So, I went a pretty long while without updating this thing, and I wish to rectify that, somehow. So below are the books I remember reading since the last update. Maybe I'll fill in more later. The books with asterisks were awesome. Most books have asterisks.

2006:

Perdido Street Station*
The Scar*
Everything bad is good for you
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again -DFW*
Man Without a Country - Kurt Vonnegut
The Truth with Jokes - Al Franken
Consider the Lobster and Other Essays - David Foster Wallace*

2007:
Woman in the Dunes -oe kenzaburo
Fires on the Plain
Temple of the Golden Pavillion - mishima yukio*
Out - Kirino
Sixty Days And Counting -kim stanley robinson
Rant: the oral biography of buster casey - Chuck Palahniuk
Stranger Than Fiction - Chuck Palahniuk
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides*
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - jk rowling
The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales - oliver sacks
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation -lynne truss
You shall know our velocity
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius*
Iron Council
Infinite Jest*****

2008:
Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software*
 

Around 300 pages. Read in August.

(Doing some catch up entries from the past few months)

This is a collection of short stories, each one more unrelenting than the last. Wallace is an absolute badass at writing: he has the foundation of all of the rules of writing, and he breaks them brazenly and highly effectively.

One of the great things he manages to capture time and again are the labyrinthine depths of the human mind, and our decision making processes. In very long paragraphs he lets flow a thouoght process that seems so familiar that I swore it was some log of my own brain, trapped in a spiral of self-analysis, doubt, inspiration, and elaboration.

Consider the story about a kid who wants to have a simple fantasy where he stops time and gets to see a woman naked. BUt in order to enjoy his fantasy, he has to get all of the details right such that the world can still exist alongside his strange power. So he continues analyzing and adjusting, and recreating the universe in his mind, designing it all meticulously and painstakingly and torturously, just to dream a silly fantasy. I am not describing it well, but it is really interesting.

Also worth noting is Wallace's sense of irony, which is utterly all-encompassing, and knowingly so.

No one is without their own calculations. Especially those who remark on that fact.

Anyways, it's a terribly interesting bunch of work.
 

409 pages.

This is the second in his 'global warming trilogy'.

It's really been a fascinating read so far. What's great about it is how it is so in tune with research science as it is, and how scientists think in everyday life. Seeing the world as explainable patterns, and attempting to hypothesize and test things that don't make complete sense yet.

Take Frank, who has moved into a flood-struck and dilapidated Washington DC to work for the NSF. He moves into a closed down park (where zoo animals are still missing), and begins to live as a primal human being -living in a treehouse, running and playing speed frisbee golf with homeless friends. He sees people and relationships as deriving from evolutionary standpoints, and it is utterly brilliant to see. Other observations involve his attempt to explain why frisbee golf is so satisfying to him: because it strikes at just that moment when primates developed their new brains, when they were running around and chasing after animals and throwing rocks at them, developing their hand-eye coordination as impetus for further developments. He hypothesizes that living as closely to how those primal people lived is the easiest route to being happy, since we haven't evolved since. Biologically, he proposes, we need and want to live that way. He even references ancient 'frisbee-like' rocks that were the first primate tools. So that's just one observation of many. Others involve art, meditation.

Beyond this awesome character stuff is awesome... big stuff.

How DO you fight the effects of global warming? How do you turn on he gulf stream after it's stopped? How do you deal with the side-effects of suddenly being in control of the global climate? How will different nations with different strategies to fight global warming get along?

Large, important, thoughtful questions with A LOT of interesting possible answers.

More cool ideas: futures stocks. Betting on important people and their influence on the world's future.

And action!

Consider: Frank chasing down a man from the CIA. He's running through the metro after him, and feels something in his pocket: the frisbee-like handaxe he had previously been playing with. Using his trained frisbee golf skills he hurls it up the escalator at the agent. Close miss, but frank continues the chase, picks it up, and keeps chasing him!
HA! So good.

Anyways, good stuff.
 

Also by Jonathon Safran Foer


~280 pages

Hot off of the previous book, I was voracious for more.

And I received.

Similar style to the previous: various correspondences and perspectives making up the narrative, that shares bloodlines.

Very good stuff.

What we go looking for is so often not there, and we so often forget some things. The insane need for explicit confirmation of love, the blindness with which we ignore the rest. The pain and complete loss of death, illogical and unexplainable. The unexpressable. The comforts that we shame ourselves out of. Escape from reality, and the difficulty of the classification of things that help us do so.

The more I think about the more layers it has.

But the summary that will make sense to you follows:

A boy has lost his father, and finds a key in his father's possessions. He sets out across New York trying to find the lock that matches the key, in hopes that it somehow will provide him with some sort of relief. He meets many along the way, and his grandmother and a mysterious stranger also share their histories of loss, and discovery.

A downright beautiful book, AGAIN, from Foer.
 

300~ pages

First I should say that I tried to read this book at least 3 separate times. And failed after 30 pages.
I wholly admired the verbal wit, but I had trouble getting into the story.

Now, on my 4th try and finishing the book in two days, I will gladly say that it is one of the freshest, most moving novels I've encountered in a long time.

One word that describes it would be 'lingual'.

A large part of the story is made up of correspondences and narrations by a character whose first language is not english. Out of this comes a great many laughs.

It is full of comedy. And secrets. And revelations. And on completion, impact.

What of those who love the very idea of love more than they love? Those living detached from the world on that level. What of those detached from their dreams? What of those detached from their pasts? Where and when do we ever reattach? How do we accept the past? The pain? What do we leave for the future?

The novel goes far beyond my childish efforts to grind questions and lessons from it. There are layers upon layers here, and I am still in awe of them.

(As a side note, I wanted to enjoy the movie. However, it paled in comparison to the novel. It could be fun, but I would recommend the book first.)
 

200~ pages.

A swift and enjoyable read.

I remember this from that summer four (!!!) years ago when I read every Vonnegut book. I placed this one as my favorite of the old batch (60s vonnegut). A controversial decision, to be sure. But it was so unexpected, so zany, and so beautiful, I could not resist it.

Upon reread, it is no less so.


It's hard to pin down how the many disparate factors work together. You've got a study of holocausts, scientific apocalypse, a family of weirdos, a carribean dictatorship, a new way of making love, and a whole new religion.

The religion in question, Bokononism, is pure Vonnegut. A religion founded on lies. A religion whose holy scripture begins: this book is all lies. It is all about pleasant untruths. SO often, one wonders why there can't be a religion that freely says that it is for its purpose and no other: to calm, and comfort. Not to confine, control, and condemn.

But I suppose the question is, can you really be comforted by an admitted lie?

The main character has troubles dealing with a new culture. A culture in which Bokononism is outlawed under penalty of death, though everyone in the country practices it. Under bokononism everyone is free to love each other. They make love by placing the bottoms of their feet together. A new perspective.

The main character gets a girl at one point, and tells her that she should only love him, which completely confuses her. Why would she do that? He makes love to her his way, and afterwards is ashamed of himself. "You realize," she said, "That's how you make babies." Not love, is her implication. He is so ashamed he converts to bokononism right then and there.

The novel is full of bends and twists and delights built on the grotesque nature of humanity. It, like Vonnegut does so often, somehow gets you to both despise and love the whole of existence.

Still recommended.
 

300~ pages

What got me into this book was reading the first few chapters in class, in orginal japanese. I didn't know at the time that they were part of this book, so when I started reading it the book was very familiar.

The passages that drew me in was the odd friendship between our hero and his dead friend's girlfriend. They would say little, but walk all over Tokyo for hours on end. This was very nostalgic to me.

What else to say about this book?
Very poignant. About how death affects people. About different types of love, none of them untrue, per se, but all different. Different shapes of relationships. Timing. People's broken natures. The sadness of becoming mature.

I'm not thinking of intelligent things to say, but it was an experience.
 

419 pages.

So I read this book for class. But it was really good.

It was a pretty fast pased thriller, for one thing. But at the same time it painted a really good picture of the gritty sadness of Japanese society.

The plot revolves around 4 women who work the night shift at a factory in Japan, putting together boxed lunches. One of them kills her husband one night, and they all become involved in the business of taking care of it. As the police and the mafia start to catch onto them, things get more complicated.

Our hero character is a woman who is lacking something in her life. Her husband and son don't talk to her at all, and she has a past with money loaning.

Another character is older, and her husband is dead, she has to take care of her ailing step-mother, one of her daughters has run away from home, and the other continually asks for money.

The third woman is sad and fat, and only is happy when she is consuming: buying, wearing new makeup and clothes, eating (she has nothing else). She is in serious trouble with money lenders.

Another is young and pretty and hateful, and she ends up killing her cheating husband.

Over the broad spectrum of characters, and their unique aspects of society, what can be seen as a pretty standard thriller is also a unique look and critique of modern Japan.

I think often of the problems there. The mafia-connected money lenders advertising on tv with cute girls in harmless outfits. The aging population, dependent on younger ones to take care of themselves. And the increasingly dependent younger ones, leeching off of their parents for longer and longer. The ultra competitive business economy, creating legions of zombies: it's no wonder many are reluctant to get into it. It destroys the life. Life is over when you enter the Japanese economy. And that's not to mention gender issues, the lack of family life for anyone. It's a sad world. Transparently sad.

Anyways, entertaining and thought-provoking book.
 

350 pages or so?

What a cute story.

About a guy named Fat Charlie (who is not fat at all), who is constantly embarrassed by his father, who is a party god. Actually, his father is in fact a literal god, a god of Music and Partying.

Fat Charlie is not the type to act spontaneously, party, or anything else. He is the intimidated type. When he meets his brother, who is everything he is not, he learns cute lessons about life, etc.

The core of the story is the family aspect, a comedy about two brothers so un-alike, and yet...
There's also some intrigue and murders, and maybe a lot about magical worlds and Gods, in the same vein as Gaiman's masterpiece American Gods.
This novel isn't as good. But it isn't aiming as high. It's a small story, a very funny story, and... very cute.

That's all.
 

About 400 pages, I think? I read it during winter break...

This is a rather interesting novel, in that it is both a novel and a collection of short stories (each short story is supposedly written by a character in the main story). It's about a bunch of writers on retreat, looking for inspiration. What they find, of course, in a Chuck P kind of way, is a lot of disgusting events told in a very comical and satirical way, and nobody is really likable.

The main story is okay. It's almost predictably Palahniuk at times, but it has wonderful gruesome moments of hilarity, that you expect from him.

Many of the short stories are okay. Many of them very good. And a few that are strokes of genius.

My favorites:

Guts - a story that was available on the internet a few years ago. It remains one of the most visceral experiences ever written.

Another story about dolls. About CPR practice dolls, about sexual abuse dolls, about sex dolls. And about human nature. A really twisted story, of course, but driven by a woman's need to protect -maybe anything, but in this case, the idea of human decency itself? I don't know.

Another story about a bunch of guys who need to earn money for their terrorist operation by letting people pay to punch them in the face.

Finally, a very Vonnegut-esque story about the apocalypse. One day, humanity finds heaven on Venus. Once we die, we go there. The problem is, whenever someone on the planet earth is born, it takes a soul back from the afterlife and forces them back to earth. What do we do about it? Well, you have to kill everyone on earth so that everyone is guaranteed not to get sucked back from heaven. Mass suicides, death squads, all to ensure a future utopia. Very poignant stuff.

DOn't have much other intelligent reaction, except: awesome.
 

By John Kennedy Toole
Maybe 300 pages or so?

Okay, I had read this in middle school of my own accord. I was mostly struck at that time by the story surrounding the book: published posthumously by Toole's mother after he commited suicide. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
It's not that this true story is just sad and touching. It's that the novel itself is such a work of genius.

It's comedy of a high caliber, utterly character driven.

It's the main character, Ignatius J. Reilly. He's overweight. He lives with his mother. He speaks like an intellectual. He believes that society should return to the medieval age. He is utterly fed up with the world around him, but he will not raise a finger to do anything about it himself.
The character of Ignatius is more true in our age than ever. We have become a world full of Ignatius's. When I think of the internet, I think of thousands and thousands of Ignatius's. How Toole was able to so accurately predict a rising personality type, I just don't know. But it's startling.

It's one of those rare novels that gives you a main character beyond hope, who is utterly wrong, utterly unable to be helped. And yet you root for him. And the end of the novel has one of those fantastic and superbly satisfying moments. I don't know how to describe it.

But most of all, it's really funny. There are great antics to be had along the way.

The novel takes place in New Orleans. Strangely enough, I was in the middle of reading it again when Katrina struck.
I don't have anything intelligent to say about that though.
 

(It's been a while since I've updated this thing, so I have to rely on my hazy memory)

Antartica. This book was about, well, Antartica. When you think about it, Antartica is a really interesting place. It's a continent. It's not a nation. There are no native antarticans. Antartica is like the moon. There are research labs there to measure photons, there are oil companies there to stake their claims, there are adventure tours there catering to the most extreme appetites. There is endless beauty there. The only piece of nature left on the planet relatively untouched by human hands.
Who ARE the people in Antarctica?

Robinson's book sets out to answer this. There is political intrigue. There is high character drama. There is alice-in-wonderland style craziness, the likes that only scientists left alone on a continent by themselves would dream up, and often do, I imagine.

There was not really a story in this book. It was more of an exploration, everything designed to show off the whole of Antarctica as a concept.

I was reading this book in my last days in Japan, and I finished it on the airplane ride back.

One of the most poinant things I found about the book is its investigation into the nature of one's own internal geography. How do we call a place home? How is it that physical, geographic LOCATION can have such an effect on how we think of ourselves?
I know that a lot of people never have the opportunity to think of these questions. Most people don't have multiple locations to call home, to call a part of themselves. But personally, I see it as amazing how much of our experience is in fact tied to the very idea of PLACE. I wish I knew more about this. But it is so very INTERESTING to think about.

Alright, that's it for that book. It was about 600 pages, by the way. I read it in July.
 

1152 pages.

Yes, I read this book just a year ago. And this is the third time I've read it.

But it gets better with every read. Highly enjoyable. It is like candy.
 

308 pages

Stephenson's first real novel. I'd never read it before, but have REALLY enjoyed everything else he's written.

Here he shows inexperience. The book is surprisingly good. And the juxtaposition of NOIR and ECOTERRORISM is clever. But comparing to his later work, it is clear that Stephenson isn't grasping completely his style yet.

Nevertheless there are great things that work here: the main character's badass-ness. The technology and techno explanations presented. The main character's 'law' (simpler molecules are safer). It's really fun, and actually action packed. And the story engages until the end, so it is definitely worth a read. (but his later work is better)
 

315 pages.

The last in Davies' 'Deptford Trilogy' takes on one of the more interesting characters, the magician Eisengrim.

His tale is told, strangely enough, by himself to the makers of a movie based on the life of Houdini, who Eisengrim himself plays. The reason he is telling his own story is under the pretext that it is all 'subtext' for his acting in the movie.

A strange framing for the story, certainly. But it doesn't make the story any less good. It is quite good. The magicians travels from deptford, to travelling carnivals, to acting, and finally his fame as a master illusionist. And at the same time, his deeply personal psychological troubles that Davies has such a talent for describing.
 

310 pages.

A kind of sequel to Fifth Business, but only because it shares characters and events. It is an entirely different story.

Similar to fifth business, but the focus of the story is on the psychological counseling of its main character. It is interesting to see the fusion of storytelling and what is pretty much a diagnosis of the character telling his own story.
The book doesn't come together as satisfyingly as Fifth Business, but it is nevertheless a good novel.
 

266 pages.

Essentially, this is one of those books whose narrative energy comes together nearly flawlessly. The revelation and unravelling of its characters were just delicious to me, despite it's 'old literature' feeling.

It's the story of one man's life, and his role in his own story. i don't want to give too much away, but it is grand enough and intelligent enough to satisfy those who enjoy some thoughtful reading.
 

358 pages.

This is one of those books that doesn't really tell a whole story, but rather puts a lot of things together that hint at one.
I was satisfied though.

It's about several things: an impending global warming crisis, science research technology, the corporate side to scientific research, and the political side.

I appreciated the in depth look at the lives of the scientific community and how research is guided. And I liked how it was all essentially a setup. I could appreciate that. The end of the book becomes a kind of projection: can it all come together? And how close are we?
 

243 pages.

Mr. Dick in top form again with this book, as usual, defying conventions and bringing the reader on an unexpected ride through sci fi, psychology, andthe craziness that comes from love.

This book centers on a company that is creating robots. They've made a Lincoln bot, and there are elaborate plans to fight the civil war again with robots.

A powerful man seeks to use the technology for different ends, and the company faces a legal battle. Meanwhile, the main character has to struggle with his love for a woman who cannot experience real love. Meanwhile, the poor robot Lincoln is just trying to make a life for himself.
It's screwy, and schizofrenic, but dang did I enjoy it.
 

Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins
-Steve Olson

238 pages.

A pretty amazing book. It's basically a study of the human race's history, making use of new DNA analysis. There are some pretty amazing revelations herein, and I believe that if everyone had a good idea of the content of this book, then we all would be much better off as a society.

Some of the things that amazed me:
That if you trace back everyones ancestors 800 years or so, we are all related. There is math to support it, but what it comes down to is, at a certain amount back in time, any one person either has 0 decendents who made it, or they are the ancestors of everyone on the planet. It's rather simple math too.
There is also rather more complicated evidence dealing with mutations in DNA and genetic variation that are interesting, and show off not only genetic history, but also our cultural history, our geographic history.
It surprised me to learn that the concepts of 'race' we have developed are so terribly off base. For example, most variations of that type occurred after a great amount of time, and owe heavily to geographic isolation for periods, rather than some kind of 'parallel evolution'. IN fact, a lot of attributes that are distinctive to races are more the results of arbitrary cultural preferences rather than convoluted adaptation-type explanations.

Anyways, there's a lot of cool information here, and it gives kind of an amazing overview of the human race as a whole.