Why more (options) is less (satisfying). This fellow did a great job at researching the effects of choice and the supposed freedoms associated with it. He outlines how the excess of alternatives, such as 250 types of cookies in a grocery isle, actually inhibits your decision making process and will probably leave you less satisfied than if you only had to pick between 4 kinds of cookies. He offers many scenarios to illustrate how people choose their partners (and thus how they are satisfied with them) as well as many other anecdotes from personal or research experience. Now while all that’s well and good, after the great research Mr. Schwartz performed, he didn’t really delve in to any one topic. In fact, he skipped over a lot of ideas and didn’t examine the psychology or history very much at all. He repeats himself throughout the book. He repeats himself throughout the book a lot. But, he also uses conjunctions at the beginning of sentences a lot too. Still, it’s a good read and very informative – you might just learn something about yourself.

I won’t spoil the story (it’s on Kevin’s to do list). It’s an interesting book with some insight, but nothing that anyone with an imagination couldn’t have thought of. Recounted from the perspective of a boy with a mental/social disability, it is a neat situation to view the struggles of a family with a special needs child from the boy’s point of view as well as the reader’s point of view (who is more socially educated and understands a lot of the implications the boy misses). I myself was frustrated with Christopher and can see why the family has the troubles it does.

I can’t really muster any more positive things to say because the book really wasn’t all that amazing. I finished reading it and said “Hmm,” and thought about what I was going to have for dinner. And then I counted how many steps it took me to get to the bathroom because I had to wee. And then I got frustrated thinking about dinner so I counted up to fifty doing each’s cube to clear my head. And then someone knocked on my door, but that made me nervous, so I stroked a sharp pair of scizzors to comfort me.

There are mathematical and scientific “oh neat”s in the book, but the diction gets tiresome after a while and it may have made me dumber.

Mr. Muo, a middle-aged self-proclaimed psychoanalyst and ardent follower of Freud, is determined to free his university sweetheart Volcano of the Old Moon from prison. While the reader has little to no exposure to Volcano of the Old Moon and no endearing tale is told of her (and therefore we don’t see why she’s so darn special), Mr. Muo nonetheless is inexorable in his quest to win her freedom from the very communist Judge Di.

Three common threads weave their way through the novel. The first is of Freudian psychology and of the significance of virgins and sex. The book ends with Mr. Muo asking a girl if she is a virgin. Muo, at the beginning of the book, is himself a virgin at age forty, but thanks to his mission to satiate Judge Di with a virgin girl in exchange for the release of VOM, he finds the glory of manhood by taking an embalmer as his first. Interestingly enough, the embalmer’s first husband, a homosexual, committed suicide on their wedding night to avoid having sex with her. Second thread: French. Muo certainly loves the French and on occasion quotes them in the novel. The purpose? Not sure. A third thread (which really is like the first but relates moreso to dreams) is psychoanalysis. Muo applies a severe interest to people’s dreams in using it to foretell the future as well as evidence things of the past. He also frequently analyses his own dreams as a method for giving himself personal direction.

The story is the evolution of an intellectual man. Basically, Freud could have told Muo all about sex, but quite frankly he had to do it to get it. His own fulfillments were results of finding a virgin for another man. It’s quite a crooked story at times. Not the best book I’ve read, but certainly not the worst. It is well written and full of some words you probably have never heard of before. Perhaps we could discuss it over lunch at a charcuterie?

I’m big on grammar and punctuation, but I realize I make mistak;es on occasion? Lynne definitely put together a hilarious series of rants about ignorant uses of punctuation and the history of our beloved marks. This, quite possibly, is the funniest book (that’s sick isn’t it) that I’ve read in a long time. I laughed-out-loud on many occasions. Her excellent sense of humor married with her deep knowledge of the apostrophe mark make this a very fast paced and delightful reading experience. It’s also terribly educational and I took copious notes. After reading her book, I too felt compelled to join an Apostrophe Protection Society. Oh, and Lynne Truss is the only author I’ve seen that used the phrase “blow me” which wasn’t followed by the words “down” and “shiver me timbers.”

I was a bit apprehensive of The Dante Club when its first few pages were titled “Praise for The Dante Club,” filled with what seemed like dissenting opinions of what the book was about. I kept good spirits, but they soon faded as the writing became more cumbersome and boring. Kurtz, the Boston police chief in the book, reminds you of Conrad’s Kurtz and the dark empty pit that was his soul (loose intention on Pearl’s part?). Many of the characters seem stale and bad actors, if that’s possible. And while the book is about murders committed in a fashion modeled after Dante’s inferno, the only hellish thing was Pearl’s librarian personality showing through in the activities of his chief characters. I had hoped that Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell would have uncovered a better author to write the book instead of the seventh circle murderer.

Walden is essentially a categorized account of Thoreau’s experience on Walden pond. I consider Thoreau to be more of a philosopher than a writer, evidenced by the content of his literature, but this book reads very nicely. And after reading Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves, I’m sure she would volunteer to have his babies given the immaculate and generous use of punctuation.

What’s most impressive about Walden is its timeless brilliance. Had you not known that Thoreau died in 1862 or that his story was published in 1845, you would scarce be able to tell that it wasn’t a modern musing on the state of life. There are many wonderful quotes to be taken from the book and Thoreau makes very clear some critical points about life and the many mistakes that we make in it. It’s amazing how chapters such as The Bean Field or Reading illuminate some of the innocent but stupid things people do and how worthless many of their engagements are. It makes you wonder if the railroad really does ride upon us.

While his visual descriptions aren’t as brutal as Steinbeck’s, Thoreau does seem to wear himself out trying to find all the ways to define a moment in his life. Walden isn’t a thriller, but it’s certainly full of meaningful phrases that make you look harder at your own life. I enjoyed it.