The Master
A sweet and thoughtful novel, a little bit lonely, Henry James looking back on an interesting and humane life and set of relationships, father and sister and artist friends. Contemplative but never (terribly, I suppose it is in the eye...
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The Rise And Fall Of The Dinosaurs
Brusatte takes you through an excellent history of both the dinosaurs themselves and the field of paleontology, from a few crazy pioneers (I could stand to learn a bit more about Baron Nopsca, scientist, swashbuckler and spy) to the high-tech...
China In Ten Words
I worry sometimes about my Education. I always thought it was like, pretty good, I got good grades in a wide variety of subjects, but then something like The Cultural Revolution comes to the fore and I am just astonishingly...
The Aeneid
Pretty good for self-insert fanfic. Better then the Iliad, better in parts and pieces than the Odyssey.
The Name Of The Rose
I’ve been keeping a little inventory of books that misuse and abuse the word palimpsest. It is, in my opinion, a bit of a trap of a word - arcane yet evocative, strange sounding with a compelling meaning that is...
Treasure Island
For a boy named Hawkins growing up by the (fresh, decidedly not pirate-infested) water, Treasure Island was a formative and exciting read about a boy named Hawkins traveling the world, finding pirates and treasure and friends. Rereading it to get...
Pirate Enlightenment
This book is a fascinating little history of Madagascar and the kingdoms and societies during the golden age of piracy. I (and I imagine I am not unique here) know little of this corner of the world and corner of...
The Drawing Of The Three
The second book in The Gunslinger series is less engaging. It is more ambitious than the previous, with King filling out his patchwork universe with connections to times, places and trends from Our World, that are ultimately not particularly poorly...
The Gunslinger
Stephen King’s voice is smooth, straightforward, easily digested. Technically, aesthetically, he is quite good at that voice - but I don’t think when it comes down to it, that I care very much for it. It is maybe without flaws,...
Rosshalde
I recently reread Rosshalde because I was curious about an alternative to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - an author exploring what it means to live as and pursue art in a non-linguistic medium. I found what feels more authentic,...