Omensetter’s Luck by William H. GassMy rating: 3 of 5 stars I owned this book for nearly 40 years, tried to read it a couple of times, failed to engage, put it down, and repeat. Finally picked it up again … Continue reading →
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope MirrleesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars This is one of those books you don’t hear about unless you have a friend who is very devoted to reading, or unless you are one of those people yourself. The … Continue reading →
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite YourcenarMy rating: 5 of 5 stars This epistle of Hadrian to his successor, imagined and composed by Marguerite Yourcenar, is a perfect book in very many ways, yet proceeds so quietly about its work that … Continue reading →
Brave Mardi Gras A New Orleans Novel of the ’60s by W. Adolphus RobertsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars The title of the book is Brave Mardi Gras; the typo above is unfortunate. Roberts was a prolific author in the … Continue reading →
The Planter’s Northern Bride by Caroline Lee HentzMy rating: 1 of 5 stars It is instructive, particularly in 2020, to read a book like this one, written as a refutation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; in this syrupy novel about a … Continue reading →
Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty by John William De ForestMy rating: 2 of 5 stars I encountered this book while doing research on a project, and thought it would interesting to read this kind of conversion narrative, a … Continue reading →
He felt he was in the bell jar, too. Separated from the world by the thin surface of a screen. The world flashed onto the screen all day, one image after another, and he was trapped in front of it, … Continue reading →
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy GrealyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars This searing autobiography, written with intense poetic grace, stands as a matchless memorial to a writer who was scarred deeply and whose life ended before she could produce … Continue reading →
The Instrumentality of Mankind by Cordwainer SmithMy rating: 4 of 5 stars The strangeness of Cordwainer Smith as a writer only deepens when one reads the story of Paul Linebarger, who is the person behind the pseudonym. The stories of … Continue reading →
The Female Man by Joanna RussMy rating: 5 of 5 stars This is one of the essential books in the world. Four women in parallel worlds intersect and collide, their views on their own sex unfolding: Jeannine, Janet, Jael, and … Continue reading →