Archive for the 'books' Tag

Barely Literate

Colin Marshall, a friend of mine who is a prolific interviewer, reviewer, and podcaster, recently invited me to participate in a podcast bookclub experiment he’s starting called Barely Literate. Colin and myself, as well as Mike Violette and Jim Dempsey, recently completed a podcast on Robert Pirsig’s classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (also available as the Barely Literate podcast on iTunes).

I feel like we meandered a bit; not wanting to deal with the philosophical issues raised by comparison of Pirsig to other contemporary thinkers. Nevertheless, it’s kind of neat. Give it a listen sometime!

Book Review: Coldfire Trilogy

I recently finished the Coldfire Trilogy, a sci-fi/fantasy trilogy by C. S. Friedman, and enjoyed it more than any series I’ve read in quite a while. In brief, the books are set on a planet recently (1200 years ago) colonized by humans that is quite similar to Earth except for one major difference — a strange force, called the Fae, is present on this planet and responds to humans by making their thoughts and emotions become (almost always unintentionally) more-or-less “real.”
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Book Review: Absolution Gap

Recently, I read the Absolution Gap, the third book in Alastair Reynolds’ trilogy (the previous two were Revelation Space and Redemption Ark, and have been complemented with several novellas and short stories set in the same universe). I quite enjoyed it, but reading it reminded me of why I can only take Mr. Reynolds’ writing in small doses.
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As I watch a tumbleweed roll by…

Alright, alright. Paradoxdruid.com has been a little slow lately. Honestly, it’s less out of interest (I have 2 article drafts started that are saved and need finishing) and more about lack of time. But that’s not a reasonable excuse! So I thought I’d write a few capsule book reviews of things that I’ve read recently. (continued)

Books on fruit?

Jenny (wife) is now in the grad school program here for Info & Library Science. One of her classes, Reference, is sort of a “ways that patrons screw up asking for information from the library, and how you can prevent it.” It includes lots of funny stories, including this: (continued)

Beloved Children’s Books

I just got an interesting book called The Tao and Mother Goose, which more than anything about its philosophy has reminded me of how much I love some of my old children’s books. (continued)

Get thee to a library

Or any other place where you can find a copy of the latest Atlantic magazine (continued)

Most Hated Books

Now that we know what your favorites were, what were your least favorites?
What books do you think society hates the most? (continued)

What are we reading?

I’ve had some free time lately, so I’ve been using it to catch up on all sorts of reading. I thought it might be fun if we could all chime in with our impressions on books we’ve recently read, so maybe we can all see a few that interest us. Please throw up a comment if you have one– the site is “supported by viewers like you.” ™ (continued)

Damn you, Andrew

Hey, that sorta rhymes!
Anyway, Jenny read “Public Enemies” a book about John Dillinger, Baby
Face Nelson, the Barkers, Bonnie and Clyde, and all those other 1930s
outlaws.  And when she was telling me that Nelson was shot a
ridiculous number of times by high-calibre sub-machine guns, and then
twice in the legs with buckshot, before shooting an FBI agent right
between the eyes from across the road, then got away and lived for two
days, I thought, “Hmmmm, endure pain, 80+, handguns, 80+.” (continued)