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It is Momo, the ragged little waif, who discovers what is happening. And it is Momo, with her uncanny ability to listen, her simplicity and honesty, who holds the key to salvation. She is the only one who can resist these soulless, corrupt creatures.

In this intricate and compelling story of a fantastic country, Momo sets out to destroy the enemy. The mysterious Professor Hora and his strangely gifted tortoise, Cassiopeia, will help her.]]> 237 Michael Ende Dane 4 fiction-read
Momo is one of those rare books that would do well in a fourth-grade classes, but is also strangely releveant to adults. The story centers around a girl named Momo who took residence in an ancient, abandoned amphitheater in an unnamed town, which is populated by a series of people who do small-town jobs (Bepo Streetsweeper, Nino who owns an inn, Guido Guide who works as a fake - albeit enterataining - tourist guide).

The story starts by painting Momo's life and place in the town, and details the downfall of the place to mysterious, grey men. The book deals heavily in the subject of time, and the squandering of it - and this is the genius of the plot. There is enough fantasy to hold a 10-year-old's attention, but plenty of substance to whet the apetite of an adult.

I can't help but think that this story rings of pre-globalized Europe, and considering that Ende is German, that would make sense. Momo is translated from German, and the diction often shows this, but that doesn't stop the book from being an incredibly enjoyable read.]]> 4.27 1973
author: Michael Ende
name: Dane
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2007/04/01
date added: 2014/02/23
shelves: fiction-read
review:
You cannot, repeat: cannot, go into this book with the expectations of "hard," realist fiction. Then again, if you know anything about Michael Ende (the author of the Never Ending Story), you won't.

Momo is one of those rare books that would do well in a fourth-grade classes, but is also strangely releveant to adults. The story centers around a girl named Momo who took residence in an ancient, abandoned amphitheater in an unnamed town, which is populated by a series of people who do small-town jobs (Bepo Streetsweeper, Nino who owns an inn, Guido Guide who works as a fake - albeit enterataining - tourist guide).

The story starts by painting Momo's life and place in the town, and details the downfall of the place to mysterious, grey men. The book deals heavily in the subject of time, and the squandering of it - and this is the genius of the plot. There is enough fantasy to hold a 10-year-old's attention, but plenty of substance to whet the apetite of an adult.

I can't help but think that this story rings of pre-globalized Europe, and considering that Ende is German, that would make sense. Momo is translated from German, and the diction often shows this, but that doesn't stop the book from being an incredibly enjoyable read.
]]> 26121 416 Joseph Heller 0684865130 Dane 4 fiction-read
I won't lie, there were points in reading this that I wanted to throw this out the window. At times, this reads more like a 350 page series of character sketches, but by the end Heller won me over. In short, I have more than a mild, literary man crush on Yossarian.

]]> 4.08 1961
author: Joseph Heller
name: Dane
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2011/07/11
shelves: fiction-read
review:
I expected a dirge with Catch 22. I went in fully bracing myself for another "All Quiet on the Western Front." What I got was a genuinely humorous and witty look at World War II, the military and war-in-general.

I won't lie, there were points in reading this that I wanted to throw this out the window. At times, this reads more like a 350 page series of character sketches, but by the end Heller won me over. In short, I have more than a mild, literary man crush on Yossarian.


]]> 97084
When one of the women is murdered, and Shane is the only suspect who doesn't care enough to act like he didn't do it, the question becomes just how he'll clear the good name he never had and doesn't particularly want: his own.]]> 240 Paul Neilan 0312351747 Dane 5 fiction-read 3.82 2006
author: Paul Neilan
name: Dane
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2006/07/01
date added: 2009/12/16
shelves: fiction-read
review:
This book wreaks of Palahniuk and it's probably more of an autobiography than anyone would like to admit. But that doesn't stop the book from being genuinely funny and thoroughly enjoyable.
]]> 242472
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.��

For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb will change the way you look at the world, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility,�� which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a landmark book—itself a black swan.]]> 480 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 1400063515 Dane 0 currently-reading 3.96 2007
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Dane
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2008/02/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 216363
This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.]]> 259 Philip K. Dick 0679740678 Dane 5 fiction-read
In The Main in the High Castle, you won't encounter any schizophrenic episodes, or instances were the reality experienced by the protagonists may (or may not be) elaborate illusions, but you will get an alternative history that calls question to perspective via culture rather than psychosis.

The novel centers around the experiences of people living in the United States post World War II, but after being defeated by the Japanese and the German Armies. The Axis has risen as a world power, and the West Coast U.S. is under the control of Japan, the East Coast is under Germany's rule and the Mid-West is essentially an independent zone.

Most of the reader's first-hand experience is in the west, and it's interesting to watch U.S. natives adapt to Japanese customs as it is not the dominant cultural force (think of the rest of the world adapting to the West under post-modern globalism). The cast in this novel is a mixture of Japanese and western characters, and this gives Dick the ability to play with interpretations of events from different cultural perspectives. Again, this serves to serve lucidity into the reading experience as several scenes are described, but from a different character's (and therefor cultural) perspective.

I wholly recommend this book to Dick fans, and as an introduction for non-Dick fan's as it maintains a more concrete narrative than his other works.]]> 3.64 1962
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Dane
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2008/01/01
date added: 2008/02/26
shelves: fiction-read
review:
Dick is generally known for his science fiction that blends mysticism and philosophy in a dystopian future. His novels and stories are products of his neurosis (he was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic and his condition was exasperated by amphetamine abuse) and his reaction to the rise of technology in the human condition. Generally, Dick's novels ask serious questions about humanity and consciousness, hence is plays on perspective and sometimes the unraveling of entire plots as the narrative calls into question the entire experience described by the narrator.

In The Main in the High Castle, you won't encounter any schizophrenic episodes, or instances were the reality experienced by the protagonists may (or may not be) elaborate illusions, but you will get an alternative history that calls question to perspective via culture rather than psychosis.

The novel centers around the experiences of people living in the United States post World War II, but after being defeated by the Japanese and the German Armies. The Axis has risen as a world power, and the West Coast U.S. is under the control of Japan, the East Coast is under Germany's rule and the Mid-West is essentially an independent zone.

Most of the reader's first-hand experience is in the west, and it's interesting to watch U.S. natives adapt to Japanese customs as it is not the dominant cultural force (think of the rest of the world adapting to the West under post-modern globalism). The cast in this novel is a mixture of Japanese and western characters, and this gives Dick the ability to play with interpretations of events from different cultural perspectives. Again, this serves to serve lucidity into the reading experience as several scenes are described, but from a different character's (and therefor cultural) perspective.

I wholly recommend this book to Dick fans, and as an introduction for non-Dick fan's as it maintains a more concrete narrative than his other works.
]]> 97078
"You are about to read a minority viewpoint."

With this intriguing introduction, George H. Smith sets out to demolish what he considers the most widespread and destructive of all the myths devised by man - the concept of a supreme being. With painstaking scholarship and rigorous arguments, Mr. Smith examines, dissects, and refutes the myriad "proofs" offered by theists - the defenses of sophisticated, professional theologians, as well as the average religious layman. He explores the historical and psychological havoc wrought by religion in general - and concludes that religious belief cannot have any place in the life of modern, rational man.

"It is not my purpose to convert people to atheism . . . (but to) demonstrate that the belief in God is irrational to the point of absurdity. If a person wishes to continue believing in a god, that is his prerogative, but he can no longer excuse his belief in the name of reason and moral necessity."]]> 355 George H. Smith 087975124X Dane 5 nonfiction-read 3.93 1979
author: George H. Smith
name: Dane
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2008/02/12
date added: 2008/02/12
shelves: nonfiction-read
review:
All about the rational/logical rebuttal against the concept of god (and God). This is quite simply one of the most life-changing books I've ever read.
]]> 89177
In his eagerly awaited follow-up to Under the Frog , Tibor Fischer offers another hilarious chronicle of an unusual dynamic duo in The Thought Gang -this time chasing after something quite different-and the London papers are even more enthusiastic.]]> 320 Tibor Fischer 0684830795 Dane 3 fiction-read
Allow me a quick synopsis.

A terminal slacker, drunkard, balding philosophy professor/philosopher named Eddie (our protagonist) sets out to flee his native London in the face of professional doom and pending legal action as he is found naked and hung over in a room full of child porn (no explanation on how or why he is there is ever provided).

He chooses France as his refuge as W) it is not London, X) he speaks French fluently, Y) there is an ample supply of wine and Z) Eddie is something of a foodie and France is the place to be if one is afflicted of this.

Once there, Eddie loses his luggage and most of his money. While trying to check into a cheap motel, he is the victim of an attempted mugging by an ex-convict named Hubert. Eddie had nothing to give Hubert, and the would-be mugger then becomes a guest Eddie's room.

Note on Hubert: he spent more than a decade in prison for bank robbery after his get-away car was stolen while it was parked outside the bank, and he only has one arm and one leg.

Penniless, Eddie decides to rob a bank with Hubert's guns (against his urging otherwise), and it goes splendidly. Hubert is then enamored by his philosophizing accomplice and subsequently declares himself a study of philosophy. Thus, there bank-robbing crew begins, and Hubert dubs their duo the Thought Gang.

In summary, the book seems compelling. In exercise, it is something else. While the story has all the ammunition for a wild ride through philosophy and literature, the author often becomes mired in his own prose.

Admittedly, this sort of novel requires a length of narrative interjection, and I doubt few authors could pull-it-off better than Fischer. In this regard, the best thing about this novel is that Fischer wrote it.

In terms of the narrative voice, the worse thing about this novel is that Fischer wrote it. He is obviously a capable author, wonderfully verbose and very knowledgeable in the field of philosophy.

So knowledgeable, in fact, that his playfulness with the field of philosophy can easily be considered grand standing - which also does the novel injustice by bringing the narrative to a complete stand still.

This stated, there is something endearing about the Thought Gang and I'd recommend it to others ... sort of.]]> 4.01 1994
author: Tibor Fischer
name: Dane
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2007/09/01
date added: 2007/09/21
shelves: fiction-read
review:
Tibor Fischer's novel Thought Gang presents, for me, a reader's paradox. On one hand, it is incredibly well written, genuinely funny and the plot premise is incredible.

Allow me a quick synopsis.

A terminal slacker, drunkard, balding philosophy professor/philosopher named Eddie (our protagonist) sets out to flee his native London in the face of professional doom and pending legal action as he is found naked and hung over in a room full of child porn (no explanation on how or why he is there is ever provided).

He chooses France as his refuge as W) it is not London, X) he speaks French fluently, Y) there is an ample supply of wine and Z) Eddie is something of a foodie and France is the place to be if one is afflicted of this.

Once there, Eddie loses his luggage and most of his money. While trying to check into a cheap motel, he is the victim of an attempted mugging by an ex-convict named Hubert. Eddie had nothing to give Hubert, and the would-be mugger then becomes a guest Eddie's room.

Note on Hubert: he spent more than a decade in prison for bank robbery after his get-away car was stolen while it was parked outside the bank, and he only has one arm and one leg.

Penniless, Eddie decides to rob a bank with Hubert's guns (against his urging otherwise), and it goes splendidly. Hubert is then enamored by his philosophizing accomplice and subsequently declares himself a study of philosophy. Thus, there bank-robbing crew begins, and Hubert dubs their duo the Thought Gang.

In summary, the book seems compelling. In exercise, it is something else. While the story has all the ammunition for a wild ride through philosophy and literature, the author often becomes mired in his own prose.

Admittedly, this sort of novel requires a length of narrative interjection, and I doubt few authors could pull-it-off better than Fischer. In this regard, the best thing about this novel is that Fischer wrote it.

In terms of the narrative voice, the worse thing about this novel is that Fischer wrote it. He is obviously a capable author, wonderfully verbose and very knowledgeable in the field of philosophy.

So knowledgeable, in fact, that his playfulness with the field of philosophy can easily be considered grand standing - which also does the novel injustice by bringing the narrative to a complete stand still.

This stated, there is something endearing about the Thought Gang and I'd recommend it to others ... sort of.
]]> 301801 A question of conspiracy; Rule by the few; A view from the few--
Modern secret societies. The Trilateral Commission; Council on Foreign Relations; Bilderbergers; Rockefellers; Morgans; Rothschilds; Secrets of money & the Federal Reserve System; Empire building; The Royal Institute of Internat'l Affairs: round tables; Rhodes & Ruskin; Skull & Bones; Tax-exempt foundations & alphabet agencies; It's news to us; Commentary
--The fingerprints of conspiracy. Report from Iron Mountain; Persian Gulf; Who pays the tab?; Vietnam; JFK opposed globalists; All the way with LBJ; Trading with the enemy; Korea; Rise of the Nazi cult; Theosophists, Thulists & other cultists; The Leader arrives; Hitler's support group; Hitler's fortune turns; Japan against the wall; WWII; Business as usual; WWI; A stimulus for war; The Russian Revolution; The rise of communism; Commentary
--Rebellion & revolution. War between the States; Secret society agitation; Preemptive strikes; The Anti-Masonic movement; The French Revolution; Jacobins & Jacobites; Sir Francis Bacon & the New Atlantis; The American Revolution; The Illuminati; Freemasonry; Count Saint-Germain & other magicians; Masonic plots; Freemasonry vs Christianity; Rosicrucians; Commentary
--Elder secret societies. Knights Templar; Assassins; Templar bankers & builders; Cathars; The Albigensian Crusade; The Templars' demise; The Priory of Sion; Merovingians; A far-reaching web; Commentary
--Ancient mysteries. The road to Rome; The Cabala; Ancient secrets & mysteries; Was there more to Moses?; All roads lead to Sumer; The Anunnaki; Floods & wars; Commentary]]> 480 Jim Marrs 0060931841 Dane 0 currently-reading 3.97 2000
author: Jim Marrs
name: Dane
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2007/09/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 22288
The stories are told by people who have all answered an ad headlined 'Artists Retreat: Abandon your life for three months'. They are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of 'real life' that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them.

But 'here' turns out to be a cavernous and ornate old theater where they are utterly isolated from the outside world - and where heat and power and, most importantly, food are in increasingly short supply. And the more desperate the circumstances become, the more desperate the stories they tell - and the more devious their machinations to make themselves the hero of the inevitable play/movie/non-fiction blockbuster that will certainly be made from their plight.]]> 419 Chuck Palahniuk 1400032822 Dane 3 fiction-read
Outstanding selections: Hot Potting and Guts.]]> 3.60 2005
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Dane
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2007/08/01
date added: 2007/09/21
shelves: fiction-read
review:
This is more of a collection of short stories bound together by way of a horror-suspense plot. It offers a few tired plot twists and surprises, all of which are over-shadowed by the force of the individual short stories.

Outstanding selections: Hot Potting and Guts.
]]> 404048
"A turbo-charged, deliciously manic satire of contemporary American life." -- Newsday

"The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage," according to the "been there, done that" wisdom of Tender Branson, last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult. At the opening of Chuck Palahniuk's hilariously unnerving second novel, Tender is cruising on autopilot, 39,000 feet up, dictating the whole of his life story into Flight 2039's "black box" in the final moments before crashing into the vast Australian outback.

Not since Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night has there been as dark and telling a satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy of the modern world. Wickedly incisive and mesmerizing, Survivor is Chuck Palahniuk at his deadpan peak.]]> 289 Chuck Palahniuk 0385498721 Dane 2 fiction-read
A number of the literary devices got on my nerves (mostly as a reaction to repetition).]]> 3.81 1999
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Dane
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1999
rating: 2
read at: 2007/08/01
date added: 2007/09/21
shelves: fiction-read
review:
This is probably the weakest of Palahniuk's offerings. His formula of identity reached its sorry peak in this work, and a lot of it seemed to just talk at me.

A number of the literary devices got on my nerves (mostly as a reaction to repetition).
]]> 94759
Father Jared Osborne has received an extraordinary assignment from his Investigate an itinerant preacher stirring up deep trouble in central Europe. His followers all him B, but his enemies say he’s something the Antichrist. However, the man Osborne tracks across a landscape of bars, cabarets, and seedy meeting halls is no blasphemous monster—though an earlier era would undoubtedly have rushed him to the burning stake. For B claims to be enunciating a gospel written not on any stone or parchment but in our very genes, opening up a spiritual direction for humanity that would have been unimaginable to any of the prophets or saviors of traditional religion. Pressed by his superiors for a judgment, Osborne is driven to penetrate B’s inner circle, where he soon finds himself an anguished collaborator in the dismantling of his own religious foundations. More than a masterful novel of adventure and suspense, The Story of B is a rich source of compelling ideas from an author who challenges us to rethink our most cherished beliefs.]]> Daniel Quinn 0788166034 Dane 4 fiction-read
The plot is rather serving to the concepts presented in the book, and the characters strike me as flat, but again, Quinn presents such thought-provoking arguments that I deem it worthy of a few reads.]]> 3.94 1996
author: Daniel Quinn
name: Dane
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2006/08/01
date added: 2007/02/13
shelves: fiction-read
review:
This is a continuation of Ishmael. The narrative has vastly improved, and the drama is far more developed. This comes closer to becoming a story rather than a lecture.

The plot is rather serving to the concepts presented in the book, and the characters strike me as flat, but again, Quinn presents such thought-provoking arguments that I deem it worthy of a few reads.
]]> 17021 267 Daniel Quinn 0553078755 Dane 3 fiction-read
Disclaimers aside, the principals presented in Ishmael are thoroughly thought-provoking and intelligent. Ishmael works as a piece of non-fiction thinly veiled in a conversation, but as a drama, it lacks. If I could give the intellectual premise a separate rating, I'd man-sandwich this review in quadruple fives.

Reality being what it is, and the narrative also being what it is, I'll have to award it three stars. Oh wait, I did.]]> 3.79 1992
author: Daniel Quinn
name: Dane
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2006/08/01
date added: 2007/02/13
shelves: fiction-read
review:
Let's get something out of the way: I desperately hope to meet a psychic gorilla. I'd go to the zoo and stare at the silver backs if it didn't make me want to murder everything bipedal in sight.

Disclaimers aside, the principals presented in Ishmael are thoroughly thought-provoking and intelligent. Ishmael works as a piece of non-fiction thinly veiled in a conversation, but as a drama, it lacks. If I could give the intellectual premise a separate rating, I'd man-sandwich this review in quadruple fives.

Reality being what it is, and the narrative also being what it is, I'll have to award it three stars. Oh wait, I did.
]]>