Reviews: Throat Clearing and Reviews

Funny how some things you never forget. Mike Elgan (who, I feel certain, doesn’t read this column) was my editor at Windows Magazine. In a phone conversation once, 25 years ago, he told me he was thinking of writing a Word macro that cut the first three grafs of my stories automatically. “You spend too much time clearing your throat; just get on with the review.”

I think he was wrong, but as I considered the throat clearing for the two reviews that follow, I decided to separate it, so you could “just read the review” if that’s all you wanted.

My younger daughter and I share a Kindle library. When I finished my last book, I was looking for my next. There was a title on the list that I thought was a “Comedy Women In Print” winner I had forgotten. So, I stumbled into Lessons in Chemistry (from her book club). one of the best novels I’ve ever read. And, by coincidence, my older daughter tells me her book club picked it too. Given that the book is about the raw deal women get, even in America, I’m not surprised.

Much shorter is Being Erica, which also came to me as a recommendation, largely because everyone who knows me knows how much I like the tropes of time travel in (so far) fiction.