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“The Logic of Irrationality”
[Original image found at the MathWorks site (slogan: "Accelerating the pace of engineering and science"). It seemed too good not to use.] I haven’t read the book in question (Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman), but this book review got it a spot in the queueueueue. Especially this bit: Kahneman’s approach to psychology spurns [...]
Book Review: Children of God, by Mary Doria Russell
A few weeks ago I reviewed Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow at the Book Book review blog. I just posted a follow-up there, a review of The Sparrow‘s sequel, called Children of God. However, if you have not read The Sparrow, please don’t read my Children of God review: it assumes that you know what [...]
Book Review: The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
Over at The Book Book, I’ve posted my recent review. This time around, the subject is Mary Doria Russell’s novel The Sparrow, first published in 1996. Russell seems one of those novelists in the enviable position of writing whatever she wants, irrespective of genre. The Sparrow (and its 1998 sequel, Children of God) are frank [...]
Book Review: The City & The City, by China Miéville
My full review of this book is up, over at The Book Book. Part conventional murder mystery, part dark urban fantasy, The City & The City is constructed on a bizarre high concept which the author makes somehow believable: two Eastern European cities are not just neighbors, adjacent to each other; they’re even closer than [...]
Book Review: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
I’ve (finally!) posted my review of Nabokov’s Lolita, over at The Book Book. It certainly made for a discomfiting read, on some levels. Anyone with a niece or daughter, as young as the title character or simply once that young — and, I’d bet, any one who herself was once that young — will find [...]
Book Review: Who Hates Whom, by Bob Harris
My latest review is up at The Book Book. This time around, it’s a non-fiction title, Who Hates Whom. (Subtitle: Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up: A Woefully Incomplete Guide.) In brief, it’s a good overview of world “trouble spots” — where they are, how they became troublesome in the first place, [...]
Book Review: Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan
Here’s how I imagine it must have gone: The woman went about her work calmly but with determination. Cupped in her hands before her, on the table, was a mysterious jewel; depending on the light in which and the angle from which viewed, sometimes the jewel glittered with color and sometimes seemed black enough to [...]
Unbanning Books Month
Miriam Forster, of the charmingly monikered Dancing with Dragons is Hard on Your Shoes blog, has issued a challenge to writers (and readers!). It springs from an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association, called Banned Books Week. From the ALA site: Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the [...]
Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
My review of this book is now up over at The Book Book. So is another reviewer’s, as of yesterday — and we’re just following on the heels of the first, from a year ago. Clearly a book that draws reviewers like flies! I liked the book very much although (as you can see from [...]
Book Review: War, by Sebastian Junger
Habitués of Running After My Hat know, I think, that I resist the intrusion of politics into my posts here. And although I’ve never been tested on this, I’m pretty sure that’s one area in which I would likely resort to editing (or outright banning) comments of certain kinds. If you’re after debate, even of [...]
