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Joel B

Joel B

Check out the best books I've read lately: http://crunchygods.blogspot.com/
I've read all the books on my "Read" shelf, and I plan to read all the books on my "Plan to Read" shelf, if I live long enough! I love fiction that expresses the overwhelming beauty and sadness of the world, and if it makes me laugh out loud, that's a bonus. I like... more »
  • Denver, Co, USA
  • member since December 1 2007

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Public Notes

  • Robin636

    Robin636 says

    hey Joel,
    long time no...just made a 90 second movie based on a poem from my MEN AT WORK bk...here's da link: www.youtube.com/user/msrobinglasser ....lemme know whacha think...let your friends know, too...many thanks...read any good bks lately? i adored The Book Thief and City of Thieves...

    posted 10 days ago. ( send a note )
  • rob

    rob says

    well, I havent read much of it yet, to be honest...I tend to do that a lot, start a book, then get easily distracted by other books...but I did like what I read so far quite a bit...

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    I've started The March.

    JH

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    What is Illusions about , Joel?

    JH

    posted 3 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Margaret D

    Margaret D says

    Well, it has the standard elements of the heroic fantasy. But they're standard because they work. And .. this book doesn't do just what you'd expect with them, so there's originality there also. The main character had a practical down-to-earth bent that you don't always see, and I found refreshing.

    I like stories about unusually talented people who are discovering and coming into the fullness of their powers. I like stories about learning and growing.

    It's told as a story inside a frame. I wasn't that excited by the frame, but it's a small part of the whole. So give the book a couple of chapters to get into the inside story.

    It's well-written. The author has a good command of words and sentences and it all flows smoothly from that perspective (except that he and his editor are very poor at the difference between "lie" and "lay" and they can't spell "all right").

    Beyond that, rather than analyze, I'll just say that some books touch and stir you while most don't. And this one did. Made life more intense, made me think about being a better person.

    posted 5 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Margaret D

    Margaret D says

    Hey Joel -- long time no log in but I finally came across a book or two that I thought were worth mentioning. Have you read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss?

    posted 5 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Carlos M

    Carlos M says

    I made a stop at page 300 :P I'm loving it, but I have to be fully concentrate in the book (English is not my mother tongue as I suppose you've noticed ) :-/ For me is like open a complete different world, think about paradoxes, loops, ... I really enjoy books that show me something different, from another perspective and take different issues and connect them. I have study some of this aspects in my degree, but this book goes further more than any subject I've ever study :)

    posted 6 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Carlos M

    Carlos M says

    Thank you for adding me :) I hope we'd share comments about some books..

    Regards

    posted 7 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    Water for Elephants is so good. Consider adding it to your "to read" list.

    JH : )

    posted 8 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    I've added Cloud Atlas. I thought you'd read Griffin and Sabine. Maybe I got that confused with some other illustrated books you've read.

    Jim

    posted 8 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    I'm currently reading The Venetian's Wife, by Nick Bantock. It's the only Bantock book the library has. Will try to get the Griffin and Sabine books through inter-library loan. Also, I just started Water for Elephants. It's GOOD.

    JH

    posted 8 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    Likewise, Joel. You really should get paid for writing book reviews. You're quite good at it.

    JH

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    Yeah, I finally posted a pic. I liked a couple of the ones that you sent and some others that I Googled (Hopper, Hudson River School, etc.) but I finally decided just to skip the symbolism and post a picture of myself. So consider it done, dude.

    JH

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Margaret D

    Margaret D says

    The writer does a good job of pointing out the strangeness you refer to -- how personalities change, how ego gets involved, and so on.

    Let me know how you liked it.

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Margaret D

    Margaret D says

    Yes. Filled with interesting counterintuitive facts, and easy to read.

    It mostly boils down to "you can't manage traffic by modeling human behavior because as soon as you change the system, humans change their behavior in unexpected ways in order to game the system." But it's interesting to see that in operation.

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    I'm not sure. I'm definitely in a hall, a series of halls and interconnecting rooms inside a larger structure, and I'm moving, but not striding. More accurately, there is a sense of movement. I appear to be moving (although presently I'm stopped), but I can't tell if I'm moving or if whatever I'm in is moving. Whether mansion, museum, labyrinth, or catacombs, I cannot say. Maybe aspects of each. It has an organic quality, and it may be sentient. I sense that it senses me, and although it is not necessarily sentient, there is some sense of mutual awareness and movement, as though it moves, shifts, and adjusts in response to my movements. Kind of like phototropism or the tremor of a bug in a web. Stimulus-response. It is very old, and I sense that parts of it are alive. I am presently in a high-ceilinged room of covered furniture. It is an upstairs room, and though roomy, it is not large in proportion to the furniture, several pieces of which are tall and rather massive and shroud-covered. I think it was a bedroom at one time, then a storage room, hence the disarray of shrouded, indeterminate furniture. There are two wide, tall windows covered with semi-transparent, dusty, whitish curtains or drapes (actually both, but the drapes are pulled back) which hang down to the floor. At least that's my impression, although I can't really tell because of the clutter of furniture. It must be daytime because diffuse light is filtering through the gauzy curtains behind which are semi-opaque window panes, or perhaps some are milky due to age and neglect. There is a topiary outside, although I cannot see it. I am ten to fifteen feet away from the window, and even if I walked over there (which I'm not), I couldn't see very well without throwing back the curtains and opening a window, which is probably stuck, not having been opened in a long time. This is where I am now. When I check on myself later today or whenever, I will probably have moved. If interested, I can keep you posted as to my whereabouts.

    Jim

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    Still romping down the halls of Babel? Oh, deviant youth!

    JH

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Robin636

    Robin636 says

    hope you get all you want in the new year

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    Patience, my lad. It takes a while for us geezers to do anything. Even simple things.

    JH : )

    posted 11 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jim H

    Jim H says

    I don't know how to load it. I'll get Sherry to show me. : )

    posted 11 months ago. ( send a note )


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