Humans of New York: Stories by Brandon Stanton
I was considering buying this book when I saw it on the New Items shelf at the libary! I love saving money and reading good books, so this was perfect. This book is based on the blog maintained by the author. It's an amazing project, but I'm not going to get into it too much here. Basically, he takes pictures of people in New York and talks to them a bit, if they are willing. He includes some portion of what they say with their photo. It can be really powerful.
My burgeoning interest in photography has me loving this. I've known about this project for a while, but didn't get too into it. I'm bad at tracking things like this that are constantly updated. This book is a collection of some of the photos and interviews from the blog. Since it's largely photos, you can read through it pretty quickly, but the photos are definitely worth giving attention to. It's quite poignant at times and addresses a lot of different topics that can hit home for people.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
I've seen this as a giveaway book on Goodreads a bunch, but it just didn't seem that appealing to me. I expect it to be okay, but nothing terribly exciting. I'm only two chapters in, and it's interesting, but it really hasn't grabbed me yet. I'm not very far though, so I'm certainly going to keep going. This was also on the New Items shelf at the library, so I figured I'd pick it up for a light read in between all of the obligatory things I've had to read lately.
Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Man, I haven't read this one since about seventh or eighth grade. I think I missed a lot then, because oh my goodness I do not remember it being so racist! Basic story line: a guy takes out a loan to help his friend get married, then thinks he can't pay it back, then the new wife saves the day by dressing up as a lawyer and stopping the crazy thing that the loaner guy demanded as payment. There is a ton of racism against the loaner, Shylock, because he's a Jew. The hard thing is that as a modern audience, we generally think that's terrible, but back then the audience would be right on board with the Jew hate. Portia, the wife, is also racist because her various suitors come from all over the globe. She makes fun of them as the stereotypes of their land, and at one point dismisses the Prince of Morocco because he's black.
This story is really racist, but it's also not as happy as a comedy usually would be. Antonio is sad at the beginning, resigns himself to death, is saved from death and made super rich, but is also still left alone at the end, and even more so because he now has lost his two best friends to their happy marriages. But even the marriages aren't the happy since the wives start it off by telling the husbands that they had sex with other men while they were gone. These happy-ending marriages are based on uneasy wariness. It's not really a comedy or a tragedy. It's happy and sad. It's a very interesting play in that way; definitely good to discuss with a group.
This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki
This was a required book for my young adult lit class, and I really did not like it. It won some awards, and that's great, but man it did not work for me. It's a graphic novel done in a purply-grayscale color. I didn't love it because it felt like nothing happened. I can see its merit in certain situations or for certain people, but it bored and frustrated me. These two girls around 12 years old are friends at their summer cabin place. One girl's mother has some kind of issue and her parents are obviously fighting about it, which we eventually uncover. There is a local girl, about 17, who gets pregnant and her boyfriend won't help her out. That's essentially it. Part of what started this off on a terrible foot for me is that the boyfriend is presented as the guy one girl has a crush on, which really creeped me out because I had thought that he was about 70 years old and had no teeth. That made everything after it a hard leap for me because that was still how I saw him.
Meh.
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Friday, November 20, 2015
November 15 - 21
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
This book made me laugh a LOT, which is awesome to begin with. For a book about cancer, it was hilarious. Actually, though, I think I want to rephrase that: this book is not about cancer, it's about people. One of them happens to have cancer. There is a blurb about this book with a quote that roughly says "This book begs comparison to The Fault in Our Stars, but it's really quite funny!" I really hate that quote. This book is nothing at all similar to The Fault in Our Stars. It's actually funny. It's not all complainy. It's realistic. It's mot trying to be all meta and deep about cancer and life and death. That has it's place, I guess, but jeez, this book was just SO MUCH BETTER. Love story? Nope. No romance. Deep sad ending with death? Nope. Things just happen. For once, a book that has the balls to be... predictable? I don't know that that's quite right. But frankly, right at the beginning it's "She has cancer and will most likely die." At the end, it's "She had cancer, and she died." I feel like this does more justice to the difficulties and pain of cancer than trying to be tricky and sneaky about who might die in a novel. Cancer sucks, and it is often truly just unstoppable.
(In a horrible coincidence, my reading of these two notable books with people who have cancer in it coincided with learning about a cancer diagnosis of someone I grew up with. It looks like she'll be okay, but again, cancer sucks.)
Bomb! by Steve Sheinkin
I'm still plowing through this one. I'm not sure why it's taking so long, since it's very interesting and well-written! It's incredibly interesting to me to see a remarkably unbiased story in these pages. How did Sheinkin manage to write about the KGB in a way that makes me feel sympathetic at times? For spies? That is some incredible disinterest right there. I don't have a lot more to add, other than that this is yet another great example of nonfiction!!
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
Unexpectedly, I really liked this play. It's all politics and speeches, and yet it feels like the most realistic play of Shakespeare's that I've read so far (especially for a tragedy). I feel for the main character, though I hesitate to say the same for the title character. Coriolanus is in many ways a different man from Caius Martius; the moment Martius receives the title Coriolanus in honor of his victory over the Volscians, he is basically screwed. He knows that he is not going to do well with begging the plebians who are far below his exalted status for their votes for him as their Consul. He repeatedly tells those who plead with him to apologize and beg for forgiveness and lie that there is no way he will be able to do that convincingly because he is so firmly against ever betraying the truth of his heart. I love this play because it raises many difficult questions. Is Coriolanus' tragic flaw that he won't lie? That would be quite a commentary on societal expectations and rules.
We were so close to a happy ending, but of course it couldn't happen. This has to be the least tragic tragedy in Shakespeare's ouevre, though. Only Coriolanus dies. This is unheard of. The ending is so quiet, Coriolanus so truly confused. We were all so close, and in the end, I am not even sure if I am upset with Aufidius or not. The people I am most upset with in this whole play are exactly that: the people. The mobs! They change their minds over and over and ruin everything in their thirst for equality and blood. In this story, it should have been the mob who met their downfall, as they were the ones who seemed to toss around the idea of vengeance like it was nothing.
Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
Remember this series? I mostly do. I read these books sometime around May this year, and I LOVED them! Unfortunately for me, it was a more recent series, so this last book in the series was only just released this fall. I finally got my hands on it! (Shoutout to Overdrive and Merrimack Valley Library Consortium!) It's almost 700 pages long, which I was quite surprised by, but I'm pleased that this ending will be appropriately convoluted and epic as is fitting for a series like this. I'm about 150 pages in at the moment, and yes, it is appropriately convoluted and epic. Now, I'm going to stop writing and get back to reading!!
This book made me laugh a LOT, which is awesome to begin with. For a book about cancer, it was hilarious. Actually, though, I think I want to rephrase that: this book is not about cancer, it's about people. One of them happens to have cancer. There is a blurb about this book with a quote that roughly says "This book begs comparison to The Fault in Our Stars, but it's really quite funny!" I really hate that quote. This book is nothing at all similar to The Fault in Our Stars. It's actually funny. It's not all complainy. It's realistic. It's mot trying to be all meta and deep about cancer and life and death. That has it's place, I guess, but jeez, this book was just SO MUCH BETTER. Love story? Nope. No romance. Deep sad ending with death? Nope. Things just happen. For once, a book that has the balls to be... predictable? I don't know that that's quite right. But frankly, right at the beginning it's "She has cancer and will most likely die." At the end, it's "She had cancer, and she died." I feel like this does more justice to the difficulties and pain of cancer than trying to be tricky and sneaky about who might die in a novel. Cancer sucks, and it is often truly just unstoppable.
(In a horrible coincidence, my reading of these two notable books with people who have cancer in it coincided with learning about a cancer diagnosis of someone I grew up with. It looks like she'll be okay, but again, cancer sucks.)
Bomb! by Steve Sheinkin
I'm still plowing through this one. I'm not sure why it's taking so long, since it's very interesting and well-written! It's incredibly interesting to me to see a remarkably unbiased story in these pages. How did Sheinkin manage to write about the KGB in a way that makes me feel sympathetic at times? For spies? That is some incredible disinterest right there. I don't have a lot more to add, other than that this is yet another great example of nonfiction!!
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
Unexpectedly, I really liked this play. It's all politics and speeches, and yet it feels like the most realistic play of Shakespeare's that I've read so far (especially for a tragedy). I feel for the main character, though I hesitate to say the same for the title character. Coriolanus is in many ways a different man from Caius Martius; the moment Martius receives the title Coriolanus in honor of his victory over the Volscians, he is basically screwed. He knows that he is not going to do well with begging the plebians who are far below his exalted status for their votes for him as their Consul. He repeatedly tells those who plead with him to apologize and beg for forgiveness and lie that there is no way he will be able to do that convincingly because he is so firmly against ever betraying the truth of his heart. I love this play because it raises many difficult questions. Is Coriolanus' tragic flaw that he won't lie? That would be quite a commentary on societal expectations and rules.
We were so close to a happy ending, but of course it couldn't happen. This has to be the least tragic tragedy in Shakespeare's ouevre, though. Only Coriolanus dies. This is unheard of. The ending is so quiet, Coriolanus so truly confused. We were all so close, and in the end, I am not even sure if I am upset with Aufidius or not. The people I am most upset with in this whole play are exactly that: the people. The mobs! They change their minds over and over and ruin everything in their thirst for equality and blood. In this story, it should have been the mob who met their downfall, as they were the ones who seemed to toss around the idea of vengeance like it was nothing.
Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
Remember this series? I mostly do. I read these books sometime around May this year, and I LOVED them! Unfortunately for me, it was a more recent series, so this last book in the series was only just released this fall. I finally got my hands on it! (Shoutout to Overdrive and Merrimack Valley Library Consortium!) It's almost 700 pages long, which I was quite surprised by, but I'm pleased that this ending will be appropriately convoluted and epic as is fitting for a series like this. I'm about 150 pages in at the moment, and yes, it is appropriately convoluted and epic. Now, I'm going to stop writing and get back to reading!!
Friday, October 23, 2015
October 18 - 24
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
I can't believe how much I'm actually enjoying this! My experience in the past with A Room of One's Own had me cursing the name of Virginia Woolf, and when I saw her name on one of my class's reading lists, I groaned and moaned like a... person who doesn't like Virginia Woolf. This second part, Time Passes, was kind of difficult to get through since it's narrating a house changing over years of being empty. It was surprisingly awkward since there was no real narrator and no characters. Just shadows and dust. Apparently, Woolf herself didn't even know what to do with that section and was happy anybody even liked it. Well, I plowed through it. I actually just finished the book, and what has stuck with me most throughout the whole thing is the interaction of characters with isolation, loneliness, and being alone. They are not considered to be all the same thing in this novel, and this is probably what I'm going to focus my thesis on for this year. Last time I had to read Woolf, I wouldn't even write the 5-page paper assigned, which was the first time I had ever refused to do an assignment and something that has never happened since. Now, I'm planning to write a 20+ page paper on her, and feel like I might even blow past that page length. How things have changed.
Teaching Hope by the Freedom Writer Teachers & Erin Gruwell
You know, I finally finished this, and it's a good thing. I was getting really tired of it for some reason. I've read it in sections over the course of a month or so now for my philosophy of education class, and man, it just dragged on for me. I think my issue was that it was organized by category of the story, so I would be bombarded with sixty pages of depressing stories about teaching at once. Then another sixty pages of great moments in teaching. Then another sixty about getting ready to teach. The stories sort of lost their impact when read en masse like that, and I started being unfazed and even annoyed with it by the end. (See this reflection on the final chapter where I'm straight-up annoyed.) Also in that link are my reflections on each section, which is why I hadn't been including it in these; I've already been writing about it.
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
I'm only 58 pages in to this book, and yet also 20 chapters! It's one of those books. It's intriguing, though. I'm feeling aspects of other books creeping into it, which is a little unimpressive, but I'm still curious to see where this next dystopian-based book heads. To the moon, apparently. (Also, how is it possible that the Google Chrome dictionary doesn't have dystopian in it?)
King Lear by William Shakespeare
You know, I'm pretty unimpressed with this one. It could be because we're reading it right after Othello which is probably my favorite Shakespeare play, but King Lear is just sort of boring to me. He's a father who makes his kids play the "who loves me most" game until they get what they want, get sick of him, and decide to kill him. Now, I think their decision to kill him is disturbingly extreme and sudden, but he's also been super childish in his dealings with them (not to mention sort of an idiot, as is expected from our tragic figure of the play's title). Oddly enough, I kept feeling like I had read this already and then I realized it's because Mr. Ramsay in To The Lighthouse is just as needy and childish towards Mrs. Ramsay (and basically every other woman in the novel).
I can't believe how much I'm actually enjoying this! My experience in the past with A Room of One's Own had me cursing the name of Virginia Woolf, and when I saw her name on one of my class's reading lists, I groaned and moaned like a... person who doesn't like Virginia Woolf. This second part, Time Passes, was kind of difficult to get through since it's narrating a house changing over years of being empty. It was surprisingly awkward since there was no real narrator and no characters. Just shadows and dust. Apparently, Woolf herself didn't even know what to do with that section and was happy anybody even liked it. Well, I plowed through it. I actually just finished the book, and what has stuck with me most throughout the whole thing is the interaction of characters with isolation, loneliness, and being alone. They are not considered to be all the same thing in this novel, and this is probably what I'm going to focus my thesis on for this year. Last time I had to read Woolf, I wouldn't even write the 5-page paper assigned, which was the first time I had ever refused to do an assignment and something that has never happened since. Now, I'm planning to write a 20+ page paper on her, and feel like I might even blow past that page length. How things have changed.
Teaching Hope by the Freedom Writer Teachers & Erin Gruwell
You know, I finally finished this, and it's a good thing. I was getting really tired of it for some reason. I've read it in sections over the course of a month or so now for my philosophy of education class, and man, it just dragged on for me. I think my issue was that it was organized by category of the story, so I would be bombarded with sixty pages of depressing stories about teaching at once. Then another sixty pages of great moments in teaching. Then another sixty about getting ready to teach. The stories sort of lost their impact when read en masse like that, and I started being unfazed and even annoyed with it by the end. (See this reflection on the final chapter where I'm straight-up annoyed.) Also in that link are my reflections on each section, which is why I hadn't been including it in these; I've already been writing about it.
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
I'm only 58 pages in to this book, and yet also 20 chapters! It's one of those books. It's intriguing, though. I'm feeling aspects of other books creeping into it, which is a little unimpressive, but I'm still curious to see where this next dystopian-based book heads. To the moon, apparently. (Also, how is it possible that the Google Chrome dictionary doesn't have dystopian in it?)
King Lear by William Shakespeare
You know, I'm pretty unimpressed with this one. It could be because we're reading it right after Othello which is probably my favorite Shakespeare play, but King Lear is just sort of boring to me. He's a father who makes his kids play the "who loves me most" game until they get what they want, get sick of him, and decide to kill him. Now, I think their decision to kill him is disturbingly extreme and sudden, but he's also been super childish in his dealings with them (not to mention sort of an idiot, as is expected from our tragic figure of the play's title). Oddly enough, I kept feeling like I had read this already and then I realized it's because Mr. Ramsay in To The Lighthouse is just as needy and childish towards Mrs. Ramsay (and basically every other woman in the novel).
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