Category Archives: Fiction

There but for the

Posted on May 21, 2013 by

In our blogiversary post, we invited readers to suggest a book for us to read and review together. You all came up with such great suggestions that we had a hard time choosing, but we eventually settled on There but … Continue reading →

Posted in Contemporary, Fiction | 7 Comments

The Ionian Mission

Posted on May 18, 2013 by

For me, this blog is as much about keeping a record of my reading to serve as a memory aid as it is about sharing my reading with an audience. (Not that you dear readers aren’t lovely, but I don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction | 4 Comments

Trauma

Posted on May 17, 2013 by

In Patrick McGrath’s Trauma, Charlie Weir is a psychiatrist in New York in the 1970s, dealing with veterans coming back from the Vietnam War. In his spare time, he counsels victims of rape and abuse. “In my work,” he says, … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction | 6 Comments

NOS4A2

Posted on May 14, 2013 by

Charles Talent Manx roams the country in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith, stealing children. He doesn’t want to hurt them — oh, no! He wants to take them to Christmasland, a place not on any map, where the children will stay … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | Tagged | 9 Comments

Little Dorrit

Posted on May 10, 2013 by

Little Dorrit is divided into two sections. The first is Poverty, and the second is Riches. Is this all you need to know about its imagery? Of course not — but if you add the title of the first chapter, … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics, Fiction | 35 Comments

Pale Fire

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

At the end of his introduction to John Shade’s poem “Pale Fire,” Charles Kinbote advises readers to read his commentary on the poem before reading the poem itself, and then to consult the commentary while reading the poem, and then … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics, Fiction | 14 Comments

Permanent Rose

Posted on May 8, 2013 by

Other Jenny put me on to these books about the Casson family, by Hilary McKay, some time ago. By now, after I’ve finished the third book in the series, I’m a complete convert: I’m at the point where I’m trying … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's / YA Lit, Fiction | 3 Comments

The Book of Night Women

Posted on May 7, 2013 by

I read The Book of Night Women by Marlon James a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been putting off writing about it — not because I don’t have anything to say, but because it’s such an interesting and complex book … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction | 4 Comments

The Hidden

Posted on April 30, 2013 by

When Ben Mercer arrives in Greece, he’s escaping the flaming ruins of his marriage. He’s a classically trained Cambridge scholar (“Class-Anth,” he says later), but he takes a job at a meat grill in Metamorphosis, a suburb of Athens. There, … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction | 7 Comments

Parable of the Talents

Posted on April 29, 2013 by

I’m tempted to just tell all of you that this book by Octavia Butler is even better than Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and that you must read it and leave it at that. But I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 18 Comments