author: Christopher Mark O'Brien

name: Steev

average rating: 3.58

book published: 2006

rating: 4

read at: 2013/03/10

date added: 2013/03/10

shelves: fun, own-it, food

review:
This book gets a 5-stars for effort, but a 3 stars for execution, so that averages out to 4. I sympathize with all the ideas and issues that this book is about, but the author is just not a very good or exciting writer. The book reads kind of like a long marketing pamphlet or non-profit charity ask letter. That's a real slow slog when you're talking 275 pages of it.

That said, there's some interesting historical and scientific facts and figures in here, here and there but in between those there's also a lot of painfully plodding pleading and cajoling.

author: William Goldman

name: Steev

average rating: 3.99

book published: 2000

rating: 3

read at: 2006/01/01

date added: 2013/01/23

shelves: filmmaking, own-it

review:

author: John Lanchester

name: Steev

average rating: 3.81

book published: 1996

rating: 4

read at: 2013/01/23

date added: 2013/01/23

shelves: fun, food, own-it

review:
This novel really has an odd arc to it. It starts out as an almost plotless meditation on fancy food and cooking. Then it gradually, very gradually, becomes the story of a scary, diabolical sociopath. As someone recently more and more interested in fine cuisine and the culinary arts, it was challenging but not overly so to make it through the first 170 pages or so of the gourmet musings of the narrator. And then it starts getting really juicy, though still full of ever so erudite foodstuff trivia.

[spoilers removed]

author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

name: Steev

average rating: 4.19

book published: 1963

rating: 5

read at: 1990/01/01

date added: 2013/01/23

shelves: novels, own-it

review:
This is probably my favorite Vonnegut, with the possible exception of Player Piano. Ice-9 is terrifying.

author: John Lanchester

name: Steev

average rating: 3.62

book published: 1996

rating: 0

read at:

date added: 2013/01/23

shelves: novels, own-it, fun, food

review:

author: David Foster Wallace

name: Steev

average rating: 4.26

book published: 2005

rating: 5

read at: 2013/02/21

date added: 2013/02/21

shelves: fun, politics, spirit-self

review:
A collection of excellent non-fiction pieces. See my blog post inspired by one of the essays in this book: http://steev.hise.org/content/truly-m...

author: Tomas Moniz

name: Steev

average rating: 3.97

book published: 2011

rating: 5

read at: 2013/07/21

date added: 2013/07/21

shelves: children, spirit-self, own-it, politics, homesteading, to-re-read

review:
This is a great book, if you're in the situation to benefit from it, that is, if you're a father who is looking for inspiration and ways to raise kids and be a husband and father according to feminist, anti-patriarchal, anti-establishment values. Not all of the pieces in this anthology are that useful. Some are rather banal pep-talks. But some are highly moving and wise statements that reach to the core of what's wrong with our culture and offer alternatives. Hardly any of the pieces are highly good writing; most are simply competent journalism/opinion pieces and don't qualify as any kind of Harper's-level essaying. But this is made up for by the personal nature of the pieces, and, for me, the way in which many of the questions and issues are exactly what I'm looking to explore as I embark on the long journey of fatherhood. I think several of my friends who've already been on this path for years might get considerably less out of this book; also, the rest of my friends who don't have kids and don't plan to won't get much of anything of it. But if you're somewhere in the middle, this book will be good for you too.

author: David Shields

name: Steev

average rating: 3.46

book published: 2012

rating: 4

read at: 2013/07/18

date added: 2013/07/19

shelves: art, fun, own-it

review:
Like with many anthologies that are collected around a specific formal practice in writing, this book varies in quality. Some selections are really top-notch, but others are almost worthy of skipping. The idea behind them all is creative writing that is in the format of some non-creative text: for-sale listings, book indexes, wills, police logs, etc. Where these work the best is, I believe, not dependent on the the form the writer chose to cleverly lampoon, but on the actual content. When the story, the situation being portrayed, is powerful and touching, the piece is powerful, regardless of whether it's written in the form of a glossary, colophon, or set of story problems.

Some standouts I particularly liked were "Permission Slip" by Caron A. Levis, in which a problem student hijacks her school's intercom system and rants at the entire school; "Officer's Weep" by Daniel Orozco in which a romance between two cops blooms in the form of a police blotter; and "National Treasures"by Charles McCleod, a heartbreaking life story told via an auction listing of the narrator's possessions. The key in all of these, and all the others that are best, is the depiction of a realistic and poignant human life, not the cleverness of how it gets bent into a weird type of writing.

author: Jean Hegland

name: Steev

average rating: 3.79

book published: 1996

rating: 5

read at: 2013/04/04

date added: 2013/04/05

shelves: after-the-fall, own-it

review:
I'm being generous to give this book 5 stars, but I'll qualify that by saying that for the most part I'm rewarding it for its accuracy. As someone interested in "end of civilization" stories, that's a big plus. The writing isn't particularly artful or groundbreaking, and it's not a piece of formally innovative literature. But, the writing also isn't terrible, and the female narrative point-of-view is, I think, very realistic (probably because the author is female). I've read way too many works of speculative fiction that totally botch the female perspective (in my humble, male, opinion).

The atmosphere of the novel is introspective and moody, as the diary of a teenage girl raised in a cabin in the woods would be. The story keeps its background cleverly vague, but what details there are are very plausible - we never find out exactly why American industrial society collapses, things just gradually fall apart and get worse and worse. The electricity starts going off more and more often and for longer periods and eventually for good, the radio stations gradually stop broadcasting, rumors of food riots and plagues are heard, but there's no specifics, which is both realistic - in that a 17 year old homeschooled girl might not be carefully tracking the geopolitical situation - and very smart for a writing strategy, because the book doesn't seem dated (in the mid-90s when this was written, I forget the exact doomsday fears, but they were certainly a little different than today's).

So the book doesn't concern itself with the big picture. Just with the little day-to-day events and choices at a little northern California house in the woods, where two parents have died and the daughters have to figure out how to live, with no electricity, no gas, and dwindling food supplies. It's not a scary, gripping action thriller like "The Road," but Hegland provides some enjoyable suspense just from getting us to wonder whether the forest fire will come closer, or whether the sister will ever get to dance to music again, or whether the tomatoes will set fruit. It's a story of interior states, yearnings, small but vital things learned about medicinal herbs and the habits of wild boars. It's a story of how things will likely happen, for at least some people (the lucky people, probably), someday, within the next 5 to 30 years - whenever the lights really finally go out. If you want to be intelligently spooked into teaching yourself how to garden and make your own candles, this might be a good idea.

author: Jane McGonigal

name: Steev

average rating: 3.81

book published: 2010

rating: 4

read at: 2011/12/31

date added: 2013/04/02

shelves: own-it, spirit-self, filmmaking

review:
This was an inspiring read, with lots of interesting ideas and positive notions. But McGonigal doesn't do a good job, or any job, of answering any potential arguments or criticisms of her ideas and her work. She assumes everyone will agree with her and not offer any competing or opposing narrative. A lot of the book reads like a sort of giant glowing cover letter she's writing to a potential employer about her career as a game designer and researcher. Which may, effectively, be exactly what it is. Still, I think a lot of the book is really worth reading and thinking about for many people concerned with trying to "make the world a better place" using "of the box" techniques.