Customer Comments

Unlike Mary Roach's prior books to this point (Stiff, Spook, Bonk), the subject of space exploration is one that I am quite familiar with. I have read much non-fiction (and fiction) on the subject -- for decades. And yet she is able to find angles (humorous ones, at that) that I had never even thought of, much less heard before. The problems of elimination in space (to take one large and obvious example) are devilishly complex. She covers them well, humorously, and in great detail (bibliography available). At this point, I believe I would read a Mary Roach book on any subject. When Packing For Mars, even though space is tight, make room for this book.

China Mieville has a tendency toward the baroque, but in The City & The City, he dials his style all the way back to sparse, and it works brilliantly. The story of a detective investigating a murder that takes place in one of two intertwined cities, it expands outward to encompass the history of the cities, and hints at the underlying secrets around and between them. And this is the genius of the novel, that although the plot progresses in a fairly straightforward fashion, the stories of the city & the city proceed in hints and interstices. The stylistic restraint suits Mr Mieville very well.