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nbarman

nbarman

Ode to Lata

Ode to Lata - Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla Quite poorly written.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz This book accomplishes a lot. It's funny, it has a voice (and a witty one at that), it tells an important history of the Trujillo-era Dominican Republic, it's a coming of age novel and it has memorable characters. More than anything, I enjoyed the history lesson given in such colloquial delivery. It's a haunting history, and Diaz's characters - both those born during and after Trujillo's regime, are caught in the lingering terror. I can see why this book won the Pulitzer and would recommend it as a good read. It did feel a bit long and I was waiting to finish it.

The American

The American - Henry James Henry James writes beautifully and entertainingly. The book is very slow to unfold and at times tests one's patience, but is ultimately rewarding. It is, on the surface, a comedy of manners about the culture shock experienced by an American entrepreneur in Paris. At a deeper level, it is a sharp analysis of the American psyche - about boundless (and perhaps unmerited) optimism, about persistent egalitarianism in the face of rigid social structures, and ultimately about a folly of innocence and naïveté in a world constructed as elegant to the extreme but disguising many harsh brutalities.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, A Novel - David Mitchell This was one of the most difficult books I have read in a long time. Reviewers have called it "epic," "magestic" and a collection of countless other platitudes. After reading it, my opinion is that while it is all these things, and while David Mitchell has achieved something momentous with this work, it was not as compelling for me as I imagined. Mitchell covered vast ground and as a piece of historical fiction, he recreated a time and a place richly. He is working at three different levels and they all play out effectively. His use of language is commendable. Despite all these things, I wasn't moved, engaged, or attached to this book. Reading it felt like a chore and finishing it an accomplishment, despite it being a thoroughly brilliant work.
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard - Chip Heath, Dan Heath This book is awesome awesome awesome. It captures the essence of what it takes to create change in any environment - corporate, political, social, personal. I can't recommend this book enough. It's going to stay on my permanent bookshelf as a reference guide as well as a book to read every few months to get re-inspired.
The Solitude of Prime Numbers: A Novel - Paolo Giordano Good, not great...
The Ask - Sam Lipsyte Witty and shallow, but not in the right proportion. It felt like Lipsyte was performing acrobatics in humor in order to please himself with his own skill. Sometimes the humor worked, sometimes it didn't. I was hoping for some meaningful social satire out of this book, but it didn't quite reach that level.
Room - Emma Donoghue This book deserved to be nominated for the Booker. It is an enthralling, gripping read and the author's craft in constructing Jack and speaking through his voice is truly admirable. Room was one of those rare books that you can't put down, and at the same time that you realize that it's not a mere thriller; it is a work of refined craftsmanship from a very talented author.
Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, Updated and Expanded Edition - Jerry Weissman This book is overhyped. I have a great passion toward delivering powerful presentations and I found this book disappointing. While it will certainly be helpful to the absolute amateur, a lot of Weissman's techniques are mediocre at best. The best sections of the book had to do with the verbal and organizational aspects of giving a presentation - how to brainstorm, how to think of a presentation, how to construct a storyboard, and how the audience's mind works. The worst parts of this book were about the actual craft of creating a presentation - bad Powerpoint advice, bad graphics advice and especially bad advice on how to use bullet-points. Weissman conveys the key point correctly - keep visuals simple, including simple typography, simple use of text, simple use of graphs and images. But the examples he provides are not at all impressive.[return][return]If you are a complete beginner to delivering presentations, you may want to browse through this book for some decent advice. If you've been doing this type of work for a while, avoid this book and pick up something by Nancy Duarte or Garr Reynolds. They're both brilliant writers on this topic.
The Museum of Innocence - Orhan Pamuk Okay, I'm going to tell it as it is.  Nobel-winning writer aside, this book is insufferable.  I frankly don't understand the hype, the glowing reviews, attention from the New Yorker - this book is bad.  Really bad.

The story revolves around a privileged man in Istanbul who has a short affair with a shopgirl and proceeds to become completely obsessed with her.  So obsessed is he that after the girl marries someone else, he ends up sitting at their dinner table for the next 8 years.

When Kemal is not hopping around the latest upper-class Istanbul hotspots, he's becoming an expert kleptomaniac, pocketing everything around Füsun's house.  He reports back about his activities with glee - "After having taken all those matchboxes, and Fusun's cigarette butts, and the saltshakers, the coffee cups, the hairpins, and the barrettes - things not difficult to pick up, because people rarely notice them missing - I began to set my sights on things like ashtrays, cups, and slippers…"  Several pages later, we find out that "during my eight years of going to the Keskins' for supper, I was able to squirrel away 4,213 of Fusun's cigarette buts.  Each one of these had touched her rosy lips and entered her mouth, some even touching her tongue and becoming moist [shock of all shocks!] as I would discover when I put my finger on the filter soon after she had stubbed the cigarette out; the stubs, reddened by her lovely lipstick, bore the unique impress of her lips at some moment whose memory was laden with anguish or bliss…"

There are plenty of signs that Kemal's obsession is not well received.  Going back to cigarette stubbing, we find out that "sometimes she would stub it out with evident anger, sometimes with impatience. I had seen her stub out a cigarette in anger many times, and this caused me disquiet."

This might be an interesting storyline if it wasn't the same old hogwash repeating itself for 560 pages.  There are entire chapters of this.  Allow me to list out some chapter names for you:  "The Melancholy of Autumn" is followed by "Cold and Lonely November Days".  A few chapters later, there is a chapter titled "An Indignant and Broken Heart Is of No Use to Anyone."  

Other reviewers have tried to find beauty in this book by its descriptions of Istanbul in the 1970's.  Some have claimed that Pamuk's "museum" is a commemoration of a time and a place in Istanbul and that the book tries to showcase a lost culture. I disagree.  Sure there are a few pages scattered here and there about Istanbul, and sure, the writing does shine in a few small  segments.  But the vast majority of the book is about Fusun's lips, tears, anger, family, dinners, cigarette butts, marriage, saltshakers, eyes, expressions and words.  These discourses have only the most tangential relation to anything enlightening about 1970's Istanbul.

There is a disconcerting conceit about the author, when he introduces himself as a character - "This is how I came to seek out the esteemed Orhan Pamuk, who has narrated the story in my name and with my approval… I had also heard that he was a man lovingly devoted to his work and who took storytelling seriously."  There is a lot more self-advertising in this book, but I won't delve into it.  Suffice it to say that I really suffered through this book and would have abandoned it were it not so bad that I spent most of my time thinking about how I would justify such a critical review of such a well-hyped book.
Insignificant Others - Stephen McCauley Very poorly written.
In Cold Blood (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books) - Truman Capote, Bob Colacello Truman Capote has done a remarkable job with this book. As a work of literature, Capote demonstrates an amazing grasp of the human mind, emotions, action, drama, suspense and tragedy. It is chilling to read this book with the knowledge that it is a work of non-fiction. The prose is poetic, the writing is rich and Capote's research is astounding. This book is almost a masterpiece and the story it tells is quite a difficult one to digest. I would have given this book 5 stars if it had managed to elicit a stronger moral or emotional reaction, but it is still deserves to be known as a work of distinction.
How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships - Leil Lowndes I seldom read these sort of books, but I think this one is really really good. It's the kind of book that you can save for reference and read a little tip from every few days. There are many little gems densely packed into this book - some of it is common sense, some of it is eye-opening, but even if you already know everything this book tells you, it serves as a very effective reminder.
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen A quiet masterpiece.
Complete Novels: The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, The Optimist's Daughter (Library of America #101) - Eudora Welty, Richard Ford, Michael Kreyling I read "The Optimist's Daughter". It won the Pulitzer, but I didn't care very much for it.
Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions - Guy Kawasaki Simple advice that most readers should already know, but it's always good to have these little tidbits as reminders. Like the majority of business books, this does nothing to change my life... but it's a good book.