christe is currently reading The Intellectual Devotional.
I’m 39 years old, male, from Brazil. I’ve been a DailyLit member since March 19, 2009. My reading interests include Science Fiction, Essays, Horror, Suspense, and Business.
Books
- The Intellectual Devotional 84% complete
-
The Murders in the Rue Morgue finished
- The World War And What Was Behind It finished
- The Man Who Was Thursday, a nightmare finished
- Masters of Verse finished
- Classic Shorts: Eight Stories for Summer finished
-
Hell-Heaven finished
-
Art of Money Getting finished
-
Burn This Book finished
-
The Adventure of the Speckled Band finished
-
Flipping the Funnel: Company Edition finished
-
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button finished
-
The Bootstrapper's Bible finished
- Eastern Standard Tribe finished
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow finished
-
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom finished
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles suspended
- On the Origin of Species suspended
- A Princess of Mars (Barsoom Series Volume 1) suspended
- The Colors of Space suspended
- Three John Silence Stories suspended
- Walden suspended
- Overclocked suspended
- Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions suspended
-
Heroes For My Son unread
Posts
The Murders in the Rue Morgue - Anyone with a soft spot for mystery should get acquainted
Anyone who ever liked a mystery tale should read this, considered to be the first-ever piece in that genre. If you've managed to stay away from spoilers to this classic, it should still pack a baffling punch. Of course, explanations may fall on the "unreasonable" camp these days, but in Poe's time imagination counted far more than accuracy.
Heroes For My Son - Some 'heroes' are no better than villains
Someone's heroes are a matter of perspective, common sense and, ultimately, personal taste. It's bad enough to see an ambitious Calcutta-based nun who traveled half the world to campaign against Ireland's referendum on divorce (as if she had any business there!) praised as a hero... but to see a genocidal American president who spread a blanket of war and destruction on a sovereign nation without discernible reason labeled a "hero" is far too much for me. No point in reading this any further.
Hell-Heaven - Portrait of the Bengali, message to us all
Faraway cultures usually clash when transposed next door. The best approach, obviously, is to reach out to learn (and grow from the experience), to put differences in perspective, to talk before pelting stones. Lahiri's remarkably intimate and refreshingly direct view of the growth of a girl as she observes the withering of her mother's spirit says more about human nature as a whole than it does on Bengali custom and lifestyle -- and it says a lot on those topics, too. A suitably muted, savory gem that cleanly drafts aspects of the ever-intriguing interpolation of "growth" and "change".
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #32: Guilty Pleasures
Robert E. Howard's original Conan the Cimmerian stories. I know, I know...
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #31: American Writers
H. P. Lovecraft. This giant of speculative fiction went largely unread in his day, but his highly original work took root decades later, capturing the minds of mainstream American writers of the 70s and 80s. It still casts shadows in this day and age of shrill entertainment, hopelessness and faithless solitude.
Question of the Week - Question of the Week #33: Go International
Jose Saramago. An intriguing blend of original form and inspired (but worldly) message. Raises deep questions about how we deal with each other.
Art of Money Getting - Timeless business acumen
P. T. Barnum, entertainment pioneer, knew how to make money and how to keep it -- by wisely investing and knowing to spend less than what's earned. It's really nothing people shouldn't know, and this is exactly why this read is so highly recommended -- because no one, in this day and age, can afford not to know how to best keep ahead of debt and assorted financial rainy spells. Solid advice, written from a hands-on perspective, with very little in the way of "dated" information. Read and re-read to keep your head over your shoulders when deciding how to employ your money.
The Adventure of the Speckled Band - There's a reason why Holmes is a classic
Yes, Sherlock has aged. But it still creates a damn good mystery atmosphere. This is a powerful concentrate which could be easily adapted into a play, since nearly everything happens in one place.
Reader Challenges - Summer Love in One Sentence
I didn't know anyone in the state she lived in, but the warm exchange of e-mails encouraged me to get in a plane and, not much later, in her beachfront embrace.
Reader Challenges - Classics in 6 Words
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress": satellite or not, we want freedom!
Reader Challenges - Classics in 6 Words
Rendezvous with Rama: spaceship comes, Earthlings rendezvous, spaceship ignores.
Reader Challenges - Classics in 6 Words
Carl Sagan's Cosmos: everyone, everything is made of starstuff.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - outdated social concern
I find that the period's middle class portrait is interesting, but less relevant to the enjoyment of the tale; it's far more eye-grabbing to notice how timeless the discussion is. It's shocking to see how human prejudice and conventional ways in the face of the new remain the same.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Short story masterpiece
Excellent character study disguised as a children's tale, full of pointed remarks about human nature and its unchanging prejudices. Brisk and shockingly up-to-date, will probably never get old.
Book Requests - Public Domain Lovecraft, Please.
Considering Lovecraft's final surviving works were penned in 1936, it is quite possible that -- barring changes in international copyright law that I'm unaware of -- the entire body of his fictional creations are now in the public domain, regardless of what August Derleth's estate or Arkham House Publishers might claim.
H. P. Lovecraft would be a tremendously welcome addition to Daily Lit, provided his short stories are chosen carefully amongst his best. To repeat the words of Stephen King, Lovecraft was "the Twentieth Century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale".
The Bootstrapper's Bible - Best guide to start your business, or to realize you can't.
Level-headed, sobering guide to "what it really takes" to build your own business from scratch and watch it take off -- but more importantly, a guide to recognize whether or not one really fits the "enterpreneur" profile. This helped me avoid a big, costly, life-changing mistake, and for that alone I'm grateful I've picked this up.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - A What-If closer to our reality than we probably know
Probably the most intriguing thing about the book -- and the probable cause for anyone to pick up up the first time -- is the developing of Disney's fantasy park into a miniature society complete with unfathomable policies and ruthless administrators. There's some sobering sarcasm in here.
Reader Challenges - 6 Word Autobiography
Worried all life about not worrying.