mothwing: "I can't be having with this" next to the grim looking face of Granny Weatherwax (Granny)
24.
Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett.
A reflection on holidays sparks a revolution in the counterweight continent and Rincewind is thrown in the middle of it.
Even though this was the first book I read in the Discworld series I did not read this one more than twice. Reading it now I can see why. The grey horde, much as I love the idea of aged heroes kicking butt, really make me extremely uncomfortable because of the "pillage, plunder and rape, hur hur hur"-aspects of it.. Rape is not funny. Killing is not funny, and in other novels, this seems to be clear to him as well.
 

Bookchallenge

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 12:34 am
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
23.
Nichts: Was im Leben wichtig ist, by Janne Teller. (Nothing)
When Pierre decides that nothing in life is worth living for, his classmates want to convince him otherwise and start collecting things that mean something to them. What starts innocently with favourite comic books quickly spirals out of control as people are required to give up more and more important things until it ends in excavating bodies, cutting off fingers and, inevitably, rape. Of course. But it's still a very good book and captivating.

22.
Unter Verdacht, by Joyce Carol Oates (Big Mouth and Ugly Girl).
When a joke goes wrong Matt is suspected of having planned to blow up the school. The only one who does not believe that is Ursula, sports star and outsider no one likes. Haven't finished this one yet.

21.
Die Lebensfahrt auf dem Meer der Welt - der Topos, by Christoph Hönig.
A book on the topos of life as a sea voyage and the world as that sea, something of a guided tour through different periods with different texts and analyses of what they make of this topos, how they use it and how it changes over the years. Ever since I read Crossing the Bar and listened to a lecture on it by Professor Haas, who was one of the best speakers I have ever heard I've had a soft spot for this topos and enjoyed encountering it elsewhere subsequently (like in Gregorius).
20.
My Gender Workbook, by Kate Bornstein.
Very practical, hands-on introduction to gender, workbook-style.
Haven't finished this one yet but had a good time with the articles and the way they're written as well as the questionnaires. The interludes do feel gratuitous at times, but they don't bother me, it's still very informative.

19.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Holds what the title promises: a guide on how to win friends and influence people, or rather,  how to modify your interpersonal skills so as to facilitate that.
Ever since I saw the thread in the Slytherin forum on CS back in the day I've been wanting to read this book. I bought it now that covering communication with my students is imminent and it's enjoyable to read.

18.
The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss.
This one deserves a bigger review. I did have a good time reading it, but the longwinded pointlessness of vast part of the middle (Felurian. Oh god did that ever end), some flaws in the setting (would Bast really have sat there for six hours and listen to Kvothe talk about the fairy realm without comment? Hard to imagine) and the increasing level of NiceGuyness of the main character made this hard to enjoy - regardless of just how much I looked forward to this. I liked how the world opens up and still love the magic system, though I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable at the moral framework of our hero (slaying old ladies begging for their lives is not ok even if you think that they were conspiring with rapists, especially if it's likely that they were forced to play along themselves, asshole). The amount of times in which the Rule of Cool is used to make something work also baffles me. All in all enjoyable, but there are things that are off.

17.
The Lucifer Effect - How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip Zimbardo.
This one centres pretty heavily on the Stanford Prison Experiment. Again not news, but the conclusion he draws and what he extrapolates about similar scenes from Guantanamo is still worth a read.

16.
Das Milgram-Experiment, by Stanley Milgram.
An account of the experiment. A classic. I've read it before, and I keep being amazed and terrified at the results.
15.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney.
Greg's adventures as a small boy in Middle School. A typical story about a non-stereotypically male hero type whose sidekick inevitably has to be even less stereotypically masculine to affirm them, or something. I can't really say I am care that greatly, but I watched Wonder Years enough in my teens to recognise the narrative enough to sympathise. My students love this book so I gave it a read.
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Catastrophe)
Catching up with my Rachel Maddow Show viewing I find this interview with this person hell-bent on believing that gays are recruited and that those doing the recruiting deserve to die. He therefore proposed the famous Ugandan bill which says that gay people should face prison sentences and death sentences.

Proceed with care. I don't even know how to react to this.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Exhausting

Saturday, November 17th, 2007 06:59 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Catastrophe)
And in more than one sense, but most of all emotionally. I know that Hamburg is a city in which a lot of children live in broken homes or come from incredibly poor and difficult backgrounds.




I feel so silly. I knew these things were going on, but hearing people talk about them who had witnessed them made them more real, and more horrible.

Somehow, I am at the same time both sad and glad that I did not take part in such a more "difficult" trip instead of the six comparatively easy weeks at the kindergarten. I would have wanted to do something to make them - all of them - feel better - but I would have never been able to, and that, and the terrible burden of knowing that there are children who are raised in such horrible conditions, would have just about killed me.  This seminar really makes me want to find a way to reach out to children living in such difficult conditions and help them, one at a time, so that I can help without breaking.

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