February 2005

$10.00

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From Dreams to Reality:
Spaceflight in Modern Nonfiction

During the decades before the July 1969 moon landing, writers and enthusiasts produced many books about the possibilities of spaceflight. A few were scientific, many others tended to science fiction.

Collecting Richard Powers
According to Herman Melville, to write a great book you need a mighty theme. Richard Powers’ novel, The Gold Bug Variations,has one. It is about the meaning of life or, at the very least, the messages inherent in the living of life.

Ka-Boom! Or, the End of the World
From the time the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the shadows of their mushroom clouds have lingered, altering the course of the historywith the dread of nuclear extinction. Our closest brushes came in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We look at four important works of popular fiction that addressed the horror of our dilemma in different ways.

Gather & Bind:
The Fundamentals of Book Collecting
Part Two: Why Collect Books?

Books into Film
The High and The Mighty, a novel by Ernest K. Gann; a film by William A. Wellman

Ten Years Ago
February 1995 Checklist Update: Alice Walker