Day: April 1, 2006

I’ve wanted to see Howl’s Moving Castle for some time. When I did, I’m not sure what I saw. Original, bizarre, a wonderful mishmash of ideas and cultures, harkening especially to The Difference Engine, where William Gibson and Bruce Sterling looked at computers as they might have existed in Victorian England if Charles Babbage had…

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I found The Secret Ways (1959) the least appealing of the three Alistair MacLean books I read over vacation. Preachy and hardly believable, despite interesting opening pages. The movie did not a get a flattering review from the New York Times reviewer in 1961, who asked Is it possible, you wonder, that the shrill, broad…

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The next snack in my MacLean binge was Breakheart Pass (1974). Written for the movies (that’s where the link goes), Breakheart Pass runs along its (train) track and doesn’t stop for much. I recognized immediately that I had read it before, but no matter. I think the movie might be enjoyable, since the book felt…

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During my vacation, I went on an Alistair MacLean binge. The first of the three tales I polished off was Ice Station Zebra (1963). If you read MacLean, you read for the action. Ice Station Zebra hits on that count. Yet the first-person smug narration was more emblematic in this one. I haven’t been reading…

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When I’m posting about books, I always think back to Phoebe-Lou Adams from The Atlantic Monthly. Phoebe-Lou is no longer with us, sadly. I did not know her very well, as I was at the magazine quite late in her career, and I was (frankly) a bit intimidated by someone 60 years my elder. Yet,…

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The New York Times article :Death by Smiley Face: When Rivals Disdain Profit” muses on how businesses must now compete with those who are not motivated first and foremost by money. Whatever I think about this from a media point of view, I think it’s a nifty part of 21st century life that enough people…

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