Category Archives: Book and film reviews

Apparently this short experimental novel, Good Morning, Midnight, by Jean Rhys, published in 1938, temporarily ended Rhys’ writing career, the novel was so depressing. I’m here to validate that. Think Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell but … Continue reading →

My neighborhood book club just finished a easy-read detective story from 1960s Australia, The Lake Frome Monster, by Arthur Upfield…. All about the Outback and ranching and First Nations People/aboriginal people… the detective is interesting… not the best detective mystery … Continue reading →

The only reason I checked out Galatea, by Madeline Miller, was because it looked really short. It’s like a 30 minute read, or less. A trifling story, where booksellers and publishers are happy to take your $12 for the hardcover … Continue reading →

Sometimes it only takes a few pages for you to realize there is a gap between the promise of the cover and the reality of the words on the page. In this case, the promise was a kind of time-travel … Continue reading →

Vagabonds, by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu, published back in 2020, is a long, shaggy dog story of Mars colonists gradual rapprochement with Earth, after a war of independence 100 years earlier. Jingfang imagines Mars as very much like … Continue reading →

Was bored and wanted something light, so I re-read Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. I last read it in May 2022. It is a very quick read: two … Continue reading →

Beautifully written, Admiring Silence, by Abdulrazak Gurnah follows the return of the protagonist, who has been living in England since the independence regime of Zanzibar lashed out against the Arab families of the island, and the island descended into poverty. … Continue reading →

Historical non-fiction, immersing the reader in the world of lower Manhattan in the post-revolution period around 1790. New York just has about 25,000 residents. Sweet reconstructs the social world on a young woman Lanah Sawyer who is raped by a … Continue reading →

Enjoyed this sprawling family saga, A History of Burning by Janika Oza. A boy from Gujarat is tricked into become an indentured servant building the Mombasa-Kampala railroad around 1900. After the end of his work, he remains and hardscrabbles a … Continue reading →

Reading novels from Tanzania, in anticipating some travel for work there in coming months. Enjoyed this sprawling saga on a boy who grows up in Kilwa, half-Indian half-African, ends up becoming a successful doctor in Canada, and returns 30 years … Continue reading →

My brother suggested this novel. It is well worth reading, though it demands a very lot from the reader. Old God’s Time, by Sebastian Barry is high literary fiction about a dreadful subject. (Barry is Irish.) The fogginess of protagonist … Continue reading →

A very (very) short book, which is the only reason I read it. You learn a little, you laugh a little, you cry a little. Well, maybe not… It is just a succession of battles (boy there were a lot) … Continue reading →

This is popular history, a narrative based on letters and records uncovered in various archives. I found it plodding, though the essence of the tale really helps one understand some aspects of the Atlantic world in 1767. Two “princes” related … Continue reading →

Read this book in two nights, mostly skimmed the last third as it moved to a fairly predictable conclusion. A multiverse semi-thriller. Was remarking the other day that once Nolan introduced, in Interstellar, the visual of the multiverse, at the … Continue reading →

The pastiche or collage graphic memoir by Nora Krug, Belonging, traces her increasing curiosity about her family’s involvement in supporting the Nazi Party and the persecution of Jewish people in the 1930-45 period. Was her grandfather a reluctant follower, compromising … Continue reading →

I am almost finished with the 3rd part of this four-part experimental novel, and it is possible I will never read the last part. It turned into a slog. The first part is a “sensational” novel about the main characters, … Continue reading →

Just So Happens, by Fumio Obata, is a lovely muted watercolor graphic novel leaving the lingering impression of melancholy and longing. The story is more an impression- just ordinary things that happen, and the hints of deeper meaning remain just … Continue reading →

It becomes a bit tedious, Green Hills of Africa, by Ernest Hemingway, does, especially for a vegetarian. A lot of meat, a lot of gratuitous killing of animals for no reason. But the writing is as usual a master class … Continue reading →

I hard a very hard time finishing This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It is a set of letters between two time travelers from the future. They are semi-omniscient (they can inscribe … Continue reading →

I randomly picked up this short novel, Ernest Gaines, The Tragedy of Brady Sims, in the library. It is set near Bayonne, Louisiana. Spare prose; ugly reality of African-American life and race relations. It could be 1950, it could be … Continue reading →