User Profile

A couple of notes before I begin: First, I am only reviewing the writing section of this book, since that is my area of expertise. The reading section looks fine but I could be wrong. Second, this book is based on the version of the TOEFL offered before August 1, 2019. The test changed a bit on that date. Most of the content in the book is still fine, but be aware of the new format of the test.

And now, the review: I like this book just as much as I like the matching speaking and listening book from Collins. Like that book, this title is incredibly accurate in its depictions of TOEFL questions. Indeed, I have never seen a printed book with such accurate TOEFL integrated writing questions. There are only five samples, but they are all perfectly designed to match the real test. In each of them the author makes three points, and the lecturer casts doubt on the three points in the right order. Reading these five questions is a heavenly experience. In contrast, textbooks from more established publishers like Kaplan, Barron’s and the Princeton Review are all ruined by the inclusion of inaccurate questions. Heck, this book is even better than the Official Guide to the TOEFL, which famously contains a couple of incorrectly designed integrated questions.

So if your students need accurate practice writing questions, this is a good source. The book also benefits from a concise explanation of how the questions are put together, though I suppose it could be even more explicit.

The independent questions here are merely adequate, however. The problem is that the book includes only agree/disagree style questions, and totally ignores both paired-choice and multiple choice questions. This is probably because the authors relied too much on materials from ETS, which also emphasize this question type. I’m not too bothered by that, since good practice independent questions are easy to find elsewhere, and they aren’t fundamentally misleading students as some other publishers to when they print shitty integrated questions.

The book also includes concise tips for each task and decent templates. You will have to go elsewhere to learn the fundamentals of writing, but that will always be outside the scope of a good TOEFL book.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the first Riverworld book, I'm continuing my reexamination of the series.

"The Fabulous Riverboat" is the second book in the series, and it has a somewhat confusing publication history. The story here was originally published in four parts - two parts in 1967 and more two parts in 1971 (all in "If" Magazine). These parts were combined (and somewhat revised) for the book-length version, which was also published in 1971... the same year as "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" (the first book in the series).

Do you got all that?

I wonder if Hugo voters who named "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" best novel gave Farmer credit for the second book as well. It did beat out a very deserving novel by Ursula K Le Guin.

Anyways, this is a somewhat better book than the first. Some decades have passed since Resurrection Day, and kingdoms have popped up along the river. Our protagonist this time is Sam Clemens, who dreams of building a mighty riverboat to sail upriver where he figures he will learn the secrets of the planet. He is accompanied by a cast of historical and fictional characters, most of whom want the same thing.

Farmer's strength remains his pulpy prose, which moves along at a quick pace. For me it is weird, though, reading about a "Game of Thrones" style setting where life is cheap and characters are casually brutalized written in such a zippy style. I guess that was the norm in earlier generations, but it can be off-putting in 2021.

Speaking of "Game of Thrones," I can totally imagine this book as season of big budget genre TV. The governments, the battles and the scheming would make a great series. Alas, the Science Fiction Channel tried twice to turn this into a TV show (failing both times) so I don't think anyone will try again soon. If only they had waited a decade.

"Mirror to Damascus" is Colin Thubron's very first travelogue. It finds a very young Thubron exploring Damascus and the surrounding countryside in the mid 1960s. Interestingly, this seems to be Thurbon at his most "Fermoresque." He doesn't make as many assumptions about your knowledge as Fermor does, but you might want to take a quick look at the Wikipedia pages on the histories of Syria and Islam before you get going. And perhaps crack open your copy of the Old Testament while you are at it. This isn't a book for the ignorant.

Like some of Fermor's better-known works, there is precious little actual travel depicted in these pages. Thubron spends a few paragraphs recounting a bicycle ride and then spends thirty pages talking about the history of a town. Again and again this is repeated. At first I felt bad reading the book... I visited Damascus in my early 20s as well, and reading this made me feel bad because I mostly just f--ked around. Perhaps, though, Thubron just mucked about as well. As I said, most of the book is just history. It could have been written at a nice library back home. Don't let that dissuade you, of course. The story told here is still compelling and beautiful.

Most readers will know Thubron from his later accounts of trips across vast geographic areas (the Silk Road, Siberia, etc). This serves as a nice counterpoint (along with some of his other earlier books) all of which are about small patches of land.

Well, 2021 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of "To Your Scattered Bodies Go," which won the Hugo award for best novel, and was adapted twice for television. I suppose it is worth noting that the story was actually serialized in 1965/66, and was based on an unpublished manuscript from the 1950s.

So... does it hold up in 2021?

Sort of. As other reviewers here have noted, it's quite sexist. I would say that it is a product of its time, but the sexism here does bring to mind much of "Game of Thrones," which is a product of our time.

On the plus side, Farmer's pulpy prose zips along at a wonderful pace. The book is tightly plotted and readable. There's no filler here. Richard Francis Burton is the sort of good-at-everything protagonist that Farmer loved to write. Some might find that tiresome, but this moves the plot along quickly.

I also appreciate Farmer's narrow world-building here. Literally, I mean. Though the titular planet houses thirty billion people, all of the communities are stuck in a narrow valley lined by impenetrable mountains. There is nowhere to go but up the river. This is Riverworld, and by God the characters are going to stay on the river. As I said, the plot moves along quickly.

I will likely revist the second book in the series. I last read it in the 1990s. My memory is that it has less sexism, but I could be wrong.

Well, this is an interesting one. Sort of a comedy of manners in a fantasy setting. Our hero, Desdemona Mannering (get it?) is the sort of person who doesn't appreciate art, but does collect a lot of artists. She goes to cocktail parties and fundraisers. She drinks. Eventually, Desdemona discovers that her father has "tithed" 36 of his miners to the underworld and has murdered another 300. She's going to have to descend into the worlds below to undo this. But first... champagne (and lots of it).

If you read only first 20% of the book you might think that it is purely a satire of the idle rich, but there is a story here if you keep going. Readers who find shallow socialites and their hangers-on annoying might not like this one, but it is also a story of transformation. The characters and the society they are in do grow by the end of the tale. Hilariously, though, at the end of the story no one seems to care much about justice for the murdered miners.

For full effect, check out the audio version read by the author. She really leans into the comical tone of the work.