Apr
01
2005
52 Books in 52 Weeks, 2005
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans ed. by McSweeney’s
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Publisher: Knopf
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Year: 2004
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Pages: 256
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In Brief: The best of McSweeney’s humour category. Short humourous pieces that only intellectuals would find funny. Example, from “Pirate Riddles for Sophisticates”: Q: What is a pirate’s favorite part of computational linguistics? A: Parrrrsing sentences.”
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№11
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A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
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Publisher: Broadway
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Year: 1999
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Pages: 304
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In Brief: Hilarious and poignant travel writer documents his experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail. Funny, gripping, and informative; told in Bryon’s trademark mix of anecdote, narrative, and textbook.
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№12
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The Time-Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
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Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
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Year: 2003
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Pages: 525
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In Brief: A strange mix of love story and science fiction that tells the story of Henry Detamble, a man who meets his wife by time-travelling (involuntarily). Truly an original work, and heartbreaking. I recommend this work and look forward to Niffenegger’s future pieces.
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№13
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Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
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Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
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Year: 1999
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Pages: 278
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In Brief: Yet more Palahniuk, in his cut-and-paste but satisfying style, this time writing about dysfunctional models leaving a swath of drugs and violence behind them. The ending is pretty predictable, unfortunately; at least, it is if you’ve read any Palahniuk before.
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№14
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The Princess Bride by William Goldman
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Publisher: Ballantine Books
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Year: 1973/1998
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Pages: 416
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In Brief: Much funnier than the (admittedly good) movie adaptation. Golding is hilarious, and satirizes on so many levels that it’s hard to tell when he’s serious and when he isn’t. Quick, light comedy.
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№15
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Just For Fun by Linus Torvalds
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Publisher: Collins
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Year: 2002
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Pages: 288
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In Brief: A brief and decidedly nontechnical history of Linus Torvalds and his operating system (Linux). Actually more of biography than anything. It’s interesting to hear the story as told by Linus himself. Despite all my readings on Linux, I still learned new things.
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№16
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Sideways by Rex Pickett
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Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
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Year: 2004
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Pages: 368
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In Brief: In short, the movie was much better (a shocking change from the normal tendency), but the book is still funny and well-written, if less poignant than it celluloid counterpart.
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№17
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Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby
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Publisher: Metropolitan Books
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Year: 2004
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Pages: 432
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In Brief: A comprehensive, if dry and a bit redundant, look at the secular and religious forces involved in the political processes of early America. Jacoby does a lot of good research.
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№18
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The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
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Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Year: 1998
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Pages: 336
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In Brief: A touching novel about postcolonial India and the bond shared by two siblings. Roy’s writing is inflammatory both because she is an Indian woman writing in English, but also includes things that upset the conservative hegemon in India, which pleases me to no end.
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№19
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Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
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Publisher: Hesperus Press
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Year: 2001
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Pages: 152
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In Brief: This book needs no introduction: Conrad’s landmark work on colonial Africa is still widely read and heavily debated even today, more than 100 years after its writing.
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№20
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Did you raid my bookshelf? Because if you haven’t yet, I’ve got the Russel book and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Yeah, that’s where I got them from. I’ll also probably read the philosophy of the Matrix book.
hi, found this site searching something on google, but aynways, ive read a book on the philosophy of the matrix, and if youre talking about the same one, it wasn’t very good. Some good points in teh beginning, but the rest of the book is really repetitive.
anyways, cool site
[...] Following the lead of Heliologue, who is himself following Jason at Negro, Please, I will also make a move to read 52 books in 52 weeks and review them. It will be monstrous but I admit that I will enjoy it. Plus, it will - or at least should - motivate me to keep the site updated frequently with my musings. [...]
no need to study the philosophy of the Matrix, it can all be summed up in one concise story:
Plato’s Parable of the Cave (Also known as the Allegory of the Cave)
That’s it and that’s all. Though, that paved the way for many future philosophic/psychoanalytic theories—Like Althusser’s Ideolgical States and Ideological State Apparatusses, or Lacan’s “Mirror Stage as a Formative Function of the I”
If that were true, the series wouldn’t have been as bad as it was. The problem was, they started with Plato’s cave allegory, but then threw in an omnium gatherum of other, unrelated philosophies.
The problem with the philosophy of the Matrix is that not everyone is a raging pothead and therefore won’t find it so mind blowing.
“Like, what if the world we think we see… [dramatic pause] isn’t there?”
“Dude, that’s deep.”
i always thought the “deeper” philosophy of the matrix were the moral implications of artificial intelligence.
if you create self-aware, free-will beings such as the computer programs, beings that can see the wrongness/rightness of their actions (think the program at the train station who makes sacrifices for his daughter-program in order to give her a better “life”/existence), then this “artificial” intelligence would have the same moral value as a human being. that’s why the movies had to end with the “copout” resolution of peace. for either side, humans or machines,to wipe out the other would be to commit genocide in a sense. to create artificial intelligence—truly self-aware artificial intelligence—would be to create something on an equal metaphysical plane of existence with ourselves.
would we be gods? perhaps.
and if that’s true, kind of gives you a whole new perspective on what happens after death. pull the plug on a “computer program,” and we all know it ceases to be. pull the plug on a human? philosophers and theologians have been guessing at that for… well, forever.