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- She's Not There (10)
- A Life in Two Genders
- By Jennifer Finney Boylan
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Reading
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- Trainspotting (821)
- By Irvine Welsh
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Reading
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- Kafka on the Shore (855)
- (Vintage International)
- By Haruki Murakami
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Reading
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- To Kill a Mockingbird (1860)
- By Harper
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Finished on Jul 19, 2007
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- A Long Way Down (871)
- By Nick Hornby
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Finished in Mar 2007
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1 person find this helpful
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No, this story is not about redemption. No such thing exists in real life, anyway.
If you want to kill yourself, go ahead; if you can't, then f$%king shut your mouth and live. Painful but true. But not many authors dare to tell the story this way.
It is different. So I like it.
- — Apr 9, 2007 | Add your feedback
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- Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (218)
- By David Sedaris
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Finished in 2006
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- My Freshman Year (19)
- What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student
- By Rebekah Nathan
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Finished in Dec 2006
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- The Alchemist (1832)
- A Fable About Following Your Dream
- By Paulo Coelho
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Finished in Sep 2006
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- The Devil in the White City (177)
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Vintage)
- By Erik Larson
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Finished in Aug 2006
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- The Joy Luck Club (535)
- By Amy Tan
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Finished in Jun 2006
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1 person find this helpful
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Amy Tan was born in America. She grew up in America. She writes in English.
I was born in Malaysia. I grew up in Taiwan. Mandarin is my native tongue.
So I the reason I got this book wasn't because I wanted to read about China or the Chinese people, but because I wanted to read about ... (continue)
- — Apr 9, 2007 | Add your feedback
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- How I Became Stupid (13)
- By Martin Page
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Finished in Mar 2006
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- 尹縣長（新典藏版） (172)
- By 陳若曦
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Finished in Jan 2006
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- 地底三萬呎 (4355)
- By 朱少麟
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Finished in Jan 2006
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- Me Talk Pretty One Day (336)
- By David Sedaris
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Finished in 2005
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- Nickel and Dimed (116)
- On (Not) Getting By in America
- By Barbara Ehrenreich
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Finished in 2005
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America, where your dreams come true? Blah.
In fact, the phenomenon described in this book is a general occurrence in most developed and developing countries. Our society, it seems, is going back to the medieval way, where whose child you are matters a lot more than what you are capable of. ... (continue)
- — Apr 9, 2007 | Add your feedback
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To Kill a Mockingbird
6 people find this helpful
I won't comment on the book's message, except to say that people worldwide today can still use a lesson or two on accepting other people who are different from themselves.
Read the book, not for your school reading assignment but for the sake of reading, and you will understand what Harper Lee ... (continue)
I won't comment on the book's message, except to say that people worldwide today can still use a lesson or two on accepting other people who are different from themselves.
Read the book, not for your school reading assignment but for the sake of reading, and you will understand what Harper Lee had to say.
Equally brilliant but easily overlooked when reviewing this book is the writing, the language if you will, Harper Lee employed to construct the world of Scout.
Yes, she constructed not only a story, not only a series of events, but an entire world as seen by a child growing up in Maycomb during the 30's.
Not much of a writer myself, but I write novels on and off. And I believe in a minimalistic approach: the less you say that's unrelated to your main story line, the better. Don't waste two chapters on developments that can be summed up in two paragraphs.
And we see a fine counterexample in "Mockingbrid".
Reading the opening pages, you will find no trace of the theme advertised on the back cover: "a lawyer in the deep south defending a black man charged with the rape of a white girl." Instead, it is as if you can breath the hot summer's air, while running around in the yard as a seven-year-old.
Those big houses, you have in fact never set foot in one, and have only seen them on American TV shows such as Knight Rider. And back then you were in the living room of some apartment building in some Asian city. But the fact doesn't stop you from feeling that world of Scout.
And that's what drew me into the book. Not the message of acceptance and equality; not the social or historical value of the book. It's because I can feel so vividly another time, another age, another world all together. I can almost touch it if I just reach out, or it seems.
Harper Lee maintained the same touch throughout the book. This is not a story about the trial and the aftermath, but an account of Scout's childhood through her own eyes, with the trial standing out as one big event.
I don't think I can spell out my thought very clearly. What I mean to say is, it is so near-impossible to keep your focus while detailing on everything big and small. I certainly can't, and many published writers failed at one point or another at achieving the right balance.
Yet Harper Lee did it-- not a "balance" between the two, which implies some sort of deliberate exclusion. She maxed out both sides.
Pure genius. Something we can only admire and not copy. We are really not created equal in this case, and what can I say?
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