A couple of weeks ago, I got my hands on an advance copy of SuperFreakonomics, the follow-up by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner to their 2005 bestseller. I wanted to have a review for you by tomorrow, when it’s due to go on sale, and I’m oh-so-close to having it done. First, I wanted to Read More
BookEnds
Lower Fairfield County's online book club
Archive for 2009
Back ‘On the Road,’ again and again
Next Wednesday, Oct. 21 is the 40th anniversary of the death of Jack Kerouac. For a retrospective on Kerouac’s seminal work, On the Road, please read the essay from our guest blogger, Roy J. Nirschel*, below. In the spring of 1968 as Paris burned and protest filled the streets of America, including my hometown of Read More
Health care without the insurance, and the prescription
Still on the search for a fix for his sore shoulder, Reid leaves Canada before the end of the book to visit India and pay out of pocket at an ayurvedic clinic. I’ll save you the suspense: After weeks spent eating healthfully, relaxing, and being intensely massaged, Reid’s shoulder felt better and had a better Read More
Non-fiction fiction
I’ve realized, somewhat belatedly, that in my post about not reading enough fiction I erred in adding Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt to the list. My conscious brain realized that it was biography/memoir, but my subconscious brain always confuses McCourt with Ian McEwan, who actually does right fiction. Angela’s Ashes is still more narrative and Read More
Health care news.
As you all probably know by now, the Senate Finance Committee, one of five Congressional committees critical to health care reform, rejected two proposals Tuesday that would have created a public insurance plan to compete with private health insurance companies. The public option has been a constant demand of more liberal lawmakers but is widely Read More
Actually socialized health care
Whenever politicians talk about health care reform, Americans probably fear most the systems Britain and Canada have. It makes no difference that Reid and many others who have benefited from them extol their virtues. These systems are so different from what the U.S. does that they’re not likely to be implemented soon anyway.* Britain is Read More
Banned Books Week 9/26 – 10/3
Next week is Banned Books week. Sponsored by library, publishing and journalism organizations, this week celebrates, among other concepts, the First Amendment, the right to know, the right to free and open access and the importance of access to unpopular or unorthodox viewpoints. In 2008, the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom received reports of 513 Read More
The carte vitale
This is my first time over at BookEnds, and I’m slowly slogging through T.R. Reid’s “The Healing of America” because I foolishly began reading four books over the past few weeks and I’m only close to finishing one — “The Long Goodbye,” by Raymond Chandler. Yes, cheesy private detective fiction holds my attention longer than Read More
