Neil Hollands

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• Rated 4 stars

“I'm a hearty believer in slow food and frustrated with the products that corporate farming is putting in our stores. I found this book by Kingsolver and her family to be fascinating in sections, it really made me think about what I'm eating. While reading it, I was growing my own container garden for the first time in several years, and so I found her celebration of growing things to be very powerful as well.

That said, I think Kingsolver is a bit preachy. She doesn't want to be, but she's so far ahead of the curve in terms of the life changes she's made that she just can't help it. Most of us just don't have the land or the time to eat entirely locally as she and her family did for a year. While I think it would be great if we could go back to the land more, the more realistic solutions for most of us involve promoting organic farming, local farmers, and getting our markets to do the right thing, which is a very tough row to hoe indeed. Changes in American energy policy and a movement to less energy-intensive transportation are also an important prerequisite to major adjustments in our food economy.

Also, it seems like some of the challenges of growing your own food are glossed over. There's very little about the plants that fail, the animals that die, or the bugs that swarm over everything when you try to grow organic. Kingsolver doesn't completely ignore these issues, but she find more success as a farmer than I've ever managed!

So in the end, I take some of this book with a grain of salt, but it's still good inspiration with lots of strong arguments. I don't recommend the audio version. Kingsolver's voice unfortunately has a tone that makes her positions seem even more preachy.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Wednesday, September 10 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“This isn't a bad book, but I thought it could have used a little more of a critical viewpoint. Much of the information on the shows is from their creators, and this makes it sound like every show in the book was unjustly cancelled. If only most science fiction television were that good!”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Wednesday, September 10 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“Disappointing. I love lists and popular music, but this book isn't really what it's title suggests. It's mostly a collection of lukewarm essays by music critics on various broad topics.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Wednesday, September 10 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“I'm close to giving this five stars. The only reason I didn't is personal: I'm tired of the cocky teenage boy know-it-all voice in young adult fiction. It got in the way of me sympathizing enough with the lead character here.

That said, this is a well-paced, well-thought-through look at the potential of misuse of technology to track citizens in the name of anti-terrorism. It's scary and it's moving as well. It's the story of a teen boy who is playing a game with four friends on the streets of San Francisco when a bomb destroys the Bay Bridge. They're in the wrong place at the wrong time and get hauled in, then threatened by Homeland Security. One of the four doesn't make it home. Marcus, the narrator, becomes the leader in a movement that uses consumer technology to try to thwart the government's ill-conceived spying and authoritarianism.

I'm not sure I entirely buy the ending. Sadly, I'm not convinced that any kid or underground group can put a stop to the use of technology for inappropriate spying on our lives. It's too connected to big business, and corporate spying by insurance companies, marketers, software firms and the like to root out easily. (And sadly, there isn't as much outcry about these uses and they are just as damaging to our privacy and the results are used just as ineffectually by the companies.) OK, that was my two bits. Still a fine novel, more believable than most adult thrillers.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Thursday, September 4 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“Fun to look through, but I would have liked to see the writers make suggestions of which films to see first for each of the stars. Absent that, other than the big pictures, it's nothing you couldn't get from IMDB.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Thursday, September 4 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“A delightful blend of humor, travel, and psychology.

Weiner travels the world: The Netherlands, Switzerland, Qatar, Iceland, India, Moldova, Great Britain, and the U.S. in search of what makes one nation's people happier than others.

He has enough of a sense of humor that his conceit doesn't get too weighted down. I laughed out loud several times while reading this. But under the light candy shell, there's still a creamy center of wise life philosophy. This was a fine book that I know I will recommend to many others.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Monday, September 1 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“It's a fantasy novel but without any fantasy, Parker writes in a style that is absolutely realistic.

This is the tale of a company of line-breakers who survive a war against all odds but can't quite find a way to get themselves "home" from their violent past.

The five men try to go to an island to settle down and farm, taking arranged wives just before they leave. But everything that can go wrong does and the men aren't sure how to relate to each other after the war. Their wives, rightfully feeling neglected, add more discontent to the mix.

Two things I loved about this book: the marvelous interactions between the characters, and the rich detail about doing everyday jobs. Somehow Parker writes about things like building and mining without becoming dreary.

My only caveat was the extreme behavior of one of the wives, Menin. She has a strong bearing on the plot in the end, and it didn't seem necessary. The story should not have been about her.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Tuesday, August 26 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“OK, I think Asimov dates pretty badly because of his antiquated approach to male/female relationships. His white bread world view doesn't match real well with the futuristic landscapes he tried to portray.

This isn't even a real great mystery. It takes too long to introduce most of the suspects.

But this book does work in two areas: the interaction between Detective Bailey and Daniel Olivaaw is a lot of fun. And the contrast of Bailey's agoraphobic view with the spacers' fear of contact is truly interesting and still worth thinking about after all these years. So as with the first book in this series, Caves of Steel, this is not perfect but still quite entertaining and worth a look.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Monday, August 18 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Wow, not what I expected but quite good. I expected a lot of hard science and philosophy. Instead I got gritty characters, great action set pieces, and just a hint of philosophy.

The lead character Horza a "Changer" careens across the galaxy as an emissary of one side who is still often caught in the middle of a larger galactic conflict.

It's a very cinematic book, with great set pieces: a huge ship crashing into an iceberg, a mercenary firefight against monks, a last minute escape from a bizarre cannibal sect, and best of all, the climactic spooky hunt through underground tunnels.

I will continue in this series, although I'm curious to see how Banks connects this book to others. It must be loosely, as the death toll among the lead characters is pretty high here.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Friday, August 15 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“Delightfully off-kilter, truly strange humor of many kinds: witty cartoons, 20th century tall tales, frustration with human relationships of all kinds converted into subversive humor, odd little morality fables, and self-deprecating biographical sketches.

It's only genius that makes this humor hold up even this much (humor of most kinds just doesn't last), but it is starting to show its age. Thurber's portrayal of race is outdated and offensive, and his attitudes toward women are well, unhealthy on the whole. But then I'm not sure Thurber would have ever wanted to be anybody's icon for good social behavior.

It's still entertaining, still edgy, but I suspect losing some of its original oomph.”

Neil Hollands wrote this review Friday, August 15 2008. ( reply | permalink )