Category: Writing

author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/05/10
date added: 2010/05/17
shelves: fiction
review:
Creepy. Really, really creepy. The feel of a 19th century Gothic novel, but in a modern setting. A weird tale of twins, ghosts, OCD…and like The Time Traveler’s Wife, a confused middle-aged guy with a weird relationship with a much younger girl.

The writing was amazing, vivid & richly textured, great pacing. She uses the settings of the London streets, Highgate Cemetery, and the apartment building to great effect. The whole thing had such a compelling effect that I ended up reading at odd hours until I finished.

I went with three stars instead of four, despite the quality of the writing, just because it was so freaking creepy. I think it was supposed to be a happy ending, but it just left me with shivers.

author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/05/10
date added: 2010/05/17
shelves: fiction
review:
Creepy. Really, really creepy. The feel of a 19th century Gothic novel, but in a modern setting. A weird tale of twins, ghosts, OCD…and like The Time Traveler’s Wife, a confused middle-aged guy with a weird relationship with a much younger girl.

The writing was amazing, vivid & richly textured, great pacing. She uses the settings of the London streets, Highgate Cemetery, and the apartment building to great effect. The whole thing had such a compelling effect that I ended up reading at odd hours until I finished.

I went with three stars instead of four, despite the quality of the writing, just because it was so freaking creepy. I think it was supposed to be a happy ending, but it just left me with shivers.

author: Terry Taylor
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2010/05/01
date added: 2010/05/12
shelves: art, crafty, read-again, wishlist
review:
Didn’t get a chance to try anything before it had to go back to the library, alas. I really want to make a few of the designs, although some others looked quite silly.

author: Terry Taylor
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2010/05/01
date added: 2010/05/12
shelves: art, read-again, wishlist, crafty
review:
Didn’t get a chance to try anything before it had to go back to the library, alas. I really want to make a few of the designs, although some others looked quite silly.

author: Daniel Ammann
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/05/12
date added: 2010/05/12
shelves: biography, business, crime, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
I’m still working on what I think about this. Oddly enough, it’s become bound up in my head with my thoughts about Facebook. (In short, just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.) I had a instant distrust of Rich, and I think the brief reference to Ayn Rand has something to do with it. Then "realpolitik", and one thinks of Kissinger, and I think there’s a connection amongst people who have fled dictatorships, and one reaction being the development of an amoral outlook, at least in some aspects of life, and of individuality above all else. I still can’t quite articulate exactly what bothered me, which also bothers me.

It’s a well-written book, though, definitely something to make a person think about money and business and politics. A few oddities in turns of phrase that I suspect come from the author not being a native English speaker. A sympathetic portrayal, is my take, in what seems like a very Swiss (neutral turned up to 11) way.

I think I recommend it. (C was definitely into it, and recommended it to me.)

author: Daniel Ammann
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/05/12
date added: 2010/05/12
shelves: biography, business, crime, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
I’m still working on what I think about this. Oddly enough, it’s become bound up in my head with my thoughts about Facebook. (In short, just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.) I had a instant distrust of Rich, and I think the brief reference to Ayn Rand has something to do with it. Then "realpolitik", and one thinks of Kissinger, and I think there’s a connection amongst people who have fled dictatorships, and one reaction being the development of an amoral outlook, at least in some aspects of life, and of individuality above all else. I still can’t quite articulate exactly what bothered me, which also bothers me.

It’s a well-written book, though, definitely something to make a person think about money and business and politics. A few oddities in turns of phrase that I suspect come from the author not being a native English speaker. A sympathetic portrayal, is my take, in what seems like a very Swiss (neutral turned up to 11) way.

I think I recommend it. (C was definitely into it, and recommended it to me.)

author: Blake Charlton
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/05/04
date added: 2010/05/10
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:
An engaging fantasy tale with a clever premise: a magic system based on writing, combined with a dyslexic protagonist. I particularly appreciated the nuanced way that the author dealt with the question of "curing" vs "appreciating" the protagonist’s condition. Didn’t blow me away, but I definitely enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel.

author: Blake Charlton
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/05/04
date added: 2010/05/10
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:
An engaging fantasy tale with a clever premise: a magic system based on writing, combined with a dyslexic protagonist. I particularly appreciated the nuanced way that the author dealt with the question of "curing" vs "appreciating" the protagonist’s condition. Didn’t blow me away, but I definitely enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel.

author: Rob Thallon
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2009/10/19
date added: 2010/05/07
shelves: home-improvement, non-fiction, own
review:
Fantastic, very clear.

author: Richard Wrangham
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/04/25
date added: 2010/05/07
shelves: health, history, non-fiction, psychology, science, sociology
review:
Review of the evidence for cooking as an important part of our evolution, looking at the fossil record, the habits and physiology of other primates, and the practices of modern hunter-gatherer groups.

He spends a chapter taking down the raw-foodist movement, mostly based on a German study, before getting into the evidence for cooking in our evolution. Most of that study’s participants were at a chronic energy deficit, and a number of the women suffered from amenorrhea…and they had access to all the foodstuffs and processing devices of the modern world!

The physiology bits were fascinating: the trade-off between energy use in the gut and energy use in the brain, the differing jaw and teeth formations.

There’s quite a bit of just-so-story of the kind that one often finds with evolutionary psychology & biology, but it seems more carefully constructed than some. The chapter(s) on cooking and the evolution of the pair-bond relationship are troubling but hard to refute, at least by me. (Cooking leading pretty much directly to patriarchy. Damn.)

I could have used some graphics, both to show the actual differences, and to keep track of the timeline. I often had to jump back to remember which groups were which, and who might have evolved what when.

But definitely interesting nonetheless.