swingbeat: 14/26: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Recommended, but WOW this book took me forever to read. It's pretty interesting - the author goes and tries to answer this general question: Why did Europeans end up dominating the world? (I paraphrased)

When Europeans arrived in the New World, why did the Native Americans have no way of resisting them, and why could they not fight the smallpox (and why did they not infect the Europeans)?

One can answer simply - "Europeans had guns, germs, and steel, Native Americans did not." This is true, and the author digs back in history to understand how Eurasians ended up with these technologies and germs. He reaches far back in history to dicuss why the Fertile Crescent caused such a population boom, why there was more food there (and large domesticatable mammals), compared to other regions of the world.

You learn a bit along the way - what's it mean to domesticate an animal? What about domesticating a plant (The oak tree's acorns for example, are high in nutrition, but are not domesticated)?

You learn about the mysteries of Madagascar - the people there speak a form of Indonesian (even as of 1500AD), but the closest Indonesians were far away in Asia.

The book starts out in a pretty riveting way, but by the later chapters, it begins to drag. The author goes into much detail, which I wasn't necessarily interested in. Eventually I got through it, and am happy to have read it. Take a gander at the first few chapters, and dive in the rest if you feel like it. He does provide some food for thought and makes me wonder about the resources that we squander in our modern world, and about the fall of our way of life. Not coincidentally, he has another book called "Collapse" that discusses the fall of societies - I might pick that up. But first some light reading :)

Bridget: 17/26: A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

Stats: 685pp. Fourth book in the Ice and Fire book series.

Review: I wasn't sure how much I would like this book because I had learned early on that Martin had decided to break the book into two books because he had so much to say. I think that originally Martin had released that he would only write a 5-book series (unlike people like Robert Jordan who just keep writing book to extend his very long series).

It was nice to focus on half a dozen characters in the context of one book. In the other books, you read about 12 at a time. It was easier to follow the story line and satisfied the need for "immediate gratification" with regard to furthering the plot lines.

I can't wait until the next book is published. His characters and his writing are so consistent. This book was filled with the characters I love to hate but can't help liking them at times. The characters are smart, witty, and really complex allowing for nicely timed plot twists. Like the other books, the cliffhangers made me anxious for more. I was sucked in once again.

Highly recommended!

Bridget: 16/26: Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner

Stats: 384pp. Trashy romance novel.

Review: I had hoped it would be great because of all the hubbub about "In Her Shoes". It was like a train wreck happening to my senses but I had to finish it because I wanted justice served. It never was. I don't even know where to begin. In short, it is the story of a woman who marries the wrong man, lives a life that she never wanted, and has kids she doesn't seem to want either. I thought it would be more like the show Desperate Housewives but the writing is not that clever. If you don't like Desperate Housewives, you would definitely hate this book.

I would recommend this book to the person who likes trashy novels with an unbelievably optimistic plot for the protagonist of the story. She does so many ridiculous things behind her husband's back (in his close proximity) and he never finds out! I couldn't take it! Somehow he even thinks that the problems in their marriage are his fault. I kept imagining and unhappy housewife relishing the events of this book (wishing that it were her life) because of some of the themes in this book (ex-boyfriend who breaks her heart begging her back later even though she is 20 pounds heavier and has 3 kids kind of scenarios).

Not recommended.

yong : book 5/25 : The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

I am an arrogant reader. Many times as I read, I find myself questioning an author's skill, his motives, his truth. Times when the words seem not to be the voice of authority, the voice of god, the voice of truth, but the voice of a human being, fallible and untrustworthy. Times when the art is so transparent that it shows, becomes artifice. Less often now do I allow the piper to completely entrance me, follow without question, believe, trust. Simply accept. Daniel Mason's The Piano Tuner, bought for a buck at a Katrina-relief garage sale, swept me away to Burma, with an assured magic that never had me looking for the trick behind the cheap illusion, the little man behind the green curtain. His skill at improvising words and sentence structure to create the feel of a dream, or of a long night spent drifting back and forth between sleep and consciousness, flat out impressed me. What's most remarkable is that the guy who wrote this book was only 26 at the time, that this was his first novel, that he was just a kid about to enter UCSF med school.

I haven't seen much of the world. I've crisscrossed the United States and Canada and been to Korea, but no countries beyond those three. This book took me to Burma in the same wonderful, wonder-filled, tourist's-eye-view way that Sophia Coppola's Lost In Translation took me to Japan. It made real the exotic names of Rangoon and Mandalay--without making them any less exotic. It took me there by way of an 1880s steamer, in the shoes of an awkward piano tuner named Edgar Drake, under the flag of the arrogance and excesses of British imperialism. Daniel Mason took me on a journey; I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.