The Smart Fool!

Once again I failed to be blown away by Oprah’s book choice. Middlesex was just alright in my opinion. There were lots of messed up characters trying to make sense of their lives but I think I just didn’t find it realistic.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is about a man, Henry, who has a genetic disorder that causes him to spontaneously time travel. As the title indicates, this book is also about Henry’s wife, Claire, who is stuck with a husband who disappears with no notice for an unknown length of time.

I was really excited when I finally picked up a copy of Ecoholic. My new, green life was about to begin. Unfortunately, the book was a bit of a disappointment. What it did really well was provide lots of information on the environmental pros and cons of all common household products, from clothes and beauty products to toys, cars, and holiday paraphernalia. The problem I had with the book was that replacing the environmentally bad with the environmentally good just doesn’t appear to be all that easy. A lot of the time, the alternatives suggested could only be ordered online or found at health food stores.

The Inheritance of Loss is set in India during a time of political unrest. The main theme of the novel appears to be the influence of the West on India and Indians, and more specifically, how that influence has oppressed and degraded India. The main character is Sai, an orphaned girl raised in a British-style boarding school in India, who goes to stay with her grandfather. Her grandfather left India in his youth to Cambridge to study to become a judge under British colonial rule. Other characters of importance in the novel are Gyan, Sai’s tutor and love interest, and the judge’s cook whose son Biju illegally immigrated to the US.

It's classic stereophonics, and if you know me at all, you know I'm going to recommend this album to you. Given my obvious bias I'm just gonna say go pick up the album, you'll thank me for it later.

Infidel is the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali who is well-known as a critique of the Islam religion. The book tells of her childhood in Somali, Ethiopia, and Kenya, focusing on her relationship with Islam. As a child, she gravitated towards her religion, but ultimately the contradictions between the supposed compassion and peace of Islam and the ignorance and violence of what she experienced of Islam caused her relationship to fracture, until she ultimately chose to consider herself an atheist.

I recently received an email that directed me to a website warning people away from seeing the movie based on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. The premise of the article is that Pullman is an evil atheist who is trying to destroy the idea of God in the minds of little children. His series was written to attain this purpose. The movie waters down the anti-religion themes in the books, presumably in order to alienate as few people as possible.

Twilight and New Moon are the first two novels in a new series written by Stephenie Meyer. Everyone seems to be looking for the next Harry Potter series, and this is no exception. Personally, I didn’t really find the two series comparable, even though I raved probably equally about both. The Harry Potter series seemed to me a bit more juvenile, with the fantasy elements providing the greatest entertainment.

As you know, I'm a huge radiohead fan. I've posted about them before, and I decided that I'd wait a while before I wrote out my opinion of the album. I didn't want my bias to creep into my article, but I decided that that was inevitable, so here I am. This is by far a more commercial album for radiohead, given their last three albums, this one isn't nearly as experimental as KID A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief, but I must admit this is quickly becoming one of my favorite albums. It's a nice mish-mash of Hail to the Thief and the Bends (maybe). Actually, more specifically, this album is Talk Show Host, if you love that track you'll love this album! On a whole it's great, and even more importantly, they way they released it was great!

Every time the track part 2 comes on in iTunes randomly, I immediately think it it's a Pink Floyd track from their Animals album. This album has some very poignant floydian undertones, and I have to say that I really like it. You often here bands being compared to them, but I never see the parallel, and frankly, I don't really want to either. This completely caught me off guard though, as I knew very little about the band, and even less about their album. Now, by no means is this album a clone of Floyd's work, and it offers a completely unique sound to the listener. For all I know no one else will see this connection, but it gets me every time. This album can't be classified in my opinion, and i'm completely happy about that.