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That said, are we ready to make a "short list" of October-November choices?

I both enjoyed and admired the book, liked it in fact much better than Atonement. I actually enjoyed the neurosurgery parts, as a rebellion against all those novels where writers are examining their navels because they don't know how to make a living in any way but writing. The strong interest...

Yes, I have been to Europe several times, beginning in 1978 with a driving trip in England and Scotland. I couldn't do that one now, as driving on the left becomes increasingly difficult. We have also been in Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Greece. What do you have...

I recommend two by Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness. Also Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.

You correctly retained the term "authoritarian" when referring to the type of religion that the Soviet orthodoxy reminded me of. Not just the content, but the insistence on dictating beliefs and punishment for dissent. Dawkins is stimulating and is correct on many points, but a bit tone deaf...

I finished The First Circle a couple of days ago. I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book immensely, especially the conversations of the Zeks and the way Sohlzenitsyn introduces his many characters. During the final third I became increasingly depressed by the scope of the system of fear and...

Doing errands this morning I saw local prices of USD 4.09, 4.11 and 4.15 (twice).

Usually they are busily talking on their cell phones while they are blocking all the rest of us.

I too wish that she would withdraw gracefully. If she stays in the Senate she could be very influential there in a Democratic administration. If she wants to leave the Senate, I'm sure she could get some very good appointment in an Obama regime. All that I can figure out is that she is trying...

I like to have one fiction and one non fiction going at a time. Then I go back and forth, depending on mood. Also, I don't like to read anything too emotionally involving during the half hour before bedtime, so the non fiction is usually good then. Recently I added an MP3 player to my life...

For political structures, you can't do much better than our current book of the month, The First Circle. An earlier book, Children of the Arbat (don't remember author) also depicts the Soviet system before World War II. Many English novels cover the territory, especially C. P. Snow's series...

Doctor Glas Amazon used books (U.S.) has it and I also found a copy in eBay Stores.

The movie is excellent and gives good views of her house and the countryside. There is a little fanciful stuff about the animals, but they didn't cutesy it up too much. Somewhere I have a biography of her called The Tale of Beatrix Potter which is very good. One of the benefits of her books...

I think it is more primitive than that, the women as property thing. If two men marry or two women, then who can be whose property? There is no automatic way to decide.

Someone please explain to me why the opponents of same-sex marriage so confidently asset that it is a threat to "traditional marriage" (multi-sex marriage?). You may not care for the idea, but how it is a threat? I don't like what some people eat either, but it doesn't threaten my mostly healthy...

By my calculations, that would be over $7 per gallon, so we are a little more than half-way there.

One thing that affected popular concepts of the book was the traveling road show of Uncle Tom's Cabin which was not authorized by Stowe and which emphasized the most dramatic parts of the book. Stowe's own experience of the South and slavery was very limited - as her critics did not hesitate to...

$3.94 locally, but I have seen it posted at 4.01. It changes weekly.

Years ago Philip Wylie wrote a very good science fiction novel, When Worlds Collide, with a similar theme. A wandering planet, displaced from its original solar system, cruises into earth orbit. No spoilers here -- read it yourself.

I will watch no more performances of Othello. The poetry is wonderful, but the scene where he strangles Desdemona is unbearable to me. He is judge and jury and executioner. They says this is a play about evil, but it feels more like a play about stupidity. Verdi's operatic version is good...