The span of a thirty year career is showcased in _A User's Guide to the Millenium_ by J.G. Ballard, which is a collection of his essays and reviews. What makes his reviews interesting is that rather than reviewing the subject at hand, Ballard comments on his feelings and opinions that result from the subject being reviewed.

His reviews touch on such wide-ranging topics as art to science, bemoaning the emphasis of style over substance in Star Wars on one hand, to revealing Einstein's hidden sexual past on the other. Particularly affecting is the final autobiographical piece, which presents a perspective of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings from the viewpoint of himself as a young boy in a detention camp near Shanghai. Although I didn't find every piece in the book interesting, overall this book provides a very insightful look into the cultural influences of our era.

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