California Literary Review

Web Site:

http://www.david-loftus.com

Articles written for the California Literary Review:

• Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius by Colin Dickey
  Posted on 02 Nov 2009 in Death, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  The 19th century science known as phrenology — which posited that the human skull conforms to the shape of the brain within, which in turn expresses in physical form one’s innate moral and intellectual faculties (crudely, that by feeling the shape of a person’s head you could tell whether he or she had great intellectual or creative powers, or was more likely a criminal) — had a brief but rich heyday. It influenced the thought and writings of the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and especially Walt Whitman, as well as scientists and physicians of the time.

• The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King
  Posted on 20 Aug 2009 in Fiction Reviews, Mystery
  

  Most of the narratives are first-person accounts by Mary, so readers get to know her very well. She is a strong, resourceful, intelligent, and fascinating character in her own right. Sometimes, she can seem a little too perfect: she speaks ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew (from her theology studies), French and German, and manages to pick up a good speaking ability in Arabic and Hindi during their adventures overseas. Her throwing arm has deadly accuracy, and on occasion she uses it to great effect with knives, darts, or just rocks. She is a great picker of locks.

• A Conversation with Author and McSweeney’s Editor Paul Collins
  Posted on 31 Jul 2009 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Theatre, Writers
  

  “I think most scholars tend to trust the First Folio more than anything else, not because of the materials that went into it, in terms of what papers did they have on hand, but because it was [the actors] Heminge and Condell. Because it’s the only two people that were directly involved in the productions, that have ever taken part in pulling together an edition of Shakespeare’s works, and so it’s their presence as much as any identifiable set of documents that made the Folio so important to scholars. They’re all we have in terms of eyewitness editing.”

• Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti
  Posted on 29 Jun 2009 in Art, France, Italy, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  Not quite a century ago, on August 29, 1911, thousands of people began flocking to the Louvre (among them, Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod) to gaze at a blank space on a wall. The 49-acre Louvre – still the largest museum in the world today – had been closed for most of the preceding week for the investigation of a singular occurrence: the most famous painting in the world had disappeared from that blank spot.

• Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes
  Posted on 13 Jan 2009 in Death, Non-Fiction Reviews, Religion
  

  “For me, death is the one appalling fact which defines life; unless you are constantly aware of it, you cannot begin to understand what life is about; unless you know and feel that the days of wine and roses are limited, that the wine will madeirize and the roses turn brown in their stinking water before all are thrown out forever—including the jug—there is no context to such pleasures and interests as come your way on the road to the grave.”

• Confessions of an Eco-Sinner by Fred Pearce
  Posted on 21 Dec 2008 in Environment, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  But Pearce knows more fundamental rethinking will be necessary to keep our species going. “The worst twentieth-century crime of urban planners was to design cities around cars.” We have to transform cityscapes “to make the car … irrelevant,” he writes. “We simply have to give up flying as much as possible.” He thinks the dangers of nuclear power have been “overblown,” and admits coal may be necessary to tide us over, if we can effectively bury its emissions.

• Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong by Pierre Bayard
  Posted on 07 Dec 2008 in Literary Themes, Mystery, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  These books are indeed a kind of witty parlor game, certainly. But though Bayard occasionally gallops into the high alpine meadows of literary and psychoanalytic theory, he still sticks closely to the text he’s given. And though he probably doesn’t believe half of what he’s saying, it does pass the logical plausibility test.

• The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
  Posted on 16 Nov 2007 in Environment, Nature, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, informally known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is a span of ocean between California and Hawaii the size of Texas, where floats a Sargasso Sea of trash consisting of 90 percent plastic.

• I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon
  Posted on 04 Oct 2007 in Biography, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is sort of an extended wake for its subject. There’s very little biographical narrative per se; instead, the book compiles a massive array of anecdotes, memories, and opinions from dozens upon dozens of the people who knew him, from engineers, girlfriends, and backing musicians to a fairly astounding variety of celebrities who spent time with Zevon.

• Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere by Peter Douglas Ward
  Posted on 23 Jul 2007 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Science
  

  In an age when ad agencies regularly apply “revolutionary” to new car models and digital toys, it is wise for the rest of us to avoid the word, but Peter Ward’s Out of Thin Air comes as close to meriting the label as anything I’ve seen of late. Paleontology does involve a lot of detail work, from tiny picks and toothbrushes to radioactive dating; however, some details may not only inform but overturn and reinvent the much bigger picture.