Because Valentine’s Day is coming and if we didn’t have classic literature to teach us about heternormative love and screw us up for any real relationships, we would have to use TV and movies instead.
Pride and Prejudice: It shouldn’t be romantic. Mr. Darcy is a dick and Elizabeth Bennett is prickly and the perfect couple [...]
So all this strange white stuff falling around the streets this winter (and they are calling for more this week!) does put one in the mood for curling up on the sofa. Accompanied of course by hot chocolate and a blanket with a book that makes you feel even warmer than you are.
The Snowy Day [...]
Tags: best books·snow
Autumn by Grace Paley
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If you haven’t spent a lot of time in university Englishes classes, you might be unfamiliar with the debate around The Canon. By which is meant the collection of literature that all humanity must aspire to read in order that they be well-rounded, humanistic, logical and intelligent fellows interacting with other well-read and therefore, well-rounded, [...]
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Why I picked it up: I’m a sucker for an award-winner. And I’ve been meaning to read him ever since his first book, The Swimming-Pool Library, got such great reviews for a first novel.
We don’t pay enough attention these days to how novels are structured. It’s a forgotten art, really, to make the actual shape [...]
Tags: Alan Hollinghurst·good book
I own these books. Some of them I have owned for over 15 years now and I just keep schlepping them from house to house. They sit in my “to be read someday” bookshelf taunting me as I pass them over to pick up the latest Anita Shreve instead. My guilt only lasts as long [...]
Tags: pretentious literature
Why I picked it up: Because Gilead — her previous, multiple award-winning novel — is probably one of the best books I have ever read or will ever read in my lifetime.
Some books are going to break your heart. Sometimes you can steel yourself against it, particularly if you have read an author before. I [...]
Tags: best books·Marilynne Robinson
As I am undergoing the painfully slow process of unpacking my books, its fun to go pick up each one and remember a little bit about it or at least remember whether I enjoyed reading it or not. Except, there are some books I have no memory of. I know I read them — because [...]
Tags: too many books
Times are tough, people. We’ve got local municipalities printing their own currency, a global depression, bankruptcies of companies who were supposedly “too big to fail” or “to important to the historical fabric of this country,” we’ve got rioting in Moldova, we’ve got Antarctic ice melting. we’ve got people touching the Queen. It’s madness out there.
So [...]
Tags: the sky is falling
Why I picked it up: I liked the movie. And because I liked the movie so much and Joseph Gorden-Levitt’s main character so much, I wondered if that same character in the book was as dynamic or if it was the actor. Turns out it was both.
Some people don’t like to read books after seeing [...]
Tags: good book