BookHobby.Com tries every month to find a few good books to recommend to you. In our reviews we try to explain why the book should be in your to-read pile without giving away so much of it that reading it may feel like deja-vu. And, of course, go to the Forums to discuss. CLICK HERE TO READ PAST, FEATURE REVIEWS.
Reviews
A NOVEL FOR DYSTOPIAN TIMES
Once in a great while a book comes along that, for one reason or another, you want everyone to read. You want to run out in the street carrying a half-dozen copies and like Coleridge’s wild-eyed Wedding Guest stop people in their tracks to hear a story that might change their lives.
This is not a political site. But I think all book reviewers have personal politics and beliefs that influence how they view books. In my case this dystopian novel, titled HARM by Brian Aldiss, put me in mind of a dinner party with two other couples a few months ago.
In the midst of an upper-level, French restaurant, surrounded by every nuanced vestige of civilization from white linen tablecloth to a perfect- bound wine list, the talk turned to the United State’s apparent policies on torture.
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE HERO
Some say that being young is wasted on the young, but those of us with good memories know that the young can have it. Think back to your own school days, how they really were, how you really felt. Would you trade those days for now? Perhaps not. But many of us can laugh now at what we couldn’t laugh at then.
Enter Denis Cooverman, school valedictorian and his graduation speech. Denis has sat behind Beth Cooper every year in many different classes but has never quite connected. Why? Let me offer a brief passage from the book which both explains this point and well illustrates the book’s style.
“For all its obsessive analysis, Denis’ Biggest Brain had neglected to consider two relevant facts. Big Brains often have this problem: Albert Einstein was said to be so absentminded that he
