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Category Archives: Review
Book Review: Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century by Sergei Kostin
The book didn’t start off promising. It started in fact with a foreword written by Richard V. Allen. This name meant nothing to me, but when I approach books outside of my usual stalking grounds this tends to be the … Continue reading
Book Review: People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman by Richard Lloyd Parry
This is a book that is less concerned with the plot than it is its characters. I like this. The plot will move when it’s ready. It has to, especially in non-fiction, but characters take time, require an understanding and … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Nonfiction, Review
Tagged crime, Japan, journalism, Lucie Blackman, murder, mystery, People Who Eat Darkness, psychopaths, Richard Lloyd Parry, Rippongi, tokyo, true crime
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Book Review: Notes From a Dead House by Fyodor Dostoevsky
There seems to be a sort academic predisposition of hatred towards Pavear and Volokhonsky. It’s a strange thing, one I neither understand nor want to. People seem utterly baffled by a literal translation that forces one to endure turns of … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Nonfiction, Review
Tagged academia, classics, dostoevsky, fyodor dostoevsky, history, intellectual awakening, pavear, prison, russian literature, Siberia, translation, volokhonsky
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Book Review: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles is a series of short stories and vignettes following humanity’s hypothetical exploration and eventual colonization of Mars. It’s an interesting concept written by one of the strongest sci-fi writer’s of the 20th century. Problem is, it’s less … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Review
Tagged aliens, allegory, american literature, Bradbury, classics, fiction, genocide, invasion, Mars, martians, Ray Bradbury, sci-fi, science fiction
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Book Review: The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase by Mark Forsyth
It’s clever, this book. It’s also a good book. It’s clever, chatty, witty, funny, succinct, and unpretentious. It sets out to give names to all the rhetoric we never learned in schools. This book is a study of expression and … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Nonfiction, Review
Tagged criticism, Grammar, Humanities, Language, linguistics, literary, Mark Forsyth, perfect, Phrases, Reference, The Elements of Eloquence, writing
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Book Review: The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
I don’t really have a roadmap when it comes to the books I read, it comes largely down to availability and perhaps more honestly, whimsy. The Man Who Fell to Earth is one of the wonderful gems that such a … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Review
Tagged alcoholism, aliens, american literature, classics, damn near perfect, fiction, humanity, literary fiction, sci-fi, science fiction, Tevis, the man who fell to earth, Walter Tevis
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Book Review: Watership Down by Richard Adams
There are certain things you aren’t supposed to do in literature. I had always figured mixing (a sort of ) realism with non-human characters was something of a no-no. Sure, you could have the fantastical and all too human blood-splattering … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, fiction, Review
Tagged Aeneid, Animals, british literature, classics, fantasy, heroicism, literary fiction, Odyssey, Rabbits, Sexism, YA, young adult
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Book Review: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
I seem to have stumbled across a niche I didn’t realize existed. The genre is simple, or not, depending on your judgment of such things: charming prose exploring an overlapping space between magic and the real, the quintessential familiar and … Continue reading
Book Non-Review: Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Step #1: Make a first person narrator that complains about his dystopian society and how much its inequality pisses him off. Step #2: Introduce stilted conversation where narrator’s wife tells him he needs to fight the proverbial machine and people … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, fiction, Review
Tagged dystopia, fiction, hate, Mars, Pierce Brown, Red Rising, Revolution, sci-fi, science fiction, YA, young adult
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Book Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Initially, I wasn’t sure how well this book was going to work. It supposedly dealt with the same existential issues as Dandelion Wine, but simultaneously tells a story meant to inspire horror. Obviously, it’s possible, it’s just a tricky business … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, fiction, Review
Tagged Bradbury, classics, demons, fantasy, horror, monsters, Ray Bradbury, sci-fi, science fiction, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Supernatural
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