With Charles Dicken’s 200th birthday just passed, perhaps this is an appropriate homage to his work and his life. “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” was Charles Dickens last novel, but he died before it could be finished. Dan Simmons picks up the mystery, not to solve and finish Dickens’ work, but to provide a back story, the real […]
Review | A Free-Market Monetary System and A Pretense of Knowledge by Friedrich A. Hayak
2012-02-08 · by ·
I recently read the short brochure “A Free-Market Monetary System,” a compilation of Friedrich A. Hayak’s 1974 Nobel Prize speech “A Pretense of Knowledge” and a short essay on proposing a free-market monetary system (hence, the name, see?). Both are short, and neither waste any time proposing radical changes to what was then, and indeed what is […]
Review | How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
2012-01-27 · by ·
It’s a rare day that I’m willing to give a full five out of five stars to a book. It’s rarer still that I’ll give the five stars, and then put it back on my bed-stand for continual reference in my future reading. It’s just that kind of a book, and every bibliophile should read […]
Review | Anthem by Ayn Rand
2012-01-11 · by ·
If you’re looking for something from Ayn Rand that’s a tad bit shorter than “Atlas Shrugged,” but can still show you her philosophy in a nutshell, “Anthem,” her novella set in a dystopian world of the future, may be worth the effort. It didn’t take me more than a sitting and a half to flip through it. […]
Review | Heroes by Robert Cormier
2012-01-05 · by ·
For those of us who have never known war, there’s something chilling about the post-war experience of those who have. For all the bullet-dodging action heroes that Hollywood produces and America consumes, we rarely get a taste for the horrors that the scarred veteran must face upon return to the home-front. Even when a movie […]
Review | The Appeal by John Grisham
2011-12-24 · by ·
I read this in April of 2008 after Justice Nehring (of the Utah Supreme Court) told me he was listening to it on CD during his commute each day. Three quarters of my way through it, he told me it was not worth finishing. He was right. Talk about much ado about nothing. The novel starts […]
Review | Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind
2011-12-14 · by ·
Ron Suskind’s a good writer, but he’s also in love with Barack Obama. Well, maybe not in love, but he’s certainly not an objective or dispassionate observer. Even while he’s observing that Obama may not have been ready for the Presidency, he’s lavishing praise on the politician. I read as long as I could, but […]
Review | Patient Zero by Jim Beck
2011-12-01 · by ·
Just when I thought that the zombie subgenre had reached a saturation point, Jim Beck comes along with Patient Zeroand proves that a clever idea can take an old idea and provide fresh flesh for hungry readers. No pun intended. Beck spins a simple story that is veined with strands of Frankenstein and moments of tenderness […]
Review | In My Time by Dick Cheney
2011-11-29 · by ·
What will history think of Dick Cheney? I believe that jury is still out, but I know one thing: Cheney is doing his best to steer the criticism. I’ll be honest: I only read this up until the chapter when Cheney starts his account of 9/11 and its aftermath. At that point, I decided that […]
Review |1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
2011-11-28 · by ·
I’ll be the first to admit that my interests in the historical have generally been Eurocentric, especially the Roman Republic and Empire. Recently, though, I found reason to pick up Charles C. Mann’s “1491,” and I have had a hard time putting it down since. The children’s nursery rhyme reminds us that “In 1492, Columbus […]
