Martin Dressler, Martin Dressler... Or, to use the book's full title, Martin Dressler: the Tale of an American Dreamer. I picked it up because I've read several of Steven Millhauser's short stories in The New Yorker recently, and I liked them enough to want to read one of his novels. I finished it yesterday, and I'm not entirely sure I know what ( Read more... )

In The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene tells the story of Henry Scobie, a police officer stationed in an unnamed British colony on the west coast of Africa during WWII. He is a lone honest man surrounded by spies, smugglers, and corrupt officials, and he defines himself by his honesty. Scobie is stuck in a loveless marriage to Louise; he pities ( Read more... )

I finished reading Toby's Room yesterday, and now I have once again read everything that Pat Barker has published. I read the whole book in about two and a half days--that's fast for me--so it was obviously quite engrossing, but now that it's finished I have to say that it wasn't entirely satisfying.

Toby's Room is a sequel of sorts to Barker's ( Read more... )

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A book recommending game ( Read more... )

Happy New Year, folks! As usual, I find myself with the typical backlog of New Year's posts waiting to be written: a book post, a post in which I think about goals and plans for the coming year, a post in which I tell you about the fascinating and strange museum that Ms. E and I visited on my birthday... But I'll start with the books ( Read more... )

Since finishing the disappointing Winter's Tale, I've been reading Thomas Mann--a collection of his shorter works translated by Joachim Neugroschel. It's an improvement on Mark Helprin, for sure. The first five stories I read were sharp little sketches that often focused on the ugly side of human nature. Even though none of them really grabbed ( Read more... )

Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray, is a big, messy, very very ambitious novel. The book is about a group of teenagers in a prestigious Catholic boys' school in Dublin, but Murray stretches his framework to include lots of history and mythology, string theory, plenty of references to Robert Graves, hints of the occult, and a heaping helping of ( Read more... )

I wanted to love Teaching a Stone To Talk, Annie Dillard's collection of essays and occasional writing. I wanted to love it and be challenged by it, to wrestle with it, to be raised up by it and at the same time to be humbled by it as I had done when I read Pilgrim At Tinker Creek three years ago. The first piece in the book, an essay called " ( Read more... )

I have a bit of catching up to do in the book department! Here are a few things that I read while I was away:

The View from Castle Rock by Alice MunroThe first half of this story collection is made up of stories that grew out of Munro's research into her own family history. The book begins in Scotland; then Munro follows her ancestors across the ( Read more... )