Customer Comments

Edward has commented on (34) products.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.) by Barbara Kingsolver and Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver

Edward, April 17, 2009

We are converting our backyard into a communal garden. My wife whom only recently began eating vegetables that weren't canned supports this venture. You are what you eat. We should all support locally grown producers and farms. I support the Peoples Market. Vive le local farm!

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The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Edward, February 20, 2009

It is the Crime and Punishment of this century.
Get a taste of India and the modern world.
Why does the poor want to be fat and the rich want to be thin?
Why do white people wish to be tanned and dark skinned people wish to be lightened?
Find out the answers to these questions and more when you get a taste of the "future of the modern novel".

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(7 of 13 readers found this comment helpful)

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The Adventures of Pinocchio (New York Review Books) by Carlo Collodi

Edward, January 9, 2009

An excellent translation.

If you only know the Disney film, it comes as a shock to read the original story of Pinocchio and discover that the Talking Cricket is killed by Pinocchio at their very first meeting. This unusual creature, who has lived in Geppetto’s house for a hundred years, offers Pinocchio a ‘great truth’, solemnly advising him that he will never come to any good if he doesn’t find a useful occupation, adding that he pities him for being a puppet.

At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a rage, grabbed a wooden mallet from the workbench, and flung it at the Talking Cricket.

Perhaps he didn’t mean to hit him at all, but unfortunately he hit him square on the head. With his last breath the poor Cricket cried cree-cree-cree and then died on the spot, stuck to the wall.

The new translation by Geoffrey Brock is wonderfully faithful to Collodi’s speed and vigour. Until now, the best-known modern translation has been Ann Lawson Lucas’s, and in several respects it is still a better buy, thanks to Lucas’s detailed explanatory notes and full historical preface, which are more useful than Umberto Eco’s thin introduction to the new edition. Judged purely as a translation, however, Brock’s version is more natural and engaging, with a better feeling for how to turn colloquial 19th-century Tuscan into colloquial modern English (or rather colloquial American, which is effectively the same thing).

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The Great Weaver from Kashmir by Hallador Laxness

Edward, November 23, 2008

Gorgeous. Beautiful. Amazing.
Sure he won the Nobel, but this book exemplifies what every writer should strive to emulate. It is poetic. It is romantic. Halldor Laxness should be a name everyone knows. His name should be what Shakespeare is to drama, Laxness should be to literature what apple pie is to America-- relished by almost everyone. He is a giant, up there beside Tolstoy dammit! This book is what nearly every writer journey's through. It is a treck to the unknown, a rebirth, and a poetic masterpiece.

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The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

Edward, September 8, 2008

A great look at numbers and what they really mean. Anybody into numerology, mathematics, sports, essay grading, politics, world events-- actually pretty much anything to do with randomness; should procure this great read.
I am rating it as a 4 because it wasn't the most amazing thing I have read since sliced bread. In fact if you know anything about Galileo, Pascal, Einstein, etc., it is an erudite summary. Albeit, all in all it was enjoyable and well written.
You have 93 good reasons to read it.

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