The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks

From The Week of September 27, 2009

It is difficult to take the full measure of this mercurial work from Iain Banks (the Culture novels). Mr. Banks is an immensely talented author, capable of the kind of abstract thought required for the creation of fictional, technologically advanced societies flung so far into the future that they have nothing in common with the 21st century. And though he gave this novel the full force of his powers, The Algebraist brought me about as close to suicide as I've ever come. There's something so profoundly bleak about this novel, something so nihilistic, so fatalistic, that it's hard to come away from it with anything but a deep sense of relief, that we live here, now, in this relatively peaceful world and not in the future of the Algebraist's imagining.

And yet, or perhaps because of this bleakness, this is an excellent piece of science fiction, full of colorful characters and detestable villains, and finished off by just that right kind of black-hearted British humor all-but-guaranteed to elicit snickers even while wrists are being measured for the razor. Mr. Banks is a treat, a treat that must be taken in moderate doses, but a treat nonetheless. (3/5 Stars)

Gomorah by Roberto Saviano

From The Week of September 27, 2009

Gomorrah is one of those Books, a work of such passion that, at times, it overwhelms the narrative. But for anyone interested in a wonderful piece of brave, investigative journalism looking at crime syndicates, and the extent to which they impact the societies that house them, look no further than this furious effort by
Mr. Saviano. For let there be no doubt; this is the personification of literary anger. This is Mr. Saviano bleeding for his homeland even while he is witnessing how the
Camorra have corrupted Naples: the priests they've killed, the women they've sold, the cops they've turned, the lives they've ruined.

Aware of how he's risking his life to do so, Mr. Saviano details the sins of the Italian Camorra, an organization part crime syndicate, part secret society, headquartered in Naples. There is, for them, no crime too black and no sin too grievous. They must be stopped, Mr. Saviano declares, but the Camorra is a cancer that has metastasized through Italy, through Italian society, until only fools speak out against them and the destruction they cause. Judged by this standard, Mr. Saviano is a very great fool. Strap in; this is a ride you won't forget. (4.5/5 Stars)

Reconciliation by Benazir Bhutto

From The Week of September 27, 2009

Though
Benazir Bhutto goes to some length to reveal herself to us in Reconciliation, which is part memoir and part argument for the coming together of democratic west with Islamic east, we are always left wondering what Ms. Bhutto didn't say, what she didn't expose. Which of the many truths about her troubled home of Pakistan were left to be gleaned from between the lines of her elegant but overly optimistic treatise. And now we will never know.

Given that Benazir Bhutto was born into what is, in a political sense, the
royal family of Pakistan, it was inevitable that her life would be consumed by Pakistan. She was prime minister of that tortured nation twice and on neither occasion did she seem in command of her country. Though Ms. Bhutto claims to have had her administrations sabotaged by the militaristic opposition in Pakistani politics, I found myself wondering about her own failures of leadership. Nations struggling towards democracy must be built slowly, through compromise, through at least the veneer of political consensus. They cannot be delivered through passion alone. Passion is, after all, what radical oppositions have in spades. Ms. Bhutto seems to have felt that radicals in the military, religious, and intelligence hierarchies of her country would not dare to murder her supporters in broad daylight, would not dare to anger the West by obstructing and then overturning a democratically elected government of Pakistan. And yet that is exactly what they did.

Though it's clear that Ms. Bhutto faced significant challenges in her time in power, she failed to check the growth of her country's radical forces. She failed to even know about the secret nuclear program being conducted right under her nose by
A. Q. Khan. And ultimately, she failed to buttress critical institutions like the judiciary which might have prevented the usurpation of power in her country. All this gives Reconciliation the air of a last-gasp appeal to her people, to the West, and to the moderate Muslims the world over, to come together and to meet on common ground. And yet, without acknowledging her own failings, Ms. Bhutto falls back on tired scripture to argue that the destabilizing crimes religious radicals are committing in the name of Islam are un-Islamic. But that we already knew.

Sadly, Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in 2007, in a highly publicized return to Pakistan. And while I can criticize her book and her flaws as a leader of a nation, I will not question her bravery and her love of country which both, by all appearances, were absolute. It is a shame that she did not govern Pakistan during a safer, more democratic time. She might have been great. (3/5 Stars)

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

From The Week of September 27, 2009

The Audacity of Hope will undoubtedly be the most widely read of
Mr. Obama's books, but it is, in many ways, an inferior work to Dreams. That chronicle's air of authenticity shielded it from accusations that Mr. Obama was nothing more than an opportunist, appealing for fame and sympathy from an American public he'd one day lead. Audacity has no such armor. Though its backdrop is the fascinating mechanics of a black man running for senate, and though it reveals much about Mr. Obama's family life, including the saintly patience of his
wife, we're too often left wondering what of this is true and what of this is political staging for Mr. Obama's future goals. Audacity is as much political treatise as memoir, a means by which Mr. Obama lays out his bland, centrist philosophies of government. Perhaps this is what reduces this work from a clean portrait of a modern marriage and an exceptional man to a Churchillian slant on events that no one can truly trust.

The unquestionable highlight here is the transcript of Mr. Obama's
speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004. It is an amazing piece of oratory which, when combined with Mr. Obama's considerable presence, leaves little doubt of the reasons why his star ascended so swiftly.(2/5 Stars)

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

From The Week of September 27, 2009

Winning the presidency in 2008 ensures that
Barack Obama will be better remembered for his time in the Oval Office than for his authorship. That is a shame. For though Dreams From my Father may have been an appeal for notoriety, its rawness, its unflinching forwardness, smells of authenticity. I'm sure some events in Mr. Obama's past have been massaged -- I imagine others have been completely left out --, but these flaws are nothing unique to him. In confessing his drug use, in confessing his sense of dislocation from the world around him, Mr. Obama has, here, opened himself up in a sincere way that most memoirists cower from. From his admiration for his
grandmother, to his complicated feelings for his
mother, to the black hole that is his
missing father, Mr. Obama walks us down his unusual path from disaffected youth in Hawaii all the way to the mean streets of Chicago where he made a name for himself as a
community organizer. The openness alone would make this read worthwhile, but Mr. Obama's trip to see his father's family in Kenya is a gripping and humbling example of seeing just how the other half lives. (4/5 Stars)

Always: Aud Torvingen 03 by Nicola Griffith

From The Week of September 27, 2009

After the wonderful success of Stay, which built upon the promise of the Blue Place, it was reasonable to anticipate that Always would be a crescendo, a culmination of this wonderfully noir world and its Norwegian sensibilities. Unfortunately, in almost every way, this likely final adventure with Aud goes in two unexpected and completely disappointing directions. The A plot, which ought to have picked up from the threat promised in Stay, where Aud was forced to make a deal with the devil, is has the feel of Aud's mid-life crisis. I was far too aware of Ms. Griffith speaking through Aud, perhaps as some means of therapy; who knows. The B plot, which takes us back to the Atlanta of the first novel, is interesting enough and some might even learn something from the self-defense classes Aud teaches here. And certainly the mystery in Atlanta holds some power. But again, this has the feel of something Ms. Griffith wrote for herself, not for us. In that sense, Always is nothing more than an afterthought to the first two books. An unworthy and undeserved conclusion.

Even so, I will buy a fourth Aud Torvingen novel, if it is to be written, but I will hope that it returns to the path Always veered so sharply away from. Such is my love for Aud.(2/5 Stars)

Stay: Aud Torvingen 02 by Nicola Griffith

From The Week of September 20, 2009

Whereas the Blue Place was carried on the back of Aud Torvingen, Stay stands on its own as an excellent, imagistic thriller which only suffers from the occasional off beat.Here, Aud is serviced by the story, the events of which push her to even her titanic limits. But rather than succumb to the usual gratuitousness of blood-soaked thrillers, one gets the sense that Ms. Griffith throws the kitchen sink at Aud to show us what it will bring out of her. The result is a book easily three times as emotionally engaging as its predecessor. I did not want this volume to end and, truly, there is no higher compliment that can be paid to a piece of fiction.

I am being deliberately vague as to avoid spoiling any of the story here. If you do not wish to have your experience with the Blue Place ruined, I recommend avoiding any synopsis of Stay. (5/5 Stars)

The Blue Place: Aud Torvingen 01 by Nicola Griffith

From The Week of September 20, 2009

If there have been detective stories more nihilistic than the Blue Place, I beg you, please, enlighten me. Though Stay, the second novel in this loose trilogy, is easily the best of this series, The Blue Place stands out thanks to its two main strengths: the vividness of its anti-hero protagonist (Aud, pronounced oud) and the gripping nature of its conclusion.

The daughter of a Norwegian diplomat and a naturalized US citizen, Aud Torvingen was an officer in the Atlanta police force before withdrawing into private life. Though the reasons for her departure from the force are never discussed in great detail, it does not take long to realize that Aud's strange personality was not a match for the protect-and-serve brigade. Whether she is autistic or sociopathic -- I can generate arguments for both --, she is 100 percent kick-ass. She is undoubtedly more interesting than the book's core mystery which is presented to our dark heroine by her old boss in the Atlanta PD, a case that takes her from the overheated South to the frozen fiords of her ancestral home. A half-hearted tale that, while finishing strong, is utterly electrified throughout by easily one of the best characters I've encountered. (4/5 Stars)

The Revolution by Ron Paul

From The Week of September 20, 2009

It seems to me that any serious pursuer of knowledge must be willing to seek out enlightenment from every available source, no matter how different his philosophy may bee from that espoused by his source.It was with this spirit of skepticism that I attacked the Revolution by Ron Paul, a long-serving, and long-suffering, US Congressman from Texas who, until recently, had spent his political career in the wilderness of the fringe. And though I come away from the experience not wholly convinced by his case, I have had my eyes opened to a set of societal challenges that promise to have a powerful impact on our world.

Mr. Paul's philosophy of government is simple; the less it does, the less it can screw up. He spends most of his work backing up this contentious claim by setting his sights on the sacred cows of American government: the Federal Reserve, American military bases on foreign soil, the national debt, and social programs. But in a gratifying departure from the norm of such pieces of partisan propaganda, Mr. Paul offers solutions to the problems he sees, causing the Revolution to read more like Milton Friedman than Anne Coulter. Though Mr. Paul will surely get pushback on many of the problems and inequities he raises here, the Revolution leaves us with a sense that he's willing to hear us out and debate the virtues of American policy with us rather than resort to shouting us down, an all-too-common method of disagreement in today's political climate. Interesting, how one must sometimes go to the fringe to find rationality. (4/5 Stars)

Human Rights As Politics And Idolatry by Michael Ignatieff

From The Week of September 20, 2009

Though this work lacks the punch of The Lesser Evil, or the pain of The Warrior's Honor, Michael Ignatieff discusses here important issues of human rights too rarely voiced.

Are there universal human rights? Human rights are defined by governments, but no two governments are ideologically alike because no two electorates are ideologically alike. Therefore, if human rights are a construct of governments, they must also be outgrowths of the ideologies of those governments. If this is true, it is then inescapable that human rights as we know them are a means by which one ideology imposes its moral and ethical standards upon another. A democracy may consider the execution of criminals to be a violation of the human rights of criminals. It may even get many other democracies to agree that this is true. But what of the dissenting voices? How many have to descent before this right is not a human right? How many have to assent before it is? What resentments bubble up among the congress of the dissenting when they are forced to go against their own ideology in order to acknowledge the majority? This is a brief but fascinating look into this tangled world and the problems it presents. (3/5 Stars)

The Lesser Evil by Michael Ignatieff

\From The Week of September 20, 2009

The Lesser Evil is not just one of Michael Ignatieff's most important works, it is a work that should be valued by democratic societies the world over. Here, Mr. Ignatieff argues that judicial and legislative review are the only roadblocks in the way of the State ramming through destructive laws that strip away our freedoms in the name of safeguarding the People. If a government is allowed to operate in secret, it will be secretive. If a government is allowed to torture, it will torture. If a government is allowed to suspend the inalienable rights of its citizens, it will suspend those rights. There will always be emergencies and emergencies will always send governments reaching for extraordinary powers, for the preservation of the People and for the preservation of itself.

These are but some of the many reasons why the other branches of the State must have the power to hold government accountable for its actions, to remind it what is lawful and what is not. Governments are creatures of expedience which must be balanced out by institutions that hold the long view. Otherwise, there will only be the erosion of freedoms and the degradation of the rule of law, all in the name of national security.> (4/5 Stars)

The Warrior's Honor by Michael Ignatieff

From The Week of September 20, 2009

Michael Ignatieff, currently the leader of the liberal opposition party in Canada, has been an author, an academic, a journalist and an intellectual. In The Warrior's Honor, he uses examples of recent ethnic conflicts to discuss the whys, the hows and the tragedies of war. Mr. Ignatieff is an eloquent thinker who, here, argues convincingly that the differences between people are almost always artificial, that powerful cadres within contentious societies create and then codify these differences as a means to their authoritarian ends. Mr. Ignatieff's account is lent considerable legitimacy by his having travelled to the conflicts about which he speaks so well, giving us first-hand accounts of his arguments. Even if you're ideologically opposed to Mr. Ignatieff's position, there is, in these essays, considerable food for thought. And after all, we learn nothing when we do not challenge our beliefs, our view of the world. (4/5 Stars)

Redemption Ark: Revelation Space 02 by Alastair Reynolds

From The Week of September 13, 2009

Redemption Ark pays off much of what Mr. Reynolds launched in Revelation Space. We learn more about the apocalyptic Inhibiters as their plans come to something like fruition. Meanwhile, the factions laid out in the first novel now fight for keeps in a war fundamentally about whether to stay and fight an alien race intent upon humanity's destruction, risking human civilization, or to flee to somewhere the Inhibiters will, or cannot, follow. All the whacky favorites from Revelation Space are back in Redemption Ark, ready for another pounding from the author who gave them life. (4/5 Stars)

Revelation Space: Revelation Space 01 by Alastair Reynolds

From The Week of September 13, 2009

This is undoubtedly the weirdest, grittiest and harshest novel of Science Fiction I've ever consumed. Does Mr.Reynolds sometimes overreach in an attempt to be cutting edge and interesting? Yes. But we can forgive him this sin when he generates such an involved book which spans a whole range of exotic locales, bizarre religions, and strange misfits. Mr. Reynolds career at the European Space Agency shines through as he attempts to adhere to certain inviolate laws of physics, while, in other areas, allowing his expansive imagination to run away with him, taking us on a journey into darkness, pain and discovery. (4/5 Stars)

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

From The Week of September 13, 2009

I do not give out five stars lightly -- I do have some professional standards --, however, the Talent Code is one of those books. It comes in at no more than 200 slim pages which is remarkable considering this is all it took for Daniel Coyle to overturn the way I thought about the brain and the way it learns. Though I imagine much of this science has been disputed in the past and will be disputed in the future, as we struggle towards an all-encompassing model of the brain and its functionality, Mr. Coyle's arguments here about the biomechanics of learning are fascinating and enlightening for anyone even mildly interested in the human capacity to learn and achieve. I cannot more highly recommend this book to parents, siblings, and or those simply curious about their own potential. (5/5 Stars)

Born To Run by Chris McDougall

From The Week of September 13, 2009

Superficially, Born to Run is an expose of a tribe of Mexican runners who are capable of extraordinary feats of strength and endurance, not to mention the lengths to which American promoters are willing to go to capitalize on their secrets and publicize their talents. However, underneath this premise is a powerful story about a lifelong runner seeking help for a body giving out on him and the radical hopes offered to him by people living on the fringe of society. Populated by charming characters, fascinating science and interesting historical facts, Mr. McDougall (Mens Health magazine) has forged here a lovely tale about dreams and unintended consequences that I would recommend to anyone interested in extreme pursuits.

For all its quality however, I will remember this book mostly for Mr. McDougall's thorough savaging of Nike's effort to create the perfect running shoe and the extent to which their obsession to sell product has negatively impacted the health of countless runners they claim to be helping. (5/5 Stars)

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

From The Week of September 13, 2009

Endurance is a chronicle of an expedition, captained by Ernest Shackleton, which attempted to navigate the Antarctic by sea via the Southern Pole. Launched from Britain in 1914, Mr. Shackleton would not again see his homeland for three years, watching as his carefully planned and highly publicized mission was literally torn apart by polar pack ice which forced him to abandon ship and journey, with the remains of his crew, to safety. The suffering these men endured in the name of adventure is astonishing. I recommend endurance with a dose of your favorite warm beverage to ward off the lethal chill which wafts from these pages. (4/5 Stars)

Princep's Fury: Codex Alera 05 by Jim Butcher

From The Week of September 06, 2009

None of the books in this series go so far as Princep's Furyto show off the extent to which Mr. Butcher planned out his high epic. And even though, by now, most of these secrets are obvious to the attentive reader, their staging is entertaining and engrossing. Unfortunately, Princep's Fury is too much of a deviation from the central plot of the series, as if Mr. Butcher reconsidered how he wished to end his story. Shunting the conclusion off to a sixth volume, just so the reader can endure more devastation and witness more bloodshed, is a fairly pointless exercise. (2/5 Stars)

Captain's Fury: Codex Alera 04 by Jim Butcher

From The Week of September 06, 2009

If Cursor's Fury was the most disappointing of the series, Captain's Fury is arguably the most rewarding. Events in Alera are now well afoot, with few prime movers without blood on their hands. Tavi's training in cursor's pays off in the series' best scene, near the climax of this volume, a scene I consider one of the best pieces of fantasy fiction I've ever read. Captain's Fury is, in many ways, the culmination of the series. The story will continue, but this is where the series pays off, with its conclusion almost obvious from this point forward. (4/5 Stars)

Cursor's Fury: Codex Alera 03 by Jim Butcher

From The Week of September 06, 2009

This is the most frustrating and unrewarding of the Codex Alera novels. Though it lays down important groundwork for the instalments to come and is, in that sense, valuable, there is here a problem that plagues Epic Fantasy authors, particularly Robert Jordan. How do you fill in the time while your main characters grow into their roles? Mr. Butcher settles for a civil war which divides and devastates much of Alera. While this rebellion pays off much of the machinations from the first two novels, Cursor's Fury suffers from the absence of Tavi and Kitai who are the driving forces of this series.

Everyone loves a good supporting cast, but they are supporting cast for a good reason. They cannot, themselves, carry a story. Rarely has this affliction been more apparent than in this piece. (2/5 Stars)