9.04.2011

september 2011

jared diamond - guns, germs and steel [8/17-21]
the best american nonrequired reading 2005 [29-15]
jillian straus - unhooked generation [15-21]
julie powell - julie & julia [22-26]
richard dawkins - the selfish gene [27-]


strangers on a train (1951) [2], the debt [3], commando (1985) [6], inception (again), ip man (2008), ip man 2 (2010), source code (2011), killer elite [25], wettest county (screener) [27]

8.15.2011

finishing

i normally finish every book i start. sometimes tho, it' just doesn't work out. i always feel really guilty about it though. :(

stuff i've started but eventually gave up on:
anna karenina - boring and confusing after so many attempted starts
the jungle - not bad, just not too interesting. will definitely eventually finish
peter the great - way boring. i'm SO not into reading that much war strategery

8.05.2011

august 2001

tom shachtman - absolute zero [27-10]
the best american non-required reading 2008 [4-6]
paco underhill - why we buy: the science of shopping [10-17]
jared diamond - guns, germs and steel [17-]
best american science and nature writing of 2004 [19-26]


rise of the planet of the apes [6], cowboys and aliens [6], let me in [8], wall street: money never sleeps (2010) [22]

7.13.2011

no books = no sex

John Waters - "If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!"

7.07.2011

july 2011

robert k massie - peter the great [30-]
howard dully - my lobotomy [7-8]
lynne truss - eats, shoots and leaves [8-13]
oliver sacks - awakenings [11-18]
kathleen flinn - the sharper the knife, the less you cry [18-21]
natalie angier - beauty of the beastly [22-25]
irene nemirosvsky - fire in the blood [25-26]
tom shachtman - absolute zero [27-]

gave up on  robert k massie - peter the great [30-]

black swan, green hornet [11], tangled [14], harry potter 7b [20], captain america [22], i am number 4

6.19.2011

book $

e-book prices fuel outrage -- and innovation

i've had an ongoing "argument" with rip about e-books vs traditional books. and every time we can't agree because i feel like he isn't qualified to. in the last 10 years he, on average, has read less than two books a year. i more than double his annual reading rate in a month.

i hope paperback books keep coming out for a long long long time. i don't like hardcovers since they're less convenient: they're heavy, don't fit in my purse, are hard to hold with one hand, and because they're generally much more expensive, i'm more careful with them. which is annoying. but i also feel like books in general are too expensive.

most of my friends who are big readers have some sort of e-book reader. but none of us use it as our primary reader because traditional books are just a million times better! add price on top of all that, and not one of us is willing to permanently make the switch. but i do know that if e-books were significantly cheaper than print books, we could definitely be swayed.

i remember in high school cds were like $17 each. then napster and itunes became popular, now most cds are less than $13. book publishers really need to learn from the music industry! cds were priced to match mp3 prices, and books should be priced to be comparable to e-book prices, not the other way around as it is currently. i recently read somewhere else that used bookstores are doing really good business, and it's because people won't (maybe can't?) afford to spend $16 on a paperback or $26 on a hardback when they can get it for half off.