Focault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I just couldn’t follow it. Now I just place it on my table at the cafe to look intellectual.

Focault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I just couldn’t follow it. Now I just place it on my table at the cafe to look intellectual.

I bailed on it after that exhaustive listing of items in a desk.

I bailed on it after that exhaustive listing of items in a desk.

I never read the book but had the movie figured out like in the first fifteen minutes.

I never read the book but had the movie figured out like in the first fifteen minutes.

The premise sounded cool to me but I DNF’d it somewhere around the long explanation of spacesuits for asteroid mining.

The Pillars of the Earth

I am so relieved to see someone else reject this book. I honestly do not understand why it is beloved by so many, and constantly recommended. Something about the plot and writing was just so rambling and almost silly, like someone had written the entire thing in one shot as some kind of timed writing prompt.

The Pillars of the Earth

I am so relieved to see someone else reject this book. I honestly do not understand why it is beloved by so many, and constantly recommended. Something about the plot and writing was just so rambling and almost silly, like someone had written the entire thing in one shot as some kind of timed writing prompt.

I was doing a second reading of it on the commute to work and I had this kind of amazing realization. I came across some passage (I forget which now), but it stopped me in my tracks and I said to myself “This guy is talking about my life!” Great stories can cross the gulf of time.

I was doing a second reading of it on the commute to work and I had this kind of amazing realization. I came across some passage (I forget which now), but it stopped me in my tracks and I said to myself “This guy is talking about my life!” Great stories can cross the gulf of time.

Gotta give it to The Odyssey. Not only is it a great lyrical epic, but it closes out with one of the great endings of all time.

Will never forget the way he describes Camp 4.

I showed him, I quit after the third book. Hmmmph.

When I read that I wondered if Star Trek: TNG was inspired by it for that alien who can only speak in historical phrases.

Cool story.

One that I don’t see mentioned much but thought was cool: The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.

All this happened, more or less.