I like Patton Oswalt. I appreciate his appreciation of things. He is a nerd; he knows how to be a fan. His standup can be biting, but is not devoid of wonder, awe, of fully investing in something. He loves good standup, he loves funny people, he loves cinema. In Silver Silver Screen Fiend, Oswalt relives the mid-90s in a memoir that ties together his early creative career and his concurrent obsession with film. He divides segments of his early years as different Night Cafes, […]
I don’t get it.
Take one ex-famous painter, Lenny from Of Mice and Men, and Amy Dunne from Gone Girl. Shake well and see what happens. Apparently, Theft is what happens. Michael “Butcher” Boone has had a string of bad luck. He was once a celebrated artist – in Australia, anyway – but his star is on the wane. He had a messy divorce, lost custody of his young son, and was jailed after trying to steal back his paintings from his ex-wife. Now, thanks to one of his collectors, Butcher is […]
This Is A Man’s World
“No one rejoices more in revenge than women, wrote Juvenal. Women do most delight in revenge, wrote Sir Thomas Browne. Sweet is revenge, especially to women, wrote Lord Byron. And I say, I wonder why, boys. I wonder why.” I read What I Loved last year and absolutely loved it. I thought I had found a new girl-crush in Siri Hustvedt, who is clearly a super-smart lady. But what should I read next? Well, The Blazing World was longlisted for the Booker Prize, was mentioned on numerous “Best of 2014” lists, […]
A gorgeous series of novellas on the clash between old and new India
This collection of three novellas by, arguably, the greatest living Indian writer was a revelation for me. I have never read Desai’s works before and was blown away by the gorgeous tapestry of colors, smells, textures and sights she evoke with her writing. In this collection, she draws on the same themes of art and culture clash to draw out different but overlapping messages about change and stagnation, without necessarily championing one over the other. In the novella of the title, we are introduced […]
A Glamorous Tragedy
This YA novel, inspired in part by the life of Edie Sedgwick, follows the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of Addison Stone, an 18-year-old art phenom from Rhode Island who makes a huge splash on the NYC art scene before her untimely death. The story itself is bold and fast-paced (much like Addy) if a bit far fetched at times. Set in the current day, emails, Instagram photos of characters, and pictures of actual art works are peppered throughout the narrative, giving it a surprisingly […]
A Serial Killer Haunts Post-WWII Italy
Bojhalian takes us on a visit to Italy’s beautiful Tuscany during one of the most horrifying periods in that country’s history, when the German occupation had splintered the nation between the resistance, the collaborators, and the majority caught in between who mostly struggled to survive without selling their souls to the devil. But beyond a thought-provoking examination of choices and consequences under wartime conditions, Bojhalian also throws us into the middle of a hunt for a serial killer 10 years after the war’s end, a […]