- Book Review: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Posted on 21 Sep 2010 in Fiction Reviews, Science Fiction and Fantasy
To label How to Live Safely as a human comedy is a bit of a stretch since many of the major characters are not human at all. These include TAMMY, a computer system with a “kind of sexy” curvilinear pixel configuration and low self-esteem, Phil, a software system copied from Microsoft Middle Manager 3.0 and Ed, a non-existent dog who is a “weird ontological entity that produces unconditional slobbery loyal affection.”
- Book Review: Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America by Erika Lee and Judy Yung
Posted on 10 Sep 2010 in History, Non-Fiction Reviews
For those who fell in the “only” 7 percent category, the decision to deport them was often a death sentence. Several wrenching accounts of suicide are featured in the book, including that of a Chinese woman, waiting to be deported, who rammed a sharpened chopstick through her ear canal into her brain.
- Book Review: The Music Instinct by Philip Ball
Posted on 01 Sep 2010 in Music, Non-Fiction Reviews
The amount of factual detail and insights that Ball brings to the themes under discussion is impressive in the extreme. On just one page, in the chapter dealing with rhythm, he weaves relevant examples ranging from Gyorgy Ligeti’s composition used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s electronic work, Kontakte, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Chinese zither music and songs by Australian Aborigines that are accompanied by the clicking of rhythm sticks.
- Book Review: Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith
Posted on 12 Aug 2010 in Fiction Reviews, Great Britain
The legions of admirers of Smith’s other novels, notably The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, will find a great deal to keep them happily reading Corduroy Mansions. The twist with this book, however, is that it is the print version of the author’s first online novel.
- Art Review: An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing “The Gross Clinic” Anew
Posted on 27 Jul 2010 in Art, Art & Design
The image of Dr. Gross evoked memories of scenes of carnage which Americans, north and south, were trying to forget. Many were not happy to be reminded. In a controversy lasting over the next few years, newspapers and art journals weighed in, with a growing body of negative judgments deflating Eakins’ hopes of a major triumph. The Art Interchange editorialized that “although vigorously treated…” The Gross Clinic “ought never to have left the dissecting room.” “Power it has,” the New York Times proclaimed, “but very little art.”
- Book Review: Winston’s War: Churchill, 1940-1945 by Max Hastings
Posted on 29 Jun 2010 in Great Britain, History, Military, Non-Fiction Reviews
The next two years of the war for Churchill were a harrowing march through what his wife, Clementine called the “valley of humiliation.” Defeats in Greece, in the Battle of Crete and in North Africa in 1941 were followed by the Japanese capture of Singapore in February 1942. That same month, the daring “Channel Dash” by German warships under siege in Cherbourg to their home naval bases stung British pride to its core. Great Britain, the nation of Marlborough, Churchill’s warrior ancestor, and Lord Nelson was losing the war on land and sea.
- Art Review: Late Renoir at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Posted on 28 Jun 2010 in Art, Art & Design
In the case of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, some were even put up for sale. In 1989, after Renoir’s Reclining Nude (1902) was sold by MOMA, the museum’s chief curator, Kirk Varnedoe, made a comment revealing the extent to which Renoir’s reputation had fallen. ”There are many people who would like the painting very much,” Varnedoe said of Renoir’s Reclining Nude, “but it simply didn’t belong to the story of modern art that we are telling.”
- Book Review: At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union by Robert V. Remini
Posted on 02 Jun 2010 in History, Non-Fiction Reviews
In 1850, the best that Clay could do was to coax Southern politicians to agree to halt the selling of slaves in the District of Columbia. The payback was the Fugitive Slave Act. Nicknamed the “Bloodhound Law,” it legally bound law enforcement officers in the North to assist in the seizure of escaped slaves, punishing anyone who assisted the runaways.
- Book Review: The Songs of Hollywood by Philip Furia and Laurie Patterson
Posted on 12 May 2010 in Movies, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews
For the next few years, Hollywood musicals, climaxing in 42nd Street (1933), would be “backstage” pictures. Songs would be delivered in scenes depicting stage rehearsals, with aspiring singers and hard-bitten producers battling against the odds to “put on a show.” It was fun while it lasted – and big profits for the film studios. But after a few years, audiences grew tired of predictable scenarios of theatrical angst and happy “all singing, all dancing finales.”
- Book Review: Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro
Posted on 03 May 2010 in Biography, Non-Fiction Reviews, Theatre, Writers
Beginning around 1800, the hunt started to find the “real” Shakespeare, the noble visionary who had exalted the spiritual struggles of humankind and celebrated the comedy of errors of our daily lives. In this engaging and well-researched book, James Shapiro charts the course of this pursuit of truth and beauty, arriving at conclusions that reflect both his insightful scholarship and common sense. Amassing an unassailable body of evidence, Shapiro proves that William Shakespeare of Stratford did indeed write the plays and poems credited to him, but not always as a solitary creative genius.
- Book Review: Jesus: A Biography from a Believer by Paul Johnson
Posted on 07 Apr 2010 in Biography, Non-Fiction Reviews, Religion
Jesus of Nazareth started to preach and heal the sick when he “was beginning about the age of thirty years,” according to St. Luke’s Gospel. Of his early life during the first decades of the 1st Century, almost nothing is known. His ministry to the poor and troubled inhabitants of Galilee, Samaria and Judea lasted a mere three years. Then, after arousing the suspicion and anger of the ruling elite, he was crucified, died and was buried. In one of the strangest twists of human history, what should have been the end of the story was just the start.
- Book Review: Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War by Ted Morgan
Posted on 15 Mar 2010 in France, History, Military, Non-Fiction Reviews, Vietnam
Giap had lost several family members to the rigors of French colonial rule, including his wife who was arrested and died in a French prison. A model of cool, methodical persistence, Giap was not goaded or tricked into a rash counterattack on Dien Bien Phu. He patiently assembled his forces, digging gun positions in the forested slopes overlooking the French defenses and amassing a huge supply of ammunition carried by thousands of porters through the jungle. Then on March 13, 1954, Giap struck at Dien Bien Phu, capturing several key strong-points and pounding the air strip so that supply planes could no longer land. The base aero-terrestre had become a death trap.
- Art Review: Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris at the Philadelphia Museum Of Art
Posted on 25 Feb 2010 in Art, Art & Design
If Salon Cubism pleased nobody in 1912, the recreation of the gallery from the Salon d’Automne in the Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris exhibition is bound to excite the highest praise. The paintings are clustered about the walls, many of them positioned well above the heads of viewers, which presents Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 from an especially striking position. Sculpture busts, including one by Amadeo Modigliani, are stationed in front of the paintings, revealing how displays of different types of art were often closely integrated during the pre-World War I era.
- The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson
Posted on 16 Dec 2009 in History, Military, Non-Fiction Reviews
In some respects, the Thirty Years War resembles the Great War of 1914-1918. Political friction in Central Europe sparked a rush to arms that dragged in nations and peoples whose best interests lay in peace not war. With the focus of Europe’s economic activity shifting toward the Atlantic Ocean and the East Indian trade zones, the small states of Central Europe needed to integrate their economies to stay competitive. The last thing that petty states like Bohemia, Saxony, Bavaria and the Rhineland needed to do was throw away lives and treasure in futile warfare. But fight they did – for thirty years.
- Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Posted on 09 Nov 2009 in Art, Art & Design
The people of that ancient nation had been decimated in the opening genocide of modern times, victims of Turkish aggression during the First World War. “Who now remembers the Armenians?” Adolf Hitler exclaimed, as he and his Nazi lieutenants planned the Final Solution. The answer can be found lining the walls of the masterful exhibition in Philadelphia. Arshile Gorky remembered. “I shall resurrect Armenia with my brush,” Gorky declared in 1944, “for all the world to see.”
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