Books I'm Currently Reading
Feb. 2nd, 2003 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aSome time in the last week or so I finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. As with the previous books in the series, I thought it was light fluff, but still enjoyable reading. Though, as before, I can't understand why it's become such a phenomenon.
I was pleased that, by the end of the book, Rowling finally seemed to be developing something looking suspiciously like an arc, rather than each book just being an exercise in how-can-Voldemart-interact-with-Harry-this-year. Also, as I mentioned when I wrote about the last book, I appreciated Rowling's continuing to flesh out the history of Harry's world.
My newest fiction book is How to Be Good, by Nick Hornby. I read his High Fidelity right after watching the movie, and picked About a Boy up shortly after that. None of these are high literature either, but they're all well written and quite witty. (In fact, if you've seen one of the Hornby movies, and thought the voiceover was very clever ... that was Hornby.) I was encouraged to start reading HtBG mainly by the fact that I found it remaindered over at a local book store, but I did also see the movie adaptation of About a Boy in the last week, so I was in a Hornby mood. Anyway, all recommended for their fun, clever, witty writing, though High Fidelity is the best. I may have more to write about How to Be Good when I finish it. Maybe.
I also have a number of non-fiction books that I've been juggling.
Moodswing is a book on depression and bipolarism. It's very badly written--the author tends to tell anecdotes without explanation, and thus you never get analysis or the basis of his own understanding--but there's still some interesting insight.
Censored 2003 is a book I'd been eyeing for months and finally picked up with my windfall of Christmas money. Its core is the top 25 stories of 2002 which were very important but never covered by the mass media. Things like "New Trade Treaty Seeks to Privatize Global Social Services" and "Bush Administration Hampered FBI Investigation into Bin Laden Family Before 9-11". It all seems to be very solid reporting that hasn't been picked up by most major medias for ... whatever reason.
A lot of it talks about how much corporations are increasingly controlling your life, and it's a bit scary. Nonetheless the fact that publishing is increasingly cheap, and that the web gives a superb mechanism for anyone to get the word out gives me hope that corporations won't be able to totally stifle this type of reporting. The genie's already out of the bottle.
This book is full of essays too, on things like the big media giants, how reporting has changed post-9/11, etc. I've finished the top 25 stories, which were all intriguing and insightful, but am still working through the rest of the book.
Lies Across America, by James W. Loewen, was another remainder find. This one hits 100 different historical sites in America and discusses what's wrong or being omitted from the tourists plaques and monuments. I just finished reading one about how most American Indian tribes are not known by the names they called themselves (e.g., Apache actually means "enemy" and Navajo actually means "thief", and we got those names from people who knew the tribes, not from the tribes themselves), and another describing a plaque for a huge Indian massacre in Almo, Idaho that was apparently made up by the residents to put their town on the map.
This book describes itself as funny, and it's not, but it is extremely interesting.
I was pleased that, by the end of the book, Rowling finally seemed to be developing something looking suspiciously like an arc, rather than each book just being an exercise in how-can-Voldemart-interact-with-Harry-this-year. Also, as I mentioned when I wrote about the last book, I appreciated Rowling's continuing to flesh out the history of Harry's world.
My newest fiction book is How to Be Good, by Nick Hornby. I read his High Fidelity right after watching the movie, and picked About a Boy up shortly after that. None of these are high literature either, but they're all well written and quite witty. (In fact, if you've seen one of the Hornby movies, and thought the voiceover was very clever ... that was Hornby.) I was encouraged to start reading HtBG mainly by the fact that I found it remaindered over at a local book store, but I did also see the movie adaptation of About a Boy in the last week, so I was in a Hornby mood. Anyway, all recommended for their fun, clever, witty writing, though High Fidelity is the best. I may have more to write about How to Be Good when I finish it. Maybe.
I also have a number of non-fiction books that I've been juggling.
Moodswing is a book on depression and bipolarism. It's very badly written--the author tends to tell anecdotes without explanation, and thus you never get analysis or the basis of his own understanding--but there's still some interesting insight.
Censored 2003 is a book I'd been eyeing for months and finally picked up with my windfall of Christmas money. Its core is the top 25 stories of 2002 which were very important but never covered by the mass media. Things like "New Trade Treaty Seeks to Privatize Global Social Services" and "Bush Administration Hampered FBI Investigation into Bin Laden Family Before 9-11". It all seems to be very solid reporting that hasn't been picked up by most major medias for ... whatever reason.
A lot of it talks about how much corporations are increasingly controlling your life, and it's a bit scary. Nonetheless the fact that publishing is increasingly cheap, and that the web gives a superb mechanism for anyone to get the word out gives me hope that corporations won't be able to totally stifle this type of reporting. The genie's already out of the bottle.
This book is full of essays too, on things like the big media giants, how reporting has changed post-9/11, etc. I've finished the top 25 stories, which were all intriguing and insightful, but am still working through the rest of the book.
Lies Across America, by James W. Loewen, was another remainder find. This one hits 100 different historical sites in America and discusses what's wrong or being omitted from the tourists plaques and monuments. I just finished reading one about how most American Indian tribes are not known by the names they called themselves (e.g., Apache actually means "enemy" and Navajo actually means "thief", and we got those names from people who knew the tribes, not from the tribes themselves), and another describing a plaque for a huge Indian massacre in Almo, Idaho that was apparently made up by the residents to put their town on the map.
This book describes itself as funny, and it's not, but it is extremely interesting.
