In my circles, which are mostly academic, it’s not exactly a badge of honor to say you’re a fan of Stephen King. I don’t hide it, though. I’ve been reading his novels for 19 years now, which doesn’t exactly make me his oldest fan – he published his first novel the year I was [...]
Archive for June, 2008
Duma Key
Posted in Fiction on June 30, 2008 | 4 Comments »
The Master and Margarita
Posted in Fiction on June 26, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The Master and Margarita. To me, it had a faint ring of sadomasochism to it, a slight hint of the naughty. I picked it up knowing nothing about Mikhail Bulgakov, nothing of his life or circumstances, idly wondering what this one would be like in comparison with other Russian novels I’d read. Surely not religious, [...]
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Posted in Food, Nonfiction on June 22, 2008 | 4 Comments »
If you’re a panda bear, dinner is easy. It’s bamboo for you; you don’t have a choice and you don’t want one. But when you can eat anything, what should you eat? In other words, what in the world is for dinner? That’s the omnivore’s dilemma, Michael Pollan tells us.
And it’s worse in America in [...]
The Keep
Posted in Fiction on June 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Jennifer Egan’s novel The Keep begins with Danny, who is running away from nameless problems in New York (the mob?) and running toward an unknown something that may be worse: his cousin Howie. When they were adolescents, Howie was a fat nerd (and – gasp! – adopted, which seems to go along with Egan’s [...]
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
Posted in Fiction on June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I finished this book a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been mulling over my review ever since, trying on one approach after another and feeling dissatisfied with each. Michael Chabon’s novel is a marvel: it is noir detective fiction, with all the shady, elaborate, and ultimately nonsensical plot elements that implies; it is speculative [...]
Simply the best
Posted in Uncategorized on June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So I do occasionally dip into something other than deathless classics, and I picked up a copy of Real Simple magazine the last time I was at the grocery store. This month’s issue had a short article on “Best Summer Books.” This is something lots of magazines do in May or June, gearing up for [...]
The Terror
Posted in Abandoned, Fiction, Travel/ Exploration on June 5, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I first noticed The Terror when I was in the bookstore. I have a weakness for ghost stories and books about the supernatural (M.R. James, Robert Aickman, writers of that sort, rather than the slasher genre), and I also have an odd fondness for the Arctic. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Dan Simmons (an author [...]
The Penderwicks
Posted in Children's / YA Lit, Fiction on June 4, 2008 | 1 Comment »
When I was a kid, I used to be a regular at the public library. More than a regular, really. I’d go a couple of times a week and take out twenty or twenty-five books at a time, bring them home in a paper grocery sack, and read them all before the next time I [...]
Arctic Grail
Posted in History, Nonfiction, Travel/ Exploration on June 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I picked up Arctic Grail: the Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909, by Pierre Berton, at the library a few weeks ago when I was desperate for more arctic material and my local library (not the most artic-friendly place) was fresh out of primary sources. It’s a thick volume, a lively [...]
Back reading… and writing
Posted in Uncategorized on June 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A cross-country move has meant that I had to take a little while off this blog, and also that my time for reading was somewhat limited. I now have a small backlog of things I’ve read while I was a) packing, b) moving and c) unpacking (which I am still doing), so I will try [...]
