Book Review Roundup: Surviving Natural Disasters And Shakespeare On Justice

"The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life" by Elijah Anderson

Slate

In Anderson's case, the greatest contribution of his book may be simply the diagnosis of a contradiction that cannot be neatly summed up in a tidy blog post or expedient reportage--or a scientific, sociological survey for that matter: Americans have become more tolerant in their public dealings, but at the cost of moving some of the animus to quieter, less visible quarters. Better to point it out, however speculative and provisional the results may be, than to hide from the truth.

"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester

NPR

Gulliver Foyle, an uneducated brute, is left to die in a wrecked spaceship. Inspired to greatness by rage, he rescues himself, is put in prison, escapes, finds a treasure, remakes himself as a flamboyant aristocrat and stalks his enemies through a society transformed by the discovery of teleportation into something between Dickens' London and the Borgias' Rome.

"How to Survive a Natural Disaster" by Margaret Hawkins

Seattle PI

The natural disaster in this book won't be like your own natural disaster - everyone's is different, and this family is certainly quirkier and more dysfunctional than most. But there's plenty to recognise here. Hawkins' narrative has an uncanny way of winkling out pretences and rationalisations and getting into the heart of flawed humanity. This is a seemingly simple novel that moves across that disturbing line we all walk between sanity and the edge of comfort.

"Spiral" by Paul McEuen

Los Angeles Times

McEuen, a physics professor at Cornell University and a first-time novelist, does a fine job of braiding science, story and suspense to create an engaging and fast-paced novel.

"The Love of My Youth" by Mary Gordon

San Francisco Chronicle

Is one reason we read novels to escape, for some time, from our daily reality? Armchair travelers will find much to enjoy in Mary Gordon's wistful new novel, "The Love of My Youth," which takes the form of a leisurely, cultured stroll through the colorful streets, parks and museums of Rome.

The couple doing the strolling aren't a couple - or not any longer. Adam, a music teacher, and Miranda, an epidemiologist, were each other's first great loves, in their teens and early 20s, but have not seen each other since a bitter, betrayal-induced breakup 37 years before. Their reunion in Rome, where Adam lives with his second wife and their violinist daughter, is orchestrated by an old mutual friend who invites them both to dinner.

"A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare's Plays Teach Us About Justice" by Kenji Yoshino

New York Times

The class on which this book is based is probably great fun, and students may sharpen some lawyerly skills by debating things like the bloody glove at Simpson's trial. But if they want more understanding of Shakespeare, they should sneak off to the theater, where he belongs, and not to a law class. They should go to Belmont.

Comments

[c-tom]

03:24 PM on 04/18/2011

Strange to see a novel published over 50 years ago in this list.