This is just our annual reminder…honestly I think I first did this a year ago this week (it’s spring break)…that I don’t like Joan Didion or her writing. This book is…well it’s something. There’s a story here about a senator’s wife being in the limelight in overly unfair and invasive ways. She shows up in the paper several times a week and despite her attempts to remain closed off to the fame and infame, she is thrust otherwise. It’s a perfectly interesting story, and given […]
Do nothing because it is righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do and which you cannot do in any other way.
This is the third of the Earthsea Cycle, which I assume is the earliest and primary trilogy in the world. This is from 1972, and less so than the previous two novel, but still plenty, this novel feels like it’s from 1972. What this means is that while it’s still very good, it’s so endemic of early fantasy novels. The scope of the novel’s plot outpaces it’s tone and size. It’s too big a story for a relatively short novel. I think about Middlemarch when it […]
The world is material. We are always in a certain place. Now I am here
I liked this one a lot. I know, I know….Karl Ove Knausgard has my number, and I am not sure there’s anything he could write that I wouldn’t enjoy. The difference here, especially from Min Kamp books (which I have currently read the first three) is that this is a list of ruminative thoughts on everyday objects and concepts, bookended by letters to a daughter not yet born. There’s an added component knowing that Knausgard and his wife have divorced recently. Also, this one is different […]
Anyone who deprived her of something she wanted deserved what he got.
Going into this post, I am not sure how many novels this will include. But I will review each of them in turn. My audiobook service has a bunch of his novels, and I am about the move and they are so light and short, it could be a lot. But I am starting with…. The Grifters – 1963 – 3 Stars Yes, this is the one the movie is based on. But I guess since that movie came out in 1990, who knows […]
It is a sin to write this
I maybe reviewed this last year. But I like to read Anthem with students because it’s more or less interesting, the themes are super bold-type obvious, and the novel is short. Here’s what 12th graders thought of it. “hate the book, and now that it’s my third time reading this i hate it just that much more. basically i would use this book as a fire starter.” “I liked the book. It was very interesting the whole time I was reading it. It was different from […]
Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!
I reread The Great Gatsby for about the 20th time (and third time in the last calendar year). Here’s what 11th graders have to say about it. I made them “Tweet” their reviews, hence the hashtags: “Overall all I didn’t like the book, it wasn’t very good and I feel it is very confusing to the young mind. Although that’s probably just because I’m not very smart.” “It was alright.” “I personally think that this book is an OK one, but I think some people […]
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