A Momentary Taste of Being

Our intrepid 11 year old protagonist, Samuel Johnson and his faithful dog Boswell are our guides for this spooky-funny trip to the End of the World as we know it. Using the energy of the High-Energy Hadron Collider at CERN, some not so nice denizens of another world break through and begin to prepare to make Earth quite literally Hell on Earth.   Samuel Johnson (who brings in the Angels dancing on the head of a pin for show-and-tell), his dog, his mother, some of the feistier denizens of his village, and a few other friends are all that stands in the way of the plans of the Great Malevolence. A fun, light-hearted, amusing (in a Dennis Adams sort of way) romp through our childhood fears and some very real evils. *****

First of a new series featuring a new hero Gideon Crew.  As such, is a guaranteed fast and amusing reading.  It is also guaranteed to be notoriously sloppy when authors want to get around certain inconvenient problems---like people revealing secret information.  Crew manages in nearly every case to draw out secrets that no sane or awake person would ever tell.  The plot and action here as usual--fast paced, the reading light.  The story--the barest traces of one, whisked away from one's memory almost upon turning the last page.  Not that that is a problem--these books are not meant to be immortal, they are meant to help one pass a few pleasant hours, and this indeed allowed for that. ***

Ready Player One is light science fiction romp through the pop culture--movies, games, and music of the 1980's.  It seems that in the post energy crisis world, the only way to get away from the poverty and nastiness that is living in the "stacks"  (think trailer park piled vertically) is to slip into the OASIS--an immersive virtual reality experience that is the place most kids get their education.  Our hero, 18 at the start of the story is about to graduate virutal high school and spends most of his life wrapped up in the realities created by the OASIS mastermind. But the mastermind has died and he has left behind a fortune to go to the lucky gamer who can find the "easter egg" embedded in his most elaborate game.  The world is full of skilled gamers, all of whom work toward the prize.  And among these gamers are a group of corporate stooges who want to seize the OASIS and start charging a monthly fee for its use--a fee most present users can't afford to...

"An Experiment in Misery" Stephen Crane

"A Morning Walk" Ms Chopin, noted mostly for the short novel that got her in trouble, The Awakening , had a deft hand at the short story as well.

Billy Collins on assembling poetry collections Link courtesy of a friend:  Thanks TSO

A Wagner Matinée In all that she does Willa Cather is without equal--her stories, her novels, her sense of place and person--all of these are worth a little of your time.  And this story provides a pleasant enough entrée into the work.

Céline on joy

Elizabeth Costello reviewed. This encapsulates my experience as well, but says it much, much better than I could do.

The Burning Land considered

Science gets there, well after Chesterton

Rendezvous with Rama considered

By Nightfall This is all the warning I need to stay away: Although it pains us slightly to say, this is a mildly disappointing entry in the Cunningham canon.  A disappointing entry from Mr. Cunningham, if The Hours is a measure of success is indeed one book to avoid.

"Whipped Cream"

Raymond Carver part I Raymond Carver part II

I picked this up off of Netgalley on a lark.  This is what I think you would call a "typical zombie book."  There is the bleak outlook--the apocalypse of numbers and more than a little grue and gore. And yet, like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead there is more than a little amusing about it. First it is an alphazombie book, carrying us through the traditional alphabetical recital of things beginnng with a certain letter related to zombies. Second there are moments in some of the 26 very short stories that are amusing--some are laugh-out-loud funny. Overall, given that it will take the reader perhaps twenty minutes to peruse--I'd recommend it to the Zombie class. Others can easily give this one a miss. ***

Kate Chopin Lilacs reviewed

Always Ringing Twice--a review of James M. Cain's Noir masterpiece

The Glass of Time

Newman's Unquiet Grave Given Mr. Cornwell's previous often gravely flawed works, I can't imagine that this is a vast improvement over them; however, one must give benefit of the doubt. Also, Newman as English Prose Stylist does make me squirm a bit--but sometimes I'm tone-deaf--I need to reacquaint myself with the better works.