Reading Matters designated January as Australian Literature Month and has read and reviewed Australian books. The weekly "round-ups" have links to all who have sent their own reviews of Australian books, as well as links to interviews, book give-aways, and more. It was Reading Matters' Top Ten Australian novels that I consulted before a trip to Australia...
I read this based on the enthusiasm of KevinfromCanada's blog; he used a word he rarely uses to describe it: exquisite. The confounding thing about this book is that I can't quite figure out what makes it exquisite. How is it that the author ratchets up the intensity? I'm not sure I will find the answer to that question. The story is set in a part of the...
One of the most striking images used by Julian Barnes in this book about memory is the Severn Bore. This phenomenon is a wave that occurs in the tidal basin of the Severn River when the river runs upstream because of a tide. The largest bores occur in the spring when the water is at the highest levels. Here's a link to a website about the Severn Bore. Tony Webster, now in...
Recommended by Molly. William Kowalski bravely takes on the big questions in his ambitious first novel and is pretty successful. The narrator is the bastard himself, who was delivered in a basket on the doorstep of his alcoholic grandfather, the only remaining member of once rich Mann family. The family was quite proud of its success in this little community, having built the...
Stephen, the narrator of this tale of a tiny village in the wilds of Canada early in this century, has returned at age 40 with his wife and three daughters. Sawgamet began with a gold boom when Stephen’s grandfather Jeannot happened on a nugget of gold after his dog would not move. Stephen ruminates on the stories of the three generations of his family and the village during the night as...
This was recommended in a blog I just began reading called The Mookse and the Gripes. So your first question, as mine was, might be to ask where that blog name came from. I can tell you that it is a fable retold by Joyce in Finnegans Wake. Despite being overwhelmed by the implications of all that, I did hunt up this book in the UVa library. And a little beauty...
I remember hearing years ago that this 2001 book was a good read. I certainly agree, but oh, what grim lives he describes. Vishnu, whose mother told him countless stories about the god Vishnu he was named for, lives on one of the landings in an apartment house. He gets a few rupees from inhabitants of the apartments, and now that he is nearly dead, they leave him tea and sometimes...
I loved Kostova’s second book The Swan Thieves so decided to pick this one up. Sad to say, I don’t think it measures up. It’s a long rambling book, making its way through Europe, especially Eastern Europe, with a little foray into an unnamed city in the U.S. It wanders through time as well, from the present to the youth of the narrator’s father and reaching back briefly...
What a treat this was, a laugh-out-loud recounting of Bill Bryson's assault on the Appalachian Trail. He was accompanied by his high school friend Katz whose preparation involved having walked as a means of getting around Des Moines because his car had been repossessed. In their first day on the trail Katz fell behind and lightened his pack by tossing out much of their food...
The central figures in this novel are all familiar, having been the subjects of countless pulp fiction novels, TV shows, and movies. And some of the events are "known" to us, the wild times in Dodge City, where the cowboys brought the cattle to market and themselves to drink, gamble, and visit prostitutes. And the event looming over this story, the gunfight at OK corral in...