When I was a kid, I was a voracious reader – even more than I am now. My mom was so proud – she’d take me to the parish library, I’d pick up a stack of 20-25 books and fly through them in a day or three at most. Hoping to encourage my younger brother to have a similar passion for books, my mother would often buy books for Brother and put them on the bookshelf in his room. I don’t think he ever actually read any […]
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
When this selection came up for the Go Fug Yourself Book Club on Goodreads I was convinced I didn’t want to read it. I don’t remember who I heard it from, but somewhere along the way I had been convinced that the book didn’t live up to the movie. And I love the movie and didn’t really want to impinge on that in any way. I expressed said concern upon the book’s selection and our very own Malin let me know that this was a […]
Awful people are fascinating people
In TV crime procedurals, the first part of the obvious formula includes the introduction of a red herring character, someone who is too obvious, and the detectives will waste a bunch of time trying to stick that person to the wall before finding a breakthrough that leads them to the actual suspect. Gillian Flynn’s version of this is that EVERYONE is obvious. All of the characters have the means and the disposition to have done it, if not the exact motive, but who needs motive when […]
An Islamic adventure story filled with djinn and revolution
This highly imaginative debut novel by an American-born convert to Muslim has garnered praise from all and sundry. Part fantasy, part mythology, part religious tract and part political tract, Alif the Unseen is as hard to pin down as it is fun to experience. It is the story of a young half-Arab/half-Indian man living in an unidentified Arab sheikdom known as “The City.” Alif (his “label”) is a computer hacker par excellence, and from his mother’s apartment is happy to sell his services to any […]
C’est un moment aigre-doux pour moi
Fini! Well, for this year. I understand Ms. Black is pretty reliable and produces a book roughly every 12 months, but what I mean is that I set out to read all the books in the Aimee Leduc Investigations series as part of my Cannonball Read. Mission accomplished. What did I learn? Perhaps barreling through an entire series of any length, binge-watching-media-content-style isn’t the best idea. When the stories and writing are engaging and insightful and fun it’s a breeze. When the quality falls off […]
Conning the Con, Spiriting the Spiritualist
Inside Job was another novella I picked up from the Subterranean Press Humble Bundle (Like Amityville Horrible), and it deals with spiritualists and spiritualism, but that’s about it for what the two books have in common.