Tuesday Bag o’ Normalcy

If I had a rant in me this morning, I’d lay into NPR for its slavish commitment to normalizing Trump, arguably not the worst unelected occupant of the White House (George W. Bush still has that distinction IMO), but certainly the most abnormal.

Paul’s Book Reviews: Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Young Adult

“The future was coming nearer, one relentless goose step after the next. Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)” —Kate Atkinson, Transcription Transcription by Kate Atkinson I first read about this novel on the literary website The […]

Paul’s Book Reviews: My Top Reads for 2018

This is going to be a short list. Looking back over the books I read in 2018, only three stand out—and by “stand out” I mean books I’d happily read again. Two are new, published this year or in late 2017; one is from 1998 but new to me. Two are mainstream fiction with historical […]

Paul’s Book Reviews: Thrillers, Nonfiction, Science Fiction

“If democracy came to China they would end up electing idiots, as in America.” —Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson My thoughts on “Red Moon” are similar to those I expressed in my review of KSR’s previous SF novel of ideas, “New York 2140.” I loved the first half of […]

El Tour es Muy Bueno

It’s El Tour de Tucson day and we’re housebound, at least until all but the stragglers pedal past our neighborhood. The only way out requires crossing the tour route, which’ll be blocked to car traffic for a while yet. The stragglers, who’ll be about 25 miles into their 100+ mile route as they pass our street, would probably welcome being run over, but I’m not […]