Showing posts with label Kevins-books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kevins-books. Show all posts

Saturday, May 16, 2020

The Soul Thief by Charles Baxter

The Soul ThiefThe Soul Thief by Charles Baxter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my first Charles Baxter so I wasn't comparing it like other reviewers to his other works. I thought it was pretty good, though I thought the ending was overdone. Nothing really sticks with me though and the characters feel a little washed out though that might be by design given the ending.

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Sunday, March 17, 2019

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

A Doll's HouseA Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The actual plot in the story is a little overwrought, but I like the characters, their experiences, and Nora's moment of realization.

I'm also impressed with such early feminist perspectives.

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Friday, March 15, 2019

Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen

GhostsGhosts by Henrik Ibsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lots of amazing lines, especially, "It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life." But it leaves everything a depressing mess... just like real life I guess.

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Tuesday, February 12, 2019

A Lost Lady by Willa Cather

A Lost LadyA Lost Lady by Willa Cather
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Listen, Mrs. Forrester is trying to do the best she can in a tough era, and I'm not terribly interested in Neil's indictment of her. As the entire midwest is sliding into shabbiness, Neil is growing up and his view of Mrs. Forrester, who he's put on a pedestal, is rapidly degenerating as well. His negative feelings are barely veiled sour grapes and later also some misdirected Ivy rage.

We never see the world directly from Mrs. Forrester's point of view, but even from Neil's biased view, we learn that Mrs. Forrester is deeply flawed and deliciously complicated. She's the Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary that SURVIVES, and even escapes and blooms again. I give Willa Cather a lot of credit for creating a character like that.

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Friday, January 25, 2019

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching GodTheir Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a beautiful and perfect novel. Beautiful sentences, soulful, and even an incredible plot. While I'm not of the belief that the main character needs to be likable, I also loved the main character, Janie, and her unconquerable spirit. My heart couldn't even handle her third love, Tea Cake. I have read hundreds of books and something this well-written is rare. There are no words worthy of it. This is one I hope to read again and again.




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Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge (Olive Kitteridge, #1)Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This isn’t a novel. This is a short story collection. While many of the stories revolve around Olive, some of them have no real link to her or the important people in Olive’s life.

There are beautiful sentences, and a little bit of light humor, but there’s a lot of desperation threaded through the stories that make this collection difficult to enjoy. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more when I was sadder myself, but now it feels like an undertow trying to drag me back.

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Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Outline by Rachel Cusk

OutlineOutline by Rachel Cusk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book mostly because I loved the ideas and the sentences. There was nearly no plot to speak of. The main character kind of wanders around talking to people in Greece. Mostly they tell each other stories about their pasts. She's in Greece to teach a writing class so there's also a brief scene in her class.

Here are some ponderous sentences I enjoyed nonetheless:

"The person she was involved with now, she said - a man named Konstantin- had given her for the first time in her life a cause to fear these tendencies in herself, for the reason that - unlike, if she was to be honest, any other man of her experience- she judged him to be her equal. He was intelligent, handsome, amusing, an intellectual: she liked being beside him, liked the reflection of herself he gave her. And he was a man in possession of his own morality and attitudes, so she felt for the first time, as she had said - a kind of invisible boundary around him, a line it was clear, though no one ever said as much, she ought not to cross."

The story about the dog is horrifying. And we're adopting a puppy on Sunday!



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Sunday, November 18, 2018

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

FrankensteinFrankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It just wasn't my favorite classic. There are some good sentences, and I did feel for the loneliness and heartbreak of the monster, but he really overreacted, so it was hard to feel for him too much. And the whole thing about learning language was really offputting. Fun to learn, after all these years that Frankenstein was the creator, not the monster.

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Saturday, November 17, 2018

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Giovanni's RoomGiovanni's Room by James Baldwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is wonderfully written and I loved everything about it, even the sad parts... until the end. Then I felt like Helen said a lot of weird unrealistic things about wanting to feel like a woman (?). And I wanted a more realistic future for the easy-to-love Giovanni too.

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Friday, October 26, 2018

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected StoriesA Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lucia Berlin is amazing and almost all her stories in this collection are amazing, but oh boy, they get so painful after a while. I think I could have handled it better if either this were two smaller books, or if the misery were somehow broken up a bit.

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Sunday, October 21, 2018

Seize the Day by Saul Bellow

Seize the DaySeize the Day by Saul Bellow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book sort of reminds me of Death of a Salesman. It's easy to relate to Wilhelm even while judging him (and while judging myself by association). The sentences are wonderful and still very relevant to modern life. I also appreciate that the book is on the shorter side. Bellow packed a lot into a small space and nothing is belabored.

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Sunday, October 14, 2018

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

Looking BackwardLooking Backward by Edward Bellamy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is not really a book of fiction, as there’s no plot to speak of except showing the protagonist around the future. It’s really just Bellamy’s well-intentioned hope for a future utopia. It’s actually a lot like the StarTrek vision without any technology whatsoever. Of course, unlike Bellamy, we have the benefit of understanding the failure of the centralized Russian economy. We also have the benefit of knowing about the internet in general and Amazon.com specifically. And while Bellamy’s ideas about feminism were a little off the mark, I really appreciated his solid attempt at equalizing women, particularly with his streamlined maternity leave and easy reentry to the workplace.

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Thursday, September 6, 2018

My Ántonia by Willa Cather

My Ántonia (Great Plains Trilogy, #3)My Ántonia by Willa Cather
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't know, I guess this just wasn't for me. It wasn't even entirely really about Antonia, but more about a number of people in town that I never really embraced. It seemed more cinematic than a novel with any real interest or insight. I much prefer Song of the Lark.

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Friday, May 18, 2018

The White Album by Joan Didion

The White AlbumThe White Album by Joan Didion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Definitely all over the place. Some infinitely more interesting than others. Strange to read one essay about Black Panther arrests without any meaningful context, and then read about water treatment in California.

I especially liked Didion's essays, "The Women's Movement," "Georgia O'Keeffe," "In Bed," and "On the Morning After the Sixties."

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Thursday, May 17, 2018

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Breakfast of ChampionsBreakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved the beginning so much but it fizzled out a little. There were amazing sentences and thoughts throughout. A mentally ill author (a fictional interior voice which I’m sure resembles Vonnegut but is not quite him- and oh hey was this also Kilgore or no?) writes about the breakdown of his mentally ill character, Dwayne.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2018

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

White TeethWhite Teeth by Zadie Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like the main characters and I like the *idea* of the interactions between the main characters: Alfred Hortense Archibald Jones, Clara Jones (especially Clara), Irie Ambrosia Jones, Samad Iqbal, Alsana Begum, Magid Iqbal, and Millat Iqbal. The first family is part native English and part Jamaican immigrant, the second family is Bangladeshi-English. And Smith writes really well. So right at the beginning, it seems like this will be an amazing book.

But then the story starts meandering, and then more and more characters and relationships get piled on, and suddenly we're exploring genetically-altered mice. And I just wanted it to end for so many pages.


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Thursday, April 12, 2018

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

The Largesse of the Sea MaidenThe Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection has five longish short stories, all of which are very well-written, obviously, because Denis Johnson wrote them. "Triumph Over the Grave" was by far my favorite and I would give 10 out 5 stars. The other short stories just weren't for me as much, and I especially didn't care for the last Elvis one.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Confessions by Augustine of Hippo

ConfessionsConfessions by Augustine of Hippo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We own the Henry-Chadwick translation (because Jon asked). My thoughts on this are a bit all over the place as Augustine covers a lot of personal and religious topics. I'll just mention a few things that stuck out for me.

It reads more like a modern memoir than I expected. It's almost unbelievable that this is from the 4th century. It's part memoir and part conversation with God. It's so easy to relate to so many of his religious feelings even if he was the most Christian of Christians.

I think it's a bit funny that he criticizes the study of rhetoric so much, given that his skill in rhetoric is part of what makes this an amazing work. I find myself thinking most about his section about time because his views make sense philosophically and are also wrong when compared to what we know about time-space in physics.

He gives us little tastes of the world he lives in, but I wish he wrote more in his own words about his time and place. It's interesting to hear about some of the pagans, "Manicheans," and other early Christians.

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