and the pacing of the book are faulty and the book cannot be consumed healthily. Just because a book is for kids doesn't mean that the author needs to insult our intelligence. People keep using the term 'Saturday morning cartoon' to denigrate poor art. But anything can be great art. But here, the author was not at the top of his game. With some luck, the further adventures will be much better, and only this review will be a sign of a temporary disharmony and disappointment. I now direct my mind towards animation. I am an appraiser of anime, but I know that American 3D cartoons and films are in a kind of ghetto state. The reason for that is deplorable but simple. Animation has not been used to deploy violence and sex. That is why it is a handicap for ambitious people like Brad Bird, who are impatient with how slow respect is gained from his films. Les Six Compagnons have that delimitation, that unnatural barrier, and a sort of stigma. Children however, are often smarter than what is credited. They ought to get the best type of consumption in terms of experience. They are growing up, and lessons that need to be taught to then ought to be cleverly cached. This is common sense. To conclude, I appreciate the language of the book. The small subtleties of the sentences are economically written to infuse then with clear meaning. That was one of the few things done right in the book. The role of Kafi was well varied and distinctly so. I was quite surprised by the level of praise that this book gained. I am sadly not of this opinion. The book has many conveniences and coincidences. And the pacing was very problematic. I simply couldn't be lost in this limited story. I hope things get better. But though I rate this book 1 star, I will keep the goodwill of the previous books in my mind when looking for some light reading. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 12, 2022
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Jul 12, 2022
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Jul 12, 2022
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Mass Market Paperback
|
Luffy Sempai
>
Books:
2022
(49)
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 4.64
|
really liked it
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Dec 26, 2022
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Dec 26, 2022
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| 4.27
|
it was amazing
|
Dec 05, 2022
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Dec 05, 2022
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| 4.11
|
it was ok
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Nov 19, 2022
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Nov 19, 2022
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| 4.25
|
really liked it
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Nov 16, 2022
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Nov 16, 2022
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| 4.21
|
liked it
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Nov 02, 2022
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Nov 02, 2022
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| 4.23
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it was ok
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Oct 27, 2022
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Oct 27, 2022
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| 3.87
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it was ok
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Oct 21, 2022
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Oct 21, 2022
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| 4.62
|
really liked it
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Oct 18, 2022
not set
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Oct 18, 2022
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| 4.30
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liked it
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Nov 05, 2022
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Oct 02, 2022
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| 3.80
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it was ok
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Sep 16, 2022
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Sep 16, 2022
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| 4.38
|
really liked it
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Sep 10, 2022
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Sep 10, 2022
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| 4.18
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it was amazing
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Aug 31, 2022
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Aug 31, 2022
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| 3.98
|
it was amazing
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Aug 21, 2022
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Aug 21, 2022
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| 3.98
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 10, 2022
not set
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Aug 09, 2022
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| 3.65
|
really liked it
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Aug 07, 2022
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Aug 07, 2022
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| 4.03
|
did not like it
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Jul 31, 2022
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Jul 31, 2022
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| 4.29
|
it was ok
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Jul 23, 2022
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Jul 23, 2022
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| 3.88
|
it was amazing
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Jul 20, 2022
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Jul 20, 2022
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| 3.86
|
it was amazing
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Jul 15, 2022
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Jul 15, 2022
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| 3.88
|
did not like it
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Jul 12, 2022
|
Jul 12, 2022
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