Matt
A good primer for anyone who's not sure what the hell went on in the movement. It offers lots of info on where to take your Beat reading from here.
I can't imagine anything I would want added to this book. A thoroughly researched and well-written book about an amazing person and life.
I knew I'd love The Only Harmless Great Thing before I bought it because I have knelt before Brooke Bolander's prose many times before and cooled my hot head beneath its flowing language. What I didn't know is that I'd want to hug her heroes and interlace my fingers with theirs as they raised their fists (or what have you) to strike at things miles wider than themselves. Things that very much deserve to be struck. Yesterday, I peeled open the electric cover, read this book around work and around life, and resented the hell out of every interuption that came my way.
Coming to a new Bolander piece, the mind has to wade in slowly. It has to pause sentence by half-sentence to translate a work of English-as-we-wish-it-would-be into the English we use over countertops and through car windows. As she overthrows clich??d phrases again and again, she reminds us how large life truly is and how we fail as thinkers to make the connections that would open up worlds to us.
Should we thank our publishers above who know enough to deliver her verbal delicacies to us like events on some secret holiday schedule of need? Or should we curse our culture because life in general isn't written like this? (Just imagine an existence of Bolander-scribed street signs and vacuum cleaner directions! sigh) We should do both. Be thankful for what work of hers we get, and shout at life for always leaving us wanting more.
Cool future that explores what life might be like in a world in which nearly everything is quantified and tagged, through the eyes of five extraordinary siblings who border on the psychotic whenever they think of each other.
Like most of Asimov's work that I've read, really cool ideas are the only thing that save this book from one star. The writing is eighth grade, as always.
I wanted this particular book because it breaks the work of The Beatles down song by song in chronological order and gives details on when each was recorded, who played what, who wrote what parts (as far as can be ascertained), and so on. These are things I've curious about for years.
In addition, the author???in a lengthy but interesting introduction???floats the theses that the sixties and The Beatles are inextricably linked, that LSD sparked the cultural and societal changes of the latter half of that decade, and that the focus on new-found individualism and freedoms in the sixties ultimately led to the consumer culture of the nineties (when the first edition of this book was released). In appropriate places along the timeline he also discusses important events and turning points in the band's creative direction. Overall, this is great stuff and I recommend the book to anyone who wants some insight into the making of the music.
The author injects large doses of opinion into much of the text, letting us know which songs were brilliant and which were dreck. I found myself disagreeing as often as not, but, hey, it's his book. The main reason I didn't give the book five stars was that some of his statements on the psychology and motives of the major players were obviously made up out of whole cloth and made me wonder what else might have been fabricated. He's also got something against George Harrison's songs, only one of which he seems to feel is of any quality. So enjoy the book, but read it while wearing your critical thinking cap, as you should any piece of nonfiction.
I read the e-version of the book, which seems to have been scanned from the print, but not thoroughly proofread and there are potentially confusing typos throughout.
I don't usually touch graphic novels that don't feature superheroes, but this came highly recommended from the guys at the Around Comics podcast. I grabbed this because it was the only one available at the library. Great characters and a good story. I will seek out more volumes.
This was not my type of science fiction novel. The majority of it was two guys chasing around 1930s Hollywood for a diamond. The author chose the wrong character as the protagonist. He spends a large percentage of the book driving the car and listening to what the other guy did outside of the car. All of the action is related to the reader in a second-hand manner.
The second volume made me hungry for more. This one made me feel I ate too much. I was disappointed by the change-up in art styles. Some of the turns the characters took made me wonder, “Why are they doing this?” “What is the point in the larger concept that has been established?” And “Who cares?”
My teacher read this to my class in sixth grade, but I'd forgotten 99 percent of it. That one percent stuck with me for decades and I decided to give it another look last week.
I'm not a big fantasy fan and kids' books usually leave me cold, but I thought this was a great book. Alexander's writing is simple but has enough details to give the world some flavor. He never lets the story get bogged down, and a really decent philosophy comes through:
Be kind to everyone and everything that isn't actively trying to kill you. Help where you can. Don't refuse help from others. And from a bonus story in the back of the 50th Anniversary edition: “It is better to be raising things up than smiting things down.”
