Book 2 – Neuromancer by William Gibson

The sky above the port was the color of a television, tuned to a dead channel. The poll brought in a three-way tie and we are going to go with the book ranked highest in the master list. Neuromancer wins by appearing on six of the twenty-four lists. In his All-TIME 100 Novels review of … Continue reading

Book 1.4 If on a winter’s night… The Male Gaze

The main character in If on a winter’s night a traveler is “You,” the reader. As I wrote before, this isn’t unlike the old Choose Your Own Adventure books where the hero was actually “You,” the person reading the book. (Some other books that do the “second-person” thing are Robbins’ Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas … Continue reading

Book 1.1 If on a winter’s night a traveler

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate.     This is a blog about books, about reading them and understanding the writers who write them. I remember a line that Stephen King (who makes it into this blog’s canon by a whisker) wrote … Continue reading