"I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what is was all about."
I finished this book by Halldór Laxness last night. I read it because I'm visiting iceland in the summer, and wasn't disappointed with it's epic landscapes and history.
"Take my word for it, freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam."
Last year I only read 30 books. That includes huge novels such as Brothers Karamazov, the Idiot and Anna Karenina.
Resurrection, Tolstoy. Different to other works. The style is more direct. It is about a nobleman who got his childhood friend, a servant girl, pregnant and forgot about her. He stumbles upon her later in life in court as a prostitute and tries to make up for it. 3/5
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth by Leo Tolstoy. His first published works, semi-autobiographical recollections of childhood through to university. I thought it was insightful and made me think about my own boyhood. You will probably like it if you have read any Tolstoy or pre-revolution Russian literature.
All the Bandini books by John Fante. I think Fante is up there with Hemmingway and better than old Bukowski -he wouldn't mind me saying that he knows its true. Damn he can write! A real master of from the gut honest simple writing."One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Bunker Hill, down in the very middle of Los Angeles. It was an important night in my life, because I had to make a decision about the hotel. Either I paid up or I got out. that was what the note said, the note the landlady had put under my door. A great problem, deserving acute attention. I solved it by turning out the lights and going to bed."
I then read Wait Until Spring, Bandini, The Road to Los Angeles, and Dreams from Bunker Hill -which Fante dictated to his wife while blind and wheelchair bound and nearing death.
The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Imagine a grown man as innocent as Christ in a material-greed obsessed society, and then make him wealthy and fall in love for reasons he cannot understand, and you have, in a simplistic way, the premise of The Idiot. At times it's about someone finally enjoying life, while at other times it's like witnessing a saint falling from everything. This is my third Dostoevsky title, I think I'll move to Notes from the Underground one grey day.
A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. The only other Hemingway I've read is For Whom the Bell Tolls -a Spanish Civil War story, this however was more enjoyable and set during the World War. The plot is straightforward, but not predictable. The war scenes are chaotic and you even start to believe, as do the characters, the war is endless. The love plot and drinking is very Hemingway, beautifully written and cuts all the crap.
I didn't post about reading in June. I tried to write a lot more. I finished one or two short stories and then sort of got back into reading. Mostly Kurt Vonnegut.
Bagombo Snuff Box, Kurt Vonnegut.
Where has this book been all my life? Satire existentialism in space -where would Douglas Adams be without this book! Can't stress how awesome it is.
Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules ??? and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.??
This seems relevant today:
The state of mind on Earth with regard to space exploration was much like the state of mind in Europe with regard to exploration of the Atlantic before Christopher Columbus set out. There were these important differences, however: the monsters between space explorers and their goals were not imaginary, but numerous, hideous, various, and uniformly cataclysmic; the cost of even a small expedition was enough to ruin most nations; and it was a virtual certainty that no expedition could increase the wealth of its sponsors. In short, on the basis of horse sense and the best scientific information, there was nothing good to be said for the exploration of space.
The Road, Cormac McCarthy. Post-apocalyptic father-son journey tale. Brilliant idea not name the event that sparks the end of the world. The plot is set after and so who cares? Reads like a classic 5/5.
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. Science fiction critique of society with its dehumanizing technologies. Despite being written in 1931 it has relevant topics 4/5. The girl who played with fire, Stieg Larsson. Ridiculous, didn't finish 2/5.
The Third Policeman by Brian O'Nolan is one weird book. Dream like plot with bicycle obsessed policeman. Funny in places, bizarre in others. The ending is a twist, a big twist. Was featured in lost. 4/4.
Cats cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. About a writer who researches the inventor of the atom bomb (Felix Hoenikker in this universe) and falls in with his children, interviews them and learns of ice-nine, a weapon deadlier than the bomb. It's basically arms race satire with exploration of religion. Brilliantly written 4/4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Was expecting run of the mill standard best seller dribble but was surprised. The plot wasn't tight and as suspenseful as it should have been. The characters though are brilliant. Mikael Blomkvist is a casual sex-egotistical-liberal journalist. At first, I thought he was an excessive parody of an economic journalist. Lisbeth Salander is the more interesting character, a hacker misfit with Asperger syndrome. The book will also have you believe that the Swedish drown themselves in coffee. So much coffee making! Hard to down 4/4.Lots of 4's.
A lot of lostie books this month, prepare for lost geekness.
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. A book featured on lost, and is claimed to contain "everything there was to know about life" in slaughterhouse five. It has a lot of philosophy, parricide, and religion. It's a story of a feuding family including a mad father, his three sons, and one illegitimate son. The characters are realistic and the human insight Dostoevsky has is brilliant. One of the events that most intrigued me is when Liza Khokhlakov slams her finger in the door. There is no explanation given, only a short comment by Ivan a few pages later on, but it is left to the reader to make his or her mind up. The obvious connection to lost is the parricide theme, where John Locke is has to kill his father in episode 'The Brig'. I give it 4.5/5.???? Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I read this at school and have always associated 'George' with the book. I bought a cheap copy and the next day on lost Sawyer is claiming it be his favourite.
I read two book this month Anna Karenina and War of the Worlds.
I'm not sure what to write of Anna Karenina. I have tried to explain why I like it, and every time I try it reads like irritating dribble. I will say that between War and Peace and Karenina, this is the better book. I loved War and Peace because made me think about big questions, but I love Anna Karenina even more for its story and narrower scope of themes, and Levin. Levin is a great character of Tolstoy's moral ideas and ideologies. To me, Tolstoy is right up there. I found War of the Worlds in a second hand book shop in town. A short read, it was pretty much what I expected. I wish the movies were more like the book. Get rid of cruise. Set it in the 1880-90's. Get some cannons and maxim machine guns. I want to see an ironclad ram a martian! It would be nostalgic like the new Sherlock Holmes movie but with aliens. Reading next: Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
I just got this little book today and flicked through it. I don't
think I'll go off skipping to the woods to eat mushrooms, but it's
interesting to know you can add beech tree leaves to salad, make a
frittata from fresh hop shoots or make coffee from dandelion roots.
Awesome book.
"Once tonight we have been impeded by the ignorance of the anarchists. Then by the sloth of a bureaucratic fascist, then by the oversuspicion of a Communist."Hemingway writes of massacres on both sides of the war, showing the turmoil of civil war. Apparently President Barack Obama was influenced by this novel.
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."Your on the roller coaster straight away.
"at one point I tried to drive the Great Red Shark into the laundry room of the Landmark Hotel - but the door was too narrow, and the people inside seemed dangerously excited."Apart from the hilarious quotes, it has great prose, and in many ways similar to 'the Great Gatsby'.
Writen by Charlie Papazian. Known to many as the homebrewers bible it has sold more then one million copies over 25 reprintings and 3 editions. After an introduction the book is split into three parts: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Each section has adequate information. There is, in the beginners section, a step-by-step guide. If your totally new to beer there is a style guide too. In intermediate and advanced there are recipes, various methods, ingredient details, helpful charts, and even a bit of yeast science.
