The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolaño
The Savage Detectives is a lot. Being my second Bolaño doorstopper of the year, I assumed I knew what I was in for. I was way off. This was a far more challenging read than 2666. It had its rewards and I’m glad I stuck with it. But I needed to take a break halfway through, at the risk of putting it aside for good. I’m glad I did because the plot is not the most important thing going on here. This can possibly be considered a […]
OKAY FINE, STEVE. I am on record as not totally loving The Gunslinger but being willing to go along for the “Dark Tower” ride for a while to see what all the fuss is about. King has proven himself to me with basically everything else I’ve read of his as an adult, so he has a certain amount of capital with me. Plus, I like to read before watching, and if you think you can tear me away from Idris Elba at the end of […]
Bird Box is proof that you don’t need to be inventive to be creative and thrilling. There is nothing new in this novel that hasn’t been introduced by someone else, and yet it’s a phenomenal and magical combination of a whole pile of often-used ingredients. It’s haunting, and tense, and violent, and touching. Without dropping too many spoilers, I’ll say that this is the story of a young woman who survives a world-ending event along with a handful of strangers who find themselves tied to […]
Kafka on the Shore is a strange book, even by Murakami standards. This is my second reading but sadly I don’t remember what I thought about it the fist time I read it 12 years ago because back then I didn’t take notes or write reviews. All I know is that I thought it was a four-star book. Haruki Murakami has been one of my favorite writers ever since I “discovered” him almost 17 years ago. I read a review of The Elephant Vanishes in […]
My blossoming love affair with Stephen King continues, with yet another behemoth of awesomeness: The Stand. This particular edition was released in 1990, twelve years after the first release. It was updated and expanded, and I have no reference to the first edition but, according to “Publisher’s Weekly,” at least as quoted on amazon.com, “The same excellent tale of the walking dude, the chemical warfare weapon called superflu and the confrontation between its survivors has been updated to 1990, so references to Teenage Mutant Ninja […]
