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L.A. Times - Books & Talks
'The Second Plane' by Martin Amis
Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700
September 11: Terror and Boredom IT would be too easy to read Martin Amis' slim book on Sept. 11 in a day and to dismiss it with a politically correct glare. The dozen essays, columns and reviews and two short stories in "The Second Plane: September 11, Terror and Boredom" are more illuminating than that, though deeply, sometimes self-indulgently flawed.
'The House of Widows' by Askold Melnyczuk
Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Family secrets lie at the end of a dark and twisted path FROM its puzzling opening line ("The most common grammatical error is the lie"), there's an ominous vibe to Askold Melnyczuk's third novel, "The House of Widows," and the sense of unease lingers until the final sentence. It's a mysterious, masterfully taut story in which dread plays a prominent role.
'Marco Polo' by Laurence Bergreen
Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0700
An account of the adventures of the celebrated 13th century world traveler. MARCO POLO was only 17 when he departed for China in 1271 with his father, Niccolò, and his uncle, Maffeo. Those two merchants of Venice were known to the boy primarily as storytellers of their fabulous exploits, writes award-winning biographer and historian Laurence Bergreen, for they had been absent more than 16 years, Marco's entire childhood. The pair had followed trade routes east, encountered exotic countries and customs and survived many perils; they had even lived for a time at the court of Kublai Khan, the leader of the Mongol Empire. Eventually they agreed to accompany his emissary west to the pope, vowing to return to Cambulac (Beijing) with several items the Great Khan had requested.
NYT > Books
Out in the Cold
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:36:06 -0000
In John le Carré’s latest novel, a young fugitive, half Chechen, half Russian, shows up in the German port city of Hamburg in the aftermath of 9/11.
Crucibles
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:26:00 -0000
The Inquisition, the Salem trials, the Red Scare: a survey of witch hunts over the past two millenniums.
Twisted Sisters
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:26:05 -0000
Julia Glass’s new novel focuses on the complicated emotions — love, hate, envy, grief — that form between female siblings.
Fiction & Poetry
Yiyun Li: "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl"
Yiyun Li Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0000
He was raised by his mother alone, as she was by her father. She wondered if his mother, who had set up their date, had told him about that. Siyu was thirty-eight, and the man, Hanfeng, was forty-four. Siyu’s father, after supporting her through college, had remarried, choosing . . .
Spencer Reece: "Eclogue"
Spencer Reece Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In Juno Beach, on Pelican Lake, Joseph Saul ate potato chips off a paper plate and fed the broken bits to a duck. He was accompanied by Laurie McGraw, whom he met at the Alzheimer’s Support Group-- she had been a caregiver, he had a diagnosis, and together their eyes . . .
Albert Goldbarth: "The Way"
Albert Goldbarth Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0000
The sky is random. Even calling it “sky” is an attempt to make a meaning, say, a shape, from the humanly visible part of shapelessness in endlessness. It’s what we do, in some ways it’s entirely what we do--and so the devastating rose of a galaxy’s being born, the . . .
London Review of Books
Don't Ask Henry · Alan Hollinghurst: Sissiness
The story of Belchamber's publication is probably better known than the book itself, which, like its author, has suffered the ambiguous fate of becoming an accessory to the life of a more important writer. It is his friend Henry James who keeps Sturgis's novel distantly in view, at the same time as casting a long shadow over it. James read it in proof, and wrote a characteristic sequence of letters to Sturgis about it, beginning with neat praise and mild demurrals, but quickly building up to such fundamental criticisms of the book that the demoralised author said he would withdraw it altogether; at which James protested and pleaded, successfully though not with any retraction of the criticisms he had made.
Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill · Jonathan Raban: Sarah Palin's Cunning
Sarah Palin has put a new face and voice to the long-standing, powerful, but inchoate movement in US political life that one might see as a mutant strain of Poujadism, inflected with a modern American accent. There are echoes of the Poujadist agenda of 1950s France in its contempt for metropolitan elites, fuelling the resentment of the provinces towards the capital and the countryside towards the city, in its xenophobic strain of nationalism, sturdy, paysan resistance to taxation, hostility to big business, and conviction that politicians are out to exploit the common man.
Why Not Eat an Eclair? · David Runciman: Why Vote?
Why would anyone vote for Barack Obama? Not why would anyone want to see Obama elected president rather than John McCain (or Hillary Clinton for that matter), but why would anyone who desired that outcome think that his or her individual vote could make the slightest difference in helping to bring it about? General elections are never decided by a single vote, so no one's vote is ever going to be missed. If you want Obama to win, and plan to vote for him, but you forget, or find yourself otherwise detained, don't worry - the final result will be unaffected by your failure to show up, even if you happen to live in a swing state like Ohio or Florida. If Obama is winning the state, he will do perfectly well without you; if he is losing, there is nothing you can do to help him get over the line, because the winning line will always be further away than your paltry individual vote. Either way, you are not needed, so why bother to vote at all?
Books | guardian.co.uk
Review: Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga
Alfred Hickling Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:14:24 -0000
Review: Accordionist's Son by Bernardo AtxagaThe writerly accretions merely have the effect of turning the narrative into a lethargic crawl says Alfred Hickling
Review: Shakespeare, The Sonnets by William Shakepeare
Sue Arnold Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:14:24 -0000
Audiobook review: Shakespeare, The Sonnets by William ShakespeareExtraordinary reading of my all-time favourite collection
Review: Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
Sue Arnold Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:14:23 -0000
Audiobook review: Goblin Market by Christina RossettiI've never heard anyone put as much erotic menace into Rossetti's magical and deeply disturbing epic
NPR Topics: Books
A Furious Voice, Forged In The 'Fire' Of Prejudice
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:03:00 -0400
Jamaican-American novelist Michelle Cliff's essays — urgent, stripped of lyrical excess, discomfiting but illuminating — bear witness to a rough life that has shaped a radical, powerful and essential artist.
Photographer Captures MLK's 'Most Daring Dream'
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:39:00 -0400
Photographer Robert Houston chronicled Martin Luther King's 1968 Poor People's Campaign. Now his images can be seen in the exhibit, "Most Daring Dream," at Morgan State University. For more, Farai Chideya talks with Aaron Bryant, curator of Houston's exhibition.
French Novelist Awarded Nobel Literature Prize
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:08:00 -0400
French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature. Antoine Compagnon, a professor of French Literature at Columbia University, says there are two periods in Le Clezio's work: it was more experimental in the 1960s and '70s, and later it featured traveling and exoticism.
Slashdot: Book Reviews
Nagios 3 Enterprise Network Monitoring
samzenpus Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:15:00 -0000
jgoguen writes "Nagios, originally known as Netsaint, has been a long-time favourite for network and device monitoring due to its flexibility, ease of use, and efficiency. Nagios provided, and still provides today, a low-cost, versatile alternative to commercial network monitoring applications. Nagios 3 takes a huge step forward compared to Nagios 2, providing improved flexibility, ease of use and extensibility, all while also making significant performance enhancements. Due to its extensibility and ease of use, no device or situation has yet been found that cannot be monitored using Nagios and a pre-made or custom script, plug-in or enhancement." Read on for the rest of jgoguen's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide
samzenpus Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:05:00 -0000
Martin Ecker writes "Mobile phones and other embedded devices are getting more and more powerful each year. The availability of dedicated hardware for 3D rendering is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and the latest mobile phones come with 3D hardware acceleration that rivals the power of desktop graphics hardware. OpenGL ES 2.0 is the latest version of a cross-platform, low-level graphics API to utilize these new resources available in embedded devices. The OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide published by Addison-Wesley Publishing aims to help the reader make use of the full power of OpenGL ES 2.0 to create interesting 3D applications." Keep reading for the rest of Martin's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis
samzenpus Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:02:00 -0000
cgjherr writes "If the recent financial meltdown has left you wondering, 'When does exponential decay function stop?' then I have the book for you. Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis is the kind of book that only comes along every twenty years. A tome so densely packed with scientific and mathematical formulas that it almost dares you to try and understand it all. A "For Dummies" book starts with a gentle introduction to the technology. This is more like a "for Mentats" book. It assumes that you know Excel very well. The first chapter alone will have you in awe as you see the author turn the lowly Excel into something that rivals Mathematica using VBA, brains, and a heaping helping of fortitude." Read on for the rest of Jack's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Books
‘The biggest selling writer in English you’ve never heard of’
At least that's how the Guardian begins today's piece on Chetan Bhagat.
The Guns of August
I am now reading The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. It’s a “you are there” page turner. The female narrator is superb. I’d fight under her command any day.
‘The Forever War’
Dexter Filkins, war correspondent for The New York Times, fittingly begins his wonderfully written and carefully researched debut book, The Forever War, in the middle of a nightmarish battle in Fallujah, Iraq.
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