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 Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories

The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories
J.L. Heilbron
Harvard Univ Pr; ISBN: 0674854330

Pity the poor Church of Rome in the Middle Ages, poised for but not yet ready to slip into the Renaissance. At the same time that it was holding fast to a literal interpretation of the Bible that put the Earth at the center of the Universe, only a heliocentric model was adequate for setting a more or less reliable calendar and - most critically - predicting the dates of Easter. Indeed, adopting a new Copernican model for a calendar would have acknowledged the superiority of at least some element of other theologies or ideologies. Still, the Church, having tied Easter to the first full moon of spring, needed to punctuate its primacy by setting its holiest observance with certainty. What to do, what to do. Science and the Catholic Church resorted to semantics. While a heliocentric theory couldn't be propounded, a heliocentric hypothesis made an artful tool for calculation. As it turned out, the supposed purposes of 'pagan' sites like Stonehenge were as well served by the soaring cathedrals of the Middle Ages, where sun streamed past skylights, pierced through dark vaulted upper reaches, and fell in sharp shafts onto meridian lines worked into the floor or lighted relics and statuary predictably on sacred anniversaries. Oriented to catch the sun precisely, cathedrals became sacred observatories. Heilbron makes the case that tensions between religion and science of the time are shallowly understood now, that so long as science could help God without actually confronting Him, the Church's selectively blind eye allowed - and even helped - science to flourish. The story he tells is elegant, but it's not simply history. Readers may be surprised by how thoroughly Heilbron wants them to understand the depth of the science of the day and the doctrinal conundrums with which it wrestled. You don't have to review your high school geometry texts to understand the book, but brushing up on the subject would certainly add to your appreciation of several sections.

SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY

Slan

Slan
A. E. Van Vogt
Tor Books; ISBN: 0312852363

This has been the summer of the X-Men, mutant screen stars. Aficionados will tell you that Marvel Comics created the X-Men in the 1960s to challenge the dominance of DC Comics' Superman and Batman. You can respond that movie reviews are not really historical documents. The X-Men descend rather directly from this classic of science fiction's golden age, Slan. Here mutants, known as Slans, are hunted down and killed by ostensibly normal humans. Jommy Cross, a Slan child, comes of age only to discover that the human mutant bifurcation is far from obvious and self-evident. Written in 1940, this novel is a great read and a wonderful adumbration of the future, our present. Even the atomic bomb appears, long before its actual invention, with the insight that "one ship cannot carry important armaments, unless it has a mass of factories behind it". And remember the Manhattan Project was a secret when Vogt wrote. Vogt's imagination ranges over a variety of topics, in far greater sophistication than anything the X-Men offers.

Odd John and Sirius: Two Science Fiction Novels

Odd John and Sirius: Two Science Fiction Novels
Olaf Stapledon
Dover Pubns; ISBN: 0486211339

Science fiction author Stapledon was also a philosopher and his stories show it. In Odd John, a boy, born superior and self-aware, grows to manhood conscious of his special jpgts, but searching for a purpose for those gifts. He discovers by telepathy that he isn't entirely unique. Others with similar jpgts include a Buddhist philosopher, a 250-year-old prostitute, the inmate of an asylum, and an 18-year-old infant who traps John inside his hellish mind. In Sirius, Stapledon tells the story of an extraordinary sheepdog with human intelligence and a jpgt for musical composition. Raised by Trelone, his creator, Sirius augments his verbal understanding of humans with the clues he garners from scent - and begins a relationship with Plaxy, his foster sister.

War with the Newts

War with the Newts
Karel Capek, Ewald Osers (translator)
Catbird Press; ISBN: 0945774109

Capek's savagely satirical novel first appeared in before World War II, putting Nazi politics and social policy into stark relief. Bad news, folks. This novel, so clearly an indictment of the Nazi regime, could have been written yesterday to echo the bloc politics of the Gulf War, genocide, global corporations and capitalism, exploitation by First World countries, totalitarianism, and racism. Newly translated, the story is as fresh in its commentary on our own current events and global politics as it was 65 years ago. The discovery of East Indian salamanders that will dive for pearl oysters in exchange for the shells' meaty contents leads to the animals' worldwide enslavement. That's a bad move on humanity's part; it turns out the newts can adapt, evolve, learn, and procreate at an alarming rate. Before you know it, their intelligent efficiency has the world awash in consumer goods and the huge newts are demanding release from bondage and access to full civil rights. The League of Nations unites against them, but the newts begin a war that creates sea where land once was, expanding their territory. This fine, funny story deserves a far wider audience than it's had over the decades.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Microcosmos

Microcosmos
Marie Prennou, Claude Nuridsany (Directors)
ASIN: 6304501684

Quite rightly, we spend much of our lives looking to the stars for answers to questions about ourselves. We should pause for a bit, though, to look closer to the Earth - much, much closer. "Microcosmos" will help you do it. If you weren't lucky enough to catch this mesmerizing treasure on a big screen, here's your chance to correct a grievous oversight. The directors spent three years just designing the close-up cameras that capture the everyday lives of insects. Beetles engaged in Sisyphusean endeavor with balls of dung. Snail lovers caught in flagrante delecto. Tiny prey, trapped in monumental death throes. Narration is sparse, supplanted by evocative music and the amplified sounds that come of just being an insect. Narration isn't really necessary, though; the images speak to our emotions and feelings about universal struggle as much as they speak to our scientific curiosity. Microcosmos might sound like just another nature documentary, but it stands in a class by itself, the proud recipient of all opposable digits Roger Ebert has to give.

BUSINESS AND FINANCE

From Kitchen to Market: Selling Your Gourmet Food Specialty

From Kitchen to Market: Selling Your Gourmet Food Specialty
Stephen F. Hall
Upstart Pub Co; ISBN: 1574100254

Right behind the dot.com capitalization vision and daytrading fantasy you'll find the gourmet catering dream: owning your own small business doing something you love best. Hall offers a practical formulas and smart advice, never over-reaching. The book is an award winner for its design and editorial content and the author is an authority on his subject. He's the associate publisher of Food Entrepreneur, a quarterly newsletter and a speakers at food marketing seminars and workshops.

BIOGRAPHY, SOCIETY, AND HISTORY

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky (Contributor)
Pantheon Books; ISBN: 0679720340

We all censor ourselves, softening communications with white lies and half-truths, holding our tongue when disapproval is just plain hurtful, or perhaps costly at some level to us and those around us. Censorship is a far more complex phenomenon than laws or even liberty can address. In an election year in the United States, the media and bias invariably come under examination and attack. How do corporate interests, the media's own interests, a dominant ideology, and news sources relate to digest and disgorge the news we see? If Elian Gonzalez has taught us anything, it's that we should understand these factors before we accept anything at face value. Critic Chomsky is himself a lightning rod for criticism and students of communications, linguistics and, to a lesser extent, semiotics, might do well to look at the PBS program that examines Chomsky's philosophies and how they were shaped.

Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx

Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx
Stefan Kanfer
Knopf; ISBN: 0375402187

It's no secret that much of comedy comes from pain and or flows from anger. While it's obvious in the cases of funnymen like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, it's less evident in the hijinx for which Groucho Marx and his brothers were best known. Groucho was an angry man though, always just a tad malicious in his verbal antics, freeing his brothers to be just plain sweet and zany. Thank goodness that sweet and zany so often trumped the master manipulator. We agree that Kanfer needed a stronger editor's hand in this biography; there are a few errors of fact that are just plain embarrassing and obvious for anyone familiar with early movie history. However, he does manage to capture Groucho, from mother Minnie's drive right through his glory days in film, his caustic television presence, and his final days as a pawn in the legal shenanigans of a bizarrely doting caretaker. Some reviewers lament the loss of Groucho's chaotically innocent image at Kanfer's hands; we're glad to finally meet the man.

Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons

Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons
Steven Gaines
Little Brown & Company; ISBN: 0316309419

We can't abide 'Survivor' or 'Jerry Springer', and headlines at the checkout don't really titillate us. But, we can't tell you what malicious glee this little book stirs in our souls. Here's proof positive that the rich are indeed different; they can afford to spend more on their pettiness than the rest of us. The most often told story in this compilation of shameful stories from the chi-chi Hamptons is of Martha Stewart's landscaping frustrations, but there are lots of other tales, many involving the very rich and very famous in very public dispute with those who are merely very, very rich. Here is a corner of the world where pumpkins are gauche and taste is enforced with zeal. Gaines recounts the conflicts between Long Island's old money establishment and the nouveau riche; caught in the middle is the hedgerow, the landscape that's being sacrificed to faux country manors and pretentions.

NONFICTION

Scenes from the End: The Last Days of World War II in Europe

Scenes from the End: The Last Days of World War II in Europe
Frank E. Manuel
Steerforth Pr; ISBN: 1883642558

World War II anniversaries have come and gone, but Frank Manuel has written a book on the chaotic final days of World War II in the European Theater. A Harvard PhD in the history of ideas who found himself attached to the US intelligence services as Germany collapsed, Manuel has produced a text drawing upon his letters home to his wife. What is most remarkable about this book is how it conveys the sheer unreality of the war's end. As the German army disintegrated, SS officers threatened to shoot soldiers who refused to fight - but how were soldiers to fight without fuel or ammunition? And how was one to identify soldiers when they were quick to shed their uniforms and attempt to walk home to their families. Manuel's book offers those who have read the great war novels like Mailer's The Naked and the Dead a startling observation - Thomas Pynchon's nonlinear monster, Gravity's Rainbow, may really be the ultimate World War II novel.

Voyeur

Voyeur
Charles Melcher and Steven Diamond (Editors), Luc Sante (Contributor)
Harpercollins; ISBN: 0060195223

Caught! This showcase of photography juxtaposes images in such a fashion that even the most mundane scene is transformed into a stolen, sexually charged instant. It's a theme so strong that the editors have cut across 'class' lines in the sources from which they chose the images. Selected photos are very evidently the product of art photographers or paparazzi; others could come from your family album. Some of the deceptively innocent scenes become faintly disturbing, as if you never realized before that the subjects were whispering their most intimate secrets to the camera. When you check it out at Amazon, take the number of stars with a grain of salt; you really need to discount the review by the dunce who seems to think that the total lack of color photographs in the collection is somehow an egregiously amateur oversight on the part of the editors.

The New Sensual Massage: Learn to Give Pleasure With Your Hands

The New Sensual Massage: Learn to Give Pleasure With Your Hands
Gordon Inkeles
Arcata Arts; ISBN: 0966914902

We speak from experience here. There's no question that your partner will appreciate any time that you spend poring over this guide to massage. Massage isn't a new game, but Inkeles offers the formula for making it an effective one for both partners, speaking to mood and setting, even considerations about avoiding injury to either person. Inkeles isn't any more clinical than he needs to be, but he certainly will help you understand what you're doing when you lay hands on every inch of a lover's passive body, exploiting time and touch, from soles to fingertips, hamstrings to temples. Very highly recommended.

I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie

I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie
Roger Ebert
Andrews McMeel Publishing; ISBN: 0740706721

We don't envy Roger Ebert his job, casting himself as he does between us and some of the worst misguided ambition or crass commercialism has to offer. On the one hand, we really, really, really wouldn't want to have to sit through some of the garbage that he does. On the other hand, we're delighted to read about it, especially when this Pulitzer winner is the one telling the excruciating tale. Ebert writes smart reviews, tolerant of creators' intent - but he does expect that there be intent. He's not even intolerant of faulty execution. But, when it's all lacking, he's merciless - and slice-and-dice funny. Here are the reviews of 200 terrible films that he's had to sit through. 200 cursed episodes in the dark as a job requirement! All we can say is, "Thank you, thank you, thank you".

FICTION

Chang and Eng: A Novel

Chang and Eng: A Novel
Darin Strauss
E P Dutton; ISBN: 0525945121

"This is the end I have feared most since we were a child." Eng Bunker, the surviving half of the 19th-century Siamese twins, lies beside the dead body of this brother, Chang. His fate is right there for him to touch; how would we react? In the three hours remaining to him, Eng recalls their lives, from the Bangkok of their birth in 1811 to North Carolina, where Chang awaits his brother, in 1874. The king of Siam encouraged the boys' mother to take advantage of the showman's offer that brought them to the United States as children. As adults, they tired of the travel, of the gawking crowds. The married sisters after they settled in antebellum North Carolina and, together, fathered 21 children. Could the fiction be more fantastic than their lives? Strauss speaks to both the mundane and the astounding aspects of never for an instant being alone with yourself throughout your entire life.

The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson
Econo-Clad Books; ISBN: 0808576518

Our editor recalls finding this book in her parents' attic when she was a teenager. All these years later, thinking about it still runs a chill up her spine. Don't be put off by the ghastly heavy-handed 1999 film based on the book. This story ranks right up there with Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and du Maurier's Don't Look Now as one of the most subtly horrifying tales ever put to paper. We think that the truly chilling 1963 black and white classic version of the book ranks with The Changeling, The Exorcist, The Innocents, and the B-movie-ish Leg end of Hell House as one of the three or four most frightening films ever made.

MUSIC TO READ BY

Enigma 3: Le Roi est Mort; Vive le Roi

Enigma 3: Le Roi est Mort; Vive le Roi
Enigma
Emd/Virgin; ASIN: B000000WC1

Enigma may shape some of the most appropriate music for reading that we have on our shelves. The lyrics - in several languages, including English, French, Latin, even Sanskrit - are thoughtful, yes, 'though even the most ardent fans admit that they're often overshadowed by the richness of the sound. It's that sound that's more often intensely evocative and sensuous, at the same time disquieting and soothing. 'Beyond the Invisible' is nearly hypnotic, as moody a piece as you'll hear anywhere, braced in the middle section by - believe it - a haunting Latvian folk song that weaves a weft to the warp of the English lyric. Enigma is sometimes identified with New Age music. Unfair. New Age products too often stray into the bland, numbing territory staked out decades ago by Musak. If Enigma were playing in your crowded elevator, we promise you, you'd ride to the top floor, and step off warm and bothered. Oddly, it also offers the perfect ambience for solitary reading - or other activities best pursued at leisurely pace by couples.