Jeffrey Penn May

While beguiling at the beginning, Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel fell apart for me when it shifted to the future on page 67, supposedly the year 2203. This chapter or section reads like thinly veiled autobiography from a twenty-first century book tour with a litany of travel complaints – a time 200 years from now where somehow men haven’t evolved beyond the 1950s. If there is gender development it’s puzzling; for example, … Continue reading →

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What a brilliantly disturbing book, using science and fact, blending in some fiction. For a moment, I felt fooled, as if the fiction, which is unrecognizable from fact, degraded the whole book, and made even the facts seem false. At first it bothered me, but on another level it becomes dazzling. Like Schrodinger’s cat, we’ve no way of knowing the truth about the cat until we observe it. The reality of this book is that … Continue reading →

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While I respect the knowledge of science writers and their efforts to educate and inform, sometimes their efforts fall flat. Could be that Mary Roach’s other books are funny while being informative, but this one sure didn’t inspire me to find out if they are. Of course my reaction can merely be a mismatch. What one person thinks is funny can be insipid to another. I admire her success and her efforts, all of which … Continue reading →

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The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean by Philip Caputo is a good but ultimately disappointing read. Based on the premise, and because my wife and I met one of the characters he describes, I thought it would be a fun, interesting read. Caputo’s dry sense of humor, his wife and dogs, his desire to set dubious goals and achieve them, carried me through to the end. … Continue reading →

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Boozer Bummer While I can see why many people enjoy Charles Bukowski’s Post Office, as I found several places worth a chuckle, but overall, it seems dated and generally unappealing. And yes, I get that the disgusting nature of low-life, pitiful characters is part of the aura. Maybe the slightly humorous, sad boozy binge at the end was too much for me as it reminded me of finding my alcoholic brother in bed, staring at … Continue reading →

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Clearly, moments in Richard Powers The Overstory are poetic and powerful. His overall message is extremely important to our survival, and he is smarter than most of us, especially about trees. He makes the assertion, based on sound scientific knowledge, that trees, and not us, are the main cognizant life form on earth. His contentions about yet to be discovered medicine in forest ecosystems have been around for a long time, in human terms anyway, … Continue reading →

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Anthony Doerr’s new novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, reads like an academic literary suspense novel. If that sounds like an oxymoron, then you might get an idea of Doerr’s imagination and his exquisite command of language, including ancient Greek. Cloud Cuckoo Land is “about” apocalypse, mental illness, love, history, war, science, and more. Perhaps one way to describe this befuddling book is to compare it with Midnight Library. Both pay homage to libraries and librarians past … Continue reading →

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At first, to my disappointment, I thought This Is Your Mind On Plants was merely capitalizing on the success of How To Change Your Mind. While some of that may be true, after reading it, I think it’s Michael Pollan including things he thought important that may have been left out of his previous work. Regardless, not far into it, I was again captivated by his excellent and informative writing, and can recommend this book. … Continue reading →

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In the beautifully written The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Elisabeth Tova Bailey, spends her time bedridden from a mysterious virus while finding hope for humankind in the life of a snail. This short scientific narrative enlightens us about snails, our connection to the world and the perception of our place in time. Highly recommend. Share on Facebook

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John Bragg wrote Exit 8, a taut single minded tale that lends itself well to the mentality of a mountaineer. Based on his success in that novel, I bought The Broom of God, knowing that as a first novel it probably wasn’t going to be as good, but the murder of a mountain climber in Patagonia was too intriguing. Unfortunately, Broom of God starts falling apart and unravelling around page 150. The mediocre writing before … Continue reading →

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