Category Archives: Book reviews

Joseph Conrad part 2

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Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (Photo credit: Ben+Sam)

When I was young and discovered an author I truly enjoyed, I would read all, or nearly all of the author’s works and then read a biography of the author. At that time I would read one or a few books at a time. Now  I read many simultaneously. I have just finished reading Joseph Conrad‘s autobiographical account of his career, The Mirror of the Sea. In that book, he went into great detail how his first book, Almayer’s Folly came about. If you are a fan of Conrad, I suggest that you read The Mirror of the Sea at the same time you are reading any of Conrad’s books. I recently reread  Heart of Darkness for the nth time and I have just started rereading Almayer’s Folly for the third time.

Please see Joseph Conrad | The Mirror of the Sea | Quality books | Nostromo | Wind

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Song of Kali

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Kolkata on the Hooghly

Kolkata on the Hooghly (Photo credit: seaview99)

Song of Kali by Dan Simmons is his first book. The genre is horror rather than science fiction and most of it is set in the slums of Calcutta. Comparable books would be The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre also set in Calcutta and Shantaram by Gregory Roberts set in Bombay. Of the three accounts of life in the slums of big-city India, the Calcutta of Song of Kali is the most horrific, being a fictional account. I have never visited India, and I expect that I never will. In my life’s travels, the closest I ever came to a third world experience of poverty was in Fiji. I prefer my Western comforts in uncrowded places. I am embarrassed to be relatively wealthy when everyone around me is poorer. I could not be comfortable in the US as a member of the 1%.

Song of Kali was a difficult read for me. There is a respite at the end as husband and wife find a new life in a small Colorado town. Simmons was born in 1948 in Peoria, Illinois, and apparently he spent part of his youth growing up in Chicago. I have found Chicago references in several of his books as well as actual and fictional references to other places in Illinois. I too grew up in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Please Quality books | Phases of Gravity | The Shining | Trigger

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Phases of Gravity

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The Black Hills are marked by vistas of adjace...

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So much from one book. I received it in the mail yesterday and finished reading it in about 28 hours. One of those books that gives much pleasure. Dan Simmons wrote it in 1989 and the main theme is the space program. The hero, Richard Baedecker, was an Apollo astronaut who walked on the moon. Now in his early 50s, he is looking for a purpose. There are connections that lead to Simmons’s more recent book, Black Hills : A Novel, which I also enjoyed. The book also reminded me strongly of  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, a true classic if  ever there was one.

Please see Dan Simmons | The Shining | Quality books

Marooned on Mars

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Marooned on Mars

Marooned on Mars

Marooned on Mars by Lester Del Rey, published in 1952 was the first science fiction book I ever read. I was given it as a Christmas gift in 1952 when I was eleven years old. The publisher was John C. Winston Company, and I now look for them on eBay. In the 1950s, they were published in groups of five titles at a time and the price was $2.00 each. I must have collected 20-25 of them and I no longer know what happened to them. I may have given them away when I reached college age in 1959. We did not have much storage space for books and I regret their loss very much. I have been able to replace some of them, but many are beyond my budget. Alas for lost youth.

The Shining

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The Overlook Hotel (Timberline Lodge).

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The Shining was the first Stephen King book that I read, and I read it after I saw the movie version. I was so taken by the movie that I attended a celebrity golf tournament in Montecito, California, so that I could ask Scatman Crothers, who played the cook in the movie, where the movie was filmed. He answered London, England, for the interiors, but I wanted to know about the exterior shots. I didn’t have a chance to repeat my question, but I found the answer today in Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons. The exteriors were filmed at Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood National Forest near Portland, Oregon.

Please see 11/22/63 | Quality books | Dan Simmons | Trigger

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