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jonscott9's Reviews (211)
I'm not one for having a book tell you exactly what to do - whether you have one, two, or three days in a city (or more) - but I doubt anyone truly follows these directions step by step. (And those who do are not people I want to know.)
Compared to Frommer's Complete guides (the regular series), these Day by Day books are colorful (4-color, to be exact) and photo-laden. They're just a pleasure to look at, which departs significantly from the bulk of travel guides.
This Rome book was no exception. We got to a Mediterranean beach 40 minutes outside Rome by train without any fanfare, and we found the to-be-relished Spanish Steps and its shopping area (Prada, anyone?) with relative ease. The Pantheon and Piazza Navona were also highlights aided by this read.
In truth, this read was more of a glance. The train-system and city-street maps inside the covers were of great help. All the material's wonderfully brief and compact, with entries about dining, accommodations, attractions, shopping, and more that speak to almost anyone's interests. Some sections seemed given short shrift, but that all depends on your niche and what you're looking for.
I'll gladly pick up a Day by Day guide for my next voyage. The series has been going for about three years now and keeps adding new titles. (I just edited Edinburgh & Glasgow Day by Day, which was a joy, and I've got Chicago DbD - 2nd edition - on tap.)
Compared to Frommer's Complete guides (the regular series), these Day by Day books are colorful (4-color, to be exact) and photo-laden. They're just a pleasure to look at, which departs significantly from the bulk of travel guides.
This Rome book was no exception. We got to a Mediterranean beach 40 minutes outside Rome by train without any fanfare, and we found the to-be-relished Spanish Steps and its shopping area (Prada, anyone?) with relative ease. The Pantheon and Piazza Navona were also highlights aided by this read.
In truth, this read was more of a glance. The train-system and city-street maps inside the covers were of great help. All the material's wonderfully brief and compact, with entries about dining, accommodations, attractions, shopping, and more that speak to almost anyone's interests. Some sections seemed given short shrift, but that all depends on your niche and what you're looking for.
I'll gladly pick up a Day by Day guide for my next voyage. The series has been going for about three years now and keeps adding new titles. (I just edited Edinburgh & Glasgow Day by Day, which was a joy, and I've got Chicago DbD - 2nd edition - on tap.)
Some of the info in this book seems redundant - the same info housed in two or three different sections - but it's also quite useful. Entries on the Tate Modern Museum (aka the best place ever for art) and Piccadilly Circus, among others, were notable. The Tube map on the inside cover made for a great aid. Unfortunately some of the info already seemed dated, or was surely dated, gauging by the experience, and this was particularly troubling in light of it being the latest edition of the book (and one I edited, at that).
I definitely prefer Frommer's travel books - and Day by Day guides, specifically - to Dummies Travel titles. I should've packed London Day by Day instead, but I wanted to use a book I'd worked on. Dummies seems better suited to consumer titles (gardening, pets, divorce, knitting, whatever). Plus, who wants to lug around a big yellow book on vacation?
I definitely prefer Frommer's travel books - and Day by Day guides, specifically - to Dummies Travel titles. I should've packed London Day by Day instead, but I wanted to use a book I'd worked on. Dummies seems better suited to consumer titles (gardening, pets, divorce, knitting, whatever). Plus, who wants to lug around a big yellow book on vacation?
Mary Karr shares my mother's name and birth year and strength and fragility. That's about where the comparisons end, as my mother is a lifelong conservative Wesleyan, and Mary Karr became a Catholic at 40 after lifelong literary liberalism (which she retains). My mother's had some choice words for people at times, particularly heartbreaking times, and Karr herself pulls from that reserve with abandon. (One poem here about a relationship gone sour ends with the poet-memoirist tagging herself as a "dumb cunt.")
Okay, so the comparisons don't quite end. Admittedly, I wished at times that I had a literary mama like Mary Karr. She obviously loves her only son (reminds one of Anne Lamott and her Sam stories) and writes beautifully about raising him, her "15 years' son" and then her "20 years' son," and about his departure to university and release from her grip forever, into this often-harsh world.
Karr interweaves "Descending Theology:" poems into the mix that have to do with the Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, among other topics. These works are fresh and inspiring. I really can't pick out just three to five poems to lift out from this 76-page tome of delights. It's an amazingly taut, lovely collection, one I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys literate, funny, touching, heartrending, sometimes-vulgar poems.
I learned of Mary Karr from Linford Detweiler, one-half of the folk band Over the Rhine, when I interviewed him in October 2007 (http://www.stereosubversion.com/interviews-features/08-22-2007/over-the-rhine-2/), and I haven't been disappointed. Also enjoyable was an NPR interview I listened to in which she reads from and discusses this latest work (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5481647).
Have at her if you dare. I doubt you'll regret reading from this "scrappy little beast" (Salon.com's words). She's controversial in the poetry establishment, favors content over poetic style (fewer metaphors and showy references, please), but her content is unique and invigorating. I'm eager to see more.
Okay, so the comparisons don't quite end. Admittedly, I wished at times that I had a literary mama like Mary Karr. She obviously loves her only son (reminds one of Anne Lamott and her Sam stories) and writes beautifully about raising him, her "15 years' son" and then her "20 years' son," and about his departure to university and release from her grip forever, into this often-harsh world.
Karr interweaves "Descending Theology:" poems into the mix that have to do with the Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, among other topics. These works are fresh and inspiring. I really can't pick out just three to five poems to lift out from this 76-page tome of delights. It's an amazingly taut, lovely collection, one I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys literate, funny, touching, heartrending, sometimes-vulgar poems.
I learned of Mary Karr from Linford Detweiler, one-half of the folk band Over the Rhine, when I interviewed him in October 2007 (http://www.stereosubversion.com/interviews-features/08-22-2007/over-the-rhine-2/), and I haven't been disappointed. Also enjoyable was an NPR interview I listened to in which she reads from and discusses this latest work (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5481647).
Have at her if you dare. I doubt you'll regret reading from this "scrappy little beast" (Salon.com's words). She's controversial in the poetry establishment, favors content over poetic style (fewer metaphors and showy references, please), but her content is unique and invigorating. I'm eager to see more.
I'm no poet, not even an aficionado, but I do like it. It grew on me thanks to the Irish poets Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland (read in an Irish lit class at university). Thanks also go to scattered Plath and Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins that I've picked up, as well as anything The Bard created.
Stephen Dunn arrives in my life due to a friend (hi, ARose) imposing him on it. (Postcards, and poems scrawled on them, can do so much.) I read an interview with Dunn at Books & Culture (http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/002/24.26.html) that I really liked, and thus I gave him a go.
Everything Else In The World is Dunn's latest, although his best is probably the Pulitzer-tapped Different Hours, which I'll read next. The poems are alternately solemn and light, grave and fun, and they have the motif running through them of coping with the realities of this "already brutal century" at hand for us. I can't say much was memorable, but it often made for pleasant reading in the moment. With hope, his Different Hours harbors more crisp pieces, and if I don't find better stuff there, I'll stick to reading the poet Mary Karr's bookography (she's my latest find), as well as everything from Hopkins.
Stephen Dunn arrives in my life due to a friend (hi, ARose) imposing him on it. (Postcards, and poems scrawled on them, can do so much.) I read an interview with Dunn at Books & Culture (http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/002/24.26.html) that I really liked, and thus I gave him a go.
Everything Else In The World is Dunn's latest, although his best is probably the Pulitzer-tapped Different Hours, which I'll read next. The poems are alternately solemn and light, grave and fun, and they have the motif running through them of coping with the realities of this "already brutal century" at hand for us. I can't say much was memorable, but it often made for pleasant reading in the moment. With hope, his Different Hours harbors more crisp pieces, and if I don't find better stuff there, I'll stick to reading the poet Mary Karr's bookography (she's my latest find), as well as everything from Hopkins.
First, I will say this is overrated to be on TIME mag's list of the top 100 novels of all time. I feel like McEwan has better novels in him even, though I haven't read them. (Here's hoping Enduring Love is amazing when I get to it.)
It doesn't achieve liftoff so speedily, that's sure. The first third of the novel almost made me sick. As in, can these privileged offspring (chiefly Cecilia and Briony) whine any more? And can these young and old adults sit around in the summer heat and sip cocktails and complain any more in their so-horrible silver-spoon lives? Ugh. (Disclosure: I write this as I watch the Olympics in my air-conditioned apartment while sipping chilled red wine. Hypocritical much?)
Then the middle third revolving around Robbie Turner's wartime experiences happens. It's gripping, flooring WWII stuff. The British troops are about to lose France to the Nazis, and London's bracing for the Blitz. You nearly want to roll into a ball and sleep it away. Obviously McEwan did his research, as evidenced in the acknowledgments at back.
The romance between Robbie and Cecilia is convincing and heartrending. There is a consummation, a misunderstanding, a betrayal, a crime, a cover-up, and an apology. All these things don't necessary involve them, at least not directly. (Though it may seem confusing, that's one reason for the title, Atonement.)
There is not really a forgiveness to be found here. McEwan's behind-the-eyes depiction of 13-year-old sister Briony is sometimes astounding. Perhaps her life is most tragic among all the unfortunate persons and events here. The last third of the book about her wartime nursing occupation is likewise persuasive. (McEwan was accused a couple years ago of plagiarism for some phrases seemingly lifted from a WWII nurse's memoir - a memoir he acknowledged - but the majority of the literati stood up for him.)
The "present-day 1999" epilogue seems a bit tagged on and doesn't quite finish with a flourish. I wanted more, if not better, for and from these people and their stories. A certain point about the way this book was written, or the perspective it was written from, is revealed late in the book, and it makes one feel manipulated. The main source for that manipulation charge is that one crucial aspect of the story has been tilted on its side; I soured to this novel when that was revealed for what truly happened.
It doesn't achieve liftoff so speedily, that's sure. The first third of the novel almost made me sick. As in, can these privileged offspring (chiefly Cecilia and Briony) whine any more? And can these young and old adults sit around in the summer heat and sip cocktails and complain any more in their so-horrible silver-spoon lives? Ugh. (Disclosure: I write this as I watch the Olympics in my air-conditioned apartment while sipping chilled red wine. Hypocritical much?)
Then the middle third revolving around Robbie Turner's wartime experiences happens. It's gripping, flooring WWII stuff. The British troops are about to lose France to the Nazis, and London's bracing for the Blitz. You nearly want to roll into a ball and sleep it away. Obviously McEwan did his research, as evidenced in the acknowledgments at back.
The romance between Robbie and Cecilia is convincing and heartrending. There is a consummation, a misunderstanding, a betrayal, a crime, a cover-up, and an apology. All these things don't necessary involve them, at least not directly. (Though it may seem confusing, that's one reason for the title, Atonement.)
There is not really a forgiveness to be found here. McEwan's behind-the-eyes depiction of 13-year-old sister Briony is sometimes astounding. Perhaps her life is most tragic among all the unfortunate persons and events here. The last third of the book about her wartime nursing occupation is likewise persuasive. (McEwan was accused a couple years ago of plagiarism for some phrases seemingly lifted from a WWII nurse's memoir - a memoir he acknowledged - but the majority of the literati stood up for him.)
The "present-day 1999" epilogue seems a bit tagged on and doesn't quite finish with a flourish. I wanted more, if not better, for and from these people and their stories. A certain point about the way this book was written, or the perspective it was written from, is revealed late in the book, and it makes one feel manipulated. The main source for that manipulation charge is that one crucial aspect of the story has been tilted on its side; I soured to this novel when that was revealed for what truly happened.
Ever hate the fact that you've finished a book, that there's no more for your eyes to eat? That's what I've experienced with the last two books of poetry I've read, Mary Karr's Sinners Welcome and this tome.
I must say, I appreciate a poet who's not afraid to give alliteration a solid workout in his stuff. As with a nifty pop hook in indie rock music, alliteration (and some other devices) should be embraced in writing, used well if sparingly.
At 120 pages, this is a rather lengthy poetry book. It's also amazingly taut. I cannot highlight just one poem here. I'd want to paste a dozen of them in this space, maybe more. The fourth set of poems in Different Hours is particularly moving.
Dunn's poems are often startling, sometimes jarring. He's been described by some in the know as "one of our indispensable poets." This is his eleventh collection (of 14), probably his best. It took the Pulitzer in 2001. I read this and saw why.
Three of Dunn's poems here are based around quoted excerpts or typos from some of his students' work. It could be kitschy but is remarkable, how he riffs off those sentences.
The titular phrase, Different Hours, refers not only to those in one's own life, but also to all the historical and existential and philosophical moments that comprise Life on the whole. A few pieces here come from Dunn's observations of everyday life in New Jersey (burying a cat, for one), and they're stirring even as they depict seemingly mundane happenings.
"A Postmortem Guide" (written for Dunn's eulogist to come; he is approaching age 70) makes for a fitting closer. I have trouble recalling other individual poems now (call it congruous) and will certainly give this set another go soon. Some golden stanzas and phrasings contained here, some turns of phrase that just leave one quiet and pondering for a few minutes.
I must say, I appreciate a poet who's not afraid to give alliteration a solid workout in his stuff. As with a nifty pop hook in indie rock music, alliteration (and some other devices) should be embraced in writing, used well if sparingly.
At 120 pages, this is a rather lengthy poetry book. It's also amazingly taut. I cannot highlight just one poem here. I'd want to paste a dozen of them in this space, maybe more. The fourth set of poems in Different Hours is particularly moving.
Dunn's poems are often startling, sometimes jarring. He's been described by some in the know as "one of our indispensable poets." This is his eleventh collection (of 14), probably his best. It took the Pulitzer in 2001. I read this and saw why.
Three of Dunn's poems here are based around quoted excerpts or typos from some of his students' work. It could be kitschy but is remarkable, how he riffs off those sentences.
The titular phrase, Different Hours, refers not only to those in one's own life, but also to all the historical and existential and philosophical moments that comprise Life on the whole. A few pieces here come from Dunn's observations of everyday life in New Jersey (burying a cat, for one), and they're stirring even as they depict seemingly mundane happenings.
"A Postmortem Guide" (written for Dunn's eulogist to come; he is approaching age 70) makes for a fitting closer. I have trouble recalling other individual poems now (call it congruous) and will certainly give this set another go soon. Some golden stanzas and phrasings contained here, some turns of phrase that just leave one quiet and pondering for a few minutes.
Well, a miscellany here about this 120-page book:
First, the title is a Shakespeare reference. Second, this is just a tender collection from the Pulitzer nominee now 82. From the two-'graph intro: "A story, some reminisces, a handful of poems about my family, a scene from a novel--they are the yellow leaves that hang upon these boughs that are not so bare and ruined but that they still dream from time to time of the sweet birds' return."
It might all seem cluttered from anyone else. Somehow "The Beek" makes it work. In part that's because Buechner's stuff is really to be sipped like a fine scotch. Also, he's funny as ever. He harks back to how he and a friend summoned Emily Dickinson on a makeshift Ouija board. Unintentionally funny is some of his stately, archaic language, as when he refers in 2-3 instances to [b:certain women|419594|Certain Women|Madeleine L'Engle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174585340s/419594.jpg|1866] as "handsome" (what, handsome like Sigourney Weaver is handsome? love it).
"Presidents I Have Known" finds Fred riffing on run-ins with FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. About FDR, at FB's age 8: "Each of them had hold of him under one of his arms, and I could see that if they let go of him, he would crumple to the ground...He was the most important man in the Mayflower Hotel. He was the most important man in the world. But I could see with my own eyes that if he didn't have those two men to help, he would be helpless."
That's one thing kills me about Buechner, my favorite living author: He's been around the block to know and rub shoulders with some impressive people, including Maya Angelou (friend), John Irving (student and friend), and the poet James Merrill (classmate and chum). About C. S. Lewis, who took meals at the same place, while living in London: "To my great regret I never made any effort to meet him or to hear him lecture because at that point in my life I knew nothing about him except, dimly, his name." And for goodness sake, Buechner writes a poem about family who were on the Titanic.
To note, the slave-time story behind "The Laughter Barrel," title of a piece about Ms. Angelou, is brief and plain and triumphant.
Some of his most convincing stuff comes in "Fathers and Teachers." Buechner's own father committed suicide when he was 10, and he came to respect a good many men, especially in academia, in his life. Take this eulogy for his French teacher: "My prayer for [Mr. Woods:] all these years later is that as he makes his way through the Elysian Fields he may somehow run into those handsome boys he had pictures of in his living room all those years ago, and that he may be able at last to embrace them without guilt or shame."
Yea, no one I know does compassion like Frederick Buechner.
His words about the novelist William Maxwell are those I'd shine on Buechner himself:
"It is a scandal that so few people even know his name let alone that he was one of the greatest, most human, wisest American writers of the twentieth century."
^ Indeed, if but one person checks him out due to this post, I'll have done my duty.
"Our Last Drive Together" about his late mother, "Kaki," is heartrending, especially if you've read some of his other work about her, this woman who fought late into life against age's effects on her flawless face. "I am the last rose of summer," he says from behind her eyes in one poem. Check your pulse if this stuff doesn't stir you. Sad day when the years caught up to her face.
The clip from a novel never finished, "Gertrude Conover Remembers," makes you yearn for that tome. "I married him...It was more of a beautiful friendship than a romance." The last bit of that, about eyes meeting in a mirror, is simply devastating.
The only thing out of place here is a short review of Dickens's Christmas Carol.
The family poems at the end are wonderful where I went in a bit apprehensive. Those about Aunt Doozie, Uncle George, and Mattie Poor are particularly striking. So is "The Cousins," maddening, really. (Must write to him in Vermont to inquire about it; he wrote back to my last note!)
And the man's last piece, a 50th reunion address to his Class of '43, is a fitting final word, if indeed it is final. As with most things he writes, it is in the best way subtly staggering. I took 10 minutes to read the last page, so fearful that it was a wrap. When it was over I sat silently some minutes more and saw faintest tear alight on my lower lid. Truly good grief.
When he finally goes -- and we all go, even Kaki -- I just may disappear for a time.
First, the title is a Shakespeare reference. Second, this is just a tender collection from the Pulitzer nominee now 82. From the two-'graph intro: "A story, some reminisces, a handful of poems about my family, a scene from a novel--they are the yellow leaves that hang upon these boughs that are not so bare and ruined but that they still dream from time to time of the sweet birds' return."
It might all seem cluttered from anyone else. Somehow "The Beek" makes it work. In part that's because Buechner's stuff is really to be sipped like a fine scotch. Also, he's funny as ever. He harks back to how he and a friend summoned Emily Dickinson on a makeshift Ouija board. Unintentionally funny is some of his stately, archaic language, as when he refers in 2-3 instances to [b:certain women|419594|Certain Women|Madeleine L'Engle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174585340s/419594.jpg|1866] as "handsome" (what, handsome like Sigourney Weaver is handsome? love it).
"Presidents I Have Known" finds Fred riffing on run-ins with FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. About FDR, at FB's age 8: "Each of them had hold of him under one of his arms, and I could see that if they let go of him, he would crumple to the ground...He was the most important man in the Mayflower Hotel. He was the most important man in the world. But I could see with my own eyes that if he didn't have those two men to help, he would be helpless."
That's one thing kills me about Buechner, my favorite living author: He's been around the block to know and rub shoulders with some impressive people, including Maya Angelou (friend), John Irving (student and friend), and the poet James Merrill (classmate and chum). About C. S. Lewis, who took meals at the same place, while living in London: "To my great regret I never made any effort to meet him or to hear him lecture because at that point in my life I knew nothing about him except, dimly, his name." And for goodness sake, Buechner writes a poem about family who were on the Titanic.
To note, the slave-time story behind "The Laughter Barrel," title of a piece about Ms. Angelou, is brief and plain and triumphant.
Some of his most convincing stuff comes in "Fathers and Teachers." Buechner's own father committed suicide when he was 10, and he came to respect a good many men, especially in academia, in his life. Take this eulogy for his French teacher: "My prayer for [Mr. Woods:] all these years later is that as he makes his way through the Elysian Fields he may somehow run into those handsome boys he had pictures of in his living room all those years ago, and that he may be able at last to embrace them without guilt or shame."
Yea, no one I know does compassion like Frederick Buechner.
His words about the novelist William Maxwell are those I'd shine on Buechner himself:
"It is a scandal that so few people even know his name let alone that he was one of the greatest, most human, wisest American writers of the twentieth century."
^ Indeed, if but one person checks him out due to this post, I'll have done my duty.
"Our Last Drive Together" about his late mother, "Kaki," is heartrending, especially if you've read some of his other work about her, this woman who fought late into life against age's effects on her flawless face. "I am the last rose of summer," he says from behind her eyes in one poem. Check your pulse if this stuff doesn't stir you. Sad day when the years caught up to her face.
The clip from a novel never finished, "Gertrude Conover Remembers," makes you yearn for that tome. "I married him...It was more of a beautiful friendship than a romance." The last bit of that, about eyes meeting in a mirror, is simply devastating.
The only thing out of place here is a short review of Dickens's Christmas Carol.
The family poems at the end are wonderful where I went in a bit apprehensive. Those about Aunt Doozie, Uncle George, and Mattie Poor are particularly striking. So is "The Cousins," maddening, really. (Must write to him in Vermont to inquire about it; he wrote back to my last note!)
And the man's last piece, a 50th reunion address to his Class of '43, is a fitting final word, if indeed it is final. As with most things he writes, it is in the best way subtly staggering. I took 10 minutes to read the last page, so fearful that it was a wrap. When it was over I sat silently some minutes more and saw faintest tear alight on my lower lid. Truly good grief.
When he finally goes -- and we all go, even Kaki -- I just may disappear for a time.
A delightful little jam of a book, chock-full of the (un)usual amuse-bouches we've all come to expect from NYC dwellers, thanks to the eponymous website. Guaranteed to make you feel your city and its own denizens lack chutzpah, wit, flow, and style in their speech. New Yorkers shine, the tourists typically burn, and we all float on all right.
Often I've found that the headlines written by the site/book's keepers are just as funny if not funnier than the quotes themselves. The fan-submitted quotes are often hilarious, sometimes crass, and never dull.
I was gifted this book after a fairly serious car wreck, and blast it if that friend didn't hurt me good, causing me to laugh with my full torso and spine repeatedly. (Thanks for everything, ARose.) Reminds me of a certain Jack Handey-ism: "Papa always said laughter was the best medicine. Guess that's why so many of us died of tuberculosis."
morsels, and hardly the best ones:
ODDLY SATAN LOATHES STEAKS
(A group of punks walks by the Hellenic Steaks restaurant.)
Punk: This restaurant is perfect for me: I love steaks, and I love Satan!
I EAT IN THE THIRD PERSON
Billy: Can anyone help Billy out so Billy can get dinner? Anyone? No? Thanks a lot!
-Taco Bell, Union Square
AT LEAST THEY'LL STOP TAKING AMERICAN JOBS
Girl #1: Have you heard? I read dolphins are committing suicide together in ever larger numbers.
Girl #2: Is that good or bad for us?
THE NUISANCE
Guy: Facts are such a distraction from the essence of what's really happening.
Too true, mate.
Often I've found that the headlines written by the site/book's keepers are just as funny if not funnier than the quotes themselves. The fan-submitted quotes are often hilarious, sometimes crass, and never dull.
I was gifted this book after a fairly serious car wreck, and blast it if that friend didn't hurt me good, causing me to laugh with my full torso and spine repeatedly. (Thanks for everything, ARose.) Reminds me of a certain Jack Handey-ism: "Papa always said laughter was the best medicine. Guess that's why so many of us died of tuberculosis."
morsels, and hardly the best ones:
ODDLY SATAN LOATHES STEAKS
(A group of punks walks by the Hellenic Steaks restaurant.)
Punk: This restaurant is perfect for me: I love steaks, and I love Satan!
I EAT IN THE THIRD PERSON
Billy: Can anyone help Billy out so Billy can get dinner? Anyone? No? Thanks a lot!
-Taco Bell, Union Square
AT LEAST THEY'LL STOP TAKING AMERICAN JOBS
Girl #1: Have you heard? I read dolphins are committing suicide together in ever larger numbers.
Girl #2: Is that good or bad for us?
THE NUISANCE
Guy: Facts are such a distraction from the essence of what's really happening.
Too true, mate.
This read (picked up cheap from McSweeney's) seemed promising, but I dig the premise and effort more than the finished product, as it turns out. At but 94 pages, 2 pages for each position description + accompanying art, it's a whimsical, informative little book. Some of the writing's engaging and clever and crisp -- what you'd expect from McSweeney's, sure -- and then some of it, well, made me want to snooze.
Classic Spoons position bats lead-off, and then it's a crazy ride through dreamland from there. Some of the positions shown are flat-out illogical, if not next to impossible (Downward Koala, Bread and Spread, and so on). As one who tends to overheat when conscious and not, some of the depictions only served to make me hot, and not in a good way. I wanted to start sweating just regarding the figures.
It's split into four sections, the Sun, Wind, Sea, and Wood sleepers. Sea sleepers fit me, as it focused on symmetry. (Even so, The Colon was one of the most uncomfortable-looking things I've seen. Yipes.) The Tetherball and Turnstile positions are laughable (or laughably great, take your pick). You just have to see this stuff to (dis)believe it.
Bonus points awarded for the asides about relational and personality dynamics, some useful nuggets, if I could remember them. Bonus points also for the legend at the start of the read that lends symbols to each position denoting such things as suitable for warmer/colder climates, can cause intense/vivid dreaming, proven morning-mood elevator, soothing for digestive ailments, promotes sleep in insomniacs, and the like.
Classic Spoons position bats lead-off, and then it's a crazy ride through dreamland from there. Some of the positions shown are flat-out illogical, if not next to impossible (Downward Koala, Bread and Spread, and so on). As one who tends to overheat when conscious and not, some of the depictions only served to make me hot, and not in a good way. I wanted to start sweating just regarding the figures.
It's split into four sections, the Sun, Wind, Sea, and Wood sleepers. Sea sleepers fit me, as it focused on symmetry. (Even so, The Colon was one of the most uncomfortable-looking things I've seen. Yipes.) The Tetherball and Turnstile positions are laughable (or laughably great, take your pick). You just have to see this stuff to (dis)believe it.
Bonus points awarded for the asides about relational and personality dynamics, some useful nuggets, if I could remember them. Bonus points also for the legend at the start of the read that lends symbols to each position denoting such things as suitable for warmer/colder climates, can cause intense/vivid dreaming, proven morning-mood elevator, soothing for digestive ailments, promotes sleep in insomniacs, and the like.
Oh, how I wish I could retain more of what I read in this one! Such important notes on such all-too-human tendencies such as loss aversion, snap judgments, instincts, short-term impulse vs. long-term view, and the beat goes on.
Especially intriguing were the sections about loss aversion (how we try to avoid the pain of a loss, or seeing something as such) and value attribution, which explained how we often find it so hard, if unconsciously so, to change our takes on some things (people) after making initial judgments about them.
Started this three months before I finished it, picking it up periodically and having a lot of it fall out of my head. For shame. The epilogue helped tie it all back together to an extent. I do recall a great deal of the section about job interviewing making complete sense, and in light of how I was interviewed in that setting the last time. It's absurd sometimes, the questions asked (and not asked) and the reasons why some managers end up taking to certain applicants over others. (This just in: It ain't a meritocracy out there.)
Perhaps most compelling were the painstaking details surrounding the huge question "WHY?" as it pertained to a highly regarded pilot's inexplicable decision to put hundreds of lives in danger on a particular takeoff. Unfortunately that account got to be arduous to read. As it turned out, the writing throughout this book had a spry cadence at first and then became a bit of a slog, possibly due to my own come-and-go relationship with it.
Eagerly I took to the light shone on the Supreme Court and its own "sway" dynamics, the personalities of the justices and how they decide what cases to hear and whether/when to write opinions. Justice David Souter's take on the highest court in the land was intriguing. These authors (brothers) really snagged some high-end interviews here.
Recommended for anyone willing to admit that the titular behavior seeps into life sometimes, which should be each of us.
Especially intriguing were the sections about loss aversion (how we try to avoid the pain of a loss, or seeing something as such) and value attribution, which explained how we often find it so hard, if unconsciously so, to change our takes on some things (people) after making initial judgments about them.
Started this three months before I finished it, picking it up periodically and having a lot of it fall out of my head. For shame. The epilogue helped tie it all back together to an extent. I do recall a great deal of the section about job interviewing making complete sense, and in light of how I was interviewed in that setting the last time. It's absurd sometimes, the questions asked (and not asked) and the reasons why some managers end up taking to certain applicants over others. (This just in: It ain't a meritocracy out there.)
Perhaps most compelling were the painstaking details surrounding the huge question "WHY?" as it pertained to a highly regarded pilot's inexplicable decision to put hundreds of lives in danger on a particular takeoff. Unfortunately that account got to be arduous to read. As it turned out, the writing throughout this book had a spry cadence at first and then became a bit of a slog, possibly due to my own come-and-go relationship with it.
Eagerly I took to the light shone on the Supreme Court and its own "sway" dynamics, the personalities of the justices and how they decide what cases to hear and whether/when to write opinions. Justice David Souter's take on the highest court in the land was intriguing. These authors (brothers) really snagged some high-end interviews here.
Recommended for anyone willing to admit that the titular behavior seeps into life sometimes, which should be each of us.