1 Old's man war. John Scalzi.
Seems it is becoming a tradition: I travel to Guadalajara for Christmans, have brunch or lunch with Leon and talk about books, I receive a sci-fi saga as a present, and on the flight back to Toronto I am gladly surprised.
In this case, the glad surprise was that the sci-fi elements were kept to a minimum. Scalzi does devote a few pages here and there to technology or alien civilizations, but those distractions are kept to a minimum, the main focus is on the character and the relationship between body and personality. Furthermore, it does it with great sense of humor, and with surprising humanity. The book devotes almost as much time to the character's wife home baked pies and local earth politics, as it does to the weapons used on intergalactic wars. I thank him for that. Quite a refreshing book, fun to read.
In this case, BTW, the restaurant where Leon told me about this author was an argentinian restaurant called el Quilombo, once again quite a pleasent place. Good way to start the year.
2, 3 Ghost Brigades, The Lost Colony. John Scalzi. I really enjoyed completing this trilogy that started with Old man's war, very welcomed light reading at a time when I really needed to take my mind away from everything. If I were to mention one flaw, that would be the fact that many characters have very simmilar personality and sense of humour, it is very transparent that he puts a lot of his own sense of humour on his characters. I'd love to have a beer with him. Comparing to the Millenium trilogy I just read, this guy makes a much, much better job of being economical with his senences, getting to the point, and providing context or reminders on a swift and unobtrusive way; how many times I rolled my eyes on the Millenium Trilogy when I was told yet again the traumatic episodes on the character's past (still, Larsson is much more subtle than Dan Brown, but that's not much of a compliment, is the equivalent of 'he smells better than a rotted egg').
The characters have an old world ingenuity (climb to the trees to set the ambush, set the blood on fire, etc.), and small town values that make them pretty likable.
4. Casi Nunca. Daniel Sada. Este libro me hizo considerar seriamente dejar de leer literatura mexicana por un buen rato. Lo pero es que venia bien recomendad, regalo navideño de uno de mir hermanos, premio Herralde de novela, publicado por Anagrama, alabado por Alvaro Mutis y Juan Villoro!
Lo bueno: lo mejor del libro sin duda es haber elegido como conflicto dramatico la eleccion del personaje entre una mujer que le ofrece plenitud sexual (una prostituta que le cumple con creces todos sus deseos), y una 'dama de buena familia' que implica renunciar ya no digamos a la plenitud sexual, sino incluso al sexo basico... pero con la esperanza de tener sexo en algun momento. El conflicto esta a la altura de la eleccion entre el bien y el mal, La decision de Sofia, o la alternativa entre patria y religion. El lenguaje tambien es una cierto, es original, es arriesgado, sin ser demasiado pretencioso.
Pero el problema, el puto problema con docenas y docenas de libros mexicanos que he leido en los ultimos años: los personajes son todos unos perdedores mediocres e idiotas cuya vida obra y milagros me tiene sin cuidado. Los intelectuales mexicanos miran con desdén a las peliculas americanas porque son caricaturescas; ¿nadie se ha dado cuenta que el 80% de la literatura mexicana es una caricatura de la mediocridad? Los personajes son, desde el protagonista, la novia pueblerina, hasta la prostituta y la tía, seres agobiamentemente mediocres, insoportablemente insulsos e idiotas. Un verdadero desperdicio de talento, porque sin duda Daniel Sada lo tiene.
5 (Audio) Gorky Park. Martin Cruz Smith. Mr. Shawn Bloore had several times recommended this book, and he was right.
The only problem is that just as I got the audiobook, I was reading one book about writting mysterys (Shawn's gift, coincidentally), and that other book gave away completely the plot, which ruins reading a mystery.
so I heard the first couple of chapters hald heartedly, driving to and from the office on snowy January mornings, but at some point I realized that Shaw was right, this book deserves attention. Even if you know the plot, who is the murder and why, the book is compelling, well written, does transport you to a a different country and a different mindset. the characters have dimension, the plot does develop in intriguing paths. I like a lot the scene where the nvestigator Renko tries to interrogate the girl right after saving her life and she is so dismissive and mounted on her high horse, credible dialogue, credible dramatic tension. It would be worth reading on paper. Thanks Shawn for the recommendation.
6. ¿Cómo dijo? El segundo Libro. Ricardo Espinoza. Serie de viñetas sobre el uso del lenguaje y a veces sus origenes. Sin demasiado rigor académico, porque es un libro populachero, de divulgación que sin embargo contiene información interesante. Tene un huor ingenuo, picardía tímida y respetuosa. Sin pena ni gloria, libro útil pare tener en el baño.
7. Millenium. Tom Holland. I was so impressed by Holland's other book: Persian Fire, that I vowed to get his other books. Millenium is equally well documented, but by far not as engaging as Persian Fire. Small kings, failed empires, petty tribal wars, superstition and religious fanatisim tend to get repetitive and boring after a while.
However, it is fascinating to see how the est as we know it was formed. How Norway and Russia got their names, how some words of the european languages were coined and remain in use after a thousand years. It is fascnating how the power struggles of a few dozen people define the faith and customs of millions of people today. It is fascinating see christianity becoming a unifying force in europe.
It is fascinating to learn about some nations when they were still barely a concept, barely populated, it is like talking to John Lennon when he was 17.
here are some of my notes on the book:
Separation of Church and State at Canossa. I find extremely puzzling that Holland announces this as awatershed point on history. If anything, I would have found Canossa as a ratification that earthly matters required blessing from the heavely spheres, hardly a new concept at the time.
pxxii: "Of Islam is often said that it never had reformation - but more to the point might be to say that it never had a Canossa. Certainly, to a pious Muslim, the notion that the political and religious spheres can be separated is a shocking one - as it was to many of Gregory's opponents."
p12 "Kings who acepted baptism did so primarly to win for thieir own purposes the backing of an intimidatingly powerful god"
I'm not totally sure if this change happened completely, I believe the people outside church still ha shuge impact on what the church doctrine is.
p16 "Once, before the Church had began its grat labour of erecting a boundary between the sacred and the profane, the two had seemed interfused. Streams and prophets had read the future in os dung; mourners had brough offerings of food and drinks to tombs. Increasingly, however, the clergy had succedded in identigying the dimensions of the supernatural as exclusively of their own. By the eight century, christians uninitiated into the priesthood were loosing confidence in their ability to communicate with the invisible. [...] No longer did people trust themselves to aid their departed kin as they embarked on this last journey. Only through the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Church had pronounced, could there be any hope of helping sould in the other world -and only a priest could conduct a Holy Mass."
p22.23 'He could rule not by virtue of descent from some ridiculous merman [...] but 'by the grace of God' "
I was surprised by the amount of slavery explotation on Italy by the Saracens.
p91 "Near industrisal scale of the slave-trade [...]: on traveler, witnessing a great flotilla of ships in Taranto, Then is Saracen hands, claimed to have seen some twelve thousand captives being loaded ready for transport to the markets of Africa."
p204. Year 994, viking raider Tryvgasson is converted to christianity, held as royal rather than criminal and is given a higher purpose on life: to rule Norway and convert it to christianity. It is fascinating to me how the interest of higher rule, peer recognition and religious devotion all aligned to start 'upgrading' poles, hungarians, russians, and other warrior raiders from criminal warlords to Lords, blessed by the Almighty, and in the process swiftly unifying eurpose under a single faith in the course of a couple hundred years.
p 210. Iceland first colonized in year 870, Greenland in 986 (by 450 icelanders), and explorations made further west to "Vinland" what would be Canada, but it is too remote to provide anything more than subsistence, and thus not colonized.
p235. Cairo, year 996, caliph Al-Hakim "first ordered women to be veiled when out in public; then he banned them from leaving their homes; finally he forbade them to even so as much as to peer out of windows or doors. Cobblers were instructed to stop making them shoes" More than a thousand years later, when I walked through the streets of egypt, I still could see some of these horrors still in practice and hailed as "the right thing".
p246. Back in western europe, the quest for heretics starts. Vegetarianism is seen as a sign of heressy, as being vegetarian was seen to aim for a flesh-less state, close to that of an angel, in preparation for the arrival of the New Jerusalem. Predicting such arrival was the heresy itself. Fastening was good for monks, but not for priest or common people. "squeamishness had come to be regarded as a certain sign of heressy"
p261 year 1039 Henry II ascends as king of the Reich, out of religious zeal: 'his earnest ambition was never to laugh', he and his wife attended mass 5 times a day most of the time.
p340 year 1057 In Milan, priest are chased and threatened by the 'pateretes' (people from countryside and poor areas of town) for the crime of having wifes, which until then was OK for a priest in Milan.
p342 Virginity and the absence of any type of se becomes the requisite for any religious person; while in the past was almost an heressy simmilar to the vegetarianism.
p351 circa 1074 pope Gregory writes (but doesn't make public) a memorandum where it says "that all princess should kiss the feet of the pope alone"; "that he is permitted to depose emperors". The emperor vs. pope power struggle begins.
p407 27 Nov 1095, pope Urban addresses the crowd (300-400) on an open field and promise heaven to those who liberate Jerusalem. Crusades are born.
Seems it is becoming a tradition: I travel to Guadalajara for Christmans, have brunch or lunch with Leon and talk about books, I receive a sci-fi saga as a present, and on the flight back to Toronto I am gladly surprised.
In this case, the glad surprise was that the sci-fi elements were kept to a minimum. Scalzi does devote a few pages here and there to technology or alien civilizations, but those distractions are kept to a minimum, the main focus is on the character and the relationship between body and personality. Furthermore, it does it with great sense of humor, and with surprising humanity. The book devotes almost as much time to the character's wife home baked pies and local earth politics, as it does to the weapons used on intergalactic wars. I thank him for that. Quite a refreshing book, fun to read.
In this case, BTW, the restaurant where Leon told me about this author was an argentinian restaurant called el Quilombo, once again quite a pleasent place. Good way to start the year.
2, 3 Ghost Brigades, The Lost Colony. John Scalzi. I really enjoyed completing this trilogy that started with Old man's war, very welcomed light reading at a time when I really needed to take my mind away from everything. If I were to mention one flaw, that would be the fact that many characters have very simmilar personality and sense of humour, it is very transparent that he puts a lot of his own sense of humour on his characters. I'd love to have a beer with him. Comparing to the Millenium trilogy I just read, this guy makes a much, much better job of being economical with his senences, getting to the point, and providing context or reminders on a swift and unobtrusive way; how many times I rolled my eyes on the Millenium Trilogy when I was told yet again the traumatic episodes on the character's past (still, Larsson is much more subtle than Dan Brown, but that's not much of a compliment, is the equivalent of 'he smells better than a rotted egg').
The characters have an old world ingenuity (climb to the trees to set the ambush, set the blood on fire, etc.), and small town values that make them pretty likable.
4. Casi Nunca. Daniel Sada. Este libro me hizo considerar seriamente dejar de leer literatura mexicana por un buen rato. Lo pero es que venia bien recomendad, regalo navideño de uno de mir hermanos, premio Herralde de novela, publicado por Anagrama, alabado por Alvaro Mutis y Juan Villoro!
Lo bueno: lo mejor del libro sin duda es haber elegido como conflicto dramatico la eleccion del personaje entre una mujer que le ofrece plenitud sexual (una prostituta que le cumple con creces todos sus deseos), y una 'dama de buena familia' que implica renunciar ya no digamos a la plenitud sexual, sino incluso al sexo basico... pero con la esperanza de tener sexo en algun momento. El conflicto esta a la altura de la eleccion entre el bien y el mal, La decision de Sofia, o la alternativa entre patria y religion. El lenguaje tambien es una cierto, es original, es arriesgado, sin ser demasiado pretencioso.
Pero el problema, el puto problema con docenas y docenas de libros mexicanos que he leido en los ultimos años: los personajes son todos unos perdedores mediocres e idiotas cuya vida obra y milagros me tiene sin cuidado. Los intelectuales mexicanos miran con desdén a las peliculas americanas porque son caricaturescas; ¿nadie se ha dado cuenta que el 80% de la literatura mexicana es una caricatura de la mediocridad? Los personajes son, desde el protagonista, la novia pueblerina, hasta la prostituta y la tía, seres agobiamentemente mediocres, insoportablemente insulsos e idiotas. Un verdadero desperdicio de talento, porque sin duda Daniel Sada lo tiene.
5 (Audio) Gorky Park. Martin Cruz Smith. Mr. Shawn Bloore had several times recommended this book, and he was right.
The only problem is that just as I got the audiobook, I was reading one book about writting mysterys (Shawn's gift, coincidentally), and that other book gave away completely the plot, which ruins reading a mystery.
so I heard the first couple of chapters hald heartedly, driving to and from the office on snowy January mornings, but at some point I realized that Shaw was right, this book deserves attention. Even if you know the plot, who is the murder and why, the book is compelling, well written, does transport you to a a different country and a different mindset. the characters have dimension, the plot does develop in intriguing paths. I like a lot the scene where the nvestigator Renko tries to interrogate the girl right after saving her life and she is so dismissive and mounted on her high horse, credible dialogue, credible dramatic tension. It would be worth reading on paper. Thanks Shawn for the recommendation.
6. ¿Cómo dijo? El segundo Libro. Ricardo Espinoza. Serie de viñetas sobre el uso del lenguaje y a veces sus origenes. Sin demasiado rigor académico, porque es un libro populachero, de divulgación que sin embargo contiene información interesante. Tene un huor ingenuo, picardía tímida y respetuosa. Sin pena ni gloria, libro útil pare tener en el baño.
7. Millenium. Tom Holland. I was so impressed by Holland's other book: Persian Fire, that I vowed to get his other books. Millenium is equally well documented, but by far not as engaging as Persian Fire. Small kings, failed empires, petty tribal wars, superstition and religious fanatisim tend to get repetitive and boring after a while.
However, it is fascinating to see how the est as we know it was formed. How Norway and Russia got their names, how some words of the european languages were coined and remain in use after a thousand years. It is fascnating how the power struggles of a few dozen people define the faith and customs of millions of people today. It is fascinating see christianity becoming a unifying force in europe.
It is fascinating to learn about some nations when they were still barely a concept, barely populated, it is like talking to John Lennon when he was 17.
here are some of my notes on the book:
Separation of Church and State at Canossa. I find extremely puzzling that Holland announces this as awatershed point on history. If anything, I would have found Canossa as a ratification that earthly matters required blessing from the heavely spheres, hardly a new concept at the time.
pxxii: "Of Islam is often said that it never had reformation - but more to the point might be to say that it never had a Canossa. Certainly, to a pious Muslim, the notion that the political and religious spheres can be separated is a shocking one - as it was to many of Gregory's opponents."
p12 "Kings who acepted baptism did so primarly to win for thieir own purposes the backing of an intimidatingly powerful god"
I'm not totally sure if this change happened completely, I believe the people outside church still ha shuge impact on what the church doctrine is.
p16 "Once, before the Church had began its grat labour of erecting a boundary between the sacred and the profane, the two had seemed interfused. Streams and prophets had read the future in os dung; mourners had brough offerings of food and drinks to tombs. Increasingly, however, the clergy had succedded in identigying the dimensions of the supernatural as exclusively of their own. By the eight century, christians uninitiated into the priesthood were loosing confidence in their ability to communicate with the invisible. [...] No longer did people trust themselves to aid their departed kin as they embarked on this last journey. Only through the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Church had pronounced, could there be any hope of helping sould in the other world -and only a priest could conduct a Holy Mass."
p22.23 'He could rule not by virtue of descent from some ridiculous merman [...] but 'by the grace of God' "
I was surprised by the amount of slavery explotation on Italy by the Saracens.
p91 "Near industrisal scale of the slave-trade [...]: on traveler, witnessing a great flotilla of ships in Taranto, Then is Saracen hands, claimed to have seen some twelve thousand captives being loaded ready for transport to the markets of Africa."
p204. Year 994, viking raider Tryvgasson is converted to christianity, held as royal rather than criminal and is given a higher purpose on life: to rule Norway and convert it to christianity. It is fascinating to me how the interest of higher rule, peer recognition and religious devotion all aligned to start 'upgrading' poles, hungarians, russians, and other warrior raiders from criminal warlords to Lords, blessed by the Almighty, and in the process swiftly unifying eurpose under a single faith in the course of a couple hundred years.
p 210. Iceland first colonized in year 870, Greenland in 986 (by 450 icelanders), and explorations made further west to "Vinland" what would be Canada, but it is too remote to provide anything more than subsistence, and thus not colonized.
p235. Cairo, year 996, caliph Al-Hakim "first ordered women to be veiled when out in public; then he banned them from leaving their homes; finally he forbade them to even so as much as to peer out of windows or doors. Cobblers were instructed to stop making them shoes" More than a thousand years later, when I walked through the streets of egypt, I still could see some of these horrors still in practice and hailed as "the right thing".
p246. Back in western europe, the quest for heretics starts. Vegetarianism is seen as a sign of heressy, as being vegetarian was seen to aim for a flesh-less state, close to that of an angel, in preparation for the arrival of the New Jerusalem. Predicting such arrival was the heresy itself. Fastening was good for monks, but not for priest or common people. "squeamishness had come to be regarded as a certain sign of heressy"
p261 year 1039 Henry II ascends as king of the Reich, out of religious zeal: 'his earnest ambition was never to laugh', he and his wife attended mass 5 times a day most of the time.
p340 year 1057 In Milan, priest are chased and threatened by the 'pateretes' (people from countryside and poor areas of town) for the crime of having wifes, which until then was OK for a priest in Milan.
p342 Virginity and the absence of any type of se becomes the requisite for any religious person; while in the past was almost an heressy simmilar to the vegetarianism.
p351 circa 1074 pope Gregory writes (but doesn't make public) a memorandum where it says "that all princess should kiss the feet of the pope alone"; "that he is permitted to depose emperors". The emperor vs. pope power struggle begins.
p407 27 Nov 1095, pope Urban addresses the crowd (300-400) on an open field and promise heaven to those who liberate Jerusalem. Crusades are born.
