My book club is made up of a lot of non-fiction readers, so I’ve been reading more nonfiction than I normally do. Some books have been good, some not-so-great, but I’ve decided that memoir is overall not my genre. The Glass Castle, while one of the most startling nonfiction accounts I’ve ever read, was a tough book to read for lots of reasons. First, the story: Jeannette Walls grows up in an unconventional family. Her father is a megalomaniac and an alcoholic. Her mother is […]
Teaching a novel I love brings new insights.
Last year, I reviewed Never Let Me Go for CBR6, and I almost didn’t review it for CBR7, because I didn’t want to bore you all with a rehash. So here’s what I’ve decided. I’ll attach last year’s review, which contains a pretty decent synopsis, and then I’ll delve into the new things I picked up this year. This time around, I’m teaching it to my ENGL 1002 course, which has been enlightening and eye-opening. At first, I was super nervous teaching them a novel. […]
Burger’s Daughter
A dear friend from grad school has talked about Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter being instrumental in her academic career, which piqued my interest. Plus, Gordimer just passed away a few months back, and I’ve been needing to read more South African writers as part of my journey into more Anglophone literature. I’m not entirely sure I’ve fully digested all that I’ve read, but I’ll give this review my best shot. Rosa Burger is the daughter of anti-apartheid leader and member of the Communist Party Lionel […]
Warning: nerdy Ishiguro fangirling to follow.
If you’ve followed my CBR Reviews these past three CBRs, then you know of my affinity for literary fiction. Particularly Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels. I’m teaching Never Let Me Go this spring to my ENGL 1002 students (and they actually *like* it, hooray!), and I’ve read all the others. It’s been ten years since Ishiguro’s last novel, and his collection of novellas/short stories, while perfectly serviceable, were nowhere near good enough for his fans as they greedily awaited his next novel. Last year, he announced that […]
In which I am about to make Fox News suuuuper angry.
This is probably the hardest book review I’m going to write all year, because it’s complicated by several factors. The first is that I recognize that I am not Kyle’s demographic that he’s writing to. I mean, a proud Texan who likes chewing tobacco, guns, and the military? Yeah, this white Yankee liberal feminist is not exactly gung-ho about guns. So that complicates my response. And then there’s the fact that Chris Kyle killed a lot of people over in Iraq–was he right to kill […]
It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
My English graduate student association chose Louise Erdrich’s The Round House for our latest book club, and it was the first time we all came to a consensus on a book: we really, really liked it. The Round House begins with a violent attack on Geraldine Coutts, a character from The Plague of Doves. [In fact, The Round House is a companion or sequel of sorts to Plague of Doves–therefore, my reading Plague first gave me some insight into the older characters.] The novel opens […]
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