- "The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness" Elyn R. Saks
- "Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel" Zora Nealie Hurston
- "Women: A Novel" Charles Bukowski
- "Ham on Rye: A Novel" Charles Bukowksi
- "The Forgotten Soldier" Guy Sajer
- "Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel" Zora Nealie Hurston
- notes
- "Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States" James C. Scott
- notes
- "Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Ice Man, Captain America, and the New Face of American War" Evan Wright
- "The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost" Cathal J. Nolan
- notes
- "Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband,
Father, and Son" Michael Chabon
- "The Joy Luck Club" Amy Tan
- "The Postman Always Rings Twice" James M. Cain
- "The English Patient" Michael Ondaatje
- "The Devil's Highway: A True Story" Luis Alberto Urrea
- "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World" Steve Brusatte
- "The Joy Luck Club" Amy Tan
- notes
- "Kitchen Confidential" Anothony Bourdain
- "Glass Castle" Jeannette Walls
- quotes
- "When Breath Becomes Air" Paul Kalanithi
- quote
- "Ложится мгла на старые ступени. Роман-идиллия (A Gloom is Cast Upon the Ancient Steps)" Александр Чудаков (Alexander Chudakov)
- "Educated: A Memoir" Tara Westover
- quote
- "Зулейха открывает глаза (Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes)" Гузель Яхина (Guzel Yakhina)
- "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" Isabel Wilkerson
- "Of Mice and Men" John Steinbeck
- "The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia" Andrei Lankov
- "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" Isabel Wilkerson
- notes, заметки
- "The Jungle" Upton Sinclair
- "All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin" Mikhail Zygar
- "An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness" Kay Redfield Jamison
- "All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin" Mikhail Zygar
- quote, notes
- "Off the Charts: The Hidden Lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies" Deckle Edge
- "The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads" Tim Wu
- "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War" Thomas de Waal
- "Uncommon Carriers" John McPhee
- "The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads" Tim Wu
- "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" Matthew Desmond
- quote
- "White Trash: The 400-year Untold Story of Class in America" Nancy Isenberg
- quote
- "Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges--and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates" Daniel Golden
- "War and Turpentine" Stefan Hertmans
- "Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America" David J. Silverman
- "Draft No.4: On the Writing Process" John McPhee
- "Dept. of Speculation" Jenny Offill
- "Empire of Cotton: A Global History" Sven Beckert
- "War and Turpentine" Stefan Hertmans
- notes
- "The Robber Barons" Matthew Josephson
- "The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944-45" Paul Fussell
- "An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back" Elisabeth Rosenthal
- "The Knoweldge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone" Steven Slowman and Philip Fernbach
- "The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944-45" Paul Fussell
- notes
- "Nobody's Fool" Richard Russo
- quote
- "Savage City" T.J. English
- "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" Mohsin Hamid
- "Thinking, Fast and Slow" Daniel Kahneman
- "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" Mohsin Hamid
- notes
- "The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds" Michael Lewis
- notes
- "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression" Andrew Solomon
- "Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt" Michael Lewis
- "Liar's Pocker: Rising through the Wreckage on Wall Street" Michael Lewis
- quote
- "Winter in the Blood" James Welch
- "No Logo" Naomi Klein
- "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" Sam Quinones
- "The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream" Steve Viscelli
- "Here Comes the Sun" Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn
- "King Leopold's Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" Adam Hochschild
- "No Logo" Naomi Klein
- quote
- "Dispatches" Michael Herr
- "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" J.D. Vance
- "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" Antonio Garcia Martinez
- "White Teeth" Zadie Smith
- "The Gene: An Intimate History" Suddhartha Mukherjee
- "Straight Man" Richard Russo
- "Racing the Rain" John L. Parker, Jr.
- "Olive Kitteridge" Elizabeth Strout
- "Последние свидетели (The Last Witnesses: A Hundred of Unchildlike Lullabys)" Светлана Алексиевич (Svetlana Alexievich)
- "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" J.D. Vance
- quote
- "Color Purple" Alice Walker
- "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" Anne Tyler
- "Goodbye to All That" Robert Graves
- "День Опричника (Day of the Oprichnik)" Владимир Сорокин (Vladimir Sorokin)
- "Fates and Furies: A Novel" Lauren Groff
- "The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme" John Keegan
- "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" Anne Tyler
- "Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories" Bonnie Jo Campbell
- "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales" Oliver Sacks
- notes
- "The Year of Magical Thinking" Joan Didion
- "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America" Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer
- "The Bright Forever" Lee Martin
- "The Human Comedy" William Saroyan
- "Us" David Nicholls
- "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap" Matt Taibbi
- "Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery" Henry Marsh
- "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America" Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer
- quote
- "No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes" Anand Gopal
- "Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America" Jill Leovy
- "The Things They Carried" Tim O'Brien
- "The Lay of the Land" Richard Ford
- "Redeployment" Phil Klay
- "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in Mumbai Undercity" Katherine Boo
- "On Immunity" Eula Biss
- "Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America" Jill Leovy
- "The Secret World of Oil" Ken Silverstein
- notes
- "Doctored: The Disillusionment of
an American Physician" Sandeep Jauhar
- "Lord of Misrule" Jaimy Gordon
- "Freedom" Jonathan Franzen
- "Goldfinch" Donna Tartt
- "Ogallala Road" Julenne Bair
- "Jesus' Son" Dennis Johnson
- "Lord of Misrule" Jaimy Gordon
- quote
- "Little Children" Tom Perrotta
- quote
- "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Oscar Wilde
- "Harvard Square" Andre Aciman
- "Планка" Евгений Гришковец
- "Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam" Stephen W. Sears
- notes
- "Перс" Александр Иличевский
- "City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas" Roger Crowley
- notes
- "Hallucinations" Oliver Sacks
- notes, quotes
- "Письмовник (The Letter Book)" Михаил Шишкин (Mikhail Shishkin)
- notes
- "Portnoy's Complaint" Philip Roth
- "Fatal Sequence: The Killer Within" Kevin J. Tracey
- notes
- "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" Atul Gawande
- notes
- "Revolutionary Road" Richard Yates
- "The Invention of White Race, Volume 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America " Theodore W. Allen
- notes, quote
- "The Bonfire of the Vanities" Tom Wofle
- "With or Without You: A Memoir" Domenica Ruta
- notes
- "The Corrections" Jonathan Franzen
- "Мы, значит, армяне, а вы на гобое" Николай Климонтович
- "The Sense of an Ending" Julian Barnes
- "Independence Day" Richard Ford
- "Мы, значит, армяне, а вы на гобое" Николай Климонтович
- notes
- "И возвращается ветер" Владимир Буковский
- "Beloved" Toni Morrison
- quote
- "Cain at Gettysburg" Ralph Peters
- notes
- "Interpreter of Maladies" Jhumpa Lahiri
- notes, quotes
- "This Is How You Lose Her" Junot Diaz
- quotes
- "The Sun Also Rises" Ernest Hemingway
- quote
- "'Tis" Frank McCourt
- "Оправдание" Дмитрий Быков
- "The Marriage Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today" Andrew J. Churlin
- "Оправдание" Дмитрий Быков
- notes
- "Herzog" Saul Bellow
- "Moby Dick; or, The Whale" Herman Melville
- "Angela's Ashes" Frank McCourt
- "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" Siddhartha Mukhergee
- "Empire Falls" Richard Russo
- "Byzantium: A History" John Haldon
- "Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System" Barry Eichengreen
- "Moby Dick; or, The Whale" Herman Melville
- notes
- "Великая отечественная алтернатива: 1941 в сослагательном
наклонении", "Пять кругов ада. Красная армия в
'котлах'" Алексей Исаев
- "Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire" Judith Herrin
- "The Enigma of Capital" David Harvey
- "An American Tragedy" Theodore Dreiser
- "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education" Diane Ravitch
- "An American Tragedy" Theodore Dreiser
- notes
- "Собрание сочинений" Сергей Довлатов
- notes
- "The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality" Branko Milanovic
- notes
- "Lifelines: Life beyond the Gene" Steven Rose
- notes
- "Рассказы о родине" Дмитрий Грушевский
- "Helmet for My Pillow" Robert Leckie
- "Tropic of Cancer" Henry Miller
- "Helmet for My Pillow" Robert Leckie
- quotes
- "Сказать жизни 'Да'. Психолог в концлагере" Виктор Франкл
- "The Best American Short Stories, 2010" edited by Richard Russo
- notes
- "The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars" Razmik Panossian
- notes
- "The Peoples of the Ararat" Armen Asher and Teryl Minasian Asher
- notes
- "Boys and Girls Like You and Me: Stories" Aryn Kyle
- notes, заметки
- "Подвиг" Владимир Набоков
- "Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference" Cordelia Fine
- "Исторические миниатюры" Валентин Пикуль
- "The Quiet American" Graham Greene
- "Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference" Cordelia Fine
- notes, заметки
- "To Kill a Mockingbird" Harper Lee
- "The Catcher in the Rye" J.D. Salinger
- "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" Ahmed Rashid
- "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", "Drown" Junot Diaz
- "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" Naomi Klein
- "Как я был в немецком плену" Ю. Владимиров
- "Петля и камень в зеленой траве" Братья Вайнеры
- "Louis XIV and the Greatness of France" Maurice Ashley
- "Slaughterhouse Five" Kurt Vonnegut
- "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" Ahmed Rashid
- notes
- "Afghanistan, The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower" Mohammed Yousaf and Mark Adkin
- notes
- "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam" Robert Dreyfuss
- notes
- "The Great Gatsby" F. Scott Fitzgerald
- "Guns of August" Barbara Tuchman
- "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" David Simon
- "A Brief History of Neoliberalism" David Harvey
- "Again to Carthage" John L. Parker Jr.
- "Guns of August" Barbara Tuchman
- notes
- "Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor" Sudhir Venkatesh
- notes
- "Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb" Mike Davis
- notes
- "Stalin's Guerillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II" Kenneth Slepyan
- notes
- "The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789" Robert Middlekauff
- notes
- "Penalty Strike: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander" Alexander Pyl'cyn
- notes
- "Когда падают горы (вечная невеста)" Чингиз Айтматов
- "The Sound and the Fury" William Faulkner
- "Who Wrote the Bible?" Richard E. Friedman
- "The Sound and the Fury" William Faulkner
- notes
- "The Story of French" Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow
- notes
- "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
- quote
- "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" by Michael Pollan
- notes
- "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era" by James M. McPherson
- notes
- "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac
- notes, quotes
- "The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War" by Jacques R. Pauwels
- notes, quote
- "The Stranger" by Albert Camus
- "Чапаев и Пустота" Виктор Пелевин
- "Дочь Ивана, Мать Ивана" Валентин Распутин
- "Чапаев и Пустота" Виктор Пелевин
- заметки
- "Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future" by Jeff Goodell
- notes
- "Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West" by Tom Holland
- notes
- "Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon" by Robert Fisk
- notes, quotes
- "ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age" by Andre Gunder Frank
- notes
- "The Social Construction of Sexuality" Steven Seidman
- notes
- "The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History" J.M. Blaut
- notes
- "Silent Revolution: The Rise and Crisis of Market Economics in Latin America" Duncan Green
- notes
- "Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy,
or How Love Conquered Marriage" Stephanie Coontz
- "Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation" Nancy F. Cott
- notes
- "The Radiant Past: Ideology and Reality in Hungary's Road to Capitalism" Michael Burawoy, Janos Lukacs
- notes
- "Muhammad" Maxime Rodinson
- notes, quotes
- "Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century" Eric Wolf
- notes
- "The Hidden Scrolls: Christianity, Judaism, & the War for the Dead Sea Scrolls" Neil Asher Silberman
- notes
- "The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts" Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman
- notes
- "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography" John Dominic Crossan
- notes
- "Sarah: A Novel" J.T. LeRoy
- quote
- "Pillars of Salt" Fadia Faqir
- quote
- "Cold War in the Working Class: The Rise and Decline of the United Electrical Workers" Ronald L. Filppelli and Mark D. McColloch
- notes
- "Detroit, I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution" by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin
- notes
- "Last Exit to Brooklyn" by Hubert Selby
- quote notes
- "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
- quote notes
- "Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class" by Mike Davis
- notes
- "A Short History of the French Revolution: 1789-1799" by Albert Soboul
- notes
- "Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives"
- "Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution" by Robert C. Allen
- "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
- "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions" by Diana Johnstone
- "Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution" by Robert C. Allen
- заметки
- "Self and Society: A Symbolic Interactionist Social Psychology" by John P. Hewitt
- yuck a second annoying book in a row, good thing I got this one used.
- "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" by Walter Rodney
- Grr, Rodney is as annoying as Ritzer
- "The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History"
by Stephen Jay Gould
- "The Black Jacobins" by C.L.R. James
- quotes
- "Capitalism and Slavery" by Eric Williams
- quote
- "Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh" by Toby Harnden
- "A Secret History of the IRA" by Ed Moloney
- "Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories" by Ghassan Kanafani
- "The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990" by Marilyn B. Young
- "A Secret History of the IRA" by Ed Moloney
- quote
- "The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and
Social Control (Vol 1)" by Theodore W. Allen
- "In the Shadow of the Liberator: The Impact of Hugo Chavez on Venezuela and Latin America" by Richard Gott
- "Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis" by Edward Dolnick
- "In the Shadow of the Liberator: The Impact of Hugo Chavez on Venezuela and Latin America" by Richard Gott
- quote
- "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict" by Norman G. Finkelstein
- "The Korean War: 1945-1953"
by Hugh Deane
- "Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Studies in Environment and History)" Alfred W. Crosby
- "The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment" John Bellamy Foster
- "Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place" John R. Logan, Harvey L. Molotch
- "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" Stan Goff
- "Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Studies in Environment and History)" Alfred W. Crosby
- Goff is a very
easy read. At first it goes like an adventure quest (preparation and
departure into unknown). He certainly has a huge chip on his shoulder
against the army yet he takes his job very seriously. One of the
undercurrents I sensed is him trying to analyze/justify/apologize for
what his perceives as his professional failure (to organize his "team"
and make them do what he thinks is necessary). Along these lines his
pride in his "team"'s accomplishments shows on a few occasions. On the
other hand his macho vanity (which one would expect) is almost
nonexistent - he just mentions matter-of-factly that every special
forces (SF) operative (him, I would guess, most certainly included)
could shoot from any weapon known to man and kill anything that moves
with or without weapons. He does seem to be proud of his medical
training and being able to fix humans and animals alike.
I am amazed at how much leeway within the military he is given in executing his actions. And you can say anything you like but these SF guys are pretty dangerous - only eight people are directed to contain an (apparently large) portion of (mostly cooperative I admit) Haiti. Yet before the Cedras-Powell-Clinton agreement went ahead 8 of them were planning on taking on 150-some soldiers of Haitian military (FAdH) with AC-130 air support of course. I am being more respectful now when they say something like 30 SF troops are on the ground here or there in Afghanistan.
Even putting aside his leftist leanings, his solidarity with the Haitians, his hard on against racism, his sincere desire to help the haitians show that he is a profoundly decent person.
- "The Dialectical Biologist" Richard Levins, Richard C. Lewontin (Contributor)
- "The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into
the Origins of Cultural Change" David Harvey
- "How to Read Karl Marx" Ernst Fischer et al.
- "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" William Blum
- "The McDonaldization of Society" George Ritzer
- "How to Read Karl Marx" Ernst Fischer et al.
- Ritzer is an idiot.
A couple of years later. I hate to read people whom I don't respect. Ritzer lost mine very fast when in his Weberian theoretical meanderings he listed together McDonald's, something else just as silly and Nazi death camps as bureaucracies shaping and driving modern times. I have a short fuse with non-marxist theorists in general but, gawd, Ritzer was dense. Part of the problem of reading his ilk is that you internally rebel against the author and start disregarding the points that may actually be valid (just weakly argued or framed in some disgusting silliness). I probably should have paid more attention to his talk of information being power (or directly translating into power) similarly to wealth.
The description of the organization of technological process at McDonald's scattered throughout the book was amusing (but I am a sucker for this kind of stuff -- be it Wal-Mart, slaughter house or international drug trafficking: "the secret life of the machines" for the grownups).
- "The Culture of Surveillance: Discipline and Social Control in the United States" William G. Staples
- watch out, Bill, they are after you!
- "The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of
Consciousness" Antonio R. Damasio
- "Limits to Capital" David Harvey
- "Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory" Ernest Mandel
- "Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom" Doug Henwood
- "Limits to Capital" David Harvey
- quotes
- "Industrialism and the American Worker, 1865-1920" Melvyn Dubofsky
- "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea : Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 " Marcus Rediker
-
- "The Fountainhead" Ayn Rand
-
- "Utopistics, or Historical choices of the twenty-first century" Immanuel Wallerstein
-
It's a short (<100 pages) book by a declining champion of Marxist
sociology and the father of world-systems theory.
Wallerstein argues that people's ability to influence and change the existing social structures is limited by these structures' resistance to change. He claims that Capitalism has become a worldwide system, therefore the attempts to change the structures in one country (for example in Russia or China) are doomed. If such a change is to take place then the state has to counteract the capitalist world-system by effectively taking itself out of the system.
W. further argues that people's ability to influence the historical outcomes increases at the point of bifurcation when the social structure is weakened and the system undergoes transformation. He also says that the outcome of such transformation is uncertain exactly because small groups and even individuals can influence it.
W. claims that the world is now approaching a bifurcation point. To back it up he cites everything that is bad in the world today from people's dislike of cops to my yesterday's indigestion. He calls them antisystemic movements that undermine current state's legitimacy.
In the end he tries to picture what a more rational world-order can be and how the powers that be would resist its installment. He calls on all the good people to do something to hasten the arrival of the said order whatever it may be. This part sounds like the promise of G*d's kingdom and the judgment day.
Overall the book is fill-in-your-own-examples as the author thinks that he is so right that his claims do not need backing up or even illustration. So the book is just a list of assertions which are at times argumentative, at times interesting or amusing (like the claim that the labor's bargaining power increases after the workers were proletarianized for about 30-50 years; thus the world's labor will eventually strengthen and the capitalists are screwed) at times weird.
Read at your own risk
- "Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism" Benedict Anderson
- "Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power" Anatol Lieven
- (a few years later) tombstone my foot, the fight goes on,
the history is not over yet.
quote - "Answer to Job" C.G. Jung
- Herr Jung starts off with really interesting critique of the
Bible's book of Job. CG claims that the book of Job
is an account of man's moral victory over powerful but
amoral deity. It then follows by the idea that Christ
- God's son, has been sent to earth as an atonement for *God's*
wrong inflicted upon man (in Job and elsewhere) not for man's sins.
Then CG's training of psychotherapist takes over and pages after
pages of babbling about subconsciuosness, unconsciuonsness and
other ephemeral stuff are thrown at the reader. He finally
shoots himself in the foot by claiming that collective
subconsciousness is real.
- quote
- quote
- "The Moon and Sixpence" W. Somerset Maugham
-
quote
- "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" Thomas S. Kuhn
- In one book the author manages to first coin the term scientific
paradigm and then strip it of any meaning whatsoever. Paradigm shift?
- "Heart of Darkness", "The Secret Sharer" Joseph Conrad
-
Joe inspires respect for his command of English since it was his
third language to which he was not exposed until his twenties. "Heart of
Darkness" owes its authenticity to the author's personal experiences
during his journey up the Congo river. The prose is of good quality
raising at times to the stark pathos of white verse (see quote). Yet one
has to tear through the silly melodramatic baroque of
late 19th century romanticism. Eventually one comes to realize that
the main focus of the novel is not the collision of the primitive
tribes of Africa and the French predatory capitalism - the description
eventually moves to the background; not the ideas and deeds of weird
and fascinating Kurtz (his inland ivory trading station is the
destination of the narrator's trip) - his ideas were never described
and I refuse to interpret the scarce symbolist allusions that the
author provided; but the narrator's own inner world and musings of the
utmost introvert, which, frankly, were not as interesting as what was
going on around him. The guy deserves credit for his will and presence
of mind to get the steamboat to the destination, yet he despises his
fellow travelers, does not grant humanity to the natives, hates Paris
and the trading company and otherwise suffers beautifully of the
self-inflicted internal horrors.
The most sympathetic creatures in the novel are the savages.
quote
- "Being Present: Growing up in Hitler's Germany" Willy Schumann
- Herr Schumann describes his child/youthhood from the camps of
Hitler Jugend to Panzergrenadierdivision, regiment
76. His apologetic tone and constant referrals to the efficiency of
Nazi propaganda (as a half-hearted attempt to shift the blame from
himself? relax, brother: the war is over) instead of providing
detailed witness' accounts of the events annoys. His drive to get high
education in starving post-war Germany inspires. His ending up as a
professor of German literature in an American university is somewhat
lame: Yeah it probably would not be hard for a dolphin to become a
professor of swimming among humans.
- "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" Paul Kennedy
- "Metamorphosis and Other Stories" Franz Kafka
- "Western Civilization: Paleolictic Man to the Emergence of European Powers" W. Langer et al.
- "Metamorphosis and Other Stories" Franz Kafka
- The book is about, like, history and stuff. My reading was
somewhat protracted: the punic wars had to be suspended due to a paper
publication deadline and I had a bad case of the flu during the 30
years war.
- "The Mismeasure of Man" Stephen Jay Gould
-
Gould is cool. The book reads easily and the trip the the zoo of
"scientific" racism is really amusing. Yet the author dwells too much on
the reasons behind blunders of his exhibits. OK, we got it, they they
were a priory racists. Further analysis resembles digging into a pile of
crap trying to analyze why it stinks. Parts of the epilogue where the
author expresses his own views are quite interesting. His conjecture of
a (theoretical) possibility of survival of two different sentient
species till modern times is mind boggling: the moral choices the
humankind would have had to face if we co-existed with species of
inferior intelligence like Australopithecus. Finishing the book
with a quote from the bible is silly.
- "The Dead" James Joyce
- This is my first and last book by Mr. Joyce. If an author can waste a
whole book (short I must admit) for no particular reason, describing plain
people living uneventful lives, dealing with petty problems; chances are
he is going to do that again in his (better?) books. Come on people
there is so much to write about: people die believing they will live
forever, empires topple, nations are slaughtered
bringing their lives on the altar of the cruel and impotent
gods long dead, scientists develop better and efficient ways
of self-destruction. Why ain't I a writer? errr, maybe because
I do Computer Science and it's time to stop goofing off and get some
work done.
- "One Hundred Years of Solitude" Gabriel Garcia Marquez
-
"Foucault's Pendulum" Umberto Eco
-
The guy was bashed and eulogized on the Net ad nauseum. He sure knows
a lot of cool stuff. But the book looks like a huge junkyard where no
attempt to put things to order has ever been made. Appreciation is up
to the reader. Ghm ... As always.
The picture conveys the feeling I got from the book. The picture was taken by Sean Noonan somewhere in Germany 1994
quoteA thought after a few years reflection: "Die, postmodernists, die!!"
- "The Great Depression" Robert S. McElvaine
- quote
- "Animal Farm" George Orwell
- Hi, George. Welcome to oblivion. You are no good writer and your vitriolic
and bitter political satire becomes just a hysterical fit in the absence of the
target - Communism. Rest in peace, comrade.
quote - "The Excession" Iain Banks
- I'll have to downgrade
my general evaluation of Mr. Banks with this book. He is imaginative
and original but the main plotline is really weak - a girl\ that cannot
come to terms with reality and shuts down inside herself nurturing her
own misery for 40 years and a giant sentient spaceship catering to her
whims. C'mon, both of you, get off the cross, get a life quick, quick!
- "The Bridge" Iain Banks
- Banks is definitely a good writer. I found quite appealing the
idea of a conscience floating
between different realities where the "real" world is maybe far less
interesting or exciting than the others. Gee ...
meta-escapist fiction for eggheads :-) There was a trace of disappointment
in the end though: yeah, nice book but what's the point.
Does every good book have to have a message? Does our life have a meaning? Oops... Ghm... Time to go home.
On the second thought - writing about yourself, aren't we, Mr. Banks? You just made yourself a construction(?) engineer who is getting piles of money and does not care much for it, who is getting old, and the only person that matters does something else in life, and who bears rich, fascinating, and twisted worlds inside. Aren't we convincing when we write about ourselves?
quote - "Ender's Game" Orson Scott Card
- I think it is a well written piece of Sci-Fi I would classify as
"realistic". The author's full attention is drawn to describing a (not
very breath taking and somewhat obsolete) world. And he is doing a
good '60-ies job at it. But putting him as one of the best Sci-Fi
writers is an overstatement.
- "Introduction to Sociology" Beth B. Hess et al.
-
- "Millroy the Magician" Paul Theroux
- Dropped about 3/4 through. No great punchline could justify so much dreck.
The book was recommended by someone on the Net. The major character,
for the absence of anything better to do in his life, concentrates on his
eating habits and improving those of the mankind as a way of saving the world
and living forever; recruits children to the process of propagating
his teachings.
If the author was serious about the way of Purging Mankind of Evil his major character professes, I wonder how the author learned to write and remained arrested in his otherwise development at the age of about 10. If he was not serious, he has a really odd sense of humor. Am I missing something here?
- "Changeling" Roger Zelazny
- *Burp*, s-s-seventees
- "Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" Richard Bach
- - Hey, Beavis, ghe, ghe ... Check this out: this Bach-dude wrote
a book for the spiritual seekers...
- It's good that he was busy flying airplanes and stuff, so the book is, like, short and the spirit is easy to find. - "Dune" Frank Herbert
- ok. Moderately imaginative. The
author at least should be credited for deviating from whiny western
tradition and introducing a passable level of brutality in his book.
Contains a lot of paraphernalia that makes startrek fans pee their
pants. Yet the author's cursory acquaintance with physics and history
impairs the book greatly. And the major bad guy HAD to have a Russian
name :-(
quote - "A Time To Love and a Time To Die" Erich Maria Remarque
- Just rereadin'. Erich is cool and TTLTTD is one of his best. Too
bad he is fading and and disappearing with time.
quote - "Shaper/Mechanist" Bruce Sterling
- The authority on this subject claims that the guy is cool. It was
really hard for me to tear through cultural differences and language
barrier.
quote - "The Blade Runner or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Phillip K. Dick
- He is alright, but obsolete.
Okay, more credit Phil's way after a few years deliberation. The Blade runner is one of the first 60-ies dystopias. It even got Harvey's attention. On the other hand, Harvey should know better than analyze trashy sci-fi, even a novel and influental piece.
quote - "The Hitckhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Douglas Adams
- English humor at its best. The sacred grim faced temple of Sci-Fi was
desecrated though.
- "Catch 22" Joseph Heller
- was really weird for me when I read it. I trust people who say he is
great.
- "The Fire from Within" Carlos Castaneda
- I think the guy is nice. I am sure he is primitive to the
connoisseurs and I believe he gets boring after the first book. But I
am glad I've sampled him.
quote - "Trotsky"
- Nice to read and find the inconsistencies with The Official
Version of History sanctioned by Communist Party and ingrained in my
head. The authors though were just doing a promotion of their idol
rather than serious historic study, deliberately withholding or
sweeping under the rug the events that cast a shade on comrade
Trotsky.
- "The Russia" Marquis de Custine
- One has to really hate Russia to hoot and holler together with the
marquis. Maybe the book is ok as an account of a (really loopy) visitor
of Russia, The guy is educated, but narrow minded to the utmost
extent. This is coupled with his melodramatic personality. The guy
whines for about a page when he has to part with his steamboat fellow
travelers and has an orgasm at the sight of Nicholas I. Dropped the
book somewhere at the beginning.
- "The History of Russia" Nicholas Riasanovsky
- was really nice to read. The author likes the subject and tries to
stay impartial, sometimes even for the sake of sticking to the middle
and not taking sides. The COMMIES were BAD! The book is dated though:
some of the most scandalous facts surfaced during Perestroika, way
after the book was published and changed the picture dramatically.
The guy still remains a "bloody foreigner" unable to feel the agony
of history being made. The idea that the West knows better had
validity only during the time of complete information blackout
within the country by commies, but then again the only source
of info for the outside became the same commies.
quote - "The Lord of the Flies" William Golding
- I can't say much about the quality of the text. The didactic aspect
is dumb: the idea that children are inherently evil and "corrected"
by civilization is just plain wrong. Don't think the novel is well
structured either.
- "At the Mountains of Madness" H.P.Lovecraft
- Maybe the guy was alright as a precursor of the fantasy genre. But most
of his ideas per se, at least in this book, are mediocre. I liked
Shoggoths and the abandoned city thing though. His way of expressing
The Inexpressible Horror did not move me and I would attribute
it to the deficiency in his writing style. The characters are
terrified at rather mundane things and go completely untouched by some
things that could be scary.
quote - "The Lord of the Rings" J.R.R.Tolkien
- Tolkien R()()LZ :-). I originally read it in Russian. The book loses
alot in the translation.
quote