Three Guys One Book

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood, the conclusion

Published on 2012-02-15 07:26:30

The students have their own digs off-campus, an old Victorian house that the Bellwether family owns. So even within the Cambridge campus they are a hothouse group held apart. The 20-something group has a shared identity like a vaporous social envelope. They see the world through collective eyes. It's as if Benjamin Wood has created this group of friends as a proto-character in itself.Continue reading The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood, the conclusion

The Book Thief

Published on 2012-02-13 06:21:08

What if you sent your first editions to a famous author to get signed, and this author didn't send them back?Continue reading The Book Thief

Birds of a Lesser Paradise Video

Published on 2012-02-09 07:34:09

If you read the blog, you know how much I loved this collection. Full disclosure, the author sent me cookies. (after I reviewed the book)Continue reading Birds of a Lesser Paradise Video

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood

Published on 2012-02-08 07:34:05

But one evening (this sounds like a fairy tale or an improbable upsurge of romanticism in the story), Oscar passes Kings College Chapel on the way home from work. There is an open-to-the-public performance of evensong taking place. Entranced by the singing and the extraordinary eloquence of the organ, Oscar goes in to listen. Oscar is an atheist but he is drawn in by the experience.Continue reading The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood

Shame

Published on 2012-02-06 07:31:47

In the end, the brother and sister played by Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan in the searing but warmly realistic 'Shame', are so clearly ruined that it is hard to imagine a pain they have not endured. But what? I don't care what it was, to be honest. Perhaps this incident was so horrendous that nothing they ever do, good or bad, will match that moment.Continue reading Shame

Independent Bookstores and the Rise of the Zombie

Published on 2012-02-03 06:29:10

What we're up against is Alphaville, the deconstruction of the human which can't be accomplished unless our everyday literary culture is dismantled first. That's a world where no one can ask why only because. Where there can be no rebellion and words are systematically banned from the dictionary because they would encourage independent ideas.Continue reading Independent Bookstores and the Rise of the Zombie

Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted by Dan Chaon

Published on 2012-01-31 07:08:12

Death hangs around Brandon like a necklace. People die, and that's what defines this story, but it seems to me that this is more about Brandon's inability to accept death as a part of life. Of course he is moving on, but is he really? His parents have voluntarily departed this mortal coil, and left Brandon and his sister the family house. Brandon lets that drift away, and he finds it particularly hard to enter his parents bedroom where they died.Continue reading Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted by D

Diaboliad by Mikhail Bulgakov

Published on 2012-01-30 07:09:08

From my prejudiced POV, this wicked little atom of a collection is the perfect remedy for anyone, like myself, who sometimes suffers from the very stale beer of American realism. That sort of placid realism, which as Lionel Trilling has observed, doesn't think of our ideas as part of reality...consigning our fantasy lives to some netherworld...banning our interior dreams and nightmares from the sacred precincts of fiction.Continue reading Diaboliad by Mikhail Bulgakov

Interview with Matthew Norman

Published on 2012-01-26 06:52:13

I’d say I shopliftabout 75% of the books I read. I can run surprisingly fast for a tall person. But, when I actually do buy a book, I try to hit The Ivy Bookstore—which, for those who don’t know, is a great indie bookstore in Baltimore. My two year old single-handedly destroys their children’s book department every time she’s there.Continue reading Interview with Matthew Norman

Crusoe’s Daughter by Jane Gardam

Published on 2012-01-23 07:38:36

It's brilliant sleight-of-hand by Gardam who keeps her fictional cake while eating it. She has a character who's a social misfit, impractical for all her vaunted practicality and self-reliance, but still makes her a daughter-in-law via role playing. And it's not unkind, it's one the the many surreal but touching scenes in the book. It seems to scream, man, this is weird, only no one says it is, which is ideal.Continue reading Crusoe’s Daughter by Jane Gardam