loveitallabove

Buddha, Vol. 1: Kapilavastu by Osamu Tezuka My rating: 5 of 5 stars Enjoying my forays into Manga, especially with a master of the medium ;), and digging in alongside my son. Though this one, on completion, I kicked out to my dear, old friend in Wisconsin. My boy's still on the Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and lighter fare. Hoping maybe to get through the following volumes. In this one, From my ignorance, i am still not even sure whose gonna be Buddha ;) View all my reviews

East of Eden by John Steinbeck My rating: 5 of 5 stars Like a second degree in literature, I have been doing a great number of classic works on audiobooks as part of my commute. East of Eden was just about as epically intimate as intended. It felt so satisfying to touch a classic work like this in auditory format, listening is different than reading. In fact, it can be trusted better, right? View all my reviews

Introducing Derrida by Jeff Collins My rating: 3 of 5 stars This précis was a good read, and helped my thinking around Derrida who I have read a decent amount of, but outside of any academic context that might have framed his thinking more broadly for my benefit. This work did not really do that but I enjoyed a few of the anecdotes it draws out, like Derrida's interpretation of the story of Pharmakon and the development of park outside Paris with Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. View all my reviews

Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman My rating: 0 of 5 stars Fun to read/hear really good detective fiction on the ride. Makes me think of my mom <3 View all my reviews

Out of Africa by Karen Blixen My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a beautifully crafted story, but it's hard to read at the same time as The Song of Dewey Beard. Dinesen writes so evocatively about her colonial role in Africa as a benevolent force, but it's tough to stomach concurrent with stories from the perspective of a 90 year old Lakota. I do want to see the movie again now, and Julie Harris reading was clear and evocative. View all my reviews

The Virgin and the Gypsy by D.H. Lawrence My rating: 0 of 5 stars This was an odd little tale peopled with rural characters grappling with their relationship to water management. Yup. With descriptions of gypsies straight out of The Wolfman and a generous use of the term "Jewess," again and again. Two thirds of the way in I still had a feeling that this was a silly work. But as has been the case for me in earlier readings of Lawrence's fiction, by this novellas completion, all of a sudden, I realized it was a worthwhile. View all my reviews

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf My rating: 4 of 5 stars Annette Bening read this to me, and it was such good company. Poor Septimus, whose post-traumatic stresses ring out for so many homeless: if only they had his creature comforts. And Sally Seton wow! Rambling middle-age, seeds of so much madness to come in late-colonialism. I enjoyed this much more than "To the Lighthouse." Terrific prose passages. View all my reviews

The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy My rating: 4 of 5 stars If there’s one thing my TV brain needs, it’s audiobooks and a long commute to finally get me through “War and Peace,” to even think about approaching the Russians even. I read “Fathers and Sons” when I was younger, but I am not sure if Turgenev counts? So this is my first flirtation. It’s an odd, short book. The reader Jonathan Oliver was a somewhat shrill, whiny Brit in his performance: http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.a... I am not sure if that was on purpose or not. Is this book meant to portray a classic, moralizing tale of a cuckold? Or is it a foreshadowing of the psychological novel and a direct line to “Lolita”? If you took Tolstoy’s afterward/apologia, considered him crazy and placed it in the front of this novella, it is as much a precursor as Nabakov’s own “The Enchanter.” I will have to look all this up a bit more, for now: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing ;) ...

From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia by Pankaj Mishra My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a terrific book that has had a strong impact on my worldview - in big ways and small. I'd never heard of the three showcased writer/thinkers: Tagore, Liang and al-Afghani. I want to know more about James Sanu. Did you know the first "concentration camps," were part of the Boer War? And did you know that it was in Libya where Italy where "an aeroplane dropped a bomb for the first time in history...."? And having read Kropotkin and studied the anarchists, how did I not know about Alexander Herzen?!...lots to be learned. View all my reviews

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov My rating: 5 of 5 stars When I first read this book, it felt more surreal; and maybe I was more Quilti-ed out myself, dissolute or unfocused and it all felt like a lustrous cloud of language: unforgettable, I thought. Now, to hear it again, and to hear Jeremy irons read it, the dramatic peaks were more clear, the voices, the characters, the tensions. Now I gotta see the Kubrick flick again....and maybe even the Jeremy Irons one. View all my reviews

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book may never leave my mind, somewhere, forever. As with so much right now, I listened to it. I did not actually read it, but the three-actor performance was extraordinary. I still felt like I got a sound grasp of its literary landscape. Honestly, I am not sure if I would have had the patience to make it through in its written form, given my own shortcomings. Still, in the audiobook format I was nearly overwhelmed at times by the author’s gift for alliteration and graphic, compelling metaphors, almost as a language of its own, some Nabakovian dialect of American English. The comparison to other authors feels necessary. There are fluent Faulknerian temporal fumblings and shifting narrators. It would all be more Orwellian if not feeling more “true;” and the accuracy of language is as well starched as the best of Orwell’s essays. Burgess' Clockwork Orange formerly felt untouc...

Macbeth by William Shakespeare My rating: 4 of 5 stars Four and a half stars, with one major flaw: the producers chose to do this funny little trick of overlaying Cumming's voices when he was multiple characters, namely three weird sisters when they spoke at once. The result was echo-y and distracting. Otherwise, the whole thing felt like the smartest guy in the neighborhood inviting you over to listen to him read, and you cared: knew the story and really wanted to hear how he delivered. It was intimate and rewarding. It also made me think about how it is a story of Scots and English. View all my reviews

The Stranger by Albert Camus My rating: 4 of 5 stars ...kinda can't overlook how groundbreaking it all feels; very cinematic, too. The version I listened to was translated by Matthew Ward, and read by Jonathan Davis, which was not exceptional, but nor was it a hindrance to my appreciation. View all my reviews

Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan My rating: 4 of 5 stars Really, this is a five-star book, but i have a tough time doing that for historical writing to often; and, as an audiobook, Barbara Caruso makes for a terrific reader. I am preparing for a trip to China in 2016 and this is a terrific way to think about how we got to where we are - summarizing the 20th century's great historical arcs and whats changed since 1972. I must now certainly also reconsider how I think about Nixon, who I think I'd known more through Dan Aykroyd's impersonation than anything else. View all my reviews

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf My rating: 4 of 5 stars Wow. I just finished this...what was it? Was it more conceit than content? There were times when it was so raw and real and other moments where the words became disjointed and the metaphors overwrought. But, man!: "Night after night, summer and winter, the torment of storms, the arrow-like stillness of fine (had there been any one to listen) from the upper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with lightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and waves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose brows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of another, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for night and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games, until it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute confusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself. In spring t...

Beowulf by Unknown My rating: 4 of 5 stars Heaney does the Audiobook and it's pretty great: evokes Tolkien and Joyce together. View all my reviews

Beowulf by Unknown My rating: 4 of 5 stars Heaney does the Audiobook and it's pretty great: evokes Tolkein and Joyce together. View all my reviews

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai My rating: 5 of 5 stars Got it from a list of Top Audiobooks, here: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/B... slowly making my way through...this is such an essential story. Glad I got the chance to hear it. View all my reviews

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson My rating: 5 of 5 stars Wonderfully enriching. Science and wonder, together with mindfulness? Sign me up! ;) Really: lots of good tips and kind words... View all my reviews

Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier My rating: 5 of 5 stars Coming to a close as bed time reading with my son. And I love that this is our first joint absorption of an art history text. I got it a couple of years ago, hoping for just that. It has been mutually edifying. View all my reviews