In Jorge Luis Borges’s 1939 essay The Total Library, we catch our first glimpse of the Library of Babel. Borges, like many writers and artists, kept revisiting favorite themes. The Total Library of 1939 is best considered a Library of Babel construction site. The foundation crews are busy excavating whatever esoteric material will support the … Continue reading A Note Regarding the Contents of the Total Library
Category: Books
My Three-Body Problem
I have a three-body problem. Today, while wandering in our local Barnes & Noble, I spotted, for the nth time, a boxed set edition of Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem (TBP). Once again, I resisted the urge to snatch the books off the shelf, pony up whatever B&N was asking, and ferry TBP home for a … Continue reading My Three-Body Problem
Frankenstein Weather
In my old age, I’ve picked up a nasty habit: a fondness for literary biographies. Recently, I’ve enjoyed books about Keats, Shelley, Byron, Blake, Twain, Orwell, Tagore, Joyce, and others. It’s a strange affliction — utterly without rational basis, lacking the danger of street drugs, but like drugs delivering peculiar damaging delights. Last night, while … Continue reading Frankenstein Weather
Generation Ship: Review
I grew up reading hard science fiction. Some of my favorite authors were Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Larry Niven, Frank Herbert, and Jerry Pournelle. All these writers created technically plausible stories with heavy doses of science. I’ve always held that science fiction needs some actual science to distinguish it from … Continue reading Generation Ship: Review
The Hate U Give: Review
I picked up The Hate U Give, (THUG) because it was mentioned in a TopTenz banned books YouTube video. If you watch the video, you'll see that many great books and authors have been recently banned. George Orwell, Joseph Heller, Ray Bradbury, J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, and James Joyce, for Christ sake, were all … Continue reading The Hate U Give: Review
An Epiphany induced by reading Journey to the Edge of Reason
If you’re faced with undeniable evidence that Shakespeare was a racist, would you change your opinion about the play Othello? I’m in the habit of asking myself such hypotheticals; it helps me clothe my opinions in reason. Here's another one. If you learn that one of the greatest mathematicians in history was prone to conspiracy … Continue reading An Epiphany induced by reading Journey to the Edge of Reason
Trey and Kate: Review
This will be a completely biased review. I have a close relationship with the author so everything I say must be verified. Please buy Trey and Kate, read it, and make up your mind. With that caveat out of the way let's get started. Trey and Kate is a tale about an on and off … Continue reading Trey and Kate: Review
Review: The Way We Die Now
The Way We Die Now is not the best book I’ve read this year but it may be the most important. In Seamus O'Mahony’s opinion, modern society has forgotten how to deal with death. There are many reasons for this, the collapse of religious belief, the demolition of the extended family, the triumph of the … Continue reading Review: The Way We Die Now
The Collapsing Empire: Goodreads Review
The Collapsing Empire (CE) is a breezy fun to read space opera. Because I rate books on Goodreads mostly on how much I enjoyed them I gave CE a solid four. If you're looking for a few hours away from planet moron (Earth) CE is worth the time. While I enjoyed CE it's unlikely I … Continue reading The Collapsing Empire: Goodreads Review
Euphoria: Review
Lily King's excellent new novel Euphoria derives from an incident in Margaret Mead’s life. Margaret Mead achieved fame as a young woman with her 1928 book Coming of Age in Samoa. Usually, scholarly works do not attract mass audiences but the good bits of Mead’s book read like soft-core porn and introduced the radical idea that sexual behavior … Continue reading Euphoria: Review
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 