Apr
01
2005
52 Books in 52 Weeks, 2005
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
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Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Year: 1997
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Pages: 282
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In Brief: A great big little book about England. A bit like The Lost Continent, only with Great Britain instead of the American Midwest. There’s as much good and bad, but Bryon still makes me want to visit England, if for nothing else than to experience the little moments of joy he has on an especially beautiful hillside, or at an especially great pub, &c.
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№31
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Electric Universe by David Bodanis
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Publisher: Crown
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Year: 2005
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Pages: 320
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In Brief: A disappointingly vague and underexpounded book about the “history” of electricity. Not suitable for anyone even remotely technical or well-versed in this matters. Barely serves as a good primer. In short, don’t bother with this one.
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№32
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Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
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Publisher: Harvest Books
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Year: 1990
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Pages: 260
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In Brief: One of the famous Modernist and feminist’s landmark works. A day in the life of a disaffected upper-middle-class wife as filtered though an ever-changing narrator. Everyone should read a little Woolf.
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№33
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A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
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Publisher: Bantam Books
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Year: 1988
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Pages: 208
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In Brief: Admittedly outdated, but still an excellent primer on astrophysics, even for the nontechnical person. Hawking has an excellent style which is both complex and easy to read, and he introduces just the read level of technicality to keep people like me interested without bogging the book down in numbers and formulæ.
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№34
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Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
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Publisher: W. W. Norton
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Year: 2005
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Pages: 512
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In Brief: A critically-acclaimed work on anthropology, attempting to explain the difference in technological progress on different continents. Great, but not for casual readers or the faint of heart. Fun game: count how many times Diamond uses the phrase “food production” (hint: it’s a lot).
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№35
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Chasing the Sun by Jonathon Green
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Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
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Year: 1996
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Pages: 510
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In Brief: A book on dictionary-makers turns out to be an incredible bore: 500 pages of mind-numbing name-dropping, suitable only as a reference book and not reading for fun. One can’t fault Green’s research, but he has a lot to learn about making text accessible to the average (or even advanced) reader.
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№36
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Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
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Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Year: 2000
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Pages: 928
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In Brief: A hip cyberpunk thriller meets WWII espionage thriller meets random internet nerd blogs, but surprisingly well-written and captivating. A must for fans of the genre or self-proclaimed geeks.
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№37
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If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell
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Publisher: L.A. Weekly Books
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Year: 2001
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Pages: 272
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In Brief: Pithy autobiography by noted B-movie actor is neither gripping nor artful, but informative and fun to read. The same personality that brought you “This is my BOOM stick!” manages to persist through the cold medium of text on pages, which is a feat in and of itself. Probably only for fans of the actor.
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№38
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How to Make Love Like a Porn Star by Jenna Jameson
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Publisher: William Morrow
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Year: 2004
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Pages: 592
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In Brief: Tell-all by porn diva holds no surprises, but instead seems to reaffirm every notion you’ve ever had about the adult film industry, and that’s with the insider’s gloss: poor family life + rape + drugs = turbulence. Add to that an overdone book layout, and you’ve got tacky eye candy, but still an interesting read, for nothing else than it’s “Can’t Look Away” factor.
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№39
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
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Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Year: 1999
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Pages: 320
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In Brief: Half philosophical treatise, half narrative (think Zen and the Art[...]) this supposedly landmark work makes for interesting, if frustrating reading, but it ultimately fails to live up to its potential, as it is neither philosophically fulfilling or literarily sound. It won’t hurt you to decide that for yourself, however.
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№40
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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.