— 1 — Nonlinear Computers …a nonlinear computer weighing only 160 pounds, having a billion binary decision elements, that can be mass produced by unskilled labor. —Scott Crossfield’s description of an astronaut THE CAPTAIN SPAT OUT A HANK OF MY HAIR and swore. “Star, either you tie up that mess or I take a knife…
Because you can never have too many of these. Go to GiantMicrobes.com and choose Microbe (Black Death? gonorrhea?), Scientific Name (borella burgdorferi?), and Category (alimentary? corporeal?). You won’t be sorry.
— 1 — Homecoming and Housekeeping There is no land uninhabitable or sea unnavigable. —Robert Thorne MY FULL NAME IS Esther Natasha Svensdotter but if you want to live you’ll call me Star. Star is what Esther means, it was the first word I ever said, and when I’m feeling romantic I like to say…
Sniper's Honor by Stephen Hunter
Retired sniper Bob Lee Swagger (love the name) gets a call from journalist friend Kathy Reilly, who is writing a story on a Russian female sniper in World War II called the White Witch. The scene shifts to World War II and the sniper herself, along with her boss and her target. As her story unfolds in alternate chapters, we follow Bob and Kathy in the present day as they rediscover her story, one of love and war and fanaticism and betrayal, with front row seats to battles that will leave your eyes watering from the smoke of the guns. Man, can this guy write shoot-outs. The best one is in the present day between Bob and Kathy and those who would really they rather not find out the truth about the White Witch, thanks, which ambush echoes on a smaller scale the one that happened sixty years before. Both are nail-bitingly realistic. Hunter can plot, too, but I won't spoil. Every ending in this book (I think there are about six but I lost count) will make you alternately gasp and cheer. This is the book Robert Ludlum only wished he could write.
# Permanent link to This is the book Robert Ludlum only wished he could write.
(more…)
So want some.
Stet: An Editor's Life by Diana Athill
This book, to borrow a phrase from John le Carre, wears many hats upon its head. First, it's a word picture of publishing as it used to be, or at least was sometime, somewhere, and I think almost inadvertently a parallel portrait of working women post-war. The first half is a personal narrative of Athill's life as an editor, and the second remembrances of individual writers she edited, the most compelling (and appalling) chapter of which is on Jean Rhys*.
The story began with my father telling me: 'You will have to earn your living.'
she writes, and then goes on to fill in her background, one of privileged, upper class English country life filled with horses and books. She fell passionately in love in her teens with a young British officer who then dumped her, which experience she says scarred her emotionally for life. Sorry if I sound a little skeptical here, but really, she was 17 years old when her doomed romance commenced. Get over it, kid.
# Permanent link to ‘You will have to earn your living.’
The Wind off the Small Isles by Mary Stewart
More of a short story than a novel, I would recommend this only for Mary Stewart completionists and those who are traveling to Lanzarote. Her descriptions of the landscape of these volcanic islands are as immediate and evocative as anything she ever wrote about Crete or Corfu.
# Permanent link to For Mary Stewart completionists.
[Updated, 2014 version.] This mini-interview originally appeared on the Sisters in Crime Blog on December 6, 2010. SinC: Is there anything you'd never leave home without? DS: The thumb drive my books are backed up on. [Update: Stet.] SinC: What do you wish you had more time for? DS: Travel. [Update: Reading recreationally. As in…
Read more “Is there anything you’d never leave home without?”