There is a great deal of talk about ‘the big picture’ in Crowd of One, a metaphor frequently used to make the ends justify the means and enable a megalomaniac’s vision to outweigh a world of suffering.
Tag: review
A review of Fitting In by Colin Thompson
The clever storytelling of Colin Thompson in Fitting In somehow binds itself to you and makes you fully engaged with the pages in front of you. It invites you to sit and read a page or two and then ponder what you just read. My eyes were opened to a life completely different from my own. This is the beauty of memoirs. They pull you out of the self-centered life you may be living and make you engage with someone else’s life story. As I read, I saw the raw and coarse pain of depression and the desire to fit in.
A review of Opportunity: Optimizing Life’s Chances by Donald Morris
These are opportunities which alter the present and shape the future. The author further contends that if one is trained to recognize opportunities in a timely fashion, one can then recognize rich and productive opportunities while dismissing the trivial, short-lived…
A review of My Last Summer With You: No Fanfare for a Withered Rose by Fidelis O. Mkparu
The author brings to light many important issues within this novel that were not only prevalent in 1977 and 1978 but in the present too. My Last Summer with You is a story that envelops the reader from the beginning. This story…
A review of Earthmasters by Clive Hamilton
Of particular concern is that, regardless of any potential damaging impacts, geoengineering solutions – the “quick-fix” appears to be politically easier to handle than emissions cutting and other much safer mitigations. In addition, our efforts to find an “easy” solution…
A review of Revelation: Book One of the Revelation Trilogy by M. J. Mancini
Revelation is a unique intellectual thriller. It is violent, torturous, intriguing, and downright scary. The reader will be transported into this dark world of the Cavalieri. It is a nasty place indeed. How could such a good man end up there?…
People Change: Gary Ross’s Pleasantville, a film fiction on history and nostalgia, creativity, independence, sexuality, and television
In Gary Ross’s beautiful, funny, imaginative and intelligent film Pleasantville, a shy bookish brother who loves old television programs, especially the one set in the mythical town of Pleasantville, and his more indulgently sensual, pretty, popular sister—she chews gum, smokes cigarettes, and makes out with boys—argue over the television remote control on the weekend their divorced mother has taken a trip to be with her young boyfriend.
A Review of This is the Place by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
The book is about how the persecuted become the persecutors; how those who have suffered from bigotry and prejudice become bigoted and prejudiced. It is about “us” and “them”, about inclusion and exclusion, about the comforts and benefits of belonging…
Of Woman, Guilt and Love: Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace
Atwood’s book takes the basic story as her premise, but uses a number of fictional techniques, primarily the narrative first person, but also letters, newspaper accounts, quotes and bits of poetry and song to create a tale of love, guilt,…
Plucking at our World: David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon
Remembering Babylon is a wonderful book. Malouf’s rich prose, which at times approaches poetry, creates a believable and fascinating lead character in Gemmy, a white man who was raised from boyhood by aborigines who found him nearly drowned after being…