“Trouble with mice is you always kill ’em. ” I read this on a plane to Athens and I am sure my fellow passengers thought I’d come unhinged right then and there. I laughed, I cried, I covered my eyes afraid to read on. This is a very well-crafted book.On a warm summer evening, at a little lake in a clearing, George and Lennie come bumbling in. George looks out for Lennie, who has some sort of mental handicap, but he is a strong and […]
Dear Fake Character People: An Open Letter to (most of) the Characters in Persuasion
And so concludes my Great Austen Re-Read of (Mostly) 2016. This will be my last review in this format for a while, so I’ll try to make it good. This is the seventh in my series of classic book reviews wherein I write them in the form of letters to the characters. I tried to read all of Jane Austen’s books in 2016, and only missed by one. But reading Persuasion is as good a start to 2017 as I can think of, so perhaps ’tis a happy accident (she says only […]
“Fool that I am,” said he, “that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself.”
Hi, remember when our book club discussion for this book was December 1st but I didn’t finish the book until January 23rd? And also how I’ve been reading it since November 13th? Because I do. I definitely remember all of that. Ultimately, I’m really glad I did the audio version of this book. I don’t think I could have finished it otherwise. I previously got about 1/3 of the way through this book when I tried reading it in high school, but it defeated me then. The beginning 20% or […]
“O, full of scorpions is my mind!”
I’ve only read Macbeth once before now, and it was halfway through my undergrad, so I didn’t really remember anything about it other than, “Out, damned spot!” and the witches chanting “double, double toil and trouble”. Incidentally, I’m never going to forget that second one, because a) the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban turned it into a song (the kids were holding large toads?????), and b) It’s also the name of a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie I watched […]
Sympathy for the Devil.
“Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger—with, rather, a measure of sympathy—for Perry Smith’s life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another.” – – – I remember being gobsmacked by this book when I read it for the first time six years ago, and now upon re-read, I find it’s just as good. In fact, it’s one of those books where the satisfaction comes not from […]
A good, warm Poirot to listen to on a cold, wintery day.
So I’m going to confess up front that I did a very bad thing. When I got about halfway through this, I decided it would be a great idea to spoil myself completely on the ending. I don’t know why I do this. It’s like once a mystery’s got me, I can’t even wait five minutes to find out how it turns out. Wikipedia and the Internet are terrible enablers in this habit of mine. And yes, I’ve done it before, though never to a […]
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