13
Oct
2009
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
This is an epic, character-driven, beautifully-written, philosophical, sad, political, morally-ambiguous, expertly-foreshadowed, thematic,hard to get immersed in, dramatic, ironic, difficult, sweeping book.
28
Sep
2009
Strange But True America by John Hafnor
Here are some of the things I learned reading this book: Read the rest of this entry »
2
Jun
2009
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
This book was originally published in the U.K as “The Surgeon of Crowthorn: A Tale of Murder, Madness, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary”. The U.S. publishers kept the subtitle, but changed the main title to “The Professor and the Madman”, which, I have to say, I kind of like better. Anyways, a rose by any other name, right?
15
May
2009
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
There are very few books I have never finished. This is one of them. And if that’s not bad enough, the sad truth is that I was not even reading it. I was listening to it on CD in the car. It was that boring.
15
May
2009
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
You know how it’s popular right now to name books, the so-and-so’s family member? Like The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Zoo Keeper’s Wife, The Time Traveler’s Wife? I don’t know if those books really need such titles, but this one should have been called something like “The Midwife’s Daughter”. Or at least “Midwife”. Singular.
5
May
2009
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
I just finished this book the other day. While you might think that this would leave it fresh in my mind, and I would have already planned out what to say about it, you couldn’t be more wrong. I mean, I know what happened. It’s not one of those books that makes you wonder what went on when you finish it.
28
Apr
2009
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
For some reason, I had always thought that Barbara Kingsolver was Australian. I have no idea why that is. But that is why I read this American author during a kick I was on, reading authors from around the globe. Since it mostly takes place in Africa, and I was already a few chapters in when I found out she was not, in fact Australian, I kept reading. Besides, I was already hooked.
24
Apr
2009
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Fact: I do not like John Steinbeck. Fact: When in tenth grade American Literature we ran out of time at the end of the year to read The Grapes of Wrath, I was happy. Fact: I still have never read The Grapes of Wrath despite the facts that it is my mother’s favorite book, and I generally like books about every day, working-class people. Fact: I had to read The Pearl in eighth grade, and Of Mice and Men in ninth grade and those are the only two Steinbeck books I’ve read, judging his whole oeuvre from said books I read a dozen years ago. Fact: John Steinbeck is one of America’s most cherished and prolific authors.
22
Apr
2009
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Kim Edwards heard a story about a man whose wife gave birth to a child with down syndrome in the 1960’s. The man told his wife the child had died during birth and he secreted him away to an institution. That is the first chapter of her book, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, and in itself quite plausible. Unfortunately, what happens next just isn’t.
