I’m going to come out and say it, I think Angela Carter is one of the most under-rated authors of the 20th century. Up to now, I’ve known her work through her wonderful short stories and their various adaptations. Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves based on Ms. Carter’s The Bloody Chamber was rewatched so many times, my VHS copy faded away. Years ago, I … Continue reading Wise Children by Angela Carter
The greatest American crime novelist you’ve never heard of is Dorothy Hughes. Unless, of course, you’ve already heard of her. Ms. Hughes wrote some 14 crime novels in the 1950’s and 60’s, then retired from the scene to become a leading critic of the genre. She’s something of a writer’s writer, long admired by those working in crime fiction but not widely known. You may … Continue reading The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes
May first, 1919. New York City. The first World War has ended. Soldiers of all ranks are returning home via a stop in the big city. Sons of privilege, Yale students all, hold a party in a hotel not too far from a socialist workers printshop and hall. Chaos ensues. Our two main characters, former college pals, meet before the big night. Gordon and Phillip. … Continue reading May Day by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In 1816 Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont and John Polidori spend a stormy week together in a villa near Lake Geneva, a party for the ages as they say. Stuck inside due to unseasonal rains and they pass their time together by telling each other scary stories. There was probably some drug-taking involved and everybody was basically lusting after everybody else but … Continue reading Best Party Ever!! The Vampyre by John Polidori
Heathcliff is Miss Havisham. I don’t know how many times I have read Wuthering Heights, but it’s been a few. More than three at least. I’m a fanboy. I read it again on Monday as my way of celebrating Emily Brontë’s 200th birthday. I honestly thought there would be more hoopla; maybe a public read-a-loud somewhere. But if it was going to be just me, then … Continue reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Back in 2012, Regular Rumination hosted a regular poetry event, Poetry: Read More/Blog More. The premise was simple–write about poetry once a month. I’m a semi-regular reader of poetry–one or two books a year–so I happily joined in, a couple of times. Below is a post I wrote for my old blog, Ready When You Are, C.B. about Robert Frost, who really is much better than you … Continue reading Poetry: Read More/Blog More — Robert Frost
How true is this opening line? When we don’t speak, we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves. Ms. Muller opens and closes her novel, The Land of Green Plums, with this line so she must thinks it’s important. It must be the key her novel’s theme. What meaning can we find in it? How different is the thought behind it … Continue reading The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller
A couple of weeks ago I renewed my subscription to Netflix, just in time to catch the new documentary about American author and essayists Joan Didion. It’s an excellent tribute, very entertaining. C.J., who normally only watches You Tube videos about old English houses, loved it. He was even inspired to try reading some of Ms. Didion’s essays. And I was inspired to pick up … Continue reading A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion
I gave up. Full confession. I tried, I really did. I even broke down and got an audio version to listen to during my commute to and from work. But I just couldn’t take it. I think it in part an effect of this little reading challenge project I set for myself. This was the fourth Jane Austen book in as many months for me. … Continue reading Jane Austen Read All-a-long Book 4: Emma
Jess Walter’s novel The Zero takes place in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. The hero is a policeman assigned to the disaster site in the months following the building’s destruction. When the novel opens, he has the job of taking V.I.P.’s on private tours of Ground Zero or The Zero. Soon, he is involved in a clandestine investigation into the disaster itself … Continue reading The Zero by Jess Walter
How is it that I’ve gone this many decades without knowing this book existed. I was as big a fan of Kurt Vonnegut as any of the other nerds in my high school class. I even found copies of the existing Kilgore Trout novels an “author” any true Kurt Vonnegut fan will recognize. I thought I had read them all. Then one of the guests … Continue reading Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
This is a “two-gasp” Jane Austen novel. While reading it, I gasped twice. Jane Austen has this way of suddenly throwing her reader for a loop with just a tiny slip of narrative so affecting it makes this reader gasp out loud. She is a master of plotting. My gasping came during the novel’s first half. First when young Fanny Price is forgotten by her … Continue reading Jane Austen Read All A-long: Mansfield Park
May Contain Spoilers 