alisarae's Reviews (1.65k)

Eu sempre era fascinada por diários. Adoro ler sobre o dia-dia dos outros. Este diário é exemplar porque a autora traça as personagens (que são os vizinhos) de forma envolvente e interessante.

Como é triste que poucas coisas mudaram até hoje nas vidas dos pobres do Brasil. Este livro é o argumento mais forte que já vi em prol da continuação das verbas para SUS e Bolsa Família. Como a vida da Carolina poderia tido sido melhorada com um pouco de medicamento e arroz!

Outra coisa que mudou desde então: o surgimento de drogas e gangues altamente organizadas (ex: PCC). Carolina reclama muito dos efeitos de pinga nas vidas dos favelados; imagina hoje com craque e cocaína. Depois de ler este livro e [b:Prisioneiras|35062389|Prisioneiras|Drauzio Varella|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493908270l/35062389._SY75_.jpg|56355386] por Drauzio Varella, é fácil ver por que PCC tomou conta do país tão facilmente. A falha nos serviços básicos é preenchido com uma cesta mensal e julgamentos que resolvem brigas com eficiência. Os ricos tem medo dos pobres, do crime, da violência, de comunismo..... gente, é só providenciar os básicos e tudo isso resolve.

I started reading Galatians, following my reading plan, and I realized a couple chapters in that if I really wanted my lingering doubts answered, I would need to consult some professional help. How many times have I read the Bible and left my questions to be forgotten with a dismissive, "I'll probably never know... Or at least not this time around." And there are some passages like that. However, I found this commentary available on archive.org and I really liked that the author is a woman with an episcopalian bent, so I went with it.

This was an immense help. It made me fall off track with my reading plan, but I really understood what I was reading and got a solid grasp of all Paul's arguments. This commentary is meant for the layperson. It is easy to understand, not overly complicated, and only makes cross references when really useful and pertinent. (I dislike commentaries that have paragraphs of cross references....either use the references to explain a point or list them at the end of the chapter, for the love of St. Pete!!) Besides that, Osiek explains Greek philosophical traditions when Paul references them, points out contradictions and comparisons in other biblical books, and raises doubts and possible interpretations that scholars and interpreters have. Again, all this and it is not longwinded or boring.

I really liked how Paul was humanized in this commentary. Prone to sarcasm, exaggeration, conveniently forgetting facts that detract from his arguments... Maybe it is nitpicking but I appreciated seeing him as a normal human instead of a Second Jesus that he is so often regarded as by pastors when preaching from his letters.

I will certainly be reading more commentaries from this series and I hope archive.org has them all!

This book reminded me a lot of Convenience Store Woman (overly analytical narrator emotionally disconnected from the world around her). While I loved the former, I struggled to finish this short book. I frequently felt that the narrator was unbelievable, unconvincing as a person who might really exist in the world. For example, her frequent complaint that she gets English expressions wrong despite attending English-speaking schools in America K-PhD. Or that neither she nor her boyfriend referred to their dog as anything but "Dog." I get that it is a spare, minimal, tight style of writing, but it was so effective at showing the narrator as unhinged and detached that I simply couldn't care less about the whole thing.

Pachinko is like a combination of slots and pinball. You buy a ball and choose where to drop it in on a vertical board set with pins. The pins guide the ball around the board to holes. The hole that the ball enters determines your payout. So there is the appearance of control—the player gets to choose where to drop the ball—but the ball's many twists and turns are a rigged game.

This book spans the lives of four generations of a Korean family living in Japan, starting with Japanese-occupied Korea. The most consistent thing that plagues the family is unrelenting racism and their struggle to make a home and identity for themselves. But even though the characters need to make decisions related to survival, the majority of the time there are few true choices available. Mostly they are tossed from one situation to the next, playing a rigged game.

I thought the setting of the book was really interesting—how often do you hear of books about Korean immigrants to Japan? The writing was solid as well, and the audio narration was pleasant.

This story—and its mechanics of time travel—was fascinating. The way that time travel works here makes cliff hangers inevitable, so the plot moved very quickly. I wish that I had read this when I was studying US history in school. It confronts head on the complicated personal relationships between slaves and their owners, abuse and ability to consent, and how trust is distorted in unequal relationships. It's rich for discussion. Besides that, the realities of the time related to medicine and available technology are laid open—humans are fragile and life is harsh. We forget our own mortality, but at that time it seems like it had to be a near-constant thought.

Holding true to Octavia Butler's prose style, the sentences and dialogues are straightforward and utilitarian. They serve a purpose: to move the plot forward. They do not serve the purpose of enchanting the reader. In the book, you have to fill in the finer details with your own imagination. I think this would make a very good TV series, because the screen would give viewers a bit more visuals to hang on to.

I kept this book open in a browser window this week, reading a bit here and there as I took breaks from Twitter. It was a good distraction, reset button, disinfectant for the soul. I read the [aloud] poems aloud. Those were my favorite.

The cover and title make this seem like an unremarkable cookbook, but actually it's a powerhouse of ideas for complete meals (mains, sides, desserts). The recipes cover the most popular Asian dishes, grouped according to country: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai. But it really surprised and pleased me that it also has some dishes from lesser-known Asian cuisines: Vietnamese, Indonesian, Tibetan, Nepalese, Afghani, Filipino, Uzbeki, Tajiki, and Persian. Of course, all of these recipes are adapted to be made in 30 minutes and with ingredients readily available from your local Asian grocer's, but the spirit of inclusion is there. I wouldn't really say that the recipes appear authentic but the flavor profiles can put you in the right direction. I'm the sort of cook that just needs a general idea of ingredients and I can take it the rest of the way to the plate—so it's perfect for weeknight cooking.

I don't say this often, but I think I'm gonna buy this one. I've been eating vegetarian this lent, but my husband is still eating meat. Since most of these recipes are a curry of some sort or another, they are easy to adapt for the both of us. Or alternatively, I could easily use this as a resource for side dishes, since some of my other all-time favorite cookbooks are main courses only. 30 minutes and packed with veggies makes a good side in my book!

I learned a lot by listening to this book (the audio actors are great btw). The author, Jeffrey Rosen, has had a long friendship and working relationship with RBG. He gathered her published writings, speeches, interviews, etc, and edited them into "conversations" around certain topics: Roe v Wade, #MeToo, her favorite decisions, working relationships among the justices, to name a few. RBG edited and approved the final manuscript. The result is an educational yet approachable "chat" with America's most notorious judge.

Well, maybe Judge Judy holds that title.

This relay through the Americas was interesting to read because I like listening to books about endurance sports while I run. The book is very short, though, and I wish the author had delved deeper into pretty much every aspect of it. He barely scratched the surface on: histories of different tribes and their lands, oral histories of people he met (example: why was the Uruguayan author still in exile in Mexico? The dictatorship ended a long time ago, and now Uruguay is seen as a utopia, at least by Brazilians), as well as more descriptions of the run itself. Besides that, I guess I don't really like memoirs where people go on a journey to find themselves (Eat Pray Love, Wild, etc).

I disliked the audiobook narrator; I felt his stern, formal voice was not a good match for the personality and age of the author.

Overall, I would say that if you are already interested in reading about Indigenous issues, you would probably like this book. But if you don't care too much, reading this book likely won't spark a passion.