Short Reviews of Good Books

The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

2008-10-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

The latest from the incomparable Daniel Pinkwater. His smart and soulful young narrators always find themselves engaged with the surreal, cruel and funny adult world and emerge with the reader a little worn but a lot wiser.

Through the Children's Gate by Adam Gopnik

2008-09-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

A brilliant memoir/pensee on family, art, and New York from the always engaging NewYorker writer.

Frog & Toad Together by Arnold Lobel

2008-09-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

"I wonder if we are brave," said Frog.
Frog and Toad looked into a mirror.
"We look brave," said Frog.
"Yes, but are we?" asked Toad

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

2008-08-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

Wonderfully evocative and detailed pencil drawings share equal narrative weight with the text. Hugo Cabret has a classic, timeless sensibility and plays in an entertaining style with our sense of time and machinery.

Divisadero by Micahael Ondaatje

2008-07-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

Any work by Ondaatje is worth reading more than once. I didn't get this the first time but will come back to it again.

The Rape of Europa by Lynn H. Nicholas

2008-06-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

Full title: The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. An extraordinary story of art as currency of power and legitimacy. Recently produced as a documentary.

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

2008-05-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

A beautifully written, compelling story of endurance and art during the terrible siege. "The men on the hills didn't have to be murderers. The men in the city didn't have to lower themselves to fight their attackers. She didn't have to be filled with hatred. The music demanded that she remember this, that she know to a certainty that the world still held the capacity for goodness. The notes were proof of that."
Steven Galloway. Vedran Smailovic.

The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera

2008-04-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

It truly was a fabulous life. The biographer knew Rivera and writes about the man and his work with love and insight while putting it in the context of the brutal historical times.

Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

2008-03-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

"You're a traveler? You came by storyladder? My goodness. It's been years since we've had an explorer. It's not an easy journey, after all. Still, you know what they say: 'All bookshelves lead to the Wordhoard Pit.' And here you are. I'm Margarita Staples." She bowed in her harness. "Extreme librarian. Bookaneer."

China Mieville

Travels With Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski

2008-03-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

Kapuscinski's extraordinary professional life moved hand in hand with and even mirrors that of the Father of History.

Museum of the Missing by Simon Houpt

2008-02-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

A terrific exploration of the extraordinary history of the plundering of works that are 'our collective birthright'. LJ

An Elemental Thing by Eliot Weinberger

2008-02-26T19:04:00.000-08:00

A meditative collage of essay and poetry.
new directions

The Penguin Dictionary of Saints

2008-02-17T10:52:00.000-08:00

A great reference tool: a clear-eyed examination of the lives and legends of the saints.

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

2008-02-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

'Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves. How could it be otherwise?' Anne Fadiman

The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football by David Goldblatt

2008-02-02T18:30:00.000-08:00

The Ball is Round is a meticulous history of the beautiful game.

love is a mix tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield

2008-01-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

'Some of us are born Gladys Knights, and some of us are born Pips.' npr

The Library at Night

2008-01-14T20:41:00.000-08:00

Reading The Library at Night, or have I read it already? Quiet, thoughtful essays for a foggy night in a leather armchair with a meditative cigar.

The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

2008-01-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

The Queen of the South was one of those engrossing and entertaining thrillers that are hard to recall afterwards; The Club Dumas is my favourite Arturo-Perez but all of this incredibly prolific authors novels are good reads.

And our faces, my heart, brief as photos by John Berger

2007-12-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

When I open my wallet
to show my papers
pay money
or check the time of a train
I look at your face.

The flower's pollen
is older than the mountains
Aravis is young
as mountains go.

The flower's ovules
will be seeding still
when Aravis then aged
is no more than a hill.

The flower in the heart's
wallet, the force
of what lives us
outliving the mountain.

And our faces, my heart, brief as photos. *

Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay

2007-12-19T20:53:00.000-08:00

Nobody does mytho-poetic-historical-political-adventure-romance like
Guy Gavriel Kay.

Overclocked by Cory Doctorow

2007-12-12T18:06:00.000-08:00

All of the stories in Overclocked are engaging; Anda's Game is brilliant.

Book History

2007-12-10T08:32:00.000-08:00

My copy of Book History Volume 10 from SHARP, 'a scholarly journal devoted to every aspect of the history of the book, broadly defined as the creation, dissemination, reception, and use of script, print, and mediacy.'
Table of Contents

Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino ed.

2007-12-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

A wonderful collection of tales often reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm but with an absurdist humour that either reflects Calvino's taste or is deeply a part of the Italian folk tradition or both. Probably both.

Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard

2007-12-03T17:38:00.000-08:00

I admire all of Sam Shepard's work tremendously, but I think Motel Chronicles is the book I'd grab during a fire. And Seven Plays.

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

2007-12-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

An astonishingly sensuous memoir that somehow captures the movement of memory itself.

Excession by Iain M. Banks

2007-11-29T11:23:00.000-08:00

Brilliant space opera adventure in the post-scarcity, artificial intelligence driven world of The Culture.

Nutshell Library by Maurice Sendak

2007-11-24T07:19:00.000-08:00

Alligators All Around, One Was Johnny, Pierre: A Cautionary Tale &
Chicken Soup With Rice by the brilliant Maurice Sendak.
I told you once
I told you twice
all seasons
of the year
are nice
for eating
chicken soup
with rice!

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

2007-11-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

“The first time I went to Croatia, the first question I was asked from the floor (with a UN interpreter beside me) was, 'When you wrote Tigana, were you writing about us?' I get that in Poland, and I get that in Quebec." (locusmag.com) Tigana is a brilliant and moving exploration of personal and cultural identity.

Home by Witold Rybczynski

2007-11-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

Rybczynski combines awesome research with wonderful writing to illuminate the evolution of the ideas of home, comfort, privacy, and style.

fragile things by Neil Gaiman

2007-11-19T15:44:00.000-08:00

An eclectic, diverse, hits-and-misses collection from the astonishingly prolific and multi-talented Mr. Gaiman.

Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler

2007-11-19T12:16:00.002-08:00

Butler’s brilliant novel combines intriguing characters facing terrifying and believable challenges (biological, political) and evolving to survive them.

Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger

2007-11-19T12:16:00.001-08:00

Weinberger describes the ways we order things: first order (say, a collection of books), second order (information about those books, say, a catalogue) and champions a third order (digital) that removes the limitations of the others; I think.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

2007-11-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

A thriller in the Gibsonverse of contemporary London and Moscow filled with engaging characters and great explorations of media, information, community and trust.