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SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
Ray Bradbury, THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES
Ray Bradbury, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
Anthony Burgess, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
Lewis Carroll, ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Lewis Carroll, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
William Goldman, THE PRINCESS BRIDE
Robert A. Heinlein, GREEN HILLS OF EARTH
Fran Herbert, DUNE
Walter M. Miller, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ
George Orwell, 1984
J. R. R. Tolkien, LORD OF THE RINGS
Mark Twain, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
Kurt Vonnegut, CAT'S CRADLE
Not available at present. Try Bibliofind for used copies.Kurt Vomnnegut, THE SIRENS OF TITAN
T. H. White, MISTRESS MASHAM'S REPOSE
T. H. White, THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING
John Wyndham, THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS
Not Available at present. Try Bibliofind for used copies.
- Twain, Mark. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER MANUSCIPTS. University of California Press. Hardback, listed at $60 in November, 2000. (There is a less-expensive paperback edition that is out of print, but you may be able to find it with the book search services listed on the Newsstand.)
- Back in the Middle Ages, a young boy seeks a job as a printer's apprentice. When the kindly printer asks him what he is called, he gives a model number instead of a name.
This may or may not be science fiction (I think it is), but it is surely a great and wickedly funny work of fantasy.
One of the questions raised by Twain is, Does man create god in his own image?
If we are to believe the polls, 90 percent of modern Americans devoutly believe in a creator god who is favorably disposed to Americans and is the source of all earthly justice and morality. In their state of bliss, most appear to have little or no sense of humor concerning this topic and few questions about the darker, more painful side of life. Increasingly, the accepted response to evil seems to be self-righteous anger, hatred, retribution, and vengeance -- unless, of course, it is one's own wrong-doing that is in question, in which case the accepted response is Clintonian waffling. (Instead of forthrightly accepting responsibility for the deaths of dozens of Italians killed by reckless Marine fliers recently, our leader gulped and said "a horrible human tragedy" had occurred, as if to say "Of course, I had nothing to do with it.")
Back when Mark Twain was an old man and wrote this fantastic novel of space and time travel, Americans were perhaps a bit more open-minded on this subject. Some even smiled or laughed at Mark Twain's contention that the planet Earth was the source of endless amusement for angels and other cosmic creatures -- an outlandish place whose inhabitants were bloated with false pride and an absurd anthropocentrism. A kind of Milpitis or Wampsville or Hot Springs of the Cosmos.
The scene in which the MS molds little toy soldiers out of clay -- who then come to life and proceed to butcher one another in a great battle-- is one of the more memorable moments in fantastic literature. The hair on the back of this reader's head was standing erect when he read it.
"The War Prayer," reprinted widely whenever the country lurches into a war, is found in this remarkable book.
A minister friend of Twain's tried to tidy up and clean up the book after his death, but the publisher has restored it's darker passages. In fact, Twain himself, never finished this ambitious project, and what the publisher has done is give the reader Twain's three attempts at the book, each set in a different time and place. The volume's editor suggests that some day some audacious writer may attempt to complete Twain's story. -- R. W. Mann HOP!
Graphic Novels
- Barry, Lynda. THE! GREATEST! OF! MARLYS! Seattle: Sasquatch Books. Graphic novel format. Unpaged.
- "Each four-panel piece encompasses a complete story."
"Her ear for how kids talk (and how they try to destroy each other while trying to survive) is flawless; and her artwork, crude as she chooses it to be, serves her agenda well -- of course stories about 8-year-olds would be homely and pretty in only the most awkward way. . . . Marlys Mullen is 8 years old and lives in a trailer park with her teenage sister, Maybonne, her younger brother, Freddie, a beleaguered mother and a dangerously close-knit group of aunts and cousins. Barry's world is one of kids manufaccturing fun under the most brutal of circumstances, and having brutality thrust into otherwise happy times. . . ." -- The New York Times Book Review. HOP!
- Clowes, Daniel. DAVID BORING. New York: Pantheon Books. Graphic novel format. 116 pages.
- "Boring's trouble, of course, starts with a woman: Wanda. He pursues her, wins her, then, as so often happens, is shot in the head. Things go leftward from there. While recuperating, he is brought by Wanda and his mother to a tiny island where the family's ansestral vacation house stands. There has been some talk of impending nuclear Armageddon, and they decide to stay until the air clears -- or the world ends. But they are not alone. . . . It's a cast and setting from which only betrayal and murder can result. And maybe some incest." -- The New York Times Book Review. HOP!
- Gaiman, Neil (writer), and Dave McKean (illustrator). THE TRAGICAL COMEDY OR COMICAL TRAGEDY OF MR. PUNCH: A ROMANCE. DC Comics. September 1995. Graphic novel format. 96 pages.
- "In his grandfather's seaside arcade, a young boy encounters a mysterious Punch and Judy man with a dark past and a young woman who makes her living playing a mermaid. As their stories unfold, the boy must confront family secrets, strange puppets, and a nightmarish world of violence and betrayal." -- Publisher's synopsis.
""The artwork is in the mood of looking through an old attic in a junk dealer's house after he dies. It has the feeling of touching a piece of the past that you may or may not have been in contact with. The story is as innocent as a child and as guilty as a scary clown. I liked it very much." -- A reader. HOP!
- Gaiman, Neil (writer), Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham, Dave McKean (illustrators). DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING . DC Comics. June 1994. Graphic novel format. 103 pages.
- What if, every hundred years, Death takes human form and walks among us? In this graphic novel, written by Neil Gaiman, award-winning author of the Sandman comic books and graphic novels, the form chosen by death is that of a perky and smiley little girl. More than one reader has found himself or herself ruminating about the philosophical import of this fantastic story long after reading it. HOP!
- Katchor, Ben. JULIUS KNIPL, REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHER: THE BEAUTY SUPPLY DISTRICT. New York: Pantheon Books. Graphic novel format. 116 pages.
- "The beauty supply district isn't where you buy curlers and dye; it's a now-defunct area (which looks eerily like 34th Street and Broadway), where artists, musicians, and writers can go, walk into this or that shoe-repair-looking storefront and order, over the counter, aesthetic balance or apeal, or even plain inspiration, for their unfinished projects." -- The New York Times Book Review. HOP!
- Sacco, Joe. SAFE AREA GORADE. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books. Fall 2000. Graphic novel format. 240 pages.
- "We have been told that 'it takes a village' and it probably does.... the awful and frightening fact about fascism is that it 'takes' only a few gestures to unsettle or even undo the communal and humane work of generations... But even at the edge of those medieval paintings of breakdown and panic and mania, when [the people of Gorazde] thought the heavens might aid them, there was always the oblique figure at the edge of the scene, who might hope to record and outlive the carnage and perhaps help rebuild the community. Call Joe Sacco the moral draughtsman, at least for now, and be grateful for small mercies." -- Christopher Hitchens. HOP!
- Sacco, Joe. PALESTINE: IN THE GAZA STRIP. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books. March 1996. Graphic novel format. 144 pages.
- "In recent years, the scope of the comics medium has burst from the confines of children's and fictional genres to encompass substantive work in such realms as the graphic novel, autobiography, and biography.
"In his nine-part comic book Palestine, the final four issues of which are collected here, Sacco gives us the first major work of comics journalism. In 1991 he traveled to Jerusalem to observe Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Out of that trip comes this highly ambitious and successful telling of the refugees' stories--some militant, others resigned--that include both emotional depictions of protest and torture and the quiet struggles of everyday survival.
"Although Sacco's sympathies, expressed through the first-person narration, are definitely with the Palestinians, the work overall is far too nuanced to be deemed propaganda. Sacco makes wildly experimental layouts coalesce into an imaginative yet solid storytelling style. Palestine shows that he is a top-rank talent who has staked out a unique place for himself in the comics field." -- Gordon Flagg, Booklist HOP!
- Sacco, Joe. PALESTINE: A NATION OCCUPIED. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books. March 1993. Graphic novel format. 240 pages.
- HOP!
- Ware, Chris. JIMMY CARRIGAN: THE SMARTEST KID ON EARTH. New York: Pantheon Books. Graphic novel format. Unpaged.
- ". . . In terms of sheer aesthetic virtuosity Ware's book is arguably the greatest achievement of the form, ever." -- The New York Times Book Review. HOP!
POLITICS
- Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks. IT DIDN'T HAPPEN HERE: WHY SOCIALISM FAILED IN THE UNITED STATES. W. W. Norton & Company. Hardback. July 2000. 384 pages.
- "This ambitious and generally excellent book by two veteran political sociologists seeks to explain why the United States, alone among industrial societies, lacks a significant socialist movement or labor party. According to Seymour Martin Lipset, who currently teaches at George Mason University of Virginia, and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, they are addressing " a classic question of American historiography." That is an accurate assessment, and the authors tackle it with intelligence, imagination, and useful comparative analysis. In an era of global capitalism triumphant, I suspect that most readers will not be interested in a long, albeit erudite, discussion of why the working-class challenge to industrial capitalism failed in the United States. Nevertheless, I recommend this book because it offers deep insights into American society which go far beyond answering the narrow question presented in the title. . . ." -- Amazon.com Customer Review by Steven S. Berizzi
The first chapter is available free at Amazon.com. HOP!
- Silverstein, Ken. WASHINGTON ON $10 MILLION A DAY: HOW LOBBYISTS PLUNDER THE NATION Common Courage Press. Hardback. 224 pages.
- "Don't miss this book! Ken Silverstein explores the "lobbying industry" (as we named it two years ago) that has commercialized American politics and has a strangehold on power in Washington, D. C.
Silverstein documents the mafia-like ethics of materialistic greed that hold sway on K Street and explains the workings of the enormous money pump that is primed by the lobbyists' bribes ("donations")." -- R. W. Mann. Editor, Democratic Reform News HOP!
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
- Kimball, Roger. TENURED RADICALS: HOW POLITICS HAS CORRUPTED OUR HIGHER EDUCATION. Ivan R. Dee. In press. Paperback. 266 pages.
- Here's a howdy do! A scholarly paper presented at a May conference sponsored by the Queer Faculty Group at New York University was titled, "Queer Politics as a Vocation."
QP seems to be a booming business on American college campuses, writes Roger Kimball in The Wall Street Journal (5 May, page A22): "Today it is one of the trendiest academic fiefdoms in the humanities, the occasion for myriad classes, conferences, articles, journals, and books. Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Columbia, and the University of California at Berkeley were among the prestigious institutions represented at the recent "Queer Publics/Queer Privates" conference.
According to Kimball, QP "is an effort to make one's private sexual interests the chief focus of one's academic work. This accounts for the peculiarly cliquish atmosphere permeating the world of queer theory."
Kimball writes, "Intellectually, queer theory may be described as a mixture of deconstructionism and Marxism: that is, hermetic gobbledygook and radical political enmity. It's main target is the idea of normality -- especially as applied to sexual matters." According to Kimball, queer theorists reject biologically based male-female bonding and mating behavior as an acceptable social norm.
Among the sponsors of "Queer Publics/Queer Privates" were the taxpayer-funded New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. HOP!
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POINT AND CLICK!
YOGA
Alice Christensen, THE AMERICAN YOGA ASSOCIATION
BEGINNER'S MANUALAlice Christensen, THE AMERICAN YOGA ASSOCIATION
WELLNESS BOOKGeorge Feurstein, YOGA: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR DAILY LIFE
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