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Osho

Osho

I read widely and in most genres but romance and westerns. Here you'll find my reviews since 2007, with a few reviews of previously read books as well.

 

In 2012, I completed an "authors of the world" challenge, reading a book for every country (and a few other entities) by someone who'd lived there for at least two years. I expect to tag these books by challenge and country in the near future. I'm still refining my list by adding books that better meet my challenge criteria.

Down and Out in Paris and London (Audiocd) - Frederick Davidson, George Orwell Orwell's first publication, one in which he has yet to find his voice. Since this is exaggerated/fake autobiography, the anti-Semitism, presumably Orwell's though articulated by other characters, is wearisome. The argument that the sentiments in this book aren't anti-Semitic because Orwell later wrote an essay about anti-Semitism is not convincing.Here is Orwell as world-wise young punk, telling older people about the world he knows about but they don't. It's intended, I think, as expose, but doesn't manage to pull this off. Part of the problem is that though it has a moral theme, the action is picaresque, and since parts are fictionalized, it's reasonable for the reader to ask what the point was and why, if fictionalized, the point couldn't have been made through more compellingly structured action.Read with anything by Anthony Bourdain to compare the life of a plongeur to that of contemporary urban restaurant workers.