Current Book Reviews
FullReviews Index - page 2
The Bride Stripped Bare
In writing The Bride Stripped Bare, the author decided to remain anonymous so she would feel absolutely free to explore a woman's inner world. As she writes in her afterword, "That doesn't mean this book is a memoir; it's many things to me, fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and fact, a quilt pieced together not only from my stories but those of my friends." Coolly impassioned, The Bride Stripped Bare tells startling truths about love and sex.
Villa Incognito
On one level, Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito is a book about identity, masquerade and disguise--about the false mustache of the world - but neither the mists of Laos nor the smog of Bangkok, neither the overcast of Seattle nor the fog of San Francisco, neither the murk of the intelligence community nor the mummery of the circus can obscure the linguistic phosphor that illuminates the pages of Villa Incognito.
Hegemony or Survival
From Noam Chomsky, the world's foremost intellectual activist, "Hegemony or Survival" is an irrefutable analysis of America's pursuit of total domination and the catastrophic consequences that are sure to follow.
Beemer (TM)
Review: Glenn Gaslin's first novel, Beemer (TM) is a fresh, though perhaps too non-confrontational exploration of the media cultural landscape seeping into our collective mindscapes...
The Names of Rivers
Watega County is supposedly somewhere in Illinois, but Daniel Buckman places it smack dab in the twilight zone. Every man in every generation of the farming and factory families of Watega County went off to war, and for each lucky enough to return home, time stopped.
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality
In his new book, Brad Warner explores Buddhism and metaphysics through a philosophy he dubs "Hardcore Zen." The "Hardcore" refers to hardcore punk music of the early '80s. "Zen" is the ancient Japanese form of Buddhism where the trick to knowing everything is achieved by understanding that knowledge doesn't exist. In "Hardcore Zen," Warner plays the philosophical alchemist, , melding the two.
Dogme Uncut
In 1995, an irreverent group of Danish film directors gave birth to a new aesthetic known as Dogme 95. Launched by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg the movement preached a back-to-basics style of filmmaking at odds with mainstream trends.
Gotham Tragic
Kurt Wenzel's quick moving new novel Gotham Tragic is the sequel to his debut Lit Life. It is a New Yorker style fiction piece in which the main character lands himself in the sights of a group of militant Muslims, who, angered by his offensive diatribe, call a fatwa against the author, effectively placing a bounty on the head. And this is just the beginning of his troubles.
The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters
"The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters" is dark, bitterly funny, strangely sexual account of two orphaned sisters living in a antique store, desperately trying to make order of the past. A fairytale gone awry, it has everything you could ever ask for in a short story...
Appleby House
Appleby House should be commended for being such a unique piece of literature, an everyday account of the slight difficulties of human existence without ever venturing towards embellishment and never coming near over-sentimentality. It never tries to wow you or win you over, but somehow it captivates with utter divine normality.
Ten Little Indians
“Nine is a much funnier number than eleven,” explained Sherman Alexie in a recent book signing for Ten Little Indians, a collection of nine contemporary Native American tales. This much-anticipated work dances the line between banality and classic Alexie brilliance at its best, leaving the reader exuberate at its finish, but almost wishing they hadn’t read those first few.
Middlesex
To call Middlesex a coming-of-age novel about a hermaphrodite would be like calling The Odyssey a story about some guy on a boat. Middlesex is nothing short of epic; one family's survival on a twisted path through Greece to 20th Century America; battles ranging from the fires of the Turkish wars, the igniting of Michigan race riots, and the burning desires hidden within a girl named Callie and the man named Cal who she is to become.
Over the Edge of the World
In Over the Edge of the World, an engaging account of Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, Laurence Bergreen draws the early sixteenth century with so much seethingly lifelike detail that the reader is drawn into the story even as Magellan himself remains something of an enigma.
The Bay of Noon
The Bay of Noon is Shirley Hazzard's 1970 classic story about a friendship between two women; Jenny, an English diplomatic assistant on assignment in post-WWII Italy. And Gioconda, the sole mistress of a decaying ancestral home rooted in the heart of Naples.
The Woman Who Found Grace
Johnson’s third novel in The Woman Who series, The Woman Who Found Grace, strikes me as a book straddling the line between genre mystery and literary whodunit. That’s a tough line to straddle, no doubt about it. Johnson succeeds at combining these two essentially irreconcilable forms as well as any author I’ve read to date.
Oxymoronica
Dr. Mardy Grothe is a logophiliac - a word-lover. The man loves words. He loves them so much, he collects them... gathers them and stores them away. He boasts something like 10,000 phrases that he's collected over the years. His latest book, Oxymoronica, focuses on paradoxical quotations that exhibit... well, Oxymoronica.
Burning Garbo
Take a sang froid ex-con assigned to photograph a reclusive Garbo-like movie star: she's knocked unconscious but nevertheless escapes a fast-moving California brush fire; outmaneuvers a conniving alcoholic cop set for blood; survives a trailer bulldozed over a cliff while she's inside; and just by the skin of her teeth, escapes an evil dentist set to pull all thirty-two of her pearly whites-sans Novocain. This story moves.
Sex and Sunsets
Kelly Palamino is not – I repeat, NOT – crazy. Yes, water does talk to him: his toilet tells him to eat fish; his Water Pik quotes Ezra Pound. His ex-wife denies they were ever married and is actively seeking to have him committed. But Kelly Palamino is not crazy. Lost? Yes… but not crazy.
Schott's Original Miscellany
Schott’s Original Miscellany is a small book, much smaller than you’d expect for what’s packed inside. It’s about the size of an average paperback, perhaps smaller. It’s the kind of book you should leave lying around on a coffee table or perhaps in the bathroom...
Feeding A Yen
In "Feeding a Yen," Calvin Trillin's most recent collection of food essays, we tag along as he seeks out such delicacies as [i]pimientos de Padron[/i] in Spain, [i]pan bagnat[/i] in Nice and [i]boudin[/i] in Louisiana. These are foods that comprise Trillin's "Register of Frustration and Deprivation," foods that can't be found outside of their place of origin...
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left a contradictory stamp on his country and on the world. Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, William Taubman's Khrushchev: The Man and His Era is the definitive work about a definitive figure.
Falling Out of Cars
Since his first novel, Jeff Noon's twin loci have been drugs and music. Vurt, his debut, was something of a page-turner set in near-future Manchester, where brightly-colored feathers placed on one's tongue served as gateways to a series of virtual worlds. His second novel, Pollen, posits the breakdown of the barrier between the 'real' and feather worlds. Falling Out of Cars continues Jeff Noon's program of literature as drug.
The Hornet's Nest
In this the first work of fiction by a President of the United States, Jimmy Carter brings to life the Revolutionary War as it was fought in the Deep South. The Hornet's Nest follows a cast of characters and their loved ones on both sides of this violent conflict -- including some who are based on the author's ancestors.
Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of The Human Form
Adam's Navel is a long and somewhat boring stream of facts and conjectures about the individual parts of the visible human body from the scalp to the toe nails. The majority of the information is either a summation of current evolutionary theories or a map of how different cultural myths shape our literal and figurative view of our body.
Emperor: The Gates of Rome
In the first volume of a planned series of [i]Emperor[/i] novels, [i]The Gates of Rome[/i] ,Conn Iggulden makes a hell of an argument for the retelling of tales. [i]The Gates of Rome[/i] is a stunning combination of bloody action, heroic bravery, and a brilliant story brought to life for a modern readership.