Books

I have been firing through books recently: Here are some short reviews reviews on some of these books

Sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs- Chuck Klosterman: Hilarious pop culture book exploring various subjects as cover bands, pornography, and everyhting in between. The critique I have is I am not old enough to understand many of the references he makes or some of the bands or TV shows that he refers to.

The Third Secret- Steve Berry: Dan Brown style novel with religious secrets and religious theory. This particular one talks about apparitions of Mary and the effect they could have on the church and the next conclave. Very good, page turner, not as much action as another of his books (the Alexandria link) but it explores the characters and relationships in more detail. Not high literature by any means, but very good and entertaining and does give some information and stuff to think about and chew on.

Various books by Clive Cussler: Action books all the way. Plots are not super well developed but workable, main character almost dies several times but survives, usually based on legends and theories (much like an Indiana Jones movie is). Basically, it moves quick, there is almost nothing to think about or chew on ( except you might want to research the legend they talk about on wikipedia afterwards) and there are impossible action scenes every few pages. You really have to be in the mood to read this type of book and like mindless action, but if you like these things, then totally awesome. I have read 3 or 4 by him now and am taking the break, because although they have different themes, they all end up having very similar plots and scenes.

The Paradox of Choice: why less is More- Barry Schwartz . Neat book arguing how the abundance of choice in our lives is actually detrimental to our happiness. It includes strategies on how to avoid choices, and make choices easier and such. For me, it was an interesting book, but not overly helpful, as many of the problems he outlines did not apply to me. I certainly see people everyday that could use his strategies and that was interesting to me as well. Either way though, it is a very interesting book that argues compellingly that these wonderful choices we have to make our lives better sometimes have the opposite effect.

The Night Watch- by Sergei Lukyanenko : This is the first vampire-ish book I have ever read and devoured it very quickly. I say Vampire-ish because it is mostly about the Others and vampires are only one part of the others. It is about one character who is on the night watch- which is an orginization charged with making sure the dark others (Vampires included) do not break any laws of the twilight. It is translated from Russian, which at some points is obvious with the choices of words and turns of phrases used. Sometimes because of this and because of plot developmenet issues, it is a little slow going, but the author more than makes up for it with neat storylines, and an awesome main character who you grow to empathize with throughtout the different stories.


wow: long post. This is not all I have been reading either. I have aread a couple of mystery novels, read the tipping point and a book called Pro Logo, in response to Naomi Klein's No Logo. Myabe I will talk about them soon