Book Reviews

Editor's Note: The following are all essays about actual books. Any review under http://www.thesatirist.com/books is a genuine critical work or review.

For reviews of imaginary works, see Satires under http://www.thesatirist.com/satires

Reviews by Subject

An Accidental Family -- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Powerful, underrated portrait of adolescence in crisis.

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare -- Henry Miller.

Henry Miller's On The Road.

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland -- Lewis Carroll

Fun classic, but slightly over-rated.

The Celestine Prophecy -- James Redfield

New Age Piffle

A Clockwork Orange -- Anthony Burgess

Interesting little book would've been forgotten but for Kubrick’s movie.

Cracking India -- Bapsi Sidhwa

An engaging and extremely well-written story of a young girl growing up in Pakistan, at the time of the partition of India.

The Corrections. -- Jonathan Franzen

A funny, convincing portrait of an American family at the end of the 20th century.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues -- Tom Robbins

Clever words, no story. Read Skinny Legs and All

The Crying Of Lot 49 --Thomas Pynchon. Thomas Pynchon's short satire of the distortion of communication. September, 2002

The Fourth Hand --John Irving

John Irving must have quickly dashed off and polished this funny, feather-light book. October, 2001

The Handmaid's Tale -- Margaret Atwood

Compelling Feminist Negative Utopia.

Hapworth 16, 1924 -- J.D. Salinger

In this 30,000 word letter, young Seymour Glass asks his parents to send him 40 volumes at summer camp (including all of Proust) because his 5 year old brother Buddy needs to reread them before starting kindergarten!

Life After God -- Douglas Coupland

Gen-X Fast Food

Look Homeward, Angel -- Thomas Wolfe

Beautiful passages, pasted together by Scribners editor Max Perkins.

Outer Dark -- Cormac McCarthy

McCarthy's vision is unrelentingly dark.

The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Oscar Wilde

An interesting idea, but kind of icky.

A Prayer for Owen Meany -- John Irving

The Sorrow of American Sports. Another funny John Irving production.

A Son of the Circus -- John Irving

Hilarious as anything he's written. Strong story.

Swann's Way -- Marcel Proust

Graceful, but too long. I concur with the publisher who said: "I fail to see why it takes thirty pages to describe a man turning over in bed." Yet the Swann-Odette courtship is a profound meditation on desire.

Vineland -- Thomas Pynchon

America as a "Scabland Garrison State"

A Widow For One Year -- John Irving

Hilarious opening is not sustained.

Winesburg, Ohio -- Sherwood Anderson

Nice stories, quite saucy for their time.

Plays

The Cocktail Party -- T.S. Eliot

A play with rhythmic dialogue, and ponderous themes. Eliot’s Iceman Cometh

Philosophy

The Genealogy Of Morals -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche's greatest work, featuring sustained arguments rather than incisive fragments.

Man's Search for Meaning -- Viktor Frankl

Frankl's Logotherapy School (discovering our purpose heals us) was inspired by Frankl's own experience as a concentration camp survivor.

Parables of Kierkegaard -- Soren Kierkegaard

More readable than most philosophy. Kierkegaard's fascinating, little stories illustrate his theories.

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature -- Richard Rorty

For Rorty, philosophy is one part of a changing cultural dialogue that will always address the questions of one era, without having answered any previously asked philosophical questions.

The Psychoanalytic Movement -- Ernest Gellner

Probing and hilarious critique of the West's embrace of psychoanalysis to describe behavior and emotion.

Religion

The Book of J -- Harold Bloom

Genesis is great literature, not the intended foundation of world religions.

The Four Noble Truths -- The Dalai Lama

Excellent summary of Buddhist tenets

The Gnostic Gospels -- Elaine Pagels

Controversial history of early Christianity

The Gospel According To Jesus -- Stephen Mitchell

A noted translator's attempt to identify the authentic sayings of Jesus, and uncover their spiritual meaning.

The Kabbalah of Money -- Rabbi Nilton Bonder