Chris​Hubbs​.com

Every culture has its quirks, but to really notice them and appreciate them you need to be able to look from the perspective of an outsider. When you can then write about those quirks with wit, humor, and insight, then you’re approaching what author Sarah Lyall has achieved with The Anglo Files. Lyall, a correspondent for the New York Times, was posted to Britain some ten years ago, married a Britisher, and now raises two children there in London whilst still writing for the Times.

In The Anglo Files we get Lyall’s thoughts on the oddities of British culture - there are chapters on drinking, hedgehogs, social classes and the nobility, cricket, and the propensity to apologize for everything. She’s not afraid to tell stories on herself, either. And those stories prove insightful; they’re not the clueless-American-rube-bumbles-around-Europe stories, they’re the urbane-American-married-to-a-Britisher-still-baffled-by-Europe stories, which are really more fun. I myself have never been to Britain, but have long been intrigued with our brethren across the pond, so I very much enjoyed Lyall’s insights into them.

Oh, and did I mention the humor? I was good-naturedly amused throughout the book, but one line in particular had me laughing out loud: she describes an inferior washing machine as having a spin cycle that took so long it should’ve been called a Ring Cycle. That’s worth at least a couple of chuckles, folks.

All in all, a fun book. Definitely worth the read.

[The Anglo Files is available at Amazon.com.]

I picked up The Philosopher’s Apprentice on a whim from the library. And what a whim. The flyleaf gave a thumbnail description of a philosophy doctoral student who takes a job becoming the tutor for a teenage girl who was in an accident and lost her sense of morality. OK, sounds interesting as far as that goes. But that’s just the beginning of the story.

The Philosopher’s Apprentice is really a story in three acts. Act One: doctoral student tutors teenager on remote Caribbean island. Finds out there is more to the island than he was led to believe, including two sisters of his student, a bunch of genetic engineering, and talking iguana. I know it sounds like a tripped-out dream, but it’s just hard to give a lot more detail without spoiling major points of the plot.

Act Two: philosophy tutor watches from a distance as his former student, suddenly fabulously wealthy, takes his teachings on morality to unbelievable ends.

Act Three: tutor and student end up together again and have to deal with the fallout from the rest of the world as it reacts to the student’s programs.

The Philosopher’s Apprentice is at times quite humorous, at times quite serious, and dances along the line between fiction and fantasy without quite ever deciding where to land. It was a fun read, provoking some interesting thoughts along the way. Worth picking up if you get the chance.

[You can buy The Philosopher’s Apprentice at Amazon.com - on sale cheap right now!]

Sometimes, real life is even better than the stories. The King of Sting details the adventures of its author, Craig Glazer, as a twenty-something college student in the early 1970’s. Glazer was inspired by a movie “sting” - a scene where a team of shady characters pretend to be police in order to steal from criminals - and, with the help of a few friends, became a master sting artist himself.

What started out as acts motivated by revenge and noble causes, though, soon degraded into stings either to make money or just fuel his adrenaline rush. Glazer worked as a sworn law enforcement officer and later was prosecuted and served jail time for his deeds on the other side of the law.

Glazer’s story is entertaining but serves as a good reminder that sin will, in its own time, find you out.

[You can buy The King of Sting at Amazon.com.]

I was browsing the sci-fi section in the local library and came across an old paperback with a familiar name on the spine: Stephen Baxter. I’m most familiar with Baxter’s collaboration with the late Arthur C. Clarke on the Manifold trilogy, but have enjoyed a few of his solo works as well. This one looked to be a bit older (there was a quote on the cover from Clarke hailing Baxter as “a major new talent”), but I figured it was worth a try.

Ring finds humanity in the Third Millennium traveling through space, having learned some fantastic tricks of physics (including controlling wormholes that access the future) from alien races. Having also achieved “anti-senesence” technology (i.e. they can stop aging), a group of explorers decide to undertake a million-year trip at relativistic speeds, keeping a wormhole open the whole way so that they can communicate from the future back to the past.

What unfolds is a fascinating story of space and time, on a scale of megayears. Baxter is at his best when he’s dealing with the hard science, describing the aging process of stars, but he holds his own, too, with the softer side - imagining what a hyperspace trip across the universe might feel like from the perspective of the solitary human piloting the ship, recognizing that even millions of years of “progress” won’t change human nature.

If you’re into hard sci-fi, Ring is worth picking up, a very enjoyable read.

[You can buy Ring at Amazon.com.]