You can win copies of both Jack with a Twist and Brenda Janowitz's first book about Brooke, Scot on the Rocks, courtesy of S. Krishna's Books here. My review of Jack with a Twist is here. Good luck!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and had been looking forward to it since many of you recommended it as similar to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. ... I’d recommend it for anyone who loves books and bookish people.
Sounds like a nice book to read, you know?
The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, from The Literate Housewife Review
I cannot recommend this novel enough. It is a wonderful way to learn about the origins of Islam through the eyes of a complex and strong young girl and then woman.
I will probably get this one at the library instead of buying it, as I have read as many negative reviews as positive ones. But the concept intrigues me, and it's a somewhat controversial book, so I want to see what that's all about.
Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers, from Pop Culture Junkie
I have no idea how to express my feelings about this book. It's powerful, emotional, important, and really spoke to me.I actually read the first chapter of this book online, thanks to the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I, alas, did not get the book, though, when I requested it, and actually kind of forgot about it until I read Alea's review.
Remember the big exam I was studying for? I got my pass letter on Friday! It's such a nice Christmas present for myself.
For Christmas:Do you know what else makes a great present? A puppy. (Hint, hint.)
They always fit under the tree.
For Hanukkah:
You can give a different one for each of the 8 nights.
For the New Year:
With the right book, you can finally learn what Auld Lang Syne means.
Jane Whitefield is a Native American guide who leads people out of the wilderness--not the tree-filled variety but the kind created by enemies who want you dead. She is in the one-woman business of helping the desperate disappear. Thanks to her membership in the Wolf Clan of the Seneca tribe, she can fool any pursuer, cover any trail, and then provide her clients with new identities, complete with authentic paperwork. Jane knows all the tricks, ancient and modern; in fact, she has invented several of them herself.His newest installment in the series, Runner, will be released in January.
Jane Whitefield—New York Times best-selling writer Thomas Perry's most popular character—returns from retirement to the world of the runner, guiding fugitives out of danger. After a nine-year absence, the fiercely resourceful Native American guide Jane Whitefield is back, in the latest superb thriller by award-winning author Thomas Perry. For more than a decade, Jane pursued her unusual profession: "I'm a guide . . . I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is."Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of hired hunters. That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she's made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner. And her quest for safety sets in motion a mission that will be a rescue operation—or a chance for revenge. Runner is Thomas Perry at the top of his form.Pre-order The Runner on Amazon.
I've noticed both UCLA and SCI ARC showcase a lot of amorphous blobs; any thoughts on why that is so popular? Is that just the technology?This is just my guess, of course, but I think the answer can boil down to just a few people (first and foremost, Greg Lynn and Neil Denari) and one school, Columbia University. For the non-architects who are actually reading this, you may not realize this, but architecture is a pretty incestuous family. Greg Lynn taught at Columbia, where he (and others) influenced many people to start working with non-traditional forms in their work (ie, blobs). He moved to UCLA, spreading his gospel of Maya.
Do you think it was more isolating than a traditional school would have been? Did you come out too immersed in architecture or is that a good thing?As I mentioned, I went to a big university for my undergraduate degree, so I had already had my traditional college experience. Really, though, it doesn't matter whether you go to grad school at a place like sci-arc, which just does one discipline, or a larger school. Either way, all your classes are going to be in your grad program. If you are serious about your education, you will spend all of you time at the architecture school anyway, so it won't matter whether there are other disciplines at the college.
From Amazon:The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture is a comprehensive portrayal of the finest built architecture from around the world completed since the year 2000. Divided into six world regions, the Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture provides an important overview of global and local trends in architecture for a wide range of users. ... More than 1000 key buildings have been chosen through a rigorous selection process involving a panel of expert advisors and specialists from every region. Each building is fully illustrated with drawings and photographs, and each is described by a short essay. Further information includes key data such as construction cost, client name, area of the building, and geographical coordinates.This book is serious. According to Amazon, the book is 812 pages long, is 19.2" tall x 16.1" wide x 2.5" thick and weighs in at 16.4 pounds. It's so big, it came with its own green plastic carrying case.
An illustrated guide to constructing everything from igloos and quinzees to spruce traps and snow trenches.I think this book looks so cool. There are lots of books (and YouTube videos) out there on how to build igloos, but the simple line drawings in this one really stand out for me. Too bad that, since I live in a place where it doesn't snow, I can't use this book.
Buy How to Build an Igloo on Amazon.
If you are interested in Abelardo Morell's work check out the documentary Shadow of the House - Photographer Abelardo Morell
Working alone for over 7 years, director Allie Humenuk filmed Morell and his family both at home and abroad. The film beautifully captures the artist and the artistic process. The film is having a successful run in festivals and at museums nationwide.
There are screenings coming up at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Dec 5th, 6pm) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Dec 11th, 4:30pm) Both Humenuk and Morell will be in attendance.
For more information on the film visit: http://www.shadowofthehouse.com/
For the most part, we'll be giving five random customers $20 gift certificates each day, but just to keep things interesting, we may shake it up and hand out the whole $100 to one lucky winner occasionally, too!The fine print is that you have to buy something. So click here to find out more and get shopping. If you don't know what to buy, I recommend some new Buffy comic books (like Wolves at the Gate, which I reviewed here). I also love the Nick and Dent program TFAW has, where you can get the same great comics and TPB's for up to half off the regular price.
The one thing I can say for sure is that grad school (all grad schools, I think, not just ones for architecture) is what you make of it. And that applies double to sci-arc.
Let me tell you a little about myself and why I decided to go to sci-arc. I went to the University of Virginia for undergrad (in architecture). It was a wonderful program but it was very traditional. It was also before computers became so ubiquitous, so while I had been working in an office (in Boston) for 2 years on CAD, I knew very little beyond that. UVA required us to do pretty much everything by hand and we were discouraged from doing much on the computer.
I applied all over the place for grad school, not really sure what I wanted. In the end, I decided on sci-arc because it was just so different than what I had been doing up until then. It was kind of free form, very hands-on, there was a lot of emphasis on cutting edge design and theory. I hardly knew anyone there (unlike, say Michigan, where I would have been in class with several people I had gone to undergrad with). And I was excited about the idea of living and working in a new environment (both sci-arc and Los Angeles).
For all those reasons, Sci-arc was great for me. It really expanded my horizons. But it was also very frustrating at times. For one thing, I just could not drink the Maya Kool-aid. [Note: Maya is a computer program for 3-D modeling. It is very sophisticated and, while it was originally developed to do CGI for movies, it has been co-opted by architects. It was bought not too long ago by Autodesk, the makers of AutoCAD.]I don't know if that is still the trend of the moment (I'm sure between Greg Lynn [photo above of blob exhibit by Lynn] and Hernan Diaz-Alonso all the good ideas have been done) but it was big while I was there. While I did some work with it, as Hernan said when I was his student, I was the skeptic. And sometimes I got really annoyed because I felt that the ideas I was excited about were being ignored in favor of ooh-ing and ah-ing over the latest amorphous blob being called a building. Like I said, things could have changed but that the case when I got there in 2001.
Fortunately, as I said, sci-arc is what you make of it. I spent my last semester working on my thesis (with Jay Vanos as my advisor) and that was a wonderful experience. I made friends with people who shared my ideas, and I went to a lot of buildings and art gallerys. I found my niche, and I liked that.
The emphasis on sci-arc being what you make of it goes both ways, though, because I know a lot of people who weren't self-directed and they just floundered. They wasted their money, in my opinion.
Regarding your question about preparing you for the real world: I'm not really one of those people who thinks that the purpose of grad school is to teach someone to pass their Architecture Registration Exams (ARE). There are plenty of guide books and AIA classes that can tell you how to do that (and in the end it all boils down to one thing: STUDY. A lot. More than you can believe).
As I said, too, I worked at a firm between college and grad school. And it wasn't a well-known design firm, it was a pretty nuts and bolts kind of place. So I already knew how to do window details and a finish schedule. You don't need grad school to learn that.
To be sure, there are some great classes at sci-arc for learning the real-world stuff. Jay's Design Development class, for one, which everyone has to take. I took it, and I think I ended up more as the unofficial TA than anything else, but I still think it's a great class.
So, did sci-arc prepare me for life as an architect? Sure, but not in the way you probably think. It prepared me by making me go out and figure out what I liked and didn't, by exposing me to new ideas, and making me define what architecture meant for me. Architecture is a big world. I don't know if you read archinect, but if you don't, you should. They have a new series now about alternative careers for architects. And there are lots of them. I also learned that I don't really like living in LA, but that's another topic.
There's my take. Its not as simple as "yes, you should go to sci-arc" or "no, don't." I don't know you or your personality, and I'm just one person with a blog, after all. You should think about contacting some other students and sci-arc alum and getting their take. You can try Bill Simonian, too. He has a new website (arcounsel, which I previously wrote about here) and he's just an all around great guy to talk to.
Recommended for anyone who likes their princesses with some backbone to go along with their whalebone corsets.Sounds like a fun read. Awful cover, though.
Reading the essay and seeing the painting makes me want to go to Venice so I would recommend this charming book to lovers of art and Italy.
This last reaction sets the tone for Keith Mitnick's adult relationship with architecture; troubled, anxious, occasionally nauseous. ... This is a fabulous book - strange, eccentric and intelligent. For once the over familiar claim that preconceptions will be challenged rings true, and architecture seems new again.
I love the creativity and world creation of his Thursday Next series and the premise of this one - A brilliant new novel about a world where social order and destiny are dictated by the colors you can see - sounds highly original.
Posy Simmonds has created a marvelous graphic novel in Gemma Bovery, a fresh, sharp, modern take on Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.
The bright, glossy world of Doris Day and Rock Hudson sex comedies gets a self-aware brush-up in Down with Love. Pillow-lipped Renée Zellweger (Chicago) plays Barbara Novak, the author of a bestselling book called Down with Love that advises women to focus on their careers and have sex à la carte--just like a man would. Determined to prove that Novak is just as vulnerable to love as any woman, dashingly chauvinist magazine writer Catcher Block (ever-charming Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge) pretends to be a courtly astronaut who wouldn't dream of putting his hand on a woman's knee. This piffle of a story seems like nothing more than an excuse for ironic double-entendres and dazzling production design, until a sneaky plot twist suddenly raises the stakes for the movie's end. As he always does, the brilliant David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) scores the most comic points as Block's fussy editor. (by Bret Fetze)
Because I am crazy, I decided to try my hand at NaNoWriMo this year for the first time. Because of my test, I couldn't really write much in the first half of the month, so I am trying like crazy to get it done now. It's not going well. As you can see from the widget I just put in my sidebar, I am way behind where I am supposed to be. Still, I'm a competitive person, and I want to see this through. So expect me to be pulling out the stops trying to get as much written as possible between now and the 30th.
The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since.
You Are Animal |
 A complete lunatic, you're operating on 100% animal instincts. You thrive on uncontrolled energy, and you're downright scary. But you sure can beat a good drum. "Kill! Kill!" |
From the author of Esperanza's Box of Saints (1999) comes this semi-surreal tale of Libertad Gonzalez, imprisoned in the Mexicali Penal Institute for Women. The jail has a decidedly looser environment than its name implies--one of the wealthier inmates has transformed the yard into a beachfront--and model prisoner Libertad decides to start a book club. No matter what book she chooses to read aloud from, though, she always has the same story to tell. In telenovela fashion, complete with cliff-hanging chapter endings, she tells her increasingly large audience a story about a former literature professor and fugitive from the Mexican government who becomes a truck driver in the U.S and his loving but controlling relationship with his daughter. Libertad's audience grows hooked on the story line (much like Escandon's will), chiming in with heated opinions on the twists and turns of the plot. It soon becomes apparent that the story is Libertad's own, and it has become her way of making sense of her life and her crime. This highly readable novel is a paean both to storytelling and to freedom. Joanne Wilkinson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reservedI think it sounds interesting and I am looking forward to reading it. I'll report back after our book club meets in a few weeks.
This is what the best science fiction and fantasy can do. It forces us to question our assumptions and look carefully at the very roots of our morality.
So besides the fact that I felt like those characters were very real to me, this book was just funny. Your everyday, can't help it funny! That's just who they were. I loved that and found myself laughing often while reading this.
Paper Towns by John Green, from bookshelves of doom:Okay, first of all, thumbs up. No reservations at all. ... Paper Towns is melancholy, laugh-out-loud-funny, downright sad, often hopeful and always thoughtful.
