Category: Writing

author: Richard Dawkins
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/04
date added: 2010/02/17
shelves: history, non-fiction, science
review:
When he stuck to science, it was fantastic. I loved the examples, lots of interesting clear explanations.

BUT…the asides & much of the commentary were either incomprehensible (upper-crust English culture?) or aggressively snarky. There’s a tone of looking down the nose that is off-putting, even for someone who agrees with the whole damn thing. I think someone on the fence would be turned off by the tone and so unlikely to absorb a lot of the message.

author: Stephen Hunt
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/28
date added: 2010/02/03
shelves: fantasy, fiction, sci-fi
review:
I’d like to give this one 3.5 stars, if that were possible. Great writing, vivid description, strange weird settings and characters, plus an ending that left me thinking for a long time. (What is a perfect society? Can its principles (or stuff) be "borrowed" by another society?)

On the other hand, I found myself very often wishing I could remember more of Hunt’s previous book; lots of little details that I think would have been more powerful if I could remember them, and that seems like a weakness of the book. Definitely not quite a standalone.

Still, totally worth reading!

author: James McCommons
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/28
date added: 2010/02/03
shelves: environmentalism, history, non-fiction, politics, technology, urban-studies
review:
Excellent overview of the state of passenger rail in the US. Illuminated lots of things about how the system works: the relationship between Amtrak & the freight companies, the role of state departments of transportation, how the heck Amtrak even came to be. Yes, we have a pathetic system (if you can call it that), but there are some signs of hope.

Also, and I did not know this: in most cases ownership and use rights of Rail-to-Trail trails remains with the freight railroads that once used them, or to the companies that bought them up. In theory, a company could simply decide to rebuild and start running trains in those places without even needing permits or hearings! Crazy, if unlikely to happen.

author: Peter Hopkirk
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/03
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, religion
review:
One of the books recommended by the folks of Ask Metafilter, when I asked for books about the British in Afghanistan. Stupendous huge book chronicling about 100 years of conflict between the British and the Russians in Central Asia. A little overwhelming in the sheer mass of data, but fascinating nonetheless. Could have stood for more (or more readable) maps, or possibly a cast of characters section. Don’t think I could pass a quiz on most of the details, but I have a pretty good sense of the broad movement of the history of that region in that time.

Both of the non-fiction books I’m reading/have read from those recommendations are pre-9/11. This one is from 1991, and so the preface is all about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gives an odd sense of presentiment to say the least.

(Update 1/19/2010: the maps in this book were much better than the ones in Tournament of Shadows, IMHO.)

author: Shareen Blair Brysac
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2010/01/19
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: biography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
I’m vacillating whether to go with 2 or 3 stars — parts of this book were fantastic, great narrative, crazy crazy characters in a vast story. Maybe that’s the problem: the story was a little TOO vast, so there was no single theme that seemed to hold it together, just a chronicle of one thing after another.

I will single out the maps as a particular irritation: the book has lots and lots of locations which are likely to be unfamiliar to the general reader, and the maps were just not good enough to keep track of where all the players were going; neither the inside cover map nor the smaller maps in the text had enough place names. There was much gnashing of teeth every time a place was mentioned, and I flipped to a map, and: nope, not there.

On the other hand, it was interesting to get a slightly different angle on the events in The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, and to go a little farther forward in time. The combination of the two books gave me a much better understanding of the backstory of Great Game era empire messing around with Afghanistan (et al), which these days is a damn good thing to know.

author: Rosemary Jones
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2010/01/02
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: d-and-d, fantasy, fiction
review:
So help me, I really enjoyed this. (C checked it out of the library.) Somehow managed to be both accurate to D&D mechanics and a rollicking good story. Strong narrative POV from the main protagonist, both consistent and engaging.

author: Diana Peterfreund
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2010/01/17
date added: 2010/01/19
shelves: fantasy, fiction, kid-lit
review:
One of those books where I was totally caught up in it *while* I was reading, but that felt off somehow after I was done. Not sure how much of that was due to the super-perfect BF she ends up with at the end of the book. (Sexy, nice, smart, and totally ok with her not being able to boink pretty much ever.) Or maybe it was just the whole virginity thing. But it was a fast read, and action-packed, as they say. 🙂

author: Cory Doctorow
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2009/12/30
date added: 2009/12/30
shelves: fiction, kid-lit, sci-fi, technology
review:
Read in html, oddly enough. I still need some time to process this one, but I found it intensely moving.