Category Archives: Book and film reviews

The story “Good-Looking” by Souvankham Thammavongsa in the March 1, 2021 issue of The New Yorker. Quite enjoyable read, for the craft. About as concise as possible as a portrayal of how the child remembers something, knows a bit of … Continue reading →

Reading this sci-fi “empire” novel A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (the new labeling for what used to be called space opera, I guess) was enjoyable. Very good characterization of the two central characters. A decent science-fi idea, though … Continue reading →

A fine moody, noir-ish, crime novel where the crime is really quite tangential and left for the very end. The focus is on a washed-out ex-punk photographer. Lots of interesting discussion of photography, landscape (desolate parts of Maine, that I … Continue reading →

“The Wind” by Lauren Groff, in The New Yorker, was a straightforward, powerful story of domestic violence. I confess it is a genre that no reader, let alone me, enjoys, told, as it is, from the eyes of a child. … Continue reading →

A very short allegory, “A Wrinkle in the Realm” by Ben Okri. Okri had a whole volume of short allegories some time ago, that I found difficult to read. Here the idea is straightforward, but it is a wrinkle. I … Continue reading →

I really enjoyed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It is a short novel, an allegory, really. But she deftly works in the “real” world, and the writing is extremely satisfying: I lingered over her choices of words and sentences, and definitely … Continue reading →

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson was a good “close to alt-history” novel. In a world similar to the world in 1500, an imperial power uses a variety of techniques to divide, conquer, rule, exploit, extract, and “develop” the … Continue reading →

The New Wilderness, by Diana Cook, follows the wanderings of a small band of humans in a dystopian future (though not always clear it is really a dystopia or whether the group wandering the wilderness are the ones who cannot … Continue reading →

Got this for Christmas: A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, by Roseanne Brown. Young adult fantasy novels keep improving the genre, as authors take the best elements from prior work, clean up the writing, put into interesting new contexts. I … Continue reading →

Our neighborhood book club read The Stranger by Albert Camus. Everyone thought it was worth reading, and we had a good discussion about the fiction/story aspect of the novel, the philosophical aspects, and the psychological possibilities. Probably modern readers immediately … Continue reading →

I quite enjoyed these classic early short stories that defined the genre.

Excellent war stories, fables, and slightly comedic tales of woe. Quite sad, often.

This year I started but never really finished three Nabokov books… don’t know… I think I find the books excellent through the middle but then lose steam. So I start skimming, reading a chapter here and there, enjoy the writing … Continue reading →

First of my Christmas books to read. Providence by Max Barry is an enjoyable “war” sci-fi. Lots of shooting. Well-crafted. Excellent characterization. Still I think I would rather read Vietnam memoirs than sci-fi war novels. They don’t bring that much … Continue reading →

Enjoying every frame of French translation I found in our local used bookstore of Jiro Taniguchi’s superb graphic novel, Quartier Loitain. A story about discerning meaningfulness and discovering family. These kinds of novels will have no meaning for readers in … Continue reading →

I use this blog mainly to track my own reading (and remember what I read several years later!). I loved reading Vol. 1 of Le Seigneur des anneaux in French. Gave the whole novel a fresh perspective (I had not … Continue reading →

Old Man’s War confirmed the Elmore Leonard-ish style, which is not really my preference. I guess it was a decent read? A beach/airplane novel. Nothing memorable except the plot concept. Remarkably blinkered for sci-fi. The “aliens” may as well have … Continue reading →

The Country of the Pointed Firs, by Sarah Orne Jewett, was our book club book. Our criterion is “under 200 pages” and good. This short novel of vignettes written in the late 1800s is filled with memorable characters and beautiful … Continue reading →

Definitely the Elmore Leonard of science fiction: all plot, almost no science. Characters are tough guys, molls with mouths as long as their legs… you get the picture. Enjoyable. not sure I could read more than a few of these, … Continue reading →

Nice historical novel following several historical characters (Frederick Douglass, George Mitchell) and some fictional characters who crossed the eastern seaboard to Ireland transatlantically…. by ship, by plane, by letter…. Very nice, very readable, super interesting. You learn a bunch of … Continue reading →