Milo and the Calf

Tag: books

  • Shaara’s Killer Angels

    Killer Angels, Michael Shaara The book that really started my obsession with the civil war.  A novel about the battle at Gettysburg told from the perspective of a commanders from both the Union and Confederate sides. A stunning work. I’m generally not a fan of military history, I could care less about troop movements and…

  • Roy’s God of Small Things

    The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy I read the God of Small Things almost fifteen years ago, so let’s be honest, my memory is a bit hazy. I remember being blown away that it was a first novel, but in hindsight, that may have been naïve. Its complex narrative structure, following twins in two…

  • Kelman’s How Late It Was, How Late

    How Late It Was How Late James Kelman When I was twenty, I lived in Berkeley California and worked as a tele-fundraiser for a number of large nonprofits. Yes, I was the guy calling to ask you to donate to the Sierra Club. My co-workers were an incredibly eclectic mix of punks, artists, ex-cons, and…

  • Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

    Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie Can Rushdie write? Yes, he prose is beautiful, if too baroque at times for me. I read this over a decade ago, and there are scenes I can still remember clearly. Can he craft a compelling story? Yes, as this story of the transformation of India, and those who lived there,…

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    Proulx’s The Shipping News

    The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx I read the Shipping News in 1997 when I was twenty-two years old. It is hard to articulate now the effect it had on me. It’s moving, its beautiful, and it’s the first time I self-consciously realized I was reading a literary novel. I’d read other serious novels before,…

  • Hamilton’s The Secret Race

    The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France Tyler Hamilton This is one of the best book on the culture of pro-cycling. It’s also one of the best books on the mechanics of doping, especially, in endurance sports, and on the psychology and pressure that can lead a good kid far…

  • Goodwin’s Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire

    Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire Jason Goodwin Jason Goodwin is perhaps best known as the author of a detective novel series set in Ottoman Istanbul and featuring eunuch detective named Yasim. I’ve read a couple of those books and enjoyed them enough to pick up his much more serious history…

  • Bolano’s Nazi Literature in the Americas

      Nazi Literature of the Americas, Roberto Bolano The first book I read by Bolano and it got me hooked. Ostensibly, a review of literature written by various Latin American fascists, it is, like much of work, occasionally funny, slightly surreal, and in the end disturbing and brilliant. One of these vignettes was expanded into…

  • Raymond’s He Died With His Eyes Open

    Dude, WTF did I read? He Died With His Eyes Open (Factory 1), Derek Raymond The first book in the Factory series of so called “exestensialist noir” following the nameless detective who works in the unsolved crimes division and sees the deepest underbelly of British society. In this book, he’s on the case of a…

  • Fishkoff’s The Rebbe’s Army

    The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch, Sue Fishkoff “Excuse me sir, are you jewish?” If you live in New York and you look even remotely like an Ashkenazi jew, you’ve been asked this question. The people doing the asking are members Chabbad Lubavitcgh, the largest, most outwardly looking movement in Hasidic Judaism. This…