2012 Book #31 (and 32-ish): To Have and Have Not (and Mao II)
But we’re reasonably well into 2013, you (who check my Goodreads account religiously) say! And you finished To Have and Have Not weeks ago! And what’s this new mention of Mao II? How does it have anything to do with anything? What’s the deal?!? Well, I’ve been busy. Or maybe I haven’t been busy, but I’ve been otherwise […]
2012 Book #30: Absalom, Absalom!
Now, here’s a hard one to write about. It’s also my favorite book so far this year, though I’m sure this review will in no way reflect that, as I tend to make my favorite books sound like I (should) hate them. Anyway. Along with being my favorite, Absalom, Absalom! is also the most difficult […]
2012 Book #29: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is another departure from my usual reading habits. But it’s about books! you say. Yes, but it’s also a thriller, of sorts, in a bestseller-y sort of way. And I absolutely loved it. It’s about a bookstore clerk named Clay Jannon, who notices strange patterns as he works: people occasionally wander […]
2012 Book #28: Who Could That Be at This Hour?
I think I bought Who Could That Be at This Hour because I liked the cover. (In my defense, that’s worked out for me several times in the past.) Lemony Snicket‘s name on the front didn’t hurt, either, though I only got through the first couple books in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Not that […]
2012 Book #27: Skylark
I ran across Skylark in a post on one of my favorite book blogs, Literary Trashcan. (Okay, it’s really just a Tumblr in which this guy posts books, art, etc, that he finds interesting. I guess I think it’s interesting, too.) It’s a short Hungarian novel by Desző Kosztolányi, whose name I had to copy […]
2012 Book #26: 12.21
12.21isn’t my usual kind of book: it’s the bestseller-y, Da Vinci Code type. (That said, I liked The Da Vinci Code.) I usually stick with established novels – or, at least, established authors. 12.21 kept popping up on my radar, and I’d just read Hard Times and was in the mood for something lighter. And […]
2012 Book #25: Hard Times
I read Hard Times for the first time when I was 15 because an English teacher I really respected recommend that I read it over the summer after my freshman year of high school. (She’s also responsible for my love of Don DeLillo and Margaret Atwood: she recommended White Noise and The Handmaid’s Tale, too.) […]
2012 Book #24: Light in August
Light in August is, hands down, the best book I’ve read so far this year. It’s really an amazing novel. Faulkner is one of my favorite authors, and I’ve read several of his best-known novels like The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom! Like the other books I’ve read, Light […]
2012 Book #23: Where Things Come Back
Where Things Come Back has been on my radar since it was published because it received so much local attention. The author, John Corey Whaley, is from Springhill, a tiny town an hour or so from Shreveport. I’ve been there several times, mostly because my childhood best friend’s mother grew up there, and I was […]
2012 Book #22: Lionel Asbo
Here’s another one I can’t review for the library. At the very beginning, we learn that our protagonist is having an affair with his very own grandmother. “WAIT,” you say, “last I heard, Martin Amis wrote this book. He’s respectable, right?” Yes, he is. The only other novel of his that I’ve read is very […]