Reviews and Comments

Maya is a “camera” who broadcasts, not only what she sees, but also what she feels, to billions worldwide. And she just found something worth sharing.

After really enjoying Reed’s short story The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For, I was looking forward to reading this novel, originally published in the 90s. The edition I read included a laudatory foreword by Jo Walton, an author whose opinion I respect, and in retrospect probably raised my expectations a little too high.

Though full of fascinating ideas, and doesn’t read like an old-fashioned relic, it isn’t really my type of sci-fi. Still an interesting book, and Reed wrote some shockingly prescient things. Sadly, not the good kind.

Also, I either prefer Reed’s shorter fiction, or perhaps her newer work. For me, it just didn’t rise to the level of The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For, in either writing or world-building. That said, I’m looking forward to the novel she’s publishing this year.

Why did a hotspot of horrific, and oddly specific crimes spill across part of the US, during certain decades?

Though Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers is well-written and interesting, I’m not sure I’d have made it through the chapters where Fraser lays out the crimes against humanity and nature wrought by industry. While informative, had I been unaware of the lead theory, I would have found it strangely off-topic, and possibly moved on to a different book. I’m still not sure there wasn’t more going on than just poison warping a generation of men, but I certainly don’t know enough to opine.

This book really does read like a True Crime novel, but though the author deftly manages to keep tension constantly mounting throughout, there is no final revelation to release it. And while the catalogue of horrors inflicted throughout the decades is unflinchingly, and graphically recorded, Fraser is never lurid, and always shows empathy towards the victims.

As a history of serial killers, this is an astounding book. As a history of the poisoning of the Pacific Northwest, this is an interesting book. For me, the weakest part was the interweaving of the author’s own life. It felt superfluous, and I found it distracting. Taken as a whole? A cracking read.

A potted history of a city, and a multitude of mini biographies are all contained within a shockingly in-depth biography of a single man. A man who shaped one of the biggest cities in the world in large, literally concrete ways. This is an amazing work, and I cannot begin to understand how Caro managed to pull this all together into a cohesive, readable book.

It is long, at times tedious, often shocking, and always illuminating, but definitely most interesting if you have more than a passing familiarity with New York City. I have only visited once, and thus miss a lot of the subtleties of Moses’ machinations. Nevertheless, this was a rewarding book to read, and I wish it were possible for me to visit NYC again (not happening on this timeline), and pay attention to all the places mentioned.

Caro is an adept writer, at first coaxing admiration from the reader for the young Moses, which quickly cools to a disdain for the forceful and underhanded means in which mature Moses conducts much of his dealings. However, by the end, while the author seems sympathetic to the elderly man, this feeling did not transfer to me. I felt nothing but contempt for the old man mourning his loss of power.

While Caro is a fine writer, this book is from 1974, and some language he uses is absolutely past its sell-by date. Disconcertingly so. Nevertheless, it’s an utterly overwhelming book, and a staggering accomplishment by an author.

Anna Karenina falls in love with Count Vronsky.

Considered one of the great novels, after reading ‘Anna Karenina’ I’m not sure why. This is my first Tolstoy and while I enjoyed a couple of Dostoyevsky novels ages ago, I’m unsure whether I simply don’t care for Tolstoy or have meanwhile soured on Russian classics in general.

Though the prose might be sublime in the original, I read the Maude translation and found it fair to middling. It was bloodless and dispassionate, with a lot of telling and little showing. Nothing really seems to happen or matter, even though there are deaths and births and scandals.

There are many characters with many names, and because no-one is particularly interesting, they tended to blend together. Once nicknames were added to the mix, I really struggled at times. Add in the excessive amounts of philosophising on religion, politics, peasantry, and sundry other thoughts that occurred to Tolstoy, and it all makes for dull reading. While, at times, he displays extreme insight into people and emotions, Tolstoy will then quickly shatter the moment by shifting to different characters having an irrelevant conversation.

Characters are wracked by pointless anxieties which crop up constantly, something I found irritating rather than illuminating. And while Tolstoy states that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, I found his unhappy families all alike.

I suppose I’m glad I read it, but it really felt like one of those serialised novels where the author was paid by word. Ultimately, I didn’t care for it, and found it a slog.

John Green weaves the story of Henry Reider into the tale of how tuberculosis has shaped and been shaped by history.

Green is a fine fiction writer, and the clear and factual way in which he makes his case in “Everything Is Tuberculosis” shows he has a deft hand with non-fiction too. Even when turning the emotional screws, he steers clear of sentimentality. It is an interesting read, though I learnt somewhat less than expected due to my pre-existing interest in tuberculosis.

Even presuming the numbers and facts laid before the reader are wildly exaggerated, I see no real argument against Green’s plea. In fact, I agree wholeheartedly with it. We should be doing all we can to cure tuberculosis.

I’ll even go a step further. I truly believe we should be doing all we can to cure disease and alleviate suffering where we can. Fuck cost-effectiveness. We are people, and Green is right about us being here to love and be loved. Our human existence should be enough. It is enough.