Mini-Mini-Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz

Title: A Canticle for Leibowitz
Author: Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Awards: 1961 Hugo

When I picked up the book, I looked at the editorial reviews on the outside that acclaimed it as “one of the most significant literary works of our time.” At first, I dismissed it as purely being editorial drivel. I didn’t remember seeing it on any reading lists in the past, and I’m not sure I had even heard of it before picking it up from the library.Experiencing it over the course of today [yes, I started and finished the book in one day], I found my initial reaction to be… well, wrong.

The story is about a post-apocalyptic Earth and the ongoing history of a religious order dedicated to Issac Leibowitz. Among other things, the book goes into conflicts between religion and science and the world in general. It’s also a generally good science-fiction novel. Over the course of the three acts, one cannot help but pick up the allusions to the history of the West as we know it, with the final act closely approximating today’s Earth. While I won’t reveal how the end of the book happens, it’s interesting to see how Miller lays out the ideas of history being cyclical.

In one sense, I wish I had taken more time to read the book. It’s not often that I pick up a book and find myself addicted not only by the plot stories, but by the philosophical questions it poses. One of the reasons I read books is to gain a better understanding of the world from them, and this book has caused me to rethink a few religious items. It is in all of these senses that I find this book one of the most intriguing ones I’ve ever read, and one certainly worthy of its accolades. I just wish more people would read the book.

Synopsis: Highly recommended as a read, especially if you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic anything, philosophy, the conflict between religion and the world around it, religion vs. science, and so on.

Book Areas

I had thought about writing up a different post for tonight, but I spent most of the evening trying to finish up one of my current books. That prompted this post about my current reading goals and what I plan to do with reviews.

At the moment, I’m currently trying to work my way through the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning books; I had read a lot of them in the past due to my love of sci-fi, but there were a lot more out there that I had yet to touch. In addition, I just started looking at Agatha Award-winning novels to cover my mystery side. Before I started, I hadn’t really hit any of these books (due to the award being handed out starting in 1989), but I’m slowly making my way through them.

On the non-fiction side, I’m currently tackling Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winning books. This is a pretty monumental task due to the relative number of books to read (at the beginning, I had read only parts of 2 of the 37 winning books) and their relative size. They just take a lot more time to finish than the award-winning fiction novels.

This isn’t to say I don’t have other books I’m reading. My backlog of owned unread books is pretty darn staggering, and every time I go to the library, my eye is struck by some collection of books. Thus my progress on these goals is a bit slower than what I would like.

At the moment, I’m currently tracking my progress of the book lists over at List of Bests (there are other lists of mine that I’m tracking up there as well, but the ones mentioned above are the main ones I’m working one). What I’ll try to do is add a short blurb of my current reads somewhere (probably on a sidebar), and then post a short review up here every time I finish a book. I’m far from a literary critic, but I should be able to give people a general sense of the book, and whether you should read it or not. It’ll be a fun experiment, and I hope it turns out well.

If people have suggestions on what I should do on here, please let me know. I’m always open for improvements and [hopefully constructive] criticism.