As the 18th century becomes the 19th, David Mitchell’s book reflects in vivid detail the Dutch East Indies Company as it sunsets, decades before Japan is finally opened up for good. Besides being a fascinating historical novel of a vanished insular culture, it’s a lovely romance with vivid action sequences. …
One of mine, too. Nicely done mini-review of just one sentence of Cormac McCarthy.
Forward. Inside-out. Outside-in. It’s worth re-reading either way to solve the puzzle of interconnectedness. .
A while back, I posted a Top Ten List of things in every Jack Reacher novel. And since then, the author has made it his business to fool me. Only six are wholly true, one partially true, and one totally turned on its head. I may actually have to go back and rewrite it.
But why quibble? Just tell me when the next one comes out.
Something unusual happens at the end of Stephen King’s new novel. Something new, for him, that you don’t find in his previous books. Sweetness. Romance. Lyricism.
Or so they said. Could my favorite author, Cormac McCarthy, really have written these restaurant reviews? Of course not, it says so right on the tin. Still as parody they are hilarious. And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those …
I’d have hoped that this crew, who presumably have a longer view of things, would find a way to avoid the “best 100 books of my lifetime” bias you see in these lists; but again I’m disappointed.
That will happen in every Jack Reacher novel.
Are awesome fun. Like salted peanuts or something I keep gulping them down.
Archie Brown, emeritus professor at Oxford, has put out a lively and informative book that traces the communist movement from its intellectual origins in the Renaissance through the present day. If you were politically aware of the world in the late ’80s, you’ll remember it as a time of incredible …
Saw this one at Best Buy tonight. Admittedly it’s a little surprising they have a book department at all, and it was tempting to re-arrange the stock to make it even better than it was.
I don’t even want to tell you how late I stayed up the last couple of nights finishing off this book: I did the last 300 in one mad sprint in the wee hours of last night. This is top-drawer King, but try to get some sleep on work nights.
After Suzannah was kind enough to respond with the name of the poet I was looking for, I went over to the library and got out Virginia Hamilton Adair‘s anthology. She lived long, and pours it all out into intense little word paintings. She wasn’t afraid to address subjects like …
Ashgate publishing is releasing a series of single-work musical analyses, and a 2007 volume showed up at the school library recently. It’s an analysis of Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques, and it’s full of really well-done and well thought-out musical examples. In particular I like the attached CD, which gives sample’s …