I am always a little reluctant to read a book after I’ve seen a film adaptation of the same. It’s difficult to imagine the characters on the page, when they’ve already been in front of you, bigger than life on the screen. Fortunately it’s been a few years since I saw the Coen brother’s version of True Grit, although Rooster did look like Jeff Bridges in my mind’s eye. I do recall the film had great dialogue, which couldn’t have been too difficult to write […]
The Second Highest Peak is Harder
If you liked Into Thin Air or have an interest in high altitude climbing this is a good book for you. Ed Viesturs is an accomplished climber; he was on Everest in 1996 during the tragedies described in Into Thin Air. He has climbed all fourteen 8000 meter peaks and unlike many others is still alive. With all of his experience, he brings credibility to his review of 8 different expeditions to summit K2 , including his own. The most interesting of these expeditions are […]
I’ll Take Two (or More)
Although the Mormon church officially gave up polygamy in 1890, the practice is still associated with it, sometimes through contemporary fundamentalist groups or historically. David Ebershoff takes on both a historic and a contemporary story in The 19th Wife. The first story is a fictionalization of the life of Ann Eliza Young, one of Brigham Young’s wives, who divorced him, and later wrote a book called Wife Number 19, became a public speaker and advocate against polygamy. The second story belongs to Jordan Scott, excommunicated […]
Could the world end like this?
The Year of the Flood takes place some time in the future, some would argue not very long into the future, and humans are in deep trouble. Sea levels have risen, humans are just holding on and genetically spliced Frankenstein species roam the earth. The story is connected to Atwood’s 1993 book Oryx and Crake, coming to the same place in time, through different characters. The books’ primary character group are the Gardeners, a vegetarian green cult of sorts. Parts of the book begin with a reference […]
Puritan Prattle
We celebrate them at Thanksgiving, we revile them when we read The Crucible, but what do we really know about that first generation of religious malcontents to reach New England? Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates gives us portraits of these strangers known as the Puritans who came to New England during the Great Migration, in between the Mayflower and the Salem witch trials. It is infused with Vowell’s pop culture references and Gen-X snarkiness. I like her style just fine, some people find it annoying. […]
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