Prompted by the impending second season finale of “Hannibal” I decided to go back and re-read Hannibal by Thomas Harris. Much of this season had been culled from this particular book, so I thought it would be interesting to see how and where the story diverged from the original, since showrunner Bryan Singer does not have the rights (yet?) to the Clarice Starling role and she is a major character in the novel. I actually liked Hannibal better the second time around. Singer was brilliant to develop the TV series […]
So Much to Recommend It, But It Didn’t Live Up: Guests on Earth
Lee Smith’s Guests on Earth had so much to recommend it. I love books about my home state, North Carolina; it promised Zelda Fitzgerald as a main character, and was centered at the Highland Hospital, a mental institution which burned to the ground in 1948, claiming the lives of nine women; one of them the world-famous Zelda herself. That sounded interesting to me, so I dove in with high hopes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as great as I’d hoped, but it wasn’t as awful as it could […]
Another Winner from Neil Gaiman
I will admit that I simply like Neil Gaiman. I’ve read a few of his books, and if I see one I haven’t read yet in my local used book store, I will almost always buy it, knowing that I will enjoy the reading. Most people I know either *!!!LOVE!!!* Gaiman or they don’t like him at all, so I guess I am one of the rare few that sits firmly in the middle. That being said, I quite enjoyed The Ocean at the End of […]
The Angel’s Game: Barcelona as You’ve Never Imagined
It was a dark and stormy night… As funny as it might seem to echo the opening sentence of Snoopy’s novel in the Peanuts cartoons, it’s an apt description of the atmosphere and ambience of Carlos Ruiz Záfon’s second novel in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, The Angel’s Game. For anyone who has ever spent time in Barcelona and remembers it as being a sunny, youthful and vibrant place, Záfon imbues his Barcelona of the 1930s as a dolorous, dark and mysterious city full of […]
If You Love Something, Set It Free. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
What does it mean to love something? Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is mostly about love and what we will do to have it, in all it’s many manifestations. This story is not about right or wrong, good choices or bad, at it’s heart, The Goldfinch is about what we will do to hold near the things we love. The Goldfinch is a wild (though sometimes overlong) ride through a life of frivolous delinquency, unintentional criminality, lapses in honesty, breaches of ethics, and misunderstood attractions. For Theo Decker, there is no thing so […]
The Tender Memoir You Might Not Expect From a Radical Feminist
I hope I will not be criticized for enjoying Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood simply as a childhood memoir of well-known feminist lecturer and author bell hooks. It was surprising to me how sweet and tender her quickly sketched remembrances of her childhood could be, as they were unexpected from someone so admired (and by some reviled) for her outspokenness and advocacy for and about women, especially women of color. Mrs Smith Reads Bone Black by bell hooks
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 8
- 9
- 10