From the authors of the book and equally popular podcast, Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt have released their third book, Think Like a Freak. While the first two books looked more from an economist’s standpoint, this book tends to come from the perspective of a social scientist’s, with a bit of economics to back […]
Julian Barnes’s latest novel, Sense Of An Ending, has been well received. It’s won the 2011 Man Booker prize. It’s well written—which, in this case, actually just means that the prose is restrained, refined, there are occasional changes in rhythm, it’s got a sort of controlled ease, all that soulless jazz. I have liked Julian […]
Tom Holt’s Doughnut is an utter confection* of silliness, sci-fi, world hopping, and awkward family relationships. If you’re unfamiliar with the realm of funny sci-fi, then dearest reader let me introduce you. Funny sci-fi might be just about my favorite thing ever. It deals with all of the fantastical, intriguing sci-fi concepts we can’t stop […]
Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf series is a powerful, engrossing, delicious delivery of violence, sex, musings on the why’s of life, questions about the nature of humanity (and monstrosity, as the case may be), and of course, werewolves. What’s not to love? And this is not your average paranormal novel. Naturally, to like the books […]
Gosh. The Basic 8 is one of those books I wish I’d read in high school. I mean, half a decade later it’s still amazing, I just know though, that especially at that age The Basic 8 would have sent me spinning, would have blown my mind, would have been an utter gift. Let’s be […]
I was looking over the screenplay of Brokeback Mountain the other day, which was adapted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana from E. Annie Proulx’s shattering short story, and I got to thinking what an overlooked writer McMurtry has been. Oh yes, he’s won the Pulitzer, and made writing about Texas and the modern west […]
First of all, for those of you not in the know, Christopher and His Kind was a book written in 1976 by Christopher Isherwood. Isherwood wrote a number of books, including A Single Man, Mr. Norris Changes Trains, but his most famous one was Goodbye to Berlin. This became, after several adaptations, the play and […]
I don’t know that I can speak objectively about reading The Raven Boys, or its follow up The Dream Thieves. Since long commutes are a fact of life in southern california, and reading while driving a car tends to end badly, I listened to both on audiobooks. And they enraptured me. I fell deeply into […]