Category Archives: Book Reviews

Book Review: We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I acquired this book, knowing nothing about it at the time, because I saw the title on a list of finalists for a major literary award. Now, having read it, I recognize it as an important work from an important … Continue reading

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Book Review: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

I can’t remember the recent thought processes that caused me to desire to read Doctor Zhivago now, after all this time. The David Lean film was very important to me as a young teen. I saw it multiple times in … Continue reading

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Book Review: A Fiction of the Past: The Sixties in American History by Dominick Cavallo

I came into the sixties indirectly – that is, in the backwash of the early seventies. Gone were the Diggers, the SDS, Woodstock, the Summer of Love, the whole Flower Power scene, and other manifestations that made the era so … Continue reading

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Book Review: Artemis by Andy Weir

Disclaimer time: I haven’t read The Martian, the book that made Andy Weir famous. I’ve seen the movie a few times, though, and that will have to suffice to allow me to make comparisons between that story and this, because … Continue reading

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Book Review: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

I have wanted to read this book for some time, so I put in a reservation at the library and I was about two hundredth in line. It would have taken many months. Then it became available as part of … Continue reading

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Book Review: Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

I have to blurt out right from the start that this is the best novel I have read in a long time. How I came to read it was unusual. I had started another novel, a highly acclaimed novel in … Continue reading

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Book Review: Chief Seattle and the Town That Took His Name: The Change of Worlds for the Native People and Settlers on Puget Sound by David M. Buerge

When I take my daily walks in my neighborhood in north Seattle, I marvel that so much of the indigenous foliage has survived the carpeting-over by houses, shops, streets, and sidewalks. Majestic evergreens tower high over the tallest buildings, and … Continue reading

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Book Review: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

In my search for new nonfiction books to read, I perused recent awards lists and came across this title. It surprised me that a book on surfing should have won a Pulitzer Prize, but as I read brief descriptions of … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen

I’m a graduate of the Clarion West science fiction writing workshop, and I am on their mailing list. I recently received notice of a one-day special workshop by the award-winning writer Kij Johnson taking place in November 2017. The workshop … Continue reading

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On Rereading The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith

Most of you have probably never heard of Cordwainer Smith, whose real name was Paul Linebarger, and yet he is one of the greatest science fiction writers ever. You don’t have to take only my word for it; he has … Continue reading

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