Looking for intelligent historical fiction with a dash of dirty bits? Ken Follett is your man. He’ll educate you up good while throwing in some Nazi/lonely Englishwoman sex for good measure. “Our whole strategy must be to prevent the Allies from securing a beachhead, because once they achieve that, the battle is lost…perhaps even the war.” The Eye of the Needle takes place during World War II. Our Nazi is a spy, occasionally called Faber, who has discovered the truth behind Calais. Basically, the Allies […]
The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block
I totally admit that I picked this book because the back cover mentioned a hunchback. Luckily, it turned out to be quite a good read (I’ve been on a good streak lately!) The Story of Forgetting weaves three narratives together. First is that of Abel Haggard, a hermetic hunchback living out his last days alone (well, with his house), on a shitty little farm in the the middle of a subdivision somewhere outside Dallas. Abel reminisces a lot about his life, specifically about his brother […]
Moral Disorder: and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood
Oh look, it’s another Margaret Atwood book that I devoured and adored. I know, I know, you’re all amazed. “She wasn’t ready to settle down, she told her friends. That was one way of putting it. Another was would have been that she had not found anyone to settle down with. There had been several men in her life, but they hadn’t been convincing. They’d been somewhat like her table – quickly acquired, brightened up a little, but temporary. The time for that kind of […]
Boomsday by Christopher Buckley
I had to keep stopping this book in order to read chunks out loud to my husband (which I’m sure he loved) because it was so wonderfully ludicrous that I couldn’t help but share. Classic Christopher Buckley. Boomsday refers to the day that all the baby boomers start collecting social security and, you know, the whole economy collapses. Since this is a Christopher Buckley novel, our protagonist is a super-hot, whip-smart 28 year chick named Cassandra Devine (yeah). He does know how to write interesting […]
Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro
Another impulse purchased that panned out! Elegance is two books in one. Our main character Louise picks up a 1940s dictionary called (duh) Elegance (an impulse buy for her as well) and it ends up changing her life. This dictionary has A to Z chapters about various woman-related subjects, from sweater seats to make up to proper ettiquette. While rather dated and occasionally ridiculous (such as, the entire chapter on furs), Elegance the dictionary guides Louise into realizing how unhappy she is in her marriage (to a cold, possibly […]
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace
Cannonball, baby! I hate that I hit my 52 books on a book that I really really didn’t like. I know that David Foster Wallace was a genius. I really feel bad that I’ve never read anything else of his (yes, yes, I know I should Infinite Jest) but after dragging myself through the essays of A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, it’s unlikely I will give him another shot. The first essay was about his tennis career; kind of math-y but fairly interesting. The second essay […]
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