美国
Empire of Pain 豆瓣
9.5 (12 个评分) 作者: Patrick Radden Keefe Doubleday 2021 - 4
A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing
The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions—Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis.
Empire of Pain begins with the story of three doctor brothers, Raymond, Mortimer and the incalculably energetic Arthur, who weathered the poverty of the Great Depression and appalling anti-Semitism. Working at a barbaric mental institution, Arthur saw a better way and conducted groundbreaking research into drug treatments. He also had a genius for marketing, especially for pharmaceuticals, and bought a small ad firm.
Arthur devised the marketing for Valium, and built the first great Sackler fortune. He purchased a drug manufacturer, Purdue Frederick, which would be run by Raymond and Mortimer. The brothers began collecting art, and wives, and grand residences in exotic locales. Their children and grandchildren grew up in luxury.
Forty years later, Raymond’s son Richard ran the family-owned Purdue. The template Arthur Sackler created to sell Valium—co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s addictiveness—was employed to launch a far more potent product: OxyContin. The drug went on to generate some thirty-five billion dollars in revenue, and to launch a public health crisis in which hundreds of thousands would die.
This is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful.
Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes.
2022年2月16日 已读
看得恶向胆边生……真的太气了……就实话讲他们一开始说病人的疼痛不应该被忽视、应该推广对疼痛的治疗的时候我确实很同意,至少这个出发点是没错的,但是可怕的是他们极度aggressive的营销方式,以及东窗事发之后理直气壮地撇清关系……另外我始终觉得医疗行业和教育行业,由于从业者和消费者的信息不对称过于严重,甚至有一些权利上下游倒置的感觉,因此这两个行业的商业化是危险的、自由竞争是不利于消费者的,但是完全依靠(往往underfunded的)公费医疗、公立学校教育又远远不能满足需求,这其中的矛盾实在是很难解决
美国 非虚构
本源 豆瓣
Origin
6.4 (32 个评分) 作者: [美] 丹·布朗 译者: 李和庆 / 李连涛 人民文学出版社 2018 - 5
★★重磅消息:2018年5月22日,丹·布朗将首度来到中国大陆,为新作《本源》举办新书分享会!
哈佛大学符号学专家罗伯特·兰登受邀前往西班牙毕尔巴鄂古根海姆博物馆出席一场重大的发布会。他二十年前的学生——如今已是享有国际声誉的计算机专家、未来学家——埃德蒙·基尔希将要揭开 一个惊人的 发现,它关系到人类长久以来未能解开的两大难题:我们从哪里来?我们要往哪里去?
活动一 开始,兰登和数百位听众就被埃德蒙的精彩演说所深深吸引。但突如其来的混乱破坏了这场精心策划的晚会——埃德蒙被一颗从暗处飞来的子弹击中头部。
埃德蒙究竟发现了什么?为什么有人要杀他?
为了解开谜团,不让埃德蒙的伟大发现就此销声匿迹,兰登和博物馆馆长安布拉· 维达尔逃离毕尔巴鄂来到巴塞罗那,却遭到西班牙王室和教会的阻挠,而杀手的追杀以及当地警方的追捕更是让他们命悬一线……
在埃德蒙发明的人工智能程序“温斯顿”的帮助下,两人最终在一首诗里找到了解开埃德蒙发现的密码,以及我们一直不敢直面的真相。
2022年1月5日 已读
三星半,丹布朗的角色过于套路化,在这本书上可以看到非常多其他作品的影子,比如女主一出场就知道这是女主,比如不到三分之一就猜到凶手(关键可能是他学的反派过于切中我的type。。。)悬疑弱到我在点悬疑标签的时候都由衷地犹豫了一会儿,而且后面终于把大秘密挖出来的时候太anticlimactic了我真的“就这就这就这”……而且这本里 科学宗教对立 的部分完全就是 达尔文进化论和原教旨主义神创论 的对立,靠这就能说出“让宗教消亡”可真的是太天真了……不过看丹布朗用各种建筑、艺术品、符号学装X还是很有意思
悬疑 美国
Caste 豆瓣 Goodreads
7.7 (6 个评分) 作者: Isabel Wilkerson Random House 2020 - 8
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
“An instant American classic.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
2022年1月29日 已读
可以打到三星半吧,实际上这个作者非常擅长讲故事and she knows it,故事讲得很好很切题,但是书本身没有什么很明确的逻辑,就靠堆砌故事去说明观点好像不是很行,实际上也不太有听到很original的观点……不过比较喜欢她说的种族和种姓一样是人为强加、用于给社会分层的东西,而不是真实存在的有明确界限的差异,并且这个观点真的elaborate得不错;美国及纳粹、印度三种caste的对比也做得比较完善,但是组织得太零散和随意,没什么系统性(纳粹抄美国抄到觉得美国too harsh有笑到,too racist even for Nazis
社会 美国
冷血 豆瓣 Goodreads 豆瓣
In Cold Blood
8.7 (77 个评分) 作者: [美] 杜鲁门·卡波特 译者: 夏杪 南海出版公司 2013 - 10
★我是个酒鬼。我是个吸毒鬼。我是个同性恋者。我是个天才。即使如此,我还是可以成为一个圣人。——杜鲁门•卡波特
★我在高中时第一次读到英文版的卡波特作品,它让我深叹自己没有写作的才能,所以我在二十九岁之前都没有试图写小说。 ——村上春树
★ 被《纽约时报》誉为“美国有史以来最好的纪实作品”
★ 55周雄踞美国畅销书榜TOP 1
★ 入选兰登书屋“20世纪全球百部英语非小说”
★ 美国推理作家协会“史上最经典的百部推理小说”
堪萨斯州,霍尔科姆村。几声枪响,良善温和、广受尊敬的克拉特一家惨遭灭门。凶手异常凶残狡猾:被害人均被击中面部,电话线被割断,子弹壳也消失不见……一时间,案件震惊了整个美国。
卡波特立即赶到当地,开始了长达六年的访谈和调查,对象包括死者亲友、邻居、当地警察,以及两名犯罪嫌疑人。案件逐渐得以还原,两名凶手从这起谋杀案中得到的只有几十美元、一副望远镜和一个收音机。
是什么让他们走上这条冷血之路?当作家试图打开凶手的内心时,他自己也经历了一次自省之旅。
2022年1月31日 已读
“因为上帝创造了你,也创造了我,他爱你,就如同他爱我。就我们所知的上帝的旨意来看,你所遭遇的灾难,将来我也可能遇到。”纠结了一下给了五星,主要是最后一章角落真的太加分了,非常thought provoking,主要是围绕废死、精神病鉴定及患者是否承担刑事责任的判断依据、死刑犯判决到行刑之间的法律流程等等,作者写作的笔调始终是中立的、冷静克制的叙述口吻,甚至有点流水账的(因此前三章叙述案情和调查过程的时候偶尔会有点枯燥),没有直接的讨论,却通过罗列事实和多方言论给了读者足够的思考空间及线索……罪犯也是人,也有感情和原则,也可能是常人眼里善良正直的小伙子,甚至会引发周围人的同情心,但是南希终究没能长成那样一位年轻的女士
犯罪 纪实 美国
The Giver 豆瓣
8.6 (16 个评分) 作者: Lois Lowry Laurel Leaf 2002 - 9
The Giver译为“赐予者”或“授者”,是洛伊丝·洛利最著名的也是最受争议的作品。在The Giver里,作者描绘了一个想像出来的乌托邦世界。在这个社会里,人们的生活都被安排得好好的,人们不用决定工作,不用决定配偶,这些问题,社会都帮个人做好了决定。而这个世界也没有记忆、感情、颜色及音乐,人们只有最基本的生活需求。但有一个人例外,他一个人承担了整个世界该有的记忆,他必须独自承受痛苦、恐惧、和孤单,而他也同时知道什麼是温暖、幸福和爱。这个人被称为the receiver of memory,也就是the Giver。当12岁的男主角Jonas成为这个the receiver of memory的接班人后,他得到了他以前所不曾有过的经验,而当他知道愈多时,他愈发现这个世界的不合理,最后他选择了逃离……
2022年4月6日 已读
这本居然是个反乌托邦?开始看了五分钟就觉得有点不对劲,每个人讲话都假惺惺的,做事一板一眼循规蹈矩仿佛一群机器人,但直到Jonas开始接受训练,才真正意识到这群人缺少的是什么……故事非常短小精悍,习惯了这个设定以后还挺predictable的,结局有点仓促草率,不过不影响他们看release的时候我差点哭出来(但是release是什么真的太predictable了啊……
小说 美国
雪崩 豆瓣 Goodreads
snow crash
7.5 (24 个评分) 作者: [美] 尼尔·斯蒂芬森 译者: 郭泽 四川科学技术出版社 2018 - 7
中央情报局成了中央情报公司,国会图书馆成了中央情报公司数据库;至于国会,没几个人知道它是什么玩意儿。美国的大地上到处是特许邦国,也就是特许经营组织准国家实体,一种类似麦当劳连锁店的机构。
美国政府呢?这个东西仅仅存在于不多的几处联邦建筑里,由联邦特工持枪把守,随时准备抵抗来自街头的袭击。
这就是未来的美国,一个车水马龙与颓废荒凉并存、尖端科技与野蛮低俗混杂之地。
但在这片喧嚣混乱之上,还存在着另一个无比广阔、无比自由的国度:赛博空间,由电脑和网络构成的虚拟空间。
在现实生活中,本书主人公只是个微不足道的披萨速递员,但在虚拟空间中,他是首屈一指的黑客、擅使双刀的高手。这样的人拥有毁灭世界的力量 —— 也可以拯救这个世界……
2022年4月17日 已读
外卖送货员拯救世界的故事,说真的把语言、宗教和病毒联系在一起这个概念真的让我眼前一亮,然而啊这个文笔meh,翻译可能一定程度上也背点锅,叙事啰嗦又无聊,真的是耐心消失术,人物塑造也是我不喜欢的那种,有点失望
科幻 美国
Babel, or The Necessity of Violence Goodreads 豆瓣
8.3 (7 个评分) 作者: R. F Kuang Harper Voyager 2022 - 8
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.
Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
2022年9月12日 已读
救命这本书的设定!一个由语言和翻译学构成的魔法世界,支撑起一个不断发展、贪婪扩张的庞大帝国,几个年轻学者试图用自己渺小的身躯扭转滚滚碾过的历史车轮,主角的弧光非常完整,他从无知到和平主义到暴力抗争的发展转折点都很明确,小团体里另外三个角色以及秘密组织Hermes成员的形象也很鲜明。正如这本书小标题所言,它最终讨论的点是“暴力的必要性”,即对抗暴力不能一味诉诸和平的方式,这本身就是一个很悲壮的议题,在这本书里的表现方式也足够惨烈和黑暗……另外这本书奇幻的表现方式是基于翻译,作者展现出非常敏捷的语源学和翻译学知识运用,也相当有意思
历史 奇幻 美国
I'm Glad My Mom Died 豆瓣 Goodreads
I'm Glad My Mom Died
作者: Jennette McCurdy Simon & Schuster 2022 - 8
A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.
In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.
Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.
Review
“A stunning memoir…[McCurdy] reveals herself to be a stingingly funny and insightful writer, capable of great empathy and a brutal punchline. It’s a document not just of all she’s endured, but also of the wisdom she accrued along the way.”—Sam Lansky, TIME
“A coming-of-age story that is alternately harrowing and mordantly funny.”—Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times
“Jennette McCurdy is the queen of lemonade from lemons, using her trauma to weave a painfully funny story that also illuminates the commodification of teenage girls in America. An important cultural document just as much as a searingly personal one.”—Lena Dunham
“Jennette’s road to finding herself—removed from the expectations of her mother—is impressively funny. She fuses nuanced relationships, complex grief, religious whiplash and Hollywood trauma into a bold story with a specific comedic voice.”—Jerrod Carmichael
“How can a book be so sad and also so funny? It's an art, and Jennette McCurdy has mastered it here. I’m Glad My Mom Died is hysterical and heartbreaking and fascinating all at the same time.”—Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things and Broken (in the Best Possible Way)
“I'm Glad My Mom Died is furious, sad, brave, knowing, honest, heart-wrenching, and utterly compelling. McCurdy writes with a keen insight and startling compassion. Whether showing how dysfunction can seem normal to those most affected, the torture of eating disorders, or the mindfuck that is child stardom, McCurdy brings readers deep into the milieu so often hidden from outsiders. This is a beautifully crafted coming-of-age story as fearless as its author.” —Lauren Hough, New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing
“Jennette McCurdy’s book is a coruscating picture of her life as a child actor, devastatingly honest and with great understanding of the psychology and emotions operating at a deep level. It’s a riveting read, entertaining and very touching.”—Hayley Mills, New York Times bestselling author of Forever Young
“Jennette’s career as an actor was simply a character in a much more important story. She is a natural writer with a wonderful sense of humor. Her story is heartbreaking with a nice balance of hopeful. I could not put this book down.”—Laraine Newman, original cast member of Saturday Night Live and author of May You Live in Interesting Times
“[An] explosive debut…insightful and incisive, heartbreaking and raw, McCurdy’s narrative reveals a strong woman who triumphs over unimaginable pressure to emerge whole on the other side. Fans will be rapt.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“McCurdy asks readers a question: When and how does one rid oneself of the cage created by others and walk freely? Her stunning debut offers fierce honesty, empathy for those that contributed to her grief, and insights into the hard-fought attachments and detachments of growing older.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Delivered with captivating candor and grace.”—Kirkus (starred review)
2022年12月19日 已读
这本真的实感很强,从第一人称视角重现无知无觉的情况下被最信任最深爱的妈妈abuse的全过程,前半部陈述了和妈妈的关系,这种相互依存、互为唯一重要的存在的关系不管怎么看都极不健康,尤其女儿为了满足妈妈的愿望心甘情愿做一切事情,做任何事情最怕妈妈不高兴,并由此引发强迫症、讨好型人格和厌食症,妈妈却对这一切视而不见;后半程是妈妈去世后她在悲痛中状态逐渐恶化发展成严重的暴食症,以及之后慢慢正视自己的感受、正视母亲的行为,并在此基础上逐渐疗愈的过程……在我国长大的孩子应该多少会有点共鸣,最亲的父母在“为你好“的旗帜下做着精神控制和虐待的事情可以说是司空见惯,可怕的是身处其中的人却很难分清爱和控制欲(不仅是被控制的一方,有时施加控制的一方也如此)……这个作者能够在万劫不复之前刹住车可以说是万幸了
回忆录 美国
Dopesick 豆瓣
作者: Macy, Beth Little Brown & Co 2018 - 8
In this masterful work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched.
Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death.
Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.
2023年3月14日 已读
相比于Empire of Pain,这本的切入点更容易relate一点,从受到opioid crisis影响的普通人切入的叙事视角,这个写法可以说是见微知著,当然难免感觉材料组织有点乱,但是人文关怀的意味更足了一些,比较好的点是探讨了应该如何看待成瘾者以及为他们提供帮助,社会面对止痛药成瘾者态度的改变也是道阻且长
美国 非虚构
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal 豆瓣
作者: Amy Krouse Rosenthal Dutton 2016
2023年3月17日 已读
两星半……形式差不多是仅有的可圈可点的地方之一了,但这个形式在电子阅读器上真的很扣分(它甚至还有有声书,我都无法想象这本录成有声书听起来有多frustrating)……中间有几章还挺有意思的感谢我的强迫症没有让我看了两章就DNF,但是我真的很讨厌这种把blog entries捏把捏吧汇总成一本形式大于内容的书的感觉,太多散漫、没有诚意、没有灵魂
回忆录 美国
Yellowface Eggplant.place 豆瓣 谷歌图书 Goodreads
7.3 (47 个评分) 作者: R. F. Kuang William Morrow 2023 - 5
What’s the harm in a pseudonym? New York Times bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R. F. Kuang in the vein of White Ivy and The Other Black Girl.
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
2023年6月12日 已读
有关出版业和文化挪用的satire,从June这个不可靠叙述者的角度写非常有意思,尤其一开始不停合理化自己的行为的部分真的好气又好笑,它的风格和Babel非常不一样,可以感受到匡灵秀的versatile,这本非常有风格感,文风更加外放和锐利,跟着本的题材很搭,文字非常易读情节很顺溜是real page turner,然而这种文风让Babel上就存在的问题在这本里暴露得更加明显,开头非常有野心,中间的处理显得拖沓犹豫重复,结尾有点突然和anti-climactic,Candice这条线处理得利落合理却又有点过于obvious甚至有点偷懒的嫌疑,总之可以看到进步又觉得有一点点没达到预期,讲真最后装神弄鬼和June开始搞封建迷信那边我是真的有笑到,人在走投无路的时候最终的选择都是玄学
亚裔 美国
文化的衰颓 豆瓣
作者: [美] 雅克·巴尔赞 译者: 李小霞 漓江出版社 2021 - 3
《文化的衰颓》是他在20世纪80年代探讨当代文化所写的散文集、所谈的问题,篇篇含金量高,对于教育体制、人文学科、公民素养、文字语言的演变、艺术评论等都有深刻独到、令人会心一笑的见解,如今读来仍是切中时弊,值得反复品味。
雅克·巴尔赞认为,我们所处的时代是一个文化衰颓的时期,在日益加剧的混乱、越来越多的挫折和愚不可及的破坏中,文明崩溃了。这就是现代人和现代文化的境况。但是文化衰颓并不意味着失望多于希望,文化的承载者不断诞生,对文化的渴望与生俱来,这很可能成为复兴的源泉。
2023年7月1日 已读
完全看封面借的书,看到豆瓣评分吓了一跳,看到评分人数我就放心了……看这本书的时候满脑子只剩三个字“老右派”,看似聊文化,其实作者有非常多政治观点的输出(最后一章尤其如是),他聊的所谓“文化”,仅限于高雅的、古典的、精英阶层或者中产阶级的文化,似乎任何的大众化和通俗化都是对文化和艺术的破坏,作为上世纪80年代的产物我只能说我不能赞同,倒也不至于给差评,但是这本书的译者和编辑真的有够拉胯,脚注里的低级错误令人失笑,扣分
文化 美国
2001 A Space Odyssey 豆瓣
作者: Arthur Charles Clarke Perfection Learning 2000 - 9
2001: A Space Odyssey is the classic science fiction novel that changed the way we looked at the stars and ourselves....2001: A Space Odyssey inspired what is perhaps the greatest science fiction film ever made -- brilliantly imagined by the late Stanley Kubrick....2001 is finally here....
2023年7月9日 已读
心血来潮重读了这本,史诗一样的科幻,阿瑟克拉克的文笔真的很美,无论是史前的打斗场面还是熠熠生辉的星河,文字的电影感非常足,读的过程中有种沉浸式观影的体验,无论看多少遍都没法在拆HAL那段忍住不哭……这次读的期间看了同名电影,毕竟是科幻经典,在各处都可以看到对其后各种科幻作品的影响,完全可以说此后所有的太空歌剧都有太空漫游的影子……
科幻 美国
Her Body and Other Parties 豆瓣
7.0 (6 个评分) 作者: Carmen Maria Machado Graywolf Press 2017 - 10
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous,” Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.
Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
2023年7月13日 已读
CMM的文笔真的很有灵气,诡谲、敏捷、飘逸,夹杂着大量奇异的意象和比喻,整体感觉是徘徊在fantasy和horror的界限上,因为之前读In the Dream House了解过她的经历,读这本时一些有关苦痛和创伤的表述更容易理解,这本集合了女性面临的身体和精神上的失权、失声,充满了被压抑和扭曲的女性欲望,还笼罩着阴郁和死亡的影子,实验性的文风更加怪诞,但是故事本身优秀的和疲软的都非常明显……The Husband Stitch、Eight Bites和The Resident都挺不错,然后中间那一段Especially Heinous连讲十二季Law & Order: SVU真的很让我摸不着头脑
奇幻 惊悚 美国
The Found and the Lost 豆瓣
作者: Ursula K. Le Guin Saga Press 2017 - 11
Every novella by Ursula K. Le Guin, an icon in American literature, collected for the first time in one breathtaking volume.
Ursula K. Le Guin has won multiple prizes and accolades from the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the Newbery Honor, the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and PEN/Malamud Awards. She has had her work collected over the years, but never as a complete retrospective of her longer works as represented in the wonderful The Found and the Lost.
Includes:
-Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
-Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight
-Hernes
-The Matter of Seggri
-Another Story or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea
-Forgiveness Day
-A Man of the People
-A Woman's Liberation
-Old Music and the Slave Women
-The Finder
-On the High Marsh
-Dragonfly
-Paradises Lost
This collection is a literary treasure chest that belongs in every home library.
2023年7月29日 已读
相比于科技,勒古恩的作品更注重对异星文明的结构性探索,她总是在跳出人类文明对社会结构的习惯性思维,从性别、婚姻习俗甚至文明基石等角度非常彻底地拆解一个社会,由此引发对我们习以为常对人类社会的思考,文字方面比较慢条斯理,并不是action packed page turner的路子,具有很强对文学性,然而印象最深的还是第一篇Vaster Than the Empire and More Slow,最后这个结局在我脑内敲出了一生闷响,A Woman's Liberation那篇也很喜欢
科幻 美国
A Certain Hunger 豆瓣
作者: Summers, Chelsea G
An esteemed old-school restaurant critic loves to kill the men she sleeps with. And eat them. (We’re talking about a pair of braised butt cheeks—”roast rump”—here and a skinned tongue there, not like the whole bod. She also cooks them straight-up gourmet: A lover’s liver is turned into pâté and spread on Tuscan toast.)
2023年8月2日 已读
Unregretful female psychopathic murderer and food critic,挺有意思的,没有justify她的杀人和吃人的动机,也没有美化柔化她的嗜血,加上华丽的文笔和非常直接的场面描写,无脑的情节,这种thriller就非常适合summer reading(但我真是个弱鸡啊她说intestine的时候我真的差点吐了救命🆘)最后那段relationship写得好俗且莫名啊有点败好感,不过她和Emma的关系感觉有点意思
惊悚 美国
Slaughterhouse-Five 豆瓣 Goodreads
9.1 (14 个评分) 作者: Kurt Vonnegut Dell 1991 - 11
Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” ( Time ).
 
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
 
Slaughterhouse-Five , an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.”

More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.
2023年8月28日 已读
用非常荒诞、非线性的碎片笔法完全解构了战争之痛,文字很冷感,不时带着点黑色幽默,无穷无尽的死亡都用云淡风轻的so it goes一笔带过,读出了“却道天凉好个秋”的惨淡,另外可以看到四维空间的外星人这个概念和设定让我想到了《你一生的故事》,从开端就可以看到的结局、可以预知却无法改变的未来和本就不存在的自由意志,死亡只是把你从一个时间点抹去而你在其他时间点永恒地存在,so it goes
战争 美国 荒诞
Wool 豆瓣
作者: Hugh Howey Simon & Schuster 2013 - 3
2023年9月8日 已读
末日废土风的科幻,但是作者文笔真不咋样……其实很action-packed但是未免有点太流水账,情节并没什么新意,人物塑造也很普通,结尾又强行谈恋爱我真是wtf,其实最好看的只有Part 1,Part 4想玩花活化用罗朱,甚至女主都叫Juliet,但是除了一些引用之外也并没有亮点,引到These violent delights have violent ends我浑身一激灵(然后这已经是全书最刺激的地方了还不是这本书本身的功劳
科幻 美国
The Joy Luck Club 豆瓣
8.8 (15 个评分) 作者: [美国] 谭恩美 Ballantine Books 1990 - 6
2023年9月23日 已读
感觉到作者的文笔非常流畅洗练,叙事结构上如同四家人打了四圈麻将,但从情节上说就是把家庭剧套进了华人移民的框架里,对华人和华裔(二代移民)的描述现在看来还有点刻板,对于亚裔面对的群体性问题几乎没有反映,不过考虑到是比我年纪还大的书,有点年代感的成分也可以理解……如果早十年看也许会喜欢,现在看来就是不怎么能relate
移民 美国
The Bluest Eye 豆瓣 谷歌图书 Goodreads
9.1 (14 个评分) 作者: Toni Morrison Vintage 2007 - 5
Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.
2023年10月15日 已读
很难想象这是Toni Morrison的debut,可以说一出手就是经典,无论是行文还是结构规划都非常成熟自信,文笔更是充满诗意和韵律,从一开始的童谣就用一种诡异和凄厉牢牢抓住了我的心,全书的叙述虽然线索很多但并不混乱,情感表达非常细腻,深沉的悲伤无孔不入地让读者慢慢窒息,种族和性别双重压迫下挣扎的女性,只是想要一对蓝眼睛
女性 种族 美国