Challenger Deep Neal Shusterman National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Nominee (2015) Okay, wow. I’m not even sure how to articulate my experience with this book, because Shusterman’s Challenger Deep is not just a book you read. It’s a book you end up having a relationship with, an experience. It’s intense. I cried. Twice.…
Review: Why ‘Pax Technica’ Is A Good Book with a Bad Argument
Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up Philip N. Howard Yale University Press The Internet of Things may set us free, or lock us up, but Pax Technica won’t give much insight into how either eventuality will occur, mostly because it seems like the author isn’t particularly…
Sociopaths at the Beach: Scottoline’s “Every Fifteen Minutes”
Back when I worked as a medical board prosecutor, I ran into my share of sociopaths. They were often charming, smiling people, adept at manipulating you into doing their bidding. They could be ingratiating and manipulative, flatterers and charmers. Then the request would come. It might be a small favor, or a demand too big…
‘Behind Every Great Man’ Brings You Bite-Sized Portraits Of Forgotten Women
Behind Every Great Man: The Forgotten Women Behind the World’s Famous and Infamous by Marlene Wagman-Geller, offers a collection of short biographies, usually six to ten pages, of the wives of famous men. From Johanna Bertha Julie Jenny von Westphalen (aristocratic wife of Karl Marx) to Eva Gabrielsson (common-law wife of Stieg Larsson), from artists…
Sex, Death and Despair: A Review of “Princess Shanyin”
“It was all mixed up for him — sex and death and despair. It was all mixed up for me as well. It always had been.” This is as perfect a quote to encapsulate Princess Shanyin: The Complete Obsession Saga by Liliana Lee (aka Jeannie Lin) as exists. This historical erotic romance (which is, actually,…
‘Betrayed,’ Lisa Scottoline’s Newest, Is Timely Yet Classic
Timing is everything. At the heart of Betrayed, the latest offering in the Rosato & Associates legal thriller series is the plight of the undocumented immigrant. With limited amnesty looming, Scottoline’s latest offering may benefit from growing awareness of the millions working in the shadows with few legal protections and the constant threat of deportation.…
‘The Marshmallow Test’ Teaches You Real-Life Self Control. Maybe.
A 5-year-old is seated at a table in an empty room. Before her are two plates: one with a single marshmallow, and another with two, and next to the treats is a bell. An adult tells her that she has two choices: She can wait until the adult returns, and get two marshmallows, or she…
There Is No Reason For You To Read ‘The Color Of Justice’
The latest book from Ace Collins, The Color of Justice, begins with a familiar meme – a small southern town in 1964, still segregated, still smothered in prejudice – a town where African-Americans don’t have paved streets and decent housing and certainly not equal opportunity. Then a white teen is brutally murdered and perhaps sexually…