Cover Art

Christoph Niemann, my new favorite artist; you MUST check out his portfolio - it's worth at least a good hour of amused internet surfing; below are books from this week's (pictured) and last week's issues of The New York Times Book Review:

Fiction
Atmospheric Disturbances - Rivka Galchen; "Imagine what it might be like to realize that the person you love is, in fact, not the person you love but a doppelgänger."

Phantom Prey - John Sandford; "The Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport investigates a string of murders of young goths."

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet - Reif Larsen; "Cartography is the child's primary gift and avocation, but his areas of subspecialty extend to entomology, anatomy, McDonald's, Native American folklore and astute readings of the adult mind, where he chiefly finds lament in the wear and tear of eroded ambitions."

Nonfiction
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change - Jonah Goldberg; "This alternative history of American liberalism finds its roots in classical fascism."

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey - Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.; "A brain scientist shares what she learned from her 1996 stroke."

Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives - David Eagleman; "When it comes to theories of the afterlife, most of the world's major religions have fairly prosaic stuff on offer. Only occasionally will a cosmology be really colorful, as it is in Greek mythology, where some interesting eschatological options are available. Why there should be such a failure of the imagination on this topic is an interesting question. Perhaps we feel uncomfortable in such a speculation? Perhaps we feel that it's a waste of time to talk about something people have very fixed ideas about - or dismiss as simply wishful thinking?"