6 posts tagged “book”

I want to go there.

Mar 19, 2009
3 comments

Can I list this as a read book this year after I've read it for the 12th time? [Via Whatever this site is]

1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow by Agatha Christie

The Hollow (Hercule Poirot)

Agatha Christie

I am really not one for mysteries, but I'm absolutely hung up on these early 20th century books. Her writing is the model for the evolution of mysteries from the Sherlock Holmes logical deduction to the psychological deduction, both of which Agatha Christie dabbled in (Hercule Poirot for the former, Miss Marple for the latter). She often pokes fun at herself whenever the characters mention murder mystery novels and she's even had a mystery novelist as a principle suspect. Nevertheless, I was a bit unimpressed with this book since she applied a psychological mystery paired with the logical deductionist. It felt very ill suited, but it was an entertaining read while I was a little incapcitated yesterday.

At the top of my queue, a book I've been meaning to read for a very long time:

Walden

Henry, David Thoreau

Books

Jul 10, 2008
Post a comment

1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

16. King Arthur

17. The War of Art

18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X

19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames

20. Five Little Pigs

21. Boudica by Vanessa Collingridge

Boudica: The Life and Legends of Britain's Warrior Queen

Vanessa Collingridge

On the heels of reading the well researched King Arthur, I decided to snatch this book out of M's stack and give it a read. It was a disappointment, to say the least. There is such scant information on Boudica herself that it barely fills fifty pages, let along 280. While from a journalistic approach, the book depends less on research and more on interview, opinion, and feminist slant. While I don't mind the feminist slant, really, it just started to take away from the main topic of the book. Feminine repression is historical fact. Actually, the last seventy or so pages go on to represent every reincarnation of Boudica as a tool for reinforcing feminine suppression and little on the character herself, while the first 150 pages spent on describing the life and times of Britain during Roman rule and how strong female characters are repressed and despised in Roman society. History is what it is, and we can't really change how we've done, but I just felt that it was less of a historical accounting of the character and a bit misleading on the whole.

22. The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler

The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition

Christopher Vogler

I think I picked this book up a few years ago when I started to read quite a bit of Campbell's mythological work as well as tinkering around with my own writing. Unfortunately, this book hardly meets any sort of ambitious level. Rather, is copies Campbell's ideas and cookie cutter fits them into the Hollywood version of storymaking. While I agree with a lot of Campbell's tenets, there are a LOT of ways to tell a good story that do not follow an exact method. While it was a good read to think about characters and ideas, it tends to force you to think that there's only one way to write a movie.

23. A Cat Among Pigeons by Agatha Christie

Cat Among the Pigeons: A Hercule Poirot Mystery

Agatha Christie

Another fun, quick read. The one thing I enjoy about Agatha Christie's writing is how she describes characters. How vivid is the idea of a large proud woman walking down the street alluded to a great tall ship under full sail? The mystery itself drives you purposefully in one direction (red herring) until the end.

Books

Feb 25, 2008
1 comment

1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

John Steinbeck

This is actually an unfinished book by John Steinbeck. Being enamored of Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory as a child, he had a huge desire to rewrite the tale into modern English, resolving discrepancies between with other works (or filling in the blanks of story). Instead, he got seriously bogged down in the concept of the work when I think her personally hit his stride. The first few chapters are very much a rewrite, but when he get to the second to the last chapter (regarding Gawain, Gaheris and Marhalt, and especially the last chapter on Lancelot, the story takes on its own life as he becomes comfortable not only with the material but with his own telling of it. It's unfortunate that he stopped working on it and died before returning to its completion. I thought it could have been a great piece of work. At the end there is an Appendix of his correspondence between his editor, his researcher and himself that is very illuminating with regard to what he did to research the topic. Rather than writing from Malory's work, he met with professors, visited locations (Sir Malory's birthplace for instance) and read the original text of other authors. It's worth a read if you like revisiting the tale. Just don't expect to get to the end. If anything, I think you should at least read the Appendix. I think I'll be reading more of his work soon.

Books

Jan 5, 2008
4 comments

I told vicious pretty I'd keep my own list of books read this year updated and put up a short review. I forgot I had already read a book for the beginning of the year.

1.

Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations

John Lawrence Reynolds

I picked this book up on a whim. It's got some interesting information in regards to secret societies and in particular, the mindset of culture surrounding secret societies and their impact. Probably the most interesting tidbit was the Skull & Bones society at Yale and the tie in between Preston Bush (grandpa Bush) and the Nazi party. It also discusses conspiracy theories driven overboard and about how secret drive both intrigue and persecution (Christianity was considered a secretive religion to the Romans...). A fast read, but not a great read.

Vox Hunt: Latest Read

Feb 25, 2007
Post a comment

Book: Show us the latest book you bought, borrowed or received.

1776

David McCullough

I want to go there.

Books

Books

Books

Books

Vox Hunt: Latest Read

About Me

Tags