November 27, 2005
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
If you have read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and don't know how the sequel can compare, I am here to tell you that it is wonderful. I rarely get involved in a book enough to read it in one day; however, I read this one (almost 400 pages) in one day. The book tells the story of four teenage girls and the pair of pants they share. May sound a little cheezy I know, but I like it. Additionally, the narrator of the story consistantly changes and keeps your attention. I know this won't be inticing to many of you, but it is kind of like a soap opera. There may be one story line you are all about, and you keep watching to get more on that, but along the way you get hooked on the whole damn thing. For those of you who read one of these (or maybe others too), there is a quiz you can take to see which character from the story you would be. The quiz is called Who's your Sister Soulmate. Unfortunately, they don't make it easy to blog, but I'm aligned with Bridget. Which means that I am going to probably need medication in the future and that I have a grandma in Alabama. Read more about all THREE books at Sisterhood Central. Maybe this could be a good gift for someone's niece or maybe you should just start the series yourself. Chip, you love a good series and you said you were like a romantic teenager in your preferences.
Posted by jocelyn at 12:19 PM | TrackBack
July 16, 2005
"Here, There, and Everywhere" by Chris Roberson
Roxanne Bonaventure learns on her prom night (with multiple pretty in pink references) that the bracelet given to her by a mysterious old woman will actually let her travel in space, time, and into alternate realities.
She spends the rest of her life trying to discover the nature of human society, searching for other time travellers, and catching Beatles reunions and alternate universe Orson Welles' movies.
The book seems to be made up of several different short stories that tell some of the adventures Roxanne has as she gets older. It dealves a little bit into the psychology of someone who is unique in the world and not tied to one time or place.
It's a fun book if you are a time travel junkie like me. There are lots of references to other types of time travel (H.G. Wells, future "time patrol" type beings, mysterious doors buried under the earth) and to pop culture (john hughes, batgirl, doctor who). If you don't like science fiction, you should probably look elsewhere.
Posted by chip at 10:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 13, 2005
Everything Bad Is Good For You
Link to the Amazon
Link to Author's Blog
Y'all probably know the gist of this book by now. There has been debate on some websites and reviews all around the place.
Johnson basically posits that we as a culture are smarter due to the increased quality and complexity of popular media.
I don't have my copy here so I am going from memory here:
Video games do far more than the traditional belief of an increase in hand/eye coordination. Games such as Myst and even Grand Theft Auto teach us to explore their worlds, to complete much more complex tasks than older games such as Pitfall or Pac-Man.
Television is more complicated now. The multi-threaded plots and complex social networks in a show like 24 or the Sopranos (he never mentions the Wire, oddly) are supposdly "better for us" than Starsky and Hutch or Laverne and Shirley.
The Internet obviously has changed things. This is the area I actually agreed with him the most. The blogs, LiveJournals, discussion boards, etc. are making people write again. The internet is actually a pretty social place. Is it better for a teenage girl to come home and watch a soap opera or better for her to craft her online soap opera for her friends to read.
I'm not completely sold on the ideas in this book but my pop culture infused brain wants to believe them. I think there are more factors than a complicated Keifer Sutheland plot and Tetris to our culture's higher IQ. But, I do believe the arguments against critics who are claiming that our media is only geared towards the lowest common denominator.
That's all for now.
Posted by chip at 08:03 PM | TrackBack
March 18, 2005
Things Fall Apart
I finally got around to reading this book, after hearing it referenced with reverence repeatedly a decade ago by comp lit and English professors and students. I highly recommend it.
It's the story of a "primitive" African tribe, and towards the end of the book, how it is affected by white Christian missionaries who move in. The writing style is a nice simple journalistic Hemingwayesque style, crisp and clear and straightforward. Quiet but powerful. The insight into how the tribe manages itself, while sometimes cruel (discarding all twins in the forest), sometimes beautiful and heroic, is quite interesting and moving.
I found the ending particularly interesting, because it tells of how a white colonialist plans to write a story of his experiences, titled "The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger." This pov falls at the end of one of the first works to convey the voice of the "wild primitives." Bravo. I'll read this again.
Posted by courtney at 02:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 21, 2005
"Tithe : A Modern Faerie Tale" by Holly Black
I grabbed this book off the shelf at work as I was leaving on Friday because I'm all about the young adult urban fantasy novel. Kaye (16 years old, blonde, half-asian, high school dropout) is the daughter of Ellen (singer in a rock band) and some random guy from a new wave band who she has never met. When Ellen has a problem with her boyfriend, they return to Kaye's childhood home where she is reacquainted with her "imaginary friends" from her childhood. As fate would have it in all these books, Kaye turns out to be magic herself and gets wrapped up in a plot between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faerie.
If you like this kind of thing, it's pretty good. Another review I read compared it to the Weetzie Bat books and it is a comparison that I can see. If you are a teen and feel disconnected from your world, you are pretty much hoping that something like this is going to happen. Maybe without so much of the killing.
Holly Black (who keeps a livejournal, actually) throws in enough pop geek culture references to keep me happy (Kaye wears a G-Force shirt at one point, for instance). There is a sequel coming out later this year so I will have to get our library to order it.
Posted by chip at 05:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 18, 2005
America the Book
I thought this book was quite amusing. I loved how it was a fake textbook right down to the lines for the names in the front.
Apparently, not everyone thought Jon Stewart was so funny. Read the CNN article about its banning here.
Thanks big sis for the heads up.
Posted by jocelyn at 03:24 AM | TrackBack
January 03, 2005
"Shadow Puppets" by Orson Scott Card
I'm getting a little burned out on the Orson Scott Card. This is good since I have finished all of the published Ender books. A new one comes out in March.
This book is hardly science fiction. I guess the term these days is speculative fiction. Basically, the gist of this book is that the graduates from Battle School are all in important military tactical positions after the battle with the Buggers. China has taken over India and all of the Asian countries and it is up to our kids to help defeat China.
Blah blah blah.
Posted by chip at 09:20 PM | TrackBack
January 02, 2005
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
I know everyone read Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots & Leaves in 2004 and I finally finished reading the book that I started in June this past week. I had dusted off Strunk and White's The Elements of Style in preparation for writing my third book (I always like to be sure I'm NOT *as* rusty when I start a book) and that inspired me to read something a little more current. Ah, yes. What better than Eats, Shoots & Leaves to get me in gear?
Well, if I could've stopped editing her book for mistakes that I found (and wondering how many of them were US vs. UK usage issues), I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it more. What did I find online today (and not even looking for it, truly--it was just a link in a friend's blog)?
Richard Jenkyns' wonderful article on The Mother Tongue. In it, he refers to Louis Menand's New Yorker review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
He began by observing that Truss's first punctuation mistake comes in her dedication and found many more errors and inconsistencies, as well as poor argument.
That's my kind of guy!
Anyway, fun book, if not 100% accurate for my needs. Do the punctuation game on the author's book site for fun. And leave it at that.
Posted by bonnie at 02:21 AM | TrackBack
January 01, 2005
What? No Wheat?
This is a lighthearted book about Celiac Disease, wheat allergies, and gluten sensitivities of all kind. Having recently begun a gluten-free diet, I am reading quite a few books on the subject. Most of them are so overloaded with medical studies, overly-specific testimonials, and complicated recipes that they have intimidated me, starting out.
If you or someone you know suffers from a wheat allergy, I suggest that you start with What? No Wheat? by LynnRae Ries and then move on to the "big boy" books on the subject in order to become an expert on this health issue.
Posted by bonnie at 09:34 PM | TrackBack
December 29, 2004
"Shadow of the Hegemon" by Orson Scott Card
I realize it is odd to review the 6th book in a series because at that point, you are either going to read it or you are not. But, I am going to use this blog to keep track of everything that I read for a while so I will be a completest. Sam and I just discovered last night that OSC is writing an 8th book in the series and so we may be reading these forever.
I'll give you a brief summary of our story so far. In Haiku. Spoilers sort of follow.
Ender's Game Ender is way smart. He is just a little kid. Saves the human race.Speaker for the Dead
Skip 3000 years.
Ender has aged a little.
Relativity.Alien piggies.
Why did they kill a human?
What's the deal with trees?
Ya know, I am already bored with this. Maybe a limerick?
Xenocide There once was a disease called descolada That was no normal bug, but was smarta On the way is a fleet Let's hope Jane can't be beat -- OK. I got nothing for a fifth line.
So, yeah. "SotH" is a sequel to "Ender's Game" about Bean and Petra and Ender's brother Peter. That's all you need to know.
Posted by chip at 08:13 AM | TrackBack
December 27, 2004
"The House in Good Taste"
Amazon: "The House in Good Taste" (1914/2004)
Originally published in 1914 and reprinted this year, Elsie de Wolfe's The House in Good Taste offers an interesting window into the history of interior design. De Wolfe is often credited as the "first professional interior designer" in America, and this book is actually based on a series of articles that she published in magazines and newspapers. Her ideas about design were completely at odds with the Victorian styles that were popular in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Since then, however, her influence can be seen in much of the design of the last century.
I think what I love most about the book is that many of the design ideas that are popular again are advocated nearly 100 years ago by de Wolfe. In the last few years, white-painted trim around windows, doors, etc. is popular again, an idea that can be traced to de Wolfe. The large picture or mirror hung above the fireplace? Classic de Wolfe. Those little indoor fountains that everybody was buying two years ago? De Wolfe thought we all needed them. I even think the overarching ethos of shows like Trading Spaces can be linked to de Wolfe. Early in the book she writes, "A person's environment will speak for their life, whether they like it or not," which I think summarizes pretty well why shows like Trading Spaces exist in the first place. There are increasing demands (especially in the media) that American homes get rid of their clutter, get organized, and get stylish. (Think about the emergence of the "home improvement stores" like Home Depot & Lowe's, plus the interior design stores like Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel. They are pretty much inventions of the past two decades, and I don't think they'd be such massive corporations if this persuasion process wasn't about style wasn't so effective). I also think that if you take the rooms of Trading Spaces as a whole (well, maybe not Hildi's so much, but that woman's just crazy), they are pretty close de Wolfe's three basic design ideas: "When I am asked to decorate a new house, my first thought is suitability. My next thought is proportion. Always I keep in mind the importance of simplicity."
It's a fairly fast read (just 201 pages), and I enjoyed it, although the latter chapters perhaps get into slightly obscure topics (indoor trellises of vines? Yikes.). De Wolfe is mostly clearly writing for an upper class audience, but at least seems aware that not everybody has a giant house (she even includes a chapter on decorating apartments). Admittedly, it's an odd little piece of non-fiction, but I could see myself re-visiting every once and a while as I re-decorate.