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Vacation books I know it's still three weeks until winter break, but I think I'm going to save a couple books from the Books I Plan to Read Page for vacation. I find that I do best during the school year with quick, easy-to-read books (Jhereg is a perfect example). But a two-and-a-half-week vacation will give me some time to sit down and spend quality time with heftier tomes. New Review: Steven Brust's Jhereg ADDED a review for Steven Brust's Jhereg. Quite a good book: a quick, fun read, with several sequels for those (like me) who become fascinated by Vlad Taltos's world. Back from New York, Jhereg I'm back from New York—the trip was awesome, thanks very much. In reading news, while in New York I got very much into Steven Brust's first Vlad Taltos book, Jhereg. Jhereg is not a great book by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a lot of fun. In a way, it reminds me of David Gerrold's fantastic War Against the Chtorr series in its cotton-candy style. But Brust also throws in all sorts of amusing asides: little bits of detail, casually related, that only get fleshed out later, brief comments by Vlad that reveal his character without being blatantly expository, etc. In other words, Jhereg is some of the best mindless entertainment I've ever read. I'm just glad there are something like a dozen books so far in the Vlad Taltos cycle. New Review: Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light ADDED a review for Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. A pretty good book overall with wonderful atmosphere but a somewhat simplistic plot and some fairly shallow characters. Next, I will be acting on a couple of friends' suggestions: Starship Troopers and Pawn of Prophecy are coming up. (I suppose I should also find the time to start A Suitable Boy....gar!) Harvard wins! 35-23 I just got back from the Harvard-Yale Game in New Haven. Harvard won 35-23—finally! They haven't won for the last three years, but I'm glad that, at last, in my senior year, they gained a crushing victory over Yale. Not only that, they did it with style: for the first time in who-knows-how-long, Harvard has an undefeated season. Woohoo! Lord of Light, Harvard-Yale I'm leaving for Harvard-Yale tomorrow, which should be fun. There's a lot of stufff to take care of before then, though! In reading news: Lord of Light is really, really good—imaginative, exciting, consistent, it's a more interesting and deeper science-fiction novel than I've read in a really long time (including, yes, A Fire Upon the Deep). On another note, I've updated the Books I Plan to Read Page with some new novels. Life intrudes, reading threatened My personal life is in shambles, and my reading life is nonexistent—but hey, at least it's not the other way around! Seriously, I didn't get a chance to really dig into A Suitable Boy as I thought I would, mostly because I went to sleep really late yesterday (again) and woke up only just in time for a Mock Trial meeting. After that meeting, I basically didn't do anything until now. Hurrah. I think I'll be going to sleep soon, though (it's about midnight), in order to wake up early tomorrow and do work. New Review: Alan Moore's Batman - The Killing Joke ADDED a review for Alan Moore's Batman - The Killing Joke (graphic novel). Not a particularly great work by Moore—certainly not in the same league as his wonderful The Watchmen—but short and interesting nevertheless. New Review: Alan Moore's The Watchmen ADDED a review for Alan Moore's The Watchmen (graphic novel), which I recently reread. This book is damned good. I think at some point I'll try to get back into From Hell. Started reading Wittgenstein's Poker I've read the first two chapters of Wittgenstein's Poker. It's quite well written, but so far not much has happened; the authors simply seem to be playing around with the fact that lots of people remember the event in many different ways. I think that the really substantive part of this text is coming in the next few chapters. It's a short book, so I should hopefully be able to read it quickly, perhaps by the end of this weekend (at the same time that I finish my Wittgenstein paper!). No new reading Work on the Harvard International Review recently has left me unable to do any frivolous reading. However, I am working as much as I can on my thesis. I also have to see my brother soon. Frank, if you're reading this, email me so I know you're still alive. New Review: Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's ADDED a review of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn't very impressed by it. I've decided to start reading Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. A Suitable Boy still looks daunting to me; the inability to tote it around really does hurt my chances of ever starting on it. I am currently also about a third of the way through A Prayer for Owen Meany; it'll probably take me a few more weeks to get through that massive tome. In other reading news, I picked up a copy of Wittgenstein's Poker at Widener today; the book uses a 10-minute brawl between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper as the basis for discussing turn-of-the-century philosophy and its major debates. Should be quite amusing; the title certainly interested me. I also picked up a couple of books at the Harvard University Press bookstore. For $11, I got good-quality editions of Igor Stravinsky's Poetics of Music (famous), Owen M. Fiss's The Irony of Free Speech (good for debate), Russell McCormach's Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist (weird concept), Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent (despite Lindsey's disdain), and David Z. Albert's Quantum Mechanics and Experience (a book about quantum mechanics as told by a philosophy professor at Columbia: Jesse nearly died laughing). Not a bad deal overall, although I was kind of hoping they had Robert Nozick's books there. Judith Jarvis Thomson I've been reading Judith Jarvis Thomson's Rights, Restitution, and Risk for my thesis, and since I plan on finishing the entire book I may very well post a review of that. It will be more of a critical review than many of my others, since the value of her work lies in the ideas she presents; as such, it might take me a while as I try to work through a lot of what she says. It's likely that I'll post a "general impressions" review on the main page, perhaps with a link to a more substantive review (that will hopefully reflect on things in my thesis). But we'll see. Tired, Watchmen Still feeling a little ill, and definitely tired, so I think I'm going to bed early. This means no reading recently—in fact, not much work done at all in general. But I have recently been flipping through Alan Moore's The Watchmen, and I may review it soon. Unfortunately, I've read it so many times that it's hard for me to give an objective "first look" review; instead, my review will probably center around my increasing admiration of the work's complexity upon many rereadings. In other reading news, I've dug up a copy of Iain M. Banks's Use of Weapons, supposedly one of his finest Culture books, and I will probably be reading that soon (as is reflected on my Books I Plan to Read Page). Sick and tired So, I feel pretty ill, and very tired, but I still have to go back to the IR office tonight to finish up an issue. No reading done. Much work to do. Brown and Breakfast at Tiffany's I just came back from the Brown debate tournament, where I debated with Marty Roth. It was definitely fun, although Marty and I didn't break (we went 4-1 but were screwed over immensely by speaker points). I also got to see Rebecca again, which is always a good thing. New Review: Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang ADDED a review for Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. I ended up with only lukewarm feelings for the book; read my (terrible) review for the ugly details. |
Steven Wu's Book Reviews |