Warren I. Cohen on China’s Charm Offensive
August 19, 2008 The Olympics have gone to China, exposing the many contradictions within Chinese society and among international perceptions of the modern Chinese state. Newspapers and periodicals are filled with stories and photos of the magnificent new world-class architecture in Beijing and Shanghai. President George W. Bush and other world leaders attended the opening ceremonies. This is a moment of enormous pride for the Chinese people. Hundreds of thousands celebrated in Tiananmen Square in the summer of 2001 when the announcement came that Beijing had been awarded the 2008 games. The age of humiliation was over. China’s resurrection as a Great Power has been recognized and the past sins of the Beijing regime have been forgotten, at home and abroad. China’s status in the world has not been so high since the days of the Qianlong Emperor, back in the 18th century. The rule of the Chinese Communist Party has been validated.
Book review: Fixer
August 19, 2008 Fixer
by Ed Brodow
Didn’t know what to expect from this novel as its set in the turn of century NYC at the time of Mayor La Guardia. However the main character seemed interesting; the son of a Jewish refugee from the wrong side of the tracks. I learned a few things about the history of NYC from this tale as I enjoyed the tale.
'Playing the Enemy': The rugby match that changed the course of history
August 19, 2008 
Kasia Anderson on Barbara Walters
August 10, 2008  |
Somewhere around the middle of “Audition: A Memoir,” Barbara Walters lets fly with what might be the most startling comment in her massive autobiography. No, it’s not her much ballyhooed revelation—dished out with the kind of peep-show sensibility that can only come from years of coaxing confessions from enough celebrities, convicts and world leaders (or various combinations thereof) to populate a small island nation—that she was once embroiled in a lengthy affair with a married black Republican legislator, Sen. Edward Brooke. Well-placed pickups of that tabloid-baiting teaser no doubt contributed to the book’s impressive sales figures, currently hovering near the half-million mark, but it’s hardly the most compelling detail from Walters’ secret history.
Zachary Karabell on the Middle East
August 10, 2008 If you grew up in the 1970s, it was impossible not to be acutely aware of the Middle East as a flashpoint in the Cold War, a region fraught with danger, beset by conflict between Israel and the surrounding Arab states, home to radical groups that hijacked airplanes and in 1972 disrupted the Olympics. Long and difficult negotiations finally led to peace between Egypt and Israel in 1977, before darkness returned after the Shah of Iran was overthrown and replaced by a revolutionary group led by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.
A tale of two Mongolias
August 10, 2008
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The Bloody White Baron |
Reviewed by Valerie Sartor
In his first and already highly acclaimed book: The Bloody White Baron, Mr. James Palmer entertained his readers with historical but gruesome anecdotes about a psychotic nobleman, Baron Unger, who had the fantasies of being the reincarnation of Genghis Khan.
“This man, although insane, is the reason there is an Inner and an Outer Mongolia,” said Mr. Palmer while talking about his book at The Beijing Bookworm late June. Palmer is a youthful but quite knowledgeable historian and also a curious young Englishman now living in Beijing.
“The Chinese used to control both Mongolias,” said Mr. Palmer. “If it had not been for the crazed adventures of this misfit Baron then Russia might never have gotten involved in taking over this territory we now know as (Outer) Mongolia.” By driving Chinese forces out of Mongolia this man opened the way for Soviet takeover. When Baron Unger arrived in Ulaan Bataar and began his violent but almost mystical crusade toward ‘freeing’ Mongolians with the notorious but religious authority of Mongolia Bogd Khan, he was initially welcomed by many residents.
Anti-Obama books are best sellers
August 6, 2008 Three anti-Obama releases were in the top 20 of Amazon.com’s best-seller list on Tuesday, despite little critical attention or mainstream media coverage.
“There’s a pent-up demand from people on the right side of the aisle who feel that the mainstream media is effusively covering Barack Obama and not critically covering him,” says Marji Ross, president and publisher of the conservative Regnery Publishing, Inc., which just released David Fredosso’s The Case Against Barack Obama.
Book Review: The Legends Of Indian Cinema - P.C. Barua
August 3, 2008 
Frankly, not many would be interested in reading about the professional
life of a man who made films in the 30s and the 40s, and that too
mainly in Bengali. Universal audience is suddenly lost for a filmmaker
since except for hardcore movie followers who are interested in knowing
about the legacy that many great makers have left behind them, ‘aam
junta’ won’t really find itself enthused.
Book review: My Name, My Race: A Young African’s Untold Story
July 29, 2008 Title: My Name, My Race: A Young African’s Untold Story.
Author: Prosper Yao Tsikata
Review: Victor K. Yankah, Department of Music and Theatre Studies, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
Published by Woeli Publishing Services. 2008.
Launch: Thursday, July 31, 2008; 5:30 P.M.; Teachers Hall, Accra
A
rare bird in the literary aviary of Ghana, P.Y. Tsikata’s 152 page book
My name, My Race: A Young African’s Untold Story, which is basically
the memoirs of an African student, reads like a cross between travel
literature, a novel and an autobiography.
Book Review: TIM, Defender of the Earth by Sam Enthoven
July 29, 2008 Sam Enthoven’s new book, TIM, Defender of the Earth, is a blend of fantasy, science fiction, and giant monsters that tends to range all over the place. Honestly, he does a pretty good job of mixing all the genres because not one of them can completely exist without the other. This is a confection aimed at young male readers and it shows, though there’s a scrappy girl character that I enjoyed a lot too.
It’s really hard to discuss the book without giving away some of the novel’s progression, but I’ll try to keep all the mysteries intact as much as I can. Enthoven braids his story together by bringing his characters together, and the story summary on the book’s jacket gives away a lot.
Book Review: 'The Lace Reader'
July 29, 2008 The Lace Reader By Brunonia Barry 390 pages. $24.95. William Morrow.
Brunonia Barry’s debut novel describes a community where women share many tasks. Among them: making lace, milking cows, growing flax, spinning yarn from yellow dog hair and protecting one another from abusive men.
Book Review: The Greatest Sci-Fi Films Never Made
July 24, 2008 One of the more pleasant curses of the Internet is that it lets you be on the edge of your seat for a movie that’s still years and years away from being produced. Catch me over a cup of coffee some afternoon and ask me about Orson Scott Card’s latest news on “Ender’s Game” if you need an example. Sites like IMDb and the Hollywood Stock Exchange serve as cyber-cauldrons for stirring up fans into a froth with hints of whispers of possible promises that their favorite novel or comic book is taking “one more step” toward big-screen realization.
Book Review: Chasing Lolita - How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov's Little Girl All Over Again by Graham Vickers
July 14, 2008 I’ve always had a curious relationship with Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. I love the book and yet detest the image of Lolita as she’s been used in popular culture. The image seems to me to miss the point of the book to point of distortion. So when I came across Graham Vickers’ Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov’s Little Girl All Over Again, I grabbed the chance to review it. Vickers examines in detail the way Lolita has been translated in various media and pop culture, comparing these incarnations with Nabokov’s construction. Along the way, he offers some possibilities for Nabokov’s source material, other examples of stories with similar themes and just enough gossipy bits about the making of the films to keep the book from descending into academic dryness. The book is a very readable treatise on the way Lolita has been used and abused at other hands than Humbert Humbert’s.
Book Review: The Long-Player Goodbye: Play Time
July 14, 2008 THE LONG-PLAYER GOODBYE Travis Elborough Sceptre, GBP 14.99
TELL me you do this, too. You buy an iPod, upload your entire music collection, then store the albums behind the exercise ball in the attic, confident you’ll never have any more use for them.
The gizmo reinvigorates your great passion, but rather than downloading individual songs from iTunes, you buy whole CDs in have- and-hold form - enhancing the soundtrack to your youth with all the discs your snobberycompetitivenessignorance denied you first time round.
