Category Archives: Book Notes

Ursula K. Le Guin: THE DISPOSSESSED (1974)

Posted on Friday 3 December 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

I (re)read this a year and a half ago, and took notes, now condensed a bit here. And I’ll add it to the Reviews/SF directory page. Le Guin is best known for THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS in 1969, but … Continue reading →

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H.G. Wells, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1897)

Posted on Saturday 6 November 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about … Continue reading →

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Sam Harris, LYING (2013)

Posted on Friday 5 November 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Summary and comments about this 2011 essay and 2013 book. With an aside about my belief in Santa Claus.

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Heinlein’s STARMAN JONES (1953)

Posted on Wednesday 20 October 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Starman Jones is the 7th of 14 novels that Heinlein published from 1947 to 1963, at annual intervals except for a four-year gap between the last two, that were called “juveniles” at the time — that is, designed for younger … Continue reading →

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Robert Sheckley, MINDSWAP (1966)

Posted on Tuesday 12 October 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Robert Sheckley was a science fiction writer who debuted in the early 1950s, right about the time Philip K. Dick that did. They were both prolific short story writers through the ’50s, each publishing several stories a year, in the … Continue reading →

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PKD: The Man in the High Castle

Posted on Friday 8 October 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

I am going to begin posting relatively *brief* comments about books I’ve read lately, to keep up with what I’ve been reading. My extensive book summaries with comments take a long time to set up; by waiting to post anything … Continue reading →

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How to Read a Book

Posted on Wednesday 29 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

I posted this on Fb last night, perhaps a bit intemperately and incompletely, upon publication of this book yesterday, Sept. 28th.

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Shankar Vedantam: USEFUL DELUSIONS (2021)

Posted on Thursday 23 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book I read recently, just a week or so after returning from the hospital in late June, and which I’ve skimmed again in the past week to take notes and write up this summary. It’s one of two … Continue reading →

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Michael Strevens: THE KNOWLEDGE MACHINE (2020)

Posted on Wednesday 11 August 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book I read a few weeks ago while in the hospital (so my notes on it are sketchier than usual). It was published last October, though I didn’t buy it until February. When I picked it up to … Continue reading →

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L&C: The New Yorker on Cults and Narratives

Posted on Saturday 10 July 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

As if I had cued it with yesterday’s post about Why People Believe, particularly the final item by David Brooks, as well as the last of my four new provisional conclusions, the new issue of The New Yorker has a … Continue reading →

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