Goldfinger – Ian Fleming, 1959 ★★★

Cool but Dumb

James Bond got much cooler, and a bit dumber, with his seventh novel. Subtlety got ejected as pure escapism took the wheel, delivered with gusto and without apology.

It’s not Ian Fleming’s best novel, or even a particularly good one. But Goldfinger is closer in spirit to what we think of today as a 007 adventure, an adrenaline-charged thriller with a campy twist. It also became the springboard for the most culturally important of Bond films, unleashing superhuman Korean henchmen, gorgeous lesbian gangsters, and a plot to steal billions of dollars in pure gold from Fort Knox.

The Summer Game – Roger Angell, 1972 ★★★★½

Diamonds are Forever

Last September marked the 100^th birthday of baseball writer Roger Angell, a bittersweet occasion for longtime admirers like myself. While certainly pleasant to think of him still around and hopefully enjoying life, I find myself floored, too.

Time’s passage is a dominant theme of this, Angell’s first and most famous book on the sport: “Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young.”

While focused on the transitory nature of youth as seen in the lens of a national pastime, The Summer Game is exactly that, a book that somehow remains forever young.

Henry V – William Shakespeare, c. 1599 ★½

Not Wild about Harry

King Henry V combines strident jingoism, weak comedy, structural instability, and some of Shakespeare’s dullest blank verse.

It also presents us with a windy protagonist who bears little resemblance to the saucy, shifting Prince Hal of the Henry IV plays. I find it a pain reading Henry V, except when the king is offstage, when it gets even more annoying.

What do so many other people see in this play anyway?

The Biafra Story – Frederick Forsyth, 1969 [Revised 2001] ★½

Who Mourns for Biafra?

They call them crimes against humanity, but do they count if not everyone admits they are crimes?

This was the problem facing a young British journalist who had what seemed to be a huge story in his hands, one where millions of helpless civilians were killed. But to many of his colleagues, and his own government, the deaths were unfortunate byproducts of settled policy.

Who mourns for Biafra? This becomes a question without an answer, and a cry which permeates each page of this angry, difficult book.

Proof – Dick Francis, 1984 ★★★½

Whisky Business

Life can change cruelly and suddenly for reasons infinitesimally small. What can you do when this happens to you?

For liquor merchant Tony Beach, the answer comes in the form of an odd quest to uncover a conspiracy involving counterfeit spirits, hijacked trucks, and a little murder.

And being this is a Dick Francis novel, some racehorses, too, though not so much as we might expect.

Ulysses – James Joyce, 1922 ★★½

Greeker than the Greeks

Just because I respect Ulysses doesn’t mean I have to like reading it.

For nearly a hundred years, it has been one of the world’s most influential books. Also, one of the most confusing. What is it about? How is one supposed to feel at its end? Is the whole novel about ignoring context and focusing on form, or favoring feeling over sight?

Who is M’Intosh? Am I wrong not to care?