Why can’t every weekend be as reading productive as this weekend? Final...
I finished two whole books this weekend! I never do that. I’m not sure if it was these books in particular that pushed me on, or my desire to have some stuff to write about for the next...
View ArticleProgress Report on Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (by...
I’m getting a late start tonight, so I’m going to keep this short. Flanagan won the Man Booker Prize in 2014 for this novel, and I hadn’t heard of it till the Longlist came out. 2014 was the first...
View ArticleFinal Thoughts on Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (by Jill)
So. The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the Man Booker Prize in 2014. After finishing it I understand why. It’s a big novel, but it is also a small one. It has a cast of thousands (not really),...
View ArticleThoughts on Phil Klay’s Redeployment (With More to Come Soon) – by Bethany
Tonight’s post is going to be brief. Today I read the first three-fifths of Phil Klay’s Redeployment in more or less the same manner that I first read its literary big brother, The Things They Carried...
View ArticleThoughts on Part I of Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son (by Bethany)
At first my plan was not to write a progress report on this book, since there are all kinds of complexities going on and I am not 100% sure what is “real” (within the framework of the fictional novel)...
View ArticleIdentity Theft, North Korean Style: Final Thoughts on Adam Johnson’s The...
If I wanted to be cynical (and I often do, though not necessarily right now), I would say that anyone who wants to write fiction about North Korea should follow these four easy steps: Read 1984,...
View ArticleA Review of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (by Jill)
Long before this book became the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner, to me it was a book with a pretty cover that Powell’s Indiespensible book club sent me. And then it was everywhere. And continues to be,...
View ArticleThis is supposed to be a progress report on John Williams’ Augustus, but I...
Here’s the deal. I have about fifty pages to go in Augustus, and I really, really want to finish it before I write a post about it, but I need to talk about something tonight. I’ve been whining in my...
View ArticleFinal thoughts on John Williams’ Augustus (by Jill)
Remember how on Tuesday I said that we never get to have Augustus’ voice tell us anything in the novel? Well, guess what Part III of the book is? That’s right, it’s Augustus Caesar’s final letter,...
View ArticleA Review of Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars
Two of my tutoring clients were assigned this book for summer reading, so of course it ended up on my reading list as well. If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you may have noticed that I...
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