So, here’s the thing: I’ve never read anything by Stephen King. I’ve come to conclusion that you either LOVE Stephen King or you HATE Stephen King. It seems impossible to be indifferent. Yet now that I’ve read my first King novel, I honestly feel really ambivalent. I’m not sure if I’ll read anything else by him or not. Let’s dig into it: The novel is spliced together with several narrative forms–testimony from a court case, sociological studies, an autobiography, and an omniscient third-person narrator that […]
Despite its title, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is not at all funny.
I’ve been trying to go through Booker Prize winners, and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is one that I haven’t read. I’m more familiar with British writers than I am Irish, so it seemed like a logical pick. Oh, my, that book took FOREVER to read. Or seemed like it. It picked up speed towards the end, but still. It’s a bit exhausting to read into a child’s thoughts and stream-of-consciousness. That’s pretty much what the book covers–a ten-year-old child tries to navigate the world […]
Dearly Departed: If Thatcher had died in 1983.
I’ve been reading a lot of short stories lately. Both Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel came out with collections this year, so I’ve found it interesting to compare their styles. Atwood’s stories are often complex in their setups, whereas Mantel is quite stripped down (the reverse of her Cromwell novels, which I found slow-moving and very dense) in tone and style. While Atwood’s collection is about love, betrayal, and revenge, Mantel focuses on a more vague state-of-nation sensibility and covers a variety of ideas in […]
A great book that should be a MINDBLOWING book.
The Chancellor has been at me to read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe so we can talk about the ending. He did not like the ending. In fact, read his amazing review first, and then let’s talk. Back? Let’s talk. I won’t summarize it for you, since The Chancellor did such a great job of it in his review. But suffice it to say, I agree with his assessment 100%. I wanted to fall in love with this book madly, to […]
Martin Amis on Nazis and the Holocaust. Win.
I don’t always like Martin Amis’s novels, but I almost always find them really interesting (more interesting than his father’s work, if I must confess). He knows how to create a wild, colorful story with characters to match and The Zone of Interest is one that I think will stick with me long after reading it. If you’ve never read Amis, this is honestly one of his most approachable works. The Zone of Interest takes a look at what it would have been like to […]
This book in one word: Wut.
The tagline for We Were Liars promises a huge twist and then admonishes readers, if anyone asks you how this book ends, lie. Wut. No, really. LOL. How do you expect to drum up business for a book with such a cheap trick? It’s one thing to vaguely allude to the shocking twists that occur in a book, and it’s quite another to forecast it and then try to get readers so hyped up about that you JUST have to read it for YOURSELF so […]
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