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Currently ReadingRecently Read | In many professions today, there’s a lot of talk about striving for “work-life balance.” Although focused on a balance between our work and personal lives, the ultimate goal is to improve and broaden the quality of life. Yet more than 2,000 years ago Aristotle recognized that balance was the key to living the best life [...]            Tim September 6th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, historical fiction, review | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed |  Print This Post |  Email This PostWhen I see documentaries or read books about the 1960s, I occasionally can’t help but ponder whether the radicals of the period, such as Abbie Hoffman or Bernadine Dohrn, ever wondered what America would be like today had the change they advocated come to pass. They face the problem all of us do — no [...] Tim September 2nd, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, ebooks, fiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostUsing weather as a metaphor can be tricky business. One of the worst sentences I’ve read in years invoked a “restless silver sky.” F. Scott Fitzgerald on the other hand used it to noted effect in The Great Gatsby. The risk for a writer may be even greater when weather is the central allegory. [...] Tim August 17th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostI admit to reading this with more than a bit of trepidation. I loved A Million Little Pieces, even after it was shown to be largely fiction. After the two “memoirs,” I wasn’t impressed with Frey’s “first” novel. Add this to the fact The Final Testament of the Holy Bible is about the Messiah returning [...] Tim July 6th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, Religion | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostAlthough the seeds were planted earlier, dystopian literature has flourished in 20th century nutrients — the rise of fascism, ideological conflicts, global industrialization, and seemingly limitless advances in technology. Pessimism isn’t a prerequisite to realize there is a potentially detrimental synergy in the coalescence of these changes. It undoubtedly provides plenty of opportunity to envision [...] Tim June 22nd, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, dystopian literature, fiction, Review Copy, sci-fi | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostIt is difficult to conceive of coming of age in a society where politics permeates and controls all aspects of life, from relationships to what you say or do. Even firsthand accounts of life in places like Nazi Germany are limited because they can largely reflect only the perspective of the author. As a result, [...] Tim June 6th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, Review Copy, world literature | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostFirst-rate literature needs to succeed on more than one level. Regardless of the issues or themes a book may explore, they are irrelevant if the author doesn’t draw in and keep the reader with the story, characters or writing. Italian author Antonia Tabucchi’s Pereira Maintains, set in Portugal in the summer of 1938, succeeds on [...] Tim May 9th, 2011 | Tags: Antonio Tabucchi, Book Reviews, fiction, historical fiction, Review Copy, world literature | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostYou’re likely to get an odd look when someone asks what you’re reading and you tell them it’s the “new” Jules Verne novel. After all, Verne died 106 years ago and all of his work has been published. Yet therein is a tale itself. The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz is a novel Verne hoped would [...] Tim April 27th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, Jules Verne, Review Copy, sci-fi, world literature | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostPerhaps book reviewers are meant to relegate themselves to commenting on what’s inside a book. Yet there are times the publishing process plays a role in a book. Unfortunately, that process damages Kris Saknussemm’s latest novel, Enigmatic Pilot: A Tall Tale Too True. (Full disclosure: Saknussemm is a “Facebook Friend” of mine but I know [...] Tim April 18th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, historical fiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostHow important is character to a novel? You can find an answer in what comes to mind when you hear names like Holden Caufield, Jay Gatsby, Rabbit Angstrom or Atticus Finch. Gin Boyle Toad, the central character of Goldie Goldbloom’s The Paperbark Shoe, may never rank up with those names. She is, though, one of [...] Tim March 22nd, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This Post |         The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.  | ||
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