Bookish Business

The business here is books, so get ready for book reviews, photos, humour and discussions. I do write stuff! It's not just about the pretty pictures. On occasion, I will even bore you with some educational bits and will dabble in creative writing. So please stay and enjoy.

[onthebookroad]

Miracles and Absurditiesu

Rating  ★★★★★ Summary A man with a peculiar (to say the least) outlook on life, a stranger to its joys and tragedies, commits an apparently unintended murder, stands trial, and comes to grips with his existence. Review Look at your hand. Fingers, nails, knuckles… Palm. The colour of your skin, the creases on it and the veins under it. Maybe a paper cut or a blister. Look around your room or the…

View On WordPress

[onthebookroad]

All the Light We Cannot See: Close, but...

All the Light We Cannot See

Rating ★★★★ Summary  The lives of a blind French girl and a gifted German boy, and the destiny of an ancient diamond, become intertwined during the liberation of the town of Saint-Malo, France in 1944. Review  So many things about this novel felt perfect. (more…)

View On WordPress

[ebookfriendly]

For the lovers of Penguin books / art print by Michelle Thompson http://ebks.to/1tcvlOV

[onthebookroad]

Much like a common newspaper report, the book is broad in scope and full of sensational details, but lacks depth and thoughtfulness. It is illogically organized, parts of it evidently intend only to shock and awe, and it did not leave me with a better understanding of "the method and madness of monsters."

PS: this book is paired with makeup because I was tagged on Instagram to post a photo under a #booksandmakeup hashtag. I couldn’t think of why or how makeup and books would go together, but it seemed appropriate to put a symbol of femininity with a book about those who so brutally destroy it (the overwhelming majority of serial killers are males who kill women).  

Full review on my main blog.

[onthebookroad]

And the Mountains Echoed is a solid book – distinct, well-written, broad in scope and emotional. But it's still not right. It has the stale and drawn-out air of a long life story as told by a very old man, both in its style and subtle sexism. And it seems disingenuous in its conspiracy to make the reader cry.

Full review on my main blog.

[vintagebooksdesign]

VINTAGE MAGIC

With hand-drawn typography influenced by a series of 1960’s John O’Hara novels, the Vintage design team has conjured up this playful new series. By collecting all nine you can reveal the classic poster on the reverse. (see the magic happen on our Facebook page!)

The poster was supplied by the Science and Society Picture Library. It dates from 1910 and was a stock magic poster used by smaller acts where performance names could simply be inserted into a strip at the top of the image, which would explain why so many different types of magic acts are represented. To be published October 2014 by Vintage.

[typeworship]

Covered in characters

Above are a few of the typographically led book cover designs from the David Pearson exhibition, currently on in London.  

I love the ‘redacted’ George Orwell, 1984, cover with it’s debossed title under black ink. I was also quite taken with the chilling cover for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

There’s a week left to go, so if you find yourself in Shoreditch, London before the 28th June, drop in.

David Pearson is an acclaimed British designer, famed for his beautiful series of Penguin book cover designs.

David studied at Central St Martins in London (1999–2002) before taking a job at Penguin Books as text designer and later, cover designer. He left to establish his own studio – Type as Image – in 2007.

David played a key role in the recent re-emergence of Penguin Books through projects such as the multi-million selling Great Ideas series, Penguin by Design and thePopular Classics series. He has won numerous awards for book design, has been listed as one of Britain’s Top 50 Designers by the Guardian and nominated for the Design Museum’s Designer of the Year Award.

[onthebookroad]

I want all of these... <3

[escapekit]

Papers for Characters

Spanish design studio Atipo has created a collection of minimalistic movie posters that are made from paper. 

Awesome. 

[onthebookroad]

Reading this was inevitable, and a review is now on the main blog! The randomness of how suffering is meted out in the universe made me very emotional, as did the novel's dark humour and rumination on what it is like to live a life that will soon be over. Nonetheless, I don't think I will ever read another John Green book. His style and world is implausible and unique, which is fresh at first, but, I anticipate, will quickly lose its appeal for me. 

Full review here.

[onthebookroad]

A new post on my main blog today! A review of Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, written as part of a Human Resources Management course taken in Winter 2014:

“The blunt truth is that men still run the world” (Sandberg, 2013, p. 5).

After decades of struggles and successes, how come women are still severely underrepresented as leaders of countries and corporations? According to Sheryl Sandberg (2013), it is a “chicken-and-egg situation”: the “chicken” is that women will break down barriers to leadership when they are leaders, but the “egg” is that those barriers need to be broken to get women into leadership in the first place (p. 8). In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg focuses on the “chicken”: on how women can become leaders even in the presence of institutional barriers to their success, by first breaking down the barriers that are internal to themselves. With personal stories, advice and inspiration, and with occasionally humorous and always sensitive narration, the book looks to help young women overcome their hesitance to strive for leadership positions, which Sandberg (2013) calls “the leadership ambition gap” (p. 15) and “lean in to [their] career,” (Sandberg, 2013, p. 25) despite the obstacles that lie in the way of their leadership success.

Read more on my main blog. 

[forgottengenres]

Today is Allen Ginsberg's Birthday

Allen Ginsberg, one of the founding members of the beat poet movement in the early 20th century, would have turned 88 today. Some of Ginsberg’s most notable works include Howl and Other Poems and Kaddish and Other Poems.

[forgottengenres]

Genius gives birth, talent delivers.

Jack Kerouac (via thatlitsite)

[onthebookroad]

On Heinlein’s future Earth, only military service entitles one to Citizenship and voting privileges. We follow a high school student as he joins the Army because of a girl, but soon comes to treasure his role, as the planet becomes embroiled in an interplanetary war… with Bugs. 

This book was most remarkable for presenting an idealized army atmosphere of camaraderie, honour and adventure (a feat for which, I hear, it had been placed on the recommended reading list of the US Air Force), as well as the intriguing idea of limited democracy: one can only vote after serving in the Army, after learning "social responsibility." However, the book overall seems blunt - ideas are presented through explicit dialogue, and the narrator's limited perspective excludes discussion for the reasons and strategy behind the Bug War.

I also recommend checking out the author's biography (Wikipedia is great for starters) - it seems like he was a fascinating man. 

Full review on my main blog. 

[onthebookroad]

A story of humanity, with a promise that the past needn't dictate the present. A work that contextualizes high school into the larger life experience, rather than position it as the centre of the universe.

Warm, beautiful, and insightful.

Rating: 5/5

Full review on my main blog.

[onthebookroad]

About a year ago, I rediscovered my love of reading.

Then, I realized that just reading is not enough.

I had to collect, organize and review each book. Find out why here, and then tell me your story. Why do you run a book blog?

PS: my bookshelf catalogue is here.

[onthebookroad]

Oliver Sacks once again undertakes to help us dive into the mysteries of our own brain, this time focusing on the strange experiences of hallucinations, discussing how they shaped our myths, art and literature, and how our understanding of this surprisingly common phenomenon has evolved.

Brilliantly told as always, the book is valuable for helping us understand how hallucinations may have shaped our myths, art and literature, how our understanding of them evolved, and for reducing the stigma associated with experiencing them. Check out my full review here to learn a little bit more, and read a "delicious" side-note for bookworms, about how hallucinations may have influenced the work of Dostoyevsky. Then go pick up this volume!

Rating: 4/5

[onthebookroad]

I'm not much for reading romance, and wouldn't have picked this up after the movie had I not run out of reading materials on vacation and been forced to raid my sister's stash. I'm very glad I did. The book isn't the generic love story it was reduced to in the movie. It's an intimate look into what mental illness feels like, and a story of two people who need each other because few can understand their trauma. 

Pat, who has bipolar disorder, "practices being kind rather than right." He is occasionally violent, but is also somehow better and more innocent and kind than those who surround him. It made me think that if we're the sane ones, then why are we the ones who are so cynical, angry and intolerant?

See my full review on my main blog, www.bookishbusiness.wordpress.com.