Feb 28 2011

Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Cover of "Tales From Outer Suburbia"

Cover of Tales From Outer Suburbia

On one of our recent family treks to half-price books, I stumbled upon Shaun Tan‘s Tales From Outer Suburbia. This was one of those where both my wife and I were interested. She more for the illustrations and me for the short vignettes but both of us were intrigued by the combination.

I was vaguely aware of Tan but hadn’t read of owned any of his previous works. But the cover art and a peak inside pulled me in.

I was not disappointed. The book is full of mystery and whimsy; of foreboding and tragedy; of strangeness but joy as well. There is a unique combination of minimalism and depth to both the art work and the stories.

What works about these stories is what I find interesting about short stories, even though it is not my preferred format, they contain a depth that hints at “more” behind the story and yet they seem to capture just the right amount of the story on the page. They let the reader imagine what is off the page in a way that is thought provoking and satisfying somehow.

Keep Reading

By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Feb 26 2011

Public Service Announcement: reviews coming soon

Just for the record, new job and a big project has kept me from posting regular reviews.  Plan is to start catching up tomorrow.  I have fiction and non-fiction to review so stayed tuned.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

By Kevin Holtsberry • Site news • 0

Feb 22 2011

In the Mail: The Popes of Avignon

The Popes of Avignon: A Century in Exile

Library Journal

Mullins, an Oxford-educated journalist and visual arts and architecture specialist, spans the intriguing 70 years of the Avignon papacy with this highly readable narrative. By grounding the story in the architecture and artistic elements of Avignon and the surrounding area, he draws readers into this fascinating period of the church’s “Babylonian captivity.” Mullins effectively demonstrates the effects of the papacy on the area by contrasting current and past architecture. Although two standard works on this period were translated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Guillaume Mollatt’s The Popes at Avignon 1305-78 and Yves Renouard’s The Avignon Papacy, and although the triumphs and excesses of the 14th-century church are also well documented in general sources, this focused treatment is an excellent addition to church history collections. Suitable for academic and public libraries.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Feb 20 2011

In the Mail: Chasing the White Dog

Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventures in Moonshine

From Booklist

Although most of us associate moonshine with Prohibition and the cross-border gin runners of the 1920s, the first moonshiners actually were outlaws who protested the new tax on whiskey; this was in the 1790s, and it was such a serious rebellion that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton sent 13,000 troops into Pennsylvania to quash it. Moonshine is, in parts of the U.S., still a booming business and an important part of the economy of the South. Watman, a journalist and southerner, takes us on an exciting and often-eccentric ride through the history (and present) of the moonshine business, at the same time chronicling his own frequently disastrous efforts to produce home-grown alcohol. Written in a lively, you-are-there style, and featuring some truly out-of-left-field characters, the book is sure to entertain as it informs.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , ,

Feb 19 2011

In the Mail: I Is an Other

I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World

Publishers Weekly:

“Metaphorical thinking is the way we make sense of the world” and neurological research shows that humans experience pleasure when performing the “cognitive gymnastics” of deciphering metaphors to connect two dissimilar things, asserts Geary (The World in a Phrase) in a delightful examination that borrows for its title from a poem by Rimbaud, whose writing aimed to “upset conventional orders of perception.” Tests on people who do not understand metaphors, such as those with Asperger’s syndrome, uncover the roles that “mirror” and “Gnostic” neurons play in conceptual comprehension and long-term memory. Geary also analyzes how metaphors are used in advertising, scientific discoveries, economics, and politics. “Metaphors, once forgotten or ignored, are easily mistaken for objective facts,” he warns, showing how metaphor “surreptitiously infiltrates our purchasing decisions.” Voters, consumers, and investors interested in knowing how their decisions may be influenced by well-planned metaphors will be fascinated by Geary’s adept explication of the metaphor’s role in defining perceptions.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , ,

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