Author: Geoff W

Reading my way through life.
Updates

June 2013 Recap

Geoff W

This month was a weird month when it came to reading. I read four books, two of which were nonfiction and I think that has to do with why I’ve only read four. Of the four, one was a library book and three have been on my TBR shelf for a very long time. I think the two nonfiction books bogged me down a bit, but I did enjoy stepping out of my fiction comfort zone for a change. The coolest thing of the month is the awesome video I stumbled across from the Seattle Public Library which you should watch here.

On a personal note June, for some reason, was a bit of a roller coaster ride for myriad reasons, many of which have nothing to do with me. Hopefully July will be a little less turbulent and I can pretend I’m on vacation for most of it even though I’m working.

Recent Acquisitions

Apparently late spring/early summer is when I go a little crazy with the book buying! Although, considering how crazy I’ve gone at other times this month was nothing. Above you’ll see the totality of my purchases this month. (I didn’t purchase a single Kindle book, for shame Amazon, for shame.) I’m probably most excited about The Enchantress being released in paperback as I now have all six books and I think a re-read is a must. The others I purchased at the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse sale which is always fun. I stuck only to the remainders tables and went with books I thought sounded interesting. We’ll see when I actually get to them how they are.

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2013 Challenges, Books

Book 206: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth – Alexandra Robbins

Geoff W

This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but I still found it an interesting read. My friend Chet sent it to me last year as a gift and after having a bit of a downer week a few weeks ago (dating and men suck – I’m back to the thought that men, or at least the ones I’m interested in dating, are stupid and you should throw rocks at them) and figured I’d find out why I am the way I am. And conveniently this counts as a bonus book for my Mount TBR reading challenge.

I was hoping Robbins would take it her analyses further, but she lead right up to numerous ideas and then just left them. She did provide a great job trying to define ‘quirk culture’ and explaining the ‘cafeteria fringe,’ but I can’t help but feel as this book is a pop-journalist book there wasn’t as much done as I would expect in an academically researched book. But she did provide many references and anecdotes of additional resources.

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Meme, The Classics Club

The Classics Club – June 2013 Meme

Geoff W

Classics ClubFor June the hosts of The Classics Club have another member submitted question asking “What is your favourite opening sentence from a classic novel (and why)?”

For once, I don’t have any real issues with this question; the only problem though is how do I narrow down the great opening lines? I am going to add a self-imposed limit as I have done in the past to keep the focus on The Classics Club and only choose from the 24 books I’ve read so far for the group. This allowed me to revisit my posts and relive some great novels, plus it kept me from choosing some obvious fun and more contemporary classics like The Hobbit or Harry Potter or pretty much anything by Margaret Atwood. The quote I chose I don’t know if it’s my favorite, but it has by far had the most impact on my reading over the past few years:

“You better not tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.”

If you didn’t recognize it, it is from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. And the first time I read that line I got chills. Even now I get an eerie feeling because I know what’s happening and what happens next, but even without knowing you know it’s not something good.

Random

This Makes Me Happy

Geoff W

A really long book domino chain from the Seattle Public Library.

Books

Book 205: Harvard’s Secret Court – William Wright

Geoff W

I’ve wanted to read this since a book group I was in when I first moved to Boston read it. They read it before I joined and I thought it sounded interesting. So keeping with my theme of expanding my reading (and apparently reading a lot more nonfiction) I requested it from the local library.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed. This book felt more like a really well written undergraduate research paper than a book than a published book (and they were typos too). Part of this I believe comes from the structure and subtitle of the book and the other part I think comes from the super-focused subject matter. I discuss both below, but before I get to that I do want to say that it was an interesting read and I found many of the stories compelling and the appalling way in which Harvard dealt with these students should be a black mark on their history and reputation regardless of the time period. Not only did the Secret Court expel a number of individuals they were so adamant in their beliefs that they expunged the records of some of the individuals completely removing them from Harvard University records and if any of those expelled attempted to get into another school or a job using their Harvard connection/credentials, Harvard had a policy of exposing explicitly why they were expelled and this continued into at least the 1970s.

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