Last week I started this little feature for books that don't quite fit in the normal summer reading mold. This week's pick is still a quiet character study, but about a devastating time in history. I have read many, many novels about World War II, but very few about World War I. That, plus a level of ignorance that feels embarrassing means I didn’t know that in ... Read More...
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
There isn’t any status in it unless you’d be impressed to know that the Mars Room is not a middling or mediocre strip club but is definitely the worst and most notorious, the very seediest and most circuslike place there is. In stark contrast to all that was warm and lovely in Monday’s book, Tin Man, I’m back today with a book that probably worked because it was ... Read More...
Self-Portrait with Boy: A Novel
A startlingly unique and uncomfortable premise is at the heart of Self-Portrait with Boy: an artist is in the midst of taking a series of self-portraits against a window of her apartment when she hears a commotion and learns that the 9-year-old son of her upstairs neighbors, has fallen to his death from the roof. When she develops her film, she discovers one of the ... Read More...
Hell Hath No Fury: Mini-Reviews
OK, OK, the real quote ends with “like a woman scorned”, but I’m taking creative license and dropping “scorned”. I’ve spent much of the last year in a rage-y haze thanks to 1) a misogynistic Congress determined to take away every right women have and 2) learning that there are a lot of men in power, including the president, who like to use that power to sexually harass, ... Read More...
September Reading Wrap-Up
Goodbye summer! What an odd one it was—mostly chilly, but dry with only three days got that anywhere near hot. The worst of it was in with the fires in the Columbia Gorge when, even though we live up in Seattle, we had ash settling on our deck, trapping the heat and smoke for almost a week of hot, sticky, smelly weather. My reading was odd as well—four DNFs in June and mostly ... Read More...
Sing, Unburied, Sing
JoJo lives in Bois, a small town in rural Mississippi, with his Pop and Mam—his mother’s parents, and his little sister, Kayla. His mother, Leonie, is a sometime visitor, but drugs and other past-times mean she’s not around much. His father, Michael? He’s in Parchman prison. And he’s white, which means JoJo has a whole other family that wants nothing to do with him or ... Read More...
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- Next Page »
