User Profile

Ji FU

fu@millefeuilles.cloud

Joined 2 years, 1 month ago

Trying to find a better way to track books I want to read than a random spreadsheet. I had used readinglog.info which was provided by my local public library until they shut down the program. Luckily, I regularly backed it up via their CSV export. I've used Library Thing for years, but adding books for "To Read" really screwed up a lot of the other features of the website, like recommendations, etc. I really love Free Software & the Fediverse particularly. My primary social media account is on Friendica @fu@libranet.de for now everything I post here is automatically "re-tooted" there.

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Ji FU's books

To Read (View all 7)

Currently Reading (View all 6)

Robert A. Heinlein, Lloyd James: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (AudiobookFormat, 2010, Blackstone Audio, Inc., Blackstone Audiobooks) 5 stars

Revolution is brewing on twenty-first-century Luna, a moon-based penal colony where oppressed "Loonies" are being …

Heinlein made me feel like I could start my own revolution to bring peace and liberty to my world.

5 stars

I have read dozens of Heinlein's books and have like most of them. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of his most well known works and yet I'm just reading it now. I had put it off in part because the first few pages are pretty dry so when I picked it up in the library years ago, i put it right back. Secondly some of the stuff I had heard/read of it didn't sound great, sentient computers, line marriages and the like. But it was so much more than that.

The story of the luna prison planet revolution and declaring their independence certainly used much of the language and imagery from the American revolution, including choosing the 4th of July as the date of their declaration, butt there is much more wound up. There are images from the Russian and French revolutions as well and this mid …

Leo Calvin Rosten, Lawrence Bush: The New Joys of Yiddish (Hardcover, 2001, Crown Publishers) No rating

The New Joys of Yiddish brings Leo Rosten's masterful work up to date. Revised for …

I consider the story, the anecdotes, the joke, a teaching instrument of unique efficiency. A joke is a structured, compact narrative that makes a point with power, generally by surprise. A good story is exceedingly hard for anyone to forget. It is therefore an excellent pedagogical peg on which to hang a point. Those who do not use stories when they try to explain or communicate are either inept at telling them or blindly forfeit a tool of great utility.

The New Joys of Yiddish by ,

Page xxii

commented on Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children (Hardcover, 1981, New York, Knopf) No rating

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very …

I'm almost a quarter of the way through and our protagonist hasn't even been born yet. It's a slog. Some of the longest sentences I have ever read. They are elongated by semicolons, ellipses, and dashes. The narrator keeps interrupting his story to mention his discussions with his wife about this part of the story. So far I don't feel it adds to the book at all. I'm hoping it gets better after our main character shows up.

Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children (Hardcover, 1981, New York, Knopf) No rating

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very …

The insurance money came; January ended; and in time it took to close down their affairs in Delhi and move to the city in which - Dr Narlikat the gynecologist knew - property was temporarily as cheap as dirt, my mother concentrated on her segmented scheme to love her husband.

Midnight's Children by  (Page 90)

What the heck does "cheap as dirt" mean? Property is dirt and anyone who has tried to buy a peice of dirt knows it ain't cheap.