Sunday, February 24, 2008
choose your own books
Books read since October 29, 2007:
The Glass Castle*
The Almost Moon
The World Without Us
The Air We Breathe
After Hours
Run
The Zookeeper's Wife
Animal Vegetable Miracle
The Joys of Motherhood*
The Quiet Girl
The Gum Thief
The Alchemist*
*Books read for my book group.
Not the best series I have read. Highlights include The Zookeeper's Wife and Animal Vegetable Miracle. Notably three books on the list (Zookeeper, World Without Us, Air We Breathe) reference an old-growth, primeval forest located on the Polish-Belorus border: Bialoieza.
Monday, October 29, 2007
the plow that broke the plain (plane)
books in last four weeks:
1. the book thief by markus zusak
2. the worst hard time by tim egan
3. divisadero by michael ondaatje
1. incredible incredible incredible. actually left me sobbing for 2+ hours as i read the last chapters and in the time that immediately followed. i don't know what else to say about it. another wwII tale. about a young girl living through the third reich. this is nothing like anne frank.
2. nonfiction about the dust bowl. extremely well-composed. bigger man-made disaster than hurricane katrina or the san diego fires.
3. lovely literature by one of my favorite writers. finished it on the black ball ferry from victoria, bc to port angeles, wa.
no end of books in sight.
1. the book thief by markus zusak
2. the worst hard time by tim egan
3. divisadero by michael ondaatje
1. incredible incredible incredible. actually left me sobbing for 2+ hours as i read the last chapters and in the time that immediately followed. i don't know what else to say about it. another wwII tale. about a young girl living through the third reich. this is nothing like anne frank.
2. nonfiction about the dust bowl. extremely well-composed. bigger man-made disaster than hurricane katrina or the san diego fires.
3. lovely literature by one of my favorite writers. finished it on the black ball ferry from victoria, bc to port angeles, wa.
no end of books in sight.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
cyberpunk goes gardening
in my office, i wish that i could type ctrl+F and use the search function to find some missing papers.
on walks, i wish that i could point to plants and have a backlit text box hovering over with the common and scientific names of the plants. google earth-style.
its mousing through the world, always searching for the blinking cursor.
didnt molly in "neuromancer" have digitally-constructed roboeyes that gave time, temperature readings, etc. in the corner of her vision? i would like something like that, but with a built in encyclopedia.
on walks, i wish that i could point to plants and have a backlit text box hovering over with the common and scientific names of the plants. google earth-style.
its mousing through the world, always searching for the blinking cursor.
didnt molly in "neuromancer" have digitally-constructed roboeyes that gave time, temperature readings, etc. in the corner of her vision? i would like something like that, but with a built in encyclopedia.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
dolce
finished "suite francaise" last night after intermittent reading for two months. the stories were written in the early 1940s, in german-occupied france by irene nemirovsky. she was arrested by police in july 1942 because of her russian jewish background and disappeared. her husband was arrested in november 1942. they both died in auschwitz. their daughters survived along with her manuscripts. the stories are about the fate of the french during occupation. the first story is about parisians fleeing the city with the germans on their heels. the second is about the life of an occupied village. the stories do not flatter the french. one excerpt notes that the french do not want the germans or the english to win the war - they would prefer if both sides were defeated.
this continues my wwII-tinged reading:
the foreign correspondent by alan furst
the samurai's garden by gail tsukiyama
the history of love by nicole krauss
molokai by ??
the ministry of special cases by nathan englander
man walks into a room by nicole krauss
this continues my wwII-tinged reading:
the foreign correspondent by alan furst
the samurai's garden by gail tsukiyama
the history of love by nicole krauss
molokai by ??
the ministry of special cases by nathan englander
man walks into a room by nicole krauss
Friday, August 24, 2007
nonlinear organizing, high viscosity literatizing
http://www.literature-map.com/
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
two similar cluster-organizing websites. visual thesaurus is particularly fun to play with... click on a word and watch everything reconfigure. literature-map is interesting but i have not yet figured out who inputs the data linking authors. my tastes are seemingly predictable... i have not, however, seen edith wharton and tom robbins in the same cluster - but i could rationalize linking them through douglas coupland.
speaking of literary connections: please go read pulitzer winners "age of innocence" by edith and "angle of repose" by wallace stegner. then we should talk.
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
two similar cluster-organizing websites. visual thesaurus is particularly fun to play with... click on a word and watch everything reconfigure. literature-map is interesting but i have not yet figured out who inputs the data linking authors. my tastes are seemingly predictable... i have not, however, seen edith wharton and tom robbins in the same cluster - but i could rationalize linking them through douglas coupland.
speaking of literary connections: please go read pulitzer winners "age of innocence" by edith and "angle of repose" by wallace stegner. then we should talk.
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