Currently physically on my bedtable:
Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds
What I chiefly remember this book is that it was the one book in my Modern
Irish Lit class that I didn't read, and as I was a vocal and enthusiastic
participant otherwise, the professor noticed my reticence. So it's been on
my conscience for 13 years. Besides that it's funny and jumpy, it freaked me
out because about halfway through (and I didn't remember reading more than
a few dozen pages, if that), I found an uncompleted crossword puzzle from the Daily
Campus from RDC's birthday (not that
I knew him yet) that year. Some of its clues, furthermore, I had just come
across in a book of puzzles CLH and I had just worked together, now in 2003.
Antonia Fraser, Faith and Treason
Okay. I like Antonia Fraser, but, I discovered, I am not 300 pages worth
of
interested
in
the Gunpowder Plot. I liked learning about its significance in English history,
but as far as knowing who did what on what date in 1605, not so much.
18 January 2003
George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society
One of the most ridiculously pedantic, superior books I have ever read.
And why? Because it was in my backpack under the seat in front of me and my
other two were in the suitcase in the overhead bins. The author had a severe
case of Francophilism to the point that anything Usan sucked. Hyperrationality
of a process leads to irrationality. The book is a padded 15-year-old
essay and its seams show. In a book allegedly intended for the common reader,
he brags about his own un-rationalized life as a college professor, showing
a stereotypical
ignorance
of the real
world that can only alienate the great unwashed.
14 January 2003
S Dai, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
12 January 2003
John Leonard, When the Kissing Had to Stop
Reading him makes me feel like I live under a rock. If I didn't love the way he plays with language, I'd call him pedantic, but since I do, I call him erudite.
National Geographic, Eyewitness to the 20th Century
I had first counted this under 2002, but I was hurrying to finish it before I left Florida where it lived, not before the year turned.
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Last modified 5 January 2003
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