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  & 5 users

• Current

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Type: documentary

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Status: finished

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Author: Neil Strauss

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Tags: sex ethics

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Description: entertaining, silly, okay writing

2006-12-23

  & 2 users

• Current

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Type: scientific

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Status: to read

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Author: Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh

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Tags: economics poverty

2006-12-23

  & 1 users

• Current

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Type: scientific

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Status: to read

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Author: Daniel C. Dennett

2006-12-22

  & 2 users

• Current

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Type: religious

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Status: I recommend

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Author: Garry Wills

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Tags: history christianity philosophy theology devotional

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Description: The author describes this book as devotional, but, unlike a lot of books this nonbeliever hasThe author describes this book as devotional, but, unlike a lot of books this nonbeliever has looked at, I found this one very illuminating and satisfying. I can't accept the sanitized image of Jesus anymore after reading this book....

2006-12-22

  & 1 users

• Current

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Type: fiction

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Status: disliked

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Author: Paul Theroux

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Description: The first half was great. But then it started to bore me. I skipped ahead and realized thatThe first half was great. But then it started to bore me. I skipped ahead and realized that I knew what was coming in the plot, and didn't want to spend any more time with this novel. Other Theroux novels I have really enjoyed, but this one is sort of creepy and predictable. Nevertheless, there are some passages that are really really good, typical of Theroux....

2006-08-15

  & 29 users

• Current

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Type: fiction

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Status: I recommend

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Author: Haruki Murakami

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Description: "The last surviving victim of an experiment that implanted the subjects' heads with"The last surviving victim of an experiment that implanted the subjects' heads with electrodes that decipher coded messages is the unnamed narrator of this excellent book by Murakami, one of Japan's best-selling novelists and winner of the prestigious Tanizaki prize. Half the chapters are set in Tokyo, where the narrator negotiates underground worlds populated by INKlings, dodges opponents of both sides of a raging high-tech infowar, and engages in an affair with a beautiful librarian with a gargantuan appetite. In alternating chapters he tries to reunite with his mind and his shadow, from which he has been severed by the grim, dark "replacement" consciousness implanted in him by a dotty neurophysiologist. Both worlds share the unearthly theme of unicorn skulls that moan and glow. Murakami's fast-paced style, full of hip internationalism, slangy allegory, and intrigue, has been adroitly translated. Murakami is also author of A Wild Sheep Chase ( LJ 10/15/89); his new work is recommended for academic libraries and public libraries emphasizing serious contemporary fiction."

One of the best surrealist novels of our time....

2006-08-15

  & 1 users

• Current

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Type: scientific

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Status: I recommend

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Author: Nicholas Wade

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Description: Author is a little reckless with endorsing certain disputed positions. He seems to idolizeAuthor is a little reckless with endorsing certain disputed positions. He seems to idolize the kind of person who upsets existing orthodoxies a little too much. Author is also not a scientist and may be reading too much into certain scientific claims. Despite all this, the book is very enjoyable, well written, and the subject is fascinating....

2006-07-12

 

• Current

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Type: scientific

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Status: on hold

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Author: John McPhee

2006-07-12

  & 2 users

• Current

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Type: fiction

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Status: I recommend

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Authors: Michel Houellebecq Gavin Bowd

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Tags: history scifi religion french genocide satire violence loneliness materialism

2006-07-12

  & 15 users

• Current

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Type: fiction

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Status: I recommend

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Authors: Haruki Murakami Philip Gabriel

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Tags: japanese

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Description: "In South of the Border, West of the Sun, the arc of an average man's life from childhood"In South of the Border, West of the Sun, the arc of an average man's life from childhood to middle age, with its attendant rhythms of success and disappointment, becomes the kind of exquisite literary conundrum that is Haruki Murakami's trademark. The plot is simple: Hajime meets and falls in love with a girl in elementary school, but he loses touch with her when his family moves to another town. He drifts through high school, college, and his 20s, before marrying and settling into a career as a successful bar owner. Then his childhood sweetheart returns, weighed down with secrets:

When I went back into the bar, a glass and ashtray remained where she had been. A couple of lightly crushed cigarette butts were lined up in the ashtray, a faint trace of lipstick on each. I sat down and closed my eyes. Echoes of music faded away, leaving me alone. In that gentle darkness, the rain continued to fall without a sound."...

2006-07-12