onefinemess | August 24, 2010
I just haven’t felt like blogging lately. Luckily for you, my obsessive drive to document all things minuscule and pointless compels me to review everything I read these days. Maybe someday I’ll start reviewing tweets and FB comments. Or not. I suppose I could have posted these all as individual blogs but hey, I’m a [...]
onefinemess | August 2, 2010
Anathem by: Neal Stephenson I read about 1/4 of this, then took a “break” in the middle to read Battle Cry of Freedom. The reverse of what I usually do – break a history book up with a fiction or two… but this one started off a bit slow and BCoF was very engaging (for [...]
onefinemess | July 25, 2010
Battle Cry of Freedom by: James McPherson So I finished this like a week ago but I’ve been putting of writing a review because a) I’m not sure what to say b) there’s too much to say and c) I don’t have the energy to try and say it all. So this will be about [...]
onefinemess | June 11, 2010
The Hammer of the Sun (The Winter of the World book 3 of 3) by: Michael Scott Rohan There are many different ways to judge the quality of a book, I think. Some stand out on a technical level, others shine in their mastery of wordcraft, or worldbuilding, or believable characters. There’s also “emotional impact”, [...]
onefinemess | June 4, 2010
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by: Steig Larsson So. I don’t usually read “crime fiction”, or whatever this is. Mystery? Maybe? I mean there was definitely a mystery or four involved. Anyway, whatever it was I decided to bite the bullet for once and see what all the fuss is about. And was pleasantly [...]
onefinemess | May 31, 2010
American Slavery, American Freedom by. Edmund S. Morgan The first thing I notice about a history book is how fast it reads, and this one ready pretty fast – I’m guessing some of that is because an average of 1/4 of each page was filled by citations/annotations – most of which I could skip – [...]
onefinemess | May 18, 2010
Mainspring by: Jay Lake I have to say, the opening chapter put me off. Especially the last page or so, I was like really? Really? Not only do the apprentice’s master’s sons hate him, but one happens to beat him up and steal the last of his father’s money on the way out of town? [...]
onefinemess | May 14, 2010
Empire of Ivory by: Naomi Novik Another good read that I just tore through, but I’m starting to see a pattern… Maybe it’s just the (now somewhat) practiced writer in me – but her plot shapes are showing. I suspect this is probably how all books read, more or less – but – I’m really [...]
onefinemess | May 10, 2010
Black Power War (Temeraire 3) by: Naomi Novik I have to admit, I wasn’t particularly excited going into this one. The whole Napoleon/history thing is just not a lure for me BUT I was pleasantly disabused of the notion of potential boredom. Especially the last third of the book… that just zipped on by. I [...]
onefinemess | May 9, 2010
The Radicalism of the American Revolution by: Gordon S. Wood It’s hard for me to rate this book, as it was both incredibly difficult/boring to read, yet it also had some really great information and some angles of looking that things that hadn’t occurred to me yet (such as the way the shift from monarchy [...]
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