Tag: books read 2010

Two Comets: H.G. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois

gordsellar2 Comments

I mentioned the other day that I’ve been writing a couple of short stories, just to give myself a breather on the novel I’m working on. One of those stories, the one I discussed in connection with the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, is kind of response to two interesting “comet” SF stories I read back in 2010, and have been thinking about ever since: In the Days of the Comet by H.G. Wells, “The Comet” by W.E.B. Du Bois (which was collected in the first of Sheree Renée Thomas’ Dark Matter anthologies, but it’s also available in the public domain, as part Du Bois’ …

Continue Reading

Jane Goodall Retrospective

gordsellar0 Comments

It’s a funny coincidence that this should be up now, since I’m currently reading Jane Goodall’s book Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating–a book I received as a present some time ago, and only got to now–but I noticed on Boing-Boing’s Twitter feed regarding a link to a retrospective on her career and discoveries–titled “Being Jane Goodall”–at National Geographic, as well as a lovely cache of the photos contributed by her to the magazine. Both the article and the photos are worth your time, so go and check them out. The thing that’s fascinating to me about the …

Continue Reading

More Books on Belgian Beer (and More)

gordsellar0 Comments

I mentioned reading Jeff Sparrow’s Wild Brews a while back, and noted that I wanted to read about the other Belgian styles of beer, covered in other books in the same series. Well, I wish I’d gotten to them sooner, but I have finally gotten to Stan Hieronymous’ famous Brew Like a Monk: Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and How to Brew Them, and Phil Markowski’s Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition. Both books are really good, though the latter is slimmer than the former. I don’t have a great deal to say about them, in part …

Continue Reading

Conscience of the Beagle, by Patricia Anthony

gordsellar0 Comments

I commented a while back on how it was odd that Patricia Anthony had disappeared from the SF scene, after having been such a rock star through the 90s. That was when I happened to decide I would check out whatever of her work I could get my hands on, other than what I already had (which was, at the time, only Flanders and God’s Fires — books I have yet to get to). Conscience of the Beagle is a slim book, and one that I recognized immediately as something I’d read back in Canada, though I couldn’t recall what …

Continue Reading

I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick by Emmanuel Carrère (Trans. Timothy Bent)

gordsellar0 Comments

This is, as the author himself puts it, “a very peculiar book,”  but for me, it was an unusually quick read, I think partly because of its very oddness. First, the good: I found it fascinating. I found it fascinating how Carrère sketches out what he understands to be the relationship between Dick’s life and his writing, a pattern that immediately brought to mind Rudy Rucker’s notion of transreal fiction — fiction that is essentially SFnalized autobiography — as he discusses it in this essay. Well, and as I mentioned recently, Wikipedia claims Rucker came up with the idea after reading …

Continue Reading

World War Z by Max Brooks

gordsellar4 Comments

I am, I know, a few years behind most people in reading this novel by Max Brooks, but I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend, Mike. He commented on how he was fascinated by how a disaster — a violent, worldwide epidemic of zombie virus — transformed individuals: how a nobody could become a leader, or a leader (or group of leaders) could persist in folly and be taken down by it. I think that’s the gist of what he said. Well, for me, that was one of a few fascinating things about this book. Another was …

Continue Reading

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

gordsellar4 Comments

Well, it took me almost a decade–due mostly to lack of interest, I’ll admit, since it’s less than 600 pages of text in total–but I finally have finished Asimov’s “Foundation Trilogy.” I know there are more books in the series, but all I ever intended to read was that main, original trilogy. I read the first book in 2002, mainly because it was among the books I’d brought over to Korea, thinking a lack of English-language books would force me to read it. But there were more English books here than I expected, and I’m a slow enough reader that …

Continue Reading

War With the Newts by Karel Čapek

gordsellar0 Comments

Well, it’s been a while but I’m back with a review of a book I recently finished. I don’t know if I’ll manage to review all of the books I’ve read this year — so far, there’s six this month alone, though one of those I’m reviewing for a newspaper– but I quite enjoyed this bizarre novel and so I figured I’d mention it here.I’ve wanted to read the book since 2001 or so, when my friend Jack was reading it, but I only got myself a copy a few years ago and, well, finally I made the time for …

Continue Reading

The Power of Pride: Stylemakers and Rule Breakers of the Harlem Renaissance by Carole Marks and Diana Edkins

gordsellar0 Comments

This is a book I purchased a while back in the hopes of writing some SF set during the Harlem Renaissance, but which came in handy for my course Understanding English and American Popular Culture. (The first half of which has been pretty much devoted to African-Americans’ role in building the foundation of American popular culture.) The strength of the book is that it builds up a picture — and one that is honestly critical without stooping to being demeaning — of the world in which the Harlem Renaissance occurred, and a number of the major figures of the Renaissance. …

Continue Reading

Satchmo Blows Up The World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War by Penny Marie von Eschen

gordsellar0 Comments

This is a book I bought to have some background on the use of jazz as part of Cold War-era promotion of America abroad, primarily for research on a longer work I was (and still am) considering writing set in the world of “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues.” Interestingly, during the Cold War (from the 1950s through the 1970s) jazz music and jazz musicians were used by the American government in the same way circuses were used by the USSR, as part of what we now so often call a “hearts and minds” campaign carried out throughout the …

Continue Reading