Sweetness and Apropos: A Peach of a Pair
The two novels are completely different. At the same time, they have enough similarities that it would be impossible not to take notice. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley is the story of a perky and prodigious 11-year old who, to save her father, insinuates herself into a murder investigation. [...]
The Love Triangle Comes Full Circle
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is a good story. It is not a beautifully-written book, but it is a wonderful story. And it is a story with everything. It is a story with a love triangle. Not just any ordinary love triangle, mind you, but one including a man, a woman and an elephant. [...]
Alexandria: Of Pharaohs and Philosophers
If you are reading this, odds are you were bedeviled by those horrible deductions in the back of your high school geometry books. That’s the geometry introduced to the world by Euclid of Alexandria in his seminal work, The Elements, way back during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). With its famed Museum and [...]
Beauty and the Beast
The Gargoyle has been a most pleasant surprise. A surprise because the book was given to me with little advance press, it being a galley copy made available to librarians and book sellers prior to hitting the shelves. A surprise because this is a first time author and a Canadian one, to boot. Mostly, it [...]
