the reading room

So I happen to love stop-motion videos, so I figured I’d...

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:14:41 -0400

So I happen to love stop-motion videos, so I figured I’d lighten things up and post a fun little diddy featuring, you’ll never guess, books. I think it may be a band’s music video? I’m not sure, but the visuals are cool.

Books v. Movies

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:11:53 -0400

Books v. Movies:

“That’s because readers of a novel have already made their own perfect movie version. They have visualized it, fleshed out the locations and set the pace as they either zipped through the book or scrupulously savored every word. Often they have even cast it. In the late 1930s, by the thousands, readers of Gone With the Wind demanded that Southern rogue Rhett Butler be played by that damn yankee Clark Gable. Readers are a very possessive bunch. So in taking a novel from page to screen, movie adapters must tread carefully, like a new visitor at Lourdes.”

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro This futuristic tale of these...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:36:55 -0500

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This futuristic tale of these “special children” raised separately from the world, who seem to serve some function to society, touches upon issues of cloning, genetic modification and the morals that guide this culture. But I think the author explains it best when he said,

“There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter?”

Check it out on Amazon.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac Not only a great reflection of its...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:53:00 -0500

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Not only a great reflection of its time, On the Road is an amazingly written novel for its expressiveness and imagery. It’s a beautiful display of writing and one of the best novels of modern times. Yes, I guess you could say I’m a fan, but how could you not? On the Road is a partly fictionalized autobiography “cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture.” So I’ll just excerpt one of my favorite passages in the book:

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that’s why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.

Check it out on Amazon.

Netflix for Books Riding on the coattails of online movie rental...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:44:00 -0500

Netflix for Books

Riding on the coattails of online movie rental companies’ success, like Netflix, more and more online book rental companies keep cashing in. Currently, the top two companies in the running for stealing the title of Netflix of books are BookSwim and Booksfree.

BookSwim vs. Booksfree

BookSwim:

larger literature section
search within a category
specialty in renting textbooks
3 books for $19.98
11 books for $39.94

Booksfree:

smaller selection of books in literature
large selection of mass-produced popular books
specialty in audiobooks
2 books for $9.99
15 books for $47.99
1 Audiobook for $22.49
6 Audiobooks for $62.49

Dystopian Must-Reads

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:21:11 -0500

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger First...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:53:44 -0500

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

First I’d like to say, if you saw the movie you need to read the book. The movie was a horrible reflection on the novel, but given this book’s interesting and complex timeline, it would be a hard film to make.

A review by Publishers Weekly:

This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with “Chrono Displacement” disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she’d known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare’s childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare’s points of view, and so does the narration. Reed ably expresses the longing of the one always left behind, the frustrations of their unusual lifestyle, and above all, her overriding love for Henry. Likewise, Burns evokes the fear of a man who never knows where or when he’ll turn up, and his gratitude at having Clare, whose love is his anchor. The expressive, evocative performances of both actors convey the protagonists’ intense relationship, their personal quirks and their reminiscences, making this a fascinating audio.

Check it out on Amazon.

The Giver by Lois Lowry One of the smartest and most...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:02:00 -0500

The Giver by Lois Lowry

One of the smartest and most thought-provoking books I was ever assigned to read in elementary school, its message translates well to both a 4th grader and an adult. It’s not often you find a writer who can reach such a wide age-range. Written for children, I enjoy reading it now just as much as I did then. Here’s a little review on Amazon:

In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community’s Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy. With echoes of Brave New World, in this 1994Newbery Medal winner, Lowry examines the idea that people might freely choose to give up their humanity in order to create a more stable society. Gradually Jonas learns just how costly this ordered and pain-free society can be, and boldly decides he cannot pay the price.

Check it out on Amazon.

Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:53:00 -0500

Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions by Christian Lander

Stuff White People Like is a successful New York Times bestseller based on Lander’s blog by the same title, Stuff White People Like, that drips with satirical and comic reflection on, well, all things white. Joining the ranks of the masses of popular blogs turned hardcover in the post-millennia, here is a list of the top 20 in Stuff White People Like.

Coffee
Religions their parents don’t belong to
Film Festivals
Assists
Farmer’s Markets
Organic Food
Diversity
Barack Obama
Making you feel bad about not going outside
Wes Anderson Movies
Asian Girls
Non-Profit Organizations
Tea
Having Black Friends
Yoga
Gifted Children
Hating their Parents
Awareness
Traveling
Being an expert on Your culture

A light read; a good gift; an even better conversation topic. If you don’t read the book, at least check out the blog.

Check it out on Amazon.

Anonyponymous: The Forgotten People Behind Everyday Words by...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:36:14 -0500

Anonyponymous: The Forgotten People Behind Everyday Words by John Marciano

“An encyclopedia of linguistic biographies: the witty, illustrated stories of the Earl of Sandwich, Charles Boycott, and other historical figures better known as words than people.

Eponymous, adj. Giving one’s name to a person, place, or thing.

Anonymous, adj. Anonymous.

Anonyponymous, adj. Anonymous and eponymous.

The Earl of Sandwich, fond of salted beef and paired slices of toast, found a novel way to eat them all together. Etienne de Silhouette, a former French finance minister, was so notoriously cheap that his name became a byword for chintzy practices—such as substituting a darkened outline for a proper painted portrait. Both bequeathed their names to the language, but neither man is remembered.In this clever and funny book, John Bemelmans Marciano illuminates the lives of these anonyponymous persons. A kind of encyclopedia of linguistic biographies, the book is arranged alphabetically, giving the stories of everyone from Abu “algorithm” Al-Khwarizmi to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Along with them you’ll find the likes of Harry Shrapnel, Joseph-Ignace Guillotine, and many other people whose vernacular legacies have long outlived their memory.Accented by amusing line portraits and short etymological essays on subjects like “superhero eponyms,” Anonyponymous is both a compendium of trivia and a window into the fascinating world of etymology. Carefully curated and unfailingly witty, this book is both a fantastic gift for language lovers and a true pleasure to read.”

Check it out on Amazon.

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:17:00 -0500

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

-Mark Twain