Lucas Blogs About Books

Oh? Thomas Steinbeck , the author of two novels and a collection of stories? Be serious, we're gonna talk about his dad, Nobel laureate, chronicler of the Great Depression, extraordinary describer of California , and someone who's made me cry : John Steinbeck. A (semi-representative) sampling of the works of John Steinbeck. Oh, like in the style of Lucas Blogs About Dick  from last year? Yeah, but I think it's more of a  Hey, Hypothetical Reader!  kinda thing going forward. All right, let's dive in! Okay, so John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (1902-1968) is probably best known to American public school students for novels that have become assigned reading standards like Of Mice and Men , The Grapes of Wrath , and East of Eden . Themes that run throughout his work include the beauty of the California landscape and the ugliness of living in poverty in America. In addition to well known novels he was a prolific writer of non-fiction and served as a war correspondent ...

I really shouldn't be taking these pictures during the day. So, what's this book's—oh, for Christ's sake! Yup, we're doing another volume of Saga . But this is the third time you've drawn from this well. Then we should be able to wrap things up quickly and get to work on stuff I haven't written about yet. Or we could have a discussion about por— Stop right there. —nography. We're not going to talk about pornography. Well, I mean, the difference between art and pornography. But, is there really a line? You're not suggesting. . . What? That pornography is art. Well, I mean, I guess technically speaking it couldn't be anything else. But I was actually suggesting that maybe it's less of a clearly delineated line and more of a gradient. So while what we might think of as serious art can contain erotic elements, it wouldn't be pornographic unless it was produced solely for salacious purposes. But why are we having thi...

Hey! Hypothetical Reader! LUCAS! HYPOTHETICAL READER! LUCAS! Wanna talk about manga? Most of the manga that survived the most recent  purge . Seriously? Manga? It's actually pronounced manga. I don't think that's going to work in type unless you spell out how we're pronouncing it. Anyway, here on your blog about books you expect us to have a serious conversation about those funny backwards comics from Japan? Wouldn't be the first time . Well, yeah, but that's because if, and I quote, you reads, it ledes. End quote. Quite. Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on it, I mean I did take that "Japanese Popular Culture" class in college, and I've read the work of several well-known mangaka like Shigeru Mizuki, Akira Toriyama, Osamu Tezuka, and Katsuhiro Otomo. When it comes to manga, I'm basic. Mizuki isn't that well-known outside Japan. Also, western audiences would be more familiar with Toriyama, Tezu...

This book cover brought to you by Wes Anderson. So, what's this book's deal? Well, since you asked, Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution examines experiments in evolutionary biology meant to test whether evolution is the random, non-repeatable result of every selection pressure that's ever acted upon a species or whether it is limited to the possibilities present in an organism's genome, meaning it can be predicted and will inevitably give rise to to the same convergent phenotypes. You're not expecting me to roll out the "English, please," cliche, are you? No. Anyway, this is a popular science book about evolutionary biology by Jonathan B. Losos, a herpetologist who has conducted evolutionary studies on anole lizards in the Caribbean. Specifically, to test the hypothesis that ground-based predation pressure will lead to natural selection for shorter legs in order for increased climbing stability on thin branches (I m...