Zone One by Colson Whitehead

October 17, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Beresford Bennett. Books on Tape, 2011. 9 hours, 57 minutes. Library copy. Mark Spitz is a sweeper — a civilian employed by the government in Buffalo to walk through lower Manhattan and kill “malfunctioning” victims of the plague. These victims exist in a catatonic state and sit in front of their televisions or computers transfixed by these remnants of their former lives. Non-malfunctioning victims, whom we would call zombies, have already been eradicated by the military as […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Abandoned, Audiobook, Dystopia, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Beresford Bennett, Colson Whitehead

How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier

January 19, 2013 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. University of Chicago Press, 1996. Originally published 1991. 207 pgs. Received from PaperBackSwap. Monmonier’s book is meant to teach readers how to evaluate maps critically through the promotion of a healthy skepticism about these easy-to-manipulate models of reality. To show how maps distort, Monmonier introduces basic principles of map-making (scale, projection, symbology) and gives examples of purposeful distortion for political and economic propaganda. Some of the antidotes are particularly funny. Map publishers have been known to deliberately […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Abandoned, Cartography, Nonfiction • Tags: Mark Monmonier

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada (Part Two)

October 17, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from German by Michael Hofmann. Melville House, 2009. Originally published 1947. 540 pgs. Purchased. It took me exactly a month but I finally stopped dragging my heels and finished Part Two of Fallada’s novel entitled “The Gestapo”. Anna and Otto Quangel have begun distributing postcards encouraging Germans to question the authority of the Nazis. This act of civil disobedience threatens the lives of the Quangels and anyone found in possession of a postcard because the Nazis […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Abandoned, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, Genocide, German, Germany, Holocaust, Translated • Tags: Hans Fallada

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada (Part One)

September 17, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from German by Michael Hofmann. Melville House, 2009. Originally published 1947. 540 pgs. Purchased. Fallada’s book has garnished particular attention since its publication because the book was written by a non-Jewish German victim of the Holocaust and was one of the fist books written by a German addressing the Holocaust. The book is based on a true story of a working class couple in Berlin who decided to take a stand against the Nazis. Their fictionalized […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Abandoned, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, Genocide, German, Germany, Holocaust, Translated • Tags: Hans Fallada

Recently Abandoned Books

July 7, 2012 by Christina

I feel as though I have been on an abandoning spree. Most of the books I brought back with me from my trip home to replenish my reading supplies have ended up in the abandoned pile. I don’t know if I am going though a picky phase or I have just had several duds languishing on my shelves. Anyways, I’m actually upset over my decision to abandon these two novels because I have read so many reviews praising both books. […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Abandoned, Africa, Chunkster, Fiction, Nonfiction • Tags: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Peter Winn, Sarah Blake

The City and the City by China Miéville (Abandoned)

May 13, 2012 by Christina

I’ve owned a copy of this book for about two years now. Something about the title makes the book seem so allusive and mysterious. Unfortunately, if you hadn’t already caught on by the title of this post, the mystery alluded me and I abandoned the book at the halfway point. At this point in the book, the reader is introduced to two cities existing in the same geographical area. I never could tell exactly where Besźel and Ul Qoma are […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Abandoned, Fiction • Tags: China Miéville

Darcy’s Voyage by Kara Louise

December 13, 2011 by Christina

Fiction — print. Sourcebooks Landmark, 2010. 503 pgs. Received from PaperBackSwap. Although I do not normally review books I am unable to finish, this is one of those books were I feel like I have to say something. Subtitled “A Tale of Uncharted Love on the Open Seas” and billing itself as a retelling of Austen’s original, Louise’s novel places Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy on the ship Pemberley’s Promise as it sails to the New World. Elizabeth is on […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Abandoned, Austen Inspired, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Kara Louise

Abandoned Books

March 21, 2010 by Christina

I abandoned three books in the past week — Mysteries of the Tower of London (G. Abbott), From Beirut to Jerusalem (Thomas L. Friedman), and Persepolis II (Marjane Satrapi). Mysteries of the Tower of London wasn’t intriguing enough for me; I knew a lot of the “mysteries” already. From Beirut to Jerusalem, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1989, covers Friedman’s time as a reporter in Beirut during the Lebanese War to his years in Jerusalem, which […]

Categories: Abandoned, Bookish Notes • Tags: G. Abbott, Marjane Satrapi, Thomas L. Friedman