Prometheus in Bondage, or, All the Girls I Should Have Kissed

Rating:
Summary: Short Math Wizard in Lemon Muffin Sex Shock
Review: In some ways this book is similar to _Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman_, in that it's written as a series of vignettes and anecdotes, and the author is a mathematician. But whereas in Feynman's book the stories were directly or indirectly associated with science, _Prometheus in Bondage_ has more to say about life - its joy and sadness, bizarre coincidence and tragic regret.

It's difficult to pin this book down to a single theme. In one sense it's about a lingering sense of loss, about "the road not taken," but this theme is blended together with humor and a bizarre kind of synchronicity. The author's quixotic search for a long-lost childhood friend, for instance, which forms the spiritual center of the narrative, is woven in and out of a much larger story involving Scandinavia,"The Guiding Light", Howard the Duck, Trisha Yearwood, and Jack the Ripper. The overall effect is something like a layer cake made by a mad baker, with alternating layers of sour and sweet, flour and salt.

Throughout it all, however, the book conveys a sense of poignance. It was impossible for me to read it and not think about my own life - the people I've known and the ones I wish I'd known better, the strange happenings and unavoidable tragedies, the unlikely adventures and the few perfect moments.

This book was an inspiration to me, to try to live a life of fewer regrets.

Rating:
Summary: Memoirs of a Mathematician of Pleasure
Review: In some ways this book is similar to _Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman_, in that it's written as a series of vignettes and anecdotes, and the author is a mathematician. But whereas in Feynman's book the stories were directly or indirectly associated with science, _Prometheus in Bondage_ has more to say about life - its joy and sadness, bizarre coincidence and tragic regret.

It's difficult to pin this book down to a single theme. In one sense it's about a lingering sense of loss, about "the road not taken," but this theme is blended together with humor and a bizarre kind of synchronicity. The author's quixotic search for a long-lost childhood friend, for instance, which forms the spiritual center of the narrative, is woven in and out of a much larger story involving Scandinavia,"The Guiding Light", Howard the Duck, Trisha Yearwood, and Jack the Ripper. The overall effect is something like a layer cake made by a mad baker, with alternating layers of sour and sweet, flour and salt.

Throughout it all, however, the book conveys a sense of poignance. It was impossible for me to read it and not think about my own life - the people I've known and the ones I wish I'd known better, the strange happenings and unavoidable tragedies, the unlikely adventures and the few perfect moments.

This book was an inspiration to me, to try to live a life of fewer regrets.

Rating:
Summary: A journey in the life of a thirty-something's regrets
Review: Kent Boklan is witty, literate, and brutally honest as he tells--through a series of non-chronological vignettes--about his search for an old friend, and the tale of his life's regrets.

Why should I care? As he puts it, "these are not the memoirs of an extraordinary life"--but they are memoirs that made me laugh, cringe, and made me think. They are memoirs that brought me back to my days in college, and memoirs that showed me a different view of a world--the view from the eyes of the eccentric Kent Boklan.

It's a very different kind of book, with several different layers to it--up to and including the title itself.

But if you read it, you won't forget it.

Rating:
Summary: Short Math Wizard in Lemon Muffin Sex Shock
Review: This book is sometimes refreshingly witty (with plenty of scrumptious literary allusions for those lucky enough to pick up on them). It can also be refreshingly dim. It's almost obscenely colourful--Cherry Jell-O, lemon muffins, at least one seductress dressed like Ronald McDonald... It's very stylish, but touchingly honest. It's almost too real to be art. I give this project 3 stars out of 5 for typesetting but 7+ for a book that would have made Mark Twain laugh and Lord Byron wince.