Archive for the ‘Book reviews’ Category
Just Reviewed “Why Nations Fail” at SBR
Folks, if you love history, political science, or economics — or if you’re a writer who wants to understand these subjects in a new and totally different way (which is the main reason I picked up the book in the first place) — you need to read WHY NATIONS FAIL by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, which I reviewed tonight at Shiny Book Review. Here’s the link:
http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/why-nations-fail-excellent-in-every-way/
WHY NATIONS FAIL discusses why some nations succeed, and why others fail — and it all comes down to one thing: politics.
You see, if a country has an “inclusive” economy — this is one like the United States, South Korea, or the United Kingdom — it fosters innovation and growth. It also allows for something called “creative destruction” — which means some businesses will fail when newer ones come along (like the printing press, which greatly improved world literacy, but also put out of business many scribes and rag-paper makers) and this shouldn’t be impeded because the net gain is far more than the net loss.
But if a country has an “extractive” economy — like North Korea, or the former Soviet Union, or contemporary China — none of that happens, or at most, very little of it does. Those countries are run by elites, for elites. They don’t care about having a middle class, though one may arise anyway (the inclusive economies definitely want a middle class and foster one through progressive policies of taxation and legislation); they mostly care about perpetuating themselves and making the most money they can in the process.
Really, you owe it to yourself to first read my review, and then go grab WHY NATIONS FAIL as soon as it comes out on March 20, 2012, as my review barely scratches the surface of this interesting and important book. (So what’s stopping you?)
Just Reviewed “Waiting for Teddy Williams” at SBR
Folks, if you love baseball, or you love coming of age novels, or you just plain love good writing, you need to read Howard Frank Mosher’s WAITING FOR TEDDY WILLIAMS. This is a book that has it all — memorable characters, some humor here and there, and a plot that, while quite fabulous in every sense, can’t help but make you root for the underdog (or in the case of the Boston Red Sox historically-speaking, underdogs).
This is just an excellent novel about a kid from rural Vermont, his love for baseball, and his wish to play for the Red Sox one day. Outstanding on every level.
But don’t take it from this little capsule review; go read my longer review already!
Enjoy!
Women Writers Get the Shaft (Again); Vida Study Points Out Gender Bias in Literary Mags
As a woman writer, things like the 2011 Vida study of how literary magazines still have far more male writers working for them than female writers make you go “Hmm.”
Oh, you haven’t heard about that yet? Take a gander:
Here’s the deal: more men write for literary magazines than women, by a wide margin. At many magazines, male writers outnumber female ones three to one, while the ones that “beat the curve” do so by having “only” sixty-five percent of their articles written by men rather than seventy-five percent.
And it gets worse; most of the books being reviewed by these publications are also written by men, so there’s a double-jeopardy sort of thing going on that I truly do not understand. (As a prolific book reviewer, I defy anyone to tell me that I’m not the equal of a male book reviewer. Yet most of these books, written by men, have male book reviewers. For shame!)
This is unacceptable and inexcusable. Don’t these magazines (Harper’s, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker among them) realize it’s 2011? And that women writers are surely the equal of men? How can something like this continue, especially considering that women read just as much, if not more, than men?
Only Granta, which had a few more female authors than male, and Good magazine, which is evenly split among male and female authors through its first three issues of 2012, have made inroads on this problem — because make no mistake, it is a problem.
And these literary mags can’t even say they were unaware of it, because Vida also published a study in 2010, yet nothing was done. There has to be a reason for it, and Vida believes they’ve found it: gender bias. As Erin Belieu, co-founder of Vida, pointed out in the Yahoo blog post:
“Gender bias is pretty ingrained–this is a expression in the literary world, but it happens everywhere.”
Amen, sister!
I have news for these literary publications, folks: writers write. It’s what we do. And last I checked, having writing talent has nothing to do with your gender — why should it?
There is an obvious answer here that most of these literary mags are missing: hire more female writers. Because believe you me, we can write, and we’re not afraid to say so.
My guess is that around this time next year, I’ll again have to talk about the literary mags that would rather hire male writers than female ones to write articles, book reviews, and more, because change is glacial in publishing. (As we have already seen!) But I would love to be proven wrong — someone? Anyone? (Bueller?)
Just Reviewed “Fair Coin” at SBR
Folks, E.C. Myers’ forthcoming FAIR COIN from Pyr Books is a nice young adult novel that held my interest, but had way too many archetypes for my taste. (What is an archetype, you ask? A way to quickly build a character based off stereotypes rather than intrinsic motivations; I believe more than one archetype per story — much less a novel like this — is a cop-out, and makes me wonder why the author didn’t put more thought into his characterizations.)
So what you have here is this — which would you rather have, the great plot, or some characters that you can believe in? Because in FAIR COIN, you don’t get both — unfortunately, you can only get one, and Myers picked the plot.
Here’s my review, where I did point out that two secondary female characters were well-thought out:
Enjoy!
—————-
Lest you think I enjoy saying bad things about debut authors, I don’t. But I have to call ’em the way I see ’em.
FAIR COIN proves that Myers can write; his plot-line worked and he obviously can write interesting, idiosyncratic characters when he puts his mind to it. But he had not one, not two, but three archetypal characters and that’s just not good — he needs to focus on his characterization in his next novel, so maybe that book will be the exceptional read this one wasn’t.
Just Reviewed Sam Sommers’ “Situations Matter” at SBR
Folks, if you haven’t read Sam Sommers’ SITUATIONS MATTER: Understanding how Context Transforms Your World yet, you should. I don’t care if you’re a writer, an editor, a reader — you will learn a great deal from this book and it will help you understand more about how situations can change how people behave, why sometimes people behave badly in crowds, and much, much more.
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life on any subject. It is witty, interesting, written in an engaging style, and was one of the few nonfiction books of the past year that I not only enjoyed wholeheartedly, but read three times just because I could. To think that Sam Sommers, a professor of psychology at Tufts University, could write this well the first-time out (as this is his first work of long-form nonfiction) is astonishing.
Please see tonight’s review, which is up now at Shiny Book Review for your edification; then, seriously, go grab this book:
http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/sam-sommers-proves-that-situations-do-indeed-matter/
Enjoy!
Just reviewed the novelization of “The Settlers of Catan” at SBR
Folks, if you’ve ever played the board game THE SETTLERS OF CATAN, you know that Catan is a semi-mythical island out in the middle of nowhere in Northern Europe that can only be reached by waiting for the worst storm you’ve ever seen and riding it out.
Anyway, Klaus Teuber, who invented the board game THE SETTLERS OF CATAN, asked novelist Rebecca Gable to turn the game into a historical novel. She did so in 2003 in Germany; in 2011, Amazon Crossing picked up an English version that was originally translated by Lee Chadeayne, then was revised by Ingrid G. Lansford. This is the novel that I just reviewed at Shiny Book Review; here is the link to the review:
http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/the-settlers-of-catan-more-than-just-a-board-game/
A synopsis of my review is this: it’s a good book that illuminates the history of 850 AD including the religious outlook (the pagan beliefs based on the Nordic pantheon versus the newer religion, Christianity), the difficulties colonists had restarting their lives, and much more. But be warned; some parts of the novel are extremely graphic and there is a male-on-male rape scene that I found particularly distasteful. (I talked around this in my SBR review; I’m not doing so here.)
Just Reviewed Theresa Meyers’ “The Hunter” at SBR
Folks, if you like inventive steampunk, especially with at least one mechanical horse and in a Western milieu, look no further than Theresa Meyers’ THE HUNTER.
However, as Meyers’ novel is also a paranormal romance, and as the romantic aspects of this book leave something to be desired (mostly because the putative hero of the book, Colt Jackson, doesn’t seem to have the brains necessary to attract anyone, much less a worldly-wise demon of a succubus named Lilly), this one was tough to grade.
Please read my review, which has just been posted at SBR as per usual:
Then you’ll understand why grading THE HUNTER was so difficult, as the pluses are many — but so are the minuses.
Enjoy!
Just Reviewed books 1 and 2 in Jim C. Hines’ “Princess” Series
Folks, if you’re looking for an intriguing, funny read about princesses who can and do fight for themselves, look no further than Jim C. Hines’ “Princess” series.
Both THE STEPSISTER SCHEME and THE MERMAID’S MADNESS are funny, have unusual story twists, and are lively adventures that will hold your interest.
While I believed the first book, THE STEPSISTER SCHEME, was far better than the second book in this series, they’re both worth buying in paperback.
That’s why I reviewed these books at Shiny Book Review tonight; please go to this link for further details:
Enjoy!
Just reviewed Ellen Renner’s “Castle of Shadows” at SBR
Folks, CASTLE OF SHADOWS is a good, solid YA fantasy-adventure about eleven-year-old Princess Charlotte of Quale (‘cept she’s always called “Charlie”). Charlie’s mother left her and her father, the King, five years ago, without explaining why. All Charlie knows is that her mother was a gifted scientist and physicist, and that apparently Charlie’s mother found out something that scared her so much that she burned her notes and then skipped town.
There’s a lot of intrigue here, and some good action-adventure down the line, too.
Here’s a link so you can read it at SBR:
Enjoy!
Barb Caffrey's Blog 