Looper's Delight Archive Top (Search)
Date Index
Thread Index
Author Index
Looper's Delight Home
Mailing List Info

[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index][Thread Index][Author Index]

RE: o.t. READING



The Happiness Myth, by Jennifer Michael Hecht. Non-fiction. A philosopher/historian deconstructs happiness and notices the glaring lack of eternal truths and preponderance of fad ideas. This woman really does think outside the box. Fascinating, and maybe in some ways life-changing.

 

Nothing great in fiction lately – every suspense-ish book I pick up for light reading is either a riff on the Da Vinci Code (secret sects, ancient mysteries, weird creeps lurking in medieval church basements) or involves a secret cabal of right-wing radicals inside the US govt. who want to destroy the Muslim world. These are the “bad guys”, but the author clearly sympathizes. Yuck. (I’m not kidding – two books in a row like this, include the most recent from Nelson DeMille, who I thought more of than this).

 

However, I will reiterate something I put up here about a year ago – best fiction I’ve read in the last 5 years: The Time-Traveler’s Wife. More an epic romance than science-fiction, it nonetheless offers a different perspective on the central theme of all time-travel books: predestination vs. free will. The twist: the protagonist doesn’t build a time machine; instead, time travel happens to him suddenly, randomly, against his will.

 

Thanks for all the recommendations, folks. I’m looking forward to checking out a few of them.

 

Warren