and they brought prosperity down at the armoury

The Dispossessed: One of those novels I wish I’d found sooner. Le Guin has a beautiful economy of language not often found in fantasy writers: making the terse but poetic choice, rather than bombarding a scene. The Dispossessed feels like an epic, though it comes out fairly slim.
And like all good science-fiction, the [...]

and he points to his survival, and he points me down the road

Perdido Street Station: Weird, original and engrossing; a blend of Cronenberg and Dickens. China Mieville builds a city full of fascinating characters and baroque institutions: the steampunk slum of New Crobuzon, where cactus-men jostle with insect-headed khepri and where the militia stalk the skies on tramlines, capturing criminals and sentencing them to Remaking. [...]

if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad

This media blow hasn’t read anything in a while.
Brave New World: Again, I read a book that everyone else on the planet has read years ago. I have nothing to add to the decades of critical acclaim heaped on this book, so I’ll talk more about my reactions to it than a critique of [...]

accidents mean no one’s guilty; ignorance means someone’s killed

This media blow might get political, but that’s no fault of mine:
The Lives of Others: Oscar-winning German film from 2007. Set in East Berlin in 1984, it follows a Stasi captain ordered to surveill a popular playwright and his actor girlfriend. The passion in their lives draws him in, until he finds himself [...]

rule britannia is out of bounds

WALL-E: Another touching and awesome Pixar spectacle. Pixar has mastered animation to the extent that a one-foot robot with only two words in its vocabulary can emote more effectively than most of the stars expected to carry a summer picture today. They’ve mastered comic timing on a level that puts 99% of comedies [...]

invisible airwaves crackle with life

This week’s media blow can download over either the 3G or standard wireless networks.
House of Sand and Fog: Brutal and moving and impressive. Kathy, a recovering addict whose husband has just abandoned her, gets evicted from her Pacific Coast bungalow for failure to pay a small business tax that she does not owe. [...]

superstar, but he didn’t get far

I’m visiting family in Baltimore, taking the train down this morning and back on Monday, so don’t expect much.
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and you can’t find nothing at all if there was nothing there all along

And on the third day, they went to the media blow, only to find the stone rolled aside:
The Limits of Power: A book-length op-ed. Heavy on assertions, backed up by telling but sparse anecdotes, Bacevich’s new book on American imperialism likely won’t convince anyone who wasn’t one foot in the bag already. But [...]

wreckx n effect is in effect but I’m the wrecker

A pre-birthday media blow:
Mass Effect: I can’t get over the feeling that I’m playing this game wrong. Part of this feeling arises from the fact that Mass Effect has no tutorial to speak of, throwing you into the action with limited instruction but deep backstory. But most of this feeling arises from the [...]

the evil that men do to live life close to kings

And now, the remainder of your media blow:
Kitchen Confidential: Now I see what the fuss was about! Bourdain writes accessibly, but also with the intent to educate – about what goes on in kitchens, the way restaurants are run and, most importantly, what separates good chefs from the great ones. A fun read.
Killing [...]