Archive for The Book Bum - page 9

The Lower River by Paul Theroux

The Lower River by Paul Theroux

Theroux, Paul. The Lower River, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2012 (336pp.$25) As a young man Paul Theroux spent a number of years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the squalor of Malawi, a landlocked African country squeezed between Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. A writer possessed…

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Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis

Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis

Amis, Martin. Lionel Asbo: State of England, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012 (255pp.$29.95) Critical abuse and his own mercurial temperament have made Martin Amis the permanent bad boy of English letters, even though he is 62 years old and lives mostly in America. Amis…

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The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck

The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck

Buck, Rinker. The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2015 (450pp. $28.00) Originally known by mountain men, Army scouts and commercial wagon masters as  “The Great Platte River Road”, the Oregon Trail (after 1842 or so) consisted of a spidery…

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All That Is by James Salter

All That Is by James Salter

Salter, James. All That Is, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013 (290pp.$26.95) James Salter’s first novel in 35 years opens on the deck of a destroyer during the battle for Okinawa in 1944, when young Lieutenant jg Philip Bowman observes his bunkmate Kimmel jump from…

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Being Nixon: A Man Divided by Evan Thomas

Being Nixon: A Man Divided by Evan Thomas

Thomas, Evan. Being Nixon: A Man Divided, Random House, New York, 2015 (619pp.$35) When Nixon was at Whittier College, a small Quaker institution in southern California, he dated a stunner named Ola Florence, who was socially precocious and, in photos, looks pretty much sexually wiser…

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The Sorrows of the Digital Age: A Bibliography on Reading, Spirituality and Focus

The Sorrows of the Digital Age: A Bibliography on Reading, Spirituality and Focus

The sorrows of the digital age include—distraction, lack of focus, continual serial partial attention and the loss of individuality. All of this is, for me, bound up with reading and spirituality. Here’s what I’ve been following lately on this subject. Distraction, Attention, Technology and Individuality:…

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Andrew’s Brain by E.L. Doctorow

Andrew’s Brain by E.L. Doctorow

Doctorow, E.L., Andrew’s Brain. Random House, New York, 2014 (200pp. $26)  (E.L. Doctorow, one of America’s greatest writers, died recently.  Here is a review of one of his last books) The bedrock of fiction is social reality. Mostly we readers expect fictional characters to resemble…

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Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

Finnegan, William. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, Penguin Press, New York, 2015 (447pp.$27.95) The impassioned surfer is a disciplined fanatic. Leaving everyday life behind, the disciplined fanatic abandons family, career, common comforts, romantic love, and even good health in a monomaniacal search for some “ur-experience”,…

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All The Time in the World by E.L. Doctorow

All The Time in the World by E.L. Doctorow

Doctorow, E.L. All the Time in the World: New and Selected Stories, Random House, New York, 2011 (277pp.$26)  (E.L. Doctorow, one of our great American writers, died recently.  In his honor, here is a review of one of his books.) A great short story is…

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The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew B. Crawford

The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew B. Crawford

Crawford, Matthew B. The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming and Individual in an Age of Distraction, Farrar Straus and Giroux, New York, 2015 (305pp.$26)   “distracted from distraction by distraction…” “Burnt Norton” T.S. Eliot Distraction and worry are the default modes of human consciousness,…

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