Tuesday, April 11, 2006

 

Festival Of Reading

Goodness me, what a shitty day. It is absolutely pissing it down outside my window, and it's well windy, too, so there's sheets of water flying about.

I'm supposed to be ringing recruitment agencies today to see of anyone wants to give me a job, but I don't want to work, I want to carry on lying on my bed reading 'Cloud Atlas' and pretending I'm intellectual, except I only heard about because of the Simon Mayo book reviews, and anyway Richard & Judy recommend it, so how clever can it really be?

I should be reading something more worthy. Joseph Joubert once said:

'The worst thing about reading new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.'

True that.

I've been thinking about books today, as a result of visiting Hutton and Bogol, who link to these book reviews, by 'Nanx Hedwerp', which are bloody funny. A sample for your delectation:

'Of Grammatology' by Jacques Derrida:

'There are a number of books on the market whose titles begin with "Of" ("Of Mice and Men," "Of Course I Can Cook") and I have generally enjoyed them. This particular work is less satisfying on a number of levels, not the least of which is its rather uncompromising use of the letter "P." Still, the plotting is exciting, the characters vivid and their portraits poignant. But in the end, can it really be said that the structures of perception inherent in our language can reveal parallel structures of domination and oppression in the political world? More importantly, can it really be said without using the letter "P" quite so much?'

'Readers who are interested in this subject matter may want to investigate some of the later works of Sean Hannity and Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose treatises on language and morality used a much richer selection of hard consonants.'


'The Stranger (Vintage International)' by Albert Camus:

'This was the best book I read that takes place in a warm climate since "The South Beach Diet," which was a little better. Not to knock this one.'

Well funny! They're all well worth reading.

Perhaps the best ever book review for humour comes from Ivan the Terrible, who brought us news of a review of the book 'How To Avoid Huge Ships' (apparently serious) that said:

'Lacks criteria for discerning between huge ships and merely really big ships… Some well-designed lists, charts or colorful pop-up sections would have been nice for readers who were unsure what size of ship they were avoiding'

Terry from Wisconsin.

Anyhoo, catch up with y'all later, I've got a job to get.

Comments:
Ivan the Terrible's review is very very funny.
 
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