Apr
01
2005
52 Books in 52 Weeks, 2005
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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The Truth (With Jokes) by Al Franken
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Publisher: Dutton Adult
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Year: 2005
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Pages: 352
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In Brief: Comic turned pundit Al Franken delivers a powerful—if more bitter—polemic against the dramatis personæ of the Bush administration on a wide range of topics. It is, like all his effort, emminently readable, though never laugh-out-loud funny. Actually, it is somewhat jarring and depressing, but I suppose that’s the point.
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№51
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Welcome to Vietnam by Zack Emerson
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Publisher: Scholastic
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Year: 1991
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Pages: 208
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In Brief: While ostensibly a book for young adults, this old favorite of mine still packs power today, and reading this just makes we want to read the rest in the series, which grow in complexity. Impossible to find, but if you’re lucky enough to do so, read it, or gift it to your favorite teenager.
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№52
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Hill 568 by Zack Emerson
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Publisher: Scholastic
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Year: 1991
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Pages: 230
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In Brief: The second in a four-part fiction series (five, unofficially) about Vietnam on the woefully inappropriate Scholastic Press. This installment tracks the main character as he is “promoted” to point man for his squad. The book risely precipitously to its final climax, a Hamburger Hill-like battle for Hill 568.
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№53
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‘Tis the Season by Zack Emerson
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Publisher: Scholastic
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Year: 1991
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Pages: 254
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In Brief: The third book in the Echo Company series is a complete departure from the first two in all but style, introducing a new character—Rebecca Phillips—and changing the focus from the Bush to the 63rd Evac. hospital. Perhaps the most compelling character constructions so far.
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№54
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Stand Down by Zack Emerson
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Publisher: Scholastic
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Year: 1992
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Pages: 323
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In Brief: The fourth and largest book of the Echo Company series takes the two prior main characters, Mike and Rebecca, and thrusts them together, not entirely figuratively. Returning to the point of view of Michael, the book spends half of its length in the Bush (similar to the first two books) and the last half at the Chu Lai base. Continues the trend of increasing the complexity of the writing and the relationships.
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№55
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The Road Home by Ellen Emerson White
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Publisher: Scholastic
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Year: 1997
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Pages: 469
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In Brief: The final and most emotional chapter (unofficially) in the Echo Company series drops the pseudonym and brings on the character drama. Dealing with the end of Lt. Rebecca Phillips’ tour in Vietnam and her subsequent return home, The Road Home is heartbreaking in its poignancy and, as always, White really delivers on her fluency of technique.
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№56
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The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs
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Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Year: 2005
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Pages: 400
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In Brief: What promised to be a book of bite-sized humour is actually an impressive blend of trivia, superficial philosophy, and an excellent frame narrative. The author turns his quest to read the entire Encyclopædia Britannica into a highly enjoyable piece of semiautobiography. Recommended (and you’ll learn stuff, too!).
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№57
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What’s the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank
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Publisher: Holt
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Year: 2005
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Pages: 336
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In Brief: Taking Kansas as a microcosm for the rest of middle America, Frank asks and then (sort of) answers the question: Why do poor people vote (Republican) against their own economic interests? Well written and more fulfilling than a would have imagined, the only sour point was that Frank’s book peaked too early and the denoument was overlong.
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№58
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Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
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Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Year: 2005
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Pages: 416
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In Brief: A long journey of a book that includes some of the most famous names in fast food and how they got their start; the market forces that allowed their growth; the adapation of the agricultural business to these economies of scale; the political and occupational abuses of these business; the way these same market forces now shape our culture. It’s a fascinating book, perhaps a little dry at times, but much more involved than I initially expected.
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№59
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American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
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Publisher: Vintage
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Year: 1991
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Pages: 416
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In Brief: This landmark work, though immensely disturbing—and, at times, tremendously tedious—is notable for its unqieu approach to the question of narrator reliability, and Ellis’ first-person portrayal of a sociopath is nothing less than fascinating. The book is a tremendous effort to read, however, so I advise against it unless you’re really determined.
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№60
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.