Sputnik Sweetheart is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever reluctantly finished. Murakami (and a lot of credit for this goes to the book’s Japanese-to-English translator Philip Gabriel) has a true gift for prose and it’s that single characteristic more than anything else that compelled me to finish the book. I’ve never read one of his books before but from what I know about him, Sputnik Sweetheart is pretty typical of his body of work. It’s narrated by K, a young teacher in Japan with […]
Elementary, my dear Douglas.
As an avid fan of anything basketball- playing, watching, discussing, daydreaming about playing in the NBA’s Celebrity All-Star game- picking a book by the NBA’s all-time leading scorer as my first Cannonball Read seemed like a no-brainer. But Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse’s Mycroft Holmes has as much basketball in it as Donald Trump has class, which is to say, none. However, that doesn’t mean the authors are out of their depth. Abdul-Jabbar and Waterhouse spin an engaging tale of Sherlock’s older brother embarking on […]
The Art and Poetry of War
I teach British Literature to 17 and 18 year olds of various levels and degrees of interest (in different classes). Something that I’ve noticed over the years is that just about all my students feel something when we read World War I poetry. I don’t know if it’s because it’s visceral, perhaps they appreciate the simple plain language, or maybe they can relate to the poems where the young authors express regret and naivete about their involvement in the war. Because come on, I remember […]
No matter where you go, there you are.
About six months ago, Mr. Scoots and I were looking for a new show to binge on Netflix. We tried Daredevil (we really wanted to like it, but just didn’t), we tried Bloodline (I’m sure it gets good, but we were just way too bored), and then we tried Longmire. And Longmire’s the one we stuck with. No, we aren’t exactly the Longmire demographic. I’d like to think we are still a bit younger than most of the audience. But still. There was just something […]
1920s Haunted Assylum? Yes, Please!
This is the second novel by Simone St James I’ve listened to, and both were gripping. A little bit of a slow start, but they pick up and just race to the finish. I picked a good one to start my Cannonball Read adventure! We start with Kitty Weekes, a poor London girl on the run, pretending to be a nurse at a psychiatric facility for Shell Shock patients returned to Britain after the first World War. But of course, not everything is as it seems […]
An Empire Orphan’s Story
For some reason, not at all planned, the first three books I’ve read this year have focused on childhood and the traumas that inform adulthood. Old Filth, the first book of Jane Gardam’s Old Filth Trilogy, is dedicated to “Raj Orphans and their parents”; also called “Empire orphans,” these children were born in the far flung reaches of the British Empire and then shipped back to England by the time they were 4 or 5 years old to be raised by foster parents while their […]
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