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Review Date: 5/30/2014
The most fascinating part of this book is the cognitive capabilities of bonobos, of which I was completely unaware. It's changed the way I look at animals in general.
Review Date: 1/10/2014
Well, I can see why they included "nonrequired" in the title--this is not the kind of reading you would encounter in a college classroom! A lot of the pieces are pretty weird, but many are thought-provoking.
Review Date: 1/17/2021
Funny, thought provoking, and a page turner. Loved it, ordering more of Franzen's books!
Review Date: 5/30/2014
Having traveled in Australia, I loved that this book takes place in Australia. Having been in relationships with men, I loved how this book captures "guys" and the ways in which they don't connect with women. Plus, it has the Depression, the dust bowl, the beginnings of WWII, and the same xenophobia that the US endured. And the notion of a train that's a virtually a complete farm is fascinating! What's not to love?
The Friend Who Got Away : Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
17
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
17
Review Date: 1/10/2014
Helpful Score: 1
This book surprised me. I expected it to be exclusively about adult women's friendships with other adult women, but it explored a variety of friendships, including women's friendships with men and adult women looking back on friendships they had as children. The most interesting for me was two adjacent chapters, written by two different women, about their friendship with each other--it was amazing that I was most of the way through the second account before I realized they were talking about the same friendship! Then I had to go back and reread them both, and still it seemed like they were telling two largely unrelated stories. I was also surprised (and a little depressed) by the wide variety of ways in which friendships can end--it made me scrutinize my own friendships in ways that were not necessarily helpful. Overall, a real eye-opener, but not necessarily of the feel-good variety. Nevertheless, worth a read.
Review Date: 5/25/2014
Helpful Score: 1
This is one of the few books I've read that has a fat person as the sympathetic main character. And although for the first 240 pages she seems doomed to the gloomy circumstances of her birth and girth, in the last three pages she is gloriously vindicated! In retrospect, it was fun--I feel like a wonderful joke was played on me! And it helped me to get into the experience of someone who is treated, both intentionally and unintentionally, as less than a person because she is fat.
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