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Sunday’s Reviews

Written on: August 9th, 2010 in Blog Posts

Featured reviews from this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review include:

• Packing for Mars: the Curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach, whose “unflinching eye for repellent details” has made her a well-known and lively populizer of science. Here, Roach takes on space travel and the quest to develop the technology to enable a manned expedition to Mars.
• Gary Shteyngart’s new novel Super Sad True Love Story is a comic social satire, a science fiction and “would-be vampire story”. This title is also available as a digital audio download for Delaware Library Catalog patrons at this link
• Golden Gate: the Life and Times of America’s Greatest Bridge by Kevin Starr is an “exultant, discursive, and strange little book.” The reviewer thought that it could have done with a little more fact-checking and objectivity, but in the end “it seems unfair to nitpick a love letter.”
• Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus discusses what we could accomlish- economically and creatively- if we turned off our televisions.
• Susan Isaac’s new novel As Husband’s Go is a literary mystery crowded with fun characters
• Randy Schmidt’s Little Girl Blue: the Life of Karen Carpenter explores the tragic death of the pop icon “without sensationlism and undue finger pointing.”
• 97 Orchard: an Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement brings to life the struggles of new Americans through Jane Ziegelman’s exploration of their cuisine and foodways.

Finally, well worth a read- Pamela Paul’s essay on adults who love to read Young Adult fiction. Count me in as one of those!