2011 Book #3: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
I didn’t like this one. I should qualify that: I didn’t like this one except for the last thirty pages. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a novel about love and sex. I could only identify with one character and the dog because everyone else was busy sleeping with people who weren’t their spouses. There […]
2011 Book #2: Franny and Zooey
After spending some time browsing at Barnes & Noble yesterday, I picked up Franny and Zooey and ported it to a chair thinking I’d never read it. I got through the Franny story, about a quarter into the whole thing, decided I’d finish it, and when I looked on Goodreads discovered that I’d already read […]
2011 Book #1: One Hundred Years of Solitude
I’ve certainly begun my 52 books with a bang. One Hundred Years of Solitude just might be the best novel I’ve ever read. It’s definitely the most epic. It follows a family and a town from birth to death, through wars and colonialism and personal tragedy. The family line is so complicated, with the vast […]
2010 Books
I figured that since I’ve decided to keep better (and official) track of the books I’m reading this year, I’d compile a list of the ones I read last year. I’m sticking to fiction. I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read for several years now, since around 2005, because I was really bad […]
A note about The Grand Design
Over the past couple of days, I read Steven Hawking’s new “controversial” book, The Grand Design, in which he attempts to prove that God (or some sort of creator) is not necessary for an explanation of how the universe began or how it functions now. I’m generally a fan of Hawking: I read A Brief […]
Airplanes and automobiles
“Why are you driving when you can fly?” she said. “Don’t you love to fly? I love it. It’s the sexiest thing there is.” “This is a religious journey,” I said. “Planes aren’t religious yet. Cars are religious. Maybe planes will be next.” “Planes are sexy.” “That’s right, the way cars used to be. But […]
DeLillo Binge, part 6
The thing that sucks about increasingly long, more…academic(?) posts is that I’m beginning to have to psych myself up to write them. So this one’s gonna be short since I’m almost done with the next book in my DeLillo Binge, and I’ve been putting this one off. I just finished End Zone a few days […]
DeLillo Binge, part 5 (or 7)
And my DeLillo Binge continues. The 7 in the title takes into account White Noise and The Body Artist, a couple of DeLillo’s books that I’d already read. I’ll probably reread White Noise when I get down to it, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t like The Body Artist since I remember nothing about it. […]
An early example of Don DeLillo’s enduring love of lists
Now that I’ve read a few DeLillo novels, I’m continuing my binge from the beginning. Right now I’m reading Americana, DeLillo’s first novel. I’ll talk more about it later, but I just can’t help posting this passage: What we really want to do, he said, deep in the secret recesses of our heart, all of […]
DeLillo Binge, part 4
I finished the second of my three term papers yesterday, a day ahead of schedule, so I declared today a Mental Health Day and spent a good chunk of the day at Starbucks finishing Libra, the fourth novel of my Don DeLillo Binge. I had a hard time getting through this one because it’s a […]