Category: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

A review of Batsford’s Modern Chess Openings, Fifteenth Edition

While it would now be an exaggeration to call MCO by its erstwhile moniker ‘The Chess Player’s Bible’, it remains the best one-volume work on the openings. Its ambition, to adequately map the whole terrain of modern opening theory, is a worthy one, and in a sense it comes down to a classic trade-off: what one loses in depth, one gains in comprehensiveness.

A Review of House of Meetings by Martin Amis

There is a ring of truth and emotive power in the historical veracity of House of Meeting’s setting. Amis has done his research well, and claims that an English author can’t really write about Russia don’t do justice to the deep sense of history and personal involvement that underpin this book. But House of Meetings really isn’t meant to be a realistic picture of life in the Soviet gulag.

A review of Wild Wives by Charles Willeford

Charles Willeford has been much praised by Elmore Leonard and others in the know, yet even now he remains something of a cult figure. This is a pity, for he is a rewarding writer for any reader. Certainly, he should really be better known and more widely appreciated than he is at present.

A review of Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne

The marsupials trekked from the tip of South America (when South America formed a part of the unified continent Gondwana) to the connected landmass that became Australia. There they became the dominant form of animal life in country that had drifted away from their original home. This is a beautiful example of “We have the fossils – you lose.”

A review of A Partisan’s Daughter by Louis de Bernières

Overall, this is a sad novel which hints at the uncertainty in all of our posturing; our inability to get at the kernel of who we are; and the difficulty of moving beyond our fantasies into a sustainable reality. Nevertheless, it’s an easy read, smooth and well written, and ultimately one that will nag at the reader beyond the pages of the book.

A review of The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

If The Enchantress of Florence were expertly edited, and I’m afraid that few would dare edit someone of Rushdie’s caliber to the extent required, it could have been a masterpiece. As it is, it’s an enjoyable, but convoluted novel that takes on a difficult and fascinating historical subject matter and turns it into something entirely modern.

A review of Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman

Besides the obvious obstacles—an extreme communication barrier, a culture so completely opposite of Western values and practices, and hoping to not get on your traveling companion’s nerves—these two innocent, naïve college girls were walking in utterly unknown territory. But in the end, mental anguish turns out to be the biggest danger of the trip.

A review of The New York State Chess Association Congresses – Buffalo 1894 and 1901 by John S. Hilbert

John S. Hilbert’s erudite and informative book will be of interest to admirers of Pillsbury’s brash yet subtle chess, as well as to those curious to learn about the chess scene in America at the beginning of the twentieth century. Throughout, it sparkles with insights and facts about the chess personalities and institutions of those far-off, distant days. Can one conclude that this was a quieter, a more leisurely and civilized age?