Tag: 5 stars
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Dubliners
Review: This was fucking magnificent. Joyce brings to life fin de siècle Dublin like to LIFE. God I felt I was there. Is it modernist? Not in the same sense as Portrait of the Artist and certainly not as in Ulysses, but it deviates sharply from the rigid narrative structure that we are familiar with… Read more
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Alexander’s Bridge
Review: A five star performance again from Cather. Reminded me a lot of Henry James in The Ambassadors or the The Bostonians, men and women trying to be men and women but hidebound by manners and etiquette. This is the difference between good writing and great writing. The only criticism I would make is that… Read more
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Chasing New Horizons
Review: This is exactly how science needs to be communicated to the public. Lots of science for sure, but written so clearly that anyone can understand it easily. I learned so much. And I’m astonished this mission ever got off the drawing board. The number one concern, like all projects is: money, budgets, funding, costs.… Read more
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Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp
Review: What a little jewel this is. Just a lucky find on Amazon based on my previous browsing. From memory, without access to the books, this remarkable Polish officer delivered a series of erudite and passionate lectures on Proust and his great novel. While locked up in a Soviet P.O.W. camp that was deplorably bad… Read more
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If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler
Review: Without doubt one of the most peculiar and yet most enjoyable books I have ever encountered. To describe it is difficult. A man starts to read a new novel and finds it cuts off after the first chapter. So he goes back to the shop to complain and meets a woman who had the… Read more
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The Troll Garden
Review: A glorious selection of seven short stories. Capturing the sense of silence and emptiness on the Great Plains, like you are there. “A Wagner Matinee” is amazing and also very tragic. In the true sense of that word. “The Inconceivable Silence of the Plains” Last trains and slow sunsets, snow and frozen fields. First… Read more
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Burmese Days
Review: Outstanding novel of British Colonial Burma. All the protagonists are thoroughly dislikeable. Gin soaked, heat baked, pathetic lives playing out in a dirty, remote hill station in Burma’s jungle. Once again Orwell proves to be the voice of conscience for the 20th century. SImply an amazing piece of writing, yet it is never much… Read more
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Pride and Prejudice
Review: Why did I wait so long before reading this? Outstanding narrative, humor, plot was a bit convoluted but I got it sorted quickly. The prose is exquisite. Really. Hard to improve a single line after 200 years. So good. Did not expect that. This book made me want to: read the rest of her… Read more
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Fahrenheit 451
Review: Always get asked if I’ve read this, and finally did. Well worth the wait. A novel for our times, and for the times before and the times to come judging by the popularity of reality TV. Very quotable, very readable, very visionary. Just plain great. This book made me want to: read more and… Read more
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The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
Review: I have always had a pretty low opinion of Hemingway, macho douchebags like him piss me off and I love that Wallace Stevens punched his drunk ass out in Key west. Are you ready for the however pivot? (Here it is) However, this was brilliant. Top shelf. Amazing, gripping, heartfelt, totally absorbing. No wonder… Read more