Category: Book Reviews

On the Pleasure of Hating

On the Pleasure of Hating by William Hazlitt, 1/5

I started this book by accident, somehow confusing the author with the more frequently-quoted Walter Pater.  Of the six essays it contains, the last (for which the collection is named) seemed to me most interesting and unique.  It comments on the perceived propensity of humankind towards evil and the negative, but I was most interested by its cynical description of friendship.  The rest of the essays come across as editorials written by a well-read man of medium intellect, something that would appear in magazines of the day (1820s), but has little lasting value to offer.  Perhaps this explains the comment on Wikipedia that “his [Hazlitt’s] work is little read and mostly out of print,” somewhat at odds with the previous assertion that Hazlitt is “now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language.”

Now I Walk on Death Row

Now I Walk on Death Row by Dale S. Recinella, 3/5

This is the slightly depressing true story of a top-class Wall Street finance lawyer who gives up his career in order to minister to prisoners on death row.  What I found sad about the book was how guilty he felt about being rich (I don’t understand that, maybe it’s a rich person thing) and how his Catholic church seemed to challenge a vibrant relationship with God by its strict religious hierarchy and position between God and man.  The whole affair seemed more motivated by guilt, fear and shame than by peace, thankfulness and love for God.  That said, Recinella is a good storyteller and I devoured the book in one evening.

Stonehenge Decoded

Stonehenge Decoded by Gerald S. Hawkins, 2/5

I give this only 2/5 because it takes Hawkins well over half the book to finally introduce his point – that Stonehenge aligns with many important positions of the sun and moon and can predict eclipses.  This is the oldest example of a good magazine article making a bad book that I have come across.  However, Hawkins does provide a nice technical description of Stonehenge and his astronomical findings are impressive, though difficult to understand.

You Could Look it Up

You Could Look it Up by William Safire, 3/5

A fun collection of articles/reader responses to stimulate the inner, nitpicking grammar nazi.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, 4/5

This is a proper Victorian romance, full of melodrama, moralizing and mores (made to be broken by spunky heroines).  It reads a bit like the diary of a teenager whose sole literary diet consists of  Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. The conversations are a little too elaborate, the characters a little too saintly (or otherwise, devilish) and the ending a little too tidy.  These qualities lend it a kind of charm, which along with flashes of surprising wit, make this a hard book to put down

Surprised by Joy

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis, 5/5

Finding out that a couple fellow altos in choir are atheists made me want to rerereread Lewis’ compelling description of his philosophical journey from childhood, through atheism to Christianity.  So much of what he says resonates with me and I always find it incredibly encouraging that such an intellectually uncompromising, well-read person would eventually find all signs pointing to God.  I don’t love the book just because it supports my own religious convictions, though; I admire Lewis’ frank, disarming writing style and analytical approach to life.

Sun Tzu Was a Sissy

Sun Tzu Was a Sissy: Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War by Stanley Bing, 2/5

This is the kind of barely entertaining, slightly offensive rubbish that makes me marvel at the publishing standards of our age.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, 5/5

This novel is about the life of the diminutive, brilliant, earnest, prophetic, strangely-voiced, otherworldly Owen Meany, as seen through the eyes of his best friend.  Reading this book was the most surprising literary experience I’ve had since enjoying War and Peace.  I got it out of the library at the same time as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and unreasonably expected it to be similarly horrid.  However, unlike most modern authors I’ve experienced, Irving didn’t waste my time and leave me feeling dirty and insulted.  The writing was so good, the characters so strangely believable, and the situations so oddly beautiful that the whole endeavor seemed inspired.

Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective

Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective by Agatha Christie, 3/5

A collection of reasonably entertaining short stories.

The Power of One

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, 3/5

After an unpromising start (mostly consisting of a five-year-old boy thinking about his penis), this book presented a fairly interesting middle section before fizzling out with an anti-climatic, disappointingly shallow ending.  Music played a large part in the story, so it was annoying that Courtenay didn’t bother to to have a knowledgeable proof-reader fix some of the blatantly incorrect, laughably ignorant things he wrote on the topic.  This lack of skill made me doubt his credibility on other aspects of the story, such as boxing and South African history/politics.  I could see some people enjoying the book, but I found it off-putting and ultimately, disappointing.