Blueskiesfrompain

Books (291)

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- The Pickwick Papers (324)
- By Charles Dickens
- Finished on Jan 31, 2010
  
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The Pickwick Papers

Forget the pains of existence, forget the troubles of love, forget the doubts on one's life choices, forget the uneasiness of life, forget melancholy, regrets, sadness, anger and 21st century anxiety. This is the perfectly reassuring book, where goodness is always justly rewarded, where badness is p ... (continue)

Forget the pains of existence, forget the troubles of love, forget the doubts on one's life choices, forget the uneasiness of life, forget melancholy, regrets, sadness, anger and 21st century anxiety. This is the perfectly reassuring book, where goodness is always justly rewarded, where badness is punished but also forgiven and given a second chance, where achieving perfect happiness is possible and often happens.
But more importantly, meet Mr. Samuel Pickwick and his crew, follow him in the variety of his adventures and rest assured he will snatch you from the problems of everyday existence and give you hours of happiness and joy.
Yes, this book is not perfect, it is uneven and shows clear signs of having been written in instalments over a long period of time. But it doesn't really matter, as long as you are prepared to leave all your postmodern cynicism behind, for once.

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— Feb 1, 2010 | Add your feedback
- Land of Green Plums (30)
- By Herta Müller
- Finished on Dec 30, 2009
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- Nobel Lectures (1)
- 20 Years of the Nobel Prize for Literature Lectures
- By Various authors
- Finished on Dec 26, 2009
  
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Nobel Lectures

Language, the role of the writer in contemporary society, the importance of literature as a means to freedom and resistance against oppression, living far from the "centre", in the so called third world, life and vocation, passion and dedication - these are only a few of the recurring themes that th ... (continue)

Language, the role of the writer in contemporary society, the importance of literature as a means to freedom and resistance against oppression, living far from the "centre", in the so called third world, life and vocation, passion and dedication - these are only a few of the recurring themes that the Nobel Laureates for Literature in the last 20 years (actually from 1986 to 2006) have thought important to address in the lectures they held when they collected the prize.
The opportunity to read the words of such amazing minds as Harold Pinter, Josè Saramago, Dario Fo, Gunter Grass, Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Gao Xingjian, J.M. Coetzee and sso many others is not to be missed, if one wants to understand, or to remind oneself, of how important, how relevant literature is, what a stronghold of freedom of thought it is in the contemporary world.
Reading this book, like reading any other book, is a precious opportunity to talk to some of the most amazing world writers and poets of the Twentieth Century, because, to quote Joseph Brodsky, "a novel or a poem is not a monologue, but the conversation of the writer with a reader, a conversation, I repeat, that is very private, excluding all others - if you will, mutually misanthropic. And in the moment of this conversation a writer is equal to a reader, as well as the other way around, regardless of whether a writer is a great one or not."
Looking at the world of literary prizes big and small around the world, from the Booker to the Premio Strega, well, thank God for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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— Dec 27, 2009 | Add your feedback
- Il senso di Smilla per la neve (7947)
- By Peter Hoeg
- Finished on Dec 18, 2009
  
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Il senso di Smilla per la neve

Mah, questo libro mi ha lasciata perplessa. Ho trovato le immagini e la simbologia molto suggestivi ed evocativi: il tema del freddo, della neve e del ghiaccio analizzati con i rigidi strumenti della scienza fanno da filo conduttore del libro e unificano e danno coerenza agli atteggiamenti e ai punt ... (continue)

Mah, questo libro mi ha lasciata perplessa. Ho trovato le immagini e la simbologia molto suggestivi ed evocativi: il tema del freddo, della neve e del ghiaccio analizzati con i rigidi strumenti della scienza fanno da filo conduttore del libro e unificano e danno coerenza agli atteggiamenti e ai punti di vista di Smilla, la protagonista. Anche se da un certo punto di vista questi temi sono un po' stereotipici, penso che l'autore sia riuscito a reinterpretarli e a dar loro un certo vigore proprio grazie alla precisione delle descrizioni e delle spiegazioni scientifiche.
La trama pero' mi ha decisamente spiazzata. E' ovvio che l'autore aveva ambizioni di grandezza letteraria che andavano al di la' del giallo tascabile che trovi all'edicola della stazione: ecco spiegate le tematiche esistenziali, la simbologia, e anche il finale ambiguo e aperto. Pero' insomma, non possiamo nasconderci dietro a un dito: la trama e' quella di un giallo, o meglio di un thriller, di cui cerca di mantenere il ritmo serrato, la suspence, le svolte a sorpresa, insomma la struttura, salvo poi cercare di sfidare le convenzioni del genere con un finale inaspettato, che vorrebbe sembrare profondo solo perche' incomprensibile, o meglio confuso. Insomma, Hoeg non e' Durrenmatt, e la sua sfida alle convenzioni del genere giallo risulta alquanto maldestra e anche un po' grottesca, con gli elementi non spiegati del verme e del meteorite che suonano cosi' paradossali da sembrare ridicoli.

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— Dec 21, 2009 | Add your feedback
- The Year of the Flood (136)
- By Margaret Atwood
- Finished on Nov 25, 2009
  
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The Year of the Flood

Green is the new black, they say, and this post-apocalyptic novel set in a time when humans have been largely wiped away as a result of the Waterless Flood clearly wants to act as a reminder of the importance of respecting nature, the world we live in, and life in general.
The message, like the plo ... (continue)

Green is the new black, they say, and this post-apocalyptic novel set in a time when humans have been largely wiped away as a result of the Waterless Flood clearly wants to act as a reminder of the importance of respecting nature, the world we live in, and life in general.
The message, like the plot, is simple and - may I say? - a little obvious, the characterisation verges on the stereotypical (with the remarkable exception of Toby, one of the main characters, whose complex and multi-faceted personality is beautifully conveyed), and the dynamics of romantic relationships between the characters a little bit simplistic.
Now, these are all admittedly features of sci-fi novels, but the impression I've had is that The Year of the Flood is trying to be both sci-fi and literary fiction, or something in between the two, and doesn't quite manage to get it right.
I have probably been too hard on this novel which is certainly thoroughly enjoyable and enriched by a solid vein of humour, and reinterprets green movements in what I feel is an insightful as well as ironic way - and not having read any other fiction by Margaret Atwood I should probably just shut up - but I feel that, erm, "there's potential there", and it's a shame that on this occasion the author hasn't been more ambitious.

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— Nov 26, 2009 | 1 feedback

- The All New Print Production Handbook (2)
- By David Bann
- Finished on Nov 27, 2009
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- Book typography (1)
- a designer's manual
- By Michael Mitchell
- Finished on Nov 28, 2009
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- Oulipo (5)
- A Primer of Potential Literature (French Literature Series)
- Finished on Dec 17, 2009
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- Translation in the Global Village (1)
- (Current Issues in Language and Society (Unnumbered).)
- Finished on Oct 22, 2009
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The Form of the Book
- The Form of the Book (5)
- Essays on the Morality of Good Design
- By Jan Tschichold
- Finished on Oct 13, 2009
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- How to Market Books (4)
- The Essential Guide to Maximizing Profit and Exploiting All Channels to Market
- By Alison Baverstock
- Finished on Oct 22, 2009
  
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How to Market Books

2 people find this helpful

I know, I KNOW this is like the BIBLE of the publishing marketing industry, a "wealth of marketing wisdom", as the irritating blurb on the cover says. I know that this is required reading for all publishing students - like me - and that it's essential for anybody who wants to get into the industry, ... (continue)

I know, I KNOW this is like the BIBLE of the publishing marketing industry, a "wealth of marketing wisdom", as the irritating blurb on the cover says. I know that this is required reading for all publishing students - like me - and that it's essential for anybody who wants to get into the industry, and that every publishing house has got a copy of it. I know.
But honestly I think that even if you are a marketing star that doesn't mean that you don't need to be able to WRITE if you decide to publish a book. And by "writing" I don't mean being able to spell or put together sentences that make grammatical sense, but rather respecting the words you are using. I mean "writing", not "shouting". This is a book that shouts. The cover shouts, the title shouts, the blurb on the cover shouts, the font used for the main text shouts, the chapter headings shout, the endless lists of bullet points for every single topic shout. And I tell you, being shouted at by a leaflet is fine. By a poster on the street, is fine. But by a 300-page-long book -- is not fine. It's just very irritating.

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— Oct 23, 2009 | 3 feedbacks
- Book Commissioning and Acquisition (5)
- By Gill Davies
- Finished on Sep 25, 2009
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- The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and other stories (735)
- By Tim Burton
- Finished on Sep 15, 2009
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- The Go-Between (92)
- By L. P. Hartley
- Finished on Oct 31, 2009
  
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The Go-Between

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

"The past is a foreign country": with these words Leo Colston, the narrator, opens his account of what happened in the course of nineteen days in July 1900, when he was a naive twelve-year-old child full of expectations for the future, of hopes and curiosity for life.
And while we read Leo's pa ... (continue)

"The past is a foreign country": with these words Leo Colston, the narrator, opens his account of what happened in the course of nineteen days in July 1900, when he was a naive twelve-year-old child full of expectations for the future, of hopes and curiosity for life.
And while we read Leo's painful recollection of those inexorable events till their dramatic climax that has haunted him ever since, we come to share his view that the past is indeed irretrievable, inexplicable, just as it is unchangeable and definitive. Leo's lucid and melancholy analysis of the characters' psychological dynamics, of the issue of responsibility (the main question in the book: 'whose fault was it?' remains unanswered, as it should be) only serves to point out the pointlessness of this quest for meaning.
More than anything else, this beautifully written book strikes the reader with the accuracy and the vividness of its characterisation, as well as with its sharp contrasts, made even sharper by their ambiguity. This book manages to recreate the feelings and thoughts and curiosities of a twelve-year-old child still ignorant of the "facts of life" with striking accuracy, while portraying with almost painful sharpness the violence of unconditional adult love. The brutality of this contrast is, to me, the real shock, the real tragedy caused by the events of those nineteen days: the cruelty with which the innocence of childhood is shattered by a brutal adult world that the narrator, as a result of this shock, decides never to join.

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— Oct 31, 2009 | Add your feedback
- From Pitch to Publication (3)
- Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published
- By Carole Blake
- Finished on Sep 18, 2009
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