Become a BookBrowse Member 

 

Find out more about membership!

 

 

                

Each month we give away books to members to read and review (or discuss). Members who choose to take part tend to receive a free book about every three months. Here are their opinions on three just published books they have been reading recently:


The Headmaster's Wager  
Publisher: Hogarth Books
Publication Date: 08/14/2012
Novel, 416 pages

Number of reader reviews: 17
Readers' consensus:


BookBrowse Members Say
"I absolutely loved Vincent Lam's The Headmaster's Wager! I can honestly say it is the best book I've read so far this year. It focuses mainly on a Chinese man living in Cholon, Vietnam during the 60's when he was headmaster of an English Academy. It also touches on the history of both China and Vietnam during that time period, in prose that is both vivid and exciting, giving the book a wonderful sense of place and culture. However, the thing that really pulled me into the story were its characters. So real, and so human, though somewhat flawed, I still found myself immensely involved in their worlds. I can't wait to recommend this book to friends and family!" - Linda G. (Walnut Creek, CA)

"This is my favorite book of the summer. It is one I will recommend to my picky reader friends. I also promptly ordered his other book because his writing is so terrific. The writing is very strong: compelling, authentic and highly interesting." - Jen W. (Denver, CO)

"I found it to be both captivating and heartbreaking. It would be an outstanding discussion book." - Eileen P. (Pittsford, NY)

"I rarely say this, but I think this book was just about perfect. An absolutely unforgettable read." - Erin G. (Dulles, VA)

Read all the Reviews

Buy at Amazon

by David Fitzpatrick

by Courtney Miller Santo

by Victor LaValle

by Laura Lippman

Below is part of BookBrowse's review of Crazy Brave. Read the review in full here

Crazy Brave: A Memoir

by Joy Harjo

Hardcover (Jul 2012), 176 pages.

Publisher: Norton
ISBN 9780393073461

BookBrowse Rating:
Critics' Consensus:

Review:
Modern memoirs often deal with major difficulties in a person's life - domestic, physical, sometimes even spiritual. While Joy Harjo covers this territory, her ethereal Native voice and her personal experiences distinguish this book from a crowded field of life stories.

Harjo moves through her history in an admirably concise fashion. Memories, happy and painful, are related in spare, honest sentences; no words are wasted. Her deep love for and spiritual connection with the arts are obvious, though this book emphasizes language, story, and poetry above dance, music, and painting. It is clear that these creative pursuits and the "knowing" - her Native American subconscious connection to the spiritual/eternal - were her saviors during cycles of abuse, fear and panic.

The poet author divides her story into four sections, each one a cardinal direction. With brief, lyrical summaries preceding each chapter, Harjo's well-crafted literary device takes literal directions and transforms them into figurative life paths. Continued

Reviewed by Stacey Rae Brownlie

Above is part of BookBrowse's review of Crazy Brave. Read the review in full here

At BookBrowse, we don't just review books, we go 'beyond the book' to explore interesting aspects relating to the story.

Here is a recent "Beyond the Book" feature for On The Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas (and Ourselves) by Jonnie Hughes

   

 
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a meme (pronounced meem) is, "n. An element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation". A meme is a nugget of meaning, the smallest building block of an idea, the basic unit of culture. What a gene is to biology, some say, the meme is to anthropology. Just as an advanced organism, like an elephant, has a complex genetic code built up over millennia, so too does a cultural production such as Darwin's On the Origin of Species. In this case, an accretion of small ideas evolved over time and combined in new ways. In Jonnie Hughes's On the Origin of Tepees, memes are the building blocks of all human skill and knowledge. Like genes, they want to replicate. They want to be passed down, and it's the drive of memes that motivates cultural change.

The word "meme" was coined in Richard Dawkins's 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. He extracted it from the Greek word mimeme, "something imitated" (as in the English word "mimesis"). He made it short and catchy (on purpose) so it would sound like "gene." A meme, he wrote, is a cultural replicator in the way a gene is a biological one. Continued 

By Jennifer G Wilder

Above is part of BookBrowse's review of On the Origin of Tepees. Read the review in full here
 

 

A powerful novel about an ordinary family facing extraordinary times at the start of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

China, 1957. Chairman Mao has declared a new openness in society: "Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend." Many intellectuals fear it is only a trick, and Kai Ying's husband, Sheng, a teacher, has promised not to jeopardize their safety or that of their young son, Tao. But one July morning, just before his sixth birthday, Tao watches helplessly as Sheng is dragged away for writing a letter criticizing the Communist Party and sent to a labor camp for "reeducation."

A year later, still missing his father desperately, Tao climbs to the top of the hundred-year-old kapok tree in front of their home, wanting to see the mountain peaks in the distance. But Tao slips and tumbles thirty feet to the courtyard below, badly breaking his leg.

---

Past Winners
 

 

A Dozen Not-to-Miss Books Publishing Soon