Life of Pi by Yann Martell
I am rereading this book for the first time in a long time, having first read it in college for fun. It’s still a very engaging novel that plays around with some fun ideas and also with the structure and truth in fiction. I am thinking of using it for an AP Literature class this fall, and I was thrilled to read the author’s introduction, which functions like the first chapter of a Vonnegut or Nabokov book. We quickly realize that the author in this […]
Heliconia Spring by Brian Aldiss
A mix of Doris Lessing’s Canopus at Argos, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, and a medieval history, this very engaging and strange science fiction novel (and part one of three) takes place on the planet Heliconia. Heliconia is a planet in a two-star system where the two stars work in conjunction to create very long seasons. At the beginning of the novel, we are nearing the end of a hundreds-of-years winter where the main human-like society has been tightly cloistered against the weather. Our initial […]
The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story by John Freeman
Broken Glass by Arthur Miller
Agamemnon by Aeschyles
The Libation Bearers by Aeschyles
Eumenides by Aeschyles
Here We Are by Dorothy Parker
Still Alarm by George S Kaufman
The Penguin Book of Modern American Short Story – 4/5 Stars Its important to emphasize that this is a collection from about 1970 on, so while it’s “modern” it means contemporary and while it’s contemporary, it’s decidedly more recent than the normal break in American lit at WWII. This is important because it means that a lot of very well-known and established short-fiction writers like John Cheever, Donald Barthelme, John Updike, Flannery O’Connor, and Bernard Malamud are not considered. Otherwise it would seem to me […]
Abundance by Jacob Guanzon
This book is the heartbreaking tale of Henry, and ex-con living in his truck with his son, Henry junior (Junior). The novel opens on Junior’s 8th birthday, but it jumps back and forth in time to explain how Henry and his son came to be living in a truck, desperately counting change at a McDonald’s trying to get his son a celebratory Big Mac meal. In alternating chapters we learn more about Henry, whose Filipino father had wanted to be professor and loved literature, and […]
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, Ken Liu (translator)
It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race. This thought determined the entire direction of Ye’s life. The Three-Body Problem has been on my TBR list for years. It was on many best of lists when published in English and my husband loved it. Unfortunately, the first time I tried to […]
A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos
A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos is the first in a quartet of of fantasy YA novels called The Mirror Visitor Series. Thankfully, somebody decided this book was good enough to be translated from the French for us American readers. The story is set in a future world where people live on different Arks. Family members on each Ark share a special power. Ophelia lives on Anima and is gifted with the power to travel through mirrors and to “read” objects. This ability allows her […]
