Categories: book-review
Tags: book review
Date: 31 May 2008 10:09:56
I've finished two books this week (and one a few weeks ago that I forgot to write about here). None of them were the book I'm meant to be reading for my book group, oops, but I really needed some light reading and once again the book group book looks like it'll be a bit stark and depressing (though having read something else by the same author I know I'll enjoy it once I can bring myself to start it). Anyway, here are my various verdicts:
A few weeks ago, having got on a Captain Underpants kick, I read book 3 of the series ("Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)"). I think the title says it all really, what can I say - it was hilarious. I've got 3 more to read, and (as far as I know) one more to buy to get the complete set. I can't believe I'm doing a PhD.
Earlier in the week, I started and finished "Freakonomics" by Stephen D Levitt and Steven J Dubner. Levitt is a Chicago-based economist, and Dubner is a journalist who wrote an article about Levitt a few years ago. The book is a result of their mutual admiration, and basically consists of economic theory/ways of thinking being applied to ostensibly non-economic issues such as parenting, sumo wrestling, and all sorts of other things in between. It's an easy read, and I liked how they reached interesting conclusions just by asking different questions of the data. Maybe it's because I'm used to reading more academic stuff at the moment I did find it a bit simplistic at times and sometimes the tone was a bit annoying and chatty - I'd have liked more academic-y discussion, but I do appreciate that that wouldn't have sold shedloads of books. I think I liked it because it's the kind of thing I'll be doing in my own work, albeit with interview transcripts and newspaper articles etc, dealing with words rather than numerical data - asking questions and trying to spot links that maybe aren't the obvious questions and links to try to come up with a new and more interesting view of what is happening. I appreciated that someone who is dealing with quantitative data was approaching it qualitatively - would that more quants researchers did that, it would make their articles an awful lot more interesting to plough through!
Then last night I finished a book which we were given as a wedding gift, "It was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Very Worst Opening Lines in Fiction" compiled by Scott Rice. This is a selection of entries to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which is an annual contest that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. It's the kind of book you could keep in the smallest room, to dip in and out of, and probably best not to read it in public unless you don't care about people staring at the mad laughing person. I couldn't pick out a favourite, there were lots that made me laugh out loud and many more that just made me go "eeewwwww!". Perfect toilet reading.