The essays collected in Philosophy and Social Hope cover a pretty wide span, from philosophy (of course) to academia to literature to politics, but they rarely fail to be interesting and accessible. I particularly enjoyed some of the early essays, which serve as an excellent introduction to pragmatism, an set of ideas I previously wasn't very familiar with. This was because I'd recently thought myself into an intelllectual corner of sorts, and certain aspects of pragmatism provided a neat way out. I don't agree with all aspects of it, but the ones I disagree with were still useful to read about.

On the less philosophical topics, Rorty is a bit less consistent. His perspectives on academia are quite interesting, and certainly backed up with personal experience, but on politics he is not as good. His knowledge of politics and economics doesn't seem to be particularly exhaustive, and he often fails to back up his assertions with specific examples or verifiable evidence. Rorty's political writings are still worth reading, and I agree with most of his opinions, but he isn't nearly as cogent or authoritative there as in philosophy.

There are also a couple of essays that I just skipped over because they seemed to be obscure commentaries on intellectual disputes I knew nothing about. This is not a widespread problem in the book, though, and it is well worth reading whether or not you have philosophical background knowledge. (My own knowledge of that area is pretty limited.)

I've heard this book referred to as a "masterpiece of science fiction" more than once, often from sources that suggest it isn't simply publishers' hype. After having actually read it, I cannot understand why. Bradbury's characters, by and large, are pretty thin. That might be forgivable if he were writing in order to set a mood or make some kind of interesting point, but his writing style tries too hard to be poetic, and his ideas are mostly pretty trite. There are quite a lot of books that cover colonial insenstivity, nuclear war, and the supposed meaninglessness or self-destructiveness of modern life, and Bradbury's doesn't stick out from the crowd.

This could be partly because the book doesn't fully cohere. I know that it is supposed to be a connection of linked short stories, not a traditional novel, but Bradbury seems to have frequently changed his mind about the most fundamental aspects of his version of Mars. I might not mind this if I thought he was trying to make a point by presenting radically different kinds of Martians at different times, but that wouldn't be consistent with his somewhat superifical handling of many of the other ideas in the book.

There are several stories in The Martian Chronicles that do succeed, and I suspect I would have been more impressed with it if I had read it when it came out. I can certainly see how it could seem impressive to someone who had read little or no science fiction, or literature in general. Still, it didn't have a lasting effect on me, and it looks pretty anemic next to, say, Ursula K. LeGuin or Gene Wolfe. If you are new to science fiction, I would refer you to one of those authors, or to a number of others. They have more interesting things to say than Bradbury.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a good deal about ambient music, but I can generally recognize a good CD when I hear one, and this is a good CD. Ambient (the style of which Robert Rich is usually considered to be a practitioner) sometimes seems to be popularly considered a "relaxing" and "soothing" (read: phatic and boring) style, but that certainly isn't an accurate view of this music. Listen to it with good headphones in a dark, cool room at night, and you will be transported. If you like to hang out in isolated forests and ruined abbeys, but happen to be stuck at home, this music is actually not a bad substitute.

The tracks vary enough that I can't make many generalizations, but they are all good. I was particularly impressed by the complexity of the textures. You can listen to this several times and notice new things each time. Also, the sound quality is excellent. Some of the percussion instruments sound as if they are actually in my living room. (My speakers are good, but not normally *that* good.)

Let me get one thing out of the way first: this book is not for everyone. If you like to have things explained to you, or if you don't like having to fill in gaps, don't read it. Faulkner does not stop to explain or to hold the reader's hand, and having finished the book, I can certainly understand why.

That said, if you are willing to put some effort into it, this book will more than repay your investment. Once you get used to the writing style, it is tempting to read it like any other book, but if you do that you'll miss important details and nuances. Very few things Faulkner mentions are insignificant. There is one passage toward the beginning of the second chapter that's particularly difficult, but don't give up, as that chapter later contains some of the most incredibly beautiful prose I've ever seen. The sheer emotional weight of this book is tremendous, even if concealed at first.

The novel is a bit easier to understand if you have a few pieces of background information. Minor spoilers follow:
1. Italics usually indicate a time shift, but there are a couple of time shifts without italics.
2. Benjy has several different caretakers: Versh when he is a small child, T.P. when he is an older boy, and Luster when he is a grown man. This is helpful for keeping track of time.
3. There are two Quentins: the narrator of the second chapter, and Caddy's daughter.

This book begins with a clear mistake, namely its title. It focuses almost exclusively on the International Monetary Fund, a miniscule segment of the subject of globalization. I would be kinder to this book almost a priori if Stiglitz had made it clear from the outset that he was writing about the IMF, instead of writing the title and introduction for a book on globalization and then about a tenth of the actual book. This lack of clarity extends to the rest of the book, which can be disorganized, repetetive, and sometimes even rambling. The documentation is also largely insufficient. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I think my own writing is generally better than this.

All of that is a real shame, because if you take the time to look, there actually is a devastating critique of many IMF policies in this book. Stiglitz makes a convincing case that IMF prescriptions often fly in the face of good economics and common sense. I don't necessarily agree with everything he says; in the chapter on Russia, the only area I'd previously read about, there are a few questionable points. Nevertheless, almost all of his major arguments are sound as far as I can tell, and I certainly respect him as an economist.

Many of the criticisms I've seen levelled against the content of this book seem to be based on misunderstandings of Stiglitz's policy recommendations. For instance, it's been argued that the IMF could not have established "rule of law" in Russia. That's true up to a point, but the IMF could have pressured the government to move in that direction to a greater extent than it did or, more likely, simply paced its economic reforms with existing political reforms instead of implementing them a a time when they did little good. It's also worth noting that Stiglitz has other criticisms of the IMF's Russian policy which do not involve rule of law.

I also didn't get the feeling, as some did, that Stiglitz was mainly out to settle scores. It's a stretch to say that he accuses Stan Fischer of corruption. He simply points out that Fischer is involved with financial institutions and therefore tends to see things from that point of view.

I have serious concerns about the policies of the IMF, WTO and World Bank, as well as their lack of accountablility and transparency. I would dearly like to see a cogent criticism of those organizations from a credible economist, rather than the borderline-incoherent radical leftists we often seem to get. Stiglitz has the knowledge to write that book, but for the most part, he hasn't done so. I would advise him to take a little more time for his next work, and if he should happen to discreetly hire a ghostwriter, I wouldn't take it amiss.

Before I start actually reviewing this book, I should note that I haven't read any of Murakami's other books, so I can't comment on how this one compares. I was also unaware until just now that the book was a sequel to "A Wild Sheep Chase." I actually have a hunch that "Dance Dance Dance" works better without having read that book, but obviously I can't say for sure. At any rate, it stands on its own.

Despite containing many impossible things, "Dance Dance Dance" is a very realistic book. I say this because not everything that happens fits neatly into an overarching structure, and some events never end up making sense. Neither of those things are true of most novels, but they almost always apply to real life. The characters, weird as they are, almost all have authenticity. This is especially true of the nameless protagonist.

It's necessary to learn what to expect from this book. If you read it looking for a straight-up mystery that resolves itself in the traditional way, as is tempting, you will be disappointed. What you can expect is an entertaining, darkly surreal, and ultimately reassuring story which probably would have been classified as urban fantasy had it been written by an American or British author or magical realism had it been written by a Latin American. Seen that way, I really can't think of any particular flaws in it. The lack of a fifth star is due to the absence of superlative things, not the presence of bad ones.

The authors this book reminded me of most were Philip K. Dick and Neil Gaiman, though it doesn't resemble either so strongly.

It's a pity that there was so much hype about this book, and in particular the relative youth of its author. Books that are publicized in that way tend to be bad, but for some reason I decided to read this one anyway. That turned out to be fortunate.

I should note here that I'm writing this less than an hour after finishing the book. It is entirely possible that in a couple of days I will realize that it is deeply flawed and downwardly revise my review. At the moment, however, it seems to me to be a masterpiece. (I wish I could come up with a more original term than that.) Foer has many interesting things to say about fact, fiction, truth, falsity and history, and the differing parts of the book are securely connected emotionally and thematically. The structure of the book is a bit unusual, but only in ways that serve the novel. It seems a bit egotistical at first for the author to put himself into the book, but much less so when you consider that he is not the protagonist. He exists in the book mainly by implication, and the author is always there in that way.

The only problems I have detected so far are fairly minor. Alex's broken English is a bit gimmicky, but I have to confess that I enjoyed it, and in any case it mostly disappears after the first few chapters. All the intentional anachronisms tended to get on my nerves. More importantly, the chapters involving Foer's (fictional) grandfather seemed to contain less worthwhile information than the rest of the book. Still, the book is definitely recommendable, and manages to be a page-turner of sorts to boot.

Jonathan Safran Foer has a website at (originally enough) www.....com, where he sheds a bit of light on what is fictional in this book and what isn't.

I read this book in one sitting in a local bookstore. Because it was so short, I never became attached to any of the characters, and the story did not develop any real weight. Still, it isn't fair to criticise a book for brevity alone, and I thought that the characters interesting--Perrotta seems to have a talent for telling you a lot about someone through implication. He also evoked the early 1990s remarkably well, or at least I assume he did. (I wasn't paying much attention at that time.) The high school in the book is an excellent microcosm for human pride, folly and stupidity, as students and teachers take absurd risks to secure a completely useless and ceremonial position. This isn't a classic book, but it is a better way that most of spending an hour and a half.

The back cover of this book proclaims that it is "a chilling tale of obsession and madness." After I had finished the book, I thought this a laughable statement. There had been almost nothing frightening or chilling about it. A few seconds later, I stepped back and reevaluated what had actually happened in the book. A certain sentence in (I believe, though I could be wrong) the third-to-last paragraph hit me with a strong retroactive spook.

I consider that moment one of the finest moments of literary appreciation I have recently experienced. The reason it happened is that I had effectively become Luzhin. What he was thinking made perfect sense. The plot was in no way disturbing. Luzhin was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. Except, of course, he wasn't. Nabokov leads the reader into Luzhin's head remarkably smoothly and successfilly.

This book was the first I read by Nabokov. Since I have not yet completed another, I can't say how it compares with his other books, but I can recommend it. One caveat: don't read Nabokov's introduction until after you finish the novel. there are a couple of reasons for this, which will become apparent when you do read it.

I read the first four books in this series in 6th (7th?) grade, and they were some of my favorite books at the time. I didn't reread them for several years, afraid they wouldn't be as good as I remembered them being. ...P> This is one of the best books--not children's or young adult books, but books, period--I've read in a long time. Few books make me enthusiastic enough to read them in one day, but that's what I did with this one. Duane's magic is very technical, but it also manages to be very magical, if you know what I mean, and no one else writes other universes quite the same way. I stayed involved throughout the book, and the climactic scene was spectacular. Perhaps I have not been very informative yet, but I honestly can't think of much else to say. I would recommend that you buy the book, but you know that already. One caveat--avoid reading the back cover. It gives away some things that don't happen until more than halfway through.