Anyone who knows me even a little knows that I’m a lifelong bibliophile (yes, it’s a word). Whether it’s a mental disorder, a bad habit, or a pleasant pastime, I like books, and I like to buy them. Naturally, when I saw Joe Queenan’s column in the Wall Street Journal, I was delighted.
5 Minute Book Review | Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
October 21, 2012 by
Every once and a while I read a book because I’m supposed to, whether because it won the Pulitzer or Nobel or Booker, or some other prestigious prize, or it’s just old enough to have been granted “classic” status.
Usually, the book turns out to be just as good, or at least just as notable, as it is supposed to be.
5 Minute Book Review: “The Secret Agent” by Joseph Conrad
October 20, 2012 by
I wish I had read this in the early years after 9/11. While the characters in Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent” are not superficially the same as the characters that would figure into the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the subsequent events, the themes are eerily similar.
Stray Books: beware, or forever will they dominate your destiny
August 24, 2012 by
[Incidental Comics]
5 Minute Book Review: “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson
August 15, 2012 by
Isaacson’s biography is fascinating, covering warts and and moles along with his contributions and genius. With direct access to Jobs, his associates, rivals, and family, it is an incomparable work that will be the defining biography for decades to come.
I suppose there are a lot of ways to look at Steve Jobs. However you view him, though, it’s hard to dispute his success in technology, design, and animation. Not quite an inventor or engineer, Jobs thought himself more an artist, and perhaps he was. He had an attention to detail and a vision of minimalism that allowed him to build great products that changed how we compute, listen to music, and make purchases, to say nothing of his contributions to the digital animation industry with Pixar. [cont…]
Book Review: “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010” by Charles Murray
July 11, 2012 by
There is a divide growing in America, argues Charles Murray in his book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010” but it isn’t necessarily over money. In fact, the divide may be greater because it is cultural, not just economic.
Displaying a dizzying array of statistics, studies, and research, Murray shows an America that is watching the rise of what seems, to me, to be a new ruling class, a group of elites that are well educated (“overeducated elitist snobs”), well connected, and with a set of values and interests different from much of modern America. [cont…]
5 Minute Book Review: “Redshirts” by John Scalzi
July 1, 2012 by
While I would never call myself a Trekkie–I much prefer Star Wars, and I have never been able to buy into Roddenberry’s vision of a utopian future where mankind has solved it’s scarcity problems and given up money, but I digress–I’ve watched enough to know that the guys who die are almost always–always–the guys in the red shirts. They’re unnamed extras, low level members of Star Fleet that die to provide some level of tension to the episode. And this book is through their eyes, through the eyes of the red shirted members of “away teams” that die at the first sign of danger. [cont…]
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