Showing posts with label Nonfiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nonfiction. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

What Makes This Book So Great

Author:  Jo Walton

First Publication:  January 2014

Source:  Purchased for Kindle

Publisher:  Tor

Anyone who has talked science fiction and fantasy with me knows that I love reading book reviews and commentaries on the field.  This collection of Jo Walton’s blog posts from Tor.com is perfect for me.  She grew up reading in the same era as I did.  Her love of C. J. Cherryh, Steven Brust, Samuel R. Delany, and Roger Zelazny pours forth from the pages of this book.  Walton’s reviews have convinced me that it is time to read more of Cherryh’s books and to try Steven Brust’s work. 

 One of the interesting side articles are her comments on re-reading books.  I have a very small stack of books I like to re-read.  Among them are “Dune”, various Isaac Asimov stories, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, and numerous Zelazny books.  Walton likes to re-read entire series before starting the latest book in that series.  It is an interesting thought and I can understand the benefit.  I do not know if it is something I would want to do but I will consider it.  

Highly recommended.  This will be on my list of favorite reads of the year.  And yes, I have already re-read parts of it and will re-read the whole book again in the future.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Anatomy of Wonder by Neil Barron

 In addition to reading science fiction, I love reading non-fiction books about the field.  This includes various histories of the field (such as Mike Ashley's histories of the sf magazines), biographies (Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and others), interviews (Charles Platt's Dreammakers) and overview/reviews books like Neil Barron's seminal work-Anatomy of Wonder.


Is Barron's book worth tracking down?  Let's take a look and see.