jeanie
This user hasn't shared any biographical information
I have to admit it – in spite of the poor reviews of this book, I had to have it. I pre-ordered it and received it on my Kindle the day it was released. Then I read it cover-to-cover in just a few days. Janet Maslin of the New York Times writes: Although most of [...]
First published in 1955 and recently re-released by the New York Book Review, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne has been identified by UK’s The Guardian as “one of the 1,000 books you should read in your lifetime.” Judith Hearne is a character who, superficially, seems to be an anachronism – a thing of the [...]
Last year we all watched the dramatic rescue of the Chilean miners with bated breath, hoping against almost insurmountable odds that the 33 men trapped half a mile underground could be saved. When they emerged from that mine, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. Now Jonathan Franklin has written a detailed and [...]
The finalists for this year’s Man Booker Prize were announced last week. They are: Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape – Random House) Sebastian Barry On Canaan’s Side (Faber) Carol Birch Jamrach’s Menagerie (Canongate Books) Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta) Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent’s Tail) Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard [...]
For me, the unreliable narrator always makes for a fascinating read. Make the unreliable narrator the prime suspect of a murder mystery and the plot, as they say, thickens. Take the murder mystery and add intelligent and well-informed writing, making it that most elusive genre – a literary thriller – and you have a real [...]
This novel tells the story of a priest who gets caught in the child molestation accusations in the Catholic church throughout the past decade. This was almost enough to cause me to pass it over; I don’t enjoy stories in which children are injured or endangered. However, I happened to read Greg’s review at The [...]
I have to begin with a disclaimer: I am a sucker for books about China. From The Good Earth to Wild Swans and many, many more, the country, its people, and its history just fascinate me. So it’s very possible that I’m going to give Dreams of Joy a better review than it actually deserves, [...]
Anne Brontë was the youngest and least known of the famous Brontë sisters. She completed only two novels in her lifetime, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. When I wrote my review of Agnes Grey, the critical reviews that I read all pointed to The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as her better work. Furthermore, [...]
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2011! We all know the expression, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but in the case of Patrick DeWitt’s new novel, The Sisters Brothers, the cover was what caught my eye. The primative style, the bold red, black and white, the way the cartoon heads of the gunslingers, [...]
I must confess that I thought this book had two strikes against it before I began to read it: 1. It was yet another story of the Holocaust, and 2. It was written by Erik Larson who, in my opinion, sometimes ruins a good story by overly pedantic attention to detail. So why, you might ask, did [...]