Milo and the Calf

Tag: recommended

  • Review: Gessen’s The Man Without a Face — The Unlikely Rise of Vladamir Putin

    The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladamir Putin Masha Gessen Legendary Russian journalist Masha Gessen’s recounting of the bizarre rise to power of Vladmir Putin. How did a run of the mill kid from St. Petersburg rise to a position of power in first the Russian secret police and then all the…

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    Review: Chernow’s Hamilton

    Alexander Hamilton Ron Chernow Yes, it’s a cliché for a New York liberal to talk about Hamilton. But here we are. At least this is about the book and not the musical.* If you’ve found your way here, you probably already know all about this book. The definitive biography of the founding father without a…

  • Review: Bacigalupi’s The Wind-Up Girl

    The Wind Up Girl Paolo Bacigalupi Global warming, mega corporations bent on world domination, genetically modified food, floods, plagues, mechanical sex slaves. The future in the Wind-Up Girl isn’t very uplifting, but the way Bacigalupi tells this story of a future Thailand beset by environmental disasters, and voracious mutlti-national corporations is incredible. No surprise, I…

  • Review Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness

    Left Hand of Darkness Ursula Le Guin By the time I read Left Hand Of Darkness in the 1990s, science fiction novels addressing issues of gender and sexuality were, if not mainstream, certainly not revolutionary. Not so when Le Guin published this landmark book in 1969. This is the story of Ai, sent to the…

  • Sjowall and Wahloo’s Laughing Policeman

    The Laughing Policeman, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo The fourth novel in Sjowall and Wahloo’s Martin Beck series of Marxian police procedurals.  Set in Sweden in the 1960s and 70s, the Beck series are both page turning detective stories, and indictments of what the writers viewed as a society full of liberal promise on the…

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    Ellison’s Invisible Man

    Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison It always feels a bit absurd to review a classic, especially one with the profound emotional and political resonance of Invisible Man. I could leave it at this – you need to read this book – but I’ll say a little more. I came to Invisible Man with a bit of…

  • McCarthy’s The Road

    The Road, Cormac McCarthy A work of genius and among the top ten best books I have ever read. One of two books to make me cry on the subway (Stone Butch Blues being the other). It is, of course, legendarily, unrelentingly, bleak. The story of a man and his son trying to survive in…

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    Mailer’s Executioners Song

    Executioners Song Norman Mailer Norman Mailer’s best work. Actually, the only work of his I’ve ever thought was worth the time. A painstakingly reported, and near perfectly executed, telling of the life of Gary Gilmore, the troubled drifter who was the first person to be executed in the United States after the reinstatement of the…

  • 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…