I borrow the The Tent from Caitlin_D after she complained that she didn’t like it, and possibly just does not like short stories. Caitlin, I am determined to prove you wrong! I love Margaret Atwood, and in fact beside Stephen King, she’s probably the one author whose short stories I actually seek out. “I suffer from my own multiplicity. Two or three images would have been enough, or four, or five. That would be allowed for a firm idea: This is she. As it is, I’m watery, I […]
Every memoir offers something new
I’ve read a lot of these memoirs written by people who had messed up childhoods, in one way or the other. Many share characteristics, usually an unhinged mother, but there’s always a new focus that keeps me coming back for more. In Swallow the Ocean, Laura Flynn recounts her childhood growing up with two sisters and a schizophrenic mother. Laura was in the position of her mother’s “golden child” for most of her life, while her mentally unbalanced mother took out most of her anger and […]
“Oh, aye, Sassenach. I am your master . . . and you’re mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own.”
So one of my goals for CBR this year is to go through the Outlander series again (which I’ve read through several times over the last decade), this time exclusively on audiobook. The first book is the shortest, and clocks in at 32 hours — so I have a feeling this is going to take a good amount of time. It’s a wonderful listening experience though, especially if you enjoy the accents, which I do! So if you’re not familiar with the story of Outlander: our hero […]
“There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin.”
I remember reading this back in middle school, but I don’t remember it being quite so long, so maybe we didn’t read a different version? I liked it at the time though, and it definitely holds up well (especially considering it was written in 1959 — you’d probably never guess). “How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibilty, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man with […]
Oh, Jojo, I just can’t quit you
3.5 star rating for Paris for One (a novella); 2.5 star rating for the “other” stories). Paris for One is the story of Nell, 26 and unmarried (insert gasp!) but dating a rather useless boyfriend. After mentioning to him that she’s never been to Paris, he responds with “you should go one day, you’d love it), so she immediately buys plane tickets and books a hotel room for a weekend getaway. Unsurprisingly (at least, to everyone but Nell), useless boyfriend no shows, and she’s left to navigate the city […]
“My life is just a series of embarrassing incidents strung together by telling people about those embarrassing incidents.”
One of the reviews of this book (which I picked up, along with its sequel, for $2 at Half Price Books) on Goodreads says, “i have said it before and i will say it again: junkies are boring.” And blunt as that may be…it’s not totally inaccurate. I’ve read good books written by recovering addicts (Kristen Johnson’s Guts springs immediately to mind), but read enough and they begin to blur together. “What I’ve learnt – to my cost – on several occasions in my life, is […]
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