It’s been a long time since I read Walter Mosley’s great Easy Rawlins mysteries, set in post-war Los Angeles. Many years ago a friend gave me RL’s Dream, Mosley’s first foray outside the detective genre. I tucked the book on the shelf to read later. Almost twenty years later I found the book on the shelf last week. Curious to see what I’d missed, I plunged into the book that was described as being about the blues. RL’s Dream is set in 1990s New […]
It Really Was All Too Brief…
My book club picked The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz for our February get together. This is the reason I love book club, because I would never have picked up this book on my own. Also, like every other female book club, we drink large amounts of wine. But we always read the book! The novel is centered around Oscar, a tragic and hopeless lame teenager, during his high school and college years. Oscar is overweight, socially awkward, and just […]
Hey, if you want someone to clean your house, hire a maid
I have to admit, I picked this book out because of the title; it tickles me to read it in public with a contemplative face. Anyway, it is not actually a self-help book, but as you might guess, Marta is a “good wife.” She cleans, prepares dinner for her husband, and takes care of all things domestic so that her husband does not need to worry himself with such concerns. However, Marta has recently stopped taking her pills (the actual reason for medication is left […]
Think “Brokeback Trojan War,” only BETTER
Maybe because I grew up in Christian private school, or because I’m just oblivious, or because Hollywood has succeeded in shaping my view of classical literature, I did not know until reading this book that many scholars agree that Achilles and Patroclus were not friends, or cousins, or brothers-in-arms, but lovers. Ooh la la! In fact, most of the time I was reading this book, I thought that the author, Madeline Miller, had taken a modern artistic liberty that was an interesting spin on the source material […]
Of Mice and Men – Review #9 for AamilTheCamel
The story of two normal men.
When you put “five star” in your title, you’re just asking for it
Eurgh. This book underlines perfectly the reasons why all my attempted Booker Prize Longlist reads have failed in the past. It came VERY close to ending my attempt this year, as at around the halfway point, I was so very bored that I nearly threw in the towel. But I persisted, and I finished it, mostly so I could finally complete a fricking Booker Challenge. That’s pretty much the only good thing I can say about it. Apparently, Aw’s previous novels have been described as “mesmerizing,” […]
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