Monthly Archives: April 2021

Enjoyed reading Alexander Todorov’s book, Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions, and discussing in my Friday morning (early!) book group. Coincidentally, in my class on the economics of gender in developing countries, I had touched on evolutionary psychology … Continue reading →

Premier amour by Ivan Tourgueniev is an enjoyable novella. The modern reader finds it a bit overwrought… we can tell that the “other lover” is the young man’s father almost immediately. If the skill of the novel is portraying how … Continue reading →

I wish that The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin had been a better novel, but unfortunately it is juvenile and humdrum. I love her later work, and the Earthsea novels. My cover calls this novel “an astonishing tale of … Continue reading →

My neighborhood book club read and discussed Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. We’re an odd mix, and it is always interesting to see who “likes” and who doesn’t. Leaving the Atocha Station is about as high literary-meta as … Continue reading →

I really enjoyed reading Earthsea by Ursula K. le Guin in French translation by Philippe Hupp. I had previously only read the first volume in English. Maybe reading in translation lends gravity to what might be, in native language, an … Continue reading →

Very enjoyable, very readable, Katie Mack’s The End of Everything is good cosmology overview of where the field is at on the question of what happens when the universe winds down. Obviously the math is way beyond me, but Mack … Continue reading →