Nhân Danh Tập Chí - Tài Liệu Về Tổ Chức Và Tục Lệ Của Làng Quê Bắc Kì (Song ngữ Pháp-Việt) tải về miễn phí cuốn sách

Pablo Guambana pguambana — (Original pub date: 1991) This is a collection of "modern" (compiled in 1991) Japanese short stories. Except, many of them aren't even short stories, I discovered, but excerpts from novellas. What the heck was the editor thinking?!? It destroys the integrity of the work if you cut half of it out; there's almost no point in reading it at all. It's like a sampler of various author's writing styles, presented without any possibility of deriving some meaning from the work. Some of it was ok, and most of it was really out there, but the realization that a lot of them weren't actually short stories killed it for me. Murakami's The TV People was a for-real short story, but I was not impressed. It was kind of just random, and I couldn't figure out the point. Maybe it's been too long since I thought critically about serious literature? The freakiest one, about a dominatrix, I actually liked because it seemed to have a few interesting things to say, and drew an intriguing portrait of the narrator. The Yamada Diary, essentially a tale of a boy for whom the line between reality and a video game world starts to blur, actually takes that cliche premise and handles it with subtle deftness. Japanese Entrance Exams for Earnest Young Men was possibly the most accessible and fun story, with its skewering of the whole standardized test game. Bonus hilarity points for this collection go to Momotaro in a Capsule, in which the author doesn't even bother to coyly introduce phallic symbols (for instance, a motorcycle). The main character blatantly calls each phallic symbol exactly what it is, and neatly reverses narrative conventions by framing everything he does explicitly and consciously in terms of maleness and phallic obsessions (rather than having that become a hidden message running through a more normal story). Not that I really liked this tale much, either, but the gimmick was interesting.

Fabricio Santos fabriciosantosdesign — Having enjoyed the first Northern Lights book in this series, I looked forward to more of the same in this book, though was a little disappointed. I feel like this book had much less about it than the first book. Having not read the third book as yet, I'm not sure if it will make much difference, but I almost feel as though the entire story of the second book could have been condensed and fit into the series within a couple of books, rather than a trilogy. There are still some unusual worldy and life concepts in the books, which I do enjoy, however not on the same sort of magnitude as the first book. I am looking forward to seeing how this series ends, so hopefully the third book grips my interest a little more than this one did.

Mark Scrivener thoth — One of those books I had been meaning to read for ages. Finally got around to it, and it was rather enjoyable. At the same time, I had a weird feeling that I really might have enjoyed it more had I heard it read aloud, or had I read it when I was twelve or so. Had I read it then, it would probably be one of my favourite books, to be revisited often. Now, it's more something I've checked off a list. Good book, but something I probably won't come back to.

Hamza Kharashgeh hamzkk55b2 — This is really one of my favorite books and one of the funniest books I have ever read. If you're a fan of the type of humor in The Colbert Report or Strangers With Candy, I highly recommend. *Note: this is a terrible review and I will make it better soon.