17 posts tagged “books”
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 by John Berendt
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 by Steven Pressfield
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegas
I normally don't list technical books under 'books read', since I rarely read them from cover to cover, but this was simple, straight forward and probably the first in a long time I've read from cover to cover.
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris
In short, a witty, clever little collection of essays about his family and life. Just as funny as his previous work and good for a few laughs, I think.
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 by Steven Pressfield
1. The title, though catchy, is annoying. Try asking for this book in the bookstore. "The War of Art, please." "The Art of War?" "No, The War of Art."
2. It's pretty motivational to read, except that he takes a swan dive into theology and philosophy. I don't normally mind it, but he really starts to wander all over the place, bringing art and craftwork into divine inspiration (which in a sense I can agree with, but you don't need to spend 20 pages on it... give it a rest).
3. Steven Pressfield is hit or miss kind of writer. I really liked Gates of Fire, but I didn't care much for Virtues of War or Tides of War.
I'd recommend this book if you need a real sharp kick in the pants to motivate yourself to pursue your creative dreams. Just stop reading when you get to Part III.
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 by Norma Lorre Goodrich
-Arthur owned no land; he married Guinvere, a Queen and vast landowner in her own right.
-Lancelot was equal in stature to Arthur as a King himself, of the Scots.
-The Round Table was a place of worship for the early Celtic Christian church before Roman Catholicism.
-Arthur was a brilliant tactician, both on land and a sea.
-Guinevere was long dead when Arthur left to fight on the continent and he fought two battles against Mordred on his return.
-The Round Table Fellowship was Arthur's personal bodyguard and would have preceded him in death (thus, Lancelot and Gawain perish in the first battle).
-Arthur's kingdom was central England, on the edge of Scotland, not in Southern England.
There's a lot to this book. Unfortunately, it's not in novel form. Yet it does not read like a textbook. Rather, I feel it reads like a guidebook. And I do feel that the author a few times contradicts herself, first placing the Grail Castle on land, then placing it on Avalon. Upon rereading those passages, I think it's a very poor job of editing because at points I feel she's just writing reference notes down rather than piecing things together.
If you like the mythos of Arthur, I think you'll like this book. I think a lot of ideas here were used in the movie of King Arthur, but it was done terribly (as a movie and as a re-treatment of the characters).
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 by Christopher Hitchens
I think I need a break from reading all this lit. Time for some trash- I mean "beach reading".
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 by Voltaire
An intensely critical and humorous piece of work and in light of the events around Voltaire's life at the time of writing, a pretty brutal recanting of the religious theory that 'all is best that is'.
I find Albom's work a bit on the Lifetime Original movie flavor of work, though having read it just after Mother's Day really let it's point hit home to me: tell your mother you love her and don't let the last things you've said to her be in anger or a lie (or both in this case). A bit syrupy at times, but I find the style refreshing, especially when I'm looking for an easy read.
I don't have much to update with the rest of my life this month, but here's another book update. I've got to get caught up on blogging again.
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 by Tracy Chevalier
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 by Will Durant
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 by James Joyce
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Quote: "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."
It's not quite damned if you do, damned if you don't (to which, most people just do). Rather it's, not matter what choice you make nullifies the clause itself. If you're crazy, you have to tell someone you're crazy, but if you tell them you're crazy, then it automatically assumes you're sane enough to make a reasonable decision (and therefore, not crazy).
The book itself tends to weave itself together entertainingly, but there's no sort of time continuum. I often felt things happened either out of order, or the writer was winding time forward or back based on the chapter he wrote. The ending was just... uninspired. I suppose it was 'third choice' syndrome, when faced with 2 untenable choices, a third one is made up. An escape clause, so to speak. It was disappointing.
6. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie
Again this is a story where facts and pieces are put together like a jigsaw puzzle (except, like most mystery stories, you don't get all the facts at once... they draw out in long chapters). Worth a read if you like old mysteries, and it has a bit of a different ending than the usual 'point to the murderer in the room'.
