well, if you ask me ... » Books

Playing for Pizza

bsoist — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:20:55 +0000

Playing for Pizza is a departure from Grisham’s normal fare, but it’s a fun story about a washed up NFL quarterback who heads to Italy to play for a team that even Italy doesn’t care about.

Like most readers, I guess, I found the novel was missing a real story. I was enjoying the read but didn’t see what the point was. It actually reminded me for a while of my first reading of Hemingway. That was the experience then – I thought the story wandered around but I enjoyed reading about the characters. The one difference here, of course, is that Grisham’s characters in this one are not as interesting.

I happened to read this book during the NFL season when my Jets were thriving with their new washed up quarterback, so I was captivated by the similarities in the experiences of the football teams. It actually gave me grand hope for my Jets – hope that dissipated soon after, I’m sorry to report.

If you are a Grisham fan, you may be disappointed. You won’t find the normal twist of plot you’ve learned to expect. If you are looking for a quick, relatively fun read then you should pick this one up.

The Third Chimpanzee

bsoist — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:44:04 +0000

This is a fascinating book. I’ve been working on it for some time because I keep restarting it and marking it up.

Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, tries to explain

How the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight

The book is filled with a myriad of ethical issues raised by the similarity between humans and animals. Ethical questions which, to me, should be addressed even by those who do not consider themselves Darwinists, or even evolutionists. While I am sure I will have more to say about these ethical questions after I’ve finished the book, I also find several quotes from the book intriguing to both my interest in evolutionary biology and my belief in the spirit of man. There are so many and they are so thought provoking that I will probably post here many times about them. The prologue opens with this one:

It’s obvious that humans are unlike all animals. It’s also obvious that we’re a species of big mammal down to the minutest details of our anatomy and our molecules. That contradiction is the most fascinating feature of the human species.

A plan that could topple civilizations

bsoist — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:42:31 +0000

and plunge the planet into a cross-species war. Artemis Fowl is a story about an interesting world filled with fairies, leprechauns, and magic. It is a story about a criminal genius and his plan. I’m having a lot of fun reading this one. Related posts:A Magical Story Playing for Pizza The Third Chimpanzee Related posts:

A Magical Story

bsoist — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:55:24 +0000

I picked up The Vanished Man at a hospital reading room when I desperately needed a way to escape the reality of what was happening. It would have been difficult to have chosen a more fitting tale. Deaver’s mix of forensic crime solving and the world of magic, gave me just the kind of engrossing escape from reality I was hoping for.

I’d read one other Lincoln Rhyme novel before. While I enjoyed it, it left only a mild impression on me. This one was different. Lincoln supposes the villain he is looking for is an illusionist, so he recruits a young magician to help. As a result, the tale becomes a fascinating one, a typical forensic crime mystery filled with tales of magic – including “insider” information.

Economic Hit Man

bsoist — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 01:02:49 +0000

I’ve joined a book club.

I figured that since I never have anything to do, I would sign up.

Anyway, our first book is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and I have found it fascinating. While the details in the book are not really a surprise to me (I’ve assumed this kind of thing was happening), it does seem a little hard to believe the way the story unfolds.

I will get back to you when I am finished.

Good To Great

bsoist — Mon, 16 May 2005 13:00:31 +0000

My boss gave me an assignment related to the book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’tHe didn’t tell me I had to read it, but maybe I should pick it up.

The 100

bsoist — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 05:01:21 +0000

One of my favorite books is titled The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. It contains short pieces about the most influential persons from history, including an enlightening collection of ‘honorable mentions.’ It is a fascinating book. Recently, I added a similar book to my wishlist — The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written: The History of Thought from Ancient Times to Today With all of this, I have never thought about putting a similar list together on my own. Then I read this, and this. Well, really I did not read the lists. It dawned on me that I should work on a list. I will post the list when I finish it.