While I should be studying for my approaching final in systems accounting, I managed to find an interesting book review. The book, "About Alice" is brilliantly reviewed, and seems perfectly interesting - especially at this hour when compared to data flow diagrams and COSO framework components and ERM evaluations and detective controls and risk assessments and differential backups and, well, you get the point. The book review is also over a year old; don't ask how I found it.
New York Times Book Review
Dabblings & Diatribes
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Summer 2008 - Reading
What's on the bookshelf this summer?
GMAT review guides excluded, my summer reading endeavors probably began as I stumbled across Ivan Panin's Lectures on Russian Literature. He traces through Puskin, Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy - comparing each to English contemporaries and documenting their fascinating progression of style. Thus came the obligatory trip to a trendy little used book store, where the acclaimed works of all but Pushkin were acquired.
But convenience found me digressing from these to a more intimate peice, one accessible on my Treo - I managed to put Adobe Acrobat on my phone, and randomly choose to loadJane Eyre. Since that day almost a month ago, I've read half the book during the commute to and from work - and at other sudden intervals throughout the day. I've become even quite adept at reading while walking.
But as this weekend proved lonely, I resolved to accelerate my progress and purchased the softbound book just two days ago. This allows me to highlight what I term "enjoyable phraseology." Charlotte Bronte has a way with words that anything from my limited reading experience has fails to parallel.
To excerpt on highlighted section - the emotion is amusing - Eliza's diatribe against Georgiana: "Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strenght; if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miseralbe. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon; you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered - you must have music, dancing, and society - or you languish, you die away..."
To which the reply from Georgiana eventually comes, "Eliza, you might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade."
GMAT review guides excluded, my summer reading endeavors probably began as I stumbled across Ivan Panin's Lectures on Russian Literature. He traces through Puskin, Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy - comparing each to English contemporaries and documenting their fascinating progression of style. Thus came the obligatory trip to a trendy little used book store, where the acclaimed works of all but Pushkin were acquired.
But convenience found me digressing from these to a more intimate peice, one accessible on my Treo - I managed to put Adobe Acrobat on my phone, and randomly choose to loadJane Eyre. Since that day almost a month ago, I've read half the book during the commute to and from work - and at other sudden intervals throughout the day. I've become even quite adept at reading while walking.
But as this weekend proved lonely, I resolved to accelerate my progress and purchased the softbound book just two days ago. This allows me to highlight what I term "enjoyable phraseology." Charlotte Bronte has a way with words that anything from my limited reading experience has fails to parallel.
To excerpt on highlighted section - the emotion is amusing - Eliza's diatribe against Georgiana: "Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strenght; if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miseralbe. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon; you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered - you must have music, dancing, and society - or you languish, you die away..."
To which the reply from Georgiana eventually comes, "Eliza, you might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade."
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Chess Fad
Here are two books I have recently acquired and hope to delve into soon. The King's Gambit has the most enthralling opening chapter, and promises to be a rewarding read. Bobby Fisher has also been of deep interest of late, I find his obsession with chess to be quite intriguing. Even his statement "chess is life" warrants some attention. Apparently he was an outspoken anti-Semite, but I can't help but pity Fisher. Clearly there were issues in his head, but they were likely perpetuated by his being plunged into the dark world of competitive chess.
So Hoffman's King's Gambit might explain how chess affects people, how deeply chess captures people, and the Bobby Fisher book provides an in-depth case study to solidify the resounding consensus - that chess players are of an entirely different species.
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