Review: Zion's Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature

Zion's Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature by Sheldon Teitelbaum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating collection of stories. The stories are quite varied; though there are two things that I felt ran throw them all. The first is that the default background was Jewish. This is hard to define or pinpoint exactly, but there was something just, well, Jewish about the stories. Sometimes it was explicit but other times, it was more just something there. The second thing is that almost all the stories, if not all, were a bit dark. As though one could sense a kind of underling traumatic or tragic in each one. Some were funny or sweet, but even in those there was some thing lurking underneath. Maybe these are really two sides of the same thing; but it is interesting that this collection of stories all seemed to have that element. Maybe this is the genre, or maybe it's the editors.

I think it's important to pay more attention to the "speculative literature" part of the title rather than the "Zion's fiction." The latter suggests science fiction, while speculative captures a broader range of stories: including science fiction, but also fantasy and horror. There are no bright lines between these genres, but there are certainly paradigmatic versions of each. In any case, these stories were all mixed, maybe a bit more heavy into the fantastical and horror elements. Only a few could be categorized as "pure" science fiction (if there is such a thing).

I'd probably prefer something more science-fiction-y and less fantasy/horror; but I still was interested in all the stories.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour

Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour by Mike Lupica
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was fun; a few surprises that fans of the Spenser-verse will enjoy. The plot was a bit unfocused, several elements that didn't have a payoff and confused things. Maybe these were meant as red-herrings, but if so they weren't well executed. Lupica has a good feel for Parker's characters and can emulate the witty repartee, but Parker's plot were tighter and more focused. Still I enjoyed it.

Two quibbles: I am not sure how this plays if reading it, but listening to it there were too many "he said"s and "I said"s in the dialogue. It was distracting in the audio. Overall, I like the narrator, though there was some uptalk that could be distracting.

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Review: Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History

Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by Nellie Bowles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An interesting look back at when the world went bat-shit crazy for a few years. Bowles has an interesting perspective as a former reporter at the NYT and self-described San Francisco progressive. She was an insider of sorts and as a journalist is able to approach her our journey through this craziness as a reporter would. It makes it a personal story without being overly so: she's covering herself and her journey.

There isn't any thing too deep here: Bowles is not digging into the philosophic or psychological ideas or motivations: she is reporting on them. She is reminding us of what the cadre of media and academic elites said and did at the time. This is important as people forget or smooth out what happened to seem less scary or crazy. Bowles reminds us that people really did say and mean defund the police. There really were people on the progressive left that pushed (and still do push ) racist "antiracist" ideas. And so on through gender, education, COVID polices, housing and homeless, prosecution.

Bowles started out in those camps, but slowly over time, reality pushed back and made her question a lot of what was being said and done. Some might say she's red-pilled or whatever, but she still seems to hold many of the same traditionally progressive views points but in more moderate and centrist ways. It's telling that a move to middle is regarded as something radical.




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Review: Robert B. Parker's Payback

Robert B. Parker's Payback by Mike Lupica
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As always, I love being back in the Spenser-verse. Lupica does a good imitation job and I enjoyed reading it. There are definitely some choices he makes that I don't think Parker would have, but the flow of the plot, the wit of the characters, and the dialogue are Parker-esque, or close enough.


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Review: SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient -Powered by the Science of Games

SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient -Powered by the Science of Games by Jane McGonigal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed and got a lot of the first part of the book where McGonigal discusses the psychology and philosophy behind games and the connections to our lives. Part 2 is practically focused discussing various ways to implement and use the approach. It's the self-help portion of the book. Part 3 are more detailed listings of quests one can do. I didn't listen to the latter (not really conducive to an audio book).

Parts 2 and 3 don't really work well for the audiobook, though I think quests and methods can be helpful. What's revolutionary about the approach is the process, not the ideas. It's a lot of ways to help tap into one's social network and inner strengths. Psychological, not a lot a new here. But the use of game-like behaviors and structures can be very helpful.

I plan to dig deeper into the scientific literature McGonigal includes; I think there is a lot to the connection between how we play games and how we can approach living our lives.


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Review: I Can't Stop Thinking About Var: Forward by Jonathan Wilson

I Can't Stop Thinking About Var: Forward by Jonathan Wilson by Daisy Christodoulou
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is primarily a book about VAR (Video Assistant Referee), its problems, and some ways to think about possible improvements. But there is an undercurrent of some deeper themes about the natural and limits of rule-governed orders and how to make sure they function well towards their aims.

It is a quick read, with many interesting ideas and analyses of VAR. The author discusses the way VAR has affected the rules and the games. She explores the why of these changes as well. She discusses how VAR might be improved, but also the limits to any such improvement. The writing is smooth and interesting.

It’s worth reading for anything interested in football, but also for those interested in the philosophy of sport. There isn’t any reference to the philosophical literature on these issues, but it’s not really about the higher-order questions here: it’s more practically focused. That said, the things she covers have relevance for those philosophical questions, the philosophy has relevance for the issues she is looking at.


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Review: Temptation of the Force

Temptation of the Force by Tessa Gratton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the better HR books. I felt like a got a clearer picture of the characters than in some of the other HR novels. The story cooks along with a good mix of personal scenes, dialogue, and battle scenes. The only downside is that there is little revealed; much, I hope, will be answered in the sequel. There is one significant occurrence in the novel, that as far as I know, is unique. No spoilers! The narration is great.

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Review: The Auschwitz Violinist

The Auschwitz Violinist by Jonathan Dunsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the third novel in the wonderful series that follows an Israeli hard-boiled detective in Tel Aviv in the late 40s and 50s. This one is set in 1950. Adam is following up on a suicide of a fellow Auschwitz survivor; as you might expect--there's more to this than the police think. He's also preparing to go on private vengeance mission to kill Nazis still in Germany. The story plays with ideas of vengeance and justice; desert and guilt, surviving and moving on. It also explores the complicated perception of survivors in Israel. Highly Recommend!

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Review: Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words

Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An absolute delight. McWhorter's way of presenting linguistics and language evolution is clear, entertaining, and persuasive. Grammar pedants might be put off by some of his conclusions: about "Billy and me" and the singular They, in particular, but he's too reasonable and careful in his argumentation to easily reject him.

My only objection is how short it is, I would have like a few more chapters.



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Review: Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins by Reed Farrel Coleman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Coleman's version of Stone is very good. Its bit grittier than Parker's, but still captures the characters and town that Parker created. The mystery is well put together and we learn more about some of the main secondary characters.

The narrator is excellent and does a good job differentiating between the voices.

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Review: Titan Song

Titan Song by Dan Stout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This series is fascinating in terms of the underlying mythology of the world. I am intrigued by various mysteries about magic, the origins of the different species, what is really under the city. The story has lots of action and some good humor. That said, I didn't love it. It sometimes tries a bit too hard to be noir and gritty. At times it falls into the 'telling instead of showing' trap. There was a bit too much self-righteousness about the downtrodden and the grasping rich and powerful. That gets a bit trite and repetitive after awhile. It's not unimportant for the story, but that's where the show me don't tell me comes in.

Still, if there was a book 4, I'd read it.

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Review: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew by Emmanuel Acho
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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Review: And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best biographies I've ever read. Meacham captures the life, spirit, and times of Lincoln in a near perfect balance. It is not so detailed that one is overwhelmed, nor lacking in appropriate levels of depth. One aspect I really liked was how he weaves together so much of the story through newspaper accounts, speeches, letters, and other comments from contemporaneous stories. This gave the account a greater authenticity, as well as better capturing the changes in perspective of Lincoln himself and of Lincoln by others. Meacham presents an objective, clear-eyed view of Lincoln: a great and good man with many flaws. (Maybe much like the country he led and continues to inspire?)

The slow, prodding movement of Lincoln towards emancipation and equality is one of the main themes. Lincoln was always anti-slavery. But over time, his views about how to bring about its end and what to do after the ending of slavery evolved more and more. At first, he thought limiting slavery to the South, preventing its expansion would slowly kill it. But by the civil war and its end, it became clear to him that slavery had to be killed directly and immediately. At first, he was a proponent of colonialism: the emigration and resettlement of the freed black population somewhere outside the border of the US, Lincoln came to see that this wouldn't work and there was a need to come to grips with a multi-racial society--one where blacks would be equal participants in the political process. Lincoln seem to hold many of the conventional and common racist views of his day, but again over time, he sheds those views. Lincoln, in his own person, shows the way to moral growth.

Lincoln was a politician but also a statesman: a man with political ambitions, but always guided by a strong moral compass and clear set of principles. He had a grand vision for liberty and equality but knew that he couldn't merely impose it; that it had to be more gradual and incremental; that he needed to bring the country along as he had been brought along to the view of equality. This was frustrating to some of his contemporaries, like Fredrick Douglass, Charles Sumner, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who wanted to move faster and more immediately. In retrospective, Lincoln's incremental, slow movement looks more effective. But one never knows.

The counterfactual of the direction of America, in reconstruction and beyond, had Lincoln lived is one of the most intriguing. Meacham doesn't delve into this too much -- though the discussion of Johnson and his reversals after Lincoln's murder strongly suggests that had Lincoln lived, reconstruction would have proceeded with the moral vision of equality and liberty for all. We might have avoided the Black Codes and Jim Crow. What untold greatness of America did we miss out on because Lincoln did not live to guide that vision?

I cannot recommend this book highly enough; it should be required reading in every US high school.



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Review: Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success

Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success by Alexandra Popoff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a decent biography of Rand: it covers the main points of her life in concise and clear ways. Popoff tries to be balanced and fair to Rand; she includes points of view from critics and followers alike. There are only a few slips of snide remarks that make there way in to the book. The book is its best and most interesting when recreating from letters Rand's life in Russia and her early days in the US.

The discussion of Rand's ideas are superficial and often muddled: Popoff is not a philosopher and is a bit of her depth here. The discussions of Rand's fiction is better, though predictably falls into the all too common (but unwarranted) criticisms of wooden characters that are only symbols.

Given that this was part of the Jewish Lives series and the suggestion on the back cover of discussion of the Jewishness of her characters, I was really interested to see what was said about Rand, her Jewishness, and the Jewishness of her characters and work. However, this was rather disappointing. There just wasn't a lot here. In the first part of the book, her life in Russia and her family, there is more discussed -- though this often more suggestion and speculation than substantive connections. As for Rand's character, fiction, and philosophy and what might have been Jewish about that, there is little that wasn't superficial or speculation.



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