Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Book Review: Killing Commendatore

From Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami:

Killing Commendatore

Amazon


"It was a couple of months after I’d moved there that I discovered Tomohiko Amada’s painting Killing Commendatore. I couldn’t know it at the time, but that one painting changed my world forever."

Book Review: Killing Commendatore: Magical realism by my favorite author, Haruki Murakami. An artist, after breaking up with his wife, secludes himself in a mountain cabin belonging to a dying famous Japanese artist whose long hidden secrets emerge from a covered well. A-

After the jump, my full review.

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Book Review: Remarkably Bright Creatures

From Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt:

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Amazon


"Darkness suits me. Each evening, I await the click of the overhead lights, leaving only the glow from the main tank. Not perfect, but close enough. Almost-darkness, like the middle-bottom of the sea."

Book Review: Remarkably Bright Creatures: Story of an octopus and two aquarium night janitors who care for him. He repays them with clues to a mystery. The octopus is way too bright. Coincidences abound. A heartwarming, workmanlike story with something for all ages. B+

After the jump, my full review.

Friday, June 9, 2023

Book Review: The Book of Goose

From The Book of Goose, by Yiyun Li:

Open quote
Book of Goose

Amazon

  The questions that did not occur to me to ask at thirteen feel important now. I wonder if Fabienne knew the answers. I wish I could ask her. This is the inconvenience of her being dead. Half of this story is hers, but she is not here to tell me what I have missed."

Book Review: The Book of Goose. Memoir of Agnès, a girl author whose brief fame is not entirely earned. A coming-of-age tale of a girl and her best friend Fabienne, the one who seemingly has all the answers for Agnès, the one with only questions. But Agnès has heart. A-

After the jump, my full review.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God

From Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale-Hurston:

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Their Eyes Were Watching God

Amazon

  Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men."

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God: 1937 novel by a too-long forgotten author who was a pioneer of Black, feminist, American stories. Here, she tells the growing maturity of a Black woman, using Black vernacular dialect that recalls Twain's Huck Finn. A-

After the jump, my full review.

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Book Review: The 1619 Project

From The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones:

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The 1619 Project

Amazon

  Why hadn’t any teacher or textbook, in telling the story of Jamestown, taught us the story of 1619? No history can ever be complete, of course. Millions of moments, thousands of dates weave the tapestry of a country’s past. But I knew immediately, viscerally, that this was not an innocuous omission. The year white Virginians first purchased enslaved Africans, the start of American slavery, an institution so influential and corrosive that it both helped create the nation and nearly led to its demise, is indisputably a foundational historical date. And yet I’d never heard of it before."

Book Review: The 1619 Project: American history as it's rarely told, with the true story of what's been done by and to Blacks. With separate authors on chapters on democracy, capitalism, politics, citizenship, religion, music, healthcare, and more, its power builds relentlessly to a call for action at the end.

After the jump, my full review.

Friday, February 17, 2023

TIL: A Servile War

Source: Starz.

This week, I've been exploring various rabbit warrens prompted by Lee Roddy's 1977 book, "Gallant Christian Soldier: Robert E. Lee". First, I examined Lee's purported flawless character. Then I examined Lee's purported military genius. I found both lacking. Today, I want to examine something Lee said in a letter to his wife. I want to thank Lee Roddy for including it in his biography. I learned something from it at least.

Thursday, February 16, 2023

More About Robert E. Lee

Gallant Christian Soldier

Amazon

Yesterday, a book that caught my eye at the Richardson ISD Council of PTAs Used Book Fair sent me down the rabbit hole in search of the real Robert E. Lee. It's been said that the South lost the shooting war, but won the PR war. Lee's reputation was burnished after the Civil War by advocates of the Lost Cause. Yesterday's book review was of Lee Roddy's 1977 book "Gallant Christian Soldier: Robert E. Lee", an example of the genre that was still going strong a century after Lee's death. Personally, I had long ago rid myself of any belief that slave owner Robert E. Lee had a flawless character, as Roddy maintained in his biography of Lee. But I was still willing to grant that Lee was a masterful strategist and tactician on the battlefield. Today, my explorations down the Lee rabbit hole rid me of that belief as well.

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

What I Bought at the PTA Used Book Fair

Gallant Christian Soldier

Amazon

The Richardson ISD Council of PTAs had its annual used book fair last weekend. If you've never been, you don't know what you're missing. There are thousands of books, of all genres, for sale at steep discount prices, a treasure hunt where you never know what you'll find. The book that caught my eye, the book I just had to buy, was the one with the big Confederate flag on the cover. I just had to take this one off the shelf...for review, let's say.

Friday, January 27, 2023

Friday, October 14, 2022

Book Review: The Pursuit of Italy

From The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples, by David Gilmour:

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The Pursuit of Italy

Amazon

  I was astounded by the next words of Signor Rossi, who twenty years earlier had been minister of education. ‘You know, Davide,’ he said in a low conspiratorial voice, as if nervously uttering a heresy, ‘Garibaldi did Italy a great disservice. If he had not invaded Sicily and Naples, we in the north would have the richest and most civilized state in Europe.’ After looking round the room at the other guests, he added in an even lower voice, ‘Of course to the south we would have a neighbour like Egypt.’ "

Cramming 2,500 years of history and culture into a dense 400 pages, this book focuses on Italy's divisions. It's a wonder that Italy ever came together into a single modern state. That didn't happen until the 1860s. Maybe it hasn't happened yet. B+

After the jump, my full review.

Friday, September 23, 2022

Book Review: Dance Dance Dance

From Dance Dance Dance, by Haruki Murakami:

"The hotel should never have been built where it was. That was the first mistake, and everything got worse from there. Like a button on a shirt buttoned wrong, every attempt to correct things led to yet another fine—not to say elegant—mess."

Dance Dance Dance
Amazon

Book Review: Dance Dance Dance: 1988 novel with Haruki Murakami's signature touch of magical realism. This sequel to "A Wild Sheep Chase" is even better. A Japanese writer goes through an early midlife crisis as people around him disappear. What's real? What's imagination? B+

After the jump, my full review.

Friday, September 9, 2022

Book Review: On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder

From On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder:

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On Tyranny

Amazon

  Since the American colonies declared their independence from a British monarchy that the Founders deemed “tyrannical,” European history has seen three major democratic moments: after the First World War in 1918, after the Second World War in 1945, and after the end of communism in 1989. Many of the democracies founded at these junctures failed, in circumstances that in some important respects resemble our own."

Book Review: On Tyranny: Short book drawing parallels between modern America and Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. Timothy Snyder lays out 20 simple ways each of us can fight the creep of fascism here in America. It's a how-to, a timely call to action.

After the jump, my full review.

Friday, August 19, 2022

Review: Uncontrolled Spread

From Uncontrolled Spread by Scott Gottlieb, MD:

Open quote Watching the scenes unfold—of Elmhurst Hospital being overrun with COVID patients, of refrigerator trucks parked outside, and of doctors and nurses describing their harrowing experiences—was hard to bear. It was stunning, and it was shocking. But above all, it was terrifying." Uncontrolled Spread
Amazon

Book Review: Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic. A former FDA Commissioner and Trump White House advisor gives us his view of COVID-19. A balanced, neutral look at the things we did right and the things we got wrong. A-

Friday, July 29, 2022

Review: Cloud Cuckoo Land

From Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Open quote “Ah,” says the first sister, “fine choice,” and they sit on either side of him and the one who fetched the book says, “On a day like this, when it’s chilly and damp, and you can’t get warm, sometimes all you need are the Greeks”—she shows him a page, dense with verse—“to fly you all the way around the world to somewhere hot and stony and bright.” " Cloud Cuckoo Land
Amazon
Cloud Cuckoo Land: A mashup of the fall of Constantinople, a modern-day crime thriller, and a future sci-fi journey to another star, all connected by an ancient Greek story. The characters are memorable, the plots compelling, but the sum is less than the parts. B+

Thursday, July 7, 2022

Review: Sea of Tranquility

From Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel:

Open quote Edwin St. John St. Andrew, eighteen years old, hauling the weight of his double-sainted name across the Atlantic by steamship, eyes narrowed against the wind on the upper deck: he holds the railing with gloved hands, impatient for a glimpse of the unknown, trying to discern something—anything!—beyond sea and sky, but all he sees are shades of endless gray." Sea of Tranquility
Amazon

A time travel story in which a glitch in time brings centuries together. And sends characters from earlier novels into alternate timelines. These stories slowly weave together into a mesmerizing whole. B+

Monday, June 20, 2022

Review: Behold the Dreamers

From Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue:

Open quote He'd never had to worry about whether his experience would be appropriate, whether his English would be perfect, whether he would succeed in coming across as intelligent enough. But today, dressed in the green double-breasted pinstripe suit he’d worn the day he entered America, his ability to impress a man he’d never met was all he could think about. Try as he might, he could do nothing but think about the questions he might be asked, the answers he would need to give, the way he would have to walk and talk and sit, the times he would need to speak or listen and nod, the things he would have to say or not say, the response he would need to give if asked about his legal status in the country." Behold the Dreamers
Amazon

Immigrant from Cameroon builds a life in the Bronx. Wall Street banker faces ruin in the 2008 collapse. Their lives intersect in a quintessentially American story. Straightforward, simple prose, most authentic in the Cameroonian household.

"Behold the Dreamers" is the 2022 selection for "Richardson Reads One Book".

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Review: The Idiot

From The Idiot by Elif Batuman

Open quote I didn’t have a religion, and I didn’t do team sports, and for a long time orchestra had been the only place where I felt like part of something bigger than I was, where I was able to strive and at the same time to forget myself. The loss of that feeling was extremely painful. It would have been bad enough to be someplace where there were no orchestras, but it was even worse to know that there was one, and lots of people were in it—just not me. I dreamed about it almost every night." The Idiot
Amazon

Elif Batuman's debut novel is a first person account of her freshman year in college, followed by a summer teaching English in Hungary. She has a keen eye for detail. She shows wry humor throughout. You learn about love and linguistics along the way.

Friday, March 18, 2022

Review: Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future

From Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert

Open quote That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. Choose just about any metric you want and it tells the same story. People have, by now, directly transformed more than half the ice-free land on earth—some twenty-seven million square miles—and indirectly half of what remains." Under a White Sky
Amazon

Kolbert opens her book with the prophecy of man's dominion over all the earth. Until very recently, that fact was considered an unalloyed good thing, a sign of God's favor, a sign of human progress. Only recently have we recognized the downsides to our dominion. Kolbert closes her book with this summary, "This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems." Those problems were originally introduced by us exercising our dominion.

Friday, February 18, 2022

Review: The Midnight Library

From The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

Open quote ‘Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’ " Midnight Library
Amazon

That excerpt tells pretty much the whole story. Woman attempts suicide. Between life and death, she's given the chance to see all the lives she might have lived. Does she find the ideal life for her? Does she rekindle her will to live? She does learn an important life lesson. It's a straightforward story, not very deep.

Thursday, February 3, 2022

Review: The Accommodation: The Politics of Race in an American City

From The Accommodation, by Jim Schutze

Open quote In 1950, for the second time in a decade, the City of Dallas was in serious danger of racial warfare. The dynamitings of Black middle-class homes had started again. None of the measures adopted after a wave of bombings ten years earlier had had lasting effect. The tendency of the city for organized and violent white aggression against Blacks seemed ineluctable. It was the chain that tied the city to a bloody past." The Accommodation
Amazon

This is Jim Schutze's classic 1986 history of race relations in Dallas. Peter Simek in "D Magazine" called it "the most dangerous book in Dallas." It was long out of print, rumored because of pressure by Dallas's white oligarchy. Now it's been re-released. From slavery to Jim Crow to the 1980s, it lays out how Dallas was run, leaving a legacy we still see today. It's eye-opening, a great read, a must read.