Underlying the whole tale is a question about the rights of individuals and the prejudice people may have about certain groups. It also shows how prejudice is often a result of our preconceived ideas about how people within a certain group behave without really going out and finding out the truth.
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara
Too many novels depict a woman in the arts accepting limited or no success in her field, because she has given herself up to romance, child-rearing or an unproductive bohemian lifestyle. It is refreshing that Dez escapes these fates.
A review of Swimming to Elba by Silvia Avallone
Silvia Avallone tells her story from multiple viewpoints, allowing us inside the hearts and minds of all of her main characters, most often Anna. By being non-judgmental and descriptive in presenting her characters, she allows us to share their hopes and feel their pain even while disapproving of their behaviour.
Fred Watson on Star Craving Mad
The author of Star Craving Mad reads from and talks about his latest book, on the importance of a multi-disciplinary perspective in science, on future areas of interest for astronomy and other scientific areas, the relationship between music and science, Astronomy…
A review of Emergence by Gary Fry
When a retired teacher looks after his young grandson, he discovers more than mysterious cones on the beach. The two of them find their deficiencies counterbalance each other making their loving relationship able to combat menacing phenomenon.
A review of Feydeau, First to Last by Georges Feydeau
To many, the plays will evoke the world of Fawlty Towers; and it should come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that John Cleese has often expressed his admiration for Feydeau. It is interesting in this regard to look at Les Paves de l’ours from 1896, a play wherein an upper-class bachelor employs a country bumpkin as a man-servant, believing him to be ‘a diamond in the rough’.
A review of the Little Book of Vintage Terror by Tim Pilcher
But who could ever have believed that these bold, gaudy pictures, accompanying as they do such twisted, mendacious stories and fantasies, could ever do permanent harm to impressionable young minds? On the contrary they have a certain cute (now kitsch) charm and add spice to life!
A review of Chess Is Child’s Play: Teaching Techniques That Work by Laura Sherman and Bill Kilpatrick
The aim of this book is to enable adults to teach chess to children, and in this it succeeds admirably. Although intended for one-to-one tuition (a mother teaching a son or daughter, say), the exercises and mini-games can quite easily be adapted for use in the classroom. And certainly the advice, insights and troubleshooting fixes are applicable to both contexts.
Lessons with a Grandmaster 2 by Boris Gulko and Dr. Joel R. Sneed
Picturesque pyrotechnics can be seen in many games, notably in the draws with Shirov and Vaganian and the two titanic encounters (resulting in a draw and a win for Gulko) with Bronstein. There are also two wonderful miniatures where Renet and Lputian (strong grandmasters both) succumb quickly, the games clocking in at just 19 and 20 moves apiece.
A review of M. Duchamp & V. Halberstadt: Spiel im Spiel / A Game in a Game / Jeu dans le jeu by Ernst Strouhal
Published in 1932, it is a book about those rare pawn endings where the distant opposition and the theory of coordinate squares plays a crucial role in determining the outcome. One can find helpful discussions of these sorts of positions in Pawn Endings, Maizelis and Averbakh’s classic text, and in one of Jon Speelman’s endgame books (I think, Endgame Preparation); and the Italian endgame theorist Rinaldo Bianchetti covered similar territory somewhat earlier.