ajunejane's reviews
411 reviews

As a lover of words and language, I enjoyed this book immensely if only to commiserate with a fellow lover of words. However, I think the purpose of the book would have been more effective if I had only read the OED myself, or if the author had contained the book to blog posts. I wanted more information but instead got a great deal of the author's personal opinion.

I really enjoyed this. Not only did it make Taoism much more easily understood by my Western, Rabbit mind, but it did so with nostalgic characters from my childhood. A quick read. I think I'll be reading this at least once a month from now on.

My reading of this book was mostly inspired by me finally watching the movie and the fact that I had found the book at a thrift store last summer. The deal with this thrift store was that I could take home a paper grocery bag full of books for 2 dollars. Needless to say I grabbed any classics I found and some titles I recognized, like this one. If it hadn't been for this situation I don't think I would have bought the book. While Julie Powell's style is entertaining and I found myself wanting to read the book and finish it (and also look up David Strathairn), at the end I felt like I could have spent my free time reading something else. Entertaining for a minute, causing me to leaf through a vintage copy of Julia Child's book I found at a separate thrifting occasion; ultimately not worth it. Kind of like watching reality TV. Although I identify with her ennui and seemingly lack of direction and purpose in life, I just couldn't relate to this book as much as I wanted to. The movie was much better (I rarely ever say this).

Pretty good. It is a bit outdated though, being nearly nine years old. While pretty much all of the pop culture references still exist for me, I felt as if I was looking at a time capsule, not only in terms of what was popular or relevant in 2003, but also in terms of Klosterman's opinions and views on life. I feel that as a country we've moved on a great deal from where he puts us. This is not to say that postmodernism is not relevant (although I am ready for whatever comes post-postmodernism), but I don't feel that his assertions quite have the same weight they did then. Despite all the nostalgia (on my part), he writes cleverly and I found it to be a good read overall.

One of the more ridiculous heroines, but still enjoyable. Jane has a good sense of humor. Despite it's length, a quick read.

Pretty good read. The narrator's voice was consistent, and while the main character sometimes seemed to be a stereotype of the depression-era hard life kind of woman, she was never boring. I appreciated that the author mentioned that while the story was mainly a biography of her grandmother, she took some liberty with the stories since she never had the chance to interview her before her death.

This book was pretty fascinating, if only for the discussion of humanity's technological future. While I've only recently begun watching the new series of Doctor Who, aliens and conspiracy theories have always been fascinating. While Parsons tends to wax quantum-theoretical (a bit trying for my mere high school physics education), the language is understandable enough and the concepts fairly easy to grasp (if trying to grasp the concept of the Universe and what may have existed before or what may exist after it's end is fairly easy). Overall good read. And I will definitely be looking up cybernetic implants.

Excellent writing as always. Time traveling is also fascinating to me and I like the way that King handled it. There were a few too predictable moments, but I was very entertained on the whole.

Entertaining and light. A quick read and tightly knit, though not something I would want to reread. Still, I'll do what I can to spread the word about Glaswegian authors.

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with these first two parts of Casanova's memoir, only because I was expecting more graphic descriptions of his sexual exploits. However, it read as more of an adventure story, detailing all the interesting things that happened to him between birth and age 25. I was still greatly entertained, and put up with all of his euphemisms because he seemed to be generally in love with each conquest he made (though he did not them conquests) and therefore seemed like less of a jerk than I expected. These non-conquests also seemed to be generally grateful to him, even when he would leave them to make his fortune in some other way or fall in love with someone else. I guess the action must have been pretty bad for all of these women to go for Casanova without any promise of marriage or honor, even though the majority of the ones he fell in love with were virgins or young wives of other men. A true player. I'm not sure I'll read the other 10 volumes of his memoir, but I did enjoy analyzing his characters and life philosophy while reading these volumes. If you're looking for an erotic novel about some bare-chested Italian with fabio hair bringing the magic to thousands of women, this memoir is slightly classier than what you're looking for.