kurtwombat's reviews
889 reviews

Time Traveling to 1964: Celebrating a Special Year by

informative fast-paced

3.5

 

3.5 Won this courtesy of LibraryThing so thank you for that. Only pursued this because 1964 happens to be my birthyear. Random compendiums of annual happenings are usually not much of a draw for me but with the birth year tease—why not. Anticipated that at best I might skim over as many articles as I read. But alas, the choice of articles was keen, the writing dense, concise and thoughtful and the affect modestly compelling. Still, difficult to just sit down and keep reading since you are just moving from box to box with no through-line but in short doses, entertaining and recommended. 

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

 

Only because I love THE WAR OF THE WORLDS & THE TIME MACHINE & THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU so much do I consider THE INVISIBLE MAN a disappointment. A startlingly original concept at the time, and I think still an idea of unrealized potential, Wells execution is good not great. You could choose two paths for the main character to ultimately follow: either murderous rage or existential acceptance along the lines of Richard Matheson’s THE SHRINKING MAN. I would have been happy with either. Wells chose murderous rage with some inspired staging and carnage but the man who became invisible appears to have been a serious jerk from jump so his going nuts is not much of a turn of events. Though it is a pretty wild ending—bravo. Also didn’t care for the overall structure—there is a long portion in the middle where the Invisible Man tells much of his back story and things start to drag. This portion does allow his counterpart to come to an important decision about him but this could have been handled more efficiently. Definitely worth a look for classic literature sake, but read the others mentioned above first. 

Elephant Crusher: Short Stories and Musings by S.E. Bourne

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

  I enjoyed this. Something about it just felt right. Each chapter a brief memory. No forcing it to mean anything beyond what it is. Drops of recollection falling, as if spilling from a cup, over the timeline of a life. A little thin and not much impetus but there is a compounding charm like a pound of feathers. It’s brevity is it’s grace. Where do we go from here? (I might mention that there were a few typos) 

 

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

informative fast-paced

2.5

Had it not been pointed out at the beginning and a few other times along the way, I would never have guessed this book was written by a linguist. There are hints that she was familiar with the topic or at least did some research—but it disappointingly is not the thrust of this book. For a linguist she does a remarkably poor job of defining her terms.  Like a game of paddle ball where linguistics is the paddle and the narrative the ball, we always spring back to linguistics but never for long. Mostly the diversions are entertaining. Who doesn’t like hearing about the raucous misadventures of cults or the inside stories surrounding multi-level marketing or taking a moment to bash Trump for his manipulative mis-use of language, but none of that was what I was hoping for. I’ve disliked Trump for over 40 years, that being said, it was probably okay to bring him up once and drop it—he is certainly not the first or only politician/game show host to employ such tactics. Bringing Trump back multiple times highlights the personal and playful nature of the book that makes for leisurely reading but not an informative one. At least, not informative in the way I wanted. The author maintains a contemplative distance for most of the book which dramatically falls apart during the last portion dealing with exercise and healing. A long segment comes across as an informercial for SOULCYCLE. It may just be that the writing got lazy, failing to add qualifiers like “trying to give the appearance of” or “wanting it’s followers to believe” instead making it sound like they were doing God’s work. In fact, I was floored when she extrapolated from one source that the decline in followers of organized religion was due to the rise in  cult like commercial work out programs. I do have to thank her for inspiring me to use the word “preposterous” which I don’t think I ever have—but that claim is preposterous. In this segment the string on her paddleball breaks as she rarely talks about the use of language in any meaningful way.   If you love language like I do, look somewhere else. If you want to drift pleasantly through the topic, then you have found a place to hang out. If you are already feeling like you’ve had enough before the final section—maybe go for a walk instead.  

The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

 I read this book in two chunks. Read the first hundred pages or so and stopped because my disgust with the people involved got the better of me. Similar to reading a book about Trump, there is a certain nose pinching distance one has to read from. Picked it up a month or so ago and was utterly fascinated the rest of the way. The first part is a little slower, setting up the beginnings of the company and the background of the players, but definitely picks up and runs into pure fascination. Lots of well organized detail presented in a fashion I could mostly understand--can't say I can explain much of it but while reading it I did maintain a decent grasp of the accounting shenanigans. You don't have to love numbers to enjoy this tragedy. There is enough workplace drama, high wire act gambles and operatic human downfalls to keep anyone's attention. There is a rooting interest for those with the most guilt in this debacle to get their comeuppance--and some do--but the ultimate feeling is one of despair for the guilty rarely see that they have done anything wrong, the victims are never made whole and the system keeps rolling merrily along. Many of the same factors involved in the Enron collapse were contributory to the crash of the housing market so what should have been a warning of things to come--was given lip-service instead of being properly addressed. Fascinating read that still applies though the collapse was over twenty years ago. 

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

WWells at his finest ahead of his time and going well beyond our time. The name is of course familiar but the creativity and vision is amazing--especially when trying to read him as if you are of his time trying to grasp these ideas for the first time. Remarkably unsettling with a great ending--moving right on to another of his books.

Addendum

It is now some time later and I keep finding myself thinking about the ending. Potential spoiler, apparently the main character has time traveled again and after a long amount of time has yet to return. The assumption is his curiosity got the best of him but I've been begun to wonder if he no longer felt a citizen of his own time. Knowing what he knows, could he still live in his native era. The point of our live arc is painfully meaningless when confronted with the vast expanse of all time. Nice work Wells. 

Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays by David Sedaris

dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

3.25

Once you’ve heard David Sedaris’ voice, you will always hear it when reading his works. That’s a plus for me—maybe not to everyone’s taste. Darkly funny, sharp and caustic, insights smothered in playful terrorism. Not the best of his works and the mixing of short stories and memoir can be a bit jarring but worth the time.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

 A confoundingly great novel. It is alive with all the complexities of living and moves with the weight of history. Appearing a simple time travel tale on the surface, KINDRED presents a blistering indictment of American slavery, the ongoing socio-psychological burden of history, female empowerment, racial relations and how we pay for our sins. You are not forced to entertain these thoughts—they are made available to you—KINDRED is just as good a story without the deep reading. Octavia Butler pulls off another amazing trick. A novel about two specific times feels timeless. Of course the slick new paperback version I was reading contributed to this but while reading I didn’t think once about it having been written in the mid 70’s—40+ years ago. I especially loved how the author destroyed the lazy view of history—most books present people from the past as being like modern folks just dressing or talking differently--like a high school play. Butler nails the entirely different mindset of a another era and better yet posits that proximity and time will lead even a modern person to gradually assume the mindset of that era. Brilliantly conceived and presented. One of my favorite books. 

The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty by Michael Wolff

funny informative tense fast-paced

3.25

If you took a bottle of Zesty Italian Dressing and poured it over a New York Times cover story about Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, you would end up with something resembling this book. A mix of interesting background, saucy gossip and idle speculation creates an entertaining romp—especially for anyone viewing Trump, Fox and Murdoch with disdain. The author deserves credit for presenting a narrative that makes it easy to remember a couple dozen different people fairly easily. If given a pop quiz about who bragged the most about their sexual conquests, who drank the most and who was the dumbest person on the air in America (Guilfoyle, Ingraham, & Hannity), I’d score pretty well. Ask me about the nitty gritty of the Murdoch financial empire, not so much. Granted, I don’t want to be reading spreadsheets, but after 10 hours of audio—it might be nice to know more than I do. The entertaining audio narration often strays into burlesque—the presentation of Tucker Carlson finding out he was being taken off the air at Fox is something I will cherish always. In the end the same speculations are spun again and again to no end. The book purports to be a kind of wrap up of the Murdoch empire—but only in the way newspapers have obituaries ready for famous people before they die. This conceit is ultimately annoying.

 

 

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

 

Often, I found this book to be gorgeous: a tender rumination on what it’s like to be the gay son of a Vietnam war refugee in America.  Conceived as kind of an open letter to the author’s mother, remarkably intimate and personally detailed—I was carried right into the heart of their relationship. For the first 80 or so pages this was enough. I loved dipping into the beautiful though often painful emotion, lovely language all around me but gradually I needed more of a narrative structure. Thankfully at times, the story did touch down on solid narration making me wish more of it was as straightforward. Then, we’d lift off again into poetic language that may or may not seem to apply. Especially in the last 50 pages or so, I would have loved the author to take another swing through the text clearing some clutter. For much of the book, the focus was on the author’s mother and his first love—both very nicely rendered—but the last section focused more on his father/stepfather (I kept getting confused—even his grandfather adds to that confusion partly because of the poetic approach) and just doesn’t seem to jell. And especially in these last pages, the concept of it being a letter to his mother became intangible. I could have read a longer book with a little less poetry or a series of poems but this mash up was often frustrating.