Posts Tagged ‘Books’
This is version two of the blog, which currently contains 136 published posts. To some extent, this blog represents the creative excesses of a design enthusiast who is somewhere in the process of applying to grad school, working at a law firm and resides in the Financial District of New York City.
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As always, I’m not able to discuss my internship. Surprisingly, the place I’m at now has even stricter rules about this sort of thing than the law firm I was working at before. Go figure. But it’s good, the work is good, the people are good. And we’ll leave it at that.
Instead, I’ll talk about Los Angeles in general. The weather is so perfect it almost makes me wish I’d chosen another law school. Almost. Also, I had a celebrity sighting the first weekend I was here — it was Paul Dano at Katsuya in Studio City. It was actually Harry and his friend who recognized him; I had no clue but whatever. Oh, and I live a street away from a Jamba Juice, which is one of my favorite things. Yay.
Mostly, I’ve been reading a lot now that all law school stuff is completely done. I first read some fluffy stuff such as Mini-Shopaholic and some mysteries, but now that my brain feels rested again I’m reading Robert Graves’ I, Claudius, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and I’m almost done with The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I was recommended Thirteenth by a roommate of mine four years ago and haven’t had a chance to get to it until now. So far I like it a lot. It’s definitely a book for book lovers.
Oh, one of the head honchos in my office mentioned to everyone that he really excited to go see Neil Gaiman talk — the co-author of Good Omens, which is in my top 5 of books and is the book I recommend to people the most — and I really wanted to commiserate with him about how awesome the book is since it’s not often I find people who have read it, but couldn’t without sounding like a total suck-up to everyone else. That crushed my spirit a little.
Still, all in all, things are good. The biggest gripe I have about my life here thus far is that I don’t have internet at my place since it’s still getting fixed and it sucks and is making my life difficult.
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So, in their latest advertising for the new version of the nook, Barnes & Noble is employing a David and Goliath reference wherein they are David and Amazon’s Kindle is supposedly Goliath — really, guys?? David and Goliath? Considering the number of times they’ve put small, independent bookstores out of business, this smacks of some pretty cold, hard irony.
Personally, I like Barnes & Noble and have no moral qualms with large companies so long as their business practices do not edge on outright coercion or unfairly anti-competitive behaviors. That being said, I really do think Barnes & Noble is one of the last companies that should be using such allusions. I mean, I get that it’s also about the size of the devices, but it just sounds silly.
Anyway, I’ll chalk this up to an advertising fail. But I just had to point this out because seeing the ad first thing this morning literally made me laugh and get water all over the place.
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Sweet Valley Confidential is a hot mess of a book that is bookended by an awkward beginning and a nauseating ending. It almost becomes a not entirely terrible book, but tragically-slash-comically crashes and burns in a sugary, taffeta-and-chiffon-covered mess in the last 30 pages or so.
Between watching the show and reading the 500+ Sweet Valley books I owned, I spent a large chunk of my childhood enthralled with the World of Sweet Valley and desperately wanting to be like the smart, pretty, responsible, well-meaning, but somewhat conservative Elizabeth Wakefield. I decided in middle school that I wanted to be a journalist because Elizabeth was a journalist. Elizabeth liked tall, brown-haired boys who liked to write and so did I. She wore a single-strand, lavaliere necklace and so I did, too. My sister’s name is even Jessica!
But lets face it, Sweet Valley was always sort of, well, drivel, for lack of a better word. It’s a sappy-sweet world of silly drama surrounding the Wakefield twins, Jessica (the wild/fun twin) and Elizabeth (the good/holier-than-thou one). So, my expectations for Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later were low. Like, really, really low. Nevertheless, I pre-ordered it and, despite being overwhelmed by schoolwork, read it from cover-to-cover the day it came out.
In the very first Sweet Valley book, Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love, published in 1983, Jessica tries to steal Todd Wilkins away from Elizabeth, who has a crush on him. From there, the series continues to be peppered with Jessica’s schemes in various contexts, and as the series proceeds, Todd is described to be Elizabeth’s “steady” and is the only recurrent character in Elizabeth’s love-life to crop up in the various spin-off series.
As Confidential opens, Elizabeth is now in her late twenties and is working as a journalist, having escaped to New York after her discovery of an affair between Todd and Jessica. Jessica, former cheerleader and general silly flirt, now works for a cosmetics company; and, Todd, our basketball star-turned-alcoholic-turned-vagrant loser is now a successful sports writer. The primary thrust of the book is the upcoming family event that Elizabeth is expected to go back to Sweet Valley for, which Jessica and Todd – who are now a couple – will attend as well.
In addition being written in a weirdly stilted voice that is littered with wanna-be technospeak, this world of stereotypes and sickly-sweet people has now transformed into a cast of sad, lonely, bitter people. Steven, the twins’ older bother, cheats repeatedly on his wife, who responds by baking like a madwoman. The loveable class clown, Winston, made it rich and now is isolated and surrounded by strangers and users (he eventually drunkenly falls to his questionably accidental death). Lila cheats on Ken and is divorcing him. The class gossip is as mean and empty as ever. Sweet but homely Enid is now an arrogant doctor and kind of a jerk. Elizabeth, too, finds herself compromising her principles and values as she plots to bring a hot bartender to the occasion, trying to prey on Jessica’s tendency to stray in order to sabotage Jessica’s relationship with Todd.
Perhaps this cast touches base a little closer to reality than the original characters, but it’s clearly an overly pessimistic view. While it could be construed as some sort of social commentary that addresses the characters’ original unrealistic superficiality…that’s probably giving the book too much credit. At any rate, it is a sad and angry world, but devoid of the introspection or depth that one would hope to see accompany such a stark view. In lieu of internal reflection, a vapid petulance seems to accompany the unhappiness that pervades the new Sweet Valley.
And, by some miracle, as the book approaches and descends upon the actual event — it actually starts to have something substantial to say. Elizabeth is, for once, somewhat more human in her failings, which seems more sincere, but the book’s real source of insight (well, relative to the rest of the series) is seen between Jessica and Todd. Because of the nature of the inception of their relationship, despite their mutual good intentions, they struggle — “just two guilty people” who feel trapped by their feelings of isolation and the shame that burdens their relationship. Knowledge of their mutual infidelity colors their relationship with the rest of the community, Todd is unable to trust Jessica, and Jessica is resentful of her alienation from her sister. Eventually, Jessica leaves Todd and reunites with Elizabeth.
If the book had ended there, it would have made sense in the context of the series. It would be a darker, less-bubble-gummy, and probably needlessly depressing book, but it would be an understandable accompaniment to the superficiality of the original series. Moreover, if the book was seeking to be more modernized, instead of stupidly name-dropping “facebook” and “Google,” it would reflect more modernized views of teaching girls to rely on themselves as opposed to defining themselves by their relationships to men, which the series has historically been prone to do. Finally, Jessica choosing Elizabeth over Todd would seem to take the series in a full circle and reinforces the theme of the whole series — the adventures of two sisters who are different, but love and learn from each other.
Of course, the book continues, and while I won’t get into the details because they are dumb, it really is like the book just popped a valium, did some speed and went on some hell-bent, crazy-happy writing bender for the remaining pages. Let’s just say loves are reunited, happy couples abound, everyone ends up as friends, and in classic Jane Austen-y style, it ends in a wedding! Oh, and there’s a badly written scene where there apparently is intercourse that is “over the top!” and also “spectacular!”
The book’s shortcomings are more than overwhelming. I could get into it further, but in short: there’s plenty of bad writing, some of it is just kind of kooky, the male characters are very obviously how women see men and not rooted in reality, the book has elements that are clearly holdovers from writers who are older and not “with it” … I could go on. The point is, die-hard fans will read this regardless. (I cried when Jessica and Elizabeth made up.) However — and this is a big however — it’s not a very good book, unfortunately. For a non-fan, the book will seem bi-polar and in need of some sort of intense counseling. Finally, I’m pissed off Todd and Jessica end up together. I’m just going to put that out there. That sucks. I should also note that I’ve been very generous with this book because I loved Sweet Valley. I think most people would just describe it as “hilariously bad.” One wonders if the creator secretly despised her sweet, cotton-candy world.
The only really good line in the book is delivered by the twins’ mom who, as the family dispute erupts, orders her husband to “bring out the fucking cake.”
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So, there’s an op-ed in the Times today putting forth the argument that the purported health benefits of having pets are overblown – at best inconsistent and at worst counterproductive.
When I began typing this, I started off planning on writing a post about my qualms with getting information from newspapers reporting on scientific discoveries, but then got off on a tangent about why I want a puppy and when this might happen, etcetera…but I’ve removed that section now and we’re back in business (that was pointless, I know).
So anyhow, my point was that when things are reported, issues are oversimplified and that important nuances are removed to an extent that is counterproductive to people trying to make crucial decisions about their health or lives or whatnot (e.g. one article says that something is always great, another say that the same something can kill you, but in actuality whether one or the other result will obtain is dependent on whether the party in question meets specific criteria).
Sometimes, there’s enough specificity to be useful, but a lot of the time the arguments are completely one-sided or it seems like the reporter just settles for a “hey, this happens and but sometimes it doesn’t happen” without enough detail for anyone to understand why one situation would occur versus another.
The problem is, the information gets condensed and not expanded from there and most people would not bother to delve into the topic further before forming conclusions. Almost no one would be able to find the source material, and instead other sources will cite, summarize and further overgeneralize the already over-broad information. Eventually, word gets around in some snarky, 140-character form.
Anyway, I wanted to launch into some discussion about media and how it’s changing to suit consumers, and the various issues with journalism as it is currently moving to be more accessible. The problem, of course, is that I think it has been and is already sacrificing a disproportionate level of integrity for the sake of “user-friendliness,” and that no form of media other than books seem to have found a way to inform that manages to be sufficiently accurate.
I was also going to talk about how people who look to movies and television instead of reading to glean insight on the human condition or philosophy or politics are being sadly mis-educated. I love movies and television, but I go to them for entertainment and inspiration, not information. If you want to learn, you gotta read.
Blah, blah, blah — ergo I heart books and people should read more. The end. I was going to write something more cogent, but it’s such a preachy thing (I know) and anyone who would bother to read it (out of my readership of like 3 people) would probably not be the people I would ideally like to direct the message at anyway, oh, sweet irony…my point is, I really do think people should read more.
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So, I haven’t been posting a lot recently, mostly because my computer is broken (the screen freezes unless I bend it at an angle — weird, I know) and HP has told me that it would cost $400+taxes+parts to fix. Obviously, I’m not going to spend what could likely be over 500 dollars to fix a three-year-old computer that cost less than a thousand dollars to begin with. Assuming a five-year rate of depreciation, $500 would be well over it’s current value. It’s a bit of a racket seeing as how Hewlett-Packard also has the highest hardware failure rate of the leading notebook manufacturers. It was relatively cheaper, but given that my last HP laptop also had similar problems and the screen died out shortly after it hit its 3rd year, I don’t think I would get another HP notebook.
In fact, HP has a 3-year manufacturing failure rate (as opposed to accidental damage) of just over 25% compared to Asus, Toshiba and Sony which each have failure rates hoving just above or below 16% over the course of the same three-year period. You can see the results of that study here (PDF file), though, it’s coming from a vendor of warranty protection plans, so take it with a grain of salt.
But aside from discussions of the book value of my laptop and manufacturing failure rates, I have, however, as a result of its shitty hardware, been reading more instead. Here are some of the recent ones.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Loved this. I’ve never been a huge fan of dystopian novels, mostly because anything taken to an extreme is bad, I think, but this world is so carefully constructed and her writing is so readable that it was hard to be such a cynic about it. I think my favorite part was the relationship between Oryx and Sandman. It’s an alternate reality; if you’re into that you should definitely read this (and probably already have). Otherwise, just read it anyway cause it’s good.
Girl’s Poker Night by Jill Davis. Eh. My sister gave this to me a while back. It was better than the average chick lit but not by a lot and not really worth reading unless you particularly are in the mood for that stuff.
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. Huh. I liked this book in theory. I liked that it was almost a philosophical (regarding art) mystery. It’s a story about a murder among a group of miniaturists (read: artists), set in the Ottoman Empire (it’s translated from Turkish). The idea is that they are working on book of illustrations that reflects a style that is considered to be sacrilegious in that it is considered idolatry, detracting from the glorification of God, etc. There’s more to the plot line than just this, but the main character, Black, investigates by speaking to the suspects regarding their views on various aspects of art, and at the same time the unidentified murderer discusses his thoughts as well. Theoretically, you should be trying to figure out who is the murderer based on these discussions of art philosophy. It was good in terms of writing, pacing, etc., but I think my appreciation of this book is largely on an academic level. If you think you’d enjoy theoretical discourses on art, for example considering what “is” art and whether things like personal style detracts from art and the representation of “truth,” then you’d probably love this book.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. Always good. I think this was the first Hercule Poirot novel ever. I thought I would be over my Agatha Christie phase by now, but I guess not.
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Very Oprah. Obviously unrealistic. But entirely enjoyable. A group of rich important people get kidnapped by terrorists who are good people at heart.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schafer. I liked reading this, minus the romance. Its seems like a solid novel who had an editor who forced in some contrived romantic plot line so there would be was more of a plot arc, but it was just distracting. It’s about the German occupation of Guernsey (not fictional), as told through a conversation in letters (entirely fictional). It begins when a writer receives a letter from someone from the island and ends up conversing with various people to find out about their experiences during the occupation. It’s Hallmark-y in it’s way, but interesting from a historical perspective.
Baby Proof by Emily Giffen. This was sitting on my self for, like two years. It’s chick-lit, but I liked the premise of this book, mostly because I liked the idea of exploring the trade-off between decisions about kids and someone you’re into. Oddly enough, it was something I recently had a conversation with someone about so I finally picked it up and went ahead and read it. Overall, it was pretty good as far as this genre goes, but the ending was such a disappointment and waaay cheesy.
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I promised, like three years ago, to Jessie that I would read something by Barbara Kingsolver, who she says is one of her favorite writers. So, true to my (procrastinating) word, I finally got around to and finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver earlier today.
I’ve been trying to mix it up in my reading repertoire terms of genres. The Poisonwood Bible was more on the serious side of drama. For the most part it’s set in the Congo during its short-lived bid for independence from Belgium. However, the story actually spans three decades and is told through the wife and four daughters of a zealous preacher, Nathan Price, who move to a small village there, Kilanga, to do missionary work. As one expects with these sorts of fish-out-of-water-type premises, it changes them more than they change it. However, it’s well written and thought-provoking in other ways, though it is clearly bent on challenging certain Westernized, I guess, attitudes for lack of a better word (the author doesn’t use such terminology, thank goodness) and on criticizing the U.S. and other foreign involvement in the economic and political affairs in the Congo.
While most of the story focuses on the difficulties of the Price family, the political/social message comes through in bits and pieces and finally comes to light more fully as they are forced to flee. In short, Belgium colonized the place and essentially handicapped the country (by not allowing non-whites to get an education, not building infrastructure, etc.). After the people rose up and demanded their independence, President Eisenhower, in cahoots with other foreign leaders, gave orders to have the elected leader of Congo assassinated because these leaders of white men were unhappy with the negotiations regarding the sale of the country’s natural resources (diamonds, in particular). They fixed the following election to have him replaced with a puppet figure instead and corruption ensued (the U.S. began building a power system in Congo they knew would fail in order to saddle the country with billions in debt, ensuring that the flow of resources would be unhindered in the future). There are also non-politically geared messages in the book as well — about people, human nature, etc.
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So yeah, I apologize to the 3 visitors to my blog about the porn banners that took over for a while. Apparently the permissions on my files were set incorrectly, which (gasp!) left my mySQL tables unprotected! And then I neglected to fix it for some time, haha.
At any rate, I’ve started applying to law schools now. The basics of my applications are finished, my personal statement and resume, etc. so I’m glad to finally have my life back to some extent.
In fact, I finally finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which I really enjoyed. It’s about two magicians, set in England during the Napoleonic Wars. When the story begins, magicians are almost an anachronistic remnant of Britain’s past (according to the story, magic once abounded but has since disappeared). Instead, there are only theoretical magicians, as opposed to practical magicians, who study magic in an academic manner. However, two “practical magicians” appear on the scene and attempt to rediscover magic, piecing things together.
All in all, it’s long, but it’s funny (a sort of dry, British humor) and very enjoyable. Plot-driven and well-conceived, IMHO. To quote Wikipedia: “It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternate history, and an historical novel.” I’m not much for fantasy (with the exception of the Harry Potter series, obviously), but I liked this take on magic. Recommended. A solid 4 stars.
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So, the 8-K on my life (bad joke, I know) is that I’m not getting a lot of sleep, but at least I’m working and studying a lot. Also, as I’m sure I’ve told everyone by now, I got the G1 Android phone and am absolutely flat-out taken with it. I’ve pleased the gadget gods — for the time being.
The past few weeks have been filled with temporary, but pleasant influxes and outfluxes of people coming in and out of the city — Thomas, then my mom, followed by Chris moving to Jersey and then Ali, Dan and Tina, etc. I am, of course, always happy to see them, but tired of the “please summarize the last X months/years of your life”-type conversations and inevitable partings…
It’s not that I don’t like New York City — I’m actually pretty happy with the job and the living situation, grateful to have people I know here, and I love the museums, the broadway shows and the amazing restaurants, etc. That was all as advertised, I admit.
But each time someone comes and goes from the city, I’m faced with a reminder of the transience of my current lifestyle — an extended, meandering vacation from my actual life: law school, career, family, etc. I have an apartment, yes. But the lease is only until August, and I could always sublet. I also have a job here, fine — except who knows how long that will last (with “these troubled economic times…”) and even if they didn’t lay me off, I could easily walk away; it’s a job and a paycheck, not a career.
I know my plan was always to put my life on hiatus for the time being while I got sorted out, but I don’t think I realized the fungibility of my job and the current components of my life would bother me. In some ways, I know I longed for this — in college, I felt so tied down with commitments, both academic and extra-cirricular, and it was exhausting mentally and emotionally. Now I’m here, and it’s weird to think that everyone I’ve been interacting with on a daily basis will probably be a stranger to me by the time I graduate from law school. I also wonder what else I could have done with these two years; the thought of Mr. Parmer talking about “opportunity costs” crosses my mind right now.
I can’t remember where I read that people are naturally adverse to the idea of decreasing options. I feel like now that I’m a full-fledged adult, the idea that I could potentially run out of time to do the things I want to do is dawning on me in a subtle but entirely unpleasant way.
I’ve been reading a book by Margaret Atwood called Moral Disorders and Other Stories. She writes amazing things, and this one is solid, but probably not my favorite — it’s just the one that is the most relevant to me at this juncture. The entire book is a collection of stories about a female character, Nell, told in a series of short stories at various points in her life. Throughout these stories, she explores what Nell could potentially become, the different types of people, the various female roles and the decisions that are made which determine these things; I’ve had a nagging feeling of discontent, but it didn’t really hit me what it was until I was reading one of the stories on the subway to work — the idea of being scared of being tied down to one option, one lifestyle, but also fearing the other extreme of endless wandering is one that haunts me, just a little, and I worry the reality of it will creep up on me too soon.
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I started this book a year ago and finally got around to finishing it last week. I know it’s very pop-lit-y, but that actually doesn’t bother me. If it gets people to actually read books, I’m happy. In fact, I think elementary schools should encourage kids to read more stuff that’s just fun to read (the same way that gateway drugs work — leads to more serious stuff later) if they want them to grow up to be better readers and better writers, but whatever, that’s not what this post is about. I think I actually commented about this book before in a different post, but whatever.
So yeah, the book is this woman’s memoir about her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia following her divorce. Obviously, it’s not for guys (or intellectuals), but I laughed out loud many times, especially in the beginning (i.e. Italy), which is always a big plus for me. Her spiritual discourse — this is the India part — is actually interesting though it clearly is barely skimming the surface (but I suppose her editor probably wouldn’t have allowed it any other way). I thought the most interesting parts re:cultural differences were in the Indonesia section.
All in all, the book is sort of a mixed bag — kind of like a 3-for-1 deal cause each section is so different. Honestly, there’s not many people that I know that I think I’d recommend this book to, but I think most people could find something to like about it. This probably isn’t the best review I’ve ever written, but oh well. 3 and 3/4 stars.
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I finished A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss a while ago and still haven’t been able to decide whether or not I liked it. It’s basically about the prelude to the first financial bubble in London, which is where the stock markets first began to develop back in the early 18th century.
As a novel, the book is part historical mystery and part Intro to Financial Markets for Morons (Wait!! You mean when you tell people the stock is going to go up they start to buy?!? Like that.) with a little romance thrown in for good measure. And while it doesn’t manage to present a particularly compelling mystery nor does it serve to educate at any level that would be useful (the romance is so poorly done, it’s not even worth mentioning again), a quick pace and eventful plot keeps the book from becoming mired in its (numerous) shortcomings. My instinct was to dislike the book, but somehow it managed to keep my interest and wasn’t unenjoyable.
So, yeah, the writing isn’t anything special. And no, the characters herein would never finangle their way into any Literary Hall of Fame. And yeah, you have to really strech reality to believe that this bumbling bully would ever really manage to unravel any sort of mystery without getting himself killed (the villians in the book just hand him information). But hey — it’s a good subway read and divides up neatly into 20-minute chunks. Three (maybe two-and-a-half if I’d had a bad morning) stars.
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