The best way to describe Harlan Ellison’s prose would be “lyrical.” This short collection of stories varies from from a hopeless, post-apocalyptic landscape to the a contemporary California in an emotional spiral after his divorce. Just describing the plot likely won’t hook you. It’s Ellison’s words that do all the heavy lifting in his stories. This collection of stories was published in the late 1960s and Ellison’s views on women tend to reflect this. But this shouldn’t let it deter you from reading one […]
The Anti-British Bake Off of Short Story Collections: sombering and heavy.
I have been a fan of T.C. Boyle for the past few years. I first read “Tortilla Curtain” in 2011, and followed that up a few years later with “Drop City.” Boyle has a distinctive voice, cutting and dour, but also reflective. His examination of topics through, and he tackles tough subjects and places characters into situations of existential crisis with almost a relish. His books cover hard topics and hardened people, often in hopeless situations, but his writing forgives him for taking you down […]
The Good Immigrant – or how I realized how racist I’ve been all my life
I just realized I finished this review without saying anything about the book, so I’m back with a short summary. This book groups together 21 essays from minority ethnic people in Britain today, talking about how their ethnicity impacts their every day life. Some of them are famous – actors, comedians, journalists, bloggers -, none of them were known to me. The essays are raw and real, and paint an incredible picture I believe everyone needs to see. And they caused me to reflect deeply […]
Underwhelming
This is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, with some Snow White mixed in. Since I read it on my Kindle, I didn’t realize before I started that this is actually a sort of graphic novel, or maybe an illustrated short story? I’m not sure what it looks like in actual book form. I had just assumed it was a regular novel, but it’s not even 75 pages long. The Sleeper and the Spindle is the story of a queen, who sets out with three dwarf […]
Lady, what are you hollering?
Well, I started the year off with a whimper. This book was glowingly recommended to me by a good friend who has led me in the past to some good stuff, so I jumped on it. I was disappointed, but the let-down was actually a little freeing, because I had just started another book she recommended, and my disappointment in Taking What I Like allowed me to give myself permission to put the other one down.* This is a book of short stories tied together […]
Challenging isn’t always satisfying…
I’ll admit, I mainly sought out and purchased this book because of the praise for The Arrival (which I just saw last night and was fantastic!) and wanted to know what all the fuss was about before seeing the movie. The Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of ten short stories by Ted Chaing. Instead of commenting on each story individually, I’m going to pick a couple of my favorites. Story of Your Life is hard to summarize for me – I found it heartbreaking, yet […]
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