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We are only half of the month, but not good to let it build up too much reading in memory. From the time of the post
summarizing the first books read in 2011, I have already added a dozen, it requires a list before the details too much eyeshadow.
was still January when I was immersed in reading Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom of Cory Doctorow.
The story takes place in Disneyland, in the future. Humans do not fear death, any incident is resolved with a brand new body which is implanted in the memory of the subject, previously recorded in regular back-ups. There is, however, who is tired of living, in that case he is allowed to commit suicide, but very few are those who choose to end it in a drastic way. The solution preferred by most is the so-called "deathend" I just put you to sleep for a period shorter or longer, even hundreds of years. Then you wake up and resume live, presumably in an environment so different from what you have left, that boredom at least for a little 'do not torment any more.
Another interesting detail is the fact of always being online all : Information is shared instantly by anyone with anyone, you do not need cell phones to exchange photos or text messages at the time because everything is updated in your personal database.
The story revolves around the protagonist, his girlfriend and his best friend, strenuously engaged in an enterprise without hope, or try to avoid that the animating spirit of Disneyland to be abolished in favor of new more efficient technologies, powerful, stunning and of course profitable. The protagonist is one who takes more care about what, to the point of removing their girl despite his party was initially with the idea to do this for you. With his motivation is able to touch some soul, but of course incurs many difficulties: some battles can never fight easily.
Doctorow manages to be brutally present even in a fantasy world. Soon after I read
Radiance of Alyson Noël.
This is the story of a girl named Riley, who died in a car accident with mum, dad and his dog Buttercup. The only one who survives the accident and Ever, the older sister of Riley. The book tells the story of Riley's own, which crosses a bridge after the crash and is in the afterlife. This other world is revealed to be a place very similar to that in which she lived when she was still alive, but that is called here and where time is always NOW. It is a strange place, seen from a perspective more strange: that of a young girl who longs for life and does not know how to go forward now that it's over. Afraid of confrontation, just as it was the first day of school on earth, biased against a court considers it unfair that a priori, since it has not been able to grow or live long enough, puzzled to discover that his parents had difficulty finding a place away from her ... finally found to fill the role of a "catch-anime" , for lack of alternatives to desire. It turns out not to get along at all bad. A tale
cute, curious and slightly less than it might appear.
The third book of this round was Truth Ice of Dan Brown. I will
a pleasure to myself and the whole world, from now on. Do not read anything that bears his signature. I find his books always more irritating, conceited, rehashed and unbearable. I think Dan Brown has a unique ability in which he excels: it manages to take any potentially good idea, stripped of all sides interesting, throw in a meal at the caricature characters who seem to Mickey and Gambadilegno, season with phrases in and will click as if it rained and sell millions of copies.
Throughout the reading you have a vivid impression of watching a puppet theater where it shows all the time and it is also clumsy.
His & Hers are obliged to fall in love. They are surrounded by supervillains who want to make him the skin but can not ever even though they are trained military body special and have at their disposal technological inventions and war that even Luke Skywalker. One would think that him and her to be the superhero, a kind of Rambo, the Vietnam veterans who had fled from Guantanamo ... no, none of this. If you still hope to find something plausible, give up now! He is a handsome leading oceanographer documentaries on TV. She is an employee (ex officio) of the government.
The style of narration is poor and makes great use of something that is defined in the parlance infodump . You are facing a infodump when in the middle of a scene the author delights us with unsolicited information, trimmed to mo ' a little lesson and not integrated to the plot. Not only does Dan Brown shows off his culture without even bothering to disguise. There propina trivial notions of biology or physics as well, without reason, since it is often entirely of information irrelevant to the story. Evidently, in addition to believe a novelist, Mr. Brown stands as a promoter of culture of the masses.
But I spoke too. It will perhaps be the envy of me to talk, as so often - you know - it happens in such cases. It seems right and proper, therefore, leave the word to him, the distinguished:
"the gaping hole in the ice looked like a small pool in the center dell'habisfera. The surface of the pool, seventy meters deep, was wrinkled for a while before you settle down. The water level of the well was at least a meter below the surface of the glacier, and this discrepancy was caused both by the displacement of the mass of the meteorite is the property of ice to reduce its volume when it melts ". (P. 128)
I added the italics. Someone wanted to know that Dan has learned his lesson in properly? me no, none of the characters could care less, as are all of the trade and what they knew this perfectly.
Now before you write to the second (and last, do not worry) quote, we need a little summary. The premise is essential to understand the drama of the moment I want to share with you.
Our players, him and her, as I said before, are constantly targeted by a handful of military special forces, something between the secret services and the mercenaries legalized. There are three, they move fast, do not have budget problems and can afford to shoot with a prototype weapon that if they were found by an ordinary mortal would be exchanged for goods aliens. In a time when the three attacks, His & Hers are in the company of another woman and another man and just four unarmed civilians in the vast white expanse of ice and sea ice. The woman is killed before the eyes of him and her and the man almost, but he & You hide behind the sled. Too smart! Why three military special forces officers to kill four unarmed civilians should focus on the first and second quasi-corpse corpse instead of hurry to get rid of the other two and go home for tea time, I do not know. In any case it works well. And then our two can come to get the bright idea to attach to belt the sheet covering the slide, which instantly inflates because of the strong wind and lifts them into the air. Since the group was joined on the rope and the only one to be removed when the woman-body, His & Hers, weighted by the near-corpse, stunned to take flight under the nose of the military. But the wind is very strong and pulls them inexorably toward the sea. Do not want to end up in water, because the thermal suits they wear have a limited holding water and die of cold in a short time, then try to break away. Imagine the scene, it's a crazy situation! The wind blows and screams, presumably there is also the rain that lash them, it's cold, you are dragging an almost-dead body dangling at the end of the rope and could be thrown into the sea. They try to unhook the carabiner which is attached to the sheet, but the pressure is too strong and do not make it. The edge of the ice inexorably approaching, she takes the ice pick that was hanging from the belt to saw the rope that binds them to sheet. I have never taken part in a course in survival techniques and are ignorant of bailout, but I am pretty hard to imagine that a rope as it should be the one carrying three adults in a storm can give in a matter of seconds ax blows to , in the air. In any case, can she just in time and the three fall on the ice below, within an ace of the water. Exhausted, terrified, battered and bruised raise his head.
And now I yield the floor to Dan, who gives us the view of him:
"Then he realized what had happened had fallen from the glacier leading to a lower slab. Great as a hockey rink, it was partly collapsed, ready to break off and fall into the sea at any moment.
"The phenomenon of calving, Tolland thought, noting the precarious platform on which he lay." [P. 233)
's for sure! What else you want to think in such a predicament, if not the scientific definition of the phenomenon of formation of the iceberg?!
Then just two references to the famous Lui & Lei He is beautiful and works on TV, millions of women around the country are in love with him, but he is a blowhard, perhaps changing girl like change your socks? Never! He is a pure heart, devotedly loyal to his dear departed wife, properly dead and buried at the time of this poo the story unfolds. And fall in love with him and her because towards the end of the book Dan Brown you remember and squeezes between a paragraph and the other things like: "She saw sweet expression in his eyes," or "He finally realized what it meant to his wife, when on his deathbed he had promised that one day we would still love "and a little more 'is expected to see someone who rides alone into the sunset.
So, so disappointing that I do not know which way to avoid describing. But let's say enough here.
The fourth book of this post is Men Who Hate Women of Stieg Larrson . Despite the
enormous success it has had, I found a good book. Maybe not to justify the blunder in the success, but it seemed to me a beautiful yellow, well constructed, with believable characters and realistic reactions.
A journalist finds himself, due to various problems, to have a year of time available. Then accepts to work for an elderly gentleman who instructs him to write his official biography, but unofficially it is interested in finding out what happened to his beloved nephew, missing something like fifty years ago and he believed dead, killed by a unidentified member of their large family and very acid. The journalist accepts and leaves in spite of the events that involve hand hand unfold before his eyes. He is assisted in his research by a very special girl, unconventional, and very crudely cynical realist, always ready to expect the worst from people. And we often guesses. Eventually the mystery is revealed and our honest journalist back gloriously to do his job.
not made me mad, but the story is engaging. I already plan to read the sequels. Afterwards I read
World Of Wonders of David Gerrold . I've already written
here and so I take advantage of cutting a little because of this post that Dan Brown has expanded dramatically.
was then the turn of The Forest House of Marion Zimmer Bradley .
I decided to pick up a book of Zimmer Bradley after I came across numerous rave reviews. The only book I had picked up his previously was "The Mists of Avalon", at the tender age of 17 years, and I had dropped out almost immediately for boredom. ever see that with age can appreciate?, I said. And I attacked "The Forest House". I confess that I have eagerly tried to push the characters with the power of thought to do something after realizing that a 100 page summary of the story could be this: a young Roman soldier accidentally fell into a bear trap is rescued by the family of the Britons. * GH *
I continued reading, not because of the relentless action, but the setting painted with a precision and delicacy that I found very admirable. I do not know if what I'm doing is stupid or sexist remark, but felt strongly that the back pages of the book there was a woman. Like when you enter a house and see flowers on the table and the sofa cushions dcorativi.
So in the end I must admit that I liked the book, but that the style of Zimmer Bradley is ill-suited to my impatient nature, probably daughter of a busy life and too many Hollywood movies. I think I will read more of her, but only when I feel I'm slow rhythm.
Even the book number seven I have already spoken . This is The Complete Idiot's Guide To Pilates Method of Karon Karter. Not much else to add, if you do not consider that the theory is by far the easiest part. Definitely.
The following book was First Love, Last Rites of Ian McEwan.
This is a collection of short stories and has not left me very satisfied. The first story, Solid Geometry, is perhaps the most surreal of the entire collection and I think what I appreciated most. The others are too melancholy, and are held at locations deliberately shabby, but they are a bit 'tired of Melancholy & Squalor no way out.
On the advice of a contact anobiiano soon after I started reading another book by the same author: Atonement.
And that wowed me.
This is a story on different levels. The basis of the story is a great English house in time before the Second World War. It is summer in a few days and takes place the episode which explains everything that follows. The proponent of the fate of a handful of people is Briony, a young girl who was then thirteen. It has a very vivid imagination, indeed: more. In his imagination create events, assign roles and at one point dragging his world of fantasies and ideas in the real world, upsetting the lives of more than one person. When older, he realizes what he did, it's too late to remedy, but in her own way she feels that we must try.
The finish is sad to tear the heart, but it's so guessed that only enhances the value and beauty of this novel. Finally I read
Pereira, Antonio Tabucchi of .
A gentle story, sad and beautiful, a Portuguese who wakes up under the dictatorship and a journalist dedicated to the culture page of a newspaper.
Pereira a normal man, not a fervent patriotic and even a daring revolutionary. Do not use the culture page of which is responsible for propaganda pro-or anti-dictatorship, but translated songs of poets and writers that I find interesting. It is devoted to the memory of his dead wife, who turns every day watching her face in an old photograph. It's a little 'overweight, suffers from heart and makes the life of a bachelor, with the housekeeper who found him ready to eat regularly. And in his routine and engage the dictatorship, with its demands, and a couple of young revolutionaries, he continues to help discreetly without being able to explain why. And when it finally is revealed the specter of dictatorship unmistakable and cruel, the only decision that takes a man eager to conclude their lives in peace with the world and with their conscience can take.
The style is unique and still very light even when the episodes are hot. The book is read with pleasure, the pages follow one another delicate and intertwined with each other. A quiet afternoon leaving a bit 'bitter taste in mouth, inevitably leading to the realization that history always repeats itself.
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