This is the type of post that should wait until Halloween, but honestly who wants to wait for reviews of the kind of reading that keeps you up all night? Here are two recent releases that fit the bill for fall creepster reading. Both involve death and one thrilled me. Although you never really know in a marriage who is responsible for what, do ... Read More...
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
I could not pass up the opportunity to share the love again for a book that I adored. I'm not a big short story reader, but Marra connects the dots so well that The Tsar of Love and Techno reads like an abstract art of a novel. It comes out in paperback tomorrow so if you missed it the first time around, read it now! For art to be the chisel that breaks the ... Read More...
It’s Not You, It’s Me: Mini-Reviews
It happens in personal relationships and it happens with reading: A book simply does not hold my interest, float my boat, whatever metaphor you want to use. But if the writing is good I’m reader enough to admit: It’s Not You, It’s Me. I’ve always been a fan of South Asian authors so approached these novels with high hopes. In both cases the writing was well done, but the ... Read More...
The Tsar of Love and Techno
For art to be the chisel that breaks the marble inside us, the artist must first become the hammer. The Tsar of Love and Techno begins in 1937 Leningrad with a nameless censor. A man whose artistic skill is such that his sole purpose is to erase people deemed to be enemies of the state from any and all paintings and photographs in which they appear. His talent ... Read More...
Hunters in the Dark
Lawrence Osborne was a travel journalist and currently lives in Bangkok, but his latest novel Hunters in the Dark is not one that will inspire readers to head to Southeast Asia. Instead, it has a Heart of Darkness feel—where the language spoken by the natives is not one that can ever be learned by foreigners and behind nods and smiles is a deep-seated, unforgiving ... Read More...
The Book of Strange New Things
Pastor Peter Leigh is being given the spiritual chance of a lifetime: he’s been chosen to travel billions of miles to a new planet and bring Christianity to its inhabitants. The planet is called Oasis and is managed by a global corporation, USIC. The Book of Strange New Things, the latest novel from Michel Faber, chronicles Peter’s mission and his attempts to stay ... Read More...
