December 2010
20 posts
2 tags
C by Thomas McCarthy
I just finished C by Thomas McCarthy, which was shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize. Having just finished the WINNER and C’s competition, The Finkler Question, I have to wonder what the prize committee was thinking. Because C was far and away the better book, and McCarthy’s was the better writing. If I was on the Man Booker Prize committee (Hey, a girl can dream!)...
November 2010
19 posts
“And therein lies the whole of man’s plight. Human time does not turn in a...”
– Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
4 tags
The Finkler Question
I’ve recently realized that if I don’t like a book I read it slower. I realized this while reading The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson.
Finks (as I call it) isn’t that long, and I really like Jewish literature, so I was not expecting it to take me over a week to read. As it was dragging, I said to myself, “Man, I read The Hunger Games in like two hours!” and it...
1 tag
“We told him that a visitor was coming,” Savage-Rumbaugh tells me....”
– Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2008759-1,00.html#ixzz14tLDLkmb
This article is amazing.
BOOK WISH LIST →
Having some fun with my amazon wishlist this morning… I’m pretty excited for my birthday and Christmas book-gifts.
Do you have any suggestions for books I should add?
“Don’t cry, I’m sorry to have deceived you so much, but that’s how life is.”
– Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (via fuckyeahliteraryquotes)
1 tag
The Devil Tree
I just read The Devil Tree by Jerzy Kosinski, who happens to be a really interesting guy. His life and writing seem to shrouded in a mystery unpenetrated by biographers and researchers- who’ve tried to write about him in the New Yorker and The New York Times. He was a successful man. He was accused of plagiarism. He played polo. This novel, in a way, itself echoes the enigmatic writer.
...
1 tag
NYRB: Two Paths for the Novel →
“It’s so precisely the image of what we have been taught to value in fiction that it throws that image into a kind of existential crisis, as the photograph gifts a nervous breakdown to the painted portrait.”
I wish I could write criticism like this.
4 tags
Mockingjay
I finished reading The Hunger Games Trilogy. Mockingjay was kind of torture to read. While the previous books in the series were slow, detailed, and suspenseful, Mockinjay kept skipping over important events. I think Mockinjay failed precisely why the other two succeeded: the story is told from Katniss’ point of view. Since she is withdrawn, injured, or imprisoned for much of Mockinjay,...
3 tags
What happened to essential books? →
Rick Gekoski makes some pretty steep claims while defending himself against “youngs” who say HE said they don’t read. His condescending tone reeks of an inability to adapt to change, and to me, it just doesn’t seem like he ever interacts with the youth he’s disparaging. His claim that “reading together” is a lost artform is immediately undermined by the...
4 tags
Catching Fire
Yesterday I read Catching Fire, the second book in The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I read it in one fell swoop. The pacing, the twists, the character developments- all spot on. I really felt like the relationship between Peeta and Katniss was the central part of this book, more than anything else. I liked the reality of it. They had their ups and downs but they were honest,...
4 tags
The Hunger Games
My darling friend bought me The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, knowing I’d long wanted to read the series. So I blame her for what happened next.
I read it through without stopping, ignoring all else until I finished.
I thought The Hunger Games was riveting and characterized gloriously. It’s a YA book, so the writing is simple and easy to read. But the plot is conveyed with...