The Witch Elm by Tana French
I had such a hard time starting this book, not because I didn’t want to start it, but because I didn’t want to finish it, and I knew that I would have hit the bottom of my unread French books. I had also heard it was the best of the Dublin Murder Squad books, and I have to disagree, but even her worst for me was a four star, so no shame in being beaten by your own works. And it’s not like this was […]
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
Leo Proudhammer, a 39-year-old, black, successful actor, suffers a heart attack on stage. This prompts him to look back on the events and people that shaped him, from growing up poor in Harlem to trying to make it big in the theatre as a young man, and from his turbulent relationship with his older brother Caleb and his long lasting liaison with the white actress Barbara to his affair with the young revolutionary Christopher. The way James Baldwin dissects race relations in America may be […]
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy
Far From Home by Walter Tevis
Anglo Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson
CBR12Bingo – Shelfie These three books are not connected in any meaningful way except that I happened to buy all of them earlier in the summer from Thriftbooks and randomly chose to read them at the same time, switching off for a few reasons. Anglo-Saxon Attitudes ended up being a little more boring and dense that I had hoped, so the balance of the Walter Tevis stories helped, and while I really enjoy the Will Cuppy pieces, they are too similar to one another to […]
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Women Talking is a fictionalized story that is founded on a real story- the ‘ghost rapes’ that occurred in the Manitoba Mennonite colony in rural Bolivia between 2004 and 2009. For years, women would awake groggy, with signs that they had been sexually assaulted. Eventually one of the rapists is caught in the act; he confesses his role in the rapes and implicates 8 other men from the colony. Toews, who is from a Mennonite community in Canada, took this horrific story and turned it […]
Duel with the Devil by Paul Collins
CBR12 BINGO: Shelfie “Gentlemen of the jury, I’m curious, bear with me Are you aware that we’re making hist’y? This is the first murder trial of our brand-new nation.” If you’re a Hamilfan, you might recognize those words from the song “Non-Stop,” in which Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr act as co-counsel for the defense on a murder trial. In Duel with the Devil, Paul Collins tells the story of that historical court case and the gruesome event that led to it. As I mentioned […]
The Serial Killers Club by Jeff Povey
This is a light, breezy mystery novel, written from the perspective of a not-so-bright serial killer imposter who inadvertently becomes a killer of serial killers. You will not get attached to any of the characters and this is not a character study of depravity or look at any sort of cultural issues. This is a somewhat silly whodunnit that I would recommend if you need that kind of junk food reading snack in your larger reading pantry- the marshmallow fluff of mystery novels if you […]
