Someone suggested we read this as a book club selection but figured “they were the last person on Earth to not have read it” but I was apparently living under a rock as I hadn’t even heard of Clarke’s magical read. With the pending BBC miniseries I was eager to see what all the buzz was about and was not disappointed. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell are two magicians in England in the 1800s who are destined to bring magic back to England, the premise […]
If Wes Anderson were to pen a novel
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is just waiting for its Wes Anderson adaptation. The whole way through I felt like I was reading one of his movies. The characters were almost distractingly whimsical, more caricatures than real people, and it took me a while to get into this book. About 80 pages in I finally found my stride, which was helped by a strong commitment to suspension of disbelief, and I was hooked. This book follows two protagonist: a precocious and suicidal young girl and […]
All Hail Russo!
Richard Russo is one of my favorite authors. His ability to take you on a meandering tale, and keep you engaged, is unparalleled. He is a true master storyteller and one of a kind. I read his later novels first but this, his second book, holds up against all the rest. Though I was never a real fan of the series Russo’s writing always reminds me of Seinfeld, the show about nothing. There are never any grand plot twists: his novels are about the simplicity […]
If you suddenly began rising steadily at one foot per second, how exactly would you die?
Embarking on a 13 hour car trip I asked a friend for a suggestion for an audiobook. The words “xkcd” and “Wil Wheaton” were barely out of his mouth when I started to download it from my local libraries collection. And I was not disappointed. xkcd is “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language” so clearly probably a hit with this audience. There is a “What If” section where readers can ask questions and, as the title suggests, Randall Munroe will possibly choose one to […]
The Awakening, but with less water
As a Louisiana native, English major, and self-proclaimed avid reader, I have read and studied “The Awakening” many times over. For the unfamiliar, it is about a woman who struggles against the bonds of her marriage, and the confines of society in Louisiana at the turn of the century. Here is the first line of the Goodreads synopsis. When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. I was not a fan of The Awakening initially. As a teenager […]
It’s a bittersweet Symphony
I came across this book due to all the metaphorical trumpets heralding it via Pajiba, and dove in, excited to see what all the hubbub was about. As a big fan of post-apocalyptic literature I am both the target audience, and a cautious critic, and I think this book is absolute perfection. When a virus wipes out 99.9 percent of the world’s population, the survivors must carve out an existence for themselves, and live with the echoes of those who were lost. Station Eleven follows the lives of […]
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