Tag: classic fiction
Review: The Drowned World
20 Books of Summer: Book 5 J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise and Concrete Island are both creepily brilliant, but The Drowned World doesn’t meet their high bar. The writing is spectacular, but the characters are too flat for my taste. They’re buried under so much allegory that they lack…
Review: Those Who Walk Away
20 Books of Summer 2018: Book 4 After I read The Talented Mr. Ripley, I went to my favorite used bookshop in search of more books by Patricia Highsmith. They had two: The Two Faces of January and Those Who Walk Away. It was hard to…
Review: The Eternal Wonder
Reasons Not To Read This Book: 1) published under questionable circumstances, and 2) it’s not very good.
Review: The Shining
a.k.a. I would like to officially retract every bad or unflattering thing I have ever said about Stephen King’s writing.
Sunday Short: The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
This is a more of a novella (12,000 words) than a short story, but E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” made me want to read more short fiction this year, so here we are. The timing of this story is the most interesting thing about…
Mini Reviews (Halloween Edition)
A lot of people ask me to recommend creepy books this time of year. I wasn’t able to do this until recently because I didn’t often read scary stuff. As a kid, I ran out of the room if a trailer for a horror…
October TBR
I’ve spent the last two Octobers reading creepy books. The cooler weather makes it feel good to curl up under a blanket and read something scary. There will be a couple non-scary reviews in October too. I’m behind with NetGalley reviews and Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan…
Review: She
20 Books of Summer 2017: Book 4 I first read She for a British Imperial Lit course when my workload didn’t allow a leisurely pace. The professor was especially keen on well-used/integrated quotes so my first time through this book was a mad rush for…
Review: The Moving Finger
20 Books of Summer 2017: Book 1 I’ve been reading the Miss Marple books in order. Even though they’ve all been murder mysteries, the small-town vibe and gossip keep them light. Usually, series with a recurrent investigator feature that character as the lead, but…
Review: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Carson McCuller’s The Ballad of the Sad Café is my go-to book when coping with flight anxiety. It’s so absorbing that I can overlook minor turbulence while reading. I’ve read it six or seven times now with a year or two between readings. It’s phenomenal every time….
Review: Intruder in the Dark
George Bellairs’ Intruder in the Dark begins with Cyril Savage’s arrival in Plumpton Bois to collect an inheritance from his great-aunt, Miss Melody Johnson. Impatient, he inspects the house early, only to find that it has been ransacked and the cellar door is locked. He breaks…
Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those classics that everyone knows even if they’ve never read it. If you’ve been pushing it down your queue because you think you know enough about it—stop pushing! Even when you know the premise—that Dorian Gray…
NetGalley Badges