I find myself agreeing with both the positive and the negative reviews of this. It does have a tendency to keep piling up similar case studies without always providing equal quantities of broader insight, especially insight into music itself. At the same time some of the stories are fascinating, and offer glimpses that make music and listening stranger than one imagined, making it an often absorbing read.
in the end, freedom turned out to be the most affecting book i've read in . . . years, maybe. at least that's my feeling now that i've finished it. i feel somewhat devestated by it, to be honest, tho i realize that means i'm feeling too much, generally.
by the end, i didn't hate patty anymore. franzen is definitely harder on his female characters, tho. i say that even though the two purest characters in the book are two women.
After a chunk of heavy reading in political economy for my uni course I am relaxing again with some Scandinavian crime, When Thy Wrath is Past by Asa "Circle above the A" Larsson. Good so far.
Actually in crime novels I would like to recommend a new one Parker Bilal "The Golden Scales". Parker Bilal is a pen name of British-Sudanese novelist Jamal Mahjoub, and the Golden Scales introduces private detective Makana a Sudanese refugee in Cairo. I gather it is to be the first in a series. it's like "Chinatown" in Cairo basically.
I am actually reading Michael Chabon, the Amazing Adventures of Kaviler and Clay. But since Murakami comes up quite a bit, and I agree with most of this chart....
I agree. I appreciate such advice and know from experience that if you start with the "wrong" book by someone, you may not want to read another book by them.
Interesting. I went with WInd-Up Bird first because I figured it would be more straight forward than Kafka. (My dislike of Kafka the author very much colored that decision. Seriously, you wake up one day as a giant bug, and you don't stop for even a minute to wonder why? Freakin' existentialists.)
I suspect the best place to start is someone's second-best work: with music I sometimes find it quite disappointing when I discover an album and go exploring the rest of the band's catalog and discover that the one I started with really was the best one. I want there to be something even more wonderful out there that can deepen that first love.
I loved parts 1 and 2 but 3 made me want to toss the book out the window. In my defense, it was my first Murakami and I should have referred to the above flowchart before I started.
Takes about 40-50 pages to get into, but thereafter is a fairly compulsive read. I've seen it characterized as a "novelization of Godel, Escher, Bach", but it's also very well written, plotted, and paced. Long but breezy, once ensconsed.
[url=]Jerry Coyne - Why Evolution Is True
[/url]
I read his blog regularly, so thought I'd polish off his book. I'm pretty familiar with the territory, and I find this book a bit too oriented toward the layman for my tastes, but it's nice to get a broad overview of different types of evidence, and of a variety of specific examples. It suffers partially from including in its audience open-minded creationists, so makes frequent comparisons to creationist models, which of course are completely irrelevant to science-minded readers.
I think The Wind-up Bird Chronicle's a perfectly ok place to start with Murakami. Why isn't Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World in that diagram?
Karg, here's a good one if you're interested in such things (and haven't read already). They do a great job outlining the building block-type mechanisms that allow different potential structures to develop. Also well targeted to an educated general reader without skimping on the science.
Lol @Plong. Supposedly she had another book in progress, but never finished it, etc.
Kangatron, I have that Stephenson book in my to-read pile. Glad to hear that it's worth the read. I've liked most of his earlier stuff, just couldn't get far in the baroque trilogy.
Today's kindle deal is a bunch of books that later became movies - some stuff people her might like, including Slaughterhouse Five - one of my all time favorites - $.99 each.
I finished Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay klast week or so. Thoroughly enjoyed it, both the "period" and the characters. I decided to follow Chabon up with The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont. He creates a pulp style tale using the authors of pulps as the protagonists. (The connection is that Orson Wells is a side-character in both novels, and Joe Kaviler is mentioned as a "real" person in Chinatown Death. Malmont is not the same quality of writer as Chabon, but it is entertaining.
Yes - I actually started with this one when I bought it used a couple years ago, then I recently got the other two, so I'm going back through in order. Divine Invasion stood alone very well, but it's even better having the context of the first one.
Oh wait - no - I have the Transmigration next - I don't have Stigmata yet.
Today's amazon kindle deal is a collaborative effort with Neal Stephenson and six others; not sure how well that will work out, but I like Stephenson well enough to gamble $.99 to find out.
Couple of chapters into this and finding it interesting. Well written and readable for the non-music-trained, with just the occasional music-theory-presupposing paragraph to imagine my way through. A history of 20th century mostly highbrow music focusing on social context and interactions with events and other art forms. Have been reading about early 20th century classical so far; looking forward to getting to chapters on the rise of electronic music.
Comments
I find myself agreeing with both the positive and the negative reviews of this. It does have a tendency to keep piling up similar case studies without always providing equal quantities of broader insight, especially insight into music itself. At the same time some of the stories are fascinating, and offer glimpses that make music and listening stranger than one imagined, making it an often absorbing read.
by the end, i didn't hate patty anymore. franzen is definitely harder on his female characters, tho. i say that even though the two purest characters in the book are two women.
anyone else read it?
Starting:
Actually in crime novels I would like to recommend a new one Parker Bilal "The Golden Scales". Parker Bilal is a pen name of British-Sudanese novelist Jamal Mahjoub, and the Golden Scales introduces private detective Makana a Sudanese refugee in Cairo. I gather it is to be the first in a series. it's like "Chinatown" in Cairo basically.
I am actually reading Michael Chabon, the Amazing Adventures of Kaviler and Clay. But since Murakami comes up quite a bit, and I agree with most of this chart....
Craig
That is the best way to enjoy Murakami. Embrace the loose ends!
Takes about 40-50 pages to get into, but thereafter is a fairly compulsive read. I've seen it characterized as a "novelization of Godel, Escher, Bach", but it's also very well written, plotted, and paced. Long but breezy, once ensconsed.
[url=]Jerry Coyne - Why Evolution Is True
I read his blog regularly, so thought I'd polish off his book. I'm pretty familiar with the territory, and I find this book a bit too oriented toward the layman for my tastes, but it's nice to get a broad overview of different types of evidence, and of a variety of specific examples. It suffers partially from including in its audience open-minded creationists, so makes frequent comparisons to creationist models, which of course are completely irrelevant to science-minded readers.
Karg, here's a good one if you're interested in such things (and haven't read already). They do a great job outlining the building block-type mechanisms that allow different potential structures to develop. Also well targeted to an educated general reader without skimping on the science.
this one is a bit easier to follow....
Kangatron, I have that Stephenson book in my to-read pile. Glad to hear that it's worth the read. I've liked most of his earlier stuff, just couldn't get far in the baroque trilogy.
Today's kindle deal is a bunch of books that later became movies - some stuff people her might like, including Slaughterhouse Five - one of my all time favorites - $.99 each.
I finished Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay klast week or so. Thoroughly enjoyed it, both the "period" and the characters. I decided to follow Chabon up with The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont. He creates a pulp style tale using the authors of pulps as the protagonists. (The connection is that Orson Wells is a side-character in both novels, and Joe Kaviler is mentioned as a "real" person in Chinatown Death. Malmont is not the same quality of writer as Chabon, but it is entertaining.
@amclark - great choice, Three Stigmata next?
Oh wait - no - I have the Transmigration next - I don't have Stigmata yet.
Sadly, the last volume of one of the best reprint sets ever...Segar died tragically young, less than a decade after Popeye's introduction.
Seminary Co-op bookstore on the Univ of Chicago campus. This is just the course textbooks! But I like the implication of infinity here....
It has been in this basement for decades, but finally moving to a new (above ground) space this summer.
Couple of chapters into this and finding it interesting. Well written and readable for the non-music-trained, with just the occasional music-theory-presupposing paragraph to imagine my way through. A history of 20th century mostly highbrow music focusing on social context and interactions with events and other art forms. Have been reading about early 20th century classical so far; looking forward to getting to chapters on the rise of electronic music.