It’s no secret that I absolutely adore Christopher Paul Curtis. Both The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 and Bud, Not Buddy are landmarks in children’s literature (though adults can and should read them, too). I’d heard about Bucking the Sarge some years back, as Curtis was making a foray into young adult territory. Now, after devouring the book, I can’t help but hope he will stay there for a while, maybe even venture forth an adult book. One can hope. Here’s my full review.
The Inception of books (have a totem handy).
Back in college, my literary theory professor talked my class through a whole bunch of theoretical approaches to texts, including historical criticism, formalism/New Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism, etc., etc. You get the idea. At one point, he mentioned that Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller would make an excellent companion to our semester. I bought the book and promptly didn’t read it. But now that I have, I really wonder why we weren’t required to read it in his class. This is exactly […]
Don’t rip off Conrad. It will do you no favors.
There are just those books that you finally get around to reading and wonder why the heck you’ve moved it for the last several years. Daniel Mason’s The Piano Tuner was exactly that book for me. It also holds the dubious honor of a one-star rating from me. If you check out the full post, you can read my scathing review in its entirety. Bonus: in my retelling of how I acquired this book (which involves a Yankee Swap), I confess that I used to […]
A telenovela meets Game of Thrones meets Requiem for a Dream (without all the fun parts)
Despite what my title might make you think, this was not at all a fun book to read. Several years ago (like 12 or 13 now, but I’m not counting), House of Sand and Fog received a ton of Oscar nominations, including actor nods for Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo. I, being the read-the-book-first type, picked this up in a garage sale with the intent of reading in order to watch the movie. I’ve only just now gotten around to it, and I […]
Not quite burnt out on Graham Greene…but he’s on notice.
Back in 2010, I took a Joseph Conrad/Graham Greene seminar as part of my MA degree. I quickly learned to love both authors, but especially Greene’s craft. My personal favorites are Brighton Rock and The End of the Affair (I still don’t get the looooooove for The Power and the Glory. Someone explain to me, plz?). A Burnt-Out Case was on our list, but as it turns out, our semester turned out to be shorter than our reading list (and we read a book a […]
A Very Happy Book (not really)
For months now, I’ve been meaning to read all the books on my bookshelf that I’ve never read before. And for months, I’ve been distracted by the pretty new shiny books at the library. But now, it’s time. I’ve cleared out my library loans, and I have a clean slate (apart from an audiobook, but that’s for my commute). I received Albert Camus’s A Happy Death for my college graduation from my dear friend D, who majored in English, Math, and French (she’s crazy smart […]
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