Tag: books
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Review: Harris’s Ten Percent Happier
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story Dan Harris This one is on one hand a pretty no-nonsense introduction to “mindfulness” practice and on the other a slightly annoying memoir from a television anchor. I find it a…
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Book Review: Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind
The story of John Nash, the brilliant mathematician who solved a number of interesting problems in game theory, descended into madness haunting the corridors of Princeton for years, and then, incredibly, regained a level of sanity and was awarded the goddamn Nobel Prize. It’s a hell of a story. And it raises a number of…
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Book Review: Kurson’s Shadow Divers
Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II Robert Kurson The story of how a group of amateur divers discovered the wreck of a German U-boat off the coast of New Jersey in 1991. Yes, that’s right, 1991. It’s a pretty…
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Book Review: Cline’s The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction
The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction Eric H. Cline The title says it all. This introduction is focused on the history of the war itself, and the changing nature of our knowledge of it, and doesn’t spend much time on the literary aspects of the works (Iliad, et al) which have arisen around the…
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Book Review – Diaz’s Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz I’m late to the Diaz game, so probably you’ve already read this. If not, here goes: this is the story of awkward overweight SF fan Oscar Wao and his family. Its also a lot more than that. Diaz uses the Wao family to tell the story of modern Dominican…
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Review: Carson’s Red Doc>
Red Doc> Anne Carson A bit too much. As deeply as I loved Autobiography of Red, and as badly as I wanted to like this this, Red’s kinda sorta sequel, Red Doc> was too avant garde for me. Ostensibly, this is the story of what happened to Geryon, the protagonist of the Autobiography, when he…
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Review: Carson’s Autobiography of Red
Autobiography of Red Anne Carson Carson’s masterpiece of dysfunctional families, adolescent angst, love, and heart break as told (kinda, sorta) through an interpretation of the missing fragments of Stesichorus’ Geryoneïs and an imagining of was lost to history. It’s a strange book. There is a daring translation of some of what remains of Stesichorus’s work,…
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Review: Delany’s The Mad Man
The Mad Man The first Delany book I read, and what an introduction. There’s no point in starting this review off with anything other than the obvious – this book is full of detailed sexual adventures of men with other men. It is graphic, and there are portions (including accounts of corporphila and more) that…
Milo and the Calf 