That question may now seem like a tired old trope. That’s because it all started with Philip K. Dick’s classic 1959 work, Time Out of Joint. For some reason I had never read this dystopian novel before, even though it… Read More ›
Books
The golden age and more
Those who read enough science fiction, particularly those who read enough about science fiction, hear a lot about the so-called golden age. The golden age of what? Well, the golden age of science fiction, of course. When was that? Well,… Read More ›
More chaos! More CatNet!
The second novel in a series is always worse than the first. Of course that’s not true—unless you replace “always” with “often” or perhaps even “usually.” Or perhaps the wishy-washy “sometimes.” All generalizations are false, as they say. Including this… Read More ›
The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything* (*abridged)
Everyone needs to read this engaging, delightful, and informative book! Read it even if you’re not a math-and-science geek. Or maybe I should say especially if you’re not a math-and-science geek. Geneticist Adam Rutherford and mathematician Hannah Fry are well… Read More ›
This is one movie that is better than the book, right? Wrong.
Nope, not this one. The Bone Collector is a good book by Jeffrey Deaver—not his best by a long shot, but pretty good—and it’s a disappointing movie even though it stars Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, and Queen Latifah. I read… Read More ›
CatNet
Yes, I occasionally read YA novels. Maybe one or two a year. Perhaps it’s because I’m a teacher of young adults; there are certain Young Adult novels that give the reader insight into these fascinating creatures, just as there are… Read More ›
What would you do if you could predict the future?
First, you would read this book! You can’t predict the future, but you’ve got to read the book. Maybe once every two or three years I read a novel that I can’t put down—except that in those cases I usually… Read More ›
What lies on the other side of the River Styx?
Who knows? You’ll have to read the engaging novel Across the River Styx to find out. You might have a rough voyage, but the reading won’t be rough. Looking at the cover image below, you’ll see what this novel is:… Read More ›
The source material for… (Episode II of these episodic posts: The Queen’s Gambit)
Should you read the book or see the movie? If you do both, what’s the right order? And does a mini-series count as a movie? I promised a couple of months ago that I would re-read The Queen’s Gambit—the original… Read More ›
Murder Under her Skin
Read this book! About six months ago I reviewed Fortune Favors the Dead, the first Pentecost and Parker novel by Stephen Spotswood. Now I’ve read the second book in the series: Murder Under her Skin. It’s even better than its… Read More ›
The Rival Jewish Dynasties that Helped Create Modern China
What an eye-opener! I learned so much from The Last Kings of Shanghai, a truly informative and engaging book by Jonathan Kaufman. So what’s with the headline of this blog post? Well, that’s not my phrase; it’s the subtitle of… Read More ›
The Source Material for… (Episode I of these episodic posts: The Bicentennial Man)
About five weeks ago I reviewed the movie The Bicentennial Man. I pointed out that it was based on two sources: on Isaac Asimov’s novelette of the same name and on the later adaptation of that novelette into a full-length… Read More ›
Being human in the age of algorithms
That’s not the title. It’s actually the subtitle. The book’s title is Hello World. OK, so now that you know the title, you want to know who the author is—right? Well, the author is applied mathematician Hannah Fry, whom I… Read More ›
Another treat from Richard Osman
A couple of months ago I reviewed the first novel in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series. Now I turn to the second, which I have just finished reading. This mystery, The Man Who Died Twice, is at least as… Read More ›
The Bicentennial Man
“One has mixed feelings about the movie” would be my comment if I’m going to speak in Andrew’s style. As usual, I recommend seeing the movie before reading the book. In this case the first version was a long short… Read More ›
A classic mystery—written in 2021!
Agatha Christie was, I believe, the originator of the locked-room mystery. If not the originator, she was at least an early and very successful practitioner. But this post is not about Agatha Christie. It’s about Anthony Horowitz and his latest… Read More ›
The Queen’s Gambit: what’s it all about?
Is it about chess? You may be tempted to say yes. It seems to be about chess. In high school English—a hundred years ago or so—I learned to distinguish plot from theme. If we’re talking plot, then The Queen’s Gambit… Read More ›
People love dead Jews.
Yes, I too cringe at the title of this best-selling book of interrelated essays. But unfortunately it’s altogether appropriate. Mark Oppenheimer of the Unorthodox podcast calls it “the best collection of essays that I have read in a long, long… Read More ›
Never—no, always—take the shortcut!
“Abjure the hypotenuse!” That’s what our busy high school dean (also assistant headmaster and sole college counselor) George Grenville Benedict—called G2 by the students (behind his back)—was famous for saying. As my classmate Alba Briggs publicly observed on screen in… Read More ›
A work of (mostly) fiction by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny
Fasten your seatbelt; it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Those are (or should be) the pilot’s instructions as you begin reading the novel State of Terror, co-written by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny. Perhaps it’s not surprising that this… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 