The Facts: Annie reads non-fiction in 2012

Hopefully posting a bit more often in 2012)

Notes:
- Biographies and autobiographies count.
- Letters and essays count
- Historical and literary magazines count (although I will probably go article by article in those)

There is also a New Yorker (and other!) magazine support group.

Joined :)

I usually read the cartoons and the short story first but I am behind on them as well (way behind). Need to catch up.

Welcome!

1. Superheroes of the Round Table: Comics Connections to Medieval and Renaissance Literature by Jason Tondro

My December ER book - better than I expected. I am not sure what exactly I expected - something centered on Arthur would have been my guess. Instead he went out of his way to find enough parallels in the Elizabethan literature (and masques) and of course in the Arthuriana. It had its flaws and problems but I really enjoyed the book.

Review: in the work page, click here

2. The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick

The mathematician in me was screaming "but this is way oversimplified"; the reader in me was answering "shut up now, this is not a text book so shut up and let me read". The history of science in the 17th century told in a way that should be understandable even for someone that hates mathematics. The first part of the book is probably the weakest one and while still there I was not sure I was liking the book. At the end - I actually did. Even if I knew all the facts (in a lot more details).

Review: in the work page, click here

6: I clicked through to your long review. You're more thorough than I was. My boss gave me this book last year, so I figured I'd better read it, and I enjoyed it more than I'd expected.

Yeah - I was ready to hate it -- popular books on such topics tend to piss me off. This one somehow worked.

I tend to write long reviews for books I like... especially non-fiction. :)

AnnieMod, that book has caught my attention a couple of times but still hasn't made to a TBR list yet. Nice review.

Catching up before I forget to post again...

3. Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border by Sebastian Rotella - Review here
for a book written pre 9/11, it is chillingly current. Rotella's border is the San Diego one - he explores the Mexican Gulf and the Arizona and Texas ones where needed but the story is about the San Diego part of the U.S.-Mexico border. It is more a series if interconnected articles than a real narrative book - with the exception of a few chapters, you can read a random chapter and not loose anything by not reading the rest. The same people and places show up -- but this is because the story is there and connected.

4. This is not the end of the Book by Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière - Review here - a conversation about books, book history, collecting, good books, bad books, early Italian and French cinema (it is connected to books actually), incunabulum (had no idea that books printed before 31 Dec 1500 are called like that), stupidity, culture filtering and what's not.

5. Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
I should have loved this book. I like languages. I love reading about the translation art. Somehow Grossman manages to make a complete mess of the book. And the few bright moments in the text do not help to get the bad taste out of my mouth. She comes up as a whining primadona that believes that the world should bow to translators because they are translators. I really did not need half the book (and at 119 pages it is a short one anyway) dealing with the reviewers, publishers and what's not.

Review here

6. Essays in Elizabethan History by J. E. Neale - for someone that likes the period, the book is a gold mine of information. And I like Neale's writing a lot. A very long review here

>10 AnnieMod: Excellent reviews of the Rotella and the Eco & Carriere books, Annie. I think I already saw them elsewhere, but this is a great reminder to be sure they are on my wishlist.

I attended a lecture a few years ago by a professor who takes a class each year to the border-towns of Mexico. I was really shocked at some of what she shared, especially related to the practices of many US and Asian companies that have established factories there, such as paying only about $5 per day, hiring only women (more docile with authority than male workers), making them periodically prove that they are still menstruating, and firing those who become pregnant. Pure greed.

Thanks :)

Yeah - the border towns are brutal. Part of the reasons is that people move there either in an attempt to cross or to be closer to people that already crossed illegally... And things had not changed for the almost 15 years since the book was written.

7. The Age of Catherine de Medici by J. E. Neale - 4 essays from the Elizabethan scholar about France and Catherine de Medici. The book delivers on its promise of what it is all about and it was interesting to see Neale writing about something different.

8. Cruising Attitude by Heather Poole - this could have been so much better. Not that the book is really bad but somewhere halfway through the book, the whining and repetitions start to annoy

9. Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo - the true story from WWII. Yes, it has camps but they are in USA. And almost noone dies in them. But it is still terrifying and something that we should never forget. I got this book almost by chance - don't even remember what I was looking for. And I am happy that I did see it.

Reviews on the work pages. :)