Review: 3/5
More interesting than Prince Caspian, but what story still suffers from C.S. Lewis’ writing. Like Prince Caspian the plot is very straightforward and unsurprising. All of the characters are completely flat, although Reepicheep is amusing. Eustace is the only character that changes at all, and he only in a very predictable manner.
Review: 4/5
A fascinating retrospective of Playboy from the fifties to the new millennium. Before this book I didn’t know that Playboy has contributed so much to our literary culture. A small list, Playboy: discovered Shel Silverstein; published The Fly, Fahrenheit 451, and much else; published Ron Kovic’s memior Born on the Fourth of July; helped Alex Haley (who was a longtime contributer) compile his widespread research into the epic work Roots; assigned Cameron Crowe to review The Who (which got him his job at Rolling Stone) and later published his Fast Times at Ridgemont High; conducted the last interview with John Lennon.
Unfortunately (in the case of the articles) this book is a pictorial retrospective and so contains pictures of the first page or artwork for the article and a description of it, but not the full text.
Review: 2/5
Beautiful artwork, but the writing and storytelling were unfortunately lacking.
Review: 4/5
Practically an antithesis to Atlas Shrugged. The writing style in Fight Club is much more readable than in Atlas Shrugged, engaging and exciting instead of dry and tedious.
Review: 5/5
A fantastic retelling of the epic Ramayana set over a thousand years in the future. The story is exactly as it should be from the brooding Rama to the terrible Asuras. Very well done.
Review: 4/5
A great book on the theory of design for webpages. The book covers key design principles for layout, color choice, textures, typography, and imagery.
Review: 2/5
The story was decent enough, but it was over almost as soon as it began. The characters weren’t fleshed out at all, we are told what happens more than we are shown, dialog is extremely matter-of-fact, and the Aslan as Christ allegory is more than a little heavy-handed. I never realized just how good Harry Potter was to the world of children’s literature.
Review: 1/5
The worst book I’ve ever read to completion. This was my Everest. After 1000+ pages of horrible writing, interminable dialog, and philosophical ideas that can’t even properly exist in a fictional construct designed to promote them I feel like I can get through anything. I’m giving it a generous .5 for nifty 50’s era science fiction and .5 for a mildly interesting plot about “important” people suddenly vanishing. More thoughts on this book in an upcoming blog post.