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The Moth Eaten Shelf
Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high!
...But you don't have to take my, or Lamar Burton's, word for it. Just take a look, it's in a book.
Currently reading
The Backstory of Wallpaper: Paper-Hangings 1650-1750
Progress:
5/183 pages
Death of a Gossip
Korean for Beginners: Mastering Conversational Korean (CD-ROM Included)
Visualize This: The Flowing Data Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics
Discovering Statistics Using R
Pushkin House (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))
Beginner's Korean
La Nouvelle Héloïse: Julie, or the New Eloise
Edith Wharton
Linear Models with R (Chapman & Hall/CRC Texts in Statistical Science)
206 Bones (Temperance Brennan Series, Book 1)
Similar plot line set up as the last 4 books, which is disheartening as one already sees the "evil doers" by the first third of the book.
Candide: Or, Optimism (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
The cover lead me to buy it, and now I think that is why it is still sitting on my shelf. I didn't laugh at all while reading it; perhaps life imitates art too much or maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind to full enjoy it. Though I wonder, as I laugh at the SNL skits of the Penelope character, who doesn't seem that much different from the old lady character in Candide.
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre
This could have been good. The concept and cover looked too good to pass up, but the first 2/3 of the story I wanted to see more of Darcy's vampire side, something darker along the lines of the Brontes or Radcliffe. Alas, much was left to be desired.
Sunshine
Coming from reading mainly 18-19th century works, the style of writing is a little jarring and hard to get into. Also, I agree with Elizabeth's review/comment about the poor grammar: I wonder how it got past the copy editor, and have a pencil with me when I read to make corrections (I'm only half way through).
Night World No. 1: Secret Vampire; Daughters of Darkness; Spellbinder
What is with all the recent teen "soulmate" love fiction out there in the mass market? I don't have anything against the idea, but why does it feel like the only idea out there in this particular field? Perhaps I need to get out more or talk to some radical feminists and see what their take is...Still a guilty pleasure.
The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University
It felt a little one sided, albeit expectantly as the author is male, leaving one wondering what a female perspective of the same premise would be. (Though it doesn't surprise me that it was a male to first go through it...)But that is not much of a review. Coming from a liberal/agnostic background, I could not read it straight through, occasionally wanting to ask Kevin Roose why he doesn't ask some of his fellow hall mates slightly more challenging questions on their views and beliefs, as well as beginning to feel a little bit of the indoctrination myself. Coming from an anthropology background myself, I also had the urge to give some pointers on participant-observer, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Overall, it was a pleasant read but not as in-depth as I had expected.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
Fun interpretation, but a little lacking than expected in the zombie department.
City of Dreaming Books
A delightful read for anyone who loves books and isn't afraid of their childish side.
Verity
If it hadn't been for the CollegeStudent's 2009 Challenge, I probably would not have read this book for another 10+ years, when I might have chanced upon it in a small used bookstore in a no-name town and bought it because of the title. Having the same obscure name as the main character was a little disconcerting at first, though finally nice to know the feeling of reading one's own name as a character, and more so when it seemed as though our personalities were the same.Thankfully, that is where the similarities end. Shelved under fiction, since I wouldn't call it literature and wasn't light in subject enough to be diverting, it is a story that seems to slowly drag you under it's spell of middle-class families in northern England's industrial towns at the turn of the Victorian era, while at the same time never really saying or doing anything (much like this review). An easy read that leaves you nearly as distempered as Joel Barforth: needing to know what will happen to them.
Up to the last 10 pages, I thought I would be left wondering about the characters that I would need to read the other two books in the series to find out...much to my pocketbook's delight, I am contempt to let them remain as they ended.
Jude the Obscure (Wordsworth Classics)
Having finally finished this book after a long hiatus, I can see why Hardy gave up writing fiction after completing this work! I can see paternal resemblances in Jude, which only seemed to bring a more somber reading to the text, and hope that things turn out well for the character, at least in his relation to his cousin Sue. Given that this is a Hardy story, I shouldn't have been too surprise at the depressing, albeit realistic, ending and that the story seemed to drag on, with the characters seeming impossible to improve or learn anything along the way. This, plus the 'will I, won't I' nature of Sue, made it hard to pick of the book and continue reading.
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Not super gory and rather curious as to what one can do with oneself after death.
In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars
It feels as though it marks a particular moment in time for these countries, but left you with the feeling to know more about these places and to know what is going on with them today.
The Age of Innocence
Wharton is one of my favorite authors for the descriptions of New York and high society of the late 19th century. Her stories may have been limited in scope as to the reality of the time but it reminds one of the glittering illusion of the super rich through a tinted looking glass.
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
I felt quitely connected to other readers and bookaholics throughout this work, seeing a bit of myself and yet not seeing others (some friends and acquaintances). The best part was being reminded that children's (and young adult) literature is well worthing reading, at any age, and one shouldn't be ashamed to be caught perusing those sections.