Category Archives: Book and film reviews

I wanted some light reading after my trip to Burkina Faso, and Leslie had checked this fantasy novel out of the library. I enjoyed the good writing, and the deep character development. But the mixing of realistic shtetl Jews in … Continue reading →

I like flying on Air France because i get to see a lot of the Cannes film entries, and a huge selection of global movies. This recent trip three quite decent movies are worth watching if you have access. Sibel … Continue reading →

If you are looking for a short novel to read, The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark is one of the best novels I have read in a decade. Within five pages you start admiring Spark’s writing, and as … Continue reading →

Our neighborhood book group decided not to read this for next time, but I was intrigued by the “pitch” and so got it from the library. It is a good, solid, novel: not much to talk about in terms of … Continue reading →

The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes is a time-travel serial murder novel. So, I love most time-travel novels. I am not a fan of serial murder novels. About halfway through I started skimming: I am almost never interested in how … Continue reading →

My Mortal Enemy, by Willa Cather, is a short novel first published in 1926. Pretty bitter. An unforgettable protagonist, who cuts through platitudes, is complex and a bit unfathomable even to a perceptive narrator. The writing is excellent. Here is … Continue reading →

Our neighborhood book group read The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and I loved it! Oddly, as I was reading it I had the distinct feeling I had already read it, but I could not remember anything. Thinking … Continue reading →

He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope proved to be a fine summer novel. Like most of Trollope, it is long.  So 20-30 pages a day means it takes a month to finish. But the reading is quite rewarding. … Continue reading →

Stay with Me, by Ayobami Adebayo came out in 2017 and received good reviews. I picked it up the other day in our university library. A decent read, it is a domestic drama set against backdrop of Yoruba culture and … Continue reading →

Harp of Burma, Michio Takeyama. 1946. For our book club (whose rule is under 200 pages). Not politically correct by any means, this tale of a Japanese company towards the end of the Burma war in 1944 was apparently intended … Continue reading →

Sarah Pinsker, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea. Short stories set in the future. Billed as sci-fi, but these did not appeal to me as much as I had hoped. Nicely done, small moments of human insight. When … Continue reading →

I must say the past few months have, in my opinion, been generally excellent, with many stories that I think are extremely well crafted and profound (many deal with rape), and very little of the silly stuff (yes, I’m looking … Continue reading →

People who knew me back in 2010ish era knew that I liked Lost a lot until the last season. The opening scene with Desmond remains an all-time favorite piece of cinema. I mentioned back then several times: the only way … Continue reading →

I use this blog partly to recall books and papers I have read, but lately I have not been taking the time, so now I have to play catch-up.  Here are three books I finished in last few weeks. Pnin, … Continue reading →

I have been slacking.  For Christmas I got several novels. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Excellent big sci-fi opera, with genetic engineering and big questions. The Peace War by Vernor Vinge. I started skeptical but got drawn in. By … Continue reading →

I saw the book in the library. I hesitated. I seemed to recall it had been received with coolness by reviewers? But I thought to myself, he is such a good writer, can it really be that bad? And so … Continue reading →

The Power, by Naomi Alderman. Thrilling in its conceit and execution. Stumbles towards the end (and what ambitious book doesn’t). Nice to see an interesting short frame device (the letters) in popular fiction. News of the World, by Paulette Jiles. … Continue reading →

I got this for daughter but ended up reading almost all of it before her… 1162 pages of sci-fi.  I was frankly surprised at how bad a lot (most of which I had not read) of the stories were: poor … Continue reading →

Unless you really enjoy conventional, comfortable story telling. I have lot of sympathy for Sean Penn since he was visiting a relative on the same floor of hospital in LA where my mother was for a time. But I can’t … Continue reading →