Bill Chaisson (Author of Of a Feather)

Bill Chaisson rated a book it was amazing The End of the Affair by Graham Greene	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Maurice Bendrix is about the worst atheist you will ever encounter. He spends a certain amount of The End of the Affair addressing God directly, if only to have an argument. Although the novel is literally about the end of an affair, the existential ...more
Nov 20, 2025 11:23AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The End of the Affair by Graham Greene <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bill Chaisson is currently reading H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Bill Chaisson wants to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Adventures of Tom and Huck, #2) by Mark Twain	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Bill Chaisson rated a book it was amazing Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This is one of Graham Greene's "entertainments," so you cannot expect a deep and agonizing examination of the human condition in Travels With My Aunt. Instead, you get a comic exploration of how awful it is to be middle class and bored. Henry Pulling ...more
Nov 19, 2025 05:14PM · like · see review
Bill Chaisson rated a book really liked it Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls by Robert M. Thorson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Geologist Robert M. Thorson is pleasantly analytical in his approach to stone walls. He begins with the most elemental components and then proceeds chapter by chapter toward a synthesis of those components: the stone wall. The first chapter is devote ...more
Nov 19, 2025 12:04PM · like · see review
Bill Chaisson is currently reading Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nov 18, 2025 09:14AM · like
Bill Chaisson rated a book it was amazing The Rose Field (The Book of Dust, #3) by Philip Pullman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
As soon as I finished The Rose Field I vowed to sooner than later return to the beginning of this six-book saga and read it all over again. It is really just that beautifully written, impressively imagined, and just plain stirring. Philip Pullman pick ...more
Nov 18, 2025 09:13AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Rose Field by Philip Pullman. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Rose Field by Philip Pullman <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bill Chaisson rated a book it was amazing The Rose Field (The Book of Dust, #3) by Philip Pullman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
As soon as I finished The Rose Field I vowed to sooner than later return to the beginning of this six-book saga and read it all over again. It is really just that beautifully written, impressively imagined, and just plain stirring. Philip Pullman pick ...more
Nov 17, 2025 02:21PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Rose Field by Philip Pullman. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Rose Field by Philip Pullman <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bill Chaisson wants to read The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero by Timothy Egan (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Maurice Bendrix is about the worst atheist you will ever encounter. He spends a certain amount of The End of the Affair addressing God directly, if only to have an argument. Although the novel is literally about the end of an affair, the existential Maurice Bendrix is about the worst atheist you will ever encounter. He spends a certain amount of The End of the Affair addressing God directly, if only to have an argument. Although the novel is literally about the end of an affair, the existential consequences of that end are the real subject. The other party in the affair is Sarah Miles, the wife of highly placed civil servant. Sarah is chronically unfaithful. Although Bendrix is one in a string of lovers, Sarah claims that he is the love of her life. Whether this is true or not is never clear.

Bendrix, who is a writer and not quite yet a successful one, is not a likeable man, which is essential to the point of the novel. Graham Greene was a master of subtly shifting your feelings for a character, and as circumstances turn against Bendrix, Greene ever so gradually makes him more sympathetic. Early on in the novel, the writer is nasty to everyone, including himself, but loss and the promise of recovering what was lost soften him and his essential decency begins to show itself through his empathetic treatment of others. But just as it seems like he will become likeable, the finality of loss again makes him bitter and prone to lashing out.

Greene divided his work into "entertainments" and "novels," and this is definitely one of the latter. The End of the Affair is a complex examination of the nature of faith. Greene, who converted to Catholicism as an adult, portrays faith as a never-ending conversation with a deity. The characters outwardly profess no belief whatsoever, but when the chips are down, they turn to religion in order to have some purchase amid the storm of their anxieties.

Bendrix describes himself as having black, blank periods about which he remembers little. Greene himself suffered from bouts of depression throughout his life. There is some suggestion here that a conversation with God is a sort of lifeline to, if not sanity, at least prevent one from losing one's way entirely. Greene seems to have much less sympathy for the Catholic Church itself, and instead portrays religion as a personal relationship. In The End of the Affair it is relationship that complicates Bendrix's love for Sarah and hers for him.

The novel is told entirely in the first person, but Greene uses the device of a stolen diary to interrupt Bendrix's voice with Sarah's. It serves as a means of letting the reader witness events that Bendrix cannot, most importantly her unsuccessful mentorship with a rationalist called Richard Smythe. Smythe represents an unquestioning faith in pure reason, which Greene rather obviously thinks is as absurd as blind faith in the supernatural. While Smythe and his ideas are never shown in a favorable light, Greene ultimately paints him to be a hypocrite.

Through all of this, Henry, Sarah's cuckolded husband, is the oddest duck, as he lives a sort of muted and impersonal life, entirely devoted to his government work and by his own admission not much of a partner to Sarah. He provides for her materially but his lack of passion leaves a void in her life that she endlessly tries to fill. When he is forced to face up to his own inadequacies, he rather goes to pieces. Greene lets Bendrix try very hard to convince us that the tempestuousness of the love affair between Sarah and Maurice is on a higher plane than the complacent marriage she has with Henry Miles. But in the end, it is clear that neither is the ideal and that perhaps having a third party involved—that good old deity that Maurice loves to hate—might be what is required. ...more

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H is for Hawk
by Helen Macdonald

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James
by Percival Everett

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Adventures of Tom and Huck, #2)
by Mark Twain

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Travels with My Aunt
by Graham Greene

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This is one of Graham Greene's "entertainments," so you cannot expect a deep and agonizing examination of the human condition in Travels With My Aunt. Instead, you get a comic exploration of how awful it is to be middle class and bored. Henry Pulling This is one of Graham Greene's "entertainments," so you cannot expect a deep and agonizing examination of the human condition in Travels With My Aunt. Instead, you get a comic exploration of how awful it is to be middle class and bored. Henry Pulling is a bank manager who has retired in his 50s because his branch has closed down. He is a bachelor who raises dahlias and has no close friends, only acquaintances who he knows because they are clients.

At the start of the book we meet him at his mother's funeral, where he encounters his mother's sister Augusta, the black sheep of the family. To his surprise Augusta wishes to get to know him, although he has not seen her in 50 years. And so begins Henry's departure from his boring, middle-class existence. Greene deftly shows Augusta's true colors in way that allows the reader to figure out the various bohemian, tawdry, and eccentric aspects of his aunt's life well before Henry does.

There are three journeys in this book. One to Istanbul via Paris and the Orient Express, one to Boulougne to visit his father's grave, and finally to Ascuncion, Paraguay for the dénouement. The story unfolds in a series of adventures and misadventures as Henry stumbles through the vaguely criminal terrain of his aunt's life and these events are punctuated by her stories of her past and her very gradual revelation of the true nature of his family.

Perhaps you either think Graham Greene is funny or you don't. I happen to think he is hilarous. His humor is mordant and world weary, based on sharp observation of social conventions and human nature. He is also entirely willing to chuck bourgeois morality straight out the window. Everyone in this book is as crooked as the day is long, except for Henry. And this is all played for laughs.

The period is the late 1960s, about 25 years after the end of World War II, but its shadow hangs over the lives of the older people. The love of Aunt Augusta's life, Mr. Visconti, is a con man and Nazi collaborator. Her affection for him is unreasoning and all forgiving. Greene does not really try to explain it. Nor does he make any excuses for Augusta and her grifting kind; they simply are what they are, uninterested in convention, enamored of pleasure in all its forms, and determined to keep the freak flag flying until their last day on earth.

Greene is Greene: his writing is simply beautiful in its deft, economical grace. The exchanges between Henry and Augusta in the first two-thirds of the book, while he his still trying to hold on to his old way of looking at the world, are priceless. At one point he asks her "Have you no respect for the law?" and her response is "It depends, dear, to which law you refer. Like the Ten Commandments. I can't take very seriously the one about the ox and the ass."

This is not a realistic fiction. Henry meets an American hippie on the Orient Express and befriends her. She tells him her father is in the CIA. Then of course he meets her father on the boat trip up the Paraguay River to Ascuncion. And he doesn't even seem to find it very astonishing. And Henry's conversion from suburbanite to ex-patriate "import/export" man takes place with rather inexorable speed and inevitability. This is not a book about the real world; it is a comment on the real world, which by 1969 Graham Greene found to be quite absurd. Quite right too. ...more

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Exploring Stone Walls by Robert M. Thorson

Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls
by Robert M. Thorson

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Geologist Robert M. Thorson is pleasantly analytical in his approach to stone walls. He begins with the most elemental components and then proceeds chapter by chapter toward a synthesis of those components: the stone wall.

The first chapter is devote Geologist Robert M. Thorson is pleasantly analytical in his approach to stone walls. He begins with the most elemental components and then proceeds chapter by chapter toward a synthesis of those components: the stone wall.

The first chapter is devoted to the life forms associated with old walls that wind across the New England landscape. Then, in three short chapters, he gives the novice a primer on geology. Explaining any science to a non-scientist is difficult because you want to include enough in the way of terminology and concepts to make it hang together but not so much as to make it overwhelming. Thorson does pretty well, although some of his shortcuts might lead to confusion if a reader decided to do some more reading. He does not explain metamorphism in any detail, probably because the transformation of solids is such a weird thing anyway.

Oddly, once he gets the science behind him and wades into the history of the walls, he seems more comfortable. It seems easier for him to write about his advocation than his vocation. One of the most useful aspects of this book is Thorson's systematic way of classifying walls. He takes you through the many factors that contribute toward the form of a particular wall. There is more to it than this, but basically you have to think about the kind of rocks the wall builder had to work with (what and where), what the builder's purpose was for the wall (why), and at what point in the history of settlement the wall was constructed (when).

From these criteria (and more) Thorson constructs a taxonomy that allows the stone-wall enthusiasts to go out into the field and identify what they find in some detail. At the very least, he gives you a vocabulary to use when you are trying to describe what you are looking to another person.

This brief guide is a mere introduction to stone-wall history. I have seen some complicated arrangements of stone walls that will require further inquiry into the fine points of sheep-raising than Thorson goes into here. But he gives his readers four pages of additional sources to answer further questions or at least get you started.

Prof. Thorson's writing style is not academic in the least. He seems to have a lot of practice addressing lay audiences. At the same time he does not try to be excessively folksy, which grates after a short time. Instead, you feel like you are sitting through an illustrated series of talks that you might hear at a local public library or historical society. There are photographs of stone walls on nearly every page of this book. The contrast in the reproduction could occasionally be better, but that is really down to the publisher/designer not the author. ...more

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Travels with My Aunt
by Graham Greene

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The Rose Field (The Book of Dust, #3)
by Philip Pullman

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As soon as I finished The Rose Field I vowed to sooner than later return to the beginning of this six-book saga and read it all over again. It is really just that beautifully written, impressively imagined, and just plain stirring.

Philip Pullman pick As soon as I finished The Rose Field I vowed to sooner than later return to the beginning of this six-book saga and read it all over again. It is really just that beautifully written, impressively imagined, and just plain stirring.

Philip Pullman picks up the parallel stories of Lyra Silvertongue/Belaqua and Malcolm Polstead where he left them in medias res six years ago at the end of The Secret Commonwealth. They are heading east toward the desert of western Cathay to find the source of the rose oil that makes it possible to see Dust. Lyra is in search of Pantalaimon, her daemon, who has run away from her because he is disgusted with her embrace of a very thin-veiled version of post-modernist thinking. Malcolm goes after her because he loves her, but the nature of that love, forged during the events of the first book, La Belle Sauvage, and Lyra's for him is one of the theme's of this book.

Pan tells everyone he meets he is going in search of Lyra's imagination, which she has lost or discarded. Because daemons are Pullman's manifestation of the soul (although it is a more manifold concept than that), Pan feels that Lyra has discarded the part of her that is embodied by him, and he is furious. Full of regret, she pursues Pan across Asia, and Lyra has ample time to reflect on her intellectual errors and comes to see that Pan might be on to something.

Pullman frequently shifts our attention to other characters as well. So, we also see how the Magisterium is cracking down on the imagination and changing all societies under their aegis. Not incidentally, Pullman published The Secret Commonwealth while Donald Trump was in the White House for the first time and right-wing populists were in the ascendant in several European countries, including his own. Now Trump is back in the White House and his administration is more Magisterium-like than ever and it isn't much better in parts of Europe.

But in The Rose Field Pullman shows us that the Magisterium is not the only enemy. There is one that is even worse. As Lyra and Malcolm travel along the old Silk Roads, an economic highway that has been in operations for centuries, along the way they experience commerce and all of its institutions, personalities, and complications. And they experience the fact that its character is changing. And not in a good way.

This is a low fantasy book; the supernatural exists right alongside the everyday world. Pullman's treatment of this duplex nature of reality is fascinating. Some people in his world have no interaction with the supernatural at all. Others do and shake it off as some sort of temporary trick of the mind. Yet others are aware of it—the existence of gryphons, for example—as factual but something far away that is not likely to affect their lives and therefore isn't worth thinking much about. A small number of people, like Lyra and to a less extent Malcolm, have dealt intimately with the supernatural for their entire lives. That she turns away from it and tries to pretend it is not real, is what makes Pan—who has been through nearly everything with her—really lose his temper.

In this, the final volume of a double trilogy, Pullman tries to sum up all of these themes (and more) and does so admirably. Scenes like the one where Lyra has a conversation with an angel about the nature of the imagination and ends up telling the angel it doesn't know what its talking about are pure Pullman gold, as it were. Talking to a being that has never been a child and never played causes Lyra to understand the true value of her imagination and leads her toward understanding its nature and purpose. The difference between her approach to living and Malcolm's forms another dyad that reveals much about human nature. As does her relationship with Abdel Ionides, her erstwhile guide through Asia.

The book is full of these complementary pairs, all of them inter-related, one informing the other. And all building toward a model that tries to explain the nature of creativity. The book veers toward being a meta-narrative as we become conscious that the densely woven plot is perhaps a representation of how Pullman's own mind operates. That is in itself a beautiful thing. It is a place and a sensibility I will not tire of revisiting at intervals when I feel the need. ...more

Bill Chaisson rated a book it was amazing

The Rose Field (The Book of Dust, #3)
by Philip Pullman

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As soon as I finished The Rose Field I vowed to sooner than later return to the beginning of this six-book saga and read it all over again. It is really just that beautifully written, impressively imagined, and just plain stirring.

Philip Pullman pick As soon as I finished The Rose Field I vowed to sooner than later return to the beginning of this six-book saga and read it all over again. It is really just that beautifully written, impressively imagined, and just plain stirring.

Philip Pullman picks up the parallel stories of Lyra Silvertongue/Belaqua and Malcolm Polstead where he left them in medias res six years ago at the end of The Secret Commonwealth. They are heading east toward the desert of western Cathay to find the source of the rose oil that makes it possible to see Dust. Lyra is in search of Pantalaimon, her daemon, who has run away from her because he is disgusted with her embrace of a very thin-veiled version of post-modernist thinking. Malcolm goes after her because he loves her, but the nature of that love, forged during the events of the first book, La Belle Sauvage, and Lyra's for him is one of the theme's of this book.

Pan tells everyone he meets he is going in search of Lyra's imagination, which she has lost or discarded. Because daemons are Pullman's manifestation of the soul (although it is a more manifold concept than that), Pan feels that Lyra has discarded the part of her that is embodied by him, and he is furious. Full of regret, she pursues Pan across Asia, and Lyra has ample time to reflect on her intellectual errors and comes to see that Pan might be on to something.

Pullman frequently shifts our attention to other characters as well. So, we also see how the Magisterium is cracking down on the imagination and changing all societies under their aegis. Not incidentally, Pullman published The Secret Commonwealth while Donald Trump was in the White House for the first time and right-wing populists were in the ascendant in several European countries, including his own. Now Trump is back in the White House and his administration is more Magisterium-like than ever and it isn't much better in parts of Europe.

But in The Rose Field Pullman shows us that the Magisterium is not the only enemy. There is one that is even worse. As Lyra and Malcolm travel along the old Silk Roads, an economic highway that has been in operations for centuries, along the way they experience commerce and all of its institutions, personalities, and complications. And they experience the fact that its character is changing. And not in a good way.

This is a low fantasy book; the supernatural exists right alongside the everyday world. Pullman's treatment of this duplex nature of reality is fascinating. Some people in his world have no interaction with the supernatural at all. Others do and shake it off as some sort of temporary trick of the mind. Yet others are aware of it—the existence of gryphons, for example—as factual but something far away that is not likely to affect their lives and therefore isn't worth thinking much about. A small number of people, like Lyra and to a less extent Malcolm, have dealt intimately with the supernatural for their entire lives. That she turns away from it and tries to pretend it is not real, is what makes Pan—who has been through nearly everything with her—really lose his temper.

In this, the final volume of a double trilogy, Pullman tries to sum up all of these themes (and more) and does so admirably. Scenes like the one where Lyra has a conversation with an angel about the nature of the imagination and ends up telling the angel it doesn't know what its talking about are pure Pullman gold, as it were. Talking to a being that has never been a child and never played causes Lyra to understand the true value of her imagination and leads her toward understanding its nature and purpose. The difference between her approach to living and Malcolm's forms another dyad that reveals much about human nature. As does her relationship with Abdel Ionides, her erstwhile guide through Asia.

The book is full of these complementary pairs, all of them inter-related, one informing the other. And all building toward a model that tries to explain the nature of creativity. The book veers toward being a meta-narrative as we become conscious that the densely woven plot is perhaps a representation of how Pullman's own mind operates. That is in itself a beautiful thing. It is a place and a sensibility I will not tire of revisiting at intervals when I feel the need. ...more

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The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero
by Timothy Egan (Goodreads Author)

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	Of a Feather: Volume I 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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