|
In His Sights
by lz in Stranded on 22Oct2008
I've been having some issues with my latest crop of books I've attempted to read. This is only one of the bad bunch. Supposedly written by a professional writer (er, journalist), the quality of the writing is 6th grade level, thus qualifies as worse than a beach book and nearly...
|
|
Life is too short to suffer through reading a bloated 300+ page book that was inflated from a doctoral dissertation. I don't have anything against non-fiction, in fact I'm devouring a well written and approachable 1491 (America before Columbus); I just feel strongly that these types of issues could get...
|
|
I was excited to re-read this autobiography when I saw it pop up on the NYT Reading Room discussion board. My excitement for the book began to wane as I forced myself through hundreds of pages of self-absorbed whiny drivel. While I did shoot off one comment into the blog-discussion-ether,...
|
|
|
Natasha's Dance
by lz in Stranded on 10Jul2007
St. Petersburg built from nothing in 1700s as the door to Europe, build on marshy land, in styles borrowed heavily from Vienna (?Venice?) and Paris. Everything French was considered superior to backwoods Russian until the War of 1812 when Napolean invaded. Then the backlash against the French language began, the...
|
|
|
Afterlove
by lz in Stranded on 28Sep2006
Never have I sweat so much about putting a book on my Stranded list. But strand it, I must, after 50 pages. This is not the kind of reading I enjoy. I never would have picked up this book had the author not pressed it into my hands and asked...
|
|
|
Why does everyone love Rushdie so much? I'm giving into the hype again and trying him on, but it is not smooth sailing so far. 100 pages in and it's a struggle to convince myself to pick it up and keep reading at the end of the day. Basic premise...
|
|
I apparently read and loved this 5 years ago but remembered nothing of the story, so I picked it up again. I'm just not in the mood to slog through pages and pages of translated words-- and that's what this seems to be: words upon words upon words. Maybe I'll...
|
|
|
The Big Oyster
by lz in Stranded on 20Jun2006
I like oysters. I like New York City. But I did not enjoy slogging through a hundred pages of this, and life is short. Maybe if I lived in NYC I would have the tolerance to finish?...
|
|
|
Ghostwritten
by lz in Stranded on 16Jun2006
Collection of short stories looked tantalizing from the distance, since it appeared to be a sort of travelogue winding its way from Japan, Hong Kong, etc. Instead, Mitchell creates distinct short stories with the age old trick of including characters from the previous story into the current story. And so...
|
|
|
Blech. I happily stranded this poorly written novel after a few pages. Rudimentary dialogue and sentence structure, I felt like I was reading one of my own written-in-6th-grade stories. I am trying to remember why I put this book on my To-Read list; I think Clarke was a Daily Show...
|
|
|
Grand Canyon
by lz in Stranded on 08Nov2005
What could have been a truly riveting story of geology, erosion, and plate tectonics turned into a snooze-fest. I struggled mightily for 160 pages, then determined it was not worth the pain of continuing. I'm a huge geology buff when written in a way that conveys excitement and scientific progress....
|
|
|
Kidnapped
by lz in Stranded on 26Jul2005
Not such engaging prose... maybe some other time....
|
|
|
Burning Angel
by lz in Stranded on 21Jul2005
Can't get into it. I like my mysteries better written....
|
|
|
Collapse
by lz in Stranded on 03May2005
Blech. Started reading this and struggled mightily. I almost didn't pick up Guns, Germs, and Steel at the library b/c I was not enjoying this sequel. However, I'm happily enjoying Guns, Germs, and Steel right now-- think he put his best work into the first book!...
|
|
|
Plan of Attack
by lz in Stranded on 06Nov2004
ugh, 27 pages and just got stuck. Too much information, perhaps? Maybe I don't want to know what evil lurks in the hearts of my leaders?...
|
|
|
Satchmo
by lz in Stranded on 12Oct2004
Some good info on how Louie got started in on the trumpet-- basically he was in reform school at the time b/c of firing a gun off during a New Years celebration. I had to give up once I found out I wasn't visiting New Orleans after all. Maybe if...
|
|
|
Blech, as much as I liked Fargo Rock City, I cannot finish this book-- it pollutes my mind. Perhaps I'll whisk through it one afternoon to get it off my bedside table, but for now, I'm stranding it....
|
|
|
Stranded for now....
|
|
|
Same premise as the Professor & the Madman (details on making the OED). Thus I couldn't really get into it....
|
|
|
The Middle Mind
by lz in Stranded on 09Jan2004
Zzzzzz. Sleepy book with pointless footnotes. I gave it a 50 page chance then abandoned it....
|
|
|
Reefer madness
by lz in Stranded on 25Oct2003
Yeah yeah yeah, the black market in marijuana should be legalized so that the gov't would benefit from the taxes paid, etc. Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation was informative without being boring; I can't say the same for this book....
|
|
|
The old feminist classic, which I haven't read and my MUFF bookclub has chosen for our first book. Can't finish b/c it's page upon page of small text and not very easy to read....
|
|
|
Mosquitoes
by lz in Stranded on 21Jun2003
Whoa now, easy on the adjectives Willy! I could hardly get through the first page, much less the 5 pages I ended up digesting. Perhaps this was a mood thing, but I found the writing beyond help and not worth the trouble. Gave up at page 5....
|
|
|
Every imaginable vegetable carefully explored. I did not have time to read through this with the care I wanted to. For now, it is stranded, to be picked up at a later date, perhaps when I own it....
|
|
|
Zen
by lz in Stranded on 03May2003
Ugh. Don't know why I thought this book would help me figure out what I want to do with my life, but it didn't. One of the worst sorts of self-help books which don't offer much beyond zen phrases and workbook exercises (never made it that far). This sat on...
|
|
|
MAO II
by lz in Stranded on 24Apr2003
DeLillo is so offhand and distant from his writing that I cannot put the effort into this. Perhaps later, when I'm feeling more post-modern....
|
|
|
maybe just not in the mood for this historical reconstruction of the Revolutionary giants....
|
|
|
Reading this one, again. A week on the beach and a happenstance meeting with a gent who persuaded me of the necessity of having one's own sailboat....
|
|
|
The Descent
by lz in Stranded on 06Dec2002
I had to give up on this one after 120 pages. It's clever-ish, but the whole point of the book is lost on someone living in 2002. Underground nuclear bomb shelters are quaint nowadays, and I can't muster enough excitement about the book itself to finish this. It might have...
|
|
Bleak House
by lz in Stranded on 10Nov2002
|
|
|
Omoo
by lz in Stranded on 02Dec1997
|
