Uncle Tungsten
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010I completely loved Oliver Sacks’ Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood. Sacks has written several best-sellers about the neurological disorders he studies–Awakenings is probably the most famous, as it was turned into a movie–but in this book, he casts his eye back over his own development as a scientist. Sacks’ parents were both from [...]
Promises, Promises
Saturday, June 19th, 2010Well, Internet, I have a confession: I have broken my promise to you. Specifically, the one where I said I’d read 20 books I already owned, before buying any more. See, what happened was…well, I was the antique store, the same place I got this charming petit livre, and I found something that I couldn’t [...]
Persephone Arisen
Saturday, April 17th, 2010My good friend Rachel shared an article about Persephone Books some time ago, and I was captivated by the notion of a publishing house dedicated to reviving forgotten modern classics by women. I asked Bookish Dark’s London correspondent, the redoubtable Bearby, if he could send me a sampling of their works. Good soul that he [...]
A Crack in the Edge of the World
Sunday, March 14th, 2010When I picked up A Crack in the Edge of the World, I hesitated over including it in my science book challenge list, thinking it might be more of a sociological work, a survey of witness reports and survivors’ accounts. Silly me, it must have been too long since I read Simon Winchester, because I [...]
Doubt: A History
Sunday, February 28th, 2010The only thing such doubters really need, that believers have, is a sense that people like themselves have always been around, that they are part of a grand history. In Doubt: A History, Jennifer Michael Hecht sets out to provide just such a historical context for religious doubters of all stripes. She seeks to trace [...]
A Reading Life
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010If my life has a lodestar, it’s books. They have been my constant companion for as long as I can remember, and the only topic of sufficient interest and variety I could devote a blog to. Other hobbies flourish and fade, and even they are a vehicle for more books in my life: captivated by [...]
RIP Challenge Results
Sunday, November 8th, 2009Blood Price–Tanya Huff I watched the entire run of “Blood Ties”, the television show based on Tanya Huff’s Vicki Nelson novels. (Note: I freely admit that I have abysmal standards when it comes to vampire TV shows: if it’s got fangs, I’m probably there.) I enjoyed “Blood Ties” for what it was, and liked the [...]
R.I.P.
Saturday, September 19th, 2009My reading habits follow seasonal trends: in the heat of summer, I want to read lightweight chick lit or popcorn mysteries. I save more serious works for deep winter, when it’s easy to curl up in a warm sweater and read for hours on end. And when the leaves start turning and the days noticeably [...]