When I picked up A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright, I thought I was going to read a steampunk novel. However, what I got included a lot more. In many ways it was like The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (which I wrote about here) meets V for Vendetta (plus more).
There [...]
While I generally enjoyed the book, the problem with Everyman by Philip Roth is that it is a little inaccurately sold. The book is a collection of memories of a single man (supposedly an ordinary man) that starts with his funeral.
The problem is this: the main character isn’t ordinary. His father is a well-off jewelry [...]
I am not sure if Milan Kundera has ever heard the term “Web 2.0”, but in his book (though, he was likely writing it before the term was coined anyway) The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts (that I first wrote about here) there is a quote that strikes me as related.
Kundera is referring to [...]
There is a long list of things that tick me off, but banning books is way up there towards the top.
The Fahrenheit 451: Banned Books blog has created a Banned Book Challenge that seems worthwhile. Essentially, commit to reading as many (of the books that have been banned) as you are able to between now and June [...]
As compelling as it is, this book totally freaked me out. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a “coming of age story” about the “coming of age” of people (clones) who are being raised so that the vital organs can be harvested.
It is complete with teenage angst, romance and girl infighting (not [...]
I don’t know where to start.
Basically, I read this post on Da Vinci Automata and was completely intrigued by the book Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick, which I bought today. I have found that I am super intrigued by the terms steampunk and clockpunk and read a bit about them.
I am surprised that I [...]
I hate to cook and will go to great lengths to avoid it. I hate talking or thinking about food or recipes. But, I truly hate cleaning up after cooking, which makes me hate the whole concept of cooking even more. At times, I think that people who say they like to [...]
As I wrote here, Milan Kundera is a genius. His books are nearly perfect. Identity is a quick, but brilliant, read and is filled with many interesting quotes. Ultimately, it is a love story, but it is also a view of external events via the interior world.
Some of the quotes are short, [...]
The first one I bought about twelve years ago at the Kramer Books and Afterwards Cafe in Washington, DC (the store had its 15 minutes of fame about three years later).
Anyway, A History of Knowledge by Charles Van Doren is an exceptional overview of world history through the lens of all that humankind has created, [...]
