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- Micro-Review #142: Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
by Salman Rushdie In August 2022, Salman Rushie took to the stage in Chautauqua, New York, to talk about the United States as a safe haven for writers. Before the audience settled in, an assailant appeared out of the sea of faces and stabbed him 14 times. This book chronicles the then-75-year-old Rushdie’s physical and emotional journey back from the ordeal.
Written with clear-eyed simplicity and thought-provoking philosophical asides, Knife is taut and captivating enough to read in a few sittings. It’s at times self-effacing and always honest-seeming—and erudite without being pedantic. It’s political only insofar as it’s impossible for someone with Rushdie’s history NOT to be political. Love or hate his books and his worldview, this is an example of a great writer writing very well after a half year of hell.
- Micro-Review #141: Lost in the Valley of Death
by Harley Rustad Justin Shetler is one of those people who has the ability to succeed at anything. He’s smart and athletically gifted, but he’s also restless. He desires, seeks—needs—ultimate meaning, and expects to find it. Think Somerset Maugham’s Larry Darrell without the Platonic virtue of temperance.
An expert survivalist and chronic world traveler, Justin bounces from country to country, traversing rugged trails, meeting the natives, and throwing himself into the religions. He ends up in India, in a Himalayan valley where foreigners tend to go missing. His problems in the valley are perhaps predictable, but also compelling. Thanks to a brilliantly researched and laser-focused narrative from journalist Rustad, his story is every bit as vivid as anything written by his more popular contemporary Jon Krakauer. Consider this true story unputdownable.
- Micro-Review #140: 11.22.63
Based on the Stephen King novel I reviewed the novel (somewhat unfavorably) a few years back and decided to give the TV mini-series a chance because of its high imdb rating.
English teacher Jake Epping (James Franco) finds a portal to 1960. This gives him three years to stop the Kennedy assassination. He tries his damnedest, with many complications along the way. If you can suspend disbelief and accept the tired time-travel story device, you might decide Jake’s journey is worth following. This is a rare case of the TV adaptation being better than the novel. The era comes alive, the suspense is well placed, and there are worse kinds of unchallenging entertainment available to stream.
The downside: The Stephen King habit of exaggerating character traits transfers to the screen. The last two or three episodes of the eight-part miniseries lapse into soapiness. Rather than building to a breathless crescendo, the story plateaus before a somewhat predictable ending. Still, the acting is good, and if you like time-travel stories, this one is bound to satisfy.
- Micro-Review #139: I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson This 1954 novel bears only a passing resemblance to the Will Smith movie. It’s considered a classic of the genre, and it ages fairly well. The story—about a man who might be the last man in a world full of vampires—is timeless thanks to its clarity and its focus on the character, Robert Neville, rather than on jump scares and horror-shtick action. There’s even some good science that modern readers won’t see as dated. Couple these qualities with a thought-provoking ending and refreshing brevity (the story is more novella than novel), and you have a great read that’s likely to remain relevant for a long time to come.
- Micro-Review #138: Anxious People
by Fredrik Backman If you’ve read the brilliant A Man Called Ovie, resist the temptation to compare the two novels. This story about a hostage-taking at a realtor’s home showing is a different beast. Who’s our mystery hostage taker? How did he/she/they elude the police? These questions intrigue, but they don’t carry the freight. The real draw is the array of characters, all of whom, to varying degrees, live up (or down) to the book’s title.
The story is quirky and life-affirming. The writing is at times hilarious and at other times overbaked (maybe too much of a good thing?). Despite the narrative’s faint, developing sense of teachy repetition, the chance to spend 300 pages with people who are probably more like us than we might want to admit is rare, because we still want to spend the time. This is a good book about real people—a deft, breezy bit of humanistic optimism.
