There is a (slight) postmodern knowingness to it all (Anders, the narrator, is a literary critic after all, and alludes to other writers within his own anxious tale) but Cook delivers a good story, no worries. At one point Anders is compared to Nick Charles, one of Hammett’s PIs, but he was probably named more with Marlowe in mind (and, yes, Heart of Darkness is one of the works that Anders alludes to).
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Techniken des Positionsspiels im Schach by Valeri Bronznik and Anatoli Terekhin
Also, it looks at those situations where the king departs from a castled position, either for defensive purposes (e.g. the opposing forces are about to batter on the door and the king does a runner) or as a preparation for attack (e.g. both players have castled on the kingside and one marches their king out of harm’s way, before advancing the kingside pawns and opening lines on that side).
A review of Zurich 1953: 15 Contenders for the World Chess Championship by Miguel Najdorf
The crucial point about Zurich 1953 is that it was an elite tournament before such events became relatively common: 15 leading players participated, none of them weak or decidedly inferior to each other, over a period of about two months. Many of the 210 games played are now considered classics, and all except for a very few have moments of great interest.
A review of Ascending Spiral by Bob Rich
Though the ultimate purpose of the book does appear to be didactic – global warming and impending environmental catastrophe are generally accepted within the mainstream scientific community as proven fact – and the parallels between Dr Lipkin and the author’s own studies are probably the subject of at least a few fascinating interviews, the story reads well as fiction, creating each world entirely so that the reader becomes engrossed in the historical time and place along with the protagonist.
A review of The Long March Home by Zoë S. Roy
This is a historically consistent plot turn, but to make no mistake, it is one Western readers in particular will like. The book is hardly anti-China, but Roy, a Chinese-Canadian, also does not sugarcoat the oppression, fear, and insanity of Mao’s regime.
A review of Tea and Biscuit Girls and The Love Immigrants by Barbara Celeste McCloskey
Many works of fiction have been set during World War II. Two of my favourites are the TV Foyle’s War and the movie Yanks. It is a well-known fact, however, that if one assigned the same topic to a room full of fiction writers, each would come up with something unique. McCloskey’s novels show her flair for exploring women’s friendships and feelings and will attract and educate today’s generation of young woman readers about an intense, dramatic time in history.
A review of Blue Skies Tomorrow by Sarah Sundin
Sundin certainly did her homework on the period, accurately capturing both life in the military and on the home front during World War II. This was an era where a family kept their secrets and did not share their troubles with outsiders—not even their closest friends.
Interview with Jennifer Maiden
The author of Liquid Nitrogen reads from and talks about her new poetry book, about her themes, about the combining of the personal and political, about writing topical poetry, about meta-poetics, mentorship and parenting as it plays out in her…
A review of Liquid Nitrogen by Jennifer Maiden
Though the description of the Nebula alone is worth the price of the book, this building up of smaller things into something larger, powerful, transformative, is exactly what Liquid Nitrogen does, taking the many cultural, political and literary characters and references, in order to create something large, complex, woven on a “spinning jenny.”
A review of Now What: A Philosophy of Freedom and Equality by Michael Lydon
The book is entirely empirical, encouraging readers to conduct regular and direct (that is, immediately experiential) experiments in order to prove the tenets, and then to live by its dictates. Because the book is almost childlike in its optimism, inclusiveness and warmth, it functions as a kind of self-help guide to living an authentic and happy life