Giacomo Puccini: 20th-Century Composers - Conrad Wilson

Advantages: A new piece of truth
Disadvantages: None

...There is a book telling maybe an incredible for many, nevertheless true story. It is the story of Nikola Tesla. The book is “ The Man Who Invented the 20th Century”, by Robert Lomas (Great Britain engineer and teacher). Nikola Tesla was born in Serbia, at Smjlian, in a region named Krajna, near Belgrade, in the XIX century. He was a Genius, one of the greatest inventors and scientists in the 19th – 20th century. Here I am commenting, in good part, this optimum book, but I feel I must add something mine, too, since I have studied about Tesla, in the way you will be able to glimpse in the following… At the end of the ‘800, when he had already found out many interesting discoveries in the electromagnetism field, he went to America and began to work with the “great” Thomas Edison. During... Read review

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Advantages: Some real gems
Disadvantages: Some dross

...The book, The Mammoth Book of 20th Century Science Fiction is edited by David G. Hartwell. It boasts on the front cover: that it is: "The biggest and best science Fiction Anthology Ever Published". And there, as they say, is the rub. Is it? Although I acknowledge that there are a great many good science fiction stories in this anthology, I would have to argue against it being the best. And as for the biggest? Well, Asimov's Before the Golden Age (volumes 1 to 4) is a worthy contender for this title, I would have thought. And the best? It cannot be. Why? Because as Hartwell states in the introduction: "I would like to acknowledge the significant presence of John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke and all the other science fiction writers who are not reprinted in this book." Therefore the correct... Read review

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Advantages: A literary classic, reasonably accessable
Disadvantages: It has to end!

...Brave new world is probably one of the most important books of the 20th century. It reaveals the callous reality of our future world, which day-by-day seems to get closer and closer to reality. Carrying many similarities to George Orwell’s “1984”, it is a story that everyone must read; a warning from the future. People are no longer born of the womb – they are grown in test tubes, allocated there status at the point of conception. Alcohol is fed to the featus as it grows, in order to determine whether it will be the perfection of the human species, an alpha double-plus; or an epsilon semi-moron, an almost non-human that lacks almost all intelligence and lives as a robot-like slave. All solitary activities are discouraged, in favour of group activity and total promiscuity. Yet the thought of pregnancy and having a “mother... Read review

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