Ripley asks “Will you be my friend?”
What do some of these books have in common: Charlotte’s Web, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Bridge to Terabithia, Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books, Holes, Maniac Magee, and just about every one of the American Girl books. Two things right off the bat come to mind. First, they are all children’s or young adult fiction. Second, they … Continue reading
Judging a Reader by Her Book Cover
Last winter, while at a ski lodge, I saw a mother in her forties sitting at one of those long tables by herself while her kids were on the slopes. She was hunched over a copy of a book from the Twilight series. This was not itself interesting. What was interesting was how hard she … Continue reading
Final Thoughts on Neuromancer
The title had me worried. Neuromancer is, no question, a silly name for a book. It conjures (har har) images of terrible scifi/fantasy paperback cover art like this: Fortunately, this is a novel whose author took more cues from Raymond Chandler, William S. Burroughs, and Rene Descartes than from The Werwile of the Crystal Crypt. Though … Continue reading
Silly Reader, Sci-Fi is for Kids
I have a dear friend, a lady. She is dating a swell guy who also blogs — and he does a bang-up job of it. My dear friend had, I recall, a proviso set out at the start of their relationship: Her guy had to be cool with sci-fi. She’s totally geeked on the stuff … Continue reading
Letters Republic 