Leonard's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:36:32 -0700 60 Leonard's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Leonard 5 currently-reading 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/08/07
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]]> The Names 408 The Names is considered the book which began to drive "sharply upward the size of his readership" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Among the cast of DeLillo's bizarre yet fully realized characters in The Names are Kathryn, the narrator's estranged wife; their son, the six-year-old novelist; Owen, the scientist; and the neurotic narrator obsessed with his own neuroses. A thriller, a mystery, and still a moving examination of family, loss, and the amorphous and magical potential of language itself, The Names stands with any of DeLillo's more recent and highly acclaimed works.

"The Names not only accurately reflects a portion of our contemporary world but, more importantly, an original world of its own is created."--Chicago Sun-Times

"DeLillo sifts experience through simultaneous grids of science and poetry, analysis and clear sight, to make a high-wire prose that is voluptuously stark."--Village Voice Literary Supplement

"DeLillo verbally examines every state of consciousness from eroticism to tourism, from the idea of America as conceived by the rest of the world, to the idea of the rest of the world as conceived by America, from mysticism to fanaticism."--New York Times]]> 339 Don DeLillo 0679722955 Leonard 0 to-read 3.64 1982 The Names
author: Don DeLillo
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/15
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]]> Mao II 402 The New York Times), Don DeLillo presents an extraordinary new novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist. At the heart of the book is Bill Gray, a famous reclusive writer who escapes the failed novel he has been working on for many years and enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms. Bill's dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover—and Bill's.]]> 241 Don DeLillo 0140152741 Leonard 4 3.69 1991 Mao II
author: Don DeLillo
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1991
rating: 4
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]]> Libra 400
In this powerful, unsettling novel, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped.

A gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, alive with meticulously portrayed characters both real and created, Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche.]]> 480 Don DeLillo 0140156046 Leonard 5 4.05 1988 Libra
author: Don DeLillo
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1988
rating: 5
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]]> White Noise 11762 310 Don DeLillo 0140283307 Leonard 5 3.86 1985 White Noise
author: Don DeLillo
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1985
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/06/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality]]> 18918 The status of women and the role of violence in contemporary culture and politics.

The experience of the Yugoslav war and the rise of "irrational" violence in contemporary societies provides the theoretical and political context of this book, which uses Lacanian psychoanalysis as the basis for a renewal of the Marxist theory of ideology. The author's analysis leads into a study of the figure of woman in modern art and ideology, including studies of The Crying Game and the films of David Lynch, and the links between violence and power/gender relations.]]> 240 Slavoj Žižek 1844670619 Leonard 0 to-read 3.81 1994 The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality
author: Slavoj Žižek
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life]]> 201388
A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece. Built from aphorisms and reflections, he shifts in register from personal experience to the most general theoretical problems.]]> 256 Theodor W. Adorno 1844670511 Leonard 0 to-read 4.25 1951 Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life
author: Theodor W. Adorno
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1951
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/01
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]]> A Farewell to Arms 10799 A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.]]> 293 Ernest Hemingway 0099910101 Leonard 0 to-read 3.83 1929 A Farewell to Arms
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Totalitarianism]]> 396931 Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism and an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history

The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.]]> 527 Hannah Arendt Leonard 0 to-read 4.30 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism
author: Hannah Arendt
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1951
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/12/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil]]> 52090 The New Yorker, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann sparked a flurry of debate upon its publication.

This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence,

Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling and unsettled issues of the twentieth century that remains hotly debated to this day.]]> 312 Hannah Arendt Leonard 0 currently-reading 4.22 1963 Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
author: Hannah Arendt
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/12/31
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Sex, Drugs & Economics: An Unconventional Introduction to Economics]]> 601 280 Diane Coyle 1587991829 Leonard 0 economics, to-read 3.49 2002 Sex, Drugs & Economics: An Unconventional Introduction to Economics
author: Diane Coyle
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/12/31
shelves: economics, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mortified 2: Love is a Battlefield]]> 822610
From starter girlfriends to escapist fantasies to delusional attempts to stand out amongst their peers, Mortified: Love Is a Battlefield revisits the boundlessly embarrassing topic of childhood love, uncovering priceless artifacts of authentic teen angst that tell of unrequited crushes, awkward hookups, odd celebrity infatuations, and all manner of romantic catastrophes. The now older (and allegedly wiser) authors of these letters, lyrics, and journals bravely share their shame in stories that range from sweetly hopeful to borderline psychotic.

Everyone who ever obsessed over whether that guy or girl in algebra class liked them, or, y'know, liked them liked them, will relish this funny and touching valentine to our collective past]]> 285 David Nadelberg 1416954791 Leonard 5 3.54 2008 Mortified 2: Love is a Battlefield
author: David Nadelberg
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2008/01/01
date added: 2016/12/31
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review:
Not only is this book amazing, I'M PUBLISHED IN IT!!!
]]> Underworld 11761
Underworld opens with a breathlessly graceful prologue set during the final game of the Giants-Dodgers pennant race in 1951. Written in what DeLillo calls "super-omniscience" the sentences sweep from young Cotter Martin as he jumps the gate to the press box, soars over the radio waves, runs out to the diamond, slides in on a fast ball, pops into the stands where J. Edgar Hoover is sitting with a drunken Jackie Gleason and a splenetic Frank Sinatra, and learns of the Soviet Union's second detonation of a nuclear bomb. It's an absolutely thrilling literary moment. When Bobby Thomson hits Branca's pitch into the outstretched hand of Cotter—the "shot heard around the world"—and Jackie Gleason pukes on Sinatra's shoes, the events of the next few decades are set in motion, all threaded together by the baseball as it passes from hand to hand.

"It's all falling indelibly into the past," writes DeLillo, a past that he carefully recalls and reconstructs with acute grace. Jump from Giants Stadium to the Nevada desert in 1992, where Nick Shay, who now owns the baseball, reunites with the artist Kara Sax. They had been brief and unlikely lovers 40 years before, and it is largely through the events, spinoffs, and coincidental encounters of their pasts that DeLillo filters the Cold War experience. He believes that "global events may alter how we live in the smallest ways," and as the book steps back in time to 1951, over the following 800-odd pages, we see just how those events alter lives. This reverse narrative allows the author to strip away the detritus of history and pop culture until we get to the story's pure elements: the bomb, the baseball, and the Bronx. In an epilogue as breathless and stunning as the prologue, DeLillo fast-forwards to a near future in which ruthless capitalism, the Internet, and a new, hushed faith have replaced the Cold War's blend of dread and euphoria.

Through fragments and interlaced stories—including those of highway killers, artists, celebrities, conspiracists, gangsters, nuns, and sundry others—DeLillo creates a fragile web of connected experience, a communal Zeitgeist that encompasses the messy whole of five decades of American life, wonderfully distilled.]]> 827 Don DeLillo 0330369954 Leonard 5 3.95 1997 Underworld
author: Don DeLillo
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2016/12/31
date added: 2016/12/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community]]> 478 The Economist hailed as "a prodigious achievement."

Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures--whether they be PTA, church, or political parties--have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe.

Like defining works from the past, such as The Lonely Crowd and The Affluent Society, and like the works of C. Wright Mills and Betty Friedan, Putnam's Bowling Alone has identified a central crisis at the heart of our society and suggests what we can do.]]> 544 Robert D. Putnam 0743203046 Leonard 4
I'll save you hours of your life and give you the summary: Throughout the twentieth century, more and more Americans were participating in clubs, having dinner parties, going to church, volunteering, working on political campaigns--until the 1970s. Then, this steady increase in partipation became a sharp drop, and civic life continues to decline.

Various things could have caused the decline: women entering the work force, racial integration, the internet, longer commutes, busier work schedules. Really, though, the evidence points to two main things that caused this decline: television and generational differences (the baby boomers were less likely to volunteer, Gen X even moreso, and so on).

This is a shame, because people who are involved in civic life (even something as small as playing cards or hosting dinner parties) are more likely to vote, to volunteer, to have friends, to create safe neighborhoods, to make more money, etc, etc.

This book might just finally get my ass in gear to do the volunteering I've been talking about.]]> 3.84 2000 Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
author: Robert D. Putnam
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2007/11/01
date added: 2013/12/20
shelves:
review:
God this book is painstaking. (Read: painful.) It's good, it's thorough, and I read all five hundred pages or whatever. But the writing style induces anguish. It's so full of qualifications like: "But this correlation doesn't imply causality" or "Even when we hold race, class, gender, education, and imcome constant..."

I'll save you hours of your life and give you the summary: Throughout the twentieth century, more and more Americans were participating in clubs, having dinner parties, going to church, volunteering, working on political campaigns--until the 1970s. Then, this steady increase in partipation became a sharp drop, and civic life continues to decline.

Various things could have caused the decline: women entering the work force, racial integration, the internet, longer commutes, busier work schedules. Really, though, the evidence points to two main things that caused this decline: television and generational differences (the baby boomers were less likely to volunteer, Gen X even moreso, and so on).

This is a shame, because people who are involved in civic life (even something as small as playing cards or hosting dinner parties) are more likely to vote, to volunteer, to have friends, to create safe neighborhoods, to make more money, etc, etc.

This book might just finally get my ass in gear to do the volunteering I've been talking about.
]]> <![CDATA[Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life]]> 101446 -- Joe Queenan, The Wall Street Journal

The Armchair Economist is a wonderful little book, written by someone for whom English is a first (and beloved) language, and it contains not a single graph or equation...Landsburg presents fascinating concepts in a form easily accessible to noneconomists.

-- Erik M. Jensen, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

...enormous fun from its opening page...Landsburg has done something extraordinary: He has expounded basic economic principles with wit and verve.

-- Dan Seligman, Fortune

]]> 256 Steven E. Landsburg 0029177766 Leonard 3 3.76 1993 Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life
author: Steven E. Landsburg
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1993
rating: 3
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date added: 2008/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Leonard 4 4.01 2005 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/11/02
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Random Walk Down Wall Street]]> 900892
A Random Walk Down Wall Street is well established as a staple of the business shelf, the first book any investor should read before taking the plunge and starting a portfolio. With its life-cycle guide to investing, it matches the needs of investors at any age bracket. Burton G. Malkiel shows how to analyze the potential returns, not only for stocks and bonds but also for the full range of investment opportunities, from money market accounts and real estate investment trusts to insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets like gold and collectibles.


Whether you want to verse yourself in the ways of the market before talking to a broker or follow Malkiel's easy steps to managing your own portfolio, this book remains the best investing guide money can buy.]]> 464 Burton G. Malkiel 0393325350 Leonard 4 economics 4.05 1973 A Random Walk Down Wall Street
author: Burton G. Malkiel
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2007/11/01
date added: 2007/11/02
shelves: economics
review:
I've been on this Economics kick lately: listening to Marketplace, reading other laymen's Econ books. This is basically an intro guide to investing. It's not Investing for Dummies, though. It's very clearly written but still manages some very complex ideas. I'd enjoyed it and feel confident to start investing as a result.
]]> <![CDATA[I Know You're Out There: Private Longings, Public Humiliations, and Other Tales from the Personals]]> 121571
“It might be my imagination, but it seems like most people in the building tend to steer clear of me. I’m the one who gets the weird phone calls, the strange visitors, and disturbing mail.�

“My last great love affair didn’t work out—many don’t, but maybe the next one might, and if not, maybe the one after that. There may not be someone for everyone; there may not be a God in heaven, or peace on earth either. But that doesn’t mean you just sit around at home, doing nothing.”]]> 221 Michael Beaumier 0307338096 Leonard 5 memoirs
One of my favorite This American Life segments is the prologue to "Time to Save the World." Michael Beaumier, who runs the personals ads in the Chicago Reader, talks about a shy man who placed a 'Missed Connections' ad every week about a new woman. Heard it? If not, I won't ruin it, but you should listen to it now. If so, you have an inkling of just how amazing these stories will be.

These are Beaumier's memoirs about working on the personals, helping people find their soulmates even though his relationship is on the fritz. How he gets involved in people's lives even though he knows he shouldn't. How he watches people gradually change their ads until they become something else entirely. But also how his mother collects Irish knick-knacks. And how his boyfriend is a hypochondriac. Man, that's a terrible summary. Just read it!

I know they're huge shoes to fill, but if you like David Sedaris or David Rakoff, you'll also like Beaumier. He's hilarious and disconcertingly wise.]]> 3.25 2006 I Know You're Out There: Private Longings, Public Humiliations, and Other Tales from the Personals
author: Michael Beaumier
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2007/11/01
date added: 2007/11/02
shelves: memoirs
review:
This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. So funny that I cannot believe I'd never heard about it. I thought I knew all the NPR humorists, but I stumbled across this gem a few days ago and couldn't put it down. A small part of me is paranoid that all you hipsters knew about this book ages ago, and I'm only catching on now.

One of my favorite This American Life segments is the prologue to "Time to Save the World." Michael Beaumier, who runs the personals ads in the Chicago Reader, talks about a shy man who placed a 'Missed Connections' ad every week about a new woman. Heard it? If not, I won't ruin it, but you should listen to it now. If so, you have an inkling of just how amazing these stories will be.

These are Beaumier's memoirs about working on the personals, helping people find their soulmates even though his relationship is on the fritz. How he gets involved in people's lives even though he knows he shouldn't. How he watches people gradually change their ads until they become something else entirely. But also how his mother collects Irish knick-knacks. And how his boyfriend is a hypochondriac. Man, that's a terrible summary. Just read it!

I know they're huge shoes to fill, but if you like David Sedaris or David Rakoff, you'll also like Beaumier. He's hilarious and disconcertingly wise.
]]> <![CDATA[Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science]]> 33293 Naked Economics makes up for all of those Econ 101 lectures you slept through (or avoided) in college, demystifying key concepts, laying bare the truths behind the numbers, and answering those questions you have always been too embarrassed to ask. For all the discussion of Alan Greenspan in the media, does anyone know what the Fed actually does? And what about those blackouts in California? Were they a conspiracy on the part of the power companies? Economics is life. There's no way to understand the important issues without it. Now, with Charles Wheelan's breezy tour, there's no reason to fear this highly relevant subject. With the commonsensical examples and brilliantly acerbic commentary we've come to associate with The Economist, Wheelan brings economics to life. Amazingly, he does so with nary a chart, graph, or mathematical equation in sight—certainly a feat to be witnessed firsthand.


Economics is a crucial subject. There's no way to understand the important issues without it. Now, with Charles Wheelan's breezy tour, there's also no reason to fear it.]]> 260 Charles Wheelan 0393324869 Leonard 5 economics 3.96 2002 Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
author: Charles Wheelan
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2007/08/01
date added: 2007/09/25
shelves: economics
review:
I loved this book. A straight-forward, simple explanation of Economics. It uses very specific case studies to illustrate the broad theories of Economics. It sounds weird, but I honestly couldn't put it down. I read it in less than a week.
]]> <![CDATA[Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim]]> 10176 --davidsedarisbooks.com]]> 257 David Sedaris 0965904830 Leonard 4 4.12 2004 Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
author: David Sedaris
name: Leonard
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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date added: 2007/09/25
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]]> Dry 4435 304 Augusten Burroughs 1843541858 Leonard 2 memoirs Addiction is harrowing. 3.90 2003 Dry
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Leonard
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2007/02/23
shelves: memoirs
review:
Addiction is harrowing.
]]>