2 Andrew Greeleys, 1 Carl Zimmer, 1 Matthew Battle and a Franzen in a pear tree

[maribou]

The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council, by Andrew Greeley
The sociology is sound and the personal interpretations are convincing and witty. They don't always mesh well, so that the tone kind of seems to flip-flop, but I still really liked this. Particularly the occasionally arch footnotes. But we've discussed my footnotes jones.
(129/200)

Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures, by Carl Zimmer
Focuses on parasites that aren't bacteria, fungi, or virii, on the logical grounds that the discipline of parasitology does likewise. Full of well-described fascinating things, and the scientists are given almost as much time as their science, so that they become characters in a story, not just names hooked to biological details. Not as good as Dave Quammen, better than I expected. I couldn't read it at lunchtime, but I kept bringing up some of the more interesting stuff to people who didn't necessarily WANT to think about that, thanks. Couldn't help myself.
(130/200)

The Bishop Goes to the University, by Andrew Greeley
I've never met an Andrew Greeley novel that didn't engross me. This one was not as tightly edited as it should've been though. Some awkward grammatical constructions and whatnot. I think I liked The Bishop Goes to the West WIng the best out of recent entries in this series.
(131/200)

Library: An Unquiet History, by Matthew Battle
Oh, what a fun book. Whimsical and straightforward at the same time, this history of libraries from pre-Shi Huangdi to the present is really nifty and well-written. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
(132/200)

How to Be Alone: Essays, by Jonathan Franzen
Some of these essays were extremely wonderful and some of them verged on the pompous/ill-informed, even after supposedly being revised to reflect the author's new less-pompous retrospective maturity. And a couple of them managed to hit both ends of the spectrum in the same essay. The Amazon.com review says, "Jonathan Franzen is smart and brash, the kind of person you want as your social critic but not as a brother-in-law..." but I actually liked the personal parts of the essays a lot better than the policy-related ones. Worth reading though, and I suspect that if I'd been reading these instead of listening to them, the occasional fulsomeness of tone would've been less noticeable. Very tempted to attempt The Corrections now.
(133/200)

Comments

[doctorpepper.livejournal.com]

Isn't it great how different and yet kind of not different Greeley's fiction and nonfiction are? I haven't read either of those, mind you, but I've always loved how he's able to juggle those hats without being too expository in one or too loose in the other.

[maribou]

Yeah. It's like he has one guy who tells the stories and another one who analyses things, and they're close partners but respect each other's turf.

[wendevious.livejournal.com]

I'll have to track down Parasite Rex. I've been reading a lot about parasites lately and starting a few too many conversations with "Want to know something really COOL about hookworms?" This book sounds perfect.