Really enjoyed this Pulitzer Prize Winner, almost felt like a guilty pleasure.
Favorite Line:“a moral lasagna of questionable aesthetic choices”
I’veReally enjoyed this Pulitzer Prize Winner, almost felt like a guilty pleasure.
Favorite Line:“a moral lasagna of questionable aesthetic choices”
I’ve seen most of the shows covered, and those I haven’t seen (The Sopranos & Lost among others) were covered enough in pop culture to still be familiar.
Favorite part was the last chapter on Ryan Murphy. Love AHS, Nip/Tuck, Scream Queens—basically everything he does!...more
“It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is read“It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready to take advantage of them.”
It was probably unfair to read this so soon after Ron Chernow's Grant, which is still the best biography I've read to date.
Morris does an exceptional job—however—this book is filled with rather mundane minutia and not as much heart or character as I was hoping for. Maybe I just like an underdog story (Grant) more than a born into wealth, power and privilege memoir.
Still, Roosevelt's transformation from a sickly, scrawny science nerd to powerful politician was impressively delineated.
This 1980 Pulitzer Prize winner is meaty and informative, if a tad dry in spots. Looking forward to reading Theodore Rex and Colonel Roosevelt in the future.
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My favorite aspect of Roosevelt was his voracious appetite for literature. The following quote from Teddy Roosevelt's 10 Rules for Reading inspired me to pick up this book:
"He would read a book before breakfast every day, and depending on his schedule, another two or three in the evening (he was a speed reader extraordinaire). By his own estimates he read tens of thousands of books over the course of his lifetime."
“The president manages to get through one book a day even when he is busy. Owen Wister has lent him a book shortly before a full evening’s entertainment at the white house, and been astonished to hear a complete review of it over breakfast. “Somewhere between six one evening and eight-thirty next morning, beside his dressing and his dinner and his guests and his sleep, he had read a volume of three-hundred-and-odd pages, and missed nothing of significance that it contained.” — Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt...more
Newsflash: The earth and many of its species are dying and in danger of dying out.
Mildly entertaining (/sad) in regards to Kolbert’s fieldwork and haNewsflash: The earth and many of its species are dying and in danger of dying out.
Mildly entertaining (/sad) in regards to Kolbert’s fieldwork and hands on approach to investigating the sixth extinction. Middle of the road in terms of doomsday books.
The travel aspect was nice, and Less was okay ... but in lieu of cheesy titular puns, this novel was lacking much oomph.
How on earth did this win theThe travel aspect was nice, and Less was okay ... but in lieu of cheesy titular puns, this novel was lacking much oomph.
How on earth did this win the Pulitzer Prize? Was it because of the gay central character and the commentary on writers/authors? This was a "comedy"? Must have been a slow year for books, it almost makes me sad to think this was the best one available.
It was a love story, and not a particularly groundbreaking one. Not bad, not great; middle of the road.
Did you read this book? Do you feel it was Pulitzer worthy? Genuinely curious about your thoughts if and why you loved this book.
In other book news, it further dissuaded me from reading "In Search of Lost Time":
“Arthur Less’s life with Robert ended around the time he finished reading Proust. It was one of the grandest and most dismaying experiences in Less’s life—Marcel Proust, that is—and the three thousand pages of In Search of Lost Time took him five committed summers to finish.”...more
This book is heavy, laden with intricate detail and the minutiae that had to coalesce to create, and detonate the first atoA calamity of coincidences.
This book is heavy, laden with intricate detail and the minutiae that had to coalesce to create, and detonate the first atomic bombs.
It took me 3 months to read this weighty tome, the last chapter was especially nauseating.
It’s difficult to give a book like this on the mass murder of thousands of civilians a five star rating, but Rhodes did an impeccable job tying together all the threads that wove this dark tapestry in world history. From the men who discovered, and decided to build the atomic bomb—once set in motion the end was almost inescapable.
Could the Allies have won WWII without it? Were the justifications sound?
All we have is conjecture and opinion, the deed was done.
This book lays out the entire surrounding history in a dry, matter of fact way devoid of judgement.
Rhodes is an exceptional historian and the details are important lest we ever forget and repeat such atrocities.
Another book I didn't understand the hype about ... Found it disgusting, irritating, and a bummer of a chore. But I finished it. Another book I didn't understand the hype about ... Found it disgusting, irritating, and a bummer of a chore. But I finished it. ...more
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