Waywords Book Reviews
Quick Takes on My Reading SteveAtWaywords on Storygraph Steve Chisnell on GoodreadsEver since I retired from the public school classroom, I have voraciously been consuming titles new and those I regretted missing. And in keeping with my goals, I want to find the value of the widest range of reading. Here are many, rating them based upon their own purpose or ambition.
“The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.”
–Oscar Wilde
Quoted in Oscar Wilde, Art and Morality: A Defence of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Stuart Mason (ed.) (1908)
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Myung Mi Kim: “Commons”
A powerful reading of uncertainty and ambiguity, of a speaker traumatized but able to re-assemble fragments.
Drezner: “Theories of Intl Politics and Zombies”
Looking for a great book that applies zombies to the world today? Or are you looking for a book that introduces the concepts of international political theory memorably? Keep looking.
Mark Greif: “Against Everything”
While parts of Greif’s book have not aged well (or are a bit culturally deaf), much of his questioning is spot on, and we should be challenging ourselves to confront our irrational obsessions.
Samuel R. Delany: “Empire Star”
Delany once again bends the reader’s mind through a first-person alien PofV in this unexpectedly clever adventure story!
Charles Soule: “The Oracle Year”
This fast-paced comic-patterned novel is more about its chase scenes and old character types than any real exploration of its premise.
Aeschylus: “Prometheus Bound”
Sure, we know the basics of the story, but the reading reveals far more about the nature of power and the principles of loyalty , the methods of governance and the providence of resistance.
Daniel Clowes: “Ghost World”
Clowes’s graphic novel almost decides to settle on a narrative idea, but is mostly a rambling and mean-spirited series of hopelessness and downward punching sold as comedy or satire. The film, also by Clowes, repairs much of this.
John Ashbery: “Breezeway”
Don’t forget to put some kind of excerpt here! Use it for social media.
Lisa See: “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”
Melo-dramatic romantic work into China’s older upper class of foot wrapping and class struggle. A peephole into this tiny space of China’s vast story is both trite and disappointing in narrative.
Geetanjali Shree: “Tomb of Sand”
Stunning commentary of aging, gender, perception, and more through remarkable language play and magical realism. Slow down and enjoy what unfolds!
Marge Piercy: “Woman on the Edge of Time”
Piercy’s 1970s work anticipates and moves forward today’s attitudes on gender and sexuality, environment and lifestyle, though the story itself struggles to align itself with that significance.
Barbara Kingsolver: “Small Wonder”
Kingsolver’s collection–while over 20 years old now and occasionally quaint in its positions–still feels fresh, vital, and more and more necessary.
Vikings! Classic Works
Grab a log by the campfire for two raunchy and outlandish tales of old world heroes, giants, and magic. And the two brief historical documents that relate Leif Erikson’s journey are both quite approachable.
Yasunari Kawabata: “Palm-of-the-Hand-Stories”
Not short fiction exactly, but moments for reflection, written across the poetic author’s lifetime from the 1920s to the 1970s. A fascinating collection for a slow reading.
Aldous Huxley: “Ape and Essence”
Huxley’s follow-up to “Brave New World” replaces the seeming benign society with a post-nuclear apocalypse examination of morality. The layered psychedelic experimental fiction is often a miss, but the raw story proposes some distressing questions for all of us.