Tag: book review
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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita is both sensual and challenging, shocking and learned. Its content is lewd but moving and its style is high but not above blunt jokes. It’s hard for me to put how I feel about it into words, but I’ll do my best. Lolita is the story of a literary, effeminate pedophile who captures a…
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“When Did You See Her Last?”
Welcome to Stain’d-by-the-Sea, where all the children are sharp, all the adults are foolish, and all the people are peculiar. My brother suggested I read “When Did You See Her Last?” while I was visiting family in Milwaukee. Since I haven’t read anything by Daniel Handler (alias Lemony Snicket) since the Unfortunate Events series, I…
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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
You’ve probably heard Jonathan Safran Foer’s name before. His book Everything is Illuminated was a huge hit and the book I’m reviewing in this post, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, was made into a movie in 2011. The writing in this book is pretty good and the protagonist is lovable, but it doesn’t quite live…
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Wraeththu: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit
Wraeththu was one of my favorite books in high school so I decided to revisit it for nostalgia’s sake, and to examine what it is about the book that attracts me so much. After reading it again and reading others’ reviews of it, I realize it’s a little problematic and the plot is sketchy, but I…
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Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer isn’t really about close reading, and it’s not really about learning to write better. It’s mostly about giving budding writers recommendations for books to read that exemplify good writing skills, and bringing some forgotten works back to the attention of general readers of literature.
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Aleph by Paolo Coelho
Aleph is a novel, which the author calls non-fiction, of his spiritual and physical journey across the entirety of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Coelho allegedly travels through time, has out-of-body experiences, and becomes the love-object of a girl about forty years his junior. My response to this book, in three words, is: “Yeah fucking right.” You…
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The Librarian by Larry Beinhart
Larry Beinhart’s “The Librarian” would make the perfect passive aggressive Christmas gift for conservative family. It’s a political thriller, made with a heaping cup of Bush satire and GOP-bashing. The book’s protagonist is a Jewish librarian named David Goldberg, who works at a college library in D.C. After his colleague, a stereotypical shrinking-violet librarian asks…
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The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! by Harry Harrison
I picked this copy of The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! at Logos on a trip back to Santa Cruz. They have a lot of really sweet vintage scifi and if you ‘re passing through the area, you should stop by. It’s right on Pacific Street and it was one of my favorite haunts when I was in college.…
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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I’m a little late to the party on this one, as it came out in 2005 and was fairly popular when I first heard about it in 2009. By that time I was a senior in high school and not really interested in YA fiction as much, so I ignored the hype, but… a book group…