In his own words
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The Decameron
Review: Called a masterpiece, and deservedly so. 10 young people, 7 women and 3 men, set out for their country villas to escape the plague in Florence. They elect one of their number as King for the day and he or she sets the rules of the day and the subject of the tales they…
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The Essays of Francis Bacon
Review: An enlightening book for the 21st century. The more things change, the more they remain the same. A collection of little short essays about how people think and operate. A hard read due to the archaic language, like Shakespeare without the rhyme and meter. On kings, on love, on rumors, on youth, on old…
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The Giver
Review: A Newberry Prize winner and for good reason. Heartbreaking, heartwarming, dystopian, utopian. A book written for children that will challenge every adult that reads it. I won’t even summarize it here (sorry Brant 🙂 ), it just needs to be experienced. Will definitely check out the author’s other books. I award it the rare…
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The Lady from the Sea
Review: Ibsen at his finest. Ellida, raised on a rocky spit of land in a lighthouse in love with the sea, and… The stranger, a metaphor for the sea. Married to Doctor Wangel, a good man but kind of a pussy. Hilde and Bollette, daughters from a previous marriage, both seemingly play hard to get…
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‘Tis Pity she’s a Whore
Review: Dark! Incest, murder, eyes gouged out, blasphemy, sketchy characters abound doing nefarious deeds. Tough to read the archaic verse, but after a dozen pages you get into the rhythm of it. I’ll have to read it again, maybe after reading a commentary on how it all works together. By that I mean there is…
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The Name of the Wind
Review: Superb! Finally an epic fantasy series that is not a hack reworking of LOTR! Magic is not magical, more like science and a bit of alchemy with a little bit of supernatural thrown in to make things glow a little. Thought it was going to devolve into Harry Potter for a bit, but it…
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Dream Days
Review: A beautiful sequel to The Golden Age. Continuing the adventures of our merry band of children, Harold, Edward, Selina and Charlotte. The Reluctant Dragon is excellent and often printed and sold separately. Again it captures the sweet essence of being a child and looking with sad piteous disbelief on how the grownups waste their…
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Flight to Arras
Review: A superb memoir, highly detailed account of a single wartime flight in the last days of France in 1940 before she fell to Germany. Gets very philosophical in the last chapter, but it makes sense. Redefines what we think of as courage, heroism, perseverance, sacrifice. A short, fast, beautiful read. This book made me…
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This Side of Paradise
Review: Another brilliant novel from FSF. Sad, poignant, and beautiful throughout. People that are young, do young people things. Now, then, way back, going forward, always. That damned war again. 1914 disillusioned the old world and alienated the new world. People drank a lot. Like, a lot. This book made me want to: eat a…
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The Wasteland, Prufrock, and Other Poems
Review: Erudite to the point of superciliousness. Like a graffiti artist leaving tags to show their cleverness, the author dropping in an absurd amount of shout-outs to Donne, Spencer, Dante, even Shackleton. Prufrock was better: In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo This book made me want to: drink bubble tea Overall…