It’s surprising sometimes just what the popularization of certain scientific ideas can do. Certain concepts work their way into popular culture, despite the difficulty of math or science truly behind them. David Ambrose’s The Man Who Turned Into Himself indicates that even theoretical physics can actually prolong the life of and perhaps even resurrect [...]
I’ll admit that sometimes I just don’t get it. Or maybe it’s just that my literary tastes are too prosaic.
I picked up Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas after seeing repeated references to it, most of them rather glowing. I knew what it was about. I knew that Bolaño, a Chilean [...]
February 23, 2008 – 9:55 am
It’s difficult for history to serve as a guide when so many people tend or prefer to be oblivious of it. Whether overcoming that tendency motivates Mary Doria Russell’s Dreamers of the Day is unclear. Regardless, her novel may well teach more people some basics about the origins of the modern Middle East [...]
February 4, 2008 – 7:53 am
When you get right down to it, we’re all in search of happiness. That may be particularly so of Americans, for whom the “pursuit of happiness” is an “unalienable right.” Rather than a metaphoric approach to the search, Eric Weiner took a geographic one. His efforts to try to find where people [...]
January 25, 2008 – 7:45 am
There are two sides to most things and, generally, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Gary Kowalski’s Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of America’s Founding Fathers demonstrates the adage applies to views of how the founders of this country saw the role of religion.
Today, many on the Christian right argue that the intent [...]
January 18, 2008 – 7:47 am
Just as in my last review, here’s another book that makes me reconsider my rule of thumb that my books of the year are limited to books published that year. Had I read it two weeks before I did, Dorothea Dieckmann’s short novel, Guantanamo, would have easily made, if not topped, my 2007 list. [...]
January 15, 2008 – 7:39 am
If there was any doubt I am enthralled with foreign fiction, it is totally erased. The first four books I’ve read this year are translated works. There’s not a single weak one among them and Out Stealing Horses is among the strongest. It is yet one more reason why I need to [...]
January 8, 2008 – 12:08 pm
I never want to take anything away from an author as gifted as Tatyana Tolstaya. That said, one of the more intriguing aspects of Tolstaya’s The Slynx is Jamey Gambrell’s translation of the work.
The Slynx is a satire set in a Russia more than 200 years after “the Blast.” Life has reverted to [...]
December 14, 2007 – 7:48 am
Science fiction’s most common motif is speculating on our future. Sometimes, though, it also gives a glimpse of our past. That is especially true with reissues of classic works, such as Philip Wylie’s Triumph.
First published in 1963, Triumph is a heart-of-the-Cold War tale of nuclear apocalypse. The trigger of a cataclysmic World War [...]
November 30, 2007 – 7:33 am
Axis , Robert Charles Wilson — In this sequel to the 2006 Hugo Award-winning novel, Spin , Wilson once again displays his talents. He manages to not only keep the reader interested, he mixes enough different elements and tension into the story that you don’t really want to put the book down. Yet the [...]
November 16, 2007 – 7:53 am
Josef Stalin is commonly credited with the aphorism, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Given the lives lost during his rule, the attribution is fitting regardless of whether the attribution is correct. Yet the latest exploration of Russian history by Orlando Figes goes beyond the deaths as [...]
November 8, 2007 – 7:44 am
Halting State, Charles Stross — Despite the level of his output, Charles Stross is about as far as one can get from SF formula. His works range from exploring the concept of the Singularity to an award-winning alternate history series to a spy agency dealing with Lovecraftian opponents. Halting State, his latest novel, [...]
October 18, 2007 – 7:40 am
I’ve been a relative slackard over the last several months when it comes to actually doing reviews. It seems the only ones I get done are for books sent me for review purposes. As a result, I’m going to try to at least make these book briefs a semi-regular feature.
Clapton: The Autobiography, Eric [...]
October 2, 2007 – 7:50 am
Perspective requires time. With six years having passed since the events of September 11, 2001, we are beginning to see some critical analysis not only of the ramifications of that day but how we responded as a nation. In The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America, Susan Faludi provides a unique [...]
September 20, 2007 – 6:59 pm
As I’ve previously lamented, America seems to take an almost chauvinistic approach to literature, displaying little or no interest in works originally written in another language and then translated into English. The potential disconnect with Malvinas Requiem will probably start with the title. Regardless, those who have called it Argentina’s Catch-22 just may [...]
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