Customer Comments

This is a good one. Jing Tsu makes the story read like a novel in her telling of the stories of her characters. We meet them as they develop organization methods for the Chinese language, and try to integrate the language with communication technology ranging from telegraphs and printing presses to modern smart phones. They struggle with political and cultural forces, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing (at least in their lifetimes). She is able to present the technical as well as the political and cultural aspects of the story in a way that I think would be accessible to a wide audience, regardless of background.

It was the genuine enthusiasm that came through in Christopher Buckley's N.Y. Times review that led me to read Less (thanks Powell's for the autographed copy). I can now join Buckley in asking “with regret why I wasn’t familiar with this author. My bad. His admirers have included John Updike, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers and John Irving.” One disaster after another follows Arthur Less on a 50th birthday journey around the world, arranged so he can avoid attending the wedding of an ex-lover. Yet, as Buckley says, what bubbles up amid all these disasters isn’t self-pity but Arthur Less' warm humanity. By the end of your travels together you too will love Less.

A Middlemarch of foreign affairs, Clark delves deep into the historical record and shows us how his sleepwalking characters, countries as well as individuals, confronted with what might have been the Third Balkan War, unleashed the horror of the First World War. Thoughtful and clearly written commentary places meticulously researched history in context. While certainly a cautionary tale, Clark also carefully explains, despite disturbing similarities to our own times (a state supported terrorist network plotting suicide attacks for starters), that simple parallels do not always exist to the Europe of one hundred years ago.