thebox

What's With All these Hot Authors!!!

I'm about half way through Zadie Smith's "On Beauty", and it's another laugh out loud piece. A finely tuned story about race, class and identity in Amarican academia, it's up there with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Half Of a Yellow Sun". "Books by attractive people are better. It’s just true. :-)" said a colleague. One would think so. Well consider "On Beauty" recommended.

The Unwritten Laws of Business

A tidy treatise on business and professional conduct. It was originally written in 1944 for engineers. The rules though can be applied everywhere. It's a good, concise read; instructive, comprehensive, and might make you wince for some of the unwritten rules you've broken.

Link

Total Chaos

I haven't had a fun crime-thriller since Layer Cake (book's way better than the movie). So I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up Total Chaos, while in the middle of another novel. Warning: semi-spoiler.

At last Marseilles was revealed. From the sea. The way Phocian must have seen it for the first time, one morning many centuries ago. With the same sense of wonder. The port of Massilia. I know it's happy lovers, a Marseilles Homer might have written about Gyptis and Protis. The traveler and the princess. In a soft voice, Lole recited:

O procession Gypsies
May the sheen of our hair guide you...

One of Leila's favourite poems.
Everyone was invited. Our friends, out lovers. Lole placed her hand on mine. It was time for the city to burst into flame. White at first, then ocher and pink.
A city after our own hearts.

DIY Books

Do-It-Yourself Book Press does not sell books d.i.y culture. It's about making your own books. Pretty cool stuff.

Pulp Fiction

What makes good fiction? I don't know the answer to that. But I know that I'm getting tired of the standard American big box office story telling and the myths they perpetuate. A few years ago, what I started falling into were these off off broadway novels that may or may not have been best seller's. But the story telling was so rich, full of imagination and without restraint, that I quickly got sucked into them. Below are my latest reads that deal with the unreality of life and existence.

Life, The Universe and Everything ( ISBN-10: 0345418905 )
Lathe Of Heaven ( ISBN-10: 0060512741 )
Whit ( ISBN-10: 0349107688 )

Books Online... And I Ain't Talkin' About Amazon

I recently found "The Gutenberg Project" and completed reading my first book online (Heart Of Darkness). Actually, I had my Mac read it to me. This is soooo convenient as there are so many classics that I still want to sink my teeth into.

Google is also digitizing books to make them findable.