The Conversation
- Seeking Asian Female (2)
- Raguel: Fuck me halfway through that trailer my testicles nearly crawled back into my body. What a fricking...
- trolldetector: All you need is love.
- About A Boy by Nick Hornby (5)
- Raguel: I could be wrong but the distribution windows for media and especially film seems very hierarchical. If you...
- bigWOWO: Illegal streaming? I had no idea anyone did that! Well, I really should check out some movies one of these...
- Eurasian Sensation: Actually the trailer’s voiceover makes it seem wayyy more cheesy than it is. I don’t...
- Superbowl Recipe and Xenophobic Superbowl Ad (22)
- Raguel: Time to get your concealed carry licences, folks!
- Eurasian Sensation: Jeff Yang has a good article about this ad: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn....
- Raguel: I haven’t even gotten to why the ad really is so offensive to us, ROFL
- Jeremy Lin shines (20)
- N: @danny You should youtube his college games. The two against Boston college and the one against UConn. Lol, he can...
- Lingyai: @Ben Efsaneyim Why would it be surprising a non Asian crowd cheering for Lin? Most of the NBA fans going to...
- bigWOWO: Danny and Mojo, Holy crap! That’s amazing! I didn’t know he could dunk either! I think...
- Holy Jesus, Jeremy (1)
- Lingyai: Lin’s style on the court: http://oi39.tinypic.com/f1xnvd .jpg Lin call Stanford coach a liar and says...
- “But he hit me back first!” (32)
- trolldetector: CHINESE PRIDE MUTHAFUKAZ
- bigWOWO: I didn’t post that video to mock Koreans (again, why do you seem to think everything is against...
- jstele: Stay classy, Byron. This whole argument isn’t even about race, but your ego and inability to admit that...
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (9)
- Raguel: ^ Nice one Byron! I’m reading through the NYT picks, they’re good!
- bigWOWO: The Times had an Op-Ed by the President of the RIAA, and I commented. My comment was picked as a...
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (402)
- bigWOWO: Here’s an interesting suggestion coming out of MIT: Connectome by Sebastian Seung...
- Battle Hymn of the Kitten Daughter (36)
- Raguel: You know Andre, you and me, I think we and a lot of other folks may have gone through some pretty harrowing...
- Andre M. Smith: Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew....
- Two podcasts that address racism in the military, and Danny Chen the person (9)
- Raguel: The origins of racism in the American military as described by loudestfuckingazns is accurate. Very recently,...
- bigWOWO: Sorry, Larry, just noticed that the spam robot junked your comment. Approved!
- bigWOWO: Agreed. It just has more weight if you include your name. Not that the ideas are any less valid, but it just...
- Facebook IPO (5)
- King: Actually WOWO, I bump into plenty of Asians up at the Art Center College of Design http://www.artcenter.edu/a...
- bigWOWO: Agree with King. This might not be a bad thing for Asian Americans to hear about. We can jump off the STEM...
- Raguel: People are too accustomed to thinking about value only in terms of money. Even artists are guilty of it. Some...
- Activism is as activism does (10)
- trolldetector: Brooks also goes onto say ‘You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of...
- bigWOWO: By the way, speaking of activism, there was a great David Brooks column recently. He talks about how people...
- Raguel: I have no experience whatsoever with activism. I simply do not feel safe participating in it. There is always...
- How to Win a Streetfight (18)
- bigWOWO: No worries. I feel the same way. Nothing against her, but just doubtful.
- Raguel: Hi Byron! I’ve been occupied doing a lot of reading and thinking recently. I suppose its just another...
- bigWOWO: Hey Raguel, What about your comments on ASSK?
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
- What Cultures Value (19)
- UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap (1)
- bigWOWO: I think Michael Bisping solved the Chael Sonnen puzzle today, even though he lost a controversial decision....
- 6 on 1 Beatdown of Asian Man (36)
- King: “I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima...
- SWR: Apparently the girl in the second video was not the girl who filmed the fight. It was probably unwise of her to...
- Raguel: I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima in...
- Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan (Review) (6)
- bigWOWO: Jeff, You called it! They were (if I recall correctly) 7 (twins) and 2. He’s still in the honeymoon...
- jeffat8asians: “Overpaying?” With the possible exception of college tuition (and even that is arguable),...
- Hitler: Kids suck lol.
- The Asian Rock Thread (16)
- ben: I’ve been getting into Asian rock music recently so thank you all very much for uploading all these videos.
- Simple Pickup on ABC News (132)
- Tommy: I think I’m coming here more for Moro’s comments than BigWoWO’s posts.
- Moroboshi: I didn’t say that. All I said was guys who believe in HBD are the same guys who probably also follow...
- Chr..: Moro, I don’t want to argue with you anymore! You seem to think that AMs are just as popular as other...
- “Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class (6)
- bigWOWO: But kobu, how can we have literature and art without money to support artists and writers? About...
- kobukson: I don’t know why everyone seems to think the notion of the decline of the middle class is such a bad...
- bigWOWO: There are a lot of veterans (supposedly) on that site. I can kind of understand it–military guys are...
- Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh (45)
- bigWOWO: Eurasian, Lee Kuan Yew has always been upfront about Singapore’s hybrid system. To the best of my...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ BigWowo: New governments following independence or a major power struggle often have the sort...
- N: @bww And ironically, one of the rare democratic successes in the region that is Singapore behaves much closer to a...
- Paper Pushers by the Stunt People (4)
- Andre M. Smith: I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter...
- Raguel: Smiley tests 8 )
8(
- Seeking Asian Female (2)
Category Archives: books
About A Boy by Nick Hornby
This isn’t a review, per se, but I just finished reading About A Boy by Nick Hornby. I also learned that it was made into a movie with Hugh Grant–and the trailer looks very different from what I just finished reading:
This isn’t a formal review, but if it were, I’m not sure how I’d categorize it. Hornby uses sharp language, and his writing is infused with that cheeky British humor that Americans love. The book, through the character of Will Freeman, captures the slacker culture that was big in the 90′s–and even bigger now. Marcus, the boy whom Will befriends, was intriguing because of the numerous issues that came his way. Overall, a fun read.
Posted in books, Reviews
5 Comments
American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Popular Fiction Gold
The problem with fiction reviews, especially with popular fiction, is that the reviewer can only give away so much without ruining the ending. As a result, I read American Dervish and expected a simple story of unrequited love and betrayal. Instead, it was much more. Ayad Akhtar uses this story not only to describe forbidden love and lust, but also to describe what it is like growing up Muslim. Check out this video where the author explains why he wrote it (he uses the “love story” description himself):
American Pastoral by Philip Roth (Review)
Oh wow, I had no idea American Pastoral won the Pulitzer. I think I must have read an earlier edition before the prize was awarded.
American Pastoral is a story in two parts. The early part is a first-person narration by a character by the name of Nathan Zuckerman, who recounts his young life and infatuation with an older Jewish boy named Seymour Levov who goes by the nickname “Swede.” They called him “the Swede” because he had blonde hair, different from the other Jewish boys. He was a star athlete, and Zuckerman, who is now an older and unmarried writer, gets back in contact with the Swede right before a high school reunion. The rest of the book is about the Swede himself and about his daughter who commits an unspeakable crime.
Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson (Review)
bigWOWO Review: Non-Fiction Bronze
Niall Ferguson is a gifted writer. The way he writes history makes it come alive. He does his research well, and he tells a great story. He’s the kind of history professor I wish I’d had in school. (And if I had made Harvard, maybe I would have had him.)And for the most part, this book was good. But then it slowly started to fall apart after the first few chapters, before completely landing in the toilet in the second-to-last chapter.
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Review)
I thought Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections was a very good book, amazing, complex, ambitious, and powerful. The Corrections was a great book because of the complexity and Franzen’s grasp on modern life. Let me just say then: Freedom is on a whole different level. Franzen deserves all of the acclaim that the media has been paying him and more.
“Hooked” by John Franc (Review)
I don’t remember how I found out about Hooked, but I heard about it, ordered it from the library, forgot about it, and then received it a month later.
The book is about a group of successful, middle-aged men who, in between soccer practices and work, begin sneaking out and hiring prostitutes at high-end houses around an unnamed city. The main thrust of the narrative is the struggle between secrecy and authenticity, and between the men who hire prostitutes and their families. The book was written mostly from a first person plural point of view, reminiscent of Yiyun Li’s story from the perspective of a town. The author “John Franc” tells a good story and is skilled with language. “John Franc,” in keeping with the style of the narrative, is a pseudonym.
American Rust by Philipp Meyer (Review)
So far, I’ve read four novels from members of the New Yorker’s 2011 20 under 40 (Yiyun Li, Joshua Ferris, Meyer, and some dude whose name I won’t mention because his novel was absolutely PAINFUL). I wanted to check out Philipp Meyer’s novel because out of all the stories that I read in the New Yorker, his was my favorite. He’s also got a fascinating personal biography.
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (Review)
I wanted to read something different, so I decided to check out Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. Erica Jong herself isn’t a racial minority (although she’s Jewish), but she was married to a Chinese American psychologist for a while (a dude with the last name Jong), and I had heard that Fear of Flying, an autobiographical novel, was about a White woman married to a Chinese guy. I had also heard that the book was an important one for the growing feminist movement during the 70′s, and I thought it might be good for me to educate myself.
One L by Scott Turow (Review)
Hertsel recommended One L. It’s a mini-memoir written by novelist Scott Turow about his real life experience as a first year law student (One L) at Harvard. In the book, Turow describes the competition, the teaching methods, and the philosophy behind a law school education. Turow’s experience at Harvard, he explains, is similar to what law students across the country go through with the intense competition, sometimes humiliating use of the Socratic method, and often irrational obsessions for status within the law school.
Banana Boys (Heung Jiu Jei) by Terry Woo (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Popular Fiction Gold
Great news: Banana Boys is now available in the U.S. through Amazon. I had to drive all the way from Portland to Vancouver when I bought my copy seven or eight years ago. Now you can just order and get it in your mailbox.
I re-read this book last week because I couldn’t in good faith have a website that reviewed Asian American literature without having Banana Boys (Heung Jiu Jei) reviewed.
