The Boys Who Were Left Behind by John Heidenry and Brett Topel “[An] entertaining tale. . . . The book is filled with fascinating wartime detail, a good deal of bathos, and the mighty presence of Stan Musial.” —Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe (4/2/06) “John Heidenry and Brett Topel sketch a brilliant portrait of the 1944 World Series in The Boys Who Were Left Behind. . . . The aspect of this book that will stay with readers is its evocation of baseball-during-wartime.”—David Shribman, The Wall Street Journal (4/1/06) “Heidenry and Topel do a remarkable job of mining original … Continue reading

White Spirit by Paule Constant “This straightforward yet surreal work is beautifully written. Almost every paragraph contains an original and elaborate word construction that never rings false. Wing, who has translated two previous novels by Constant, deserves recognition for her work.”—Library Journal (3/15/06) “Sad ironies illuminate this deftly mapped journey to the postcolonial heart of darkness. . . . With prose both dark and rollicking, Constant chronicles colonialism’s terrible absurdities and reverberating effects on both Africans and Europeans.”—Publishers Weekly (2/27/06) Continue reading

t’s been nearly one hundred years since Pampille wrote about the seasonal glories of French fruits  and vegetables. Her description makes me long nostalgically for a time that probably never was quite that magical. Food in early twentieth-century France and America was more local and seasonal and the more anticipated and appreciated for those qualities. "From the end of February, you notice in the greengrocer’s shop windows–which begin to resemble the windows of jewelry shops–strawberries lying on beds of cotton in little wooden boxes. They are beautiful, and huge, but still a little pale. They are a marvel, but they … Continue reading Strawberries

ight.  So I had promised you the C.S. Lewis, but you see I never read just one book at a time and I finished this one first and my mother came from Chicago to visit me so I haven’t been reading much this week, and, well, sorry.  This should teach me not to state what I intend to write about for next week. Pretty much, if you are into sf and fantasy at all, you have at least heard of Ursula K. Le Guin.  She is well known for A Wizard of Earthsea which started the Earthsea series, and The … Continue reading The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

es, it’s time to turn those clocks ahead, drown that lost hour of sleep in an extra cup of coffee, and welcome the official start of spring. Opening Day in major league baseball is a pretty good indicator that the seasons are finally changing, since the game does depend on decent weather and cannot be played well in sleet or sub-freezing temperatures. And although there is so much to discuss, from steroid scandals to Big Unit Randy Johnson’s “love child” (dubbed “Little Unit” by the media), we must give other sports their due. Spring sports really do mimic the weather, … Continue reading A Peach Basket Case

s Dominque de Villepin continues to argue that the French government will succumb to being blackmailed by the French streets, Nicolas Sarkozy has already asked de Villepin to withdraw his labor law designed to make the workplace more flexible and modernize the overwhelmed state.  Read: Libération This clash between two men with presidential aspirations has overshadowed another important event from today’s headlines.  It was over ten years ago that the Algerian jihadist by the name of Rachid Ramada orchestrated the 1995 deadly attacks on the Paris metro , which killed 8 people and wounded over 200 others.  It took ten … Continue reading A Conviction for an Algerian Jihidist in Paris by James D. Le Sueur

     ulia Child was a born and bred American.      No Joke.                          She grew up in–wait for it–Pasadena.  On the wrong side of the tracks, no less.      This little nugget of information has pretty much thrown for a loop my confidence in all of my childhood memories.  Until last week, a few truths formed the basis of my youthful understanding of the world.  1.  Jaws is the best movie of all time.  (Still true, parenthetically.)  2.  My grandmother’s rum pudding with berry sauce is so good it … Continue reading Cooking with Sara, Part Deux

iewers watching again as France confronts what seems to have become an endless flow of street protests might not be surprised to hear that French President Jacques Chirac stormed out of an EU economic summit Thursday evening in a fit of rage.  Chirac, clearly in a defensive mood, was outraged by the fact that one of his own countrymen, Ernest-Antoine Seillière, chose to speak in English rather than his native tongue during an important EU business summit. As The International Herald Tribune reported:  “‘It is not just national interest, it is in the interest of culture and the dialogue of … Continue reading Wistful France by James D. Le Sueur

have attempted to write this "getting to know you" post about half a dozen times and am now determined to finally do this thing and get it over with.  There are two problems here.  The first is that someone who sits around reading books all the time, and then, in the off reading time, sits around tapping on a computer keyboard, isn’t all that interesting.  The second is that I’m a writer, and I don’t write memoir.  I write fiction.  Science fiction and fantasy to be exact.  And this whole writing about oneself thing tends to require actually telling the … Continue reading Science lover to science fiction lover