alper Male, 28. Amsterdam, Netherlands

• Some clarification about why I haven't finished this yet. I'm doing my best. I read hours and hours deep into the night and can't make a dent into this gargantuan brick of a book.

  Then why do I keep reading? DFW's literary might is awesome in the literal meaning of the word. You could already ... (continue)

  Some clarification about why I haven't finished this yet. I'm doing my best. I read hours and hours deep into the night and can't make a dent into this gargantuan brick of a book.

  Then why do I keep reading? DFW's literary might is awesome in the literal meaning of the word. You could already get that from his short stories, but the scale of this book together with the physical force of his writing really drive that point home. With every non-linear chapter, every footnote littered page and every esoteric word he builds something near impossible.

  That and this book is easily both one of the most cynical and one of the most humane books I have read. It's horrible and heartwrenching, as it should be.

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  ― Posted on Dec 3, 2009 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  Decent historic fiction of Christian and Muslim culture as I'm sure many more exist. It's a gripping and comfortable read. Some real histories of the period may be preferable but Kay did manage to rouse my interest.

  Too comfortable a read for me, though. Everything fits perfectly together and ... (continue)

  Decent historic fiction of Christian and Muslim culture as I'm sure many more exist. It's a gripping and comfortable read. Some real histories of the period may be preferable but Kay did manage to rouse my interest.

  Too comfortable a read for me, though. Everything fits perfectly together and there is closure for everybody. The loss that is suffered hits home slightly, but at some point towards the end where the book should have started.

  I've wandered farther and farther away from SF because the literary bars the genre sets for itself are so dismally low. Such richness in ideas combined with such poverty of execution really is a shame.

  His Tigana and Sarantine Mosaic are better.

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  ― Posted on Oct 5, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Short story collection loosely set in the Culture. The one longer story bearing the same title is vaguely worth the effort, the rest best skipped.

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  ― Posted on Aug 21, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Worst Culture book yet, Banks definitely puts the opera into space opera here. The whole story is pretty much linearly told from a single viewpoint, but what also doesn't help is that a lot of the plot is superfluous and boring.

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  ― Posted on Aug 11, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Sloppily written space opera, entertaining enough to finish it.

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  ― Posted on Jul 29, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Interesting premise but still a lesser Culture book. The disparate story lines did not come together for me and there's not much else to the book to speak of.

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  ― Posted on Jul 23, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Essential telling on this part of history and another of those necessary points that foreign intervention usually creates more trouble than it solves.

  This book will explain the machinations which led to the current group of people being in power in Iran (and their ‘dislike’ of the West), prov ... (continue)

  Essential telling on this part of history and another of those necessary points that foreign intervention usually creates more trouble than it solves.

  This book will explain the machinations which led to the current group of people being in power in Iran (and their ‘dislike’ of the West), provides justification for the hostage taking of the American embassy, contains a very decent explanation (I hope) of the Shia faith and yields priceless insight in the workings of power in the communist scared 50s.

  Slightly too anecdotal and informal for my taste, but very readable in exchange for that.

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  ― Posted on May 13, 2009 | Add your feedback

• I usually have a pretty hard time taken anything in the realm of marketing seriously. Kudos to Bedbury for salvaging the field for me.

  It's a fairly short book from the former marketing director of Nike and Starbucks. So there's just enough here, it's candid and tells you what you need to know ... (continue)

  I usually have a pretty hard time taken anything in the realm of marketing seriously. Kudos to Bedbury for salvaging the field for me.

  It's a fairly short book from the former marketing director of Nike and Starbucks. So there's just enough here, it's candid and tells you what you need to know.

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  ― Posted on May 13, 2009 | Add your feedback

• The best book about the internet. Must read for anybody active in this field.

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  ― Posted on Mar 31, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Pretty superficial treatment of gesture based interaction but not in any way a bad book. I'd just wish he'd spent more time on certain sections instead of others.

  The appendix with illustrated gestures seemed like a bit much, but it does provide a good example of gesture documentation and the ... (continue)

  Pretty superficial treatment of gesture based interaction but not in any way a bad book. I'd just wish he'd spent more time on certain sections instead of others.

  The appendix with illustrated gestures seemed like a bit much, but it does provide a good example of gesture documentation and the richness of gestures and innate meanings available to us naturally did surprise me at some points.

  Anyway a good starting point and shows once more how very much at the beginning of this development we are.

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  ― Posted on Mar 23, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Craftfully written but ultimately pretty dull.

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  ― Posted on Feb 23, 2009 | Add your feedback

• I'd read an excerpt from Murakami's book on running and knew I had to read more of him.

  Kafka on the Shore is a near perfect magic realistic coming of age novel. Everything about it works, even the dimwitted Nakata's parts, which could easily have been annoying, tick like a clock. Kafka himsel ... (continue)

  I'd read an excerpt from Murakami's book on running and knew I had to read more of him.

  Kafka on the Shore is a near perfect magic realistic coming of age novel. Everything about it works, even the dimwitted Nakata's parts, which could easily have been annoying, tick like a clock. Kafka himself —though living out the strangest of prophecies— is very much believable and likeable.

  I think the translation from Japanese also adds a certain type of detached/odd English which works well with the story.

  Highly recommended with only one drawback: Murakami makes all the other books I read this past year look weak.

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  ― Posted on Feb 9, 2009 | 1 feedback

alper has this up for trade. Trade with alper for this.

• This came highly recommended from some friends which makes it all the more unfortunate that it didn't live up to expectations.

  Daemon's merit is that the ideas in it serve a plot from the realm of sci-fi but one whose execution is feasible and even thinkable with our current state of technolog ... (continue)

  This came highly recommended from some friends which makes it all the more unfortunate that it didn't live up to expectations.

  Daemon's merit is that the ideas in it serve a plot from the realm of sci-fi but one whose execution is feasible and even thinkable with our current state of technology and society.

  The philosophy and story it tells is a bit of a mashup between Snow Crash, the Matrix and most pop-sci books from the past ten years. Unfortunately the story crashes under the weight of its own ambition and ridiculousness.
  The problem is that the changes envisioned in Daemon will happen (a lot of them are happening right now), but the scale and speed with which they happen is greatly compressed in the book for effect.
  Suarez should take a page from Gibson and realize that the future will not ever be evenly distributed like that and a writing lesson from Stephenson would not hurt either.

  The ideas in it are interesting, but the treatment is blunt and the writing is poor which does not help its credibility nor pushes it out of the realm of common technothrillers.

  Thrilling read, mildly mind expanding but nothing too insightful. And oh yeah, you need to buy Suarez's next book to find out how it ends.

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  ― Posted on Feb 2, 2009 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  Nancy Duarte's book on presenting is a seminal work which should be read by everybody going near the field.

  The book is written smartly and concisely and lays down both the basics and takes you on a conceptual journey how and why to create a presentation. She starts by explaining how your pres ... (continue)

  Nancy Duarte's book on presenting is a seminal work which should be read by everybody going near the field.

  The book is written smartly and concisely and lays down both the basics and takes you on a conceptual journey how and why to create a presentation. She starts by explaining how your presentation should be attuned to audience needs and then goes on how to build a deck from concept to the design stages. She also gives an introduction in design which doesn't become too basic for experienced readers.

  Together with Garr Reynold's “Presentation Zen” book, “slide:ology” is an excuse never to have to sit through a bad presentation in your life again.

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  ― Posted on Jan 27, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Very well written space opera which reads quick enough that I finished it in two days. The setting is well thought out and gives enough depth to the story.

  The story in this book of the player of games Morat Gurgeh is somewhat simplistic, but makes its point. This is still ‘just’ sci-fi but th ... (continue)

  Very well written space opera which reads quick enough that I finished it in two days. The setting is well thought out and gives enough depth to the story.

  The story in this book of the player of games Morat Gurgeh is somewhat simplistic, but makes its point. This is still ‘just’ sci-fi but the craft with which it's written makes me want to read more.

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  ― Posted on Jan 25, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Lem writes some conceptually interesting science-fiction but this collection of short stories though well written is too monotonous.

  I'd skip everything except the start and the end. The rest is just repetitions of the same themes, motifs and childish wordplay.

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  ― Posted on Jan 22, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Kay delivers a great treatment of Nordic history as we're used from him. Unfortunately it feels a bit flat and doesn't come to life as much as the Sarantine Mosaic or Tigana did. I'd rate it more on the level of the Fionavar Tapestry which still makes it a very good (and quick) read.

  The Last ... (continue)

  Kay delivers a great treatment of Nordic history as we're used from him. Unfortunately it feels a bit flat and doesn't come to life as much as the Sarantine Mosaic or Tigana did. I'd rate it more on the level of the Fionavar Tapestry which still makes it a very good (and quick) read.

  The Last Light of the Sun features relatively more communion with the spirit world and entities within it, which exposes more of the flawed internal logic and takes away most of the mystery. I prefer the way it was done in Sailing to Sarantium.

  The historical settings are brief and are filled in just enough to serve the story. A story which is limited to this one book, Kay one of those few authors in this genre with that skill of brevity.

  A very strong suit in this book are the descriptions of the lives of people who pass through the story. Kay compresses their entire lives up until the touch point and everything that comes after in a single page or so. By doing so he paints a powerful picture of possibility, of the lives of normal people in those times, the harshness and the opportunities of what could have been and of what was.
  This meta-trick is also sometimes used on the main characters, and the change of pace and perspective provide a very welcome bit of reflection on the characters and their actions.

  All in all a nice story and definitely recommended if the setting interests you.

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  ― Posted on Jan 13, 2009 | Add your feedback

• A long time coming finally finished the 3000 page historical fiction monstrosity that is the Baroque Cycle.

  I quite enjoyed the riffs on history, economy, contemporary politics, philosophy either as philosophy or disguised as science (the natural kind), 17th century social customs and other ti ... (continue)

  A long time coming finally finished the 3000 page historical fiction monstrosity that is the Baroque Cycle.

  I quite enjoyed the riffs on history, economy, contemporary politics, philosophy either as philosophy or disguised as science (the natural kind), 17th century social customs and other tidbits strewn throughout.

  London as a decor for this volume served it well and for me brought home for the first time the enormity and the enormous history of that place.

  Somehow it feels as if this ending does not carry the weight of the start of this story and of the events that have come to pass but how could it possibly?

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  ― Posted on Jan 9, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Probably interesting enough for the new practicioner or the aspiring librarian but I found this to be an exceptionally dry read (even compared to the admittedly very detailed About Face).

  I'd recommend skimming content, skipping chapters and focusing most probably on part III (Process and Meth ... (continue)

  Probably interesting enough for the new practicioner or the aspiring librarian but I found this to be an exceptionally dry read (even compared to the admittedly very detailed About Face).

  I'd recommend skimming content, skipping chapters and focusing most probably on part III (Process and Methodology) of the book.

  Still a must probably in this field, so better just get it over with.

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  ― Posted on Dec 23, 2008 | Add your feedback

• 2 people find this helpful

  Some notes on this book as I'm reading it:

  Reading this has exposed me to the soft underbelly of architecture in that it has little to do with engineering or science. It's mostly subjective and in the domain of postmodern art.

  The book posits a lot of stuff but it's shoddy scientific und ... (continue)

  Some notes on this book as I'm reading it:

  Reading this has exposed me to the soft underbelly of architecture in that it has little to do with engineering or science. It's mostly subjective and in the domain of postmodern art.

  The book posits a lot of stuff but it's shoddy scientific underpinning mostly negates any point that could have been made. The author makes no pretention to be objective or give a balanced view and uses quotes, philosophers and facts self-servingly. The content is somewhat outdated and overly pessimistic and the writing is obscurantist with words being made up on the spot for anything and everything.

  That being said the book is far from worthless. This style of writing and mixing and matching world philosophy (or just that part of it that you have read or you find agreeable) is probably exemplary for the entire field of postmodern humanities. So it is good to be exposed to that mode of discourse.

  And the problem of ‘capsularization’ in society is definitely a real one, though when you define capsule to be anything and everything, you're problem loses a lot of its force. Though real it may be, I don't think it is as bad or will turn out as bad as the author says it will, nor that postmodern philosophers are the right people to save us.

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  ― Posted on Nov 14, 2008 | 4 feedbacks

• Seems to be a museum book that Rob picked up. No author or ISBN listed, simple soft cover with a couple of essays on architecture in the 19th century and lots of photographs, drawings and other works of art illustrating the text.

  Interesting introduction but somewhat vaguely written and poorly ... (continue)

  Seems to be a museum book that Rob picked up. No author or ISBN listed, simple soft cover with a couple of essays on architecture in the 19th century and lots of photographs, drawings and other works of art illustrating the text.

  Interesting introduction but somewhat vaguely written and poorly translated from French. Most of all made me realize that I need to visit Paris.

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  ― Posted on Nov 13, 2008 | Add your feedback

• Great little book showing a positive vision how we can change the world and be better.

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  ― Posted on Sep 22, 2008 | Add your feedback

alper has this up for trade. Trade with alper for this.

• 2 people find this helpful

  This book reads as an overview of most popsci/popphil books from the past twenty years and in many ways it is exactly that. There is some stuff about findability and some vision about the future it heralds, but it looks like Morville bites off more than he can chew.

  I don't really know who thi ... (continue)

  This book reads as an overview of most popsci/popphil books from the past twenty years and in many ways it is exactly that. There is some stuff about findability and some vision about the future it heralds, but it looks like Morville bites off more than he can chew.

  I don't really know who this book is written for. The engaged professional will not read anything new and it is too wildly disparate and biased (but not nearly opinionated enough) to serve as an introductory text.

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  ― Posted on Sep 9, 2008 | Add your feedback