I just finished Cormac McCarthy's recent book "The Passenger" One wonders if the 89 year shuffled through a career's worth of discarded characters, mix-taped them together with other bits he'd always meant to write about, while trying to answer the unanswerable why are we here? and what happens next? There are parts so grounded and simple like making a sandwich on a deserted (maybe) oil rig in a massive storm; gritty examinations despair alternately in a roach infested swampland trailer and a snow bound in an abandoned ranch house in Idaho; alternate sections flash back into the psychotic vaudeville daydreams of the sister, who commits suicide as we join the story. She and her brother, Bobby, bear the guilt of their father, one of the Atomic bomb scientists. Bobby is a salvage diver, race car driver, friend of eccentrics, with a mystery to solve which includes his being hounded by Mr. Smith-like government officials for an unknown crime. Kennedy's assassination, particle physics, high speed cross country road trips, navel gazing, natural history, fantastic food, treasure hunts, mountains, shorelines, plane crashes... whew. The writing is as rich, sticky, startling, mucky, murky, and haunted as the story. As weird as it was, as unsettling, and at times wondering if it would pay off in the end (and I'm not sure it did) I can see reading it again.
I just finished Cormac McCarthy's recent book "The Passenger" One wonders if the 89 year shuffled through a career's worth of discarded characters, mix-taped them together with other bits he'd always meant to write about, while trying to answer the unanswerable why are we here? and what happens next? There are parts so grounded and simple like making a sandwich on a deserted (maybe) oil rig in a massive storm; gritty examinations despair alternately in a roach infested swampland trailer and a snow bound in an abandoned ranch house in Idaho; alternate sections fl...
I read the sample, just bought this book. Ed Yong! ~.~.~.~ The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”
I read the sample, just bought this book. Ed Yong! ~.~.~.~ The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magne...
13 year old Brian is en route to visit his father in the oil fields of Northern Canada when the pilot of the single engine Cessna suffers a massive heart attack. The plane crashes into a lake in the middle of, well, nowhere. With only a windbreaker and a hatchet, how long can Brian survive? Such a great tale.
13 year old Brian is en route to visit his father in the oil fields of Northern Canada when the pilot of the single engine Cessna suffers a massive heart attack. The plane crashes into a lake in the middle of, well, nowhere. With only a windbreaker and a hatchet, how long can Brian survive? Such a great tale.
Award winning The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is a haunting story of Bod (short for Nobody) who is raised in a graveyard after his parents were brutally murdered. I loved the interaction between a young boy trying to grow up and the spirits, ghosts, and other unworldlies who become his family. (also in graphic novel form)
Award winning The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is a haunting story of Bod (short for Nobody) who is raised in a graveyard after his parents were brutally murdered. I loved the interaction between a young boy trying to grow up and the spirits, ghosts, and other unworldlies who become his family. (also in graphic novel form)
Surfing story "Barbarian Days" won the Pulitzer for Biography in 2016. Surfing!! . I enjoyed reading it way more than I enjoyed my one attempt to ride the waves. . https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/william-finnegan-new-yorker-surfing-memoir (William Finnegan finds ‘brief, sharp glimpses of eternity’ on his surfboard. Photograph: Ron Dahlquist/Corbis)
Surfing story "Barbarian Days" won the Pulitzer for Biography in 2016. Surfing!! . I enjoyed reading it way more than I enjoyed my one attempt to ride the waves. . https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/william-finnegan-new-yorker-surfing-memoir (William Finnegan finds ‘brief, sharp glimpses of eternity’ on his surfboard. Photograph: Ron Dahlquist/Corbis)
This was the best book we read in 2021. Dark yet funny, several hitman are on a high speed train, each has a different mission, it can't be coincidence that has them all aboard this train. The reader and the hitmen try to figure out what's going on, as the bodies pile up. Fast action, great dialog, pages turn as fast as the scenery flies past. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bullet_Train/7UIdEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
This was the best book we read in 2021. Dark yet funny, several hitman are on a high speed train, each has a different mission, it can't be coincidence that has them all aboard this train. The reader and the hitmen try to figure out what's going on, as the bodies pile up. Fast action, great dialog, pages turn as fast as the scenery flies past....
Six murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations... but only one is correct. Can you solve Torquemada's murder mystery? In 1934, the Observer's cryptic crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and the most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle ever written. The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard order, but it is possible - through logic and intelligent reading - to sort the pages into the only correct order, revealing six murder victims and their respective murderers. Only three puzzlers have ever solved the mystery of Cain's Jawbone: do you have what it takes to join their ranks? Please note: this puzzle is extremely difficult and not for the faint-hearted. https://bookshop.org/p/books/cain-s-jawbone-edward-powys-mathers/16095511?ean=9781800180796&_kx=ZeKNKWlwDSV3o9P4I4_4YOOuz1zOTpti9sZGdPeqbiE9amRjou7AmtzN9624qVwS.RBxUNF
Six murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations... but only one is correct. Can you solve Torquemada's murder mystery? In 1934, the Observer's cryptic crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and the most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle ever written. The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard order, but it is possible - through logic and intelligent reading - to sort the pages into the only correct order, revealing six murder victims and their respective murderers. Only thr...
An old man's unbelievable story, backed with gold, if it's true can the reluctant hero save his dog, win an impossible cage match, best the giant (and her mother), defeat the evil gripping the Other world in order to protect our own. Will the moons collide? Will the Prince win the love of the Princess? Adventure, trials, treasure, and of course, it's laced with enough weird and creepy to disturb H.P. Lovecraft. What a tale by our generation's finest storyteller Stephen King. https://www.amazon.com/Fairy-Tale-Stephen-King-ebook/dp/B09QXZB6SK?ref_=ast_sto_dp
An old man's unbelievable story, backed with gold, if it's true can the reluctant hero save his dog, win an impossible cage match, best the giant (and her mother), defeat the evil gripping the Other world in order to protect our own. Will the moons collide? Will the Prince win the love of the Princess? Adventure, trials, treasure, and of course, it's laced with enough weird and creepy to disturb H.P. Lovecraft. What a tale by our generation's finest storyteller Stephen King....
Congratulations to all the finalists and winners of this year's National Book Awards.
Congratulations to all the finalists and winners of this year's National Book Awards.
Congratulations to Tess Gunty winner of the National Book Awards 2022 for Fiction!
Congratulations to Tess Gunty winner of the National Book Awards 2022 for Fiction!
Congratulations to Imani Perry winner of the National Book Awards 2022 for Nonfiction!
Congratulations to Imani Perry winner of the National Book Awards 2022 for Nonfiction!