Reviews and Comments

Alex

Alex@bookwyrm.gatti.ninja

Joined 2 years, 2 months ago

Sono Americano e il mio Italiano é molto fuori di pratica. Studiavo per un anno al'Universitá di Bologna più di venti cinque anni fa. Italo Calvino é il mio autore Italiano favorito. Oh, wait, seems like a fairly international crowd here.

Over on Mastodon, I'm: @alex_galt@mas.to I'm not sure how to connect this thing to that thing.

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Review of 'Down to Earth' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book had me pull out a pen to make marginalia to an extent I haven't since college. I'm desperate to find some folks in my community who have read this book. For a book called "Down to Earth," I could use some help bringing the thinking in the book down to earth. Latour thinks of this essay as a hypothesis that remains to be proven. And I get that. But I would love to have a posse in helping me hold up his schema to the light and looking to make more of it concrete. I did love this book though. And I expect that I'll be reading the news from the roost that he's provided.

If you've come to the realization that our current politics aren't adept at confronting the challenges posed by global warming, this is the book for you. It's about a theoretical realignment towards the …

Rob Penn: It's All About the Bike (2011, Bloomsbury USA) 4 stars

"The bicycle is one of mankind's greatest inventions and the most popular form of transport …

Review of "It's All About the Bike" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is an enjoyable and fun read about cycling, the history of bicycles, and the construction of Penn's dream bike. I'm going through a phase where I will read almost anything about steel bikes and their heritage, so it wouldn't take much. But I can definitely recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn more about this wonderful machine. I didn't expect it would have so much information about the early years of the bicycle.

"Everything you need to know to purchase, maintain, and ride a bike for recreation, commuting, …

Review of "The ultimate bicycle owner's manual" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Entertaining but only marginally useful.

If you read BikeSnobNYC then you’ll be familiar with Weiss’s writing style. Which is amusing. I enjoyed this volume, but if you’re looking for a practical book about cycling that covers basic information, this isn’t that. I’ve given it three stars because I think the title and cover give a false impression.

Christopher Moore: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal (2004) 5 stars

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal is a novel by American writer …

Review of "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I recently hung out with Christopher Moore for about the better part of an hour and he was genuinely one of the funniest human beings I've ever been around. But I'd never read any of his books. So, recently, I picked up Lamb at an airport bookstore (Milwaukee's airport has a GREAT bookstore) and read it over a trip to New Orleans. The premise is described all over this page, so I won't regurgitate it here. I'll just say that this isn't the kind of book that I read typically—though I'm not sure why. I seem to have forgotten that reading can be fun. I like that Moore takes fun very seriously, behind his goofy characters and scenarios is some very serious research. Anyway, I liked it. I will say that there were—to me anyway—some cringeworthy moments.

Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (Paperback, 2005, Faber and Faber) 3 stars

A surrealistic novel on a man who finds himself in a strange city, not knowing …

Review of 'The Unconsoled' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

So, I can pick up this book at any point and enjoy it. But I can't seem to read it sequentially. I want to like it, and maybe at some other point in my life I would have. But today, now, I am setting it aside. I just can't bear it and I'm blaming Trump's presidency, which appears to be unfolding with a similar narrative structure. Maybe I'll pick this book back up after the man's been impeached.

Michael Ende: The Neverending Story (1997) 5 stars

The Neverending Story (German: Die unendliche Geschichte) is a fantasy novel by German writer Michael …

Review of 'The Neverending Story' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I hadn’t read this in a more than two decades, but I picked it up recently because I have children. This book continues to be every bit as wonderful as I recall. It’s a staggering work of imagination and I’m saddened that Americans are still more familiar with the horrific movie adaptation.