I have a confession to make: over the past year, I've been spending hours and hours on the internet every day, and very little time reading. As someonI have a confession to make: over the past year, I've been spending hours and hours on the internet every day, and very little time reading. As someone who used to devour a book a week, if not more, I was somewhat upset by this; there are books that have been sitting unread on my shelf for longer than I care to admit, and I just didn't care to pull them down and read them. And while I've blamed much of it on too much schoolwork, the truth is that I could spend much more time reading if I really cared to. The internet got me. And that's exactly what Carr is writing about.
In a virtual world of instant gratification, it's easy to forget about books. Don't get me wrong, I love my Harry Potter just as much as I always did; the fact is, however, that I'd sooner look up Harry Potter pins on Pinterest than reread one of the novels. On Pinterest, the novel has been finely chopped up into memorable quotes, typed in marvelous fonts or overlaid onto movie stills; GIFs serve as reminders of the most emotional moments; and pins connect Harry Potter themes to quotes from various other fandoms, to other people's lives, or to neatly packaged products. It's so easy to get sucked into mindlessly scrolling down a page of colorful pins, never spending more than a few seconds on a single post. And I can testify that as I spent more time on the internet and less time reading, just as Carr argues, my brain began to change. When I finally picked up a book again--this book, actually--it was hard to focus for long periods of time, I was slower getting through it, and I would catch my mind wandering while my eyes were still scanning down the page. The internet has changed my brain. And I don't like it.
I found this book very interesting. It was actually assigned reading for my Intro to Communication Studies class, but it's the kind of book that, if someone had handed it to me and said "this is a great book, you should read it," I would have taken it. (Well, if it was a year ago and I was still reading.) Some sections of the book are entirely historical, such as the chapter on the development of books and reading, and these were somewhat more dull for me, but Carr included a good amount of psychology and neural research that I found fascinating! The fact that I could relate Carr's arguments to the changes I'm finding in my own life also made reading it ten times better. And, to be honest, ten times scarier.
Now I'm making the conscious decision to try to get back into reading again. I miss it, and it's much more worthwhile than spending hours on Pinterest! I have Carr to thank for this decision, because if I hadn't read this book, who knows what would be my wake-up call and at what point I would get back to reading? And who knows what my brain would be like then?
In short (because the internet likes short), this book is very informative and generally quite interesting, and I can say from experience that the arguments Carr makes are accurate, at least in my life....more
I think this is a pretty good resource for teaching teens Spanish. However, literary merit is greatly lacking, which can make a lot of kids frustratedI think this is a pretty good resource for teaching teens Spanish. However, literary merit is greatly lacking, which can make a lot of kids frustrated! I would suggest reading the first La Catrina: La Novela and stopping there. I don't think the second one goes very much deeper into Spanish than the first one did, so unless you really loved the story...give it a pass....more
I really don't know a lot about the civil rights movement. All I know is that some nonviolent black guy named Martin Luther King, Jr. marched around aI really don't know a lot about the civil rights movement. All I know is that some nonviolent black guy named Martin Luther King, Jr. marched around and got attacked by cops. And black people wanted to stop discrimination (i.e. the inability to drink out of whichever water fountain you want), which somehow, someday, just stopped. POOF!
Looking back at my description, though, I can see all the holes in my knowledge. I know that just one guy couldn't have changed the country so drastically. I know that discrimination has to be more than just dividing water fountains, buses, and schools by color or it wouldn't have been such a big problem. I know that we didn't all just decide to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" one afternoon, and suddenly discrimination disappeared. I have heard obscure names like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers tossed around a few times, but I have no idea what they mean. All I've learned about the civil rights movement is the child's sanitized version of history, just the information that you find in a children's book about MLK and no more.
And chances are, if you're young, like me, and white, like me, that's all you've ever learned, too.
That's where this book comes in. Set in Oxford, North Carolina during an especially turbulent period of the civil rights movement, Blood Done Sign My Name recounts the story of a white family killing a black man, and the racial tension that resulted. I never knew that there was rioting and firebombing all over that small country town, or even anywhere in the country, and especially that it was done by the black community. I never really knew what the Black Panthers stood for, or why people were so upset when those two black Olympic medalists gave the "black power" salute during the national anthem. I still don't know what Malcolm X stood for, but now I have to know. This book has opened my eyes on the civil rights issue so much, and I can't hardly believe that our country was once like that. This makes Occupy Wall Street and all the backlash there seem like kindergarten, and Middle Eastern terrorists seem like background noise.
What has our country been hiding from us? Obviously, more than I thought. I knew history textbooks couldn't be entirely trusted, but I didn't know to what extent. Now I feel I have to go researching everything supposedly important in history that I don't know hardly anything about--Vietnam, Nixon, the Persian Gulf, Cuba--and see what exactly was going on, and what we're too ashamed to teach our children. As Tyson explains in the book, we can't move forward until we acknowledge where we've been. And from what I see, we're just trying to hide that information....more
This book had an interesting perspective, namely that of a white boy in a poor, urban, predominantly black neighborhood. However, I don't think that tThis book had an interesting perspective, namely that of a white boy in a poor, urban, predominantly black neighborhood. However, I don't think that there was anything notable in this book to make it better than average. Most of the things that Conley talks about in regards to living in poverty I already knew or could have found in any other book about poverty. There was really very little new to this story, and I rarely felt like I connected with Dalton as a person. Don't get me wrong, Honky presents a fair and realistic view of poverty; it's just not very interesting for the most part....more
I thought this was boring and not particularly insightful. I couldn't really relate to Esperanza and I didn't really like that the story was really a I thought this was boring and not particularly insightful. I couldn't really relate to Esperanza and I didn't really like that the story was really a bunch of short, unrelated, unstorylike comments. I know a lot of it was supposed to be profound, but I thought those sections were overrated and that Cisneros tried too hard to make all these profound statements. I also think the story could have more effective if it was a real story with a beginning, middle, and end, but maybe that's just me....more
This one was very simple and short. I think it has a good depiction of small town life and life in general (if slightly dated). There wasn't really anThis one was very simple and short. I think it has a good depiction of small town life and life in general (if slightly dated). There wasn't really anything that really stood out at me, though, to make this a great play. It had a good message and it kept my attention, but I just didn't feel that it ever went from being pretty good to being classic....more
Wow. My mind is blown. I still haven't gotten all the pieces back to put it together again.
This book is so intricate, it's hard to tell what's really Wow. My mind is blown. I still haven't gotten all the pieces back to put it together again.
This book is so intricate, it's hard to tell what's really going on. Oh, the surface story is pretty easy...it's just the meanings behind everything, the unseen connections, that are so terribly complex. They're always there, and it's driving me crazy trying to figure them all out.
There's a comment on the back cover that says something like, "a funny book but you're not allowed to laugh...a sad book but you can't cry." I think that sums up the tone of this book perfectly. That may sound completely contradictory, but that's just Vonnegut's genius....more
This is a great story of Latino teens overcoming racism and poverty in rural North Carolina. In the book, Paul Cuadros describes his first three yearsThis is a great story of Latino teens overcoming racism and poverty in rural North Carolina. In the book, Paul Cuadros describes his first three years coaching the fledgling soccer program at Jordan Matthews High School in Siler City, a small town facing a huge influx of Hispanic immigrants. It wasn't a very difficult or profound novel, but it was a fun read. I actually learned a lot about the Latino way of life--family comes before everything, including school; Latinos are often targets of muggings because they tend to carry lots of cash; and so on and so forth--that I don't think I would have learned otherwise. However, if you don't like soccer, some parts of the book might be kind of boring to you. The descriptions of the soccer matches are kept pretty short and to the point, and there aren't soccer terms being tossed around everywhere, but soccer does figure into a large part of the plot. However, I personally am not a sports fan, and it didn't bother me all that much, so don't let the fact that it's about soccer turn you away from such a great book.
What I especially liked was the photos in the middle of the book and the descriptions of what has happened to all the kids since then at the very end. I like putting faces to these kids, and it makes it so much more real....more
I didn't think that this was as bad as the ratings make it out to be. As a story, yeah, it's really cheesy and it's not really all that interesting, bI didn't think that this was as bad as the ratings make it out to be. As a story, yeah, it's really cheesy and it's not really all that interesting, but it's hard to find an easy foreign language book that's interesting, anyway. At least it wasn't drop-dead boring.
As a resource for learning Spanish, I'd have to say it was good, although it was a bit too easy for me (taking Spanish IV in high school). There were a lot of different tenses introduced and a good amount of new vocabulary (with a Spanish-English dictionary in the back, of course), but that didn't make it hard. It was really easy to understand what was going on, at least after the confusion of the first chapter, and I'm sure that any Spanish student who can get through a whole novella written in Spanish is going to be proud of himself. There are a few pictures to help clarify some of the more confusing facts in case the reader doesn't quite understand what is going on. The only part I had trouble with was the beginning, where everyone in Mexico thinks that Jamie is "Jaime" (i.e. a boy instead of a girl), and you have to catch the lettering change between the two names to figure out what the matter is. I didn't notice until almost the end of the chapter because it's so hard to tell the difference.
I thought it was nice that the book follows American exchange students in Mexico--someone that the students can relate to more--although I wish the author would have taken the opportunity to add more cultural facts about Mexico. There is a short section about Dia de los Muertos and a brief mention of polite phrases commonly used in Mexico, and there's a list of famous Mexican people in history at the end of the book if you want to read that, but other than that, there wasn't really anything about Mexican culture. That was a disappointment to me....more
Not bad, but not excellent. I think Lear kind of brought his situation upon himself, though. He should have known what his daughters were really like,Not bad, but not excellent. I think Lear kind of brought his situation upon himself, though. He should have known what his daughters were really like, and he shouldn't have been so idiotically stubborn to send away the people closest to him just for being honest....more
This is a surprisingly honest view of life in the inner cities, and more specifically, the academic challenges that poor minority students face in citThis is a surprisingly honest view of life in the inner cities, and more specifically, the academic challenges that poor minority students face in city schools. Although it takes place in the 1990s, the story is entirely relevant even today. It really opened my eyes to the reasons behind affirmative action and modern educational policies (such as No Child Left Behind), which many of us middle-class white folks don't appreciate. This is a great book to start with if you want to learn more about education issues and to think about how we can fix the American education system....more
Not bad. It was quite the mystery in the beginning, but once you figured out what was really going on, it was actually pretty suspenseful. My only comNot bad. It was quite the mystery in the beginning, but once you figured out what was really going on, it was actually pretty suspenseful. My only complaint is that the notary's part at end of the story, which tells what really happened to Don Benito, was dull. Other than that, it wasn't too bad....more
Meh. I didn't think that this story was so great. I think most of the reason for that was that EVERYONE knows that Jekyll and Hyde are the same personMeh. I didn't think that this story was so great. I think most of the reason for that was that EVERYONE knows that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. There was no mystery left! The whole time you're reading all the little clues that Stevenson leaves, you already know the truth. It's no fun reading a mystery when you already know the ending.
I think that if we didn't already know this story, it would be a lot more interesting. Unfortunately, we do....more
So much better than Frankenstein! This was a great horror novel and there was always something happening. I really liked the characters (especially ReSo much better than Frankenstein! This was a great horror novel and there was always something happening. I really liked the characters (especially Renfield!) and all of the clues fit together nicely. I can see why vampires really caught on as popular monsters (modern vampires don't count. Read this book and the Cullens look incredibly lame in comparison)!...more
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