Last summer I joined Camp TOB 2022, my first time with the Tournament of Books summer reading game. I’ve enjoyed reading along and voting in the Tournament of Books for the last couple of years, and I’ve even found a few “new favorite books” as a result. So, I thought I’d give the summer reading game a go. I did find a “new favorite book,” … Continue reading Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
About halfway through Becky Chambers’ A Prayer for the Crown-shy I realized what it was reminding me of: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig’s 1974 novel. I’m not a fan of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Mr. Pirsig’s novel is an autobiographical account of a cross-country trip he took with his young son. Along the way he reviews the history … Continue reading A Prayer for the Crown-shy by Becky Chambers
The premise of Becky Chamber’s novel A Psalm for the Wild Built really appealed to me. Set in the future or maybe on another planet, a travelling monk leaves his order to go back into nature hoping for time alone. He meets a robot, one of several thousands who left humanity behind generations ago after achieving sentient intelligence. A robot and a monk traveling the … Continue reading A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
I don’t really understand this book. But I enjoyed it; it touched me; it’s my new favorite book. The story concerns Yoshiro and his great-grandson. They live near Tokyo in the not-too-distant future. Things have gone wrong. Not one big thing, but many small things over a period of generations. Honestly, I can’t tell you what happened to society, but things are a mess. Japan … Continue reading The Emissary by Yoko Tawada translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani
This book was not what I expected. Even though I had no expectations at all when I started it. I had no idea what it was going to be about. I read it because it’s part of The Summer Reading Challenge at The Morning News. I didn’t even read the inside flap; just started reading. In his introduction Mr. Ball writes about his brother who … Continue reading Census by Jesse Ball
My current passion for cool cover art led me to this book while browsing at Book Town Books in Grass Valley. The pulpy nature of the story is countered by the classy sophistication of the cover art. But what does the art here have to do with anything? The book is about a hardened criminal released from a post-apocalyptic prison so he can drive a … Continue reading Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny
There is some damn fine writing in Ted Chiang’s volume of short stories Arrival originally published as Stories of Your Life and Others. So much than the next time you hear someone say that fantasy and science fiction tend to be badly written, you should direct them to any of Ted Chiang’s stories. They may not be your cup of tea, but they are all very well … Continue reading Arrival by Ted Chiang
I was looking for space opera. If you don’t know what space opera is, it’s Star Wars. Lots of space ships. Battles between them. A clear-cut hero. A clear-cut villain. Maybe some alien supporting characters. Maybe a little romance. Something fun. Lightless by C.A. Higgins partially delivers the goods as far as space opera goes. There are space ships. There is some romance. There are battles. … Continue reading Lightless by C.A. Higgins
There world has been coming to an end since 1956. There has been an explosion of dystopian futures of late. If you wandered around any Scholastic Book Faire this year, you saw that just about one out of ever four titles in the fiction section featured some kind of horrific future. It’s oddly comforting to realize that this is really nothing new. The end of … Continue reading No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
Our search for the next school wide read continues without success. There have been books some teachers on the “committee” loved, some that were good for grades 6 and 7 but not 8, some good for 8 and seven but not for six. And the science and math department, along with the forces at large, are still pushing for a non-fiction title, which only makes … Continue reading My New Favorite Book: The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
What makes a book a classic? Lionel Shriver was a guest on my favorite BBC program A Good Read. You can listen to the program here. It was the dullest episode of my favorite program ever. Knowing something of what Ms. Shriver is like in person, I almost didn’t listen, but I thought I’d be open-minded, give it a try. The conceit of A Good … Continue reading Sunday Rant and Ramble: Lionel Shriver Makes me Mad; A New Cat Arrives; Tournament of Books Results
When I was in college, I was friends with a group of women who shared a flat on Divisidero Street in San Francisco, decades before it became a trendy neighborhood. In the 1980’s, four college students living on four or five hundred dollars a month each could come up with enough money to rent a flat. As longs as no one spends all the rent … Continue reading Black Wave by Michelle Tea
May Contain Spoilers 