Archive for July, 2007
The Satan Bug
Alistair MacLean’s The Satan Bug is centered about the possibility of biological warfare, or as they put it in 1962, “germ warfare”. It’s the only one of MacLean’s stories I’ve yet read that is set wholly in England itself. An extremely high-security facility for developing germ warfare has been broken into – or broken out [...]
July 26, 2007
Posted in: action, thriller 
No Comments
The Jane Austen Book Club
While playing on the current trend to update or elaborate upon Jane Austen’s work, Fowler manages to bring some originality. The one thing that carried me through this novel was the unique narrative approach. (I know, I already said this about Alias Grace, but Fowler managed to get me intrigued in a similar, though different [...]
July 25, 2007
Posted in: fiction One Comment
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution
I couldn’t put this one down. Like most autobiographies, the prose lacks sophistication, but you hardly notice that here–the story itself is just too powerful, so far outside of our own experiences. Here are a few examples, just to peak your interest: “I worried about An Yi’s mother, too. Teacher Wei’s situation was very bad. [...]
July 25, 2007
Posted in: memoir, nonfiction No Comments
Heavy Words Lightly Thrown
I wasn’t as thrilled with this one as I expected to be. I supposed I expected it to be a bit more definitive as to the true inspiration behind each nursery rhyme, or at least funny. Instead, Roberts goal tends more towards giving several different possible inspirations, or attributed inspirations, without really getting to a [...]
July 20, 2007
Posted in: literary criticism, nonfiction No Comments
I couldn’t pass the quote up…
“The secret to teaching was to place yourself where you could see them but they couldn’t see you. And nothing was more deadly than the reverse. Chalkboards were for chumps.” from The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler I just laughed myself silly over the first half dozen pages of chapter three. If [...]
July 19, 2007
Posted in: Uncategorized No Comments
The Last Unicorn
I have this childhood attachment to the movie “The Last Unicorn” which led me to bear the scorn of my family and friends and seek it out on DVD (now the 25th anniversary edition!) Was it as great as I remembered? That’s another story. I was only ten minutes into it when the laughter and [...]
July 17, 2007
Posted in: fantasy, fiction 3 Comments
Alias Grace
I loved this book! Finally, a review of a book that I can say that about. Yay! What I absolutely loved best about this book was the unusual narrative approach. Some sections are written from a third person limited point of view, some from first person. The changing perspectives deepen the sense of mystery as [...]
July 17, 2007
Posted in: fiction, historical fiction, mystery 3 Comments
Selected Fables by Jean de la Fontaine
I was not impressed with my first reading of Fontaine’s fables. The rhyming scheme seems to numb my brain and have a glossing-over effect on my eyes. I have heard rave reviews about this translation (by Eunice Clark), but mostly among French students who have the English/French parallel edition. I cannot help but wonder if [...]
July 1, 2007
Posted in: fables, poetry No Comments
Night by Elie Wiesel
The New York Times calls it “a slim volume of terrifying power” and I have to agree. I couldn’t stand to leave a bookmark in it for more than two days–I just had to get it over with. At the same time I felt a need to grieve, like I should read it once a [...]
July 1, 2007
Posted in: history, memoir, nonfiction 2 Comments
