In his own words
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Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Review: Brilliant. Amazing. Enlightening. A humorous at times, serious at times, and scientific at times look at a never discussed subject: what happens to cadavers. From helping surgeons learn more and better techniques to helping develop safer cars, the extraordinary “lives” that cadavers lead help the living immeasurably. Religion poisons everything. Some of the best…
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Treasury of Greek Mythology
Review: Lavish and beautiful, and that’s just the illustrations. This book was meant to delight its readers and that is exactly what it did. Written for everyone but with the younger reader in mind, which means it is uncluttered and easy to absorb. [Prophetic! – ed.] Man I hate writing things out by hand. I’m…
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The Anarchy
Review: A vivid and richly detailed story of the birth, rise, and decline of the East India Company. A fascinating “like you were there” history of one of the world’s first joint stock corporations and how it grew to control an empire bigger than any of its founders could have ever imagined. The exploitation of…
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No More Parades
Review: The second book in what they call the tetralogy of Parade’s End. Here we find the admirable protagonist Tietjens as an officer at a starting off camp in the Great War. It’s not an easy book to read or to understand. It’s literature for certain and woth the effort to read it. But I…
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The Blind Assassin
Review: This was my very first experience reading Margaret Atwood. There’s a reason she won the Booker Prize for this. Prose is elegant and shit-filthy by turns. I love reading Canadian books because I can identify with the places, the seasons, the attitudes. The point of these reviews is to provide a critique, for whomever…
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Review: Yeesh, what a clunker. Like the Zeller’s burger, it tastes way better in your nostalgic imagination. This was great as a movie. As a book (adapted from the Dazzling New Film!), it creaked and galumphed along, borne gaily along on a tide of racism and archaic notions of cultural identity. Even as bad as…
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History of the World in 100 Objects
Review: Finally found a copy of this (in the UK, naturally!) and what a joy to read. This was of course originally a series of 100 podcasts from BBC Radio 4. First broadcast in 2010, I remember listening to each episode on my first iPod – a 2GB shuffle. This is the story – our…
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Super Space Encyclopedia
Review: An amazing, absorbing, informative book. The illustrations and photos are worth more than volumes of text. Even just the ones from Hubble. We’ve gone so far and yet we’re just barely begin to explore and learn. This book made me want to: increase funding for all space programs Overall rating: Readability: Plot: Other: Immensity
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Conan: The Hour of the Dragon
Review: Super good read. Fast paced, sword and sorcery. Proper old 1930s pulp magazine fare. However… Robert E. Howard stood apart from his pulp contemporaries by an Aquilonian League. A mile. His characters are well developed and he created a whole world. Think about Middle Earth and Narnia (which came later). If you’re not white,…
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Drowning in Beauty: The Neo-Decadent Anthology
Review: Like any great anthology, some good, some bad, some great, most average. This was, to put it simply, trying too hard to be cool. The Decadent Movement was a late 19th century literary and artistic phenomenon. Think Dorian Grey and you’ll get it. The creators disavow that Neo-Decadent is an homage or pastiche to…