About Netsurfer Books

Netsurfer Books is a bi-monthly e-zine offering short reviews of books and related items. We include listings based on recommendations from our staff and reviews from other individuals. Are we bribed to include any of these items? No. Do we receive a commission if you purchase an item through one of the links included here? Yes. Are we waiting to hear from you about what you'd like to see reviewed? Definitely.

EDITOR'S CHOICE

The Ultimate Cigar Encyclopedia

The Ultimate Cigar Encyclopedia
Julian Holland, Neil Millington (Consultant)
Lorenz Books; ISBN: 185967755X

Even people who wouldn't be caught with a cigarette seem to be cottoning to cigars .. and Father's Day is right around the corner. The editor's own father has been poring over this beautiful reference with gorgeous color photos that make even multiple images of long brown tubes look lively and distinctive. It certainly is a comprehensive guide, with 78 pages devoted to sections on harvesting and fermentation, the structure of the handmade cigar, how cigars are made, counterfeits, packaging - even the band. Then, there are the 171 pages of the richly illustrated cigar directory, holding the story behind each brand and label, sizes, and ring gauges. For goodness sakes, even the index includes photos. The publisher is British, so Cuba and Cuban cigars get a thorough examination without having to bear the mystique of the forbidden. If the editor father is any indicator, there are a few Dads out there who'll really appreciate adding this marvelous book to their shelves. For fathers (and mothers) who've discovered the pleasures of single malt and scotch whisky, we also suggest The Single Malt Whisky Companion: A Connoisseur's Guide.

SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY

Aeon Flux: The Complete Aeon Flux

Aeon Flux: The Complete Aeon Flux

ASIN: 1573309796

We admit it. We don't understand Aeon Flux. Well, maybe a little of it - but not much. Still, we'll sit far into the wee hours to see her because we don't want to have to wait until morning to hear those voices. And now, we never have to worry about power outages or mistakes in programming again. She's right here, this queen of obscure amorality and impossible leather attire, matched by her sometime lover, sometime mortal enemy, the equally obtuse, oddly unprincipled moralist, Trevor Goodchild, himself no slouch in the matter of kinky attire. We always start out thinking we understand the story, then they throw in space tethers with tiny storage platforms for storing empty glass jars, bisected species, and infant grotesques - and pretty soon everything we thought we'd caught on to just gets all shot to hell. Why do we watch? Tsk, can't explain that either. But, each half hour episode leaves us craving more.

1632

1632
Eric Flint
Pocket Books; ISBN: 0671578499

A six mile patch of modern-day West Virginia suddenly gets transported back in time and space to East Germany in 1632. The every-day denizens of modern America must now deal with the barbaric world of 17th century central Europe. The premise of time travel and alternate history is a well established one in science fiction, going all the way back to Mark Twain. This particular example of that standard story line is exactly what sci-fi fans would expect - a well written, entertaining romp into comfortably familiar territory. Good uncomplicated summer reading.

The Fourth World

The Fourth World
Dennis Danvers
Eos (Trade); ISBN: 0380977613

In a near future world where virtual reality provides a fantasy existence for the rich, an online reporter and an American expatriate living in Mexico stumble onto greed and corruption in the midst of a future Zapatista revolution. This is science fiction with a social conscience exploring the socio-political implications of a networked world divided between the haves and have nots. Which is not to say that it's a boring political tract. Far from it, the action is well plotted and engaging, placing it squarely in the cyberthriller category. Danvers is a writer with sufficient skill to carry off social commentary without preaching in your face, making this a thought provoking read without sacrificing any of the action.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Is Your Cat Too Fat?

Is Your Cat Too Fat?
Bronwen Meredith, Graham Oakley (Illustrator)
Welcome Rain; ISBN: 1566490405

Placing this title under science seemed to us for a moment to be pushing it. And, the title does suggest that the book is a bit of a trifle. But, the fact is overweight cats are subject to greater risk from diabetes (yes, we know an insulin-dependent tabby), irreversible lower urinary tract infections, heart disease, arthritis, and stroke - not to mention that the extra weight compromises both longevity and quality of life. This slim volume may be charming in its tone and sly in its illustrations, but it's also quite seriously a fine resource for cat owners. Meredith offers a diet plan for your feline to minimize the risks and, more than that, maximize health and happiness. It includes sound advice on how, what, and when to feed your little porker, and an exercise program to melt away those last five pounds. Katie, official cat of the Netsurfer Books satellite office, looks a little like an A-frame cottage. She curled up on the cover, believing that, in the absence of opposable thumbs to help her strike a match, hiding it with her ample derriere was the next best option. Little does she know ...

Time: Its Origin, Its Enigma, Its History

Time: Its Origin, Its Enigma, Its History
Alexander Waugh
Carroll & Graf; ISBN: 0786707674

An entertaining look at our attempts to understand the nature of time. Appropriately the book comfortably jumps in time from Caesar to Stephen Hawking in discussing how various human cultures contributed to our conception of the subject. Organized in chapters starting with seconds and ending with ages, the book brims with anecdotes and temporal trivia, while expertly expounding on this endlessly fascinating and still mysterious subject.

The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance

The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance
Henry Petroski
Knopf; ISBN: 0679734155

In these digital days its common for the humble pencil to be invoked as an icon of the primitive. And yet an surprising amount of complexity and technological history goes into the making of a pencil. Petroski traces the origins of the writing tool back to the Greeks and the Romans and details the numerous inventions which culminated in modern pencil making technology. This book is an engineers delight, taking an ostensibly simple tool and exploring every obscure aspect of its existence. Read it as a fascinating book of trivia, or more deeply as a tribute to the huge legacy of technology which pervades even the simplest tools of our civilization.

BUSINESS AND FINANCE

The Art of Napping at Work: The No-Cost, Natural Way to Increase Productivity and Satisfaction

The Art of Napping at Work: The No-Cost, Natural Way to Increase Productivity and Satisfaction
William A. Anthony, Camille W. Anthony
Larson Pubn; ISBN: 0943914957

Every year or so the story crops up as a news filler. North America isn't sleeping enough; burning the candle at both ends is a way of life and business. Sleep disorders are no longer confined to straightforward insomnia. The Art of Napping at Work isn't a manifesto for sneak snoozing; instead, the authors suggest that a good honest nap, underwritten by the employer, will come back to reward both the worker and the workplace. You won't get any argument from this quarter. Our editor is a veteran of the napping wars, who even 15 years ago was seeking out the couch in the women's lounge, catching 30 minutes of snooze time each lunch hour. And, what a difference those 30 minutes made to her productivity and humor! We know that napping hasn't been fashionable since kindergarten; we know that employers frown on random shut-eye. It's even hard to imagine company policy on sleep. But, take our word for it. A nap is far more stimulating than another cup of caffeine any day.

The Keys to the Kingdom: How Michael Eisner Lost His Grip

The Keys to the Kingdom: How Michael Eisner Lost His Grip
Kim Masters
William Morrow & Co; ISBN: 0688174493

Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse's first innocent and joyous incarnation, is long gone. Now titans like Time Warner and Disney duke it out, with the people who pay their bills caught in the middle. The Katzenberg-Eisner trial was a debacle for Disney, but a boon for anyone anxious for insight into just how petty the inner workings of multinational arrogance are. Equally fascinating is the dissonance between the clean-cut banality of Disney's world view and the rapaciousness of its exposed greed. It's not surprise that wonder is on a schedule and joy is scripted. Despite ongoing revelations about character and ethics, Eisner still offers himself as the benign servant of Walt's vision. And, while the dollars roll in hand over fist, it's likely to stay just that way.

BIOGRAPHY, SOCIETY, AND HISTORY

Black Sea: The Birthplace of Civilization and Barbarism

Black Sea: The Birthplace of Civilization and Barbarism
Neal Ascherson
Hill & Wang Pub; ISBN: 0809015935

This astonishingly well-written book, part travelogue, part history, is about a great inland sea and the peoples who inhabit its littoral. Combining awareness of the Black Sea's unique ecology (it is the largest body of anaerobic water on earth), touching and unforgettable anecdotes of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people, and the history of this turbulent region from the time of Herodotus to the fall of the Soviet Union, the book focuses the reader's attention on the fact that the Black Sea coast was where "civilization" and "barbarism" first encountered one another and interacted. Indeed, ethnically speaking, this area is amazingly unstable; for thousands of years nomadic incursions, conquering empires, groups fleeing persecution, and massive changes of borders, cultures, and political systems have left the Black Sea coasts a bewildering myriad of religions, tribes, and nationalities. Ascherson painstakingly dips into this rich well of human history to compellingly portray this sea and its peoples.

Uppity Women of the Renaissance

Uppity Women of the Renaissance
Vicki Leon
Conari Pr; ISBN: 157324127X

Leon continues her uppity women series with this lively and thoughtful chronicle of women who live in a man's world. If you're not familiar with her work, you can also consult her Uppity Women of Ancient Times, Uppity Women of Medieval Times, or Outrageous Women of the Renaissance. Leon isn't content to confine her work to the well known likes of Lucrezia Borgia; instead, you can expect to read about assassin La Voisin, whose pithy entrepreneurial slogan was "Dead rivals in about an hour". You'll also meet Veronica Franco, poet and pornographer, who used her political influence on behalf of the prostitutes of Venice. Leon's work is well researched as evidenced by her excellent bibliography, but don't expect a scholarly work weighed down with footnotes. Her books dish deliciously scandalous gossip with a feminist twist.

Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle

Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle
Daniel Stashower
Henry Holt & Company, Inc.; ISBN: 0805050744

It's a delicious irony that the man who created Sherlock Holmes - the world's first consulting detective, perhaps the most rational of all literary characters - believed in faeries and spirits. His credulousness isn't so amazing in the context of its time, but in the presence of his creation, it's a real oddity. Stashower has a fascinating subject in Conan Doyle, who among other things sailed as physician on an Arctic whaler and West African steamer, renounced Catholicism, parted company with a medical partner over ethics, became a war correspondent, ran twice - and lost - for public office, converted to spiritualism, lost a son to war, and traveled the world. Holmes was modeled on hyperobservant university instructor, but Conan Doyle's affection for his creation eventually gave way to fatigue. In one of the most telling choices of his life, Conan Doyle had to resurrect the resilient Holmes from the foot of Reichenbach Falls to satisfy his angry and bereaved public - not to mention the publisher whose revenues plummeted along with Holmes. Then and now, readers pay scant attention to Conan Doyle's other work, which he thought superior to all this piffle about red-headed men and gigantic hounds of the moors. Holmes is one of the most beloved characters of film, too. Poor Basil Rathbone didn't get much in the way of good guy roles except for his silky portrayal of Holmes and aficionados still mourn the passing of the definitive Baker Street resident, Jeremy Brett. What would Conan Doyle have made of the Sherlock Holmes Web ring and the serious literary examinations of his clever but light fare?

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
Garry Wills
Touchstone Books; ISBN: 0671867423

What is it about the Gettysburg Address that still fascinates us and rings so true? How is it that a mere 272 words are held up, not only as the finest example of American rhetoric, but also as a national definition with universal implications for all peoples? Garry Wills sets out to show us just that by, first of all, placing the Address in the context of 19th century American love of public speaking, classical rhetoric, and the culture of death, and, even more important, by enlarging upon Lincoln's vision of a nation, defined by its Declaration of Independence and upon who's survival the very concept of democratic government would depend. Wills weaves those elements together with the Address's physical setting, its literary value, and the classical tradition of funereal oratory in a brief, yet lucid, masterpiece. Lincoln and Civil War buffs must have this book on their shelves.

Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America

Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America
John Keegan
Knopf; ISBN: 067942413X

Spanning the Fall of Quebec to the Little Bighorn, only John Keegan could have written this splendid military history of North America. Starting, as he does in many of his books, with a personal perspective, he describes his life-long admiration of America, especially her warriors, who he first observed as a boy in wartime Britain. Constant traveling in the U.S. and Canada gave this Englishman a sense of the vast distances and wild landscapes of America and how they dominated the outcomes of the military struggles that determined the course of American History. Again, true to his usual format, he portrays the four vital wars of North American history (the French and Indian War, the Revolution, the Civil War, and the wars against the Indians) by focusing on what he considers to be the pivotal campaigns in each. All with his customary thoroughness, erudition, and wry sense of humor.

NONFICTION

101 Nights of Grrreat Romance: How to Make Love With Your Clothes On

101 Nights of Grrreat Romance: How to Make Love With Your Clothes On
Laura Corn
Park Avenue Pub; ISBN: 0962962821

Ah, Laura Corn. God bless her. Corn's sly how-to guides don't explain sex at all - or at least not the nitty-gritty of it. In fact, her books assume you've already discovered the joy. What Corn does is give you permission to make it playful. From 101 Grrreat Quickies to Secret Sealed Seductions for Fun Loving Couples she prods couples' imagination and sharing. In one, she literally invites you to take a page from her book. In all of them, she reminds us what good, clean fun sex can be.

Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission

Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission
Gloria G. Brame, Will Brame and Jon Jacobs
Villard Books; ISBN: 0679769560

Admit it. Aren't you just a little curious? Unlike Corn's little books, this isn't a how-to guide. In fact, the book explicitly warns novices against experimenting with the practises described in its pages. Instead, its a serious overview of the practises and lifestyle among people who find pleasure in dominance and submission and the ways that dominance and submission are expressed, including body modification, fetishism, spanking, and bondage, among other things. It's certainly a secret world, its practitioners among the most closeted, its practises among the least understood. As a serious work should, the book considers its subject objectively, and makes it clear that among the initiated, the activities are guided by three important prerequisites: safe, sane, and consensual.

FICTION

The Famished Road

The Famished Road
Ben Okri
Anchor Books/Doubleday; ISBN: 0385425139

We've read a few works by West African authors, so we're a bit familiar with the fantasy that infuses much of the work. It's certainly a different experience reading Okri's writing. His influences are all his own, but his voice will by times put you in mind of the most hypnotic writings from you'll hear Gunter Grass Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or Salman Rushdie. The Famished Road is Okri's Booker Prize winner. If you like your summer reading to transport you even further from your workaday world, here's the start.

The North China Lover

The North China Lover
Marguerite Dumas
New Press; ISBN: 1565840186

Marguerite Dumas' novel is an intimate remembrance of an incredible childhood, spent in Indochina during France's colonial period. It's a hypnotic story, part history, part eroticism, all atmosphere. The child of the exotically charged remembrance remains nameless throughout. She attends a girls' boarding school far from the home of her vestigial, dysfunctional, probably incestuous, colonial family, shares the intimacies of her awakening sexuality with classmates and, still a child, becomes the deceptively passive mistress to a son of the Chinese ruling class. It sounds like the outline of some sweeping historical or romance novel, but it's far from that. This is an intimate story, in which the Vietnam of the 1920s hasn't been co-opted for the Vietnam of the 1970s. Dumas tells the story as if it's the nub of an idea for a film, sometimes even suggesting direction. And, that only adds to the boldly detached eroticism with which she relates her personal history, at the same time spare, languid and sensuous.

MUSIC TO READ BY

Blues and Evil

Blues and Evil
Jon Michael Spencer
Univ of Tennessee Pr; ISBN: 0870497839

Author Spencer pushes aside accepted attitudes and presents a study of the blues and the culture that created it. He reveals religious substance in the music's content and language that has been gradually obscured as the blues evolved from simple rural music following Reconstruction to its present urban form. Spencer's evidence strongly implies a fundamental religious concern for the same life issues expressed in orthodox religious music. He suggests that white blues scholars have tended to give validity to the old southern folklore belief that blues music was devil's music, disregarding the ethos of the blues as it exists on the periphery of doctrinal Christianity where religious pondering and opposition to white oppression could be expressed behind a protective veil of music.

Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977

Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977
James Miller
Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 0684808730

Miller's credentials as rock historian should make us sit up and listen. He's an editor of Rolling Stone's Illustrated History of Rock and Roll and was Newsweek's pop music critic for a decade. He dates rock and roll history from the Christmas 1947 release of Wynonie Harris's jump-blues Good Rockin' Tonight, and ends the era with the death of Elvis Presley 30 years later. Thank goodness. We're not denying there's some talent out there, but at some point around then, the soul of rock and roll subsumed itself to commerce, and it's barely been seen since.

Sai-So: The Remix Project

Sai-So: The Remix Project
Kodo
Red Ink; ASIN: B00000HXLL

If you're lucky enough to have actually sat through a concert by Kodo - the Japanese group dedicated primarily to traditional drums - then you know what it is to have your body respond entirely involuntarily to the music. Your sternum and diaphragm resonate in response to the drums, and the sound comes up through the anchors of the chair to run up your spine like a percussive arpeggio. Until recently, Kodo's few recordings have been of live events or they've been made with recording standards that fall far short of state-of-the-art. This CD is the first stab at correcting the poor quality that has marked the recordings of this first-rate music. Kodo comes to town far, far too infrequently. As exciting and remarkable as the improvement is in the sound of this remix, unfortunately we still have to close our eyes to see and savor the extreme physicality and showmanship that also characterizes a Kodo performance.