In his own words
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Murphy
Review: The first published novel from the author who would later become known for Waiting for Godot. Rejected by 42 publishers it was finally published by Routledge in 1938. As much as I enjoyed this, I can see why it was rejected by so many publishers. Why? Because this is a peculiar book, just shy…
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An Incomplete Education
Review: Found this little gem at a used book store some years ago and just got to it now. Glad I did as this was a winner. Published in 1987 by Jones and Wilson and many other contributors from of all things, Esquire Magazine. I shouldn’t be so surprised by that when I consider that…
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An American Genocide
Review: Picked this book up for under 5 dollars and it was superb. Let me qualify that. It was superbly researched, constructed, and written but the subject matter was very difficult to deal with at a personal and emotional level. The author spent years researching and consulting primary sources to come up with a damning…
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In the Beauty of the Lilies
Review: The title of this book sounded interesting so I grabbed it off the shelf, so having said that I had no idea what to expect. That’s two random selections in a row. I see a pattern here. But on with the review. This was good, and John Updike is a great writer, great as…
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America 1908
Review: Grabbed this off the shelf at random and what a winner it was. The author, Jim Rasenberger is someone I was not familiar with but I am for sure going to check out his other books. If they are anything like this I want to read them. Okay, so this book was published in…
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God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Review: This was 190 pages of excellence. Reading Vonnegut always makes me feel like I need a shower and a walk in the sunshine after. But that just means it’s dark, it doesn’t affect the exellence. The novel tells the story of Eliot Rosewater, drunk, volunteer fireman, and president of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation.…
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Mrs. Dalloway
Review: This was unexpected. It was written in stream of consciousness like Joyce’s Ulysses which surprised me. I had read To The Lighthouse a couple years ago and that was conventional, so I guess I expected more of the same from this author. Two things I didn’t like were the lack of chapters and to…
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The Fire and the Darkness
Review: Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut made the name part of popular consciousness with the publication of Slaughterhouse Five. But for historians this is a minefield that most choose not to navigate. How to balance the remembrance with politics and the war. Like with Hiroshima, it’s difficult to discuss or write about without taking a side or…
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Burning Chrome
Review: This is one of my rare re-reads and it was by design, not something that I read and halfway through figured that I had actually read this before. I did that with a few, remember that 25 years of this reading journal was read through a vodka filter. I first discovered William Gibson when…
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The Sea
Review: This book, perhaps of all the (eight so far) Booker Prize winners I have read is the One True Winner. An outstanding piece of modern literature and a joy to read. So what is it about? In this case, I’m at a loss, it’s sort of about life, and dealing with illness, and grieving,…