author: Davis Schneiderman

name: Steev

average rating: 3.83

book published: 2013

rating: 5

read at: 2013/12/20

date added: 2015/12/20

shelves: art, fun, novels

review:
My high rating for this book is for its high concept, and I'm biased since it's a concept (appropriation, plagiarism, recycled culture, there are many terms one could use) that I've been involved with, both in my own artistic practice and as a subject of study and documentation.
[full disclosure: Another source of bias is that a review copy of this book was sent to me by the publisher]

With this slim volume, Schneiderman pushes at an envelope of that concept of artistic appropriation. In it, he reprints excerpts from across the history of literature and philosophy, making the book feel a bit like a freshman Western Civ course or somesuch. However, his twist, his "value add" as they say, is that for each pre-existing work, he changes the byline to his own. It's an open act of "piracy" or, if you're more generous, "creative borrowing," but also an exercise in artistic curation.

The author of the forward mentions that Schneiderman told him that it's not necessary to actually read the book, because of its conceptual nature, and this is true. There's literally nothing new. It's enough to be paging through it and pondering why he may have chosen each selection, enjoying the cognitive buzz of seeing a different author name slapped onto each masterpiece. It's an avant-garde work in the truest sense, because this book is about showing other artists where the extremes are, not actually providing a cultural product for "civilians" to consume. That will come later, when someone else synthesizes Schneiderman's one-liner, perhaps with some related ideas from David Shields' "Reality Hunger" and some hard-won storytelling skills, to write a novel or memoir that is a tapestry of source material but that still somehow entertains and inspires, in a deeper, more personal and more complicated way than this art world gesture. Until then, we have this stepping stone to admire.

author: Scott Stossel

name: Steev

average rating: 3.82

book published: 2013

rating: 5

read at: 2016/03/11

date added: 2016/03/11

shelves: memoir, own-it, spirit-self

review:
Very thought provoking. Resonates with my experience. And well written!

author: Brian Wood

name: Steev

average rating: 4.02

book published: 2007

rating: 4

read at: 2016/01/07

date added: 2016/01/31

shelves: own-it

review:

author: John Summers

name: Steev

average rating: 4.14

book published:

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2016/04/18

shelves: politics, own-it

review:

author: Ellen Ullman

name: Steev

average rating: 3.58

book published: 2003

rating: 5

read at: 2016/12/01

date added: 2016/12/03

shelves: novels, own-it, fun

review:
Excellent read. Ullman really captures well both the technology and the mental lives of people in the software industry. The story also has a narrative arc that's relatively non-standard and unexpected - it's not one of those stories where I'm constantly thinking "oh I bet I know what will happen now."

(Also, parenthetically, the short tryst between programmer and system administrator is one of the most erotic sexual subplots I've read in a while.)

Really good, expertly written, and covers such a range of concerns: the social trends involving computers and human-computer interfaces, the personality types of programmers, the economics of startups, the "geek pride" that makes computer people go a little (or a lot) crazy, existential philosophy, alcoholism, sex, love, dashed hopes for life... the list goes on...

author: Ali Almossawi

name: Steev

average rating: 4.01

book published: 2013

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2017/01/02

shelves: fun, to-re-read, own-it

review:

author: Summers, John

name: Steev

average rating: 4.27

book published:

rating: 5

read at: 2016/11/18

date added: 2016/11/18

shelves: politics, own-it, fun

review:

author: Paul Bloom

name: Steev

average rating: 3.71

book published: 2010

rating: 0

read at: 2016/09/15

date added: 2016/11/10

shelves: fun, spirit-self

review:
It's good. It kind of doesn't go as deep, as philosophical, as I was hoping. but it's pretty interesting. especially the evolutionary biology stuff.

I wish we were more like penguins.

author: David Sosnowski

name: Steev

average rating: 3.91

book published: 2004

rating: 4

read at: 2016/06/11

date added: 2016/06/11

shelves: fun, novels, own-it

review:
This is a funny book. A fascinating book, a piece of science-fantasy with a classic "what if" that is expertly followed through on: What if vampires existed, and they managed to turn basically everyone on the planet into vampires? What would happen? How would civilization go on, and what would it look like? And how many comedic situations would ensue?

It's not extremely literary or complicated or deep. It is a beautiful little story about relationships and parenting and parental love, chosen family, loss, and nostalgia. It's a book that I would think would appeal mostly to vampire fans. In addition to than that demographic, it probably would have done quite well marketed as young adult fiction. It's a very clean, PG-13 book - although it refers to a lot of ultra-violence and super hot and bloody erotic vamp-sex, everything is at a distance, like the old romances where the lovers tumble into bed and then the scene fades to black. The humor, the double entendres, are at time a tad bit too clever and too frequent, but it's that kind of book. (I guess someone categorizing it in a literary way would call it a farce?)

Full disclosure: I am/was a vampire fan; not an obsessive one, but I used to devour Lestat novels pretty ravenously. Also, I knew David Sosnowski years (like almost 25 years!) ago, back when he only wrote poetry and would show up at the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam and pretty much kick almost everyone else's ass. Then he started writing novels. He's a great guy and a great writer and I'm psyched to read this.

(Note: I'd love to read more of this kind of thing that gets even more deep into the possible science of how vampirism could work. Like what's the exact biochemistry of the process? How can blood be enough to sustain them? etc etc... )

author: John Scalzi

name: Steev

average rating: 3.82

book published: 2012

rating: 4

read at: 2016/08/04

date added: 2016/08/04

shelves: fun, novels, own-it

review:
A worthwhile read, if you're a science-fiction fan with the ability to laugh at the cliches of the genre. This is not great literature, but it was never billed as such. It's a light satire of sci-fi television, but it also gets a little bit heavy and touching during the 3rd act.

The writing quality is a little hit-or-miss. Scalzi is clearly proficient, but the dialog is often straight out of the playbook for bad situation comedies, the kind where every character can't let anything be said without some dumb comeback. Despite this, I found the concepts and the emotional content to be compelling enough to keep me going.