I first read Zadie Smith in grad school, when we read White Teeth for a British contemporary class. I was instantly in love. There are few novels that capture lightning in a bottle in one try, and Smith did it. I decided that I needed to read her other work. Nothing has quite held the same kind of magic that White Teeth did, though I am pleased to say that everything except The Autograph Man is quite good and engrossing. I read On Beauty earlier […]
A reliable/unreliable narrative
One of my 2017-2018 goals, besides reading all the books on my shelf (a project that is rapidly winding down, thank goodness!), is to read all of Margaret Atwood’s books. She’s so prolific that it’s an act easier said than done, but with my book club pick coming up, I decided to use it wisely on a book I’d never read. And that’s the story of how I ended up reading Alias Grace. Also, the arrival of the Netflix show has me intrigued (also, WHEN […]
A last year’s book revisited, with splendid results
The Chancellor has chosen Louise Erdrich’s LaRose for his September book club pick, and I was really excited. I read it for CBR8 last year, and I gave it a solid 4.5 stars. I was still on a readers’ high from The Round-House, which colored my judgment of LaRose. The beauty of a re-read is that you can really dig into major themes and ideas, because you know how the book already ends. Since I reviewed this book last year, I won’t reiterate the plot […]
An eye-opening expose of the opiate crisis
Right now, I’m on a “read books for book club” streak, so my personal reading project is on hold for a few weeks. My library GenLit book club voted on its second-half-of-the-year selections a few months back, and Sam Quinones’ Dreamland was one of the winners. I don’t know too much about the opiate crisis in intimate detail, so I thought I would be informed. I had no idea how illuminating this book turned out to be. Quinones is a journalist, and you can tell […]
An early foremother of my feminist literary experience
Back in high school, I hadn’t discovered the word “feminist” yet, but I had discovered the word “suffragette.” For my American history research paper in 11th grade/Junior year, I wrote about suffragettes and I wore a pantsuit for my presentation (I had no idea that Pantsuit Nation would be a part of my life sixteen years later, nor that I would still not live to see a female president of the United States). That Spring, for my English III research project, I decided to write […]
A powerful and devastating Shakespeare adaptation
I’ve not read all the Hogarth Shakespeare project books yet, but I do like literary adaptations of classic works. The Austen Project books have not all been amazing, but most of the interpretations have been original and engaging, and they’ve shown me how a classic work rooted in its time finds its legs in a different century. Tracy Chevalier, whose historical fiction is among the few that I will read as a matter of necessity (with the exception of At the Edge of the Orchard), […]
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