I'm rereading The Name of the Rose by Eco. It's teeth-gritting work, seriously. I forgot how terrible this book is. Nothing but a lot of fancy names and Latin quotes being thrown about to make the readers feel like smartypants. That's no way of writing. The Holmes-esque plot is nice, but pretty damned contrived. I forgot why I'm rereading it, but now that I am I might as well finish.
Also reading Thomson's Europe Since Napoleon. Pretty good book, but very centered on France and Great Britain so far. Not much of a European history, ey?
Recently read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code. I didn't want to, but situation compelled me (someone shoved it in my hands, had to read it out of respect to her). They're both pretty horrible, though Angels & Demons is better-written. The plot is contrived and lacks even a thin veneer of credibility, the characters are predictable and uninteresting and the amounts of factual mistakes about Catholic history and tradition and dark matter are so numerous that even I with very limited knowledge on both subjects had difficulty wading through the bullshit.
Also reading Thomson's Europe Since Napoleon. Pretty good book, but very centered on France and Great Britain so far. Not much of a European history, ey?
Recently read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code. I didn't want to, but situation compelled me (someone shoved it in my hands, had to read it out of respect to her). They're both pretty horrible, though Angels & Demons is better-written. The plot is contrived and lacks even a thin veneer of credibility, the characters are predictable and uninteresting and the amounts of factual mistakes about Catholic history and tradition and dark matter are so numerous that even I with very limited knowledge on both subjects had difficulty wading through the bullshit.
