Dubliners by James Joyce
I’ve always liked Dubliners unironically, even after I was informed that it apparently is something people hated to read in school (maybe that was just my friends, please enlighten me on this). A separate print of The Dead was one of the first books I got from the adult section at my local library, when I was still very much a child and I remember being blown away by the beauty of it. Two or three years ago I finally read the whole book and […]
The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard
This was a really fun book!!! Earlier in the year, I read Every Last Fear which follows the story of a young man whose family was killed and whose story became a true crime phenomenon. The Nothing Man falls into the same category of meta-true crime fiction, and it highlights the importance of the victims who are often left out of the narrative. The story of The Nothing Man takes place in county Cork in Ireland, and is told from two perspectives. One is from […]
The Searcher by Tana French
I waited to pick up a Tana French novel even though she is highly regarded around these parts. Late last year I commented on narfna’s review that I was hesitant to pick up another author who writes an ongoing series (I’ve got the Inspector Gamache books to contend with) and that’s true enough. But I think another component was that I knew French wrote gritty, hard-boiled crime novels and I just wasn’t in the mood for those, no matter the quality of the writing (the […]
The Searcher by Tana French
BINGO – REC’D I enjoyed author Tana French’s novel In the Woods and then msvreadsbooks’ review sold me on picking up another French novel The Searcher. Cal Hooper is a retired detective from Chicago who recently bought and moved into a run-down house in a small rural Irish town. He’s determined to keep his head low, not make any enemies of the locals, and enjoy some peace and quiet away from it all. What a boring book that would have been if that’s all that happened. Soon after […]
The Searcher by Tana French
Reading Tana French makes me want to go to Ireland. Her Ireland feels like a much more complex and textured place than I’ve seen represented in more romantic representations. However, after reading The Searcher, it strikes me as not the wisest choice for an American to up and move to the Irish countryside. That’s precisely what Cal Hooper has done. Cal is a retired Chicago police detective, and he takes his nest egg to Ireland to buy a run-down old home in a small, quiet […]
The Searcher by Tana French
TANA FRENCH TANA FRENCH TANA FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEENCH. I LOVE TANA FREEEEEENCH. Since I learned of Tana French, the Dublin murder series has been one of my number one recommended book series to anyone who asks (or ya know, stands nearby too long quietly, and thus gets accosted by my recommendation). I typically sum it up with “If you like Law and Order SVU you’ll like her and her books” but am not sure that is fair to French, more so that’s me casting a wide net […]
