Review: The Spy Who Loved Me

The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

In my opinion, the grand master Ian Fleming swung and missed on this one. I suppose one should not expect an author to hit a gland slam every time out, nor should one expect every book in a series to live up to the previous works. There can be duds, and this is one.

The main character and narrator is Viv Michaels, a young French Canadian who was sent to finishing school in England by her aunt. After school, she spends a few years in Chelsea. After a brief return to Quebec, she departs on a journey down the United States on her Vespa motor scooter.

I do not think having a female character narrate a James Bond thriller is a bad idea, and I appreciate the author taking a risk with this popular series. Unfortunately, that that risk just does not pan out in this book. Perhaps if the narrator had been a femme fatale, the idea would have worked much better. In this case, the first half of the novel basically reads how I think a bad Harlequin romance would open.

James Bond does not make his appearance until about midway through the story. The most interesting part of the whole work is one chapter that explains how Bond has come to arrived at a motel in the Adirondack Mountains. This one chapter almost makes this book an actual spy novel. I think a fleshed out version of Bond's adventure up to that point should have been the meat of this work.

After arriving at the motel, Bond finds our narrator in some trouble. Viv has been working at the motel ever since stopping a few weeks earlier, and now that the tourist season has ended and the main proprietors have left for the winter, she is manning the place on her own. Needlessly to say, Bond helps her out of her jam.

While the last quarter of the book is exciting, it does not compensate for the mind-numbing first half nor the tease of an spy novel that is the Bond's backstory. I am ready to put this one behind me and move on the next in the series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.


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Review: Secret Pilgrim

Secret Pilgrim by John le Carré

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is eighth and final of John le Carré's works featuring his most well-known character, George Smiley. I have read five of the previous seven novels, and of those previous works, I think this one is most similar to The Looking Glass War in the fact that Smiley is not the main character but plays an ancillary role. The main character is a fellow spy by the name of Ned who due to the outcome of the Russia House as come to serve as the headmaster of the training academy for new agents. Ned has invited the now-retired Smiley to visit the school and address the new group of recruits.

This book does not read like a single coherent novel but rather like a group of episodic short stories or chronological vignettes. With the background of Smiley speaking to the agents-in-training, Ned reminisces about his own career starting with his first adventure as a young intelligence officer. Each episode is interesting own its own and helps develop Ned into a full-featured character. I suppose the aim of the overall novel is to highlight the themes of the Smiley series as it brings the series to a close.


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Review: Smoke and Mirrors

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I has been has been quite a long time since I read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Stardust, and American Gods. In fact, it was several years before I joined Goodreads. However, I remember thoroughly enjoying all three of those novels. (I also thought the movie version of Stardust was great.) I do have to admit that I have not read any of his graphic novels though.

Perhaps it is the length of time that has elapsed or perhaps it is just the prudish American in me, but I do not remember his novels being particularly disturbing or having a heavy reference to sex. With many of the stories and poems in this book, it almost seems that the author is just trying to be shocking for the sake of being shocking. Many of the works either focus on sex directly or relate tangentially and usually in an overly creepy manner. Some other selections might not have concerned sex per se but still managed to relate to genitalia with the male type seemingly more referenced than female. While I really do not think of myself as particularly prudish, all this just did not work for me. However, I did find the various works readable, and almost all of them were thought-provoking which I very much did appreciate.


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Review: You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe

You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe by Christopher Potter

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I swear that I wrote the bulk of this review prior to completing the book. I read most of this book while traveling and wrote my initial thoughts on a sheet of paper from a notepad printed with the name of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino where I was staying in Las Vegas. I state this because I wrote the part about Wikipedia before I got to the end of book where in a note at the end of the bibliography, the author states that he, in fact, frequently consulted Wikipedia as part of his research while writing the book. Perhaps that is why the book reads like several Wikipedia articles strung together.

I am somewhat biased I am afraid because I have read several book of the popular-science type and particularly ones covering the beginning of the universe and the development of life. I have read A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Science Class You Wish You Had, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, and of course, Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. I feel that any of those authors could have written this book in just a few days using nothing but Wikipedia as a reference.

The universe is immense. The universe is old. The universe is complex. That is all. Carry on. So goes the first meaningful chapter which is a straightforward comparison of size starting at one meter and proceeding ever larger until arriving at the size of the visible universe. In similar fashion, subsequent chapters cover the history of science including the development of the scientific method and measuring devices. A chapter midway through the book mirrors the earlier chapter by starting at 100 centimeters and going down to subatomic particles. Other chapters start at the Big Bang and the birth of the universe and proceed through the development of galaxies including our own Milky Way, then the Solar System and our home planet, and then the development of life on Earth and eventually arriving at the evolution of our own species. The information presented is easily gathered from Wikipedia and is arranged in a basically straightforward manner.

I would like to think that I can appreciate a well-written popular science book. I just do not think this is an example of one.

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Review: Manhattan Is My Beat

Manhattan Is My Beat by Jeffery Deaver

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Before buying and reading this book, I only knew the title, the author, and that it had a sequel, Death Of A Blue Movie Star, which I had previously bought but have not yet read. Based primarily on the title, this book was definitely not what I was expecting. With a title like Manhattan Is My Beat, I was expecting a film noir-style detective novel in the spirit of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. As a bit of an aside, I have only been reading novels and stories by Jeffery Deaver for a couple of years now. I started around the time he released his James Bond novel. Expecting a spy master in the vein of Ian Fleming, I instead got an excellent detective novelist. Being only halfway through Fleming's Bond novels, I have bought but not yet read Carte Blanche. However, I have no doubt that Deaver did a great job with Bond. I also have no doubt that he could pull off classic hard-boiled detective novels with ease. This particular novel is just not one.

So far, I have read four of Deaver's novels featuring his most famous character, Lincoln Rhyme, plus two of his short story collections, Twisted and More Twisted. I have enjoyed them all. Getting back to this novel, I do not think this work is on par with the other works of his that I have read. This one was first published in 1988 which seems to make it Deaver's first published novel, so perhaps I am grading it on an unfair curve.

The main character in this work goes by the adopted name of Rune and is basically the complete opposite of Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme. While Rhyme has an impressive intellect, is extremely well-educated, and an acknowledged expert in his chosen field of forensics, Rune is naive and mostly uneducated except for a vast knowledge of cinema. From his wheelchair, Rhyme manages to be in control of situations. He manipulates his opponents as well as his allies, and is therefore able to affect the outcome of the plot. Conversely, Rune is the one being manipulated as she bumbles her way through the story, and the outcome turns out to be completely out of her control.

This novel definitely reads like a Deaver novel. It has sections narrated by unknown antagonists, the plot is driven along at rocket speed, and of course, there are a myriad of plot twists with characters being exposed as not being what they originally seemed to be. In the case of this work however, it all seems vastly overdone. The plot feels like it has too many unexpected turns, and seemingly every character is covering a secret or pretending to be somebody else. The result is more like a rough parody of a Deaver novel than the more polished works that readers have come to expect from this author.

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Review: Robopocalypse

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the acknowledgement section at the end of this novel, the author mentions that a major motion picture studio was enthusiastic about the work. That was not really surprising to me since this book reads as much like a movie treatment for the next big sci-fi thriller as a science fiction novel. Like many action thrillers, this book has the planet Earth going all to hell with something hunting down all the human beings. Instead of zombies like in AMC's well-known The Walking Dead television series or alien invaders like in TNT's less-well-known Falling Skies, the threat here comes from computers, robots and various computer-controlled devices like cars and tanks. That can easily be surmised from the book's title plus the cover art featuring a zoomed-in robot face. With its robot antagonists, the novel resembles The Matrix and Terminator movie series.

Unlike all of the previously mentioned works which mainly focus on a lone hero or small group of co-located characters, this novel jumps between groups of characters dispersed across the globe. Outside of the initial coalescing of the core groups, the various groups rarely interact directly with the other groups. The primary characters are a pair of Boston brothers. One of the brothers is a sergeant with the local National Guard unit and a natural-born leader. The other is a screw-up and would-be photojournalist. Other protagonists include a United States Congresswoman and her two young children, a construction worker and his wife in New York City, a policeman who is also a Native American tribal leader in Oklahoma, his son who is a robot wrangler in the Army and stationed in Afghanistan, an über-geeky phone phreak in London, and finally a brilliant robot repairman in Japan who is much more comfortable around his robot companions than other flesh-and-blood humans.

The final outcome is known from the prologue, but there are plenty of surprising twists and turns as the story unfolds. Along the way, there are several moments of the hopeful Rodney King "Can we all get along?" variety. Again, this book reads more like a movie than a novel. The characters are the barely-developed, two-dimensional type that are expected in the cinema world but are disappointing in a full-length novel. Of course, I expect fleshing out personalities is difficult with such a widely spread ensemble cast. In summary, this book was an exciting thrill ride but quite disappointing on the character development side.

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Review: The Little Drummer Girl

The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having read several of John le Carré's works, I feel that his particular forte is creating for his characters environments that have an amazing amount of stress. He ratchets up drama by putting his characters in extremely difficult situations and then continuing to crank up the stress level. Of his novels that I have read, the previous epitome of these super stress levels was The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. However, I think the stress in The Little Drummer Girl tops even that work.

The title character in this book is Charlie, a aspiring English stage actress. While on holiday in Greece with some fellow struggling thespians, the young Charlie encounters a tall, dark and handsome stranger who turns out to be an Israeli spy. The job of Gadi Becker (aka Joseph) is to convince Charlie to take an unique acting opportunity. The Israelis know that Charlie has left-leaning views and through a previous boyfriend has had encounters with members of some extremist groups. The Israeli groups's plan is to have Joseph emulate a captured Palestinian terrorist known as Michel. In this role, he will train Charlie to infiltrate a leftist terrorist group with links to Palestinians. The Israeli spy group's ultimate goal is Michel's brother Khalil who is a major leader in a Palestinian terrorist group. Charlie accepts the opportunity and delves into what she terms "the theater of the real."

I think that the book does a great job of presenting both sides of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. There is much doubt as to Charlie's true sympathies. In the end, the central question of the book is not on which side of the conflict Charlie will end up or if her mission will be a success. The question is if Charlie will just survive the mission with her sanity intact.

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Review: The Planets

The Planets by Dava Sobel

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Filled with snippets of poetry, the Planets is a amorous ode to the local heavenly neighborhood. The book includes chapters on the Sun and the Moon. Both were previously considered to be planets until Copernicus promoted the Sun to the king of the solar system sitting on its throne in the center of its kingdom and demoted the Moon to a simple satellite circling the Earth. Our home world thus became just another one of the planets, so it also has a chapter in the book. Pluto which is no longer considered a full-fledged planet is covered in the penultimate chapter that discusses trans-Neptunian objects as well as those other non-planets, the asteroids. The chapters start with the Sun and move outward from there with each chapter covering a loosely related topic such as mythology, astrology, and music.

I have previously read Longitude and Galileo's Daughter by this author, and I enjoyed reading those two books. While I also enjoyed this book, I think that I prefer my popular science books to have less of a romantic vibe.

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Review: I Will Fear No Evil

I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If this book was a new television show, the review would go something like this. On the pilot episode of the soon-to-be-hit sitcom "How I Met My Body" "Two's a Crowd" "Whose Body is it Anyway?," an extremely wealthy but decrepit old businessman tries to avoid death by buying his way into a fresh young body. He soon discovers that not only is the body into which his brain has been transplanted female, but it belonged to his incredibly beautiful former secretary. Hilarity ensues when he realizes that his new body's previous occupant is not quite ready to give up her former haunt.

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Review: Berlin Noir: March Violets; The Pale Criminal; A German Requiem

Berlin Noir: March Violets; The Pale Criminal; A German Requiem by Philip Kerr

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If the three novels contained in Berlin Noir just happened to be the first hardboiled crime stories that I had ever read, I might have given this book four stars. I might have even given it five stars if I happened to be in a particularly good mood. I found the novels to be engaging, gripping and all those related literary buzzwords. However, I have already read my share of noir detective stories. I have read Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and Philip Kerr is not Hammett or Chandler.

I would actually say that Kerr does a good job of mimicking the two masters of genre. Kerr just might be the literary equivalent to a cover band in music. Of his previous novels, I have read the Grid, Esau, and the Shot. Based on those books, I found Kerr to be England's answer to Michael Crichton or perhaps Dean Koontz. He has proven that he cover both thrillers and hardboiled crime.

The characters in the works of Hammett and Chandler are closely tied to their environments in both place and time. Chandler's Philip Marlowe inhabits the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in the intoxicating (or intoxicated?) times of the 30s. Hammett's characters (the Continental Op, Nick and Nora, and of course, Sam Spade in all his Humphrey Bogart-ness.) also shared the 30s, but were located more north, in the thick fog of San Francisco. Kerr's efforts with the novels contained in this book might be the manifestation of a thought experiment or perhaps an answer to some hypothetical question. Instead of the noble private investigator toiling away in California, what if the setting was Nazi-era Germany and then Allied-occupied Germany? The answer is found in the character of Bernard Gunther.

To be fair, I think Kerr is completely honest with his homage to the grandmasters. In a German Requiem, he drops a reference to the Thin Man, and there are other such references and commonalities peppered throughout the books. However, he also seems to be trying a bit too hard to outdo his predecessors. He sometimes goes overboard with his Chandler-like descriptions, and I think some of Herr Gunther's deadpan observations and sarcastic responses are too Marlowe-esque for even Philip Marlowe.

I did thoroughly enjoy all three of the novels, and I think Kerr does a respectable job with his endeavor to replicate and revive the hardboiled detective genre.

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My Application

Some of my friends have started trying to pimp this single guy out to their single female friends. One such female friend has some particularly exacting standards for the male of our species, "yes I would like you to find me a single man, mildly intelligent and attractive, all his teeth, has a passport and can keep up with me. Is that too much to ask?"

After some review, it seems that I fail one of her key requirements.

"single man" - There is no ring on my finger, and I have the appropriate equipment in my pants, so that would be a check.

"mildly intelligent" - I would consider "mildly" to be an insult. I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from well-regarded universities. I am certified in my particular profession, and I am currently employed by a local technology company. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, including books on science and technology. I am currently reading Coming of Age in the Milky Way (ha, he said "coming") by Timothy Ferris. I have previously read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (known more for his books on travel), and several books by the late Carl Sagan ("billions and billions of stars"). I am also currently reading The Beer Enthusiast's Guide, but I'm not sure that's appropriate here. I would give myself a check plus for this one.

"attractive" - Physical attractiveness is subjective, and opinions vary by person. I did recently star in my own music video. This one would be an incomplete.

"has a passport" - This is a check, but my visa for China expires in mid-September.

"can keep up with me" - This one implies an in-person interview and some sort of competition, so I would mark it as another incomplete.

Unfortunately, I fail her "all his teeth" test. I had braces as a kid, and as usually follows having braces, all four of my wisdom teeth were later removed.

Does anybody have any single female friends with less stringent requirements?

Review: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My sister, April, recommended this book to me. She gave it four stars. I have to disagree with her however. I read most of this book while I was traveling. I read it while in airports, on flights and in a hotel room. I was also usually sleepy while reading. Perhaps I just missed the coherent plot.

The book is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The narrator and his son are traveling the main road of the title. They are usually cold and are traveling south in search of warmer weather. They are also usually hungry, so along the way, they search for food and supplies while doing their best to avoid disagreeable characters who would like to do them harm such as eating them to satisfy their own hunger.

What caused the state of the world does not seem to be unknown to the characters in the book, but nobody bothers to share that information with the reader. Ash covers everything, and people wear masks or breathing apparatuses to keep from breathing it. However, the source of the ash is left unknown. Did a supervolcano erupt or did a giant asteroid crash into the Earth like the KT event that wiped out the dinosaurs? One of the categories listed in the Library of Congress information in the front of the book is "Voyages and travels - United States". I do not think it was established for certain that the location was the United States. The characters speak English, but I think somebody reading a translation of the book would think the location was some other country. There are a couple of references to Spanish including the son finding a coin with Spanish writing. Perhaps our travelers made it all the way to Mexico or perhaps some Latin American country or countries attacked the US which then retaliated with atomic weapons and thus brought about nuclear winter. That would also help explain why the cities seem to be in ruins.

I will grant that establishing the reason for the dystopian environment is frequently not a top priority in many works of the post-apocalyptic genre. For instance, I do not remember if it was established why society broke down in the Mad Max movie franchise. In more recent movies and televisions series, the situation is caused by an alien invasion or a rampant disease that created zombies or vampires. In the Kevin Coster epic Waterworld, the polar icecaps melt and cover the world with undrinkable seawater. I assume global warming caused the icecaps to melt, but that is a political argument which is not relevant here. Anyway, I think all of those reasons can safely be eliminated as culprits for the world of The Road. The reader is left either wondering or simply not caring.

Another problem that I have with the book is the author's writing style. I have not read any of Cormac McCarthy's other works, but this book has a distinctly spare style. I suppose when the world goes to hell in a handbasket, the first thing that will be lost is punctuation. The lack of quotation marks is particularly annoying and makes the dialogue difficult to follow. Another casualty of the breakdown is names, both for people and locations. The lack of place names leads to the ambiguity in regards to the settings for the book. Neither the man, his son, nor the dead wife and mother are named in the book. The only character to be named in the book is a stranger that the two main character encounter near the end of the book. The man gives his name as Ely, but it is quickly established that he is lying. I suppose that names are irrelevant in this new world.

The book is very emotional and runs the gamut of emotions with some scenes that are touching, some that are exciting, and some that are very disturbing. While the relationship between the father and the son is the primary focus, the book also does a good job of expressing the stress associated with fighting for survival in that trying environment. I found the ending of the book to be anticlimactic except that would imply there was a climax. Like a starving man in a post-apocalyptic world, the book does not end as much as it just slowly curls up and dies.

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Review: Jump Gate Twist

Jump Gate Twist by Mark L. Van Name

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Full disclosure, I have met the author, Mark Van Name, in a professional setting. The company with which I am employed has a working relationship with his company, Principled Technologies. I received a copy of Jump Gate Twist as a gift after meeting with him and the company's other founder, Bill Catchings. Prior to our meeting, I had no knowledge of Mr. Van Name, and prior to receiving this book, I was not aware that he was a published science-fiction author. My copy of the book is signed by the author and has a nice sticker on the inside front cover with my name. I would like to thank Mark and Principled Technologies for the gift. That being stated, I had no expectations for the book. I was a huge fan of science fiction when I was younger, but as I have grown older, my tastes have ventured into other areas, currently spy fiction, particularly James Bond novels, and hardboiled crime fiction.

The book is compilation of two novels and two short stories plus additional tidbits from the author. The main protagonist is Jon Moore who was mentally challenged as child due to some unique properties of his home planet. Jon's first change is the subject of the first short story, "My Sister, My Self." His enhancement was done by his sister with healing powers that were the result of the same properties of their world. At some later point, Jon's body is further enhanced with nanotechnology as part of a corporate experiment which eventually goes awry and possibly makes his home world uninhabitable. That topic is only covered piecemeal in various flashbacks throughout the two novels. Returning to his home planet and finding his lost sister are Jon's overall goals in the series which currently includes four novels.

In the first novel, One Jump Ahead, Jon finds an intelligent attack vehicle named Lobo which has been left as a monument in a city square on a far outpost world. Lobo has its (or "his" since Jon comes to refer to Lobo in the masculine) own back-story in which he was damaged in battle. Through some negotiation, Jon is able to acquire Lobo from the head of the planet for services rendered. He is later able to have the damaged ship repaired. The main plot of the novel is the rescue of a kidnapped girl that comes to involve a couple of competing megacorporations and a less-than-forthright arms dealer.

The second novel, Slanted Jack, has even more twists and turns than the first. The Jack from the title is an accomplished con man who reappears from Jon's past. Jon agrees to help with protecting a gifted boy whose family originated from Jon's lost home world. After the initial plan falls apart, Jon has to run an intricate triple con that involves a mobster, a group of religious fanatics with a stash of weapons, and the local government who wants to catch both. The boy and Jon's not-quite-friend Jack serve as bait in the scheme.

Finally, the second short story, "Lobo, Actually," focuses only on Lobo and takes place during his period of downtime in the city square. It is a Christmas story that explores some interesting thoughts on religion and deity. The story is also interesting in that it is told from Lobo's point of view and not that of a human.

Overall, I found Jump Gate Twist to be a solid example of space opera, and I mean that in a positive sense. With tons of action and continually unfolding plot twists, Jon Moore very much reminds me of a futuristic James Bond.

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Review: Goldfinger

Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have found a third book that runs counter to the conventional wisdom that books are always better than their movie versions. The first two entries on my list are Forrest Gump and Shoeless Joe which was the basis for the movie Field of Dreams. While I enjoyed both of those books, the two movies are classics. The movie version of Forrest Gump won six Oscars among its myriad of other awards, and Field of Dreams is constantly ranked as one of the best sports movies of all time.

Goldfinger follows the same pattern. I truly enjoyed the book, as I have the previous six James Bond novels that I have read so far. However, the movie version is one of my favorite movies. Of course, the Bond books and movies are really completely different animals. Sean Connery in particular portrays Bond with super-human cool. The Bond from the novels, on the other hand, is fallible and occasionally shows a bit of emotion. In three of the first seven novels, including Goldfinger, CIA agent Felix Leiter appears at the last minute to save Bond's hide. In the movies, Leiter is usually just tagging along as a sidekick.

Similar to Shoeless Joe missing James Earl Jones' epic monologue on baseball from Field of Dreams, the book version of Goldfinger misses the great quotes from movie. ("No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.", "I must be dreaming.")

The plot of the novel and film are basically the same, but there are some differences. In the book, the main villain, Auric Goldfinger, threatens Bond with a giant saw. The movie replaces the saw with an even more intimidating laser in one of most memorable scenes ever. Also, the role of Pussy Galore is quite different. In the novel, Miss Galore is one of the crime lords involved in Goldfinger's plan to break into Fort Knox. In the movie, she is a pilot and leads a flying circus. In both versions, Bond is able to persuade Miss Galore to change sides. The ultimate goal of Goldfinger's nefarious plan is also slightly different between the novel and the book.

Appropriately enough, USA Network was showing Goldfinger as I typed this.

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Review: Myra Breckinridge

Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have read many of Gore Vidal's historical fiction novels including Creation, Julian, and most of his Narratives of Empire series. I am aware of his sexual orientation, and while many of his historical fiction novels include sexual, particularly homosexual, themes and undertones, it is usually not an overt focus. I do not find the subject distasteful. In fact, I find that the sexual undertones add an additional layer of complexity to his novels.

However, I have avoided Vidal's books where the topic is more blatantly sexual such as The City and the Pillar: A Novel, one of his first novels. The previews that I read about Myra Breckinridge indicated that the theme was somewhat sexual in nature without being homosexual. I suppose that is sort of the case. The story has a few big twists. I did not find the biggest twist particularly surprising, but I am not sure it was suppose to be surprising. I found the book to be quite bizarre which I think was intended. There is one chapter that is very distributing and particularly painful to read. Even with the predictable twist and the painful section, I found the book to be interesting and even mildly entertaining.

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Review: The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Being 30-some odd years behind the times, I recently finished reading The Dragons of Eden which was written by the famous author and scientist, Carl Sagan, and was originally published in 1977. As the full title attests, the topic is the evolutionary development of the human brain. As is to be expected, the technological references in the book are hopelessly dated, and I can safely assume that the scientific information is dated as well. I would have been very interested in a new edition with updated information, but unfortunately, Sagan died in 1996. Perhaps I will find a newer book on the topic of human intelligence.

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More Bond

Back in March, I posted about a bunch basically random topics. One of the topics was about visiting the Reader's Corner, a local used book store, and picking up some books. As an aside, the Reader's Corner also sells books via an Amazon.com site and a site at Abebooks.com. Included in my purchases back in March were the first two books in the James Bond series. Today, I paid another visit to the shop and purchased the next five books in the series. The third book is Moonraker which became the eleventh of the Bond films in 1979. The movie starred Roger Moore instead of Sean Connery who starred in six of the first seven Bond films. Moore's first Bond movie was Live and Let Die which was released in 1973. It was the eighth film but was adapted from the second book. The fourth book in the Bond series is Diamonds Are Forever which became the seventh Bond film in 1971. That film was Connery's last time in the role of James Bond for the official series of films, although in 1983, he starred in Never Say Never Again which is not considered part of the official series.

Moving right along, I mentioned the fifth (From Russia with Love) and sixth (Doctor No) books in my previous post along with the fact that they became the second and first films. Those films were released in 1963 and 1962 respectively. The seventh book in the series is Goldfinger. The film version of that book was released in 1964 and was the third in the series. The movie version of Goldfinger is my personal favorite of the film series. There is the best of the Bond girls, although Entertainment Weekly disagrees. (Their number one isn't bad either.) The title character, Auric Goldfinger, is one of the best of the Bond villains. Of course, the word "auric" means relating to gold. There are also all the great quotes, and the first appearance of the most famous of Bond's cars, an Aston Martin DB5 which had been tweaked a bit by Q.

During my visit to the bookstore, I also bought three other books. Smart-Aleck Kill is a small collection of stories by Raymond Chandler. All four of the stories are also included in The Simple Art of Murder which I have previously read, but this will be a good excuse to read them again. The Turk is about a famous chess-playing machine from the 18th century, all of which can be deduced by the book's full long title. Finally, Zeno's Paradox is about a series of paradoxes postulated by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno, the most famous of which concerns a race between the Greek hero Achilles and a tortoise.

Review: The Fourth K

The Fourth K by Mario Puzo

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Mario Puzo is of course best known as the author of The Godfather which was turned into two very successful movies. Unfortunately, the Fourth K is nowhere near the quality of the Godfather and other books by Puzo. Basically, this book is like the screenplay for a really bad miniseries.

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A Little Bit of This and That

Forewarning, this post has no particular rhyme or reason.

Today, I went to the local $1.50 movie theater and saw Tron: Legacy. While it was a decent movie, it seemed like a great movie to see in 3-D, particularity IMAX 3D. Speaking of IMAX 3D, I have a guy date (is that the proper term or it is man date or bro date?) with one of my coworkers to see Hubble 3D at the local IMAX theater. He said he bought one of those two-for-one deals from Groupon or LivingSocial, but his wife balked at going to the Hubble movie with him. He has not mentioned when he wants to go, but perhaps that will be something to do next week.

Speaking of next week, this Friday marks the return of the friendly neighborhood social gathering. It was previously held every other Friday night, but recently, it has disappeared from the schedule. The last gathering was back in November for the birthday of one of the guys. That event was actually on a Saturday. The last one that I attended prior to that was at the end of July. Now, I have even volunteered to help. I have been managing the invite list, and perhaps in a few weeks, I will even host an event at my place.

Back to today, I stopped by my favorite used bookstore, The Reader's Corner, over on Hillsborough Street. As usual, I picked up a handful of books. This time, my book purchases were in three pairs plus a single. There was a whole stack of Ian Fleming's James Bond paperbacks that were printed in the mid-60s. While I am a big fan of the Bond movies, I have never read any of the books. I was able to control myself and only purchase the first two in the series, Casino Royale and Live and Let Die. Interestingly, those are not the first two that are turned into movies. The first Bond movie was Dr. No which was released in 1962 and was based on the sixth book in the series. The second movie was 1963's From Russia with Love which was the fifth book.

In addition to the two Bond novels, I picked up two books by Gore Vidal, Julian from 1964, and Myra Breckinridge from 1968. I also bought two books on science. One was The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan (of "billions and billions" fame). I bought the other science-related book purely for the title, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat by John R. Gribbin. If you do not know about Erwin Schrödinger and his infamous cat, then you should ask somebody (like a physicist) or just look it up on Wikipedia. You might also want to read up on Werner Heisenberg and his uncertainty principle. Moving right along, my final unrelated purchase was The Fourth K by Mario Puzo which is not part of Puzo's Mafia series.

I think that is enough randomness for today.

A Book About a Bar

As I mentioned in my first post of 2011, I have been intending to write more posts about books that I have read. Since I just finished at this very moment a book that I thought was really great, I figure it is a great time to get back to posting about books. The book in question is The Tender Bar which a memoir by journalist J. R. Moehringer. It recounts Moehringer's youth and early adult life. He grew up in Manhasset, New York with his mother. The town is on Long Island and is best known as part of the setting for the book The Great Gatsby. This book includes several references to The Great Gatsby, most of which I probably did not fully grasp since I have not read that particular book.

During the early part of the book, Moehringer and his mother live mainly with her parents. They move out on their own several times, only to end up moving back. The dilapidated house of his grandparents is also home to his mother's brother, Charlie, and frequently his mother's sister and her six children. Like he and his mother, his aunt and cousins also frequently move out of and then back into the house. Moehringer's father is largely absent, although he makes a few rare appearances throughout the book. Since his father works as a DJ, Moehringer grows up really only knowing his father as a voice (or the Voice) on the radio.

The book is populated by a variety of interesting characters. However, the star of the book as referenced by the title is not any of the actual people, but the corner bar and restaurant where most of the human characters congregate. At the start of the book, the pub is named Dickens after Charles Dickens. It is later renamed Publicans (after barkeeps and not tax collectors) and is reborn as Edison's in the epilogue. the author's Uncle Charlie is one of the pub's bartenders. As the book progresses, Moehringer gets to know and befriends the bar's owner, most of its employees, and many of its patrons.

The main theme of the book deals with Moehringer seeking out men to fill the void left by his missing father. The early parts of the book recount the misadventrues of his youth in Manhasset. Eventually, he and his mother leave New York and move to Arizona. Some of the stories about his teenage years in Arizona and summers back in Manhasset are painfully awkward. At the urging of his mother and two shopkeepers at the bookstore where he works, Moehringer applies to and is accepted at Yale. His time at Yale turns out to be as equally awkward as those of his younger years. He feels out of place among his fellow students who are mostly from the upper crusts of society. He eventually ends up playing lapdog to a beautiful co-ed. After she leaves him for someone that is more her social equal, he begins to spend most of his time drinking and reading as oppose to concentrating on his classes.

Somehow he manages to graduate from Yale, but he ends up back in Manhasset where he spending most of his time hanging out with the gang at Publicans. His continued misadventures include a stint in the housewares department at the local Lord & Taylor and his time as a copy boy with The New York Times. The main section of the book concludes with Moehringer moving out to Colorado to live with his cousin and a friend.

The book was published in 2005, so it is no surprise that the epilogue revolves around the author, who at that time was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, returning to his hometown shortly after September 11, 2001. I imagine writing about the New York area around that time would be difficult particularly for a native. The book has a generally depressed feel, so I thought tacking on the even more depressing epilogue risked a complete nose dive. However, I think Moehringer manages admirably to convey the strong emotions of that time without having the tone completely bottom out.