This short novel, a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award, deals with a circle of women who married and had children in the ’50s somewhere in New England. Much of their story is told in flashbacks from a point in the 1990s, when they have aged and have lost many of those who had been close. As a result, we get nothing like a linear narrative, and that’s not terribly important. The relationships that these women form, the choices they have made, and how […]
A dystopian disappointment
After ploughing through the biggest of the big books with The Quincunx, I was, as I saw someone put it on Twitter after back to back reading The Luminaries and The Goldfinch, “yearning for a pamphlet”. And what better palate cleanser, I thought, than the opening volume of Stephen King’s epic Dark Tower series? It’s a trifling 210 pages and it’s the opening gambit to a series of books that increase in page count as they do in scope. Bound to be a winner, right? Well, as it turns out, no. As it […]
What the Dickens?
Well, I said 2014 would be a year of Big Books and you really don’t get much bigger than this. Last year, when I bought my copy of The Luminaries, a colleague said to me “you know, if you really want to read a proper faux Victorian novel, you should check out The Quincunx”. As I pondered whether something could be proper and faux at the same time, I wandered into my nearest bookshop and picked up a copy. It is a HUGE book in every sense of the […]
The story of modern Afghanistan
Twenty-eighth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. I had once asked Tame SheWolf why she doesn’t like to read Khaled Hosseini and she had said that it had caused her too much pain when she read The Kite Runner. So much, in fact, that she decided never to read Khaled Hosseini again. I was profoundly affected by The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini even became one of my favorite authors. And though it left me sad, it didn’t destroy me. It told me the story of life affected by […]
Ray, If Someone Asks Are You a God, Say “YES!”
With trade news regarding a TV series (or miniseries or whatever it’s been decided to be) of American Gods popping up, I decided it was time for me to reread Neil Gaiman’s book. Mostly because none of the discussed character names really rang any bells and if pressed, I couldn’t have really summed up the plot other than anthropomorphic gods trying to get by in America, a godless land. Eh, kind of close? My pea brain’s inability to hold onto plot details for more than […]
Deja Dead All Over Again
It’s summer and it’s hot. I went on a Netflix binge and got through all available episodes of “Bones”. It’s not a bad show, but I never watched the show until this binge because it’s so different from the books. The show doesn’t do the books justice. So once I ran out of episodes I decided to go back to the books. The first time I read them it was out of order, based on what the library had, and what I could borrow from […]
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