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Following
Books I have read and loved
The product of a pathological need to categorise and remember every book I've ever read, and my only creative outlet being critiquing others' creativity.
Currently reading
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit
Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Flying Too High
The Luminaries
High Conflict Personalities: Understanding and Resolving Their Costly Disputes
Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice
I wish everybody would read this. It explains Australia's obligations under international law, regarding asylum seekers and our treatment of them, in really clear, plain English.
The most lovable cliché I've ever had the pleasure to read. The isolated old inn in the middle of dark, dreary moors, oh, poetic justice. But the twists! I knew there would be twists, and I kind of guessed, but oh! Lovely lovely.
I'm not sure what I actually think of this book. The bleak, apocalyptic landscape of this book is haunting and lush. The characters, in contrast, seemed hollow and contrived. I found them unbelievable, and difficult to identify with, beyond mild irritation and annoyance. Perhaps I missed some obvious clues as to an exact setting (not at all unlikely), but that it seemed set in some sort of future-set, almost feudal wasteland, made the narrator's character even more bizarre. His pre-war social standing seemed not to fit his actions and attitudes through the book, which made his character less authentic, more pathetic.
I really, really don't know. I like post-apocalyptic themed anything, but I just don't know.
The ultimate airport book. Annoyingly engrossing, it fulfilled its purpose and kept me company on a long haul flight. But that's about it.
I read this book while travelling through the countries that it covered, which was the only thing that kept me turning pages. That, and it was the only unread book that I had with me.I can't stand regurgitated conversations in books - 'he said this, and I replied, no, that!', etc. It's a personal irritation, I guess, but I find it lazy, unbelievable, and reminiscent of my diary as a 13 year old. This book was a collection of re-told interactions and, while I'm sure it's as awesome to watch as the Long Way Round, the book just didn't do it for me.
I found this book hard to get into, and never really forged any sort of attachment with it until the last 150 or so pages. The characters seemed at times more like devices to demonstrate 'ideas', for want of a better word, rather than robust, developed characters. This is the nature of the book and, to some extent, the genre, however. I probably didn't enjoy it as much as other people for this reason, the military aspects not really grabbing my attention, and the political interactions and aspects perhaps a bit too simplistic. Despite having pushed myself to finish it, I have no real inclination to read the rest of the series. I'd like to follow up with Barbara and Jens Larsson, Liu Han and Bobby Fiore, but definitely wouldn't trawl through another book in order to do so! Unfortunately the ending very much leads into the next book rather than allowing it to stand alone.
This book was not what I thought it would be. The concept I thought it would explore was fascinating, but was not the concept that was actually explored. An interesting one, nonetheless. The lack of juicy characters was slightly offputting, them being literary techniques rather than developed people. Maybe I wanted something different.
The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, Conflict and Emancipation
I still can't agree on the fundamental conceptualisation of the conflict that pervades Ruane and Todd's work, and their ideas of how to thus deal with it. Despite being a bit too far into the let's all hold hands and just get alone kind of idea, with their emancipatory approach to 'solving' the conflict, this book and its ideas have been extremely useful to me over the past year.
Loved this even more than Ender's Game. Maybe I appreciated it because it was (along with Ender's Game) my first real foray into sci-fi, but the concepts were wonderful.
This felt like a comissioned work from the start, painfully ploughed through it, but couldn't force myself to finish the last 100 pages. I had such high hopes, given how much I loved Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, too.
