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About Netsurfer Books

Netsurfer Books is an 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

Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World

Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World Bernie Krause Wilderness Press; ISBN: 0899972969 People who speak loudly into their cellphones in public places and TVs in waiting rooms are random examples of the increasing noise in our daily lives. Wild Soundscapes conveys the author's conviction, backed by growing scientific evidence, that humans and other living creatures suffer stress from sound overload and experience relief and joy when given the opportunity to escape man-made noise. The noise of jet planes, cars, trucks, air conditioners, refrigerators, and machinery of all kinds is ubiquitous in urban areas and provides a constant assault on our hearing and measurable physiological stress to our systems that is hard to avoid. Many of us have been horrified at the U.S. Navy's underwater "sonar defense" system which has caused whales to die, their eardrums ruptured. A similar if less dramatic violence is committed by the use of snowmobiles in our national parks, where the roar of their motors disrupts the magnificent silence of winter for all creatures. Krause's solution has been, over thirty years, to search out natural places that don't yet suffer noise pollution and learn to listen to nature's sounds and to record those sounds for edification and pleasure. Beyond helping us sensitize our ability to hear natural sounds, Krause provides a how-to for those interested in recording the sounds of the natural world, describing equipment, solutions to problems, suggesting types of environments one might wish to investigate. The book is spiced with brief quotes from poems, journals, and other relevant comments on the subject and is provided with a CD of Krause's own recordings (including the growl of a jaguar who came to investigate the microphone Krause had set up one night in Amazonian rainforest).This is an inspiring book, and one especially useful for a teacher. [CW]

Biography, History, Society

The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World

The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World Jenny Uglow Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN: 0374194408 Jenny Uglow's Hogarth, published in 1997, is one of the best biographies I have ever read, so I looked forward to her new work The Lunar Men and wasn't disappointed. The "Lunar Society" comprised a group of friends, as few as four or five, at times as many as a dozen, who lived in the Birmingham area of the English Midlands during the last half of the 18th century. During most of their adult lives, one Sunday each month they met for an afternoon of discussion and an evening dinner. Uglow concentrates on five men who were at the core of the group. Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802, was probably the best medical doctor in England at the time and for a brief while England's most popular poet. His theories of biological evolution prefigured the work of his grandson Charles. Joseph Priestley, 1733-1804, compulsive experimenter, was the first to isolate oxygen and a number of other gases. His radical politics and theology finally landed him in the new American republic. Josiah Wedgewood, 1730-1795, the potter, brought inexpensive, well-made, durable, mass-produced utilitarian ceramic tableware to the world. James Watt, 1736-1819, worked most of his life making better and better steam engines and, on the side, better and better scientific apparatus and measuring instrumentation. He earned his living as a surveyor, mostly of canal projects. Matthew Boulton, 1728-1809, owned an iron and steel smelter and fabrication factory that employed about a thousand men (and women and children). He made buttons and buckles, cannons and coins, steam engines and whatever else you might want to order. They corresponded with Joseph Banks in London, Linnaeus in Sweden, Lavoisier in France, and on and on with Benjamin Franklin. Nothing was beyond the scope of their inquiry. They theorized, hypothesized, experimented, argued, and supported one another for fifty years. They are generally credited with jump-starting the industrial revolution in England. Recommended to anyone interested in intellectual history or the history of science, or just in need of a good long book to read. (WW)

The Battle for New York

The Battle for New York Barnet Schecter Walker & Co; ISBN: 0802713742 The central focus of this book is the military operations in New York during the year 1776 as George Washington's forces were being pressured by the British under Gen. William Howe. The British eventually took New York, but the city proved to be an albatross for them, pinning down their forces during the later stages of the war. This detailed military account of that fight is put in context by the author who gives a fine overview of the history of the city from about 1775 to 1783, when the British force finally left. Involving as it did the stories of almost all the major figures of the Revolutionary War, this account is a grand and detailed story, easily appreciated not only by military buffs but by anybody with an interest in that turbulent time period when the fate of the American Colonies stood in the balance. While we're on the subject we should also recommend what is in effect a prequel to this book. Richard M. Ketchum's Divided Loyalties is the account of the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, and specifically how the New York colony dealt with the rift in loyalties between fans of King George and those who wanted independence. Both books are first rate history and terrific reads at that. [AB]

Personal Memoirs: Ulysses S. Grant

Personal Memoirs: Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant Modern Library; ISBN: 0375752285 As our president propels us into a second war, with a third on the way, it may be instructive to review the memoirs of a president who had first-hand experience winning a war, and it can be fairly said that it was Grant who won the civil war, at least militarily. This, his memoir, was written near the end of Grant's life, as he was dying of throat cancer. It wisely focuses on his military career, as his presidential record was mediocre at best. He entered the war as a washed-up businessman, once reduced to selling firewood on the streets. By the end he was Lieutenant General of the United States Army, with full strategic responsibility. Grant was neither the smartest, nor most inspiring of the generally undistinguished Union generals. He habitually dressed in a private's tunic, with only his stars to distinguish his rank. Often visitors had to have him pointed out to them. He drank, by rumor to excess. What caused him to rise to top command was that he fought, and fought hard. Not given to elaborate tactical maneuvers, he had a direct style of command that delivered results. His orders were a model of simplicity and clarity, which carries over into his natural straightforward writing style. Unlike many contemporaneous memoirs Grant's is unconcerned with self-justification, or running down his fellow generals. He is a bit partial to W.T. Sherman, his favorite commanding general, but it is justifiable praise. This is one of the best memoirs to fall out of the U.S. Civil War, and the very best by a general officer. [MA]

The Age of Empire: 1875-1914

The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 Eric Hobsbawm Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679721754 A history of the world, for any span of time, can easily be turned into a superficial narrative or a disjoint collection of encyclopedia articles. Hobsbawm does neither with his brilliant book on the end of the nineteenth century. He selects several central themes to focus on, in several interconnected essay-like chapters. All of Hobsbawm's books largely concern the burdens and prospects of common folk. The period covered raised expectations of overcoming severe disparities in wealth, privilege, and opportunity. At the same time, it gave rise to new mechanisms to confront radicals and dissuade folks from becoming revolutionaries. The end of the nineteenth century was the beginning of the world we know. Most of the basic issues and facts of our economic and social life took form at that time. It is fascinating to read about the beginnings of consumerism, suburbs, mass media and orchestrated democracy. Of all the rich variety of topics covered in The Age of Empire, imperialism and the birth of nationalism are the most timely. Imperialism engendered the popular belief that rich and powerful nations owed it to backward barbarous ones to bring order and encourage progress and civilization. Ostensible good will toward remote subjects led to very little benefit for them in reality, as empires served almost exclusively to seize and exploit resources. Patriotism in the modern sense arose during this period. Common folk became increasingly aware of being citizens of a nation. Nationalism came about to a large extent as a response to increasing immigration, unification (as in Germany and Italy) and deliberate manipulation through education policy and mass media. I return to this book often for fresh insights into the origins of many of our contemporary issues. [EG]

A New Time for Mexico

A New Time for Mexico Carlos Fuentes University of California Press; ISBN: 0520211839 Mexico's most distinguished literary voice here gives us a meditation on his country, its history, its revolutions, its efforts to establish democracy, its divide between Indian and European cultures and between the very wealthy few and the many in poverty. Fuentes is Mexico's great public intellectual, a writer of fiction, a close observer of politics and the state of his country, who writes both as observer and participant and out of passionate concern for the promise and the flaws in its governance. The formation and potential power of grassroots democracy is a leitmotif throughout the book, which was updated with a new preface before the momentous 2000 election in which the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) lost the presidency. Fuentes observes the hold history has on his country, the extent to which the consequences of Cortes' arrival continue to be an active element in its present and its future. He tells the stories of individuals both famous and obscure, and he includes an exchange of letters with Subcomandante Marcos, who wanted him to understand why the Zapatista movement was compelled to take up arms in its initial confrontation with the government that has ignored the needs of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas for generations. Here is the book for an inside look at the rich history and volatile present of the fascinating country whose long border we share. [CW]

iZapata Lives! Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico

iZapata Lives! Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico Lynn Stephen University of California Press; ISBN: 0520230523 If A New Time for Mexico piques your interest in Mexican history and the current political situation in Mexico, you may want to check out scholar Lynn Stephen's investigation of the basis of the 1994 Zapatista uprising. An anthropologist, Stephen has made numerous trips to Oaxaca and Chiapas in southern Mexico and presents the results of her many conversations with people there. In 2000, the increasingly corrupt and hypocritical PRI was voted out after 71 years of rule, but the new president, Vicente Fox, has done little to ameliorate the damage the PRI, the paramilitaries they support, and NAFTA have done to rural campesinos and indigenous peoples, whose lives continue to be threatened and whose livelihood has been undermined by the flood of cheap U.S. agribusiness corn and other products. Emiliano Zapata's dictum that the land should belong to those who work it was effective in providing land for ejidos (traditional communally-worked farms) in Oaxaca but in Chiapas the entrenched large landholders blocked land reform, so the huge plantations there were not broken up and most of the Mayan Indians continued to be landless and terribly poor. Stephen tells a story that needs to be more widely known before any expansion of NAFTA to South America is undertaken. [CW]

The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld

The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld Herbert Asbury Thunder's Mouth Press; ISBN: 1560252758 Gangs of New York the movie is IMHO the worst sort of historical movie, Oscar nominations or no. This comes home to me even more having read the book on which it was based, the cult classic The Gangs of New York, now back in print. In a good historical movie the history is accurate, or at least as accurate as it can be given the medium - Black Hawk Down, or even Titanic, qualify. The story needs to engage, but you can also learn something, feel something of the time. The movie version of Gangs tramples all over the history: there was no bombardment of the city during the draft riots, there was virtually no abolitionist component to any of the gangs, and events from different periods are mashed together for questionable dramatic effect. It's really a pity because the book version is a page-slapping voyeuristic stare into a violent and corrupt New York City that functioned like a different country. Covering almost 200 years of the low life, it's hard to say if this is good history, or if it's just a collection of tall tales and reporter's excesses. There isn't a lot of solid documentation left of those who lived fast and died young. But it doesn't matter really; the stories of madmen, murderers, swindlers, harlots, pickpockets, river pirates, gamblers and the politicians that used and protected them are readable just as they are. And the history of the draft riots is one of the most complete I've ever read. Maybe someday someone will make the real movie of this book. Are you listening HBO? [MA]

Dead Cities

Dead Cities Mike Davis The New Press; ISBN: 1565847652 Those of you who've read City of Quartz won't be surprised to find that Dead Cities is provocative reading. In these wide-ranging essays Mike Davis examines some of the ways humans wreck the built environment, from apocalypse in New York, to 40s Dugway bomb tests on a purpose-built German village in Utah's desert, to the conversion of L.A. industrial communities to such minimum-wage "service" industries as computer breaking (smashing obsolete computers for salvage). He exposes the role of politics whereby programs that supported the health of city life have been revoked hastening the decline of industrial cities and assisting in the establishment of a post-industrial economy, with labor bought on the cheap, outside the U.S. He documents the effect of huge tax subsidies for suburban retail and office development in killing cities and creating wasteful suburban sprawl. With federal budget cuts to states and unfunded mandates, state and local governments are increasingly unable to fund education, housing, and health care, let alone their cities' infrastructure. Interestingly, the book concludes with a step back to a much larger perspective in the chapter "Cosmic Dancers on History's Stage?" After discussing recent theories on the consequences, including mass-extinctions, to Earth of asteroid and comet impacts, Davis concludes with a look at some of the fictional literature on the return of great cities to the wild, such as Richard Jefferies' After London, or Wild England and George Stewart's Earth Abides. Mike Davis's wit and wide interests make this an invigorating, entertaining trip. [CW]

Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years

Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years Bruce Sterling Random House, ISBN: 0679463224 Most Netsurfer Digest Books readers are probably already familiar with Bruce Sterling, a fairly prolific writer of near-future science fiction novels and stories, and frequent commentator on our technoculture in the journalistic media. This book is his take on what the next fifty years might hold in store. The New World Order will be replaced by The New World Disorder. Nation states will become less and less relevant. Small, worldwide, internet-connected organizations (a la al-Qaeda, but mostly benign) will prosper and flourish. Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), microchips powered by small long-lasting portable fuel cells, will be in damn near everything. The Information Economy will dominate. Computer technology may plateau, but biotechnology will develop at an increasingly rapid rate: we will become a Neobiological Civilization. Human clone babies will grow into the bitterest and surliest adolescents ever. Global warming will be a BIG BIG problem. Species will continue to go extinct at an alarming rate. And so on. As Sterling observes, "The future is a lovely thing to contemplate, but in the final analysis, it is where we go to die." Keenly observed, thought provoking, and very witty. Very highly recommended to the congenitally optimistic and brave of heart. Not so highly recommended to those made nervous by the daily news. [WW]

The Sacred and the Profane

The Sacred and the Profane Mircea Eliade Harvest Books; ISBN: 015679201X In very few pages, one of the founders of the field of the history of religion gives the general reader an overview of his life's work. The basic structure of religious practice and observance throughout the world and history accentuates the distinction between the sacred and the banal, profane world. Eliade gives an overview of beliefs and customs concerning time, space, nature, and the role of humanity. This alone would make the book worth reading, but Eliade goes much further. He investigates the nature of religious experience in each of these areas, then proceeds to piece together what we have lost, as irreligious people. In his view, our ability to have religious experiences is not entirely gone, only diminished and degraded. We still celebrate annual occasions, attend funerals, make new year's resolutions, and experience awe when viewing certain stunning natural or man-made scenes. These experiences, while not nearly as intense and fathomable as they would be for religious people, are of the same kind. This rings true for me: were we not to celebrate successes, to come together for births, marriages, and deaths or believe in the redemptive power of making new resolutions, our lives would be hollow, isolated, and without hope of improvement. From where we are, the world lacks unity and closure - it is meaningless and vast, but in no way a Cosmos. Eliade gives us a sober and unsentimental glimpse, from a great distance, of what it was like for our ancestors to be at the center of the world, to take part in rites to renew the universe and to emulate the Gods. [EG]

Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary

Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary Hugo Ball University of California Press; ISBN: 0520204409 Hugo Ball was one of the founders and most influential practitioners of the art of Dada; indeed he himself coined the term "Dada." After first volunteering for World War I and being rejected on medical grounds, he visited the front and became a determined pacifist. He fled Germany to Switzerland at the outbreak of the war, where he lived under various pseudonyms. He was a writer, editor, actor and poet, but was best known as the organizer of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916. Some of the most fascinating accounts in his diary describe programs at the cabaret, including detailed descriptions of his own performances. He used elaborate cubist costuming that all but eliminated the human element, and invented a style he called "tone poems" that used nonsense words in a dramatic, almost liturgical manner. Ball was a correspondent of many leading artists, writers and intellectuals of his time, including Kandinsky, Hesse, Franck, Marinetti, Bakunin, and of course his fellow Dadaists Janco, Tzara, Arp, and Huelsenbeck. In his diary he struggles with the titanic intellectual forces at work on the world he lived in. It is strange, and a little bit frightening, how much his world resembles the one we find ourselves in today. [MA]

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are Alan Watts Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679723005 This may look like new age fluff or a sickly sweet self-help book. It's not. The Book is (or eventually will become) a well-read paperback with yellowing pages, filled with the best concentrated folk wisdom Made In Sausalito, California in the 1960s. Alan Watts, a philosopher and theologian writing for a popular audience, coined phrases and expressed ideas which were widely taken up in the following decade. Or, equally probable, he simply expressed what was widely believed at the time. It makes no difference. The Book is a time capsule filled with treats which you can't take too seriously nor easily reject. Here is a sample: "[Y]ou have been hypnotized or conditioned by an educational-processing system arranged in grades or steps, supposedly leading to some ultimate Success." You won't find self affirmation or some pat advice to set your priorities straight here. Watts aims higher. He guides you to retrieve a spiritual sense without turning to entirely flakey platitudes. Well, perhaps the discourse is somewhat flakey, but it's the best I've found. Watts combines pop-physics with a superficial reading of the Upanishads, rejection of limited bourgeois prospects with Zen to dare you to consider your place as part of the universe. This period piece is a pleasure to read, and it just may blow your mind. [EG]

One Day on Beetle Rock

One Day on Beetle Rock Sally Carrighar Heyday Books; ISBN: 1890771538 It all takes place one day on Beetle Rock in Sequoia National Park in California. The day seems peaceful, but for the animals who live there and the occasional people who wander through, it is a day of full of the tension of staying alive. Each story is written from the perspective of one of the resident animals: weasel, grouse, chickaree, black bear, etc. A funny sort of anthropomorphism is used; the author tries to get inside the head of her animal subjects in order to put the reader into their shoes, if they wore shoes, that is. I'm sure this is frowned upon by the scientific community, but the effect is charming. Sally Carrighar spent much time on Beetle Rock, and the behaviors and environments depicted are very accurate. She also employs a Rashomon-like narrative technique where each story interlocks with the others, with each tale taking a different view of the same events. This adds a nice energy to the book - I really wanted to know "What Happened to the Steller's Jay," which was fortunately chronicled in the second-to-last chapter. This book is a delight, and should be in the home of anyone with an interest in nature, particularly anyone with children. Originally published in 1944, this edition is beautifully illustrated by Carl Dennis Buell. [MA]

Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America

Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America Bryan Burkhart, Phil Noyes, Allison Arieff Gibbs Smith Publisher; ISBN: 1586851578 Ahhh... the simple reflective lines of an Airstream. The carefree attitude evoked by a Vagabond. Do these names sound familiar? They're two of the dozens of travel trailers revisited in this wistful look at a life unhindered. Trailer Travel will take you back to the simpler times when a family could pack up the caravan and head out for parts unknown or just cruise around town. This collection of wonderful photographs exquisitely reproduced in color and black and white are the centerpiece to the story of a quintessentially American highway icon. You'll see the trailers and the folks who called them home. Classic postcards, family photos, advertising and descriptive text also adorn the thick cardstock pages. Flipping through the pages can't help but bring a smile to your lips. Like the trailers it glorifies, this nostalgic look back will take you to places that you haven't been in a very long time. This is one book that won't long linger on the coffee table: it will soon be in the hands of all who glimpse its cover. [GB]

Fiction

Pattern Recognition

Pattern Recognition William Gibson G.P. Putnam's Sons; ISBN: 0399149864 Good news, cyberpunk fans! There is a new William Gibson novel out and, in my humble opinion, it is his best since Neuromancer. It is his first "historical" novel, set back in the mists of 2002, just slightly post 9/11/01, on the streets of London, Tokyo and Moscow. The technocultural milieu is what you would expect from Gibson, stocked with a cast of hackers, industrial spies, crooks and mobsters, tycoons and dragon ladies, government spooks and internet obsessives. The basic subject matter is market research. The principal character is Cayce Pollard (yes, pronounced 'Case'), a young woman unusually sensitive to emerging market trends, a "coolhunter" always searching out the next big thing. Any more about this book will just spoil it for you. Recommended to all sci-fi fans, and mystery novel readers too. [WW]

The Republic of East L.A.: Stories

The Republic of East L.A.: Stories Luis J. Rodriguez RAYO; ISBN: 0066212634 How terribly different. How wonderfully different. If you grew up in the barrio of East Los Angeles, you would recognize everyday life here. For those of you who did not, this collection of a dozen short stories by Luis Rodriguez will spirit you away to a place that may evoke a certain amount of anxiety as well as curiosity. Fear not, for this is as much about small victories as it is about living in defeat. It's a very well-written book, with an easy prose that flows into the mind's eye like a smooth sip of beer. The scenes, the style, and the images all make sense, and as foreign as the "republic" may be, you'll find a little citizen within yourself. The words on the page reflect what you can believe would come from the lips of the characters uttering them, but rough language can't mask the poignancy Rodriguez brings to light. This is real stuff: gritty, with a corroded shine just below the dusty surface. [GB]

Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies

Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies Laura Esquivel Doubleday; ISBN: 0385420161 My fond memories of this book were reconfirmed recently when I read the original edition Como Agua para Chocolate in an effort to improve my Spanish. It serves that purpose very well, since it's hard to put down. Set on a Mexican ranch during the revolution, the novel's subtitle captures Esquivel's quirky approach, in which recipes and home remedies provide light relief to the tragi-comic (often more tragic than comic) plot. Esquivel evokes the novel's place and period very effectively. Employing a beguiling magic realism, she manages to blend ingredients ranging from fierce disagreements between mother and daughter, incendiary love-making, and down-to-earth instructions for treating burns and stomach gas in her story of a tough, controlling woman who locks her youngest daughter Tita into the family tradition of dedication of her life to serving her mother. Anyone who has suffered from the demands of a domineering mother or the pain of a requited but somehow frustrated love affair will find comfort here. When Tita dares to fall in love, Mama Elena marries her middle daughter off to Tita's beloved, her eldest daughter Gertrudis having run off with a revolutionary capitain. But that's not the end of the story. Each chapter opens with instructions for making such traditional Mexican dishes as turkey mole with almonds, Tezcucana-style chile with beans, quail in rose petal sauce, and Chabela wedding cake. The pleasures of the kitchen run throughout the book as Tita, essentially raised in the kitchen by her mother's cook, masters traditional cuisine and prepares fabulous meals, even when suffering a broken heart. This fresh and unusual novel offers many pleasures. And the film is available on video. [CW]

Permanence

Permanence Karl Schroeder Forge; ISBN: 076530371X The opening of this book reads like one of those terrific juvenile sci-fi stories written by Heinlein or Blish back in the day. A young woman flees the wrath of her mean brother from a lonely space station only to stumble on to a deserted starship making its way through interstellar space. But the story which takes off from this neat beginning rapidly moves into some sophisticated concepts which separate the book from mere teenage escapism. Schroeder explores the questions of what makes civilizations last. As our heroine is entangled into rousing adventure, trying simultaneously to explore and preserve her ownership rights to the starship, the author deftly steers the reader to think about the implications of permanence. What social, economic, technological, and even philosophical mechanisms can ensure that a civilization lasts for billions of years? The beauty of this book is that these provocative ideas - and not all of them necessarily pleasant to think about - are wrapped in an engaging story with plenty of adventure, and exciting space action. No fan of hard science fiction should miss this excursion into deep space and deeper civilization-wide concepts. [AB]

Taken

Taken Thomas H. Cook Dell Pub Co; ISBN: 044024126X I'm not one to watch mini-series on television, but I made the effort to record and watch Taken when it was on the tube last year. The ad agencies did a good job promoting it to nerds like me, and I wasn't disappointed. It was engaging science fiction and suspense spanning sixty years of "history" packed into ten hours of video presentation. (Commercials are spawn from hell. TiVo is a Godsend.) Alien abductions, hidden intentions, an antagonistic government, and believable characterizations made for a compelling story. Unfortunately, Cook wasn't able to squeeze all of this detail into a single novel. Four hundred pages really pushes the envelope for an epic of this magnitude. The good news is that the plot lines and details that were included in the novel are more than enough to make it a satisfying read. If you approach this as a companion guide to the mini-series, you will be well served. At worst, this book will tide you over until the DVD is released. (I can dream can't I?) [GB]

Austerlitz

Austerlitz W. G. Sebald The Modern Library; ISBN 0375756566 This elegant, sombre, compelling novel relays the story of a man lost to himself from childhood - a child whose life was probably saved by his mother's painful decision to send him to England in 1939 on a kindertransport when it had become clear that the Jews of Prague were doomed. Brought into the austere home of a childless Welsh Methodist minister and his wife as a four-year-old, he knows little affection or love. While he is at boarding school he learns his real name, but his adoptive parents both die without having given him any clue to his own parentage. A scholarship brings him to Oxford where he studies, and then teaches, architectural history and he travels Europe photographing buildings relevant to his studies. But the force of the novel lies in its depiction of Austerlitz's gradual loss of all sense of identity at the same time that he somehow shields himself from recognition of his childhood loss. A chance hearing of a radio broadcast about the Kindertransport of 1939 catches fragments of memory and impels him on a search for his lost family and the effort to reconstruct the self that was dissolving. Beautifully written and embellished with photographs such as Austerlitz takes in the course of the novel. [CW]

Life along the Silk Road

Life along the Silk Road Susan Whitfield University of California Press; ISBN: 0520232143 There's historical fiction such as Cold Mountain, or The Red Tent, that uses historical settings or even historical characters to tell a story. The story is the focus - the history is the stage on which the story is played. What Susan Whitfield has done in Life Along the Silk Road is to invert the focus of historical fiction; the story becomes the frame on which the history is displayed. The Silk Road was a collection of roads, paths and trails by which China and the Far East communicated with Europe and the Middle East. It was nearly the only way such traffic passed from around AD 750 to AD 1000, the timeframe of the stories in the book. By looking at the life stories of various real or imagined characters living in the area we get a very personal sense of place and time, and how the environment, culture and conflicts felt to a person living in them. The effect is often much more satisfying than a more traditional historical narrative. Each character is distinctly different from the others, including a merchant, a soldier, a monk, a widow, an artist, and others. The tales themselves are little more than portals through which to view history; this isn't to be read as a novel. However, taken as a group one gets a very tactile sense of what life must have been like on the Silk Road well over a thousand years ago. [MA]

The Golden Ass

The Golden Ass Apuleius, translated by Robert Graves Noonday Press; ISBN: 0374505322 Many classics students get assigned this hilarious and ribald fantasy novel from the second century. It's a shame that the book isn't more widely known, as it's one of the finest satirical adventure stories I know. The protagonist Lucius starts out as an educated young man with a rather high opinion of himself. His opportunistic instincts lead to poor judgment when, despite being forewarned, he gets involved with a pair of nymphomaniac witches. Everything goes extremely well for a while, but Lucius is curious and all the attention goes to his head. He manages to upset the witches, as he was warned he inevitably would, and gets transformed into a donkey. Lucius's misadventures while trapped in this form comprise the bulk of the novel. He discovers just how appalling people can be, as he ends up in one after another awful situation, alternating between tragic and comic. As an animal, treated worse than a slave, he has plenty of time to reflect on what is valuable and right. Lucius works his way back to humanity, but redemption is neither easy nor direct. Robert Graves did us all a favor by translating the text from Latin to crisp, modern English. [EG]

The Collected Stories of Greg Bear

The Collected Stories of Greg Bear Greg Bear Tor Books; ISBN: 0765301601 Greg Bear may be a relative newcomer to the worlds of science fiction, but he has made a splash that bears noticing. Winning the Nebula Award twice is no easy feat, and it places him in the realm of the greats. These two-dozen tales range from short stories of a few pages to three novellas. If you're looking for new work, this isn't the place to find it. These have been previously published in such places as Analog, Universe and Asimov's science fiction magazines. What this 650-page book does for us is bring all of these stories together in one place. There is the added benefit of introductions by the editor, as well as new, short explanatory prefaces to each story by the author himself. If you are a fan of science fiction and are familiar with Bear's work (or even if you're not), this would be a solid and entertaining addition to your library. [GB]

Keith Laumer, The Lighter Side

Keith Laumer, The Lighter Side Keith Laumer, Eric Flint Baen Books; ISBN: 0743435370 It is very likely that you know Keith Laumer's more "serious" science fiction works. Here is a collection that exhibits all of the skills he has previously shown, but with an added twist. Call it what you want: humor, irony, or simply an elaborate pun, but the bottom line is that you will be amused. Laumer can take the mundane and warp it into the bizarre. If you're bugged by standing in long lines at the DMV or grocery store, you haven't seen anything yet. Try spending your life in a line, like "In The Queue." Or equally compelling, place yourself in the WWE, (That's World Wrestling Entertainment. NOT the WWF. Sheesh, where have YOU been?) but not with flesh and blood. Instead, fight with the doppelganger of your choosing, while your body is safely tucked-in at the flesh bank. Just be careful you don't find yourself the subject of aggression when you're out to dinner in your "formal suit." Take basic ideas and stretch them to absurdity. That's what you'll find here. Mindless fun? You bet. Escape to the lighter side. [GB]

Children's Books

Zeralda's Ogre

Zeralda's Ogre Tomi Ungerer Roberts Rinehart; ISBN: 1570982678 Tomi Ungerer has been writing and illustrating subversive (in the best sense) books for kids for many years. He is marvelously able to capture precisely the look of obstinacy that can appear on a child's face (even in the guise of, say, a cat, as in No Kiss for Mother) when an adult interferes with the child's perfectly good plan. But in Zeralda's Ogre, it is the adult who needs curbing, since he's an ogre with a taste for small children for breakfast. And Zeralda, who by age six has become a master of the culinary arts, is just the one to subvert the ogre to the pleaures of suckling pig, smoked trout with capers, veal cutlets on a bed of truffled aspic, and Ogres Delight: candied fruits, ladyfingers, and ice cream cakes. This is one of those funny-scary books that delight small children when read to them by a trusty adult, and every page glows with Ungerer's detailed, solid, richly-colored illustrations. [CW]

The Wonder Clock

The Wonder Clock Howard Pyle Tor Books; ISBN: 0765342669 Exquisite illustrations adorn this collection of fairy tales, written by the artist. Most of the best-known fairy tales are adaptations of folk tales. A few great collections of fairy stories were written during the nineteenth century. The best of these include The Wonder Clock, Hans Christian Anderson's generally melancholy Fairy Tales and Rudyard Kipling's playful Just So Stories. The Wonder Clock contains 24 stories, one for each hour. "How Boots Befooled the King" is my favorite. The youngest son of a humble family, named Boots, has two virtues, unwillingness to expend any unnecessary effort and a sarcastic wit. This proves the perfect foil for the king and his ministers' intelligence and thoroughness. Written to be read aloud, the narrator of these stories speaks directly to the reader, sharing jokes, asides and insights. The conversational style perfectly suits the comic situations and ridiculous personalities one encounters. Pyle emphasizes virtuous character traits such as humility, generosity, and sympathy. The heroes and heroines are not even necessarily clever, good looking, or born royalty, though they are all resourceful and they persevere. The stories appeal to young listeners because of their humor, fast pace, and many stunning accompanying illustrations. There's abundant metaphorical meat for adults to chew on, as well. [EG]

Just So Stories

Just So Stories Rudyard Kipling Penguin USA (Paper); ISBN: 0140183515 Kipling wrote and illustrated these stories for his children. The quirky, intimate style embellishes the stories with exactly what a child would want to hear if only he or she had the opportunity to ask. Each story features two or more illustrations with improbable and charming captions. Kipling explains little details that would escape an adult's notice but not a child's. Most of these stories concern animal origins, fanciful myths about tigers' spots, camels' humps, and elephants' trunks. These are only pretenses for cosmic tales whose larger-than-life characters have misadventures that determine the future of their race. Kipling's explanations portray profound truths as results of absurd accidents. Written a hundred years ago, the Just So Stories show their age in certain respects. While some stories are timeless and brilliant, others go against the grain of our current sensibilities. For example, the story of how the Ethiopian became black reduces Africans to something ridiculous. In the context where everyone and everything is ridiculed, we may take this in stride. Short poems conclude the stories, often in a popular idiom which has become incomprehensible as we no longer know anything about ships, latitudes, or the acronyms of the British Empire. Aside from these few off-key notes, this collection deserves its reputation as one of the greatest works in children's literature. [EG]

Kokopelli's Flute

Kokopelli's Flute Will Hobbs Camelot; ISBN: 0380728184 Here we have mystery, suspense, a crime, and the possibility of the supernatural, combined with accurate, intriguing anthropological and archaeological information and speculation. No, this is not a new one by Tony Hillerman, but Will Hobbs is working with the elements that Hillerman uses so effectively in this novel for the 9 to 12-year-old reader . Set in the Southwest, near an ancient cliff dwelling, it's the story of a boy who has learned much from the work of his of archaeologist parents. Confident in his ability to take care of himself, they trust him to explore on his own. And his learning, bravery, and sense of ethics come into play when he discovers pot-hunters, thieves who vandalize ancient archaeological sites to steal objects of value and disrupt the work of those trying to learn from the ancient remains. Woven through the story is the figure of Kokopelli, the humpbacked flute player of Indian creation myth who brought seeds to the world and who, in various forms, helps each member of the Jones family in their undertakings: Tepary in his effort to nab the pot-hunters, his father who works to propagate rare seeds traditional to the Southwest, and his mother, whose study of pack-rat middens is enabling her to speculate on why the life of early people of the area became unsustainable and they suddenly left their dwellings. Besides being a good read, there is much stimulation here for an inquiring mind. [CW]

CORRECTIONS

Kings and F-15s