Tag: book reviews
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Review: Shah’s Pandemics
Pandemic: Tracking Contagions From Cholera to Ebola and Beyond Sonia Shah I’m not really a science guy, but I have thing for pandemics. There’s something about their lethal power, and how unaffected they are by the human misery they cause, that terrifies me. When I heard the good reviews of Shah’s social history of pandemics,…
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Review: Older’s Infomocracy
Infomocracy Malka Older A science fiction political thriller novel about elections. Meaning, a book written precisely for me. In the future, elections are done on a hyper-local level with major parties looking to piece together large numbers of small districts to achieve global parties. The system is run by a disinterested google-like corporation (Information) determined…
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Bibliography: Anne Carson
I don’t always love Anne Carson’s work. Autobiography of Red is one of my favorite books of contemporary poetry (can we call it that?) but Red Doc> was too much for me. But even when I don’t like an individual work, I love what I see to be her life’s project — connecting the classical…
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Review: Hamilton’s The Second Life of Nick Mason
The Second Life of Nick Mason Steve Hamilton Another Hamilton book, this one debuting a new series and a new brooding protagonist – Nick Mason: noble petty criminal forced to work for evil organized crime boss while valiantly attempting to hold onto his humanity and save from ruin a whole bunch of innocent people. This…
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Fathers and Sons: Some Thoughts on Coates’s The Beautiful Struggle
The Beautiful Struggle Ta-Neshi Coates The first book by one of America’s greatest public intellectuals. The Beautiful Struggle is a coming of age memoir, set in Baltimore and focusing primarily on Coates relationship with his fascinating, complicated father. If you’re interested in what Coates has to say, (and you should be) then you…
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Review: Hamilton’s A Cold Day In Paradise
A Cold Day In Paradise Steve Hamilton An above average crime thriller, the first in Steve Hamilton’s series featuring down on his luck, broken detective Alex McKnight. I picked this up because I read somewhere that Hamilton’s an underrated crime writer – I guess that’s true. Certainly better than the Baldacci’s of the world, but…
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Review: Diana Nyad’s Find a Way
Find a Way Diana Nyad Diana Nyad’s moving memoir of her life as a woman, a lesbian, a world record holding endurance swimmer, and a survivor of child sexual abuse. The book was significantly better than I expected. I figured I’d be reading about Nyad’s legendary marathon swim around Manhattan and her decades long quest…
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Euripides The Trojan Women and Other Plays
The Trojan Women and Other Plays Euripides The final ancient source I read for the Trojan War reading project I’m working on this year, this collects Euripides works The Trojan Women, Hecuba, and Andromache. Strangely, I’d never read any of these before. That’s what you get with a public education. The obvious point to make…
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Greece Over Rome: My Thoughts on Being Underwhelmed by the Aeneid
The Aeneid Virgil (Trans Fagles) In most things of the mind, Greece beats Rome. The Greeks philosophy is better, as are its dramas, and it epic poetry. While the Aeneid is perhaps the best piece of epic poetry Rome has to offer, Virgil was no Homer and this is no Iliad. That Homer’s superiority to…
Milo and the Calf 