I don’t know. I kind of just want to say that and be done with it. I don’t know.

The White Hare is like walking into a movie part-way through. You know you missed something, and you spend more time deciding if it’s worth it than in actually following along to what little you have left. It isn’t as if I necessarily dislike books that start with a sink-or-swim attitude (see The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet for example); I just floundered through this one.

Oooh — I figured it out. It isn’t like a half-way done movie. It’s like those magic eye posters. I never ever ever saw anything in those, but other people said they did, and the most I ever saw was a wiggle, maybe, before giving myself a massive headache. I feel something must be there, so I keep looking. But how much work should a book be? Maybe if I was more tied to the land in the novel (somewhere in England, I’m not sure where), to the mythos of the white hare, to why these people believe in it, I would see what Fishwick portrays. But all I see are squiggles of arson, parental death, blended families, suicide, stalking, magical bunny rabbits (yes, I know bunny rabbits are not hares, but I like typing bunny rabbits more than I like typing hares), corrupt local raffle draws. Simultaneously overcrowded, yet at the same time, sparse.

I can’t say it was worth the effort on my part. But I’m still staring at that rotten magic eye, making myself sick.

The White Hare by Michael Fishwick went on sale March 9, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Quietly affecting, but ultimately unsatisfying, likely because any book about elderly UK people brings Staying On to my mind, and then I end up thinking about that instead of the book I’m reading. The Daisy Rock does have its moments and the small affections/annoyances between a long married couple come through, but the time jumps — not even drastic ones, usually only a few days or a few hours — are like being jarred awake by a phone call when you’re almost asleep. The periphery characters are superfluous, an unnecessary widening of perspective. The whole thing could be tightened right into only the main characters, which is where the heart of this short novel is anyways.

Still, these faults are few, and while I wish Flora had a bit more self-awareness or introspection for what she ultimately decides (placing herself in a role that she disdained another woman being in earlier in the novel), The Daisy Rock is still a very genteel and moving story.

The Daisy Rock by Eva Hanagan went on sale March 17, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

So I found this book about curiosity to be dull, which seems to me antithetical to a book on curiosity (also, I keep typing curiousity because the English language and I are having issues today). Even as the book traveled between psychology, neuroscience, and history, all subjects I have levels of curiosity about, I just did not care. Maybe it was the writing style, which is neither dry and scientific nor really pop-science chummy, but somewhere in between (I really didn’t need to know, for instance, that the author skyped with certain interviewees in the book)? Maybe it was the lack of narrative, since I’m a sucker for narrative and reading non-fiction books that don’t have a story-line is often difficult for me? Maybe there was too much talking about Feynman in the book, who while brilliant, always makes me feel very uncomfortable. Maybe I’m just plain incurious about curiosity? I can’t say. But the book left me not wanting more, so I can’t say that, in the realms of curiosity, it was a success.

Also, if anyone can explain to me why we don’t spell it curiousity, it would be greatly appreciated.

Addendum: Levi is a physicist. Every other book I’ve reviewed by a physicist, said physicist has contacted me to point out flaws and/or disagree with my review. So I have that to look forward to, I suppose :p

Why? by Mario Levi went on sale July 11, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Once upon a time, Netgalley gave me The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig, which I read, deemed acceptable, and then, somehow, decided I liked a lot more than it turns out I did, based on my review at the time. Basically, my entire interest in Zweig is rooted in the fact that he killed himself in Brazil, in part as a reaction to the Second World War. It just seems simultaneously so ballsy and yet so futile and stupid an action (it’s hardly like Zweig killing himself in 1942 would have been as war-disrupting as Hitler or Goebbels or Hirohito doing the same). Still, my mind has Alien-facehuggered onto this sole fact, i.e. Stefan Zweig killed himself in Brazil!!!!!! ….. (also he wrote some things, I guess, maybe, whatever). But obviously, before he killed himself in Brazil, he wrote, amongst other things, the essays contained in Messages from a Lost World, which I read, while thinking of Austrian authors who killed themselves in Brazil. Did you know that Stefan Zweig was an Austrian author who killed himself in Brazil in 1942? You didn’t? Well, let me tell you about Stefan Zweig who killed himself in Brazil in 1942…

Messages from a Lost World‘s essays (all of which were written prior to Zweig killing himself in Brazil in 1942) manage to be both dated and relevant at the same time. There’s a lot of talk of men only, side-by-side with worries about ultra-nationalism and exceptionalism that seem written in reaction to Brexit and Trump. But then what? The struggle to override nationalism is continual, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the fact that Zweig was warning about this during fascism’s thrall. I can’t imagine Steve Bannon and Nigel Farange being like Hey, I should totally read these essays from 1920s to the 1940s by a dead Jewish Austrian man and then Oh my goodness, I now see the error of my ways regarding the dangers of nationalism, unless they too are somewhat obsessed with the fact that Zweig killed himself in Brazil in 1942 as a reaction to the Second World War. Do you think they are? Because I could tell you some things about an Austrian writer who killed himself in Brazil in 1942.

Messages from a Lost World by Stefan Zweig went on sale March 28, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

(Again, I checked the Are you interested in connecting with this author checkbox on Netgalley, but Stefan Zweig’s ghost has yet to appear to me.
Boo.)