Thursday, September 27, 2012

The PARTY is OVER


Mike Lofgren’s The PARTY is OVER: How Republicans went CRAZY, Democrats Became USELESS, and the Middle Class Got SHAFTED

The title says it all. One depressing book. Truly, corporate America in all its corruption rules the USA today. Lofgren says the solution is to publicly finance elections. As if that would be easy.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Shelter half: A Novel by Carol Bly


Shelter half: A Novel by Carol Bly

An intriguing novel. It is more a collection of short stories detailing quirky individuals living in a small Minnesota town with a typical small-town-gossipy character. It definitely has a Progressive message, but it does make you think. I have a couple of quibbles: the author falls into stereotyping and she leaves a few loose ends.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach


The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

I liked this book a lot, and I’m not a baseball fan. At 512 pages it’s a long one. While the ending was a little too pat, I loved it for its poetic descriptions and its spot-on depictions of little things that make up our lives today.

Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder


Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder

This book has been over-hyped. Skip it and read River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candace Millard if you want to get a good description of the wilds of remote Amazon tributaries.

The Paris Wife: A Novel, by Paula McLain


The Paris Wife: A Novel, by Paula McLain

In the beginning I was charmed by McLain’s prose, but the novel wore thin for a very long middle. I found the last chapters a little more interesting again. So much has been written about American artists and writers living in Paris in the 1920s. I simply did not find the novel compelling.