thirty second book reviews, vol. 4, no. 4
by John at 12/31/2007 02:19:00 PM
End of the year, I better get this out before time runs out.
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
In my mind I get Nick Hornby and Bruce Hornsby mixed up. I know they are different people, but because their names are similar they get lumped together under the same memory address or something. Hornby has a way of writing very realistic characters, which makes this book enjoyable. He also has interesting insight into memory and they way we recall our own life story. I recommend this - it will only take a few solid hours to read. Also, you've probably seen the movie and you know how it ends, so you won't feel stressed out worrying about what's going to happen.
About a Boy - Nick Hornby
Pretty much what I said above. I've never seen the whole film of this book, so I can't say how well it matches the novel. Again, it's really short and really readable. I enjoyed it a lot.
Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 - Francis French
This was pretty good, too. As you can tell from the subtitle, it covers the Mercury and Vostok programs in the USA and USSR in detail, focusing on the biographies of the astronauts and cosmonauts that flew into space. It covers their life stories and whole careers, pretty much, so you often get some information about Gemini, Apollo, and Soyuz missions as well, which just goes to show that some of these guys stuck around a long time and had a lot of influence. It took me a long time to finish this - more than a month, I think. It's pretty dense, but well-written. I learned a lot I never knew about the missions and the, of course, the people. Recommended if this kind of thing interests you, but not for a general audience, I think.
That's it. Not so many books this year. I've hardly read anything the last three months, which I blame on laziness and TV.
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
In my mind I get Nick Hornby and Bruce Hornsby mixed up. I know they are different people, but because their names are similar they get lumped together under the same memory address or something. Hornby has a way of writing very realistic characters, which makes this book enjoyable. He also has interesting insight into memory and they way we recall our own life story. I recommend this - it will only take a few solid hours to read. Also, you've probably seen the movie and you know how it ends, so you won't feel stressed out worrying about what's going to happen.
About a Boy - Nick Hornby
Pretty much what I said above. I've never seen the whole film of this book, so I can't say how well it matches the novel. Again, it's really short and really readable. I enjoyed it a lot.
Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 - Francis French
This was pretty good, too. As you can tell from the subtitle, it covers the Mercury and Vostok programs in the USA and USSR in detail, focusing on the biographies of the astronauts and cosmonauts that flew into space. It covers their life stories and whole careers, pretty much, so you often get some information about Gemini, Apollo, and Soyuz missions as well, which just goes to show that some of these guys stuck around a long time and had a lot of influence. It took me a long time to finish this - more than a month, I think. It's pretty dense, but well-written. I learned a lot I never knew about the missions and the, of course, the people. Recommended if this kind of thing interests you, but not for a general audience, I think.
That's it. Not so many books this year. I've hardly read anything the last three months, which I blame on laziness and TV.
Labels: books
