Category Archives: Reviews: Books, Movies, Music, TV

Neal Stephenson has been churning out novels at the rate of one every four years or so since 1984. His interests are protean. Early on (The Big U, Zodiac), he skewered higher education, environmentalists and corporate polluters. He then shifted … Continue reading →

Richard Powers’ latest novel, Playground, has a choose-your-own-genre feel to it. Want a straight-forward romantic comedy? He offers two meant for-each-other leads who suffer through an insurmountable split, then re-unite. Or maybe tragic rom-com…another pair, best friends from youth, suffer a falling … Continue reading →

Lorrie Moore, a short story specialist, packs a lot into her 148-page novella, Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? Sils and Berie, 15-year-olds in the upstate New York town of Horsehearts, start the summer of 1972 working in the local amusement … Continue reading →

Tom Rourke and Polly Gillespie meet in a photography studio in Butte, Mt during its early mining boom at the end of the 19th century, a raucous town filled with bars and other distractions. Tom’s are drink, dope, and writing … Continue reading →

Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility is a compact, complex romp through time and space. Beginning in England, 1912, she sends Edwin St. John St. Andrew (no relation!) to Canada after he embarrasses his parents at a dinner party … Continue reading →

In Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, three young New Zealanders and a middle-aged American billionaire have interwoven plans for a vacant ranch on the South Island, at the base of the (fictional) Korowai National Park. Mira Bunting, a 29-year-old horticultural student, founded a … Continue reading →

The Country of the Blind, by Andrew Leland, is the story of one man’s exploration for understanding as his vision slowly dwindles. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) affects about 1 in 4,000 people. A genetic disorder, it results in the slow death of the … Continue reading →

Of course! I’d be happy to help you write a book review. To get started, could you provide me with some details about the book you read? Include the title, author, genre, and any specific aspects or themes you’d like … Continue reading →

Greg Jackson’s first novel, The Dimensions of a Cave, explores the nature of consciousness through Quentin Jones, a reporter for the Beacon (a stand-in for the Washington Post). He becomes entangled in the rabbit-hole of a government program known as VIRTUE. Initially created to … Continue reading →

A young couple cavorts through forest and meadow as spring erupts around them. Each has escaped England, and then together eloped from the Bay Colony, beyond barely civilized Springfield. So this must be mid-seventeenth century, in the Berkshires of Massacheusetts. … Continue reading →