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jonscott9's reviews
206 reviews
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
4.0
Sometimes this book made me want to laugh and cry (or vice versa), and in the same paragraph. The depictions of the Dresden bombings and its survivors at the tail end of World War II are compelling, and due to Vonnegut's own experience in the holding camp. This is the quirkiest war book you'll ever read.
A few laugh-out-loud moments of hilarious despair are sprinkled in. Vonnegut was a master at blurring the lines between fantasy and history and giving us, ultimately, reality, or a realism that helps us cope somewhat.
I'll never forget Billy Pilgrim or the planet known as Tramalfadore.
A few laugh-out-loud moments of hilarious despair are sprinkled in. Vonnegut was a master at blurring the lines between fantasy and history and giving us, ultimately, reality, or a realism that helps us cope somewhat.
I'll never forget Billy Pilgrim or the planet known as Tramalfadore.
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
3.0
I thought this slim book took a whole lot of patience. Not much of it's to do with writing really, but I'm sure that was by design. I much prefer Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird or Stephen King's On Writing to this read. Not recommended for a first-time reader of Dillard. She's an acquired taste, but oh, once you have tasted and seen that the Dillard is good, you won't regret it (see: Holy the Firm).
Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard
3.0
At times this book is beautiful, and at other times, honestly, it made me want to shake somebody. As literature, it's not as good as I expected. As Christian allegory, it succeeds. The allegory's slim, though. Just about everything is straightforward in this book. What you see is pretty much what you get.
Hurnard is good at describing things of natural beauty. Her protagonist Much-Afraid just sometimes annoyed me with her seeming hyper-emotional responses to, well, everything. Maybe I'm being overly critical or ridiculous, I'm not sure. Suffice it to say that I don't regret reading it.
Hurnard is good at describing things of natural beauty. Her protagonist Much-Afraid just sometimes annoyed me with her seeming hyper-emotional responses to, well, everything. Maybe I'm being overly critical or ridiculous, I'm not sure. Suffice it to say that I don't regret reading it.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
4.0
If you take The Great Gatsby and set it in Pamplona, Spain, at the time of the classic bull fights, you get The Sun Also Rises. Fitzgerald and Hemingway were contemporaries no less, and the stately, energetic, fun prose is similar. There's a lot of life in this book.
Nothing much exactly happens in the story really, or to the characters. It's like "Seinfeld" in that respect perhaps. Very existential. Hemingway's writing is strong and compact. The dialogue is top-notch. Depending on who it is, you will love or hate each of these characters, and you will be glad you read their little tale.
Nothing much exactly happens in the story really, or to the characters. It's like "Seinfeld" in that respect perhaps. Very existential. Hemingway's writing is strong and compact. The dialogue is top-notch. Depending on who it is, you will love or hate each of these characters, and you will be glad you read their little tale.
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton
4.0
This is a classic adventure story, and brainy and British no less. Fast-paced action and lively dialogue permeate these 180 pages. Chesterton indicts anarchy in the midst of all the good fun.
"Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left--sanity." Gabriel Syme is a British policeman who goes undercover to foil an anarchist council's assassination plot and gets caught up in the group's doings in the process.
The ending's a bit predictable, but the story does not disappoint. Makes one want to race around London in a day's time just to hit all the haunts serving as backdrops to this meaty detective story.
"Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left--sanity." Gabriel Syme is a British policeman who goes undercover to foil an anarchist council's assassination plot and gets caught up in the group's doings in the process.
The ending's a bit predictable, but the story does not disappoint. Makes one want to race around London in a day's time just to hit all the haunts serving as backdrops to this meaty detective story.
Godric by Frederick Buechner
5.0
This is the fictionalization of the life of Godric, a pirate and thief turned saint. Buechner is at his best here in this bawdy, creative account that reaped him a Pulitzer nomination.
Godric is a sympathetic man but not always good. He instructs his scribe to write his story accordingly, to avoid glowing descriptions that would ever win him praise. One can't help but be captivated by the story, though. His (fictional) life and relationships are intriguing and well worth the read.
Injections of Buechner's own family dynamics (especially father-son) are gripping in the early going and again later as certain persons reappear. The prose is eloquent and thoughtful.
Godric is a sympathetic man but not always good. He instructs his scribe to write his story accordingly, to avoid glowing descriptions that would ever win him praise. One can't help but be captivated by the story, though. His (fictional) life and relationships are intriguing and well worth the read.
Injections of Buechner's own family dynamics (especially father-son) are gripping in the early going and again later as certain persons reappear. The prose is eloquent and thoughtful.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
5.0
This book comprises a believable tragedy of errors. A dialogue lover's dream, Dorian Gray is packed with Uzi-style exchanges between English debutantes of the late 1800s. The Wilde Thing's style is crisp and upbeat, just as fresh 115 years later as it was in the days when he penned it.
This is the ultimate read for studying human self-absorption, depravity and the lengths that one will go to save one's reputation or, perhaps better put, to simply save one's face. Witness what a difference one chance encounter, one wee conversation in a wee garden, has on the impressionable, fresh-faced Dorian Gray when he encounters Lord Henry Wotton, a crony of Basil Hallward, the painter whose most inspired, best work is a detailed portrait of Dorian, his friend who serves as the muse for his art.
This book begs the question, What is more important: beauty or goodness? What wonders and horrors await the youth (and the reader) when a whimsical prayer for eternal youth becomes the curse that may eat him in the end. This book is a brilliant study in the glaring differences between the pleasures that one seeks and the treasures that one needs. It is rich in language and scope, abounding in supernatural intrigue, and ripe with the verbal volleying among three striking characters--Dorian Gray, Lord Henry and Basil Hallward. Dorian Gray is simply a delight of an observation, if an intensely cruel one.
The embattled author was near-perfect with this book. It really just has to be read.
This is the ultimate read for studying human self-absorption, depravity and the lengths that one will go to save one's reputation or, perhaps better put, to simply save one's face. Witness what a difference one chance encounter, one wee conversation in a wee garden, has on the impressionable, fresh-faced Dorian Gray when he encounters Lord Henry Wotton, a crony of Basil Hallward, the painter whose most inspired, best work is a detailed portrait of Dorian, his friend who serves as the muse for his art.
This book begs the question, What is more important: beauty or goodness? What wonders and horrors await the youth (and the reader) when a whimsical prayer for eternal youth becomes the curse that may eat him in the end. This book is a brilliant study in the glaring differences between the pleasures that one seeks and the treasures that one needs. It is rich in language and scope, abounding in supernatural intrigue, and ripe with the verbal volleying among three striking characters--Dorian Gray, Lord Henry and Basil Hallward. Dorian Gray is simply a delight of an observation, if an intensely cruel one.
The embattled author was near-perfect with this book. It really just has to be read.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
3.0
6 Glasses zeroes in on six liquids--from beer in ancient Mesopotamia to wine and spirits to coffee and tea and finally to cola and the globalization of brands such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola--and targets each as being responsible (or at least culpable) for the shaping of cultures (quite likely), writing itself (quite possible), and industrialization (believable, especially in light of Coke).
Each of the libations receives its proper dues. The organization of the book itself is very well done, and the anecdotes and histories of each are engaging.
The sad irony about 6 Glasses--and it's a rather important one--is that, for all its talk, the book is remarkably dry. Sure, Standage gets wittier than in the opening section on beer, and notably in the chapters on wine and cola, which seem his obvious liquids of choice, but this reader's reserves were nearly sapped after finishing the pages about beer.
He does a bang-up job with his research and presentation in some parts of this book, frames his passages well, and, honestly, the pictures really do help.
"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever," Aristophanes reports to us as the section on wine commences. One wishes that Standage had called for just that. Perhaps it would have made for a more intriguing read.
Each of the libations receives its proper dues. The organization of the book itself is very well done, and the anecdotes and histories of each are engaging.
The sad irony about 6 Glasses--and it's a rather important one--is that, for all its talk, the book is remarkably dry. Sure, Standage gets wittier than in the opening section on beer, and notably in the chapters on wine and cola, which seem his obvious liquids of choice, but this reader's reserves were nearly sapped after finishing the pages about beer.
He does a bang-up job with his research and presentation in some parts of this book, frames his passages well, and, honestly, the pictures really do help.
"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever," Aristophanes reports to us as the section on wine commences. One wishes that Standage had called for just that. Perhaps it would have made for a more intriguing read.
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker J. Palmer
3.0
With warmth and wisdom throughout, Palmer describes in a most linear fashion his own triumphs and travails from institutions of many kinds: social, spiritual, and higher education. He is as inclined to quote some calming poetry as he is to lecture on leadership. He taps all the right people for their own thoughts on life and leading (Buechner, Dillard, Rilke, Rumi) and organizes the book's five chapters beneath simple metaphors--the changing of seasons, and those in one's life. He loves an analogy but staves off the hokey stuff.
Some will brand his style of writing and leadership to be simplistic for this less-than-utopic world, but very real strength and endurance seep through Palmer's pages to let the reader know that he's been in some precarious spots and lived to tell the tales. He does so from a professional-cum-personal standpoint that makes him highly readable and refreshing when so many other writers on leadership give us models for self-salvation or "principles" on how to get what we want, in so many words. Palmer is quick--and right--to dismiss this "power of positive thinking" as a waste of time. He doesn't have time for such tricks; he's lived too long and seen too much for that.
So yes, it's an easy little jam of a read, quick and simple. Leave it to the Quaker to pull no punches. He has some great insights about institutions and learning and vocation, as expected from the title, but he doesn't gloss over the dark times of his own life--depression and the like--but rather reveals plainly what these times meant for him and who he is today as a man and leader. He does all of this with a gentle wit and candor that's refreshing and lacking a hint of pretention. A lot of self-fashioned spiritual "leaders," many of whom have never met a stage or a microphone that they didn't like, could stand to learn from this candid prose and elegant man. The same is true for the everyday denizen such as you and me too. Give Palmer's peace a chance.
Some will brand his style of writing and leadership to be simplistic for this less-than-utopic world, but very real strength and endurance seep through Palmer's pages to let the reader know that he's been in some precarious spots and lived to tell the tales. He does so from a professional-cum-personal standpoint that makes him highly readable and refreshing when so many other writers on leadership give us models for self-salvation or "principles" on how to get what we want, in so many words. Palmer is quick--and right--to dismiss this "power of positive thinking" as a waste of time. He doesn't have time for such tricks; he's lived too long and seen too much for that.
So yes, it's an easy little jam of a read, quick and simple. Leave it to the Quaker to pull no punches. He has some great insights about institutions and learning and vocation, as expected from the title, but he doesn't gloss over the dark times of his own life--depression and the like--but rather reveals plainly what these times meant for him and who he is today as a man and leader. He does all of this with a gentle wit and candor that's refreshing and lacking a hint of pretention. A lot of self-fashioned spiritual "leaders," many of whom have never met a stage or a microphone that they didn't like, could stand to learn from this candid prose and elegant man. The same is true for the everyday denizen such as you and me too. Give Palmer's peace a chance.
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
4.0
Lamott's in fine form here for what she does. Reverent and irreverent. Self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing. Hilarious. Heartbreaking. Honest. This book is all of these things.