Something Cool

[nightdog_barks]

A little site called Bookseer.com, which recommends what to read. You enter the title and author of the last book you've read, and Bookseer gives you some suggestions. I entered Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering, and here's what Bookseer recommended:

* 2666 by Roberto Bolano
* The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
* The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
* The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson
* Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia by Roberto Saviano
* Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
* The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson
* D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor
* Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
* Home by Marilynne Robinson

I've already read one of these (Netherland), 2666 is actually in the other room, waiting to be read, and several of the others are on my "to-read" list.

Via one of my favorite blogs, Presurfer.

Comments

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Deconstruction: From Wikipedia, "Deconstruction is the name given by French philosopher Jacques Derrida to an approach (whether in philosophy, literary analysis, or in other fields) which rigorously pursues the meaning of a text to the point of undoing the oppositions on which it is apparently founded, and to the point of showing that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable or, indeed, impossible." By which it is a specific work that examines the basic premises and assumptions of a larger body of work and, in said examination, makes the attempt to understand what does or does not make said premises and assumptions succeed when placed under genuine scrutiny.

Reconstruction: From TV Tropes, "Reconstruction is possibly best defined in terms of the deconstruction that almost always precedes it. If deconstruction is the tearing down of a genre, then reconstruction is, naturally, an attempt to raise it from the ashes. If deconstruction is the firm, merciless hand of reality smashing down on the illusions we build to escape it, then reconstruction is the process of creating a newer, better dream in its place. While deconstruction seeks out the flaws in a theme or genre with malicious intent, reconstruction is a non-ironic celebration of what captured our interest in the first place."

Kingdom Come: A miniseries produced by DC comics examining current and past trends in superhero comics as told in a superhero comic, dealing with paragons of various eras, styles, and moral codes.

Animal Man: A fairly absurd superhero who, in the books suggested to me, was used by the author to examine the very medium of the stories and the "fourth wall" and the idea of metafiction, as well as blurring the reality of the writer and the world of his story.

Astro City: Throwback to the Silver Age when superheroes were unabashedly entertainment and idealistic characters, with modern writing influences that allow for a level of maturity in the discourse itself and growth of the characters, as well as their personalities and lives.

Powers: Similar to Astro City with a far more adult bent, rather than focusing on various people in a larger city it centers on the homicide division of a police force in a city with superheroes, dealing with the reality that one would encounter in such a place, such as the difficulties in performing autopsies on someone who's invulnerable.

[blackmare-9.livejournal.com]

I can't decide whether The Tick is a deconstruction, reconstruction, pure parody, or what -- and I'm not sure it matters, because it's hilarious.

Are you familiar?

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

I'd say parody. Any serious attempts at either deconstruction or reconstruction are swiftly passed by in favor of another laugh. Not terrifically familiar, but enough to know what you're talking about.

"I have POCKETS?"

[takes-a-fairy.livejournal.com]

Um...I can see how that would bug you...it would bug me too. I will definitely have to check my library for those. They sound like they're interesting reads. Thanks.