Category: Review
You need these reviews in your life.
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The History of the Blues
Review: This was excellent. Not too technical, no “augmented for the syncopated declension on the minor chord.” When needed the author spelled it out musically, but in such a way as to be understandable to a non-musician. What they call narrative history nowadays, in that it’s very readable just like a novel. Every third guy… Read more
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Something to Answer For
Review: This was the first ever (inaugural is the word) Man Booker Prize winner, way back in 1969. My goal beginning with this one is to read all 50 Booker Prize winners from 1969-2019 in the next year. I don’t get this book. It was well written, very crisp prose and some really elegant phrasing.… Read more
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Burning Marguerite
Review: Powerful and intensely moving. If that sounds like every book jacket review in history it doesn’t matter. It’s still true. There is a very calm space right at the heart of this novel, like the silence in a cathedral. There is not a lot of wasted prose. Short, intense sentences that convey pages of… Read more
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The Poetics of Space
Review: Wow. This was a tough one. Not that it was bad, not at all, it was just difficult. A treatise on the philosophy of how we experience our own houses. Using examples from poetry, psychiatry, and nature the author delves into the phenomenological ways that each area of our domiciles affect us. Cellars, for… Read more
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German Tanks in WWI
Review: An excellent and very detailed look at the design and combat history of the German Imperial Army’s response to the Allied introduction of tanks. That was a run-on sentence, but you see I’m stoned off me tits. Along with the very extensively researched text, the rare archival photos are amazing. While primarily focused on… Read more
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Red Planet Blues
Review: Page 326. This book should have ended right there. Instead of bashing ahead for another 99 pages. The premise was forced, but due to the brilliance of the author he made it work. Humorous, fast-paced, edgy, this was an excellent novel. Just needed an editor is all I am saying. One of the things… Read more
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The Secret of Chimneys
Review: What a ripping yarn! I’ve never, or hang on. Okay I checked my book list and I have actually read an Agatha Christie novel in 1988. I knew I had read some of her short stories but a novel was… wait for it… a novel experience! This was a great read, fast paced, slightly… Read more
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My Mortal Enemy
Review: Another excellent novel from Willa Cather! The ending kind of left me hanging. Like, no real resolution, none of the ends tied up. All Jews in Cather novels are bad guys. She has a lot in common with all 1900 and on novelists. See Edith Wharton for the correct usage of Hebe in a… Read more
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The Alchemist’s Dream
Review: Grabbed this one at random from the shelf. You never know what great things you will pick up by chance. This was not one of the great things. Schlocky “Can-con dude with a grant” fiction. A hidden code in an old manuscript, a mysterious map showing mysterious things. Yawn. Characters were cutouts, no depth,… Read more
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The Drowned World
Review: A very good book. Very good. Short, dark, nervous, sweltering. Reminiscent of Conrad. Think Heart of Darkness or Almayer’s Folly. The atmosphere is oppressive, like in a swamp on the hottest of days. The real joy in this book comes from the feelings and mood, rather than the action. The action is quite attenuated,… Read more