Micha itibaren Devipur Urf Malikpur, Punjab, Hindistan
This is my favorite of Calvino's novels. The baron in the trees can't touch the ground--ever. I think he travels from tree to tree to find a princess in Spain. It's been a while since I read this, but I wouldn't mind re-reading it.
This is SF with a horror/vampirism undertone. The fact that I am NOT into horror/vampirism and still give this five stars indicates to me that its well done in order to be that much fun to read.
Very quick read. Liked the dialogue a lot. The main character speaks with a lot of dry humor, which I love. It takes you through the main character's defining moments in terms of her love life. A lot of her thought process and dialogue are things that I would say myself. There is a movie coming out based on the book, which Im sure won't be nearly as good, so its worth reading now.
Pretty good book. It was an easy read (one day) but the swearing kept it from getting more than 3 stars. It's always interesting to read about someone's belief of Heaven.
I could write my own review, but there is really no reason to when the New York Times has so effectively captured my thoughts about The Invention of Air . The review can be seen here. Johnson uses the life story of Joseph Priestly (18th century scientist and one of the discoverers of oxygen) as a means to illustrate connections between the disparate fields of energy, religion, the French and American revolutions, the scientific method and the ways in which paradigm shifts occur (among a host of other diverse and unrelated topics). It’s a shame he didn’t stick to the history of Priestly, since this is by far the most interesting part of the story. Instead, Johnson provides a snippet of Priestly’s life, then uses it as a launching pad to expound upon an unrelated (and more often than not, uninteresting) topic. In addition to being forced, these digressions are, as the Times points out …. “annoying”, and “a kind of book-length game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in which everything that ever was and ever will be is linked to everything else.” That about nails it. Also, the book is rather boring.