2014 Book #27: The Torrents of Spring
What a bizarre little novella! I was expecting a run-of-the-mill (short) Hemingway novel, and I got…birds living in shirts? The Torrents of Spring is so un-Hemingway-like that I stopped several times and just stared at the pages, thinking, What am I reading, exactly? Hemingway, young then, is making fun of the literary establishment in a parody […]
Centenary Book Sale Day!
I look forward to it all year: the Centenary Book Bazaar is by far the best book sale in Shreveport. If you’ve only been to the library’s, you’re missing out! My general rule is $20 and one ginormous bag, but rules are made to be broken, right? I was still too sick to enjoy last […]
2013 Book #38: Coin Locker Babies
Well. Coin Locker Babies is certainly a book. Not exactly my kind of book, but a book. And not a bad one, either. It’s just a little too extreme for me. I’ve been going back and forth about quoting the first paragraph so you’d see exactly what I mean, but I’m a little scared that I’d be flagged […]
2013 Book #30: A Moveable Feast
After the intensity of Salem’s Lot and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I needed something more calm and grounded. Enter Hemingway, who is always safe. (Though I don’t particularly like two of his novels, they never make my head feel like it’s going to explode.) A Moveable Feast has been on my list for quite […]
2013 Book #20: Across the River and into the Trees
I’ve been putting off writing this post for long enough. The idea of writing it bores me about as much as reading the book did. I gave Across the River and into the Trees two stars on Goodreads, not because it’s a bad novel, per se, but because it’s a bad novel for Hemingway. It’s also his […]
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 #6: Islands in the Stream
I’m not quite sure how I came across Islands in the Stream. I’d never heard of it. It’s one of Hemingway‘s later novels – after most of the famous ones – and it’s really, really good. I think I might have enjoyed reading this one more than any of the others I’ve read (For Whom […]
2011 Book #19: Brideshead Revisited
I enjoyed Brideshead Revisited sooooo much more than I thought I would. In fact, I think it’s one of my favorite books ever. Evelyn Waugh has a lot in common with Fitzgerald and Hemingway, though it was published twenty years after The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises. Brideshead Revisited is about wealthy English […]