Rating: 
Summary: MYSTERY, SCIENCE, AND TEXAS HUMOR
Review: Dr. Guy Carpenter is an older man with a young wife and a new baby. He works for NASA, and his life seems happy. But it's all about to change, thanks to a past failed government project. Carpenter once worked on a team in search of the Higgs Boson. When Congress canceled it, the physicists involved went on to other jobs. Wen Mei Li, a Chinese physicist, goes home and eventually leads her country to the discovery of the boson particle. Soon they create the boson bomb. The US government reacts in the typical way -- they hold hearings. Imagine Guy's surprise when he hears his first love, Wen Mei Li, is returning to America for those hearings. Imagine his wife's surprise since she discovered his old love letters to Wen Mei Li. She's never met her, but she dislikes the Chinese physicist nonetheless, so you can bet the wife with eyes of blue sliver glass won't let him off easy. Guy is summoned by Representative Myra Kadane. She's interested in what he has to say. And Guy is willing to talk because he needs her on his side, especially when he gives her the bad news.... It's mystery, science, and Texas-size humor by Herman Wouk. Readers will be impressed by the scientific and political situations as well as the humor of Guy's predicaments. And let's not forget a special appearance by a famous movie star. The TimeWarner audio version is read by actor and writer, Jonathan Davis. He does a good job of getting Wouk's humor to the listener. His attempts at the feminine voices add to the story in a positive, humorous way.
Rating:
Summary: Deep Throat
Review: Herman Wouk's "A Hole In Texas" is an engaging quick read that will keep most readers flipping the pages. The characters are interesting. Protagonist Dr. Guy Carpenter is a particle physicist who worked on the super collider project in Texas. The expensive project was funded and then closed before achieving success. Carpenter's science is almost as interesting as his love life. He comes across as a rather inexperienced lover, despite 20+ years of marriage to Penny. His old flame Wen Mei Li has kept a secret correspondence with him over the years. When forced to reveal this to his wife, it almost ends their marriage as Penny's jealousy momentarily outweighs her devotion. What seemed a little strange to me was how Wouk then throws in a third attraction to Congresswoman Myra Kadane. So we have Carpenter going around kissing two women who are not his wife and winds up the novel reconciling with his wife. This is obviously a guy's idea of a happy ending, perhaps why "Guy" was chosen as the character's first name. The supporting characters are interesting. Congresswoman Myra Kadane seems a bit overly angelic, but certainly one of the most capable and nicest people who could befriend you. Wife Penny seems plenty human. Even the cat Sweeny is well written with his penchant for hide & seek as is the toddler Dinah. Jules Berkowitz, the lawyer, is perhaps a bit too good to be true, but still distinctive. Earle Carkins the slimy assistant to Congresswoman Kadayne gets what's coming to him; and we like that! The settings in the book enhance the story from the Carpenter's home to the Waxahachie, Texas to the Millard Filmore Hotel to the Chinese Embassy. The pacing is fairly good in this continuing drama. The science issues of subatomic particles called the Higgs Boson are interesting and give a great sense of reality to the story. We enjoy Carpenter telling the reporter to go F himself and then suffer with him as he works his way through the consequences of being labeled in the press as the "Deep Throat Physicist." It's got the right mix of entertainment and substance. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Almost Bad
Review: Herman Wouk's "A Hole In Texas" is an engaging quick read that will keep most readers flipping the pages. The characters are interesting. Protagonist Dr. Guy Carpenter is a particle physicist who worked on the super collider project in Texas. The expensive project was funded and then closed before achieving success. Carpenter's science is almost as interesting as his love life. He comes across as a rather inexperienced lover, despite 20+ years of marriage to Penny. His old flame Wen Mei Li has kept a secret correspondence with him over the years. When forced to reveal this to his wife, it almost ends their marriage as Penny's jealousy momentarily outweighs her devotion. What seemed a little strange to me was how Wouk then throws in a third attraction to Congresswoman Myra Kadane. So we have Carpenter going around kissing two women who are not his wife and winds up the novel reconciling with his wife. This is obviously a guy's idea of a happy ending, perhaps why "Guy" was chosen as the character's first name. The supporting characters are interesting. Congresswoman Myra Kadane seems a bit overly angelic, but certainly one of the most capable and nicest people who could befriend you. Wife Penny seems plenty human. Even the cat Sweeny is well written with his penchant for hide & seek as is the toddler Dinah. Jules Berkowitz, the lawyer, is perhaps a bit too good to be true, but still distinctive. Earle Carkins the slimy assistant to Congresswoman Kadayne gets what's coming to him; and we like that! The settings in the book enhance the story from the Carpenter's home to the Waxahachie, Texas to the Millard Filmore Hotel to the Chinese Embassy. The pacing is fairly good in this continuing drama. The science issues of subatomic particles called the Higgs Boson are interesting and give a great sense of reality to the story. We enjoy Carpenter telling the reporter to go F himself and then suffer with him as he works his way through the consequences of being labeled in the press as the "Deep Throat Physicist." It's got the right mix of entertainment and substance. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Engagingly light reading on a heavy subject
Review: I am a serious book collector. Paperbacks are for amateurs, so to speak. This novel is certainly not of the caliber of earlier works by Wouk, but, that is more a reflection of the times, not the author. Living in Texas through the SSC fiasco I appreciate that it is lost but not forgotten. As a published scientist I relate to the troubles in funding, partcularly in reference to pure, hard, science. The need for long term research has been expounded by the National Research Council, although the commitment is great and the rewards tenuous, it is a fundamental need, no longer suited to academia. Quick, often flawed research is the only feasable route today. I appreciate Wouk's grasp of the politics involved in science and the short-sightedness of policy makers. This is more than enough to make the novel worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: A Whimper from the Wouk
Review: I did not realize that Wouk is 90. I guess, at that age, this book is " acceptable ". But, otherwise the only words applicable are mawkish, awkward, clunky, predictable;maybe, even embarrasssing; you take my meaning.
As Ebert and Roeper are wont to say "two thumbs down, way down".
Memory brings back the "War ---" books and Marjorie Morningstar.
I read them when they first appeared; and liked them alot. That gives away my age.
Good luck, Herman. We are brothers.
Rating:
Summary: I Hope I'm This Funny At 89...
Review: I have to admit to a certain bias here: I am a longtime Herman Wouk fan, so it comes as a delightful surprise to me that, as he nears his 90th birthday, he should come up with as sparkling an entertainment (in the Graham Greene sense of the word) as "A Hole in Texas." Wouk has to be the most underrated living American novelist, and when most of his contemporaries are six feet under, Wouk has written a very funny book that, while it has some continuity with his other books, is in a very real sense a delightful departure from what has gone before. Guy Carpenter is a fiftysomething scientist who once worked on a large-scale government project in Texas looking for something called the Higgs boson. After some years and a few billion dollars, Congress shut down the ambitious and expensive project, only to react with panic when it looks like the Chinese might have come discovered the Higgs boson on their own. All of the arcane physics mumbo-jumbo is explained to the reader using the admirable dramatic exposition that Wouk has resorted to before (think of that scene in "The Winds of War" when Byron Henry described to his new bride how a submarine works), and he makes the machinations of Congress seem utterly ridiculous - although admittedly that's not too hard to do. There's a scene in a Bel-Air where Dr. Carpenter and his wife are engulfed and almost swallowed alive by Hollywood types that might be the funniest thing Wouk has written since the seder scene in "Marjorie Morningstar." And Dr. Carpenter's problems with his wife - not to mention the complications of a sexy Congresswoman who used to be a movie star and a Chinese scientist who used to be his girlfriend - are made to seem both plausible and amusing. Wouk's prose style is as clunky and Theodore Dreiser-ish as ever, and if he doesn't say, as Dreiser did, that "It was a truly swell saloon," he does refer to a stripper as a "stripteaser," which I doubt any male under eighty would ever do. But then Wouk is perhaps the only living author who is capable of using the word "monkeyshines" in a sentence with a straight face (and did so in his last nonfiction work, "The Will To Live On"), so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The bottom line is that at the age of 89, Herman Wouk is still in the game. This is certainly not a sweeping historical fiction like "The Winds of War" or "War and Remembrance," but it's a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it immensely. You will too.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment
Review: If in some alternate world I had not read the cover before delving into the text, I would not have know that Wouk wrote this except for the fact that after all these decades his characters continue to exclaim "Ye gods!" and "Gads!" I am a tremendous fan of Wouk -- I will re-read some of his works throughout the rest of my life -- but I think A Hole is not indicative of his tremendous contributions to American literature, and, indeed, culture.
I think the reason is that Mr. Wouk's strength was never his ear for conversations, and this book is very chatty. In particular, the interaction between naive but brilliant scientist Guy Carpenter, and the wealthy and world-wise Congresswoman struck me as distractingly artificial, especially when it lapsed into forced cuteness. More minor instances include rural Texas cab drivers who speak like they're 1940s New Yorkers ("Hey lady . . ."), and a strange appearance by Dustin Hoffman that I think might have been edited out if it came from a lesser pen.
Of course, this wasn't by any means a bad book. The portrayal of the marital tension between the Carpenters was written with great power -- the kind that usually Mr. Wouk's books have in their entirety. Mr. Wouk's keen eye for detail was ever-present. The plot was reasonably engaging, if a bit too neat at places. And I doubt I would otherwise have learned what a Higgs Boson is if I didn't read this.
So this is not a bad book, but I just didn't care for the writing. Having such high expectations after Marjorie Morningstar, the Caine Mutiny, War and Remembrance, and on and on, I was left somewhat disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A Light Summer Reading
Review: It was my first year in a Shanghai high school that I read Herman Wouk's "Winds of War." I was fascinated by the stories of Victor "Pug" Henry and his family with the backdrop of World War II. Mr. Wouk skillfully weaved fictional characters with historical figures and facts. It was my first glimpse of the contemporary western history and civilization. What a coincidence it was, on the 60th anniversary of D day, at a local Barnes and Noble bookstore, that I saw Mr. Wouk's new book prominently displayed at the entrance. As I was having a hard time finishing two other volumes ("Hope" and "Glory") that Mr. Wouk wrote after "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance," I picked it up with some skepticism. But, two pages into the book, I decided to give it a chance. And a cup of Starbuck's Latte and 20 pages later, I bought the book and finished it in two days. This is not a book that will ever win any Pulitzer or Nobel. Yet, like Dan Brown has done his homework in history, religion, and art, in his bestselling "Da Vinci Code," Mr. Wouk has done his. This time, both in science and in history. Not about Hitler or the middle east conflict in this book, Mr. Wouk proposed a new adversary of the United States: the emerging superpower of China. Did the Chinese find Higgs boson after U. S. abruptly pulled the plug of this largest basic science research project? The field of astrophysics has daunting theories and concepts, Mr. Wouk smoothly explains, through his scientist characters from Stanford, the JPL, and the California Institute of Technology, the ideas of super colliders and accelerators, cosmic rays and particles, and the significance, if any, of finding Higgs boson. Like his other books, Mr. Wouk's familiarity and comfort in describing lives of Washington's inner circle carries the story with authenticity and flavor. The references and mixtures of historical and contemporary characters, such as President Reagan, President Clinton, Deng Xiaoping, Professor Chien-Shiung Wu, Peter Jennings, and Dustin Hoffman, have made the tale ever so much more convincing. At the same time, descriptions of "wet autumn leaves," a "mildewed" old book "smelled of a Georgetown house," and a naughty cat who loves to sneak out of the house, all established the atmosphere and details of environment where the story takes place. Being 89 years old, Mr. Wouk still writes with sharp observations and causes thriller-like adrenaline for his readers. His characters are still full of romance, as Byron and Natalie once were in "Winds of War." Sitting outside on the patio, feeling the cool evening breeze that carries a whiff of sweetness from the blooming Asian lilies, and with a glass of freshly made sangria, this book will provide you with some delicious summer reading.
Rating:
Summary: A Light Summer Reading
Review: It was my first year in a Shanghai high school that I read Herman Wouk's "Winds of War." I was fascinated by the stories of Victor "Pug" Henry and his family with the backdrop of World War II. Mr. Wouk skillfully weaved fictional characters with historical figures and facts. It was my first glimpse of the contemporary western history and civilization. What a coincidence it was, on the 60th anniversary of D day, at a local Barnes and Noble bookstore, that I saw Mr. Wouk's new book prominently displayed at the entrance. As I was having a hard time finishing two other volumes ("Hope" and "Glory") that Mr. Wouk wrote after "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance," I picked it up with some skepticism. But, two pages into the book, I decided to give it a chance. And a cup of Starbuck's Latte and 20 pages later, I bought the book and finished it in two days. This is not a book that will ever win any Pulitzer or Nobel. Yet, like Dan Brown has done his homework in history, religion, and art, in his bestselling "Da Vinci Code," Mr. Wouk has done his. This time, both in science and in history. Not about Hitler or the middle east conflict in this book, Mr. Wouk proposed a new adversary of the United States: the emerging superpower of China. Did the Chinese find Higgs boson after U. S. abruptly pulled the plug of this largest basic science research project? The field of astrophysics has daunting theories and concepts, Mr. Wouk smoothly explains, through his scientist characters from Stanford, the JPL, and the California Institute of Technology, the ideas of super colliders and accelerators, cosmic rays and particles, and the significance, if any, of finding Higgs boson. Like his other books, Mr. Wouk's familiarity and comfort in describing lives of Washington's inner circle carries the story with authenticity and flavor. The references and mixtures of historical and contemporary characters, such as President Reagan, President Clinton, Deng Xiaoping, Professor Chien-Shiung Wu, Peter Jennings, and Dustin Hoffman, have made the tale ever so much more convincing. At the same time, descriptions of "wet autumn leaves," a "mildewed" old book "smelled of a Georgetown house," and a naughty cat who loves to sneak out of the house, all established the atmosphere and details of environment where the story takes place. Being 89 years old, Mr. Wouk still writes with sharp observations and causes thriller-like adrenaline for his readers. His characters are still full of romance, as Byron and Natalie once were in "Winds of War." Sitting outside on the patio, feeling the cool evening breeze that carries a whiff of sweetness from the blooming Asian lilies, and with a glass of freshly made sangria, this book will provide you with some delicious summer reading.
Rating: 
Summary: engaging work of a master
Review: It's very difficult to write a great "light" book - this one is a thorough delight - don't miss it -
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