I wanted to like this better than I did. It’s jammed with factoids for a 252 page book, which makes it listy rather than insightful. The author’s and the book’s biases line up with my biases, but even with that, I was put off by how slanted it was. True, the book was about the entertainment industry’s participation in the resistance to Trump and MAGA. But it would have been more interesting to include more discussion about books, films and music from Trump’s supporters. The country is divided over the political issues discussed, but this book presents the entertainment industry as the leftist monolith the right often claims it is.

True Confession: I didn't read the description of this book closely and thought it was a quirky entry in Akashic Noir series of mystery anthologies. And lucky me!! No way I would have sat down to read a book of film history. I had never really thought of Western films as Noir but the films covered in detail in the book are spot on examples of how this is true. I'd only seen a few of the films and will be tracking down others that I'd heard of but never seen.

A good overview of the history of forecasting -- especially in the intelligence arena. And an interesting and ongoing research project. I've already signed up for a future tournament.

I shouldn't look forward to books by Amir Aczel as much as I do, but I really enjoy them. The most miserable course I had in business school was Statistics and he was the lead editor of the text book. Problem was the instructor, not the book.

Finding Zero is a very personal memoir. Beginning with the very childlike wonder of Aczel being introduced to the mysteries of mathematics by the chief steward of the cruise ship on which his father was a captain, to the sense of adventure traveling through Laos and Cambodia to solve the mystery of the first zero, Aczel's voice is at once that of an adult and the age he was at each stage of his life. A quick read, a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

A sobering and eye-opening book. The description of the Middle East crisis game eerily presages and parallels the recent rocket exchanges between Gaza and Israel. It is disturbing that the US is repeating its errors in avoiding considering scenarios of situations contrary to current policy.

It is all well and good to advocate and work towards preventing Iran, North Korea, and other players from acquiring nuclear arms. It is myopic and dangerous to fail to plan for the possibility and eventuality that one or more of them will. The pace with which the crisis game nearly spun out of control may be replicated in real life if US policy makers continue to dig their heels in against even discussing possibilities of less than desirable outcomes.

This book was great fun for a comic nerd like me. Classics Illustrated were among some of the first comics I read, although I learned by reading this book that I was on the very tail end of the phenomenon and most of my reads were reprints of earlier editions.

The publishing history was interesting but seeing the creators -- especially the illustrators -- who contributed over the years, who I was familiar with mainly from reading WAY TOO MANY super hero comics, was the highlight for me.

Probably not a general interest book and the level of detail, while impressive, limits the books appeal to golden, silver and bronze age comic fans and/or students/scholars of pop cultural history.

A straight-forward thriller but two-three times the length of its mass-market competition. A fun read but nowhere near as challenging as most of Stephenson's other books, which some readers found frustrating (check out the review on Salon). But I figure after the three volumes of System of the World and Anathem, Stephenson's allowed to bang out something a little less demanding.

At times, I found sections tedious (Zula's dream reminiscences of her childhood evacuation, Csongor, Marlon & Yuxia's boating adventures between China & the Phillipines), but overall it was a fast-paced engaging read. I often found myself wanting to put the book down and log into T'Rain to explore the virtual environment of the WoW-like game, but it doesn't exist, darn it.

This book was a lot of fun to read. The first World Series I watched was the 1971 Orioles vs. Pirates and the next I paid close attention to was the 1975 Reds vs. Red Sox. I won $5 from my oldest brother on the latter, and the victory was sweeter than the $$. And I've loved the Nationals since they came to town despite their record. So the Frank Robinson and Cincinnati Reds story was interesting to me on a lot of levels. Reading about a team other than the Yankees, Dodgers or Cardinals was a treat. Definitely a book for baseball buffs, of which I'm one, but my personal history as a baseball fan is from the 1970s so this tale from an earlier era and of lesser known players is well worth the time.

I really wanted to like this book better. I'm not sure if it's Vecsey's writing style, a natural consequence of an almost oral history approach, if it's a pre-publication draft that hopefully got significant editing before the final release, or some combination of the three. But it was tougher to stay engaged in this book than I thought it would have been.

I loved reading about Stan Musial when I was a kid and his hard work ethic and humility shown through vividly here. His early live in Donora near Pittsburgh was well described and his relationship with his parents. And the vast difference in how ball players were treated and the $$$ they made in Musial's day compared to the modern era is stark.

However, the book was episodic and tremendously choppy. Anecdotes strung together within chapters didn't always seem connected and the chronology of events was often confusing. A story that would start in the 1960s would have a side reference to something that happened in 1974 and then wrap up in the 1960s again. It doesn't always have to be purely chronological, but the jumping from thought to thought to thought was distracting and required re-reading of passages to make sure I was clear what was going on.

A really well organized guide to men's health topics. Easy to find a specific topic and/or to read through sections/chapters at a time. Very readable style

Not so relevant to me or my relationship at time I received it. Hard to evaluate it given that context.

"He would not shoot a coyote. They were noble animals is why. They had a will -- they made other animals take them into consideration. Mountain lions, wolves, it was all the same. You could not kill an animal like that unless you were very sure of your motives."

"American Rust" is to what's left of 21st Century steel towns what American Beauty was to upper middle-class suburbia. A crushingly sad novel about a decaying and dying community in Western Pennsylvania. Not a single character exhibits a modicum of the nobility Sheriff Harris ascribes to the coyotes that have migrated into the hills near his home.

Henry English, widower of a suicide and crippled by a workplace accident idolizes his daughter for her intelligence and her acceptance to Yale and Harvard but loathes his son Isaac who may be more brilliant than his sister Lee.

Yet Isaac refuses to leave his father's side seeking some form of approval that will never come at the cost of all opportunities for college and leaving his desolate hometown. And when Isaac does decide to escape, he robs his father of savings to run away to Berkeley by riding the rails like a depression era hobo. College admissions offices do love larceny in their students, so good plan on Isaac's part.

[SPOILER OF OPENING CHAPTER] Isaac's initial attempt to leave town sets a tragic and pathetic course of events into motion by convincing Billy Poe to come along to an abandoned warehouse the night before he would hop the rails on his misguided show more faux-romantic trip west. Poe is a bored man-child seething with strength and violence. A former home town football hero who squandered his own opportunities to go to college and escape Buell, his best days are behind him. Unable to walk away from a confrontation with squatters, Poe nearly gets killed and, ironically, it is the scrawny Isaac who kills one of the hobos.

Even Lee the girl who "got away" to Yale and Harvard Law School is trapped by the gravity of Buell coming back to care for her father only to find that her brother will need a lawyer to help him avoid homicide charges. Lee's marriage to Simon is a loveless one to an idle, rich boy buried in his own depression and engaged in juvenile yet dangerous alcohol-soaked antics with an entourage of hangers-on. His friendships mirror the friendship between Isaac and Poe.

If life is the struggle of Sisyphus, pushing a boulder endlessly up a hill, "American Rust" is a novel about what happens when your foot slips in the dirt and the boulder comes rolling down and over you. It's a powerful and affecting read UNTIL the all too pat and sudden ending. Worth the read but first-time novelist Philipp Meyer ties up all the plot threads in the last 20 or so pages. No one is particularly happy with how he or she comes out at the end, but it just didn't feel as if the inevitable dooms headed their way actually destroyed any of them.

3/5 stars. Well-written but blows it in the end. show less

A slight diversion. Quick read. Man in mid-life crisis takes on the authority of his small town by taking the annual model rocket festival in a direction its never taken before. Predictable ending.

A so-so black & white fantasy comic. Good premise: avenging angel and his sidekick vanquish demons and murderers. Kind of a light-hearted Spectre -- certainly more lighthearted that the recent DC Comics Tales of the Unexpected version.

Shawn Granger's writing is engaging and the relationship between Innocent and his pal David is charming. The downfall is the very uneven art. Even the best is not ready for prime time. The worst makes use of computerized air-brush effects that are so muddy in reproduction you can't tell what's going on (might have looked good in original but not on relatively lightweight paper).

Other members' reviews of this book have been quite strong but the only rating assigned was two stars. I have to agree with the star rating.

An interesting idea for a novel: a 16th Century Jewish merchant doing business in Burma. Alienated in his home in Venice and alienated in other ways in Burma (Pegu, which I was unclear it was Rangoon or some other city).

The book is structured as a series of letters from the trader to his cousin and as he writes them, he has no idea whether they will ever reach their destination. While the epistlary form may have been Hantover's attempt to set the novel in its time period, I found it tedious. In between some of the letters home are first person passages from a Burmese maiden reflecting on her fate (who is she writing to?).

I wanted to like this book much more than I did partly due to the current events in Burma and partly from having lived in Laos as a child more than 30 years ago. Honestly, I didn't even finish the book -- something I rarely do.

An absolute hoot. Explains in hilarious detail why I've avoided playing fantasy baseball as I would completely obsess over the most obscure minor league prospects in hopes of outsmarting my fellow players. Months of pre-season research followed by daily stress. I'm already prepping for the 2007 season. ;-)