Tag: Geek

Gertrude Stein – Three Lives | Review

Title: Three Lives

Author: Gertrude Stein

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 262

Rating: 3*/5

 

Gertrude Stein - Three Lives

Gertrude Stein – Three Lives

 

I feel a bit harsh about giving this only three out of five, but the truth is that while I could appreciate Stein’s brilliance, it just didn’t excite me. Her work, which was revolutionary at the time, still feels innovative, but it struggles to compete with plenty of other modern classics. It’s the kind of book that you ought to read if you’re serious about literature, but which you need to be a real Stein geek to fully appreciate.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, though. It actually flew by, and this is a rare example of when a book’s introductory essay actually added a lot of value to me, as a reader. It helped to place the work into context, and it forewarned me about some of the stumbling blocks that put people off, like Stein’s repetition of language.

But that’s kind of the point of it, and Stein uses this book to effectively create the literary equivalent of a realist painting. Sure, there isn’t much plot – but it does a great job of bringing fictional people to life in your mind’s eye through the language they use alone, and that can only be a good thing. The truth is that there isn’t much like this on the market, even now – 100 years after its initial publication.

So should you read this? Well, it sort of depends upon whether you like to read classics. But if you do, you should!

 

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein

 

Click here to buy Three Lives.


Stephen H. Segal – Geek Wisdom | Review

Title: Geek Wisdom

Author: Stephen H. Segal

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 224

Rating: 4*/5

 

Stephen H. Segal - Geek Wisdom

Stephen H. Segal – Geek Wisdom

 

This book has its ups and downs, usually depending upon whether you’re familiar with the book, film or TV show that the authors are talking about. The book itself is split over around five different sections, with each section being further seperated into individual quotes with accompanying info on where the quote comes from and what it means to us in our day-to-day lives.

And that, in a nutshell, is what this is – almost a manual on how to live your life based on the teachings of classic geek culture. It’s well-written and often self-referential, and while it is a lot of fun while you’re reading it, it’s also just the right length. After a while, it would start to get tedious, but I think the authors did a good job of including only the very best of their material.

I got annoyed, once or twice, by an error which kept on reoccurring – sometimes words were preceded by a random apostrophe, like ‘this. It’s frustrating, but it wasn’t enough to hamper my enjoyment of what was otherwise a pretty good read, the sort of thing that you could receive as a gift and actually enjoy reading. As long as you’re a geek or nerd.

 

Stephen H. Segal

Stephen H. Segal

 

Click here to buy Geek Wisdom.