childhood’s end?
Arthur Clark’s sci-fi fantasy mainstreams New Age thinking. Click below link to article at The Miami Independent: Childhood’s End: Where Sci-Fi Births New Age
book reviews
the fifth column
The Enemy Within: How a Totalitarian Movement is Destroying America by David Horowitz My rating: 5 of 5 stars David Horowitz is one of the cleanest writers and clearest thinkers about contemporary politics. Like me, he is what used to be called a neo-con, that is, someone with the […]
a funeral dirge for atheism
Is Atheism Dead? by Eric Metaxas My rating: 3 of 5 stars The question of the title Is Atheism Dead? is rhetorical. The answer to anyone with a modicum of common sense and awareness is affirmative. In fact, atheism was still-born from the start. It took the stage with twisted […]
quirky post-war italian gem
The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Little Virtues is a little and mildly disturbing gem. The quirky Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg compiled a group of short essays, ranging from political internal exile in 1944 through the postwar period to 1962. Her writing […]
orwellian prophecy in catalonia
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell My rating: 1 of 5 stars The Wolf Book Club recently debated Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, with its “fight against Fascism” motivating much of the group to enthuse despite major flaws. The book is horrendously outdated, of null literary value, and only of interest […]
faustian death in venice
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann My rating: 4 of 5 stars My book club is on a morbid roll. This past ominous year we have, coincidence I’m sure, read and discussed several death-themed classics. Earlier this year Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and now Mann’s Death in […]
the trial & modern sensibilities
The Trial by Franz Kafka My rating: 5 of 5 stars Book clubs are interesting things. More so when you’re Christian and the others are not. The Trial is not a Christian book (by most accounts, Kafka was a mildly deranged ethnic Jew) but has a Christian message nevertheless – […]
the razor’s dull edge
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham My rating: 1 of 5 stars Described on the back cover as “Maugham’s greatest and most enduringly popular novel,” that makes the author a feeble writer and the reading public lacking in discernment. I recently reviewed his A Writer’s Notebook, calling is a […]
the death of ivan ilyich
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy My rating: 5 of 5 stars This may be the best novella period. It is shockingly modern, and appropriate to our times, as if written yesterday instead of 140+ years ago. We just left – if you believe media reports – one […]
murder, inc.
A Brotherhood Betrayed: The Man Behind The Rise And Fall Of Murder Inc. by Michael Cannell My rating: 4 of 5 stars New York may never represent the best in America, but it has long been the most colorful. Michael Cannell, a former editor at the New York Times, has […]