This was a really good book on a lot of levels: 1. Good as historical fiction. Excellent particularly because we get POV characters on both sides of the conflict. 2. Good as literary fiction (at least, according to my standards). I prefer my lit-fic to be on the accessible side, and not to focus exclusively on middle-aged white man problems. But it’s also got extra levels if you want to go digging. 3. Good as writing, in the sense that the sentences strung one after […]
“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Straight up, this is a classic even among classics, and so I’m giving myself permission right up front for this review not to be important or add anything to the conversation at all. I don’t actually think I’m capable of saying anything that hasn’t already been said by people who said it better than I ever could. I feel like the only way this book can be reviewed now is either by looking at it through the context of today’s societal lens, or by relating […]
The Measure of a Man
Edna Ferber was once the most famous female novelist in the United States. A member of the famed Algonquin Table, Ferber wrote several novels that were turned into classic movies, including Showboat, Giant, and Cimarron. Ferber’s So Big won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for literature. I’m not sure why her novels get so little attention these days. This is the first that I have read, and I am probably going to try a few more. I found So Big to be a timely and relevant […]
Weighty but Worth It
[Finished 7/28/14] This weighty novel took a long time to finish (especially because it was way too big to lug with me on RAGBRAI) but overall, I found it fascinating and gripping, even as I noted some of the moments that felt like a “glorious mess,” particularly the ending. Donna Tartt tells the story of Theo Decker and his life reads like a Dickens’s story translated to the 21st century. A twist of fate finds Theo and his mom at a New York museum just […]
Charlie Brown Grows Up and Moves to Canada
This 1993 novel won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a movie. The Shipping News is the story of a man named Quoyle over the course of a few eventful, transformative years of his life. Proulx’s unique writing style combines poetry and humor to create characters who might be from a folk tale or might be your next door neighbor. Hive spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramps, he survived childhood….” Quoyle is a lot like Charlie Brown […]
The More Things Change …
Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1994, this history of the Roosevelts and the home front from 1939 until FDR’s death in 1945 is a meticulously researched and engaging look at both the inner workings of the White House and the changing landscape of the US economy and society during World War II. Both the Roosevelts and the American public showed themselves to be extraordinarily brilliant and sometimes terribly flawed at a critical moment in world history. Goodwin did extensive research on her […]