A Princess of Roumania
A Princess of Roumania by Paul ParkMy rating: 2 of 5 stars I enjoyed the beginning of this book, the modeling of the world, the writing, and the structure; I enjoyed so many parts of the book at that point … Continue reading →
Jim Grimsley
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
A Suitable Boy by Vikram SethMy rating: 3 of 5 stars Well, the book clocks in at 1500 pages and begins with an epigram that says, “The secret of being a bore is to say everything.” If you choose to … Continue reading →
O Beulah Land by Mary Lee Settle
O Beulah Land by Mary Lee SettleMy rating: 3 of 5 stars This is the first-written book of Settle’s quintet about American identity and I think it is an impressive piece of writing in many ways, especially in the authority … Continue reading →
400 Years and Counting
The thing about saying you think a race war is coming or this group or that group wants to start a race war is the sheer ignorance of people not knowing there has been a race war in this country … Continue reading →
Prisons by Mary Lee Settle
Prisons by Mary Lee Settle My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a good companion read to Morrison’s A Mercy, from the same era of history, on the opposite side of the ocean, and with a different form of … Continue reading →
The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt
The Blindfold by Siri HustvedtMy rating: 3 of 5 stars My first impressions of this novel were that the writing had a stiff, unpracticed quality at the sentence level, and that the method of the narrative was abrupt. The first … Continue reading →
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
A Mercy by Toni MorrisonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars One of those moments in reading in which I remember why I fell in love with books in the first place. It’s been a while since I read Toni Morrison. … Continue reading →
Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
Juneteenth by Ralph EllisonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars It’s difficult to discuss this book, given that I was so enthralled by Invisible Man. I had heard that Ellison struggled for many years with a second novel and bought this … Continue reading →
Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth
Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric GansworthMy rating: 4 of 5 stars To call this book heartbreaking is in some ways to miss the point of it, for this is the story of a family that endured in spite … Continue reading →
A Fine New House
There are only a few days in life, speaking relatively, when one places a book for publication, no matter how prolific one might be. Also there are the long winters to consider. There is a December in which one’s whole … Continue reading →