reviews

Words and wine... Author:  Leslie Jamison Ethanol.  It’s one of the simplest organic molecules, but its innocent appearance hides the fact that just a bit of it dissolved in the human blood stream can have profound consequences.  Since the dawn of civilization, people have struggled against its seductive powers, often failing to control it. Leslie Jamison is one who has struggled more than most, building a fragile world with alcohol at its center.  She tells her story with unique tenacity and unrelenting honesty in The Recovering. The book gets off to a tough start.  Having enjoyed her previous collection of [...]

T.J. Eckleburg and the Great American Icarus Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald As many of you know, my book obsession cannot be satiated, nor can a project I started several years ago ever truly be finished: an attempt to read through all of the “missed” classics – those books you should have read and have endlessly heard about yet somehow were never assigned in school. Partially going off a random eBay list, and partially off recommendations, I’ve made some steady progress and discovered some jewels. What I didn’t expect, when coming to the well-known and universally touted Great Gatsby, was that I [...]

Fly away home... Author:  Fredrik Sjöberg  It’s a story of obsession.  An obsession with rather small things to be accurate.  But from small things truly entertaining books can arise.  Hidden away on a small island – about 15 square kilometers to be exact – entomologist and writer Fredrik Sjöberg spends his days wandering Runmarö in the Stockholm archipelago, searching for a particular kind of fly.  Reveling in isolation, rumination and buzzing things, The Fly Trap is an engaging look at one man’s very Swedish life. They’re called hoverflies – scientifically known as the family Syrphidae – and there are about six [...]