I’ve never been a fan of dystopian YA fiction and I guess the opposite of that would be SA or senior adult fiction with a dystopian twist, which is what The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist would be. The premise of the story caught me a little off guard, but as a Never Let Me Go, senior citizen edition, I was pretty impressed. When Dorrit Weger moves into the Second Reserve Bank Unit as a permanent resident, she has few expectations beyond having a secure place […]
A sadly relevant tale: the 1970 murder of an innocent black man by three white men
The state of North Carolina is a perfect example of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” In Blood Done Sign My Name, Tim Tyson recounts a story from his youth in Oxford, NC in which a young black man is murdered by three white men, all of whom were fully acquitted by a white jury. The heart of Tyson’s story is the 1970 murder of Henry Marrow, a black Vietnam veteran with a wife, two children, and another on the way. […]
Detailed answers to questions you’ve never thought to ask.
I’ll admit, I zipped through What if? by Randall Munroe pretty quickly. It’s an interesting idea for a book and some of the questions Munroe answers were strangely fascinating. Unfortunately, I don’t have much patience for lengthy sciency-wiency explanations, so sometimes I would sort of drift off, or skim the answers. I definitely felt smarter when I got to the end though and I’m just waiting to show off next time someone asks me an absurd hypothetical question. Munroe is an entertaining writer and I […]
Never, ever house sit for a friend.
Care of Wooden Floors was recommended to me by Mr Smith (@changeist), and for that I will be eternally grateful. While it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, Will Wiles’ first novel was one of the best books I read this year. Told mostly through interior monologues and observation, Wiles’ nameless protagonist sets off on a journey to hell by agreeing to housesit for an orchestra conductor friend, (who’s not really a friend) as he must leave his East European home country to begin […]
Millennials are so screwed if this is our future.
I was surprised to find California by Edan Lepucki on several “Best” lists this year. While I did find it to be an easy, quick read I didn’t find the story itself to be as entertaining or engrossing as many of the reviews lead me to believe it would be. I didn’t regret reading California, but I certainly wouldn’t credit Lepucki with having written “a gripping and provocative debut novel” either. Frida and Cal live in the woods. Alone. In a shack. Apparently the […]
Imagine if Harry Potter was all about the Dursleys.
OK, it took me forever to finish The Casual Vacancy. I probably should have liked it—I know almost all of my friends did—but I just couldn’t with the Little Britain mentality and Middle England class warfare antics that J.K. Rowling describes with such unvarnished authenticity. Having lived in England for a few years, I found the petty, mean-spirited antics of the main characters to be just too real to make this an enjoyable read. Mrs Smith Reads The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling