“Of course I do,” said Thor. But he didn’t. He was just doing whatever he felt like doing. That was what Thor did best. Neil Gaiman has been a Norse mythology fanboy since childhood. His novel American Gods (my first Gaiman and one of my Top 5 books from last year’s CBR) heavily features Odin and Loki. Gaiman wrote Norse Mythology in part because a lot of the Norse Gods have been lost to history while the Greek & Roman Gods have persevered. This is a fairly complete collection, at […]
You can never go home again
A spring evening in 1985, nineteen-year-old Frank Mackie is waiting impatiently outside for his girlfriend Rosie Daly, as they plan to elope and move to London, making a new life for themselves away from the hard life of the Dublin working poor. When she doesn’t show, Frank goes looking for her in the abandoned house a few door down, and finds a note that suggests she’s gone off without him. As Frank’s father is a violent drunk, his mother is neurotic and shrewish and his […]
America was born in the crucible of the civil war, and Ulysses Grant was the avatar for its renewed life.
This was a marvelous biography of an iconic American who’s life coincided with some of the most tumultuous and divisive events in American history. But I find myself struggling to review it. H.W. Brands doesn’t skimp on the details. His Ronald Regan biography tips the scales with more than 800 pages. His book on FDR is even more ambitious, being close to 900 pages – though, when you consider that FDR had nearly twice as much time in office as Regan, it may be said […]
Fatigue is setting in…
Really a 2.5 but rounded up to a 3, The Burning Land is the fifth book in Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles and, in my case at least if not in Uhtred’s, fatigue is starting to set in. Uhtred and Alfred are now knocking on a bit for medieval standards (even if Uhtred is still younger than me) with Alfred experiencing increasingly ill health and therefore eager for Uhtred to give his oath to his son and heir, Edward. Contrary as ever, Uhtred refuses and, following the […]
Great expectations brought low
I don’t know who has written the book on Grover Cleveland, but I don’t think this book is it. It’s an insightful appraisal of the man, and an informative snapshot of the era, but it isn’t nearly detailed enough in the latter respect to be able to draw much of a parallel to current affairs, and the subject perhaps isn’t interesting enough to safe the former respect. I liked the book, but it’s a fairly middling biography, for a president often ignored and little taught […]
Historical Fluffiness from the Forties
Lisa See, the author of [i]Snow Flower and the Secret Fan[/i], which was a really good book, has delivered a less interesting and slightly faded remix of the same themes Snow Flower had – namely, friendship and Chinese culture. The characters are wooden: good-girl Grace, scandalous Ruby, cantankerous Helen. The story limps along like a wounded homing pigeon, following the “glamour” of the Forties while skipping any of the realities of the second World War. (It does make an appearance, as do the Japanese internment […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 533
- 534
- 535
- 536
- 537
- …
- 677
- Next Page »