AAUW Book Sale

AAUW book sale this Saturday 5/31 at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds. I donated five boxes of books, so go buy them.

Techno-lust 1: Sony Reader

I played with a Sony Reader at Border's today ($300). Very nice. I like its form factor better than the Kindle. You have to jump through some hoops to get it to work with a Mac, unfortunately.

It's supposed to work fine with Project Gutenberg. That is a real plus for me, since I enjoy reading "classics" but am trying to drastically reduce my book clutter.

SF tropes

If you ever read SF, you might enjoy tvtropes.com.

My daemon

Review: Setting Free the Bears

Setting Free the Bears was John Irving's first published book. It's definitely a book of the '60s, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It has bears, motorcycles, trout fishing, bees, and sex -- what's not to like? I thought Graff's and Gallen's mutual seduction was particularly sweetly told.

(h/t Erin who convinced me to read some John Irving. She also turned me on to Jane Austen, for which I'm eternally grateful.)

Review: Soon I Will Be Invincible

Soon I Will Be Invincible is a mainstream novel about super-villains and super-heroes. I thought it was good, if a bit long. If you liked The Incredibles, you might like this story.

I mostly agree with this NY Times review.

I had a pretty good comic book collection as a boy. I "inherited" some comic books from a sister's boyfriend. And, in keeping with the "Comic Book Social Contract", I eventually gave all mine away.

Review: Water for Elephants

Sara Gruen's novel Water for Elephants is about romance, and the circus, though not necessarily about the romance of the circus. I thought it was a nice, quick Summer read. Fair warning: don't read this book if you dislike happy endings.





Here are some semi-random circus & carnival links:
1. Ringling, Montana (near Bozeman) was named after one of the famous Ringling Brothers.
2. Memoirs of a Sword Swallower is my favorite book about life in a carnival sideshow.
3. The Ringling Museum is worth a visit if you're ever near Sarasota FL. (I visited the museum during Spring Break many years ago.)
4. Circus Peanuts - a classic from The Straight Dope. (Bonus: kraut juice.)
5. The movie Freaks has a pretty scary ending (I have the DVD).

Review: Kim

I recently re-read Kipling's Kim, and I think I've discovered how best to enjoy it. First, recognize that Kipling thought British rule was beneficial, or at least indifferent, compared to rule by other colonizing nations. Second, do not approach the book as "social realism" - that's a fast way to spoil it. Most important, think of the book as a means of getting into Kipling's head - to understand his understanding of British India, and of adventurous boyhood.

In my younger days, I would have said to just consider the story as being set in an alternate universe. Now, I think using that method to suspend disbelief has too many disadvantages.


Note: Besides being a great adventure story, Kim is also considered part of the Western Canon.

Skipping to the end

I admit it: I skipped to the end of the last Harry Potter book. In fact, the only HP I've read was the last few chapters of the last book. Based on that small sample, it seems like an interesting series.

(I have seen all the movies ;-)

Review: Sense and Sensibility

Another excellent novel by Jane Austen.

The Modern Library edition displayed above has an interesting introduction by David Gates. He makes the novel seem almost hard-boiled. Is there any wonder that I, who read all the Richard Stark and Dashiell Hammett I can get my hands on, liked this novel?

Silas Marner

George Eliot's short novel Silas Marner is a simple story well-told.

2007 will be another Summer of Classics. I am "building up" my novel-reading muscles to read Eliot's long masterpiece Middlemarch. In the meantime, I'm in the middle of Homer's Iliad.

Brevity

How to transform a trilogy into a novella:

George Eliot on blogging

I've recently looked at some right-wing blogs (and some left-wing blogs)...


With apologies to George Eliot:

To judge from their writings, there are certain bloggers who think that an amazing ignorance, both of science and of life, is the best possible qualification for forming an opinion on the knottiest moral and speculative questions. Apparently, their recipe for solving all such difficulties is something like this: -Take a blogger's head, stuff it with a smattering of philosophy and literature chopped small, and with false notions of society baked hard, let it hang over a desk a few hours every day, and serve up hot in feeble English, when not required.

Review: Best-Remembered Poems

Best-remembered Poems (edited by Martin Gardner) presents well-known 19th and 20th century British and American poems. The poems range from classics to nonsense to doggerel. I enjoyed Gardner's introduction to each poem.

The book is published by Dover, which produces inexpensive high-quality paperbacks. In Bozeman, Hastings has a small selection of Dover books.

National Poetry Month

If I were clever I'd write a haiku or limerick in recognition of National Poetry Month.

My library has more poetry then I knew -- 12 books.

Review: Brush up your poetry!

Brush up your poetry! covers English-language poetry from Chaucer to T.S. Eliot. The premise is that readers can "brush up" their poetry by reading the poetical origins of common phrases. For instance, we learn that "to stand bolt upright" has a surprisingly ribald origin in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

The book contains many excerpts of poems, which is both good and bad. It allows coverage of a lot of poems and phrase origins, but frequently leaves one thirsting for more. I like that the book author actively gives his opinions about the quality of the various poems and poets.

Sing, Muse

In the past three weeks, I have purchased three volumes of poetry. Reviews as I finish 'em.

Books - Ayn Rand

I never read any of her books (novels or philosophy). Don't know how I missed that phase, but I'm kinda glad: I can see how I would have been even more annoying if I had been a Randite ;-) Here are some interesting remarks.