author: Douglas Adams

name: Steev

average rating: 3.95

book published: 1987

rating: 4

read at:

date added: 2013/05/23

shelves:

review:

author: John Summers

name: Steev

average rating: 4.71

book published: 2013

rating: 5

read at: 2013/05/14

date added: 2013/05/14

shelves: fun, politics

review:
As usual, attacking favorite sacred cows, this issue of The Baffler doesn't disappoint. Highlights are the massive and detailed critique of Tim O'Reilly by Evegeny Morozov; "Fifty Shades of Capitalism", a scathing review of the megapopular softcore romance; and the article about the Marquis de Sade and how his work has been so influential and prescient for our modern culture.

One thing I don't really get is why they always have so much poetry. For a journal that's so cynical and no-nonsense, it really surprises me that they've always found plenty of column-inches for poems. Some of them are certainly above-average compared to the common fare in most zines, but I'd rather read another article brutally ripping apart "the culture of business." I also couldn't really get into either piece of short fiction in this issue. But that might be just me. I always skip the fiction in Harper's or the New Yorker too, unless it's an author I know I like, so your mileage may vary.

But overall, nice work once again, Baffler.

author: Neil Postman

name: Steev

average rating: 4.11

book published: 1985

rating: 4

read at: 1994/01/01

date added: 2013/05/10

shelves: politics

review:

author: John Summers

name: Steev

average rating: 4.18

book published: 2012

rating: 5

read at: 2012/11/01

date added: 2013/05/02

shelves: politics, own-it

review:

author: Jean Hegland

name: Steev

average rating: 3.88

book published: 1996

rating: 5

read at: 2013/04/05

date added: 2013/04/05

shelves: after-the-fall, own-it

review:

author: Christopher Mark O'Brien

name: Steev

average rating: 3.55

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: David Foster Wallace

name: Steev

average rating: 4.21

book published:

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: John Lanchester
name: Steev
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/01/23
shelves: novels, own-it, fun, food
review:

author: John Lanchester

name: Steev

average rating: 3.80

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: David Foster Wallace

name: Steev

average rating: 3.60

book published: 1987

rating: 5

read at: 2013/01/04

date added: 2013/01/04

shelves: fun, novels, own-it

review:
This is an excellent novel, especially considering that it's DFW's first novel, written when he was what, like 24 or something? It's interesting to see some of the same general features and issues that he put in Infinite Jest. A sort of comedic and surreal science fictionalism; a large wasteland off on the fringes of the narrative; a dysfunctional powerful family; a structure that allows for lots of asides and loosely connected but also sort of independent stories and ideas. It's just pretty goshdarned great.