Category Archives: Book and film reviews

“The Bunty Club” by Tessa Hadley from the October 28, 2019 issue of The New Yorker.  Hadley has several stories with fugue states embedded in them, where the narrator and reader are no longer sure that the continuation of the … Continue reading →

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, by C.A. Fletcher. Enthralling dystopia set in a future England with very few humans left. More for the young adult audience. The ending a little too pat for my … Continue reading →

Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler. Definitely second-rate Chandler. The Big Sleep was much better. Amusing for the historical snippets, not amusing for the casual bigotry, and the writing is sloppier than The Big Sleep. Plot also more convoluted: let’s … Continue reading →

I’m Thinking of Ending Things, by Iain Reid. Billed as a “literary thriller” I thought this might be a good read after some more mundane books. But I was wrong. The novel was interesting for awhile, but then it started … Continue reading →

My neighborhood book group read this and we had a fun discussion. This is a great novel. Sure some parts are no longer politically correct, but you have to read past that. Chandler’s writing is so literary: crafted, thoughtful, evocative. … Continue reading →

From 2006. Not the best-written book. Lots of vignettes, often little narrative flow. He drops characters that he should be coming back to: Cheney is never mentioned after page 100 for example. I don’t think any Iraqi leaders other than … Continue reading →

From a great blog post on the film The Big Sleep: http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/bigsleep.htm Agnes Lowzier, the saleslady at Geiger’s bookstore and Joe Brody’s accomplice, played by Sonia Darrin. Although her face is very familiar it’s difficult to find information on her. … Continue reading →