Toast.x2

the sound and the fury -i picked this book up at goodwill, for a buck and change. i had heard it was good, but never got around to reading it. turns out, it is one of the best books i have ever read. set in a combination of locals and times, varied themes and ideals are put forward depending on which section you are reading. the story is broken into 4 parts, each part is told from the perspective of a different individual, all related in some way to the Compson family. it mainly breaks down the destruction of a family and all they know. mentally, physically, emotionally, you watch as they self destruct. i will not go into too much detail on the actual story as the book is 80 years old. you can find fantastic plot break downs all over the web. ———— the first section was absolutely unbearable. i almost put down the book and gave up entirely. carried out in about a hundred pages, it is told entirely from the view point of Benjy Compson. sound/fury is presented as stream of consciousness. ...

Note – 2/2/2010 Body of Knowledge has been picked up by Ridan books. It has had some spelling corrections and they slapped a new cover/title on it. The book is now titled “Finding Reason” Congrats Bryce! ~~~ A quick bit of background info: As a member of Goodreads.com and LibraryThing.com I have come across a great number of books that I would otherwise not have had exposure to. This is in part due to the face to face nature that these sites allow you, in regards to authors involved with the systems. Coming across Bryce Anderson’s  Body of Knowledge  is one of the shining moments of my involvement in both systems (and book blogging in general). On both GoodReads and LibraryThing, there are a significant number of authors, publishers, and general book fans who run drawings to get exposure. They will have a certain number of books which are going to be given to a random selection of people. The intent is to get some person to person marketing, reviews of adva...

“I was told there’d be cake” Sloane Crosley.. we had such high hopes for you. reading your pony story in radar, it seemed that reading your book was an awesome idea. if something makes you smile that much and it is only a single chapter from a book.. the rest MUST be excellent… right? no. couldn’t have been more wrong. when this book was first purchased, i was very pleased to read the pony story again. i imagined with horror the looks your family would give, when stumbling across your plastic pony corral in the kitchen drawer. chapter 2 and three were some of the most unappealing collections of vowels and consonants i have read in ages. frankly, your book bored me so much, that after three chapters, i put it down and decided to forget about it, altogether. something like a year has gone past. i felt a bit bad for you. on a sad and pathetic whim, i said “give sloane another chance.. she did make you laugh once.. perhaps she could do it again” i have been wrong in the past. i have read p...

NOW, for a book i really enjoyed. World War Z: an oral history of the zombie war Max brooks, author of the Zombie Survival Guide (2003),? nailed this book down with the fervor of an angry UK chimp beating a kitten to death. this book was emotional and in some parts, difficult to read with your mouth closed. the level of graphic descriptions varies depending on the section you are reading. it is as stated, an oral history, stories told by those who experienced the horror. The book opens with an author note advising the background on the book. in this world, the author worked for a world organization, and after the “war” was over was asked to tour affected areas (globally in essence) and collect data on the human population impact. all of the stories were then included in an all point status report, where the human element of each story was “black lined” down to just the bare statistics. the report’s author felt that the stories themselves only mattered when the human element was kept in...

Prejudice and Zombies, “The Classic Regency Romance, now with Ultra violent Mayhem!”.. where to begin. if i could repeatedly send a text message to Jane Austen, it would read “… i do not like you.. i do not think this will ever change…” to which Jane would reply by letter, “Dear Sir, I know not who you are, but if you keep blowing up my cell with spam, I will likely have to turn you into the authorities.” When i heard about the edited version of Pride and Prejudice, i jumped to my feet rapidly telling my wife, “Jenn! lets go, lets go! do you think Powells Books is still open? “. to myself, i said, “OMGOMGawesomeness comingmyway” which i then followed up with an immediate and impromptu trip to the book store. I purchased Pride and Prejudice and Zombies the same day i heard about it and was excited for such a ‘novel’ novel. overall, i felt it was a good read. anyone who has read the original work knows that it is PAINFULLY slow in the first half. until Elizabeth goes on her trip to Pembe...

i bought this book at goodwill having read the inside cover, it sounded very good. the tale of Hollis, a graduate who is bumming about in a semi-anarchic haze. not sure what to do with his life, or if there is any point. Hollis is a bit like everyone i know. He has his quirks and his redeeming factors. The core story of Warp takes you through a 36 hour period of his life. His concerns over money, his landlord dodging, drinking, driving, relationships with friends family and girls.He walks around in a dirty trench coat pretending like he doesn’t care, but really he does, he is just too damn lazy and disappointed in the world to do anything about anything. With out giving away any plot line, (sorry folks, you gotta read it yourself) i think that the introduction of a female character was the real turning point in the story. She tells us more about Hollis than Hollis ever tells us about himself. The woman is Alix (also goes by Xanthe). One name is supposedly her room mate, and the other i...

I read this book again last summer but have been lazy putting up a review.. Currently i have a back log of about 20 books i need to post about, and i figure this is a good place to start. Go ask Alice , as presented by Beatrice Sparks was actually a very enjoyable book, As far as it can be when you are in the middle of a teenager’s angsty druggy rebellious drug diary. Interestingly, it is an “Anonymously” written book. I have anonymous in quotes because the reality is that this book is likely a near-total work of fiction. Per wikipedia: Revelations about the book’s origin have caused much doubt as to its authenticity and factual accounts, and the publishers have listed it as a work of non-fiction since at least the mid-late 1980s. Although it is still published under the byline “Anonymous,” press interviews and copyright records suggest that it is largely or wholly the work of its purported editor, Beatrice Sparks. i originally read this book when i was 11 or 12 years old. a lot of us ...