Archive for books
September 18, 2006 at · Filed under books
this book was lying on my "to read" shelf for over a year, and by the time i picked it up i forgot how it got there. anyway, i decided to give it the benefit of the doubt that if i put it there then i probably heard from somewhere that it is good.
it was written by Panos Karnezis and it is a collection of short stories all taking place or related to a small poor village in greece.
it is a good book. i came to the conclusion that i like books that depict life set in less developed countries, with people that are leading simple lives backed by strong determinism. i think there should be a genre for these type of books.
usually i have trouble with a book which is a collection of short stories. but in this case there is still a common thread, so you're not thrown away to a different place with every story. still took me a while to finish the book, maybe because i didn't have time, or was tired, but probably also because i never quite got into it.
August 19, 2006 at · Filed under books
used the flight to israel to finish the book. i find that it is a much more productive use of time to sleep and read, rather than sleep and watch a movie on the way-too small screen.
the looming tower tells the story of al-qaeda from its inception till 9/11. it starts from the beginning. beginning being the idealogical/theological/sociological roots of the fundamentalist islamist movement starting in the early 20th century.
the book is a result of a 5 year research by lawrence wright. during these 5 years lawrence conducted interviews with 10s of people, some of them ex-friends and ex-colleagues of osama bin-laden. i found it better researched and more elaborate than other books about al-qaeda that came out quickly after 9/11.
last week, by pure zapping coincidence i stumbled upon a movie named "the siege" that was written by lawrence wright in the 1990s. it is a pretty bad movie, but very prescient. it tells the story of a series of terror attacks in NYC that lead to violating human rights and taking away civil liberties. so it seems lawrence has an understanding of the fundamentalist islam and its dangers that is going back at least a decade.
the book paints a picture of frustrated, bored, humiliated, misguided young muslim men, and how the message of radical, charismatic and violent leaders such as sayyid qutb, ayman zawahiri and osama bin-laden attracts them.
al-qaeda comes off as a rather amateurish group, which was lucky to be facing a sleeping US intelligence, more busy with bureaucracy than with fighting terror. but you also get the sense that if it wasn't osama and al-qaeda it would have been another group, another time. a sense on inevitability. it also seems that the danger is much broader than al-qaeda, and that the solution is a very long term one. a solution not achieved by winning the war against terror, but rather by achieving a radical change in the fabric of the muslim society. it will not be resolved in our life time.
August 14, 2006 at · Filed under books
i picked up this book after a friend told me it does a great work of describing the last days of the 3rd reich, and that there are parallels to be drawn to the way nasrallah is behaving in his bunker in lebanon.
it is indeed one the best books i read about WWII. it short and very focused on the last days (as experienced by hitler and his top aides), but it is very approachable and gives a great picture of the chaos at the end of the war, as well as trying to explain the logic (or lack there of) behind the actions of the reich in its last days.
there are chilling descriptions of the last day, and how goebbels's wife murdered their six children by giving them cyanide pills while they slept (the oldest girl who was 12 years old tried to resist), and then went to sit for dinner and reminiscence the good-old days.
i highly recommend reading this book for anyone who is interested in the war.
with regard to the parallels with nasrallah. i think i saw different parallels than my friend (he compared how both were able to keep their control and communications during a constant bombardment by a superior enemy). the parallels i saw were around the fanaticism of the two. both hitler and nasrallah saw the world in black and white, they share racism and disgust of western values. both don't care about their people or their country, and for all their care it could burn to ashes.
August 14, 2006 at · Filed under books
i read this book by elfriede czurda in a hebrew translation (could not find an english version), after a review which basically said you must read it.
it's a story about a social misfit woman who is struggling to live in the world by not experiencing it.. at the end she falls apart with dire consequences for her boyfriend.
it is hailed as a masterpiece, and it might as well be one. i don't think i can really appreciate it. i think it is meant to be read by the "literati", the type of people that can appreciate the symbolism, the meaning within the meaning, the hints and winks to other works of fiction, etc.. i am not one of these people. or maybe i was just not in a mood to read a book that required me to work so hard to understand what it really wants to say.
August 9, 2006 at · Filed under books, internet
it has been a long time since i read a work-related book. for whatever reason i have hard time picking up such books, and an even harder time reading them. it seems like reading a history book or a novel will be a better use of my free time.
the reason i decided to read The Search was that i have been told by several people that "i must read it", so i did.
it was written by John Battelle. he is trying to explain the fundamentals of web search, the basic technology behind it, the business model and the future potential. not surprisingly much of the book is dedicated to the amazing rise of google.
it is an easy read and provides a great review of the space. my main criticism is that like many other books originating from the valley it dedicates to much time to gossip and name-dropping.
the book awakened two old feelings in me. first is a yearning to go back to running an internet business, second is my distaste for the silicon valley culture.
August 4, 2006 at · Filed under books
last night i finished reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
i wanted to read it for a while, since jared diamond previous book, Guns, Germs and Steel was one of the best and most enlightening book i ever read. so i came with great expectations..
collapse is looking into the collapse of past civilizations and tries to analyze the factors that contributed to their demise. it then discusses current civilizations with chapters dedicated to Australia and China. towards the end it tries to indentify the parallels between past and present civilizations, identifying the major risks we face today and the hope of dealing with these risks.
the main focus is analysis of the environmental impact (not surprisingly if you have read past works of Jared Diamond), and specifically the affects of human behavior on the environment (deforesting, overfishing, etc.).
though he is trying to end on a positive note, the book is very depressing. it seems humanity has a real chance to screw things up badly over the next century… it basically up to us to decide how we deal with these threats (either act upon or ignore them), which means i am not optimistic.
the book could be shorter, but i learned new things on almost every page so it's worth it.
June 24, 2006 at · Filed under books
I finished reading The War of the End of the World.
It was one the best novels i have read recently. It tells the story of a tragic even in Brazil's history. The massacre of a an anti-government cult located in north (and extremely poor) brazil. It's a fictional tale, but based on some of the googling i did on the subject the key time-lines and events are correct.
The story is very engaging and easy to follow and the characters are not banal and flat. It touches on the cynicism of politics, the craziness of civil war, and human behavior in times of crisis. I recommend this book highly!
I don't have much experience with south american writers, but if you'd like a taste i'd recommend The War of the End of the World over One Hundred Years of Solitude.
June 7, 2006 at · Filed under books
i am not a big fan of oprah, but i really like what she is doing with her book club.
thanks to her featuring Night by Elie Wiesel in her book club, and bringing it back to ALL the book stores, i picked it up as well. it's a quick read, so i finished it during one of my flights a couple of weeks ago.
i was a bit disappointed with the book (i had very high expectations). it's probably not a popular stand to take, criticizing a book about the holocaust, but i'll do it anyway..
i didn't like it for the following reasons:
- i thought it was a bit over dramatic in its description of events. in my opinion just describing what happened without the added adjectives would have had a stronger impact.
- maybe it is the fact that it was written in the sixties (though the translation is very recent), but i did not connect to the language and the flow of the story
- it was a bit hollywoodish (too many things connected, too many characters intersected)
- i thought it smelled a bit of "truthiness", not that i doubt the core facts it just feels to me that some of the story is a bit embellished (in that sense it may be a theme oprah is going for following her success with james frey)
overall i think the story is very strong, but that the writing is weak (again a bit like mr. frey).
P.S
something tells me i am going to regret this post. but this is what i feel. maybe this is the point to say that my grandparents were holocaust survivors, so maybe it gives me some space to criticize Elie Wiesel in this overly politically correct world…
June 6, 2006 at · Filed under books
finished reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.
it is the latest (i think) novel by Palahniuk, which i picked up in an airport when i forgot to a book (i think a good portion of my library was built this way. to be honest in many cases i buy books at airports even when i already have a book with me..).
i don't think it is one of his best books, and he starts to get repetitive. the theme of this book is a bunch of writers/poets/screen-writers who are signing up for a "writer's retreat" and find themselves locked up in a building for 3 months. the book is filled with short stories from each of the characters (that for some reason read as if they were all written by the same person: Palahniuk..).
the best story is the first one. Guts. i don't read many short stories, but this one seems better than most, an earns extra points for shock value. in the epilogue of the book Palahniuk claims that when he told this story in public readings people fainted. i find it hard to believe, but maybe.
i don't recommend reading the whole book unless you're into the genre and specifically into Palahniuk, but i do recommend reading Guts.
you can listen to it (just the Guts story).
or read (just the Guts story).
enjoy.
June 5, 2006 at · Filed under books, politics, religion
took me a long time but i am finally done with the "clash of civilizations".
it was one of the best and thought provoking books i have ever read. i should have read it long ago.
had to stop many times to debate (mostly with myself) its assertions, many of them contradictory to what i believe.
while i think it is a must-read book i disagree with some of its basic assumptions and summary conclusions (plus i think it makes a very self-serving and shallow use of statistics and anecdotal evidence to prove its point).
the analysis of post cold-war international relations is eye opening. drawing the relationship between different cultures and future conflicts proved to be prescient. specifically the escalation between Islam and the West, and the growing tensions between China and the US.
the main points where i disagree with him are around the values of the West and their applicability to the rest of the world, and related to it the simplistic (in my opinion) and too static view of the differences between civilizations (and the people that make them up).
Huntingtion identifies several values as being Western Values among them democracy, human rights, individualism. he claims towards the end of the book that anyone who have read this book so far, and still believes that Western values have universal appeal is living in a different reality. well i guess i qualify as one of these people.
i don't think all Western values are universal (e.g. individualism), but others (e.g. human rights) are. with the benefit of hindsight i think that the improved communication and information sharing capabilities are proving that people from all civilizations are aspiring to Western freedoms. it does not mean adopting all Western values, but it may be the case that it is impossible to adopt just some of these values. in which case we'll see all civilizations not just modernize, but also westernize (this goes against the main theme of the book).
the differences between civilizations will still exist, and nations (in some cases civilizations) will still want to assert themselves and grow their influence, so that part of Huntington's theory still stands. the West superiority will not last forever, but whomever takes over will most likely do it using western "tools".
a book which makes it to my must-read list, but in my opinion should not be taken as the bible on international relations, and a crystal ball for where the world is headed.
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