May 19, 2023If On The Winters Night A Traveler
By Italo CalvinoI was wondering a lot about greatness while reading this. I don't think Italo Calvino is one of the greats, but I do love what he does. There is something a bit Borgesian about this, maybe Kafkaesque or maybe a bit more delightfully Snicketesque, and I think Calvino almost earns his own adjectivification, but not quite. This is a series of beginnings, a collection of stories by an author that doesn't enjoy writing the ends, a love letter about reading and then on the contrarywise a bit about writing, like the man from Borges who determines to write Don Quixote or like the man from DFW who determines to make the ultimate entertainment or like the man from Nabokov who gets tangled in the endnotes of Pale Fire. All wrapped in a delightful second-person framing device of international intrigue, conspiracy, and apocrypha.
May 19, 2023The 7 Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle
By Stuart TurtonFun & funky pursuit of a killer and pursuit of the killt, whodunnit and also just whatdunandwen, little bit of Christie and a little bit of Groundhog day, and a little bit of (frankly, somewhat cumbersome) sci-fi oddity. That frame though allows for a novel premise and take on the classic dinner-party-and-a-murder that entertains and engrosses.
May 19, 2023The Iliad
By HomerLots of X begat Y, lots of and Petracliffs, he had 50 black ships too. But I mean surely this was just the Avengers, a few millennia ago? Of a comparable level of cultural cachet! And the parts that were not lists had some quite-frankly surprisingly good writing, probably even better than the Avengers. A good reminder that even way back in the olden days people liked to be entertained and could be entertaining
May 19, 2023Ulysses
By James JoyceI mean I thought this was pretty great actually. Tedious, sure, full of itself, sure, riddled with references and languages I either got, or as may happen, did not. I'm fine with a bit of navel-gazing, I can appreciate it, but 800 pages is a lot of pages of naval-gazing. Thank god for the audiobook I guess, not sure I would have finished otherwise, and but does that even count? And I wasn't always sure of what was going on or when I was who. But for all that - some of the best prose, an amazing project, an Odyssey for our time, a century ago. I should probably read the Odyssey. I thought the ending a just about perfect ending making for it a just about perfect example of that which it is. The characters were adroitly captured, Dublin adroitly captured, the time, adroitly captured. I liked how the words went together, and they went together in some wild ways. Not my favorite novel, but at the same time maybe the best? I can see why it might be the best.
May 19, 2023Wuthering Heights
By Emily BrontëI had to read this to better understand Hark! A Vagrant. And now I do! Everyone was so much more awful than I was expecting, and it kept getting worse. Great book
Mar 27, 2023The Very Best Of The Best
By Gardner Dezois (ed.)Fine I guess, decent writing and fun premise, but not much more than that, and doesn't really make me feel any which way - just "hmm yeah that seems a plausible story about darwin if he was an alien woman and I guess yeah evolution is kind of an interesting discovery."
Jan 26, 2023Ducks
By Kate BeaconKate Beaton is great, this book is great, this book is heavy and traumatic and human and occasionally a bit sweet. Should be read.
Jan 26, 2023Murder On The Orient Express
By Agatha ChristieIt's got mystery, it's got murder, it's got train travel, it's got the line
"Hercule Poirot addressed himself to the task of keeping his moustaches out of the soup."
Jan 25, 2023Bleeding Edge
By Thomas PynchonQuick (for Pynchon) fun (for Pynchon) jaunt through conspiratorial world of fresh-from-the-dot-com-collapse Silicon Alley, NYC; a modern take on film noir but like in books and also with computer stuff. A good mess to untangle with some snazzy characters and hijinks, the coarse barrage of people places and things might make you miss the fact that there are some pretty neat dynamics at play, insightful and honest! At his best, Pynchon falls into himself in a bit of an ouroboros of facts, figures, references, pedantry and pretension that goes for pages and pages and is...maybe...a bit tiresome actually - but this is perhaps not him at his best and instead just entertaining. I'll finish Gravity's Rainbow one of these days but in the meantime am happy to have found this one.
Jan 25, 2023Jingo
By Terry PratchettNot Pratchett's best, not the best Pratchett featuring these characters, but I mean, still Pratchett, still heartfelt and earnest light silly fantasy about racism and war. Good fun, and would recommend, but maybe not for someone's first experience of Discworld.