1993 Wunderfool Reading List

Rating Guide

**** Stop reading this review and get this book *** Definitely worth your time ** Not bad, but not a must-read, either * Better than reading the shampoo label, maybe no stars Reading this may damage your brain

MOTS = More Of The Same (Not necessarily bad. See previous reviews of same author.)

1. *** The Unexpected Mrs. Polifax, Dorothy Gilman. The first Polifax story. Wasn't too bad, either. More character development than I would expect in the typical spy novel, but then again, other than Buckley I don't read spy novels.
2. ** Fletch, Confess, Fletch, and Fletch's Fortune, Gregory MacDonald. I finally got around to reading this collection. Very entertaining, all fluff. Recommended reading for escapists.
3. ** Modern Baptists, James Wilcox. Precursor to Miss Undine's Living Room. Fairly decent. I laughed a few times. Most people probably wouldn't find it that captivating, but I enjoyed it.
4. *** Uncle Fred in the Springtime, P.G. Wodehouse. I discovered the library has lots of Wodehouse that I've never seen. This one is amusing but not up to Wooster standards.
5. *** Tucker's Last Stand, William F. Buckley, Jr. The latest (as far as I know) Blackford Oakes novel. Pretty good, although it's more about Tucker than Oakes. And the question: Is this the last one?
6. *** The Brinkmaship of Galahad Threepwood, P. G. Wodehouse. Quite hilarious. I laughed out loud several times, once for almost 5 minutes. Recommend reading.
7. *** The Honorary Consul, Graham Greene. A 1973 novel set in Argentina. It was quite good. One of the better, I think, but not necessarily recommended reading for the casual reader.
8. **** The De-valuing of America, William Bennet. Excellent book, especially the first two chapters on education. He quoted Flannery O'Connor, G. K. Chesterton, Robertson Davies, and C. S. Lewis, among others. Recommended reading.
9. ** The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge, Harry Harrison. An amusing piece of fluff. I read it because I need to have something for Daniel to move into once he bleeds L'Amour dry.
10. *** Parnnasus on Wheels, Christopher Morley. The prequel to The Haunted Bookshop. I would have read it first if I could have found it. I found the set in Golden's in excellent condition, so I traded in my old copy and bought the set. These books are very good. I would put it on the recommended reading list, but not the must read list. The first one does a good job of advocating books without being too preachy. The second doesn't escape that fate, but it compensates with a fairly modern plot. Both were written in the second decade of the 20th century but are none the worse for wear.
11. **** Apostle from Space, Gordon Harris. My entry in the Worst Book Ever Published competition. I read this atrocity many years ago, but I loaned it to The Mouse for his amusement and he moved to San Francisco without returning it. I asked several times but he hasn't come through. When I was in Golden's frantically looking for something to fill up my book credit I found two copies of this blighter for 25 cents each and bought them both. The only thing I can say for it is the spelling is good.
12. *** The Man Who Was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton. Excellent satire and allegory. The Chesterton penchant for paradox takes the ending by storm. Recommend reading.
13. ** A Stainless Steel Rat is Born, Harry Harrison. More fluff, but it seems that the material is not unsuitable for Daniel to read, which was the reason why I was reviewing it. I don't know if I'll read the other three I got or not. I wish I could find the first one in the series.
14. * Know Why You Believe, Little. This book is quite inadequate to deal with any informed objections to Christianity. It's okay for those who don't need a rigorous defense of the reasonable foundations for Christianity. Its greatest strengths are the passages that refer to the evidence of changed lives.
15. ** The Stainless Steel Rat, Harry Harrison. I finally got this one on inter-library loan from Austin. It was much like the others.
16. *** Beyond Dignity and Freedom, B. F. Skinner. A rather startling book from 1971 laying out the basic foundation of Skinner's views on behavior. Skinner takes a materialist view of the world and pushes it to the limit, claiming that there is no reason to appeal to such intangibles as free will, feelings, or the mind to explain human behavior. Instead, he claims all behavior can be explained by what he calls contingencies of reinforcement. Behavior that is rewarded, or reinforced, is strengthened. Behavior that results in aversive situations is weakened or experiences extinction. This basic principle, according to Skinner, can explain all of human behavior. So, you don't run away because you feel afraid. The fear is a byproduct, irrelevant at best, illusion at worst. It is previous reinforcement of escaping aversive results that causes the behavior, not the feeling. And so on. Skinner has a point when he says that the study of human behavior has to abandon the concept of 'autonomous man' if it wants to achieve the level of science that the physical sciences have achieved. Physical science had to ignore the possible intervention of an indeterminate factor (God) in order to discover the principles that govern the interaction of atomic particles. An assumption had to be made that completely observable principles could account for the behavior of matter. As long as intent and will was ascribed to matter, science couldn't progress to explain our world. Skinner claims that human mind, will, and emotion are equally indeterminate factors that must be discarded or ignored as causal factors in the study of human behavior. Not only must they be discarded, they can be without losing anything essential in explaining behavior.
17. **** Sandro of Chegum, Fazil Iskander. This is the book that precedes The Gospel According to Chegum. Both books were translated and printed in the US in the 70's but had not, at that time, been printed in the Soviet Union. There is no mystery why this guy was one of the most popular writers in Russia at that time, or, as the book describes him a non-Russian writing in Russian. He may still be highly popular, for all I know. He tempers the characteristic Russian introspection and reflection with gentle humor and satire. It's not going to be made into a film with Stallone or Bruce Willis any time soon, but it makes for some great reading. In this book there are two particularly good stories. "Belshazzar's Feast" is a riveting tale of Stalin's terrifying personality and the dangerous and humiliating tight-rope that those aspiring to power had to walk. It's almost like Greene's The Bomb Party only Stalin vacillated between tenderness and sadism, whereas Dr. Fischer had no redeeming qualities at all. The other great story is "The Tale of Khabug's Mule" which is a bitter-sweet study in the effect of communism and collectivism on the land-owning peasant. It's interesting to see that the analysis from the inside echoes a lot of my impressions from the outside. I highly recommend both of Iskander's books, but it is doubtful that any but dedicated readers are going to be willing to pick up a 'Russian' author, particularly if the TV is still working.
18. *** Dr. Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party, Graham Greene. Excellent short novel written in 1980. It is rather dark with a very occasional streak of humor in the first half which fades out completely by the middle of the book. Recommended reading.
19. **** The Complete Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton. A 990 page collection of all 51 Father Brown Stories, including The Innocence of Father Brown, The Wisdom of Father Brown, The Incredulity of Father Brown, The Secret of Father Brown, and The Scandal of Father Brown. Father Brown is great stuff, as good as or better than Holmes in my taste, because of the spiritual overtones and the use of paradox. As one introduction said, Chesterton's doxy wasn't ortho or hetero, it was para. In addition to generally satisfying mysteries (which is a given in something so successful) there is the practical impracticality of Brown who speaks in riddles and parables and paradoxes. (A habit that would be infuriating in actual practice but is quite entertaining in literature.) He works by intuition and always considers the lowest common denominator of the human soul, unlike Holmes who approaches detection as a science of logic and reasoning. As often as not, Brown will offer the murderer or thief confession and a chance of restitution rather than hand him over to the police. And he punctures the haughty scientific arrogance of the pseudo-intellectual as well as the spiritual humbug. And he is replete with quotable lines. "Something terrible has befallen us. Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a man." "What do you mean?" "We have found the truth, and it makes no sense." Highly recommended reading for anyone.
20. *** Psmith, Journalist, P. G. Wodehouse. Not quite prime-time Wodehouse, but still very good. Didn't laugh out loud until page 57. Set in New York City. Characters actually had serious thoughts and morality to them, which is uncharacteristic. Perhaps this is early stuff. I'll have to check out a chronology of his stuff so I know about where in the scheme of his career a book fits while I'm reading it.
21. *** Dance Hall of the Dead, Tony Hillerman. More typical Hillerman. I didn't realize this stuff was written in the early 70's. At least, this one was. I hadn't planned on reading the Hillerman books I had bought anytime soon, but I was cleaning house Saturday and everybody left to run errands. I stepped out on the porch. The temperature was in the high 60's and it was raining and I thought, "What a great day to settle down with a murder mystery." So I left everything scattered all over the floor where I was trying to organize the junk in the living room and I dug out my pipe, filled it with Bourbon Vanilla, poured a shot of brandy to cut the edge off the pipe, and grabbed a mystery. There was an old chair on the porch and it didn't smell too bad, so I sat in it. I think it was something from Randy's apartment that Milly was hoping someone would steal off the porch. It was great, except the rain was a little out of character for a novel taking place in New Mexico on an Indian Reservation. I should have gotten a Dorthy Sayers or an Agatha Christie, but I didn't see one.
22. *** The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor. I've been reading this thing off and on since the trip to Oregon. There's some very interesting and some very entertaining work in here, but the first half of the book eludes me. I would describe her style as Faulkner after he got out of de-tox. However, there are several stories that are a real scream, including "The Enduring Chill", "The Partridge Festival", and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" (although the last one is a bit of a shocker at the end, like most of O'Connor's stories). "Parker's Back" is good. One of my favorites, after the sarcastic portrayal of worthless sons who live off their mothers, is "The Artificial Nigger", which is an excellent study in betrayal and alienation. I'll definitely have to reread some of these stories in a year or so, along with hunting down her two novels.
23. **** Dave Barry Turns 40, Dave Barry. This is possibly the funniest thing I've read in 5 or 10 years. I laughed so hard in some places I thought I was going to have to call the paramedics to get me started breathing again. When Robin H. read my stuff she called it a cross between Garrison Keillor and Dave Barry. At that time I hadn't read any Dave Barry. Now I wonder if she hasn't seriously overestimated my talent! No way I'm as funny as this guy.
24. *** Dorothy L. Sayers: A Careless Rage for Life, David Coomes. A good biography. I got this one from Ken L. in exchange for computer work. I've got another biography of Sayers, but I don't remember who wrote it. Of course, I find the Wimsey and Lewis/St. Anne parts the most interesting. And her feeling that she was limited to reaching God through the intellect. Worth a read for Sayers fans.
25. ** The Fingerprint of God, Hugh Ross. An interesting book. Predominantly a history of cosmology concluding with all the overwhelming evidence for the big bang theory and therefore a finite beginning to the universe and therefore a beginning point which points to the need for a Creator. Not conclusive by any means, but the quotes from scientists who find the big bang theory 'philosophically repulsive' are revealing, particularly in the light of the assumption that scientists rely on the data and not their own biases. The lengths that some scientists went, speculating in the absence of or in contradiction to physical evidence was surprising. However, Ross' main point, in addition to the finite beginning of the universe, was that 16 billion years was too short a time for evolution to be mathematically possible. I think Dawkins addresses this point in The Blind Watchmaker with a convincing explanation (though not a proof, by any means) that it could have happened in the given time. It's been a few years since I read Dawkins and it's in storage right now, so I can't verify it conveniently. However, there is one approach used in this book that has the appearance of weight but really means very little. It's the point of all the parameters that, if changed only slightly in either direction, would render life impossible. Too many, according to Ross, to be a coincidence. The point is that changing these parameters would make life as we know it impossible, but there is no reason to think that life as we know it is the only possible life. I imagine there is no way to know what other forms life could take (silicon-based instead of carbon-based, for example), and the chances for that taking place. I must admit that his list is impressive, but I doubt that it goes very far toward proving anything.
26. ** The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You, Harry Harrison. More of the same, but this time he's got teenage kids. Fortunately they didn't figure in much of the story, because the beginning where they come in heavy is dripping with light, cute banter. We manage to lose the wife and kids early enough to keep the book interesting. Harrison has to be one of the masters at putting his protagonist in the worst possible situation and then making it worse. This time he is reduced to complete nudity and no weapons or tools at all (except for the carbon-steel ridges built into his teeth with which he cuts through the steel cable connecting him to the torture device). Great escapism with sappy sophist pacifist philosophy thrown in for no extra charge.
27. *** Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulgham. Starts off a bit sentimental for my tastes, but gets better after the first third or so. Quick and easy read, recommended especially for liberals.
28. *** Bend Sinister, Vladimir Nabakov. An early novel, the first I've read by Nabakov that I wouldn't be ashamed to have in the house. However, since it's a 2nd-hand paperback with the front cover torn off, I doubt if I'll keep it. It's not as well written as Lolita, or even King, Queen, Knave, but it has its moments. The scene where Krug goes to the Toad's office is hysterical. The ending is predictably morose, graphic, and fatalistic, and is rendered bizarre because of the drastic juxtaposition of Krug's despair over his son's brutal death and the absurd, almost comic, offers of compensation from the government.
29. *** Discovering the Heart of a Man, Ken Nair. His first book, Discovering the Mind of a Woman, was better, but this one improves as it goes. The last half is the best. Still the same revolutionary ideas.
30. *** Mrs. Polifax and the Whirling Dervish, Dorothy Gilman. MOTS
31. ** Careers for Bookworms and Other Literary Types, Marjorie Eberts and Margaret Gisler. Mildly interesting survey. Almost all the careers are mid to low paying.
32. **** Discovering the Mind of a Woman, Ken Nair. Decided to re-read this classic. Still as revolutionary and challenging as it was 10 years ago.
33. **** The First Rumple Omnibus, John Mortimer. Contains three books, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Trials of Rumpole, and The Return of Rumpole, the first and last of which I had already read, but I read them all anyway. Mortimer's plots are quite transparent, you usually know exactly what's going to happen and whodunit (or who didn't dunit, specifically, Rumpole's client) but the writing is great. Sort of a post-modern Wodehouse. Recommended reading for anyone with a sense of humor.
34. *** Dorothy and Agatha, Gaylord Larsen. An excellent mystery featuring the best female mystery writers of England, Sayers and Christie. From what I've read of Sayers (two biographies) the characterization of her was excellent. The mystery was well crafted, too. Recommended reading for mystery buffs.
35. ** Three Scientists and Their Gods, Robert Wright. Interesting book, fairly well written, although the author interjects himself into the picture, sort of 'new journalism' style. When I get Hofstadter's book out of storage I'll have to check and see if Fredkin is mentioned.
36. ** The Paradise War, Silver Hand, Stephen Lawhead. Not as good as his previous trilogy, of which I have only read 2/3 at present. I find myself wondering why he called his main character Lewis, making him an Oxford student of Celtic studies, and why he named a bad guy who only appears a few times Weston, who was the villain in parts one and two of Lewis' Space Trilogy. It seems a bit transparent, which is not the only weak point of this series. Today I go pick up part three and we shall see.
37. ** The Endless Knot, Stephen Lawhead. Occasional flashes of good writing, as was the case in part 2 as well. But, it's predominately mediocre.
38. *** Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton. Excellent book! The only Crichton book I've read besides Andromeda Strain in the early 70's. This guy is a great writer. However, it is a bit gory in spots. Highly recommended.
39. **** A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole. Outrageous character study with a whiff of a plot toward the end. Toole has a knack for description and dialogue. For example, he described the greatly overweight protagonist lying in a hospital bed. His mother jerked back the sheet and saw that he was embedded in the mattress "like a meteor." Recommended reading except for prudes.
40. *** He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Francis Schaeffer. Got it at a garage sale and re-read it before passing on to Mark S.
41. ** Streiker's Bride, Robin Hardy. I can't believe I'm reduced to reading romance novels, but here it is. If you like romance novels, I guess this one is o.k. I really wouldn't know. From my personal taste, it seems like a bunch of noise over nothing. I kept wishing the protagonist would quit vacillating and do something decisive. Then, in the last 20 pages or so it suddenly kicks into high gear and we have an attempted murder and machine guns spraying a posh society party. If there had been more of this sprinkled earlier in the book it would have held my attention more.
42. ** Eat More, Weigh Less, Dr. Dean Ornish. Basically a good case for a vegetarian diet. It was designed as a diet for heart disease.
43. *** Heavy Weather, P.G. Wodehouse. MOTS. A Galahad Threepwood novel. Fairly good.
44. *** Travels With My Aunt, Graham Greene. Fairly good, but not my favorite Greene.
45. ** Paradise Postponed, John Mortimer. More serious than the Rumpole stuff. It's well written, but I don't think I'll keep it around the house. Too much bed hopping.
46. *** Laughing Gas, P.G. Wodehouse. Fairly good story about a 27-year old Earl who exchanges bodies with a 10-year old while they are both getting a tooth out. Amusing. MOTS.
47. ** Flavors, Mason Williams. More weird stuff from the man who brought you Classical Gas and The Mason Williams Reading Matter. Mildly amusing.
48. The Clairvoyant Countess, Dorothy Gilman. From the people who brought you Mrs. Polifax, this is a forgettable volume of vignettes which seems more like an apologetic work for psychic phenomenon disguised as a mystery novel than anything else. The Polifax stories are mildly amusing and marginally well-written. This book isn't even that good. Fortunately it's a quick read. Back in the used-book-store stack for this one.
49. ** Lucifer Unemployed, Aleksander Wat. A collection of short stories from a Polish poet/intellectual. The premise held promise but the writing is difficult to follow. The problem with translations is you don't know if it is the fault of the author or the translator. The title cut is about Europe in the 1920s, which is so godless that even the devil finds himself out of work. Nobody needs tempting or leading astray, because they're all already without God. The only really good thing was a quote from "The Eternally Wandering Jew", as follows: "Just as the principles of physics are conventions, almost articles of faith having no proof of existence other than the fact that the laws and effects resulting from them are roughly in keeping with the experiences of the senses, so, too, the dogmas of religion, its postulates, do not require any other proof of existence, except that the laws and consequences resulting from them will be roughly in keeping with the ethical and religious experience of the human soul. In this way, for example, the existence of God, which is impossible to prove, is the equivalent of the impossible-to-prove hypothesis that all of creation is subject to the same basic laws of physics, a hypothesis without which science would be impossible. There is no reason to believe that there is a contradiction between religion and physics (I include all sciences based on empirical experience under this name), using different methods and maintaining the distinctness of their areas. They share in abstracto the object of the experience, which in reality is often indivisible. Human society is exactly such an indivisible object, falling under both systems." I might pass this one to Mark S.
50. ** The Neon Bible, John Kennedy Toole. Written for a literary contest when the author was 16, this book is quite well written for a 16-year-old but less than captivating for me. The question is should I keep it or donate it to the library or sell it to a book store?
51. **** Great Expectations, Charles Dickens. Somewhere in all that mess I managed to finish this one. I had forgotten how great a writer Dickens was. There was humor so fresh I wouldn't have believed it was written 100 years ago if it weren't in the book. I must go back over it and pull out some gems of quotes.
52. **** David Copperfield, Charles Dickens. Never did go back and pull any quotes from GE. But I did finish this one, even though it took me a month. It was 877 pages and not real fast reading, but it was good. The chapter on the first time he got drunk was excellent.
53. *** Short List, John Lerher. Of McNeil-Lerher fame. Good book in a series about the One-Eyed Mack, Lt. Gov. of Oklahoma. If I see any more in the series I'll pick them up.
54. *** Thank You, Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse. MOTS.
55. ** Fletch's Moxie, Gregory MacDonald. MOTS.
56. *** Cocktail Time, P. G. Wodehouse. MOTS. Uncle Fred story.
57. ** Fletch and the Widow Bradley, Gregory MacDonald. MOTS.
58. *** Mad Man In Waco, Brad Baily and Bob Darden. Well-written book on Koresh and the Mt. Carmel disaster. I probably wouldn't have read it if it hadn't been written by someone I knew.
59. *** The Quiet American, Graham Greene. Typical Greene, which is melancholy, introspective, depressing, and expertly written. Recommended reading.
60. ** The Years With Ross, James Thurber. I expected this to be a collection of fictional stories about some character named Ross, but it turns out to be biographical sketches about H. W. Ross, founder and editor of The New Yorker. The guy was quite a character and Thurber was just them man to write about him.
61. ** Master Class, Morris West. Not bad, but too much sex for my taste. I read one other book by West called Harlequin which was written pretty well, too.
62. *** The Lord God Made Them All, James Herriot. I didn't recall him being this good of a writer, but when a book starts off with, "When the gate fell on top of me, I knew I was really back home," then you know you've picked a winner.
63. ** The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams. Amusing.
64. *** Twenty-one Stories, Graham Greene. Some good selections in here, and some that didn't do much for me. He's better in the long straight-aways.
65. *** The Minister's Restoration, The Poet's Homecoming, George MacDonald. More of the same from MacDonald, a master story-teller. A bit more preaching than I remember by him, but these are later books. Maybe his earlier stuff wasn't to this degree. I'll have to go back and check.
66. ** The Iron Hand of Mars, Lindsay Davis. Clever but not quality story about a first-century private investigator. Too much sex for my taste.
67. *** Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes. I read the story when I was in high school. I didn't realize that it had been so popular as a short story that it was re-written into a novel. It's a great book. I was going to pass it on to the kids to read, but the novel has a lot of sex in it that the story didn't have.
68. Pleading Guilty, Scott Turow. From the author of Presumed Innocent comes a catchy, brooding suspense novel about lawyers filled with trash. Got it free through the book-of-the-month club. Won't be reading anymore of this guy's stuff. I don't need to fill my mind with such garbage.
69. ** Brighton Rock, Graham Greene. Early Greene novel which got him noticed. I'm not sure why.
70. *** My World and Welcome To It, James Thurber. This is a collection of sketches published in The New Yorker and a few other mags. Some of this stuff is collected in The Thurber Carnival, which I have already read. There are several very funny pieces.
71. *** A Maigret Trio, Georges Simenon. Introspective detective fiction from the perspective of an aging Chief Inspector for Paris the Judicial Police. Well-written character study, not much plot intrigue. I liked it. Traci H. found the PBS series good but the written stories boring.
72. ** Fletch and The Man Who, Gregory MacDonald. MOTS holiday reading. Not as much sex in this one as the last few I read.
73. ** The Black Marble, Joseph Wambaugh. Read one book by him and didn't like it much. Only read this one because Helene C. insisted. It was passable, but didn't change my mind.
74. * A Bed By The Window — A Novel of Mystery and Redemption, M. Scott Peck. Thought this would be interesting, but it had the weaknesses I would expect from a psychologist who thought he could write a novel. It reads like a long counselling session loosely strung together with an aimless investigation. Characters are remarkably weak.
75. *** Benchley Lost and Found, Robert Benchley. Thirty-nine pieces from The Liberty Magazine in the 30's that were never reprinted until the 70's. There are four or five quite amusing pieces among them.
76. *** The Rebel Angels, Robertson Davies. Pretty good. It hit me when I was reading the jacket that this guy wrote a book called World of Wonders, which is part of the Deptford Trilogy, and Bruce Cockburn has an album by the same title. Since they're both Canadians, I don't think this is a coincidence. Then, as I was reading the book, I thought of Graham Greene and thought them in the same class. Then, I saw that he was compared to Graham Greene on the jacket of World of Wonders, so go figure. This one gets a little weird, especially toward the end, but the first half, at least, is quite good.
77. **** The Portable Curmudgeon, John Winokur. Given to me by Hazlerig, an excellent reference for the proper perspective on practically every topic. (With a few notable exceptions.)
78. *** Murder for Christmas. A large collection of mystery stories related somehow to Christmas. There are some good ones in here. Luckily I noticed this thing in my to-be-read book case a few days before Christmas, or I might have had to wait another year to read it.
79. *** The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens. This is the story Dickens was working on when he died. He got about halfway through the story, which was being serialized in a magazine, and then he kicked off so it was never finished. I picked up a book from the book club which is a post-canon Holmes story in which Holmes is called in on the Drood case, so I thought I should read the original before I picked up the ad hoc ending. However, I couldn't find a copy of the novel itself, so I got a book from the library called The D. Case which is a panel of great detectives of literature analyzing and solving the Drood disappearance. Included in the book is the original work, so I went through and read only the Dickens parts.
80. * The D. Case, Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini. A rather lame attempt to have a panel of great fictional detectives convene to solve the unfinished mystery of Edwin Drood.