This:
"...Jaws dropped in Mojave when I first admitted that I hadn't read Heinlein or Bradbury. Or Asimov either. On came an avalanche of well-thumbed paperbacks, people explaining, with generous hearts, that I could not understand them unless I read this one or that. Embarrassingly, I tried to return the favor, extending copies of my own dog-eared favorites--James Salter's 'Light Years,' Joan Didion's 'Slouching Toward Bethlehem'--which people politely accepted and completely ignored.”

I have run across a lot of non-science people who have never read Heinlein, and are turned off by "scientific fiction." But to have never at least read Bradbury indicates a major lack of the fantastic in one's life. It would be interesting to see if Weil has ever read Tolkein.





...would be one of the author’s grand failings. Grand, Tom, because she attributes it in the book without realizing at all what it is. Her comparison of literature preferences is a wasted attempt. She points to the mirror you and your cohorts held up for her to view and shouted, “Shallow!”

You see, she was there to “get” the people. The people were not there to “get” her. Reading your review, it seems she failed, and apparently continued in this with her book. Reading material, which might have assisted in her understanding her subject matter (yous guys), was -- dare I say it? -- offered, and equally ignored.

Dan